More flashback fun!
Nov. 30th, 2005 05:23 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockI'm off to see GoF later tonight. In the meantime, here's more Harry Potter, with flashbacks and whatnot!
*More about how Harry et al are the only people to know what's right and what's wrong when it comes to rumours. They never truly get it wrong, and when they do, all that happens is that they're a bit surprised. Since there's only one book left, I despair of any of the three fucking up so royally that it has disastrous consequences. Except possibly Ron, but it's far more likely that anything that happens to him will be the result of some outside evil.
*Hermione and Ron continue not to listen to Harry re. Draco. We know Harry is RIGHT, as we've already read the book, but even his friends wish he'd shut the fuck up and stop grasping for attention.
*New Dumbledore lesson! Our beloved headmaster has been off doing something supa-clever, but is now back and "looking unusually tired" with his hand looking "as black and burned as ever". The klaxon horn of foreshadowing sounds in the distance.
*Why did Professor Snape, Defence against the Dark Arts teacher, have anything to do with an horrible accident involving the Dark Arts? I don't know, Harry. It is a mystery!
*The triumphant return of Phineas Nigellus Black (the last name appears in the book, honest), bitchy painting of doom! Here, he scolds Harry for questioning how Hogwarts is run. This is an obvious sign of his ridiculous Slytherin nature - since when was Harry anything less than the most important person alive?
*He also reveals that Mundungus Fletcher is a half-blood. *strokes tiny plot-bunnies*
*Harry has a little inner whine about Draco and why Dumbledore DOESN'T CARE, but memories are more important right now.
*Dumbledore suggests it is possible that despair sapped Merope of her powers. Has this ever happened to a man? Inquiring minds need toscoff and make loud snorty noises know. Although this might explain the presence of emoTonks, but I still find Tonks utterly surplus to requirements.
*"She wouldn't even stay alive for her own son!" No, Harry, no mother was as wonderful as yours. And she had a choice, oh yes! Not like your mum, who wasn't offered the chance to step aside or anything. Let me see, what's that choice again? Live in misery and poverty with a small child and nobody on earth to help you care for the little beast, or suffer the pain of dying? Do you think you'd choose so easily, under the circumstances?
*Dumbledore says, yes, Lily was offered a choice. However, she was OMG SO BRAVE and took the correct path in order that her son might grow up to be a sexy hero, rather than a psychopath. Woo-hoo.
*Albus takes time to describe his own memory as "rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate". Oh shut up.
*His younger-self suit does sound the business, mind. Probably looked pretty peculiar in 1930s London, but still. Plum velvet, eh? I'm imagining a Vivian Stanshall look-alike now. It's just a shame such a cool get-up had to be a Dumbledore one, really.
*Oh yes, brainwash the orphanage staff to get your plum velvet mittens on Tom Riddle. Very brave there, Albus. Okay, so I know you can't let people know about Hogwarts, but even so...it's all a bit iffy, really. Especially with the gin as well.
*Tom Riddle was born on New Year's Eve, apparently. Was it snowing in London on 31st of December, 1927? Mrs. Cole says it was. Hmm.
*Also, baby!Tom was supposedly "funny" in that he rarely cried. Even from birth etc. Not that he was born that way or anything *cough*. And then he got older and started hanging rabbits from rafters and doing odd things to his peers.
*Oh dear. There've been suggestions that young Tom ought to be in the asylum, but we're going to ignore that and instead give him a place in our fabulous school, with every resource he could wish for. And we're going to prove that it's a magical school by setting fire to his wardrobe. Well, there's good child management for you.
*"Oh yes and, while we do not tolerate bad use of magic here at Hogwarts, I'm still going to let you wander off and do what you like on your own, even though you are clearly barking mad and ought to be accompanied everywhere by some big men and a pint of sedative". Well done, Albus.
*Tom doesn't like his name anyway, even though he doesn't know if it's a Muggle name or not. He wants to be special and different and exciting. Well, don't we all? Doesn't Harry, for that matter?
*Interesting to note that "there are parselmouths amongst the great and good too". I hope Albus isn't just talking about Harry, and that we really aren't putting any value judgement onto snakes. I don't hold out much hope here, though.
*"Do you hear me, Harry? Tom Riddle liked to COLLECT TROPHIES!!!!!" Why not just tell him about horcruxes right off the bat? Does he need all the extraneous guff that goes with it. Blah. Still, at least Harry notices about the ring. Soon, he may make the connection between rings that go on hands and Dumbledore's manky...hand. But what could the connection be???
Also, how dumb am I for not realising that this was actually chapter thirteen until ten days later? Really? :([/9th December edit]
*More about how Harry et al are the only people to know what's right and what's wrong when it comes to rumours. They never truly get it wrong, and when they do, all that happens is that they're a bit surprised. Since there's only one book left, I despair of any of the three fucking up so royally that it has disastrous consequences. Except possibly Ron, but it's far more likely that anything that happens to him will be the result of some outside evil.
*Hermione and Ron continue not to listen to Harry re. Draco. We know Harry is RIGHT, as we've already read the book, but even his friends wish he'd shut the fuck up and stop grasping for attention.
*New Dumbledore lesson! Our beloved headmaster has been off doing something supa-clever, but is now back and "looking unusually tired" with his hand looking "as black and burned as ever". The klaxon horn of foreshadowing sounds in the distance.
*Why did Professor Snape, Defence against the Dark Arts teacher, have anything to do with an horrible accident involving the Dark Arts? I don't know, Harry. It is a mystery!
*The triumphant return of Phineas Nigellus Black (the last name appears in the book, honest), bitchy painting of doom! Here, he scolds Harry for questioning how Hogwarts is run. This is an obvious sign of his ridiculous Slytherin nature - since when was Harry anything less than the most important person alive?
*He also reveals that Mundungus Fletcher is a half-blood. *strokes tiny plot-bunnies*
*Harry has a little inner whine about Draco and why Dumbledore DOESN'T CARE, but memories are more important right now.
*Dumbledore suggests it is possible that despair sapped Merope of her powers. Has this ever happened to a man? Inquiring minds need to
*"She wouldn't even stay alive for her own son!" No, Harry, no mother was as wonderful as yours. And she had a choice, oh yes! Not like your mum, who wasn't offered the chance to step aside or anything. Let me see, what's that choice again? Live in misery and poverty with a small child and nobody on earth to help you care for the little beast, or suffer the pain of dying? Do you think you'd choose so easily, under the circumstances?
*Dumbledore says, yes, Lily was offered a choice. However, she was OMG SO BRAVE and took the correct path in order that her son might grow up to be a sexy hero, rather than a psychopath. Woo-hoo.
*Albus takes time to describe his own memory as "rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate". Oh shut up.
*His younger-self suit does sound the business, mind. Probably looked pretty peculiar in 1930s London, but still. Plum velvet, eh? I'm imagining a Vivian Stanshall look-alike now. It's just a shame such a cool get-up had to be a Dumbledore one, really.
*Oh yes, brainwash the orphanage staff to get your plum velvet mittens on Tom Riddle. Very brave there, Albus. Okay, so I know you can't let people know about Hogwarts, but even so...it's all a bit iffy, really. Especially with the gin as well.
*Tom Riddle was born on New Year's Eve, apparently. Was it snowing in London on 31st of December, 1927? Mrs. Cole says it was. Hmm.
*Also, baby!Tom was supposedly "funny" in that he rarely cried. Even from birth etc. Not that he was born that way or anything *cough*. And then he got older and started hanging rabbits from rafters and doing odd things to his peers.
*Oh dear. There've been suggestions that young Tom ought to be in the asylum, but we're going to ignore that and instead give him a place in our fabulous school, with every resource he could wish for. And we're going to prove that it's a magical school by setting fire to his wardrobe. Well, there's good child management for you.
*"Oh yes and, while we do not tolerate bad use of magic here at Hogwarts, I'm still going to let you wander off and do what you like on your own, even though you are clearly barking mad and ought to be accompanied everywhere by some big men and a pint of sedative". Well done, Albus.
*Tom doesn't like his name anyway, even though he doesn't know if it's a Muggle name or not. He wants to be special and different and exciting. Well, don't we all? Doesn't Harry, for that matter?
*Interesting to note that "there are parselmouths amongst the great and good too". I hope Albus isn't just talking about Harry, and that we really aren't putting any value judgement onto snakes. I don't hold out much hope here, though.
*"Do you hear me, Harry? Tom Riddle liked to COLLECT TROPHIES!!!!!" Why not just tell him about horcruxes right off the bat? Does he need all the extraneous guff that goes with it. Blah. Still, at least Harry notices about the ring. Soon, he may make the connection between rings that go on hands and Dumbledore's manky...hand. But what could the connection be???
Also, how dumb am I for not realising that this was actually chapter thirteen until ten days later? Really? :([/9th December edit]
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 10:36 pm (UTC)There are NO WORDS for how furious I was to read Dumbledore's (and Harry's, but he's a clueless idiotic kid) dismissal of Merope Gaunt as lacking the courage to live. Let's see *you* go through childbirth as an outcast and then face a life of unending drudgery wherein you might not even be able to help your child at all, Dumbledore. Till then, shut the fuck up about courage. Lily died for her child--who knows what kind of mother she would have been had she been forced to live for Harry, especially under the circumstances Merope faced? (And honestly, the orphanage might have been better for Tom than the life he'd have lived with the semipsychotic Merope).
*grrr* I'm angry all over again now. I literally flung the book at the wall when I read it at first. Nothing makes me angrier than the notion of a white-haired old patriarch handing down judgments from on high about how a young woman in an impossible situation should have acted, and condemning her for her lack of "courage."
*excuse the rage*
Date: 2005-11-30 10:57 pm (UTC)Seriously, it´s not so much Harry´s stupid comment that bothers me but Dumbledore`s dismissal of Merope as "weak" - it`s like some over privileged European/American/etc... saying starving young mothers in poor countries are "weak" for giving up on life instead of being there for their children, as they would. WTF? Way to give an example there, Albus!
And Lily`s and Merope`s circumstances are so very identical they could have been the same person... only absolutely not. Does JK, who was once a single unemployed mother, even realize the offensive shit she`s written here?
Re: *excuse the rage*
Date: 2005-12-01 02:55 am (UTC)Apparently not and count me in the Offended Beyond Description club.
I think we can make a pretty safe bet as to just the sort of mother Lily Potter would have turned out to be had that little family avoided VD. Considering James would have, without a doubt, traded her in for a younger model well before she hit 40, she'd have been a bitter misery constantly comparing Harry to his no good father (sounding not a little like her sister Petunia) and about her slaving away trying to make ends meet while he complained about not having the very latest in broomsticks and enjoyed "all fun and games" away at school never stopping to think about her for one minute.
Re: *excuse the rage*
Date: 2005-12-03 08:20 pm (UTC)Although a good thing would be a reconcilliation of sorts between Lily and Petunia as Lily concedes that Petunia was probably right about James after all.
Re: *excuse the rage*
Date: 2009-01-08 03:04 am (UTC)*writes James/Hermione fic*
Re: *excuse the rage*
Date: 2005-12-01 03:12 am (UTC)Sometimes people who've overcome difficulties end up with compassion for others with the same difficulties...and sometimes, they look down on them. Maybe JKR thinks something along the lines of "Well, *I* managed to live for my child despite poverty and depression, and that has nothing to do with dumb luck and everything to do with my own personal virtue, so I get to condemn anyone who can't do it."
Re: *excuse the rage*
Date: 2005-12-01 10:39 am (UTC)The comparison JKR is making between Lily Potter (who is, at last analysis, rally just an overpriveledged, middle-class bint that got lucky by marrying up to a frothingly obsessed wizarding lord-of-the-pureblood-manor type) and Merope Gaunt, an impovershed, probably malnourished, possibly insane woman who has been beaten down and abandoned by just about everyone she's ever loved makes... absolutely no sense at all. But... can JKR really be tone-deaf enough not to understand how haughty and priviledged and fucking terrible her view point on the two of them is?
I just... I just... maybe gremlins crawl into Jo's typewriter as she wrote the 6th (and probably the 5th and parts of the 4th) book and things like this chapter are what resulted. Otherwise... I just can't understand it myself.
Re: *excuse the rage*
Date: 2005-12-01 05:56 pm (UTC)Re: *excuse the rage*
Date: 2005-12-02 03:51 am (UTC)Re: *excuse the rage*
Date: 2007-06-16 09:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-01 10:49 pm (UTC)1)Well, quite. Harry says fuck-stupid things all the time, it's par for the course. Albus, however, is meant to be a wise font of wisdom and clever SMRTNSS. He's been around for a great long time and yet still can't work out stuff about families etc like that? I wonder if he ever had kids of his own? Hmm...
2)I am reminded of Sirius' death and how he was courageous to die rather than come back as a ghost to keep Harry company (so Nearly-Headless Nick says, anyway - only people too scared to die come back as ghosts, and Sirius was teh brve). In other words, Merope's death and subsequent abandonment of her son was not brave (even though, really, she probably didn't have much choice there - who chooses to die in childbirth?) whereas Sirius' death and abandonment of Harry is due to his unending courage? Thought: maybe Merope is being a ghost somewhere. But I doubt it :(