Deathly Hallows, chapter 12

[anehan]

Magic is Might

* Yeah, yeah, the Death Eaters are observing 12 Grimmauld Place. Why don't you cut straight to the story, Rowling?

* I've got to say that it's stupid of the Death Eaters to expect anyone to appear there, not when they are so obvious about keeping an eye on it.

* The kitchen is now polished to perfection, all thanks to the mysteriously changed Kreacher. Even Kreacher's ordering Harry about isn't enough to make me reconciled to this new state of things.

* Well, Snape can't be a worse headmaster than the previous one.

* IIRC, this is the second time that "Merlin" is used as an expletive in this book, this time by Hermione.

* The other teachers won't accept Snape as a headmaster? Oh, come on, Ron, that's naïve even for you. The slightest reflection should make it clear that they have no choice.

* "The quality of Kreacher's cooking had improved dramatically since he had been given Regulus's locket." Nonononono! *whimpers*

* Exposition alert! An infodump about new Ministry policies. Stupid policies, if you ask me; there only so that the Trio can put their plan into action.

* Hermione is worried that the plan will go wrong, because so much relies on chance. Get used to it, Hermione, since that's what you'll be relying for the rest of the book.

* It's so very Harry to have a plan that's likely to go horribly wrong, only to be rescued by luck.

* Am I the only one who thinks that real reason for Ron's reluctance to have Hermione with them is misplaced chivalry?

* Master, Master, Master. Shut up, Kreacher!

* Harry's scar hurts again. It just doesn't make sense that Voldemort suddenly stopped using Occlumency after using it for the previous book. IMO it's there only so that we can get periodical updates about what he is doing. Oh dear, consistency.

* Hermione knows very well that Harry doesn't know how to use Occlumency, so what use is it telling him he shouldn't let Voldemort into his mind?

* Harry gets angry when Hermione suggests that the reason he never really tried to learn Occlumency is because he likes to have this special connection to Voldemort. Oh, I don't know, Harry, I think what she says has some merit.

* It's rather rich of Harry to tell Hermione to forget Dumbledore when he's himself been all about doing what Dumbledore wanted him to do.

* And off we go to the Ministry, armed with a plan with very little chance of succeeding.

* Frankly, the reason why they gave Mr Magical Maintenance Puking Pastilles instead of stunning him makes no sense. The Stunned bodies would be in the empty; they wouldn't be attracting anyone's attention.

* Stupid of them to have Harry impersonate someone who they know nothing about.

* The official entrance to the Ministry is quite stupid. I'm getting bored of these supposedly quirky habits the Wizarding World has, such as this and the moving staircases at Hogwarts. I'm sure they're meant to be funny, but they only make wizards look incredibly stupid.

* The Death Eaters have no subtlety. Magic is Might, indeed.

* Yaxley's face is brutish, and he's dressed opulently. No doubt his Polyjuice Potion would be mud-coloured. After all, blood will tell.

* A very short recap this time, for which I apologise. The chapter was boring as hell. We're only a third way in, and already I am heartily sick of this book.




Atomic Grenade:
Puking Pastilles. Guaranteed instant hurling.

Designated Hero:
Master, Master, Master, Master. Our Hero is so noble that lower life-forms can't help but worship him.

Informed Attributes:
The Trio's plan will word. Really.

Final score: 3.

Comments

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I got the idea that Harry and co. led the Muggleborns through the toilets and then left them in the bathroom. Which most likely meant that they were rounded up a few minutes later as the Ministry Aurors followed.

I just checked it, wanting to be sure. I was mistaken. They only get one Muggleborn (Mary Cattermole) out of the Ministry. What happens to the others (about twenty, half of whom have wands) is unknown. As for Mary, they abandon her in the bathroom with Yaxley as they apparate away.

So, really, they didn't rescue any of the Muggleborns. Mary would have been captured by Yaxley right away. And, after that stunt they pulled, she'd be sent to Azkaban immediately along with Reg-if she was lucky.

What is wrong with these wizards? No one set up an underground railroad? Okay, I saw Hotel Rwanda. People do get caught off-guard. But these wizards had a year when Voldemort was on the rise. The Order of the Phoenix had two years. Why did no one make any plans?

Where is France in all this? Or Bulgaria? They're just going to sit on their hands and let the British Muggleborn be slaughtered? Surely they know what's going on. After all, Wizards have communication systems that are better than cell phones and the internet, right?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, no, Yaxley grabbed Hermione and got away with the trio. Mary *may* have managed to get herself out of the building. But we don't know whether she *did*.

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

I can't check myself, (please don't make me), but wasn't Yaxley an univited guest? Wasn't it an accident that Mary wasn't left to Yaxley's revenge? If they'd had their way, he *would* have been left behind with her.

I HATE this whole fiasco. They planned getting in for ages, but seemed completely taken aback by who they ended up impersonating. Why not use a bloody House Elf (they now had two willing to serve) and get them to apparate Harry into Umbridge's bloody flat, seeing as no defences seem to keep them out. Or better still, say Kreacher had the real Horcrux, Harry swaps it for the fake, Kreacher still love his new Master and we're spared too many pages of nonsense.

No, they blunder into the Ministry. Still, at least Harry became the warrior, Hermione the administrator, and Ron some passing schmuck. So true to life!

They made no plan at all for what would happen once they were inside. So we can't expect them to be prepared for any spontaneous rescues that Harry the Magnificent can't help but carry out. Bastard.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed. Yaxley was the uninvited guest. Had things been going the trio's way, rather than having the whole plot take a turn on the deux ex machine, Mary would have been left behind with Yaxley. The way the watress in the diner had been left behind with Doholov and Rowle.

Innocent bystanders are only interesting or important until something more important comes along.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Innocent bystanders are only interesting or important until something more important comes along.

Right. And the Muggleborns who were left in the Atrium probably didn't get away at all, given how everything was doing South when Harry and Co. ditched them.

SPOILERS FOR Gaudy Night BELOW.

Maybe Mary being left behind bugs me so much because of the name. Mary Cattermole was a character in a Dorothy L. Sayers book (Gaudy Night). Actually, she didn't have a first name. As a student, she was just called "Cattermole." She's a rather pathetic girl who gets a bad reputation when she runs after a male student and loses him to a budding femme fatale. She goes to a party and gets drunk, leading the heroine of the book, Harriet, to make certain discoveries relating to main mystery plot. Later on, she starts a more suitable romance with a somewhat comic undergraduate named Reg Pomfret.

So, Mary and Reg Cattermole seem to be a shout out to Sayers' comically pathetic subplot couple. As a Sayers devotee, I don't like what she does to this basically inoffensive pair.

Then again, I probably wouldn't like it any better if they were named Mary and Reg Jones either. Because, frankly, everyone comes off badly in this chapter. Even with an invisibiliy cloak, Harry sucks as a spy.

Is JKR trying to subvert our expectations in this chapter? Because honestly, how terrible are the Trio at this simple task? Maybe she's trying to heighten the danger by making the Ministry job so hard? Or maybe she thinks it's funny?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, with all due cynicism and contempt, I rather think this is supposed to serve as a build up to "Harry's great victory" in finally choosing *not* to act.

Because every time Harry and Co. pull one of these stunts some innocent bystander ends up minding the baby.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Word on the Gaudy night thing.

As far as the ministry fiasco is concerned - I don't see any indication that Rowling did not think the trio did well in it - however preposterous that is. After all, they ARE successful (by sheer authorial dictatorship): they do get the Locket, they don't get caught (in the sense of being apprehended and locked up), we are supposed to believe they rescued all those jews - uh muggleborn - , Harry (IIRC) sees his own Wanted! poster for the first time and they even save Alastor's eye in order to bury him. As depressing as it is - people have asserted you can't expect an author with no humour to write funny characters. The same goes with ethics. And here it seems, the same holds true for intelligence...

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Actually, given that we all know that the eye can see through the cloak, Harry may have felt he needed to do *something*. But what would it have *mattered* if, when Umbridge checked the recording, she had found out that Potter had been sneaking around her office?

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Not to mention the sheer idiocy of preventing someone to catch onto Harry being at the ministry AFTER the fact by alerting them to said effect when he was actually there! But IIRC there was never any hint that this might have been Harry's intention in the first place. He just went all Antigone on that eye to prove his deep piety and love.