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

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't seen either Buffy or Angel beyond maybe a couple of episodes each, but I have to say that I dislike the trope of battle in imaginary worlds somehow helping a person with RL problems. Yes, it is a time-honored trope, but IMHO it is very false and mainly exists due to fear of writers of a certain era to take imagination and fantasy seriously. It had to have a "practical" application to justify it's existence.

Nobody ever did a lick of good for the world by retreating into a secret magic kingdom where they were the Queen of the Fairies.

I am not sure what you mean by this, to be honest. If you mean that masses or establishment can't be wrong, then I disagree. Ergo if you infer that art that "doesn't pay bills" is somehow inferior. Van Gogh never sold a picture in his life and he was, IMHO, a genius. Nor did any but the most long-lived of the impressionists see any real return for their life's work.
Mendel's work was ignored and forgotten by scientific community only to be rediscovered a few decades later and shake the world.
Da Vinci's inventions were never appreciated beyond a couple of mechanical toys used in the pageants.
Even Einstein had his problems with finding work in academia for a few years after graduation.
Sure, all these people could have given up and done something more immediately profitable. Mendel eventually did and became an abbott instead. But they were right, damn it, and society that didn't appreciate their contributions in time, was wrong.
I won't even mention lots of talented creative people, who lived under opressive regimes and continued to create despite knowing that most likely their works would never reach a wide audience.

If you mean just imagining one's "specialness" without actually _doing_ something, putting in the actual work behind the possibly contraversual ideas, then sure. And of course one shouldn't forget that for one person who was right there may be hunderds or thousands who were wrong and sacrificed their time and effort for nothing. And that even being right doesn't guarantee any return during one's lifetime.

There is nothing a Fantasy author can invent that is more alarming, more surprising, or more complex than something which already really exists, and real people have already experienced.

I would like to point out that sf writers did invent some stuff that didn't yet exist and the attendant problems. Writer's imagination _can_ sometimes trump reality and fortell future developements.
I'd also point out that ironically enough RL and historical stuff that exists has too high an entrance threshold for many. Setting may be too incomprehensible, psychology too alien, movers and shakers too unsympathetic. OTOH, it is not a coincidence that among the adult fantasy readers many are also interested in historical fiction or even non-fiction. But there is that snag with historical fiction - the ending is set in stone, as are, to a great degree, personalities of important characters.

[(Anonymous)]

I am not sure what you mean by this, to be honest.

I mean that Van Gough painted stuff that actually existed, da Vinci studied actual anatomy, Mendel studied real plants that were really in front of him.

Modern fantasy, however, places primacy on this nebulously defined concept called "imagination" which all too frequency means "thinking you're awesome".

I would like to point out that sf writers did invent some stuff that didn't yet exist and the attendant problems.

No, SF writers extrapolated from present trends to produce ideas which wound up looking a bit like things that got invented in the future. People are pattern matching animals, and we're good at seeing the connections between real things and their fictional antecedents, but William Gibson did not invent the internet.

- Dan Hemmens

[(Anonymous)]

Modern fantasy, however, places primacy on this nebulously defined concept called "imagination" which all too frequency means "thinking you're awesome"

Yes, but it is imagination, in the sense of either looking on things from a different angle than everybody else and getting new insights or imagining things that don't yet exist and trying to create them in reality, that is the source of all progress. Delusions of awesomeness don't have much to do with imagination, really.

Most stuff around us wasn't real at some point in the past. People imagined it, then people (sometimes the same, sometimes different ones) built /discovered it.
You seem to stress the whole "reality" thing, forgetting that reality can change, sometimes very abruptly. When you read private journals of people just before the WW1 - well, they would have thought that future awaiting them in just 3-4 years was just some crazy, impossible mightmare. Unfortunately for everybody, it wasn't.
Which is why exploring "what if?" scenarios is actually a somewhat reasonable endeavor. And it isn't terribly important whether the "ifs" are justified by techno-babble or by unapologetically fantastical elements.

Urban fantasy actually touches a lot of themes that always interested and excited people - secret societies, life on the fringes of the law or by exotic laws of their own, as well as supernatural elements. I don't see what's so "inferior" about it.