HBP Chapter Sixteen

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*Ron reveals what an Unbreakable Vow is, though as far as I’ve seen this is still a big debate in fandom. Like it’s got to be Dark Magic because Slytherins do it so it’s a sign of how they don’t really love each other, but the Twins almost had Ron do one, and how could little kids perform something like that and so forth etc. The main thing is: are we to believe Ron that you die if you break a UV? I’m willing to go with him on this. After all, what’s the point of it if it’s not that?

*ETA: Ultimately I think it works like the "magical contract" in GoF. It's not that there's any specific thing necessarily that happens if you break it--at least not one that's important. It just means you will do it whether you want to or not.

*You know, since HBP I’ve seen a number of references in fandom to Harry’s wicked sense of humor, often with references to sprouts and Fred’s left buttock and err…those lines aren’t even jokes he makes.

*The Twins come in and play a practical joke by making Ron slice his thumb open on a knife. Um...ha?

*Ginny’s told the Twins about Lavender, and Ron’s not displeased. As, frankly, I don’t think Ginny was displeased to have them know about her own popularity, especially when given a chance to look good and be a feminist at the same time.

*Ron throws a knife at the Twins—I can’t help but think this scene is more interesting knowing that Sectumsempra’s coming up.

*If you asked fandom five years ago which family was most likely to throw knives at each other at Christmas, do you think they’d have said the Weasleys?

*Fred asks if Percy is showing his ugly face at Christmas. I’m going to give Fred the benefit of the doubt here and say he’s covering up his true desire for Percy to come home and feeling guilty for how badly he always treated him. Benefit of the doubt? Positive spin? Delusions? You decide.

*ETA: ::sigh:: Oh, Percy.

*Naturally Fred is the one to make jokes about how difficult life is for Muggles and Squibs, since he likes to engage in a little Muggle-baiting now and then.

*"If you want people to help you, you shouldn’t throw knives at them, just a hint," says George. I really hope that’s foreshadowing for Harry in the next book.

*ETA: LOL! Nope.

*George gets a line about some pretty girl he’s impressing with Magic. JKR is trying really hard to make Fred and George not seem like Twins out of a David Cronenberg film, with limited success.

*ETA: Although it's at the center of the entire book, the Muggle/Wizard relationship thing will never be coherent. Muggles are lower forms of life unless it's one of those moments where we're pointing to the goodness of the goodies as evidenced by their gallant protection of them. Wizards seem so ignorant and confused they couldn't get across a busy Muggle street without getting killed until they need to swoop in and be impressive because magic always makes you better.

*Ron warns Harry that everyone will say Snape isn’t really trying to help Draco, he’s just pretending to help him. Ron gets a lot smarter when Hermione isn’t around, I notice.

*ETA: Don't get too cocky about that, though, Ron. Hermione would totally have had that line if she was there.

*Harry sort of proves my point by imagining what Hermione would have said in this situation. She’d say exactly what Ron said, only in a much more obnoxious way that would have got Harry’s back up and probably made him not tell DD at all.

*Ron almost gets himself in trouble by sounding like he doesn’t agree with Harry 100%—yipes! He backs off from that one fast.

*ETA: Oh, Ron. You'll learn your lesson soon enough.

*I really hope, though, that Harry’s "Nobody’s that good of an actor" is again laying out another one of those Jane Austen twists. After all, Snape isn’t lying about really wanting to help Malfoy. Just, imo, not by helping him kill Dumbledore and be a DE. Snape’s sincere concern seems more like proof he’s DDM to me.

*ETA: I'm sorry, did I say sincere concern? I meant Snape being on board with killing Dumbledore only because Dumbledore told him to is proof he's DDM. Dumbledore and Lily pretty much cover everything for Snape.

*Harry hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Hermione about what he overheard with Snape and Malfoy which is...well, pretty unbelievable. This is one of those passages where I feel like the narrator just grabbed my arm and led me forcibly to where s/he wanted me to go.

*Harry's been telling Ron over and over that he told him so about Malfoy. So this means Ron and Hermione will be on board to investigate it now, right? Right?

*Seriously, why aren't they? It’s not like Harry’s working on nothing here. He thinks Malfoy’s up to something because he’s seen and heard Malfoy is up to something.

*Ginny has over-decorated the sitting room, which is a sign of the Weasleys inner good-breeding and something Maya, if not JKR, will be able to make endearing to me. So that's 2 Mary Sue flaws for Ginny (something superficial and a bad temper).

*As it wouldn’t be a Weasley Christmas without a little cruelty, there’s a sentient creature petrified and humiliated sitting at the top of their tree.

*Fleur and Mrs. Weasley have a passive-aggressive fight over the radio. On one hand I can sympathize with Molly’s irritation at somebody talking during her program. Otoh, this is what happens when you insist that everyone has to listen to something just because you like it.

*ETA: It also shows what happens when you bizarrely move in with your in-laws.

*Ron’s watching Bill and Fleur hoping to pick up tips. Awww.

*I hear that in the HBP movie Remus will be played by an actual scarecrow.

*So to review, nobody in the room enjoys the radio programme, but they all pretend to because they love Molly. Except Fleur, who dislikes Molly and knows Molly dislikes her. Nothing shocking there.

*ETA: Anyway, Molly and Fleur are both women so it's probably better they don't have a relationship until they can find a man or men to center it around.

*Mr. Weasley’s office hasn’t caught a single DE. There’s a shock. I hope he’s at least gotten some nice stuff for keeping his friends from being bothered with investigations.

*ETA: Anyway, why is Mr. Weasley's office expected to catch DEs? Don't they know that the duty of every man at times like this is to sit at home with their family and listen to the radio for news of whether or not Harry's saved them yet?

*Really the Ministry should just let Harry say who belongs in jail and not. Then Stan would be free and Narcissa would be in jail—it’s a foolproof system of justice!

*ETA: Btw, in my personal canon Stan was totally a DE. And he went free at the end because Harry declared him innocent. Go Stan.

*So does Mr. Weasley know about the secret place under the Malfoy’s floor? I ask because someone recently said Harry makes a mistake by not telling Arthur to look there, after Ron forgot to tell him about it in CoS. I’ve always assumed Ron did tell Arthur is CoS. But then, CoS is the book where Lucius refused to buy Draco the Hand of Glory we were later to assume he had so…

*ETA: That secret room might win the prize for best not-Chekov's-gun-at-all in HP.

*Lupin turns to listen as Harry tells Arthur about Snape and the UV. I kind of love that Lupin does that for some reason.

ETA: No idea why I loved that, but I guess I did. Lupin needs all the love he can get before the next book.

*Seriously, what is going on with Lupin here? He’s staring into the flames thinking about okay maybe Tonks but maybe something more interesting about his spying. But he gets interested when he hears about this storyline, and then jumps in with “It’s not our business! We follow Dumbledore!” like he’s trying to convince himself. *Hopes for interesting Lupin story in Book VII.*

*LOL! *Hopes for Lupin not fulfilled in Book VII.*

*Seriously, everybody's acting not only as if spying on the werewolves has something to do with the actual battle here, but as if war demands that people sacrifice their domestic plans to fight for a while. No wonder Lupin gets all confused in the next book.

*Lupin neither likes nor dislikes Snape. How do people not think this guy is evil? Everyone must pick sides on this sort of thing and declare them! How can he both be friends with James and Sirius and side with them against Snape but also respect and appreciate the man’s making him Wolfsbane? You can’t be fair about someone you dislike or who has been nasty to you or the world will crumble!

*ETA: Seriously, yeah, Lupin's right about Snape, but Lupin's also the good guy most criticized, with the reasons for both seeming kind of related to me. Lupin does manage to squeak in on the right side in the end, but he's not a natural hero like Sirius and James.

*Harry tries valiantly to show Remus the proper way to spin everything Snape does into something bad, but gets nowhere. Werewolves. What are you going to do?

*ETA: And I'm sure this conversation doesn't get any better in retrospect for Harry after Remus is dead (if he remembers it at all). Neither like nor dislike Snape? He was awesomely brave and sacrificed his life for me and I shall name my child after him!

*Remus also refers to Draco by his first name. Can’t help but like to follow Remus’ personal code of names, which seem significant and different from other peoples.’

*ETA: Sign #54 I was totally skipping down the wrong direction with this story. If Remus is doing it it's probably just wishy-washy. Good in the end, yeah, but only with a lot of encouragement from better characters.

*Fleur starts to say something bad about the radio concert, which is either evil or funny depending on how you feel about Fleur.

*Lupin apologizes for not being able to write Harry (like he did for all those years before—oh wait, he never did), having been forced into a horrible life with the man who traumatized him as a child on Dumbledore’s orders. For Lupin this is like smashing everything in the room and Crucio-ing somebody in anger. ETA: Wuss.

*ETA: It is, at least, convenient the way Lupin starts apologizing for not writing in the exact book where Harry first considers he might like Lupin to write to him.

*ETA: Remember when lots of people thought Lupin was set up as Harry's best father-figure?

*Hearing he sounds bitter, Lupin gives all the reasons it’s a good thing he’s doing. I’m beginning to understand the appeal of Snupin. I think both of them feel surrounded by idiots a lot, just for opposite reasons. It’s the HMS Spies Like Us.

*ETA: Or maybe they just bond over how little their information gathering matters at all.

*How come the werewolves like Voldemort? Harry wants to know. Oh Harry, they don't need a reason to like the guy. We need some vague threat of people on the other side. Don't worry, you won't ever actually have to deal with them for real.

*You haven’t heard of Greyback? asks Lupin, gently chastising Harry for not remembering the parts of chapter six he didn’t embellish himself.

*Harry’s tunnel vision really strikes again, doesn’t it? Here he’s obsessed with finding out what Malfoy’s up to and never thinks to check out the name he dropped?

*Greyback’s plan is to bite kids young and raise them away from wizards. Do most wizard parents send their kids away when they’ve been bitten?

*ETA: Funny that doesn't seem like Greyback's plan in the next book. There his plan just seems to be to take orders from Voldemort like all the other DEs.

*Naturally Lupin had felt pity for the werewolf that bit him, unable to help seeing other points of view. He admits his own brand of reasoned argument doesn’t make much headway amongst Greyback’s hoards. I hear ya, Remus!

*Lupin laughingly remembers James referring to his werewolfism as his “furry little problem” in company, so people thought he owned a badly behaved rabbit. I know the point here is that James didn’t shun Remus because of his problem. Unfortunately having read OotP I just get this impression of James loving to talk about Remus’ being a werewolf in company because of the risk/secret factor, which I’m sure isn’t the intention.

*ETA: Guess where know where Harry got his own ability to be held up as a paragon of enlightened tolerance when not doing anything that significant.

*Score one for Harry—Levicorpus was indeed invented when he was at school. I’m surprised it’s not studied in History of Magic, given Wizarding Culture. It’s like the wizard equivalent of the invention of penicillin or something.

*Harry reveals he sort of wanted the Prince to be Remus, Sirius (Who?) or James because he’s helped him out in his classes. Which is a little weird. It’s not like the Prince as a person has offered to help Harry with his homework. The help was purely accidental on the Prince's part.

*ETA: With another person I would just take this wish of Harry's as something kind of sweet, like he thought it would be cool to have that sort of bond with the older men in his family. But given it's Harry it's hard not to make a joke about him just not approving of any sort of bond with people he hasn't vetted.

*Harry’s never checked how old the book is. *smacks Harry in the back of his thick head*

*Harry goes to sleep thinking of the cries of bitten children. This book is really heavy on the werewolf stuff. Is it just for Greyback’s appearance and Remus/Tonks? Because it sounds like a set up for some good werewolf stuff in Book VII.

*ETA: Sounds like, maybe, but totally is not in any way, shape or form.

*Lavender blows it with Ron by giving him a pimp necklace that says "My Sweetheart." Unlike Hermione’s more appropriate Ron presents, like homework calendars. At least the necklace doesn’t talk, Ron!

*It’s sad that given what I’ve seen of the love stuff in this book, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Lavender asked Hermione what Ron would like and she picked that.

*Ron reveals he and Lavender don’t talk much. Phew! That’s simple enough. You can have either Hermione or someone you can’t talk to at all even though from what we’ve seen of Lavender and Ron they probably could talk just fine. This is much simpler.

*ETA: Although maybe Ron just doesn't recognizing something as talking if it's not bickering.

*Luckily the hideousness of Ron’s necklace is immediately outdone by the ridiculousness of Harry’s new sweater with a Snitch on the front.

*ETA: Don't try to win me over with maggots, Kreacher. You're still dead to me.

*Everyone’s wearing sweaters except Fleur upon whom Mrs. Weasley didn’t want to "waste one" which is probably best for everyone.

*Mrs. Weasley is also wearing ugly clothes, given to her by Fred and George. I wonder if the tacky gene will get passed on to Harry and Ginny’s children.

*ETA: How come Ginny doesn't give Harry a My Sweetheart necklace?

*Fred and George are so trying to take Percy’s place with Molly. And I love the way they can sort of turn into Percy incrementally without anyone noticing, because they make such a show of not being him.

*Ginny takes a maggot out of Harry’s hair and he shivers. I’ll point out here that Harry’s now been living at home with the girl he’s supposedly got the hots for, and not only doesn’t he try to chat her up (too noble? Yeah, right) but doesn’t notice her until the plot allows for it.

*Not that I’m complaining. I’m quite grateful for the H/G reprieve while we deal with the storylines that might go somewhere.

*ETA: Might go somewhere, but won't.

*Mrs. Weasley looks at Remus, Harry thinks, as if it’s his fault she’s getting Fleur instead of Tonks in the family. Is it his fault? I mean, is Harry just completely off-base here in mistaking Molly’s push for R/T over B/T, or did Molly entertain the idea at some point before getting involved in R/T?

*Harry asks Remus about Tonks’ Patronus and he takes his time chewing. I have to admit, reading this chapter for the second time really makes you feel for Remus. It’s like having this one interesting character with a lot going on camouflaged by the usual Weasley white noise.

*ETA: This book seems to have been all about storylines that seemed interesting to me but turned out not to be.

*Percy shows no interest in greeting anybody except Molly. Good for you, Percy!

*Scrimgeour and Harry, garden, blah blah, Harry won’t help Ministry blah…mascot, scapegoat, gnome…

*Harry thinks Scrimgeour’s doing just what Crouch did. Harry’s very good at noticing when people he doesn’t like do that. Not so much his own group.

*Harry holds up his fist with the scarred words on it. Please let there be a similar scene with Marietta in the next book.

*ETA: Damn.

*Harry acts the badass about how Scrimgeour should leave Dumbledore alone. Too bad at the end of this year Scrimgeour will still be in power while Dumbledore takes a header off a Tower, huh?

*Harry perfectly ends the scene about being his own man by declaring himself Dumbledore’s man. After all, Dumbledore’s never manipulated him. Bwahahaha!

*ETA: Did Scrimgeor redeem himself by dying for Harry or not? It doesn't seem like it was really about Harry personally for Scrimgeor, so probably not.

*I guess I’ll have to wait until the next chapter to be reminded about the parsnips thrown at Percy. Joy.

*This is stellar chapter for Ginny. She gets one line and it’s not an insult! No wonder Harry barely notices her.





Idiot World
So Arthur’s team can’t catch a single DE even though we know who most of the DEs are, Harry’s overheard a little bit of a current plot and he knows about at least one secret chamber in the Malfoy house. No wonder they recruited Stan. With his ability to drive straight he could take over this world pretty quickly.

Misdirected Answering
Quick Lupin, while the radio’s playing, give us some news from your interesting storyline! Please!

Final score: 2

Comments

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Boy howdy about the unwound spool of thread.

But there is supposed to be a point to red herring clues, and all too often there just isn't any. They were clearly intended to distract and misdirect, and they did *that*. Kept us spinning our wheels until the next book came out and roared off in a whole different direction.

Only, Rowling didn't follow through and show us where we had gone wrong by not figuring out that a herring was just a herring. Properly done (and she did do it properly in the first books), at the end of the story you know what the false clue actually meant and can see that it was irrelevant to the problem that you were trying to solve. It's the year of the Basilisk, Percy is acting guilty. No, it just turns out he was hiding the fact that he had a girlfriend from the twins. The suspicious behavior was actually there, but it didn't mean anything relevant to the problem.

After the 3-year summer Rowling started omiting the explanations for what we thought were clues. The information is there, but we were never given any reason for it. And too often were later told that it wasn't there after all -- or, worse, that completely opposite information was. Even though it clearly was there and anyone can turn back to the relevant page and read it themselves.

This frankly comes across as worse than merely sloppy to me. This comes across as flat-out dishonest, and suggestive of a profound sense of entitlement which is simply not warranted.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Basically what she did was change her focus. A properly realized red herring distracts both the reader *and* the other characters. The rubber fish she started throwing about after GoF only distracted the readers, and she evidently didn't feel she owed *them* any kind of an explanation.

[(Anonymous)]

I have to say that to me, CoS already encapsulated all of the flaws of series as a whole.
Yes, it did have some proper red herrings, but far more stuff that didn't go anywhere - like, DD knew about the basilisk and about Myrtle - why didn't he do anything? He was there when Hagrid sent Harry and Ron into the lair of man-eating spiders, why did he allow that? Etc.

It also has very dark and evil actions by the protagonists, when they decided to use Lockhart as a meat-shield against a deadly monster.

Dumb impulsiveness and very heavy Deus ex Machina carries the day - for no discernible reason, Harry and Ron decided to go after the basilisk themselves instead of telling McGonnagal, as they originally intended, although they had no skills that could hurt it, then tons more heavy-handedness to make Harry the only person on the scene and to survive it. Harry also wins and survives on technicality and outside, just as in the end, but gets all the laurels, etc.

Stupid and cowardly Ron made his appearance in this book too - and he never recovered from it.

In general, stupidity and passivity from everybody abounds - and unlike PS and PoA, it is impossible to construct reasonable behind the scenes explanations for it. Etc.

IMHO, CoS was definitely the blueprint for series as a whole, as it turned out.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I can only presume she switched tack to an easier path...

I just read (for the nth time) on another board that at least two other people wish there had been a Snape/Harry confrontation. I started thinking about the nature of writing confrontation, then slipped into the unpleasant nature of RL confrontation. Could Rowling have become so enamored of Harry that she decided, as his Creatrix, to spare him that unpleasantness, thereby depriving the readers of that fulfillment?

Money often changes everything, including perceptions of duty.

So does fame and fawning.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The total lack of Harry/Snape confrontation is one of the most amazing things to me. Not only is it the central conflict of the whole series, but we've even got Harry all "If I meet Snape before Voldemort, that's all the worse for Snape!" after finding out Snape was the eavesdropper.

Then it turns out that everything is pretty much taken care of outside of Harry completely. He shows up for Snape's death and then finds out the truth, so he never has to deal with the guy in any new way. It's no different from reading about Dumbledore's life.

Though this is actually kind of a pattern. Harry pretty much ceases to have any emotion at all about Draco Malfoy the minute Snape heals his Sectumsempra wounds. You'd think almost killing him would give them more emotional stuff to work with. Instead it's as if all the emotion before that scene was only there so that we could have the Sectumsempra scene. Then he's just a boy in Harry's class that Harry kind of knows in a distant way but doesn't have much opinion on beyond tsk tsk-ing his attraction to those notorious Dark Arts.

The same thing pretty much happens with Snape. The second you think Harry's going to be the most driven by the guy, after being driven by him for six books, he's suddenly over him and would rather think about Dumbledore. He's just another DE that Harry knows they'll have to keep an eye on. His memories don't cause any change of emotion on screen at all, they just give Harry the factual information that he was on Harry's side. So seconds later Harry's calmly making speeches about how Snape was always on his side and sure, why the hell wouldn't he name his kid after the guy? There's no actual development in Harry's feelings from one to the other, it's all just impersonal. Which works when we're talking about Moody, Sirius or Peter where Harry didn't actually have much of a relationship to the person to begin with before they revealed themselves to be the opposite of what he thought. But without Harry ever thinking about the change it's not all that meaningful.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Bwahahha! That kiss came so out of nowhere! To pick up on the "movie bleed" theory, all I could think about reading the scene was JKR thinking it would be real cool for Dan and Emma to get a kissing scene.

Oh, and plus, it would a chance for Emma to act all evil without ever having to be evil.

But sense? Did it make sense? Why didn't Voldemort's eyes create a quaffle heading toward the goal post? Wasn't that Ron's real issue in all these books?

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

I agree. And in DH, the best parts were low-lights. If JKR *had* to have this scene, she should have stuck to Ron's issues with his family, NOT this tasteless rubbish. It made Dumbles pointing out that Ron was only a prefect because Harry was too busy and important, seem quite warm spirited in comparison.

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

Harry was incapable of landing a blow on Snape at the end of HBP. He then spent a year doing exactly nothing to develop his skills and dueling prowess. The only way he beat Voldemort was because of some brand new and nonsensical wandlore and also Voldemort turning into a raving fool.

I'm GLAD Harry and Snape didn't fight or have a violent confrontation. The only way Harry could win, would be for Hermione to hide in a bush and hex Snape on his behalf, or Snape's character to do a 180 degree turn and become a total idiot. AT least Voldie was always overly arrogant. Snape was so controlled, the change would have had to be even more marked. That Lily nonsense was shameful enough, at least Snape didn't get his ass whipped by the mighty Harry!

[(Anonymous)]

So true. Some fans were disappointed by DH because Snape didn't "stay evil" (why they think he was evil in the first place, I know not - presumably mean teachers are due for the special hell). ESE!Snape is an awesome premise for a fic, but in canon? It is to laugh. The good side would've had its ass handed to it with a cherry on top.

Mind you, if they'd fought in DH and Snape trounced Harry and told him a few home truths eventually leading to hot angry hatesex I'd have no objection. Again, it's all been done better in fic.

-L

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I think that those of us that wanted this confrontation, didn't envision it in the terms of Harry whipping Snape, at least not fairly. IMHO, not only this confrontation, but an actual cooperation with Snape was sorely needed and missing.
No, they didn't have to like each other - but honestly, one should be able to put aside personal differences aside for a time, in order to save one's country! And imagine all the edgy drama! Such a book wouldn't have been boring, I assure you.

Frankly, I sort of felt that the whole bitterness/suspicion/doubt angle would have worked so much better with Snape than with DD... and that perhaps shoving DD in this position was a later addition, caused by her viewing Snape's popularity as threatening. Didn't JKR say that Grindelwald was dead at some point?

Anyway, I feel that she was always irritated by the interest that the older fans showed in adult characters and in the past, so much so that she refused to think of a plausible reason for early deaths of both sets of Harry's or in fact everybody's grandparents or to draw a coherent picture of VW1. Lupin and other characters also suffered for it in DH.
In her view other characters doing anything significant towards the victory would have been stealing Harry's glory - always excepting Hermione, whose contributions are routinely attributed to Harry anyway. No Tolkien, she. Her hero needs to be Frodo and Aragorn in one person - which didn't work so well, naturally.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Rowling lied in the joint interview (or the Owen Jones one) and stated flat out that Grindelwald was dead.

Well, by 2005, yes, he was, but he sure wasn't at the point the series had reached by then.

Mind you, I solidly believe that she's always intended to deconstruct Albus. I can also believe that a connection with Grindelwald may have always been intended as the vehicle for it. But I am not sure that the Grindelwald complication was always intended to be a Twagic Wuv Affair gone wrong. And the whole Ariana thread was tacky beyond belief.

[(Anonymous)]

But Rowling didn't actually deconstruct DD! She just had Harry agonize over irrelevant things and doubt Albus for all the wrong reasons (not that there weren't a ton of right ones, but she didn't use them). In fact, it seems that she didn't know how to make Harry believably doubt DD and just threw in a load of half-baked stuff. To me it does feel like a last-minute addition.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is a lot of bother without much deconstruction--or learning on Harry's part. Because he's not really interested in finding out what made DD tick or what his plan was all these years. It just comes down to whether he loves Harry or not, which is not affected one way or the other by whether DD thought Grindelwald was cool back in the early 20th century. He's not even studying the psychology of what attracts people to this worldview at all, it's just a big deal made out of the idea that Dumbledore is a grey character in a way that adds up to not grey at all because he's always been on the same side through the whole book.

The stuff that many readers see as problematic--his manipulation of people, his stupid plan, his egomania, hints of sadism in the way he deals with people--that all kind of falls under the "he's never been a saint" defense. Because one of the biggest storylines that some people saw but was never there was the one where the 'good guys' crossed the line without realizing it because they were convinced all that mattered was to be anti-Voldemort. In the end that is all that mattered. Anything bad that they did just made them cooler good guys because they make mistakes (even if the mistakes are never recognized as such).

[(Anonymous)]

Because one of the biggest storylines that some people saw but was never there was the one where the 'good guys' crossed the line without realizing it because they were convinced all that mattered was to be anti-Voldemort.

It is even worse than that - all that mattered was to be pro-Harry! Being anti-Voldi was not sufficient to be of any use, in fact it seemed rather optional.

Re: DD's love, Harry didn't even have sufficient reason to doubt _ that_. I mean, it came completely out of the blue. Other people would have thought that trusting Harry so completely (and stupidly) as DD did was a sign of love, but not for our hero, naturally. He had to hear the words, the flattery, etc.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That is an accurate--if tragic--point! And yeah, why would Harry doubt DD's love, particularly for the reasons given in DH, which was the story Rita had come up with. Right there he's conflating the two, a vague suggestion of badness (palling around with the wrong people 80 years before Harry was born or whatever) and perhaps not really liking Harry enough!

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

Agreeing completely, but with Draco one can at least fanwank and say it makes some kind of sense, seeing as the sectumsempra scene is the scene where Harry for the first time discovers Draco has his own vulnerablities. So you could argue that it makes sense that he stops hating him and becomes completely indifferent afterwards, even though something other than indifference would have been more interesting.

But with Snape it's going from more burning hatred than ever before at the end of HBP to complete indifference in the entire DH without anything even happening that could possibly explain that change! It makes no sense whatsoever.

Also, you've just pinpointed another reason for why I think DH is the worst and most boring of all books -the fact that there's no interaction between Harry and Snape (and not much between Harry and Draco either, although at least we have the ever so confusing room of requirement-scene there). I mean those interactions used to be a great part of what made the books entertaining and interesting, and in DH it's just "Take this" and "look at me" and we're done.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's true. With Draco in retrospect you just assume that that was supposed to be the end. With Snape we leave off at the highest point before the climax and then we hit the reset button. Suddenly obsession with Snape is replaced with obsession with Dumbledore and Snape just becomes another chess piece whose job it is to give Harry memories.

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

I think JKR sparing Harry of any true unpleasantness is kind of a red thread throughout these books.