Deathly Hallows, chapter 18
May. 31st, 2009 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockThe Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
* And this short excursion into Dumbledore's past is relevant to the plot how, exactly?
* The sky is indifferent to Harry and his suffering. I only wish the author was as well.
* As a side note, how can silence be "glittering"?
* Oh yeah, Harry's wand is different, just like Harry is different. It can shoot golden flames on its own. Our hero just can't have a normal wand. I'd be happy at the destruction of such a super wand if there weren't another even more speshul extra-super wand just waiting for our hero.
* The pouch Harry is carrying around his neck is now too full of broken and useless objects to take any more. I'm sure this is meant to produce an awwwww reaction, but really, I'm just repulsed.
* "Out of sheer desperation they had talked themselves into believing that Godric's Hollow held answers." Ahahahahaaa! *wheezes* I don't remember Harry needing any desperation for his brainless decision to go to Godric's Hollow.
* Though he is perfectly justified of being angry at Dumbledore. If I were in his position, I'd be angry as well. It's just that he manages to make great melodrama out of being angry as well. Truly JKR cannot write strong emotions. *cough*ChestMonster*cough*
* And here comes Hermione, once again frightened of Harry. This is getting oooooold. Is this the Hermione who was ruthless enough to attack his best friend with birds? Whatever happened to that Hermione?
* Finally, there will be the answers about Dumbledore's life that Harry so desperately wants. Too bad they aren't of the kind that he likes. Beware further temper tantrums.
* Harry feels "savage pleasure" at getting to know everything about Dumbledore. Too melodramatic. Not only should JKR be banned from using adverbs, she should be forbidden to use adjectives as well until she knows how to use them respectfully.
* You wanted to know everything about Dumbledore, Harry. Now you'll have to grin and bear it, even if Dumbledore's past turns out to have a homosexual affair with Grindelwald.
* Dumbledore was a Youth Representative to the Wizengamot. How come we haven't heard about these Youth Representatives before? Or have they discontinued the custom? Maybe the post was created specifically for Dumbledore.
* 'Dogbreath' Doge. Is this supposed to be funny, or what?
* Grindelwald would miss out the top spot in a list of Most Dangerous Dark Wizards of All Time only because of the arrival of You-Know-Who? Excuse me if I'm slightly sceptical of Rita's assessment. Grindelwald seems to have been connected in some way with WWII, which puts his achievement quite high. What has Voldemort, in contrast, achieved? Well, he managed to have Dumbledore killed, a feat that owed more to Dumbledore's stupidity than his own skills. He has repeatedly failed to kill Harry Potter (maybe he ought to have enlisted Draco's help for that as well). It took him several years to put a top Ministry official under the Imperius Curse. Et cetera ad nauseam.
* I seems to me that, whatever Rowling tries to make us believe, Dumbledore still subscribed to the wizard dominance over Muggles for their own good even after he and Grindelwald parted. Just look at his treatment of the Dursleys. Besides, a person doesn't get over their deep-seated sense of superiority just because their friend turns out to be an ass, and a superiority complex is certainly what Dumbledore had until his death.
* Melodrama warning!
* This is the first hint that Grindelwald is alive. Until this bit, I thought Dumbledore had killed Grindelwald, because surely he was far too dangerous to be left alive. But I guess Dumbledore couldn't damage his precious soul.
* I happen to like the name Nurmengard. Has anyone any idea if the name means anything?
* Harry points out that the defence "they were young" doesn't really fly when it comes to Dumbledore and Grindelwald, because they were the same age as Harry and Hermione are and they are out there fighting the Dark Arts. Well, fair enough. But at least Dumbledore and Grindelwald thought for themselves, misguided though their thoughts were. Harry and Hermione, on the other hand, are fighting "the Dark Arts" (whatever they are) just because Dumbledore told them to.
* Really, Harry's smug insistence that they are risking their lives to fight the Dark Arts sounds really self-congratulatory. As if the poor idiot knows what the Dark Arts are any more than the readers do. They are just something that the Slytherins probably do during their midnight orgies.
* I think this time Hermione the psychologist actually nails it: Harry is so angry because Dumbledore never told any of this to Harry himself. As if Harry was somehow entitled to know everything about Dumbledore. I really don't like the man, but even I've got to say that he had a right to personal life and that it wasn't at all necessary to tell Harry anything about it.
* In fact, the whole Dumbledore subplot was completely unnecessary. It was interesting only as far as it concerned Grindelwald, and the space devoted to it could have been used to resolve any of the number of unresolved subplots from the previous books.
* Harry is right that Dumbledore never explained anything, merely demanding blind trust, but somehow I've got trouble of understanding how Harry thinks Dumbledore's telling him all about personal history would have helped any. If I were Harry, I'd rather Dumbledore had explained something useful, like how to destroy Horcruxes.
* Now Harry dismisses Hermione from his presence. Oh. My. God. Can the boy get any more conceited?
* And this short excursion into Dumbledore's past is relevant to the plot how, exactly?
* The sky is indifferent to Harry and his suffering. I only wish the author was as well.
* As a side note, how can silence be "glittering"?
* Oh yeah, Harry's wand is different, just like Harry is different. It can shoot golden flames on its own. Our hero just can't have a normal wand. I'd be happy at the destruction of such a super wand if there weren't another even more speshul extra-super wand just waiting for our hero.
* The pouch Harry is carrying around his neck is now too full of broken and useless objects to take any more. I'm sure this is meant to produce an awwwww reaction, but really, I'm just repulsed.
* "Out of sheer desperation they had talked themselves into believing that Godric's Hollow held answers." Ahahahahaaa! *wheezes* I don't remember Harry needing any desperation for his brainless decision to go to Godric's Hollow.
* Though he is perfectly justified of being angry at Dumbledore. If I were in his position, I'd be angry as well. It's just that he manages to make great melodrama out of being angry as well. Truly JKR cannot write strong emotions. *cough*ChestMonster*cough*
* And here comes Hermione, once again frightened of Harry. This is getting oooooold. Is this the Hermione who was ruthless enough to attack his best friend with birds? Whatever happened to that Hermione?
* Finally, there will be the answers about Dumbledore's life that Harry so desperately wants. Too bad they aren't of the kind that he likes. Beware further temper tantrums.
* Harry feels "savage pleasure" at getting to know everything about Dumbledore. Too melodramatic. Not only should JKR be banned from using adverbs, she should be forbidden to use adjectives as well until she knows how to use them respectfully.
* You wanted to know everything about Dumbledore, Harry. Now you'll have to grin and bear it, even if Dumbledore's past turns out to have a homosexual affair with Grindelwald.
* Dumbledore was a Youth Representative to the Wizengamot. How come we haven't heard about these Youth Representatives before? Or have they discontinued the custom? Maybe the post was created specifically for Dumbledore.
* 'Dogbreath' Doge. Is this supposed to be funny, or what?
* Grindelwald would miss out the top spot in a list of Most Dangerous Dark Wizards of All Time only because of the arrival of You-Know-Who? Excuse me if I'm slightly sceptical of Rita's assessment. Grindelwald seems to have been connected in some way with WWII, which puts his achievement quite high. What has Voldemort, in contrast, achieved? Well, he managed to have Dumbledore killed, a feat that owed more to Dumbledore's stupidity than his own skills. He has repeatedly failed to kill Harry Potter (maybe he ought to have enlisted Draco's help for that as well). It took him several years to put a top Ministry official under the Imperius Curse. Et cetera ad nauseam.
* I seems to me that, whatever Rowling tries to make us believe, Dumbledore still subscribed to the wizard dominance over Muggles for their own good even after he and Grindelwald parted. Just look at his treatment of the Dursleys. Besides, a person doesn't get over their deep-seated sense of superiority just because their friend turns out to be an ass, and a superiority complex is certainly what Dumbledore had until his death.
* Melodrama warning!
* This is the first hint that Grindelwald is alive. Until this bit, I thought Dumbledore had killed Grindelwald, because surely he was far too dangerous to be left alive. But I guess Dumbledore couldn't damage his precious soul.
* I happen to like the name Nurmengard. Has anyone any idea if the name means anything?
* Harry points out that the defence "they were young" doesn't really fly when it comes to Dumbledore and Grindelwald, because they were the same age as Harry and Hermione are and they are out there fighting the Dark Arts. Well, fair enough. But at least Dumbledore and Grindelwald thought for themselves, misguided though their thoughts were. Harry and Hermione, on the other hand, are fighting "the Dark Arts" (whatever they are) just because Dumbledore told them to.
* Really, Harry's smug insistence that they are risking their lives to fight the Dark Arts sounds really self-congratulatory. As if the poor idiot knows what the Dark Arts are any more than the readers do. They are just something that the Slytherins probably do during their midnight orgies.
* I think this time Hermione the psychologist actually nails it: Harry is so angry because Dumbledore never told any of this to Harry himself. As if Harry was somehow entitled to know everything about Dumbledore. I really don't like the man, but even I've got to say that he had a right to personal life and that it wasn't at all necessary to tell Harry anything about it.
* In fact, the whole Dumbledore subplot was completely unnecessary. It was interesting only as far as it concerned Grindelwald, and the space devoted to it could have been used to resolve any of the number of unresolved subplots from the previous books.
* Harry is right that Dumbledore never explained anything, merely demanding blind trust, but somehow I've got trouble of understanding how Harry thinks Dumbledore's telling him all about personal history would have helped any. If I were Harry, I'd rather Dumbledore had explained something useful, like how to destroy Horcruxes.
* Now Harry dismisses Hermione from his presence. Oh. My. God. Can the boy get any more conceited?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-01 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-01 03:07 pm (UTC)-- now THAT would have made DH worthy of the cover price!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 01:24 am (UTC)Some damned fine ones earlier too, although most of them had bought into the Pureblood Snape theory. Halfblood Snape really does offer more possibilities to the fanfic writer, I think.
One problem I have is that HBP stood everything on its head, disrupted a lot of assumptions, and contradicted al kinds of things. But, in the main, what it gave us in return potentially gave us a whole different angle to approach things from. And even though some of the contradictions are stupid, and lazy, and make a mess of things, the overall picture now suddenly made sense where what we'd been being handed for 5 books didn't.
But then came DHs, which all but openly declared that nothing in HBP had ever happened, apart from Dumbledore's death, retrieving the blooming Locket, and the Ginny/Harry breakup. And nothing made sense at all. Not even what had appeared to be what she had claimed was the story through OotP.
Maybe HBP and DHs were two halves of the same story. The story of "How I demolished a world in 1400 pages or less."
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 08:32 am (UTC)Oh yeah, I forgot she'd said that. Somehow I can't see how they could possibly be two halves of the same story. Unless, you know, the first part is "how to set up interesting questions, like Draco's and Snape's loyalties" and the second part is "how to ignore them all and instead give us Deathly Hallows and the Dumbledore backstory". Bleargh.
Maybe the problem with the last two books is that they ought to have been from the Slytherins' perspective, because that was where all the action was happening. Our Gryffindor heroes just first had an attack of teenage hormones and then went on to sit in a tent.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 02:29 pm (UTC)This is why I have decided for my own sanity that the series ended with HBP. DH was so irrelevant I look at it the same way as I look at the "school books" and "Beedle". It's only vaguely related to the rest of the series.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 04:06 pm (UTC)Having the 6th book in a series of seven demolish the assumptions that the first 5 had built up is a perfectly valid storytelling device. IF you take that as your starting point for the final segment and build from the information you've given us in it. Instead she effectively said; "Ha ha, never happened!" and ran a cartoon instead.
How she could fail to realize that the "Official Riddle Backstory" which she wrapped book 6 around, was totally *incompatible* with everything that she had spent the first 5 books hinting to us about his first rise still totally flumoxes me. I am flumoxed.
And what possible purpose could she have had in deliberately having Sluggy tell us (and Tom) that the subject of Horcruxes was *banned*, and that he would *not* find any further info in the Hogwarts library, and then as soon as the subject comes up in the next book have Harry contradict it and claim that Tom already knew about Horcruxes and was just asking about multiple ones? Where is he supposed to have found out, if the subject was already banned? Where did Harry get *his* information. Does she believe that the reader won't *notice* this?
Yeah. Two halves of the same story. Book 6 demolished Books 1-5. Book 7 demolished Book 6.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 04:30 pm (UTC)Or that getting the information was as easy as Accio-ing it. And besides, are we supposed to believe that Dumbledore removed all the information about Horcruxes from the Hogwarts library before he became a headmaster?