Deathly Hallows, chapter 19

[anehan]

The Silver Doe

* What is it with the Potters and animals of the deer family? James's Animagus form is a stag, and now we find out that Snape associates Lily with a doe. Though according to Dictionary.com, a doe can be the female of, among others, deer, antelope, goat and rabbit. I think I prefer to think Lily is a female rabbit. Or a goat. So that she can be paired with Aberforth's goat.

* A wreath of Christmas roses? What's that? Is it some kind of English custom to have roses on Christmas?

* Harry imagines someone is calling out to him in the distance. It is Ron, of course, who would rather call out to Harry than Hermione, because he is so much more important to Ron than her.

* Why is Hermione reading A History of Magic? Doesn't she remember it by heart already?

* Why is Harry wearing the Horcrux again? Wouldn't it be safer in his pouch? I would have imagined that Harry and Hermione would have realized how stupid it was to wear the Horcrux around your neck. But I need not wonder. Whatever stupid thing Harry can think of doing, he will do it.

* Oh, so it's bitterly cold in the Forest of Dean, is it? As someone who hails from Lapland, I snap my fingers at your bitter coldness. Apparently wizards can manufacture tents that are as spacious as a real house but not tents that are warm.

* Harry feels as though he is recuperating from some brief but serious illness, an impression reinforced by Hermione's solicitousness. That's because he must turn everything into high drama. One would think that after meeting Voldemort so many times, another confrontation would not faze him, but apparently it was enough to make him lose his sleep.

* Harry is wearing all the sweaters he owned, but he is still shivery. Apparently wizards can't make warm clothes either. Or maybe they are Dudley's cast-offs, which makes me wonder why Harry has continued to wear them even after he came to money? Or is it fanon that he wears them? I can't remember.

* Or maybe it's not wizards who can't make warm clothes. Maybe it's the English. At the very least they can't make warm houses. I once read a Finn who had lived in England write that he had never felt so cold in Finland as he had felt in an English house.

* Harry was on the point of taking out the Marauder's Map, so as to watch Ginny's dot for a while. Creepy, or what?

* So Harry follows the deer. Without telling Hermione where he is going. Is the boy stupid, or what? Oh, but he knows this is no Dark Magic. Of course it isn't, it's a Patronus. Doesn't mean a Death Eater couldn't have cast it.

* By the way, how does Snape know where Harry and Hermione are?

* He thinks the doe is going to speak to him. Which she would do only once she had led him deep into the forest.

* Oh, now Harry considers whether the doe has led him into an ambush. Our glorious hero. Stupid as a sock. (And possibly quite as smelly, too, if he has continued to bathe as often as he did at Hogwarts.)

* I'd like to know why the sword must be at the bottom of a pool.

* Harry remembers that "their daring, nerve and chivalry set Gryffindors apart". Well, if you consider foolhardiness to be daring and nerve, then it's true, as far as that goes. But chivalry? Maybe from someone like Neville, but Harry? Our resident drama queen?

* The description of Harry drowning? Well, let's just say that Rowling reveals another kind of scene she can't write to save her soul.

* Even Ron realizes how stupid it was to dive while wearing the Horcrux. You know, the stupider Harry acts, the more Ron grows on me. Not that he is much better, but at least no anvils of how great and noble he is are dropped constantly on me.

* Harry thinks Ron is supposed to be the one to destroy the locket. "Supposed to"? So now Harry wants to abandon being a hero. Of course, JKR only wrote it this way so that we could have the affecting scene of Ron's insecurities being thrown on his face. Puh-leeeze. As if the readers weren't already perfectly aware of what Ron's insecurities are. Must it always be anvils, JKR? They are so heavy.

* Please, no more Harry intuiting (is that a word?) things.

* Harry shouts and bellows and yells at Ron to stab the thing, but Ron does not listen. Yet he still stubbornly insists it's got to Ron who destroys the locket.

* Okay, so I don't really understand why Ron is so fazed with the locket-Harry and Hermione. Surely he has got the two brain cells that are required for him to realize the locket is preying on his fears.

* Now this Hermione I like. Looking demented, putting Harry and Ron in their places. "Don't you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!" Sweet, sweet words. If only she remembered them when Harry was being his usual self. *cheers Hermione on*

* Ah, the magical Deluminator appears. Or rather, Deus Ex Machina, as I prefer to call it. One of many in the series. And of course Dumbledore would know Ron would need it. The man can't stop meddling even after he is dead.

* Ron's pyjamas are maroon. Somehow I'm not surprised. Molly must really hate him, only she can't admit it to herself, so she takes it out in this passive-aggressive way. (I think this last piece is the most interesting bit of the chapter.)

Comments

[eir-de-scania.livejournal.com]

Being labeled as a "children's writer" might play a part when it comes to the (lack of) sexuality.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well - it isn't so much the lack of sexuality (the last book, especially, is full of double entendres, and I am still astonished - and horrified - at the goat question in a book being read by small kids). Rather, it's her attitude towards relationships, which seems to be:
The ideal is for people to be married. Single women are inferior (In previous books, I would have said that McGonagall was a counterexample, but, after DH and the torture scene, I can't.)
Girls ought to manipulate boys and play hard to get.
You ought to marry your high school sweetheart.
Lust=love.
After marriage, a wife ought to stay home and homeschool her kids.
Motherhood is sacred. The best thing a woman can do is be a mother, and the best thing a mother can do is die for her child.

And so on. I grant you that I do think motherhood is (or can be) a wonderful thing, but still, the view of womanhood and family life in these books is deeply, deeply conservative. Add to this the unnecessary Dumbledore=gay statement. Whatever one thinks of homosexuality and the gay lifestyle, it should be obvious that Rowling considers Dumbledore's sexual orientation a flaw in his character. That's also a conservative attitude. I'm really puzzled by the gays who celebrate Dumbledore's homosexuality as an example of Rowling's tolerance. It's not. For one thing, he isn't actually gay in canon; she just said that in an interview. For another, his homosexuality led him into evil. For a third, he is, IMHO, a thoroughly unpleasant character.

Sorry for the length!

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

You beat me to it. I'd like to add the general (very Christieish) idea that a "good" relationship is one where either of the two acts as a stand-in for mother or father. Equal relationships are doomed - which makes sense in a roundabout way because one of the hall-marks of eroticism is polarity, i.e. two people who are and stay (!)very much their own people while still giving themselves to the other one. This tension is stopped by one giving up their autonomy by becoming the "child".