PoA Chapter One
Jan. 29th, 2010 06:05 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
sistermagpie.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslockTotally forgot I meant to post this this morning!
Come with me to a time in the distant past, back when starting the book with Harry’s birthday didn’t mean hundreds of pages before he got to school and ending in June didn’t mean Voldemort plotting his evil plans around summer hols. In fact, Voldemort isn’t even in this book, which on the whole will do wonders for his reputation!
Harry Potter is an unusual boy. Not only does he hate summer holidays, but he really wants to do his homework. Wait…what? Who is this intellectually curious boy who wants to practice his magic? Not the Chosen One I know!
Harry’s writing an essay on how Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless. So basically, he’s writing a whole essay on how Muggles are idiots and completely impotent when it comes to hurting Wizards, as if this is something any wizard might forget if they weren’t assigned it in class. Why do they even care about what Muggles were doing in the 14th century?
Not to mention, it wasn’t pointless whether or not they burned witches since it’s not like the whole period in history was really about chasing down wizards as defined by this book.
If nothing else all the death provided a joke essay for Harry to write, so there’s a point right there!
Btw, was Dumbledore’s sister the only witch in history hurt by Muggles? We relentlessly laugh at Muggles thinking they could ever do anything to even get a Wizard’s attention but when Dumbledore needs a back story suddenly they’re capable of producing brain damage in people who are dropped on their heads from six story windows by their own families.
Which btw makes me think of how unlikely it is that, memory charms or not, there’s no society of deadly Muggles taking out Wizards right and left in stealth. Or….is there?
Harry’s using a quill and a bottle of ink in his bed to write this essay, despite no doubt having ball point pens a few feet away. Surely the quill thing’s lost its novelty by now. Especially since he’s afraid the Dursleys will hear the scratching. Quills aren’t one of those magical things we Muggles can’t handle, Harry. We stopped using them because we invented something better.
The Dursleys have a very medieval attitude towards magic. Understandably, since most of the time they’ve experienced it some wizard has been going medieval on their ass.
The narrator telling us the Dursleys tried to squash Harry’s magic out of him by keeping him downtrodden is like a remnant of that early idea that maybe magic was like creativity or imagination. Remember, before we knew Wizards didn’t really have much of either?
Earlier the Dursleys went out to talk about their new company car in loud voices so the neighbors could hear. Too bad Vernon couldn’t fly the car in through the window while everyone was eating lunch in a big dining hall, huh? That would have been really ostentatious!
Remember this later when we learn that when you have a truly superior transport everyone will flock to you without your asking them too. Nice subtle pointer to the true moral of the series, that Harry is a more deserving version of Vernon.
Harry’s friend Ron is stupid when it comes to telephones, but knows a lot more than Harry about important things because he comes from a wizard family. Take a moment to savor that, Ron. This is the last book you’ll be anything like the authority on wizard life.
OMG, Vernon says he doesn’t want to hear from people ‘like YOU’ to Harry. It’s like he looks down on Harry just because of his magical standing! He must be a bad guy.
Harry assumes Ron told Hermione not to call him, even though she actually knows how phones work, and she’d have been sensible enough to not say she went to Hogwarts. So…would she have said she knew Harry from one of the many other places at which Harry meets people that call him? Because there are none.
One good thing this summer is that Hedwig gets to fly out at night instead of being stuck in her cage. Though she might have been willing to stay in the cage if it meant Harry would let her out four years from now when it comes time to get chased by Death Eaters. RIP Hedwig.
Dudley is enormous and makes loud noises in his sleep. Probably because his weight problems make breathing difficult.
Harry’s never received a birthday card in his life. It’s kind of disturbing how likable Harry still is here. If I didn’t know him better, I’d see a nice young boy who just wants to go to school, be with his friends and do his homework.
Btw, I suspect Harry’s birthday is now an international holiday for wizards. (Even if the world war only took place in Britain.)
Harry goes to the window and enjoys the fresh air without once thinking about how the nice weather conflicts with his own inner turmoil. Weird!
Harry’s also longing for Hedwig because she’s the one person in the house who doesn’t flinch at the sight of him like the Dursleys. Good to know that three years from now Dumbledore will show up and tease them. That will totally make up for this lonely life!
We’re told Harry’s parents didn’t die in a car crash—um, did someone say they did? (I know Harry was told that growing up, but this book just says it apropos of nothing.)
Harry had to admit he was lucky for even reaching his 13th birthday. Again…who is this boy who admits he’s lucky in any way?
Harry expects Hedwig to come back with a mouse in her beak expecting praise. Owls don’t work that way, Harry. You’re thinking of a cat or a dog. Owls don’t catch the dead thing to show you. Owls just eat the mice and expel the bones and fur and things in a little pellet.
The Weasleys are spending the summer in Egypt because they won a prize. This sounds like it might be kicking off an exotic story, but really it’s just a reason to show them in the paper.
Another sign we’re still pre-GoF: the Weasleys are going on a fancy trip and not taking Harry!
Instead of writing about the pointlessness of Muggles, Harry ought to write an essay on the pointlessness of wizards inventing black and white magic pictures for the newspaper just so they can make their world look like the Muggle world just out of date enough to be nostalgic. I might read that essay.
Harry can’t think of anyone who deserves to win a pile of gold more than the Weasleys, because they are very nice and extremely poor. The virtuous kind of poor, where Dad’s an important government official and they’re one of the premiere families in the country.
You can tell because no matter how much gold they get, how many promotions Arthur earns or how many children move out and get well-paying jobs, they always remain the exact same level of virtuous poor where Ron can’t get things as nice Harry.
Ron’s note hopes “the Muggles” didn’t give Harry a hard time. I wonder if his letters to Hermione refer to her family that way too.
Molly wouldn’t let Ginny enter a tomb with mutant skeletons—more stupid Muggles who broke into tombs without knowing how to undo the curse.
I’m sure that overprotection of Ginny will stop by the time she’s 16, though, right? And we learn how badass she is? If only she was out of the house and married to someone like Harry Potter. He would never tell her to stay behind for safety.
So Bill’s a grave robber, basically? And grave robbers work for banks?
The Weasleys have blown most of their money on this one trip to Egypt, but at least they’re going to get Ron a new wand for next year. Thank goodness the old one snapped or Ron would probably be spending another year backfiring on himself.
Percy’s looking smug in the photograph. Get used that word, Percy. It’ll be attached to you until you properly grovel at your brother’s feet. And even then it’ll only be lifted for that one moment.
Ron sends Harry a Sneakoscope that Bill says is rubbish because it kept flashing at dinner. Spoiler alert: it’s because of the rat. Luckily the twins are also at the table, and are also untrustworthy so JKR can cover it up. Probably the more expensive Sneakoscopes are attuned to be able to pick out the bad kind of untrustworthy from the good, fun kind.
Harry looks at the present happily for a few seconds. I love this Harry!
Hermione’s in France. I hope you enjoy that family trip, Grangers. It’ll be your last with your daughter. If you even remember you have a daughter.
Hedwig flew to France all on her own because she knew Hermione would be worrying about customs or something.
The theme of pets/animals having their own agendas starts off right away.
Don’t ask me why Hermione was worried about sending a gift through customs. It’s a wood polishing kit, not a baby dragon.
Hermione’s jealous of Ron’s trip since ancient Egyptian wizards must have been fascinating. Ancient Egyptians Muggles were as lame as the British kind, though.
Hermione’s essay is 2 rolls longer than was asked for. I hope Binns rejects it and makes her write it again within the correct word count.
Hermione gives Harry…an actually thoughtful present. To review: Harry finds pleasure in the good things he does have, Ron is the authority on the wizard world and Hermione thinks about what other people would actually want instead of what she thinks they should have. Who are these people?
Harry’s now got a broomstick polishing kit and a wand polishing kit. Without TV, wizards spend a lot of time polishing wood. Jealous yet?
I assume Hermione’s thoughtful present is also showing that she does have Harry’s best interests at heart when she tattles about the Firebolt.
Quidditch is the most popular sport in the magical world. It’s also the only sport in the magical world.
Also Harry’s the youngest person in the century to be picked for his school team. Which…should not be that impressive.
Harry opens Hagrid’s gift. Phew! At least Hagrid hasn’t changed. Still annoying as ever. It’s a book that bites. Go ahead and open it, Harry. Maybe it will rip your throat out and Hagrid can berate you for scaring it.
Harry stops grinning when he sees his permission slip for Hogsmeade, since he’ll never convince the Dursleys to sign it. The kids lie throughout the books, but it doesn’t occur to Harry to forge a signature?
“Extremely unusual though he was, at that moment Harry Potter felt just like everyone else — glad, for the first time in his life, that it was his birthday.” Awww! It’s sad that all this stuff that explains why Harry is sympathetic will just turn into the explanation for why he’s a pissy ass whenever people cross him.
I saw a presentation on Phoenix Rising about how JKR always does everything at least twice, so now I obsessively look for parallels and things that are going to happen again/have happened again. In this chapter I got:
Things that happen twice:
Vernon made a big show with his car and the neighbors. Later Harry will get that attention for his Firebolt.
That’s not the last time we’ll be seeing that Sneakoscope go off “accidentally.”
It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Throughout the books, JKR sprinkles lots of things that turn out to be important later on. These are often incorrectly referred to as “Chekov’s guns” because Chekov, when talking about set decoration in the theater, said that if you put a gun over the fireplace in act I it had better go off in act IV. In HP terms, a “gun” is any detail mentioned anywhere at any time, and even with thousands of pages to work with, some of them still didn’t go off. So I’m mentioning them when they appear and noting if they were fired or turned out to be duds:
Bill the Cursebreaker
Bill’s background with curses and magical artifacts will obviously come in handy at some point, say if Harry puts together a crack team of Horcrux hunters.
Status: Dud. Bill, in general, turned out to be important for looking cool and marrying a French person (yeah, he got scarred, but only to show the kind of girl Fleur really is). And Harry never had a crack team of Horcrux Hunters. Or a crack team of anything, really.
Bathilda Bagshot
Bathilda Bagshot wrote that book Hermione’s always reading.
Status: Fired! In a way far beyond what one might have expected—she became a snake snuggy.
Special note about PoA: I’ve always had a weird relationship to this book because it’s most peoples’ favorite and Scabbers/the Marauders is one of the best reveals. Yet I never wanted to re-read it. I thought it was because I just hated the Buckbeak story—and as you’ll see I really do hate the Buckbeak story, but reading it again I found it kind of boring. I mean, JKR keeps all the balls in the air, she darts back and forth between all the stuff she’s got to entertain you—Hermione’s secret, Quidditch, Sirius Black news, Snape and Lupin, Buckbeak, Hogsmeade. But in the end PoA is really just like HBP. The real story going on isn’t happening to Harry, it’s happening near Harry, usually just out of his line of vision—and there’s no villain going after him so there’s very little at stake.
The Cricket Rule
Day-for-Night
As Harry looks out the window into a balmy summer night, looking for Hedwig.
Foley Work
Cue Dudley and Vernon snoring and turning over in their creaky beds.
Informed Attributes
Because “youngest player in this century…” sounds a lot better than saying “Because there wasn’t anybody else handy in Harry’s quarter of the small student body, he got to join the school team for the sport everyone’s forced to support because there’s nothing else a year early.”
Nut o’Fun
The mutant skeletons were the best thing in the chapter.
Jabootu Score: 5
Come with me to a time in the distant past, back when starting the book with Harry’s birthday didn’t mean hundreds of pages before he got to school and ending in June didn’t mean Voldemort plotting his evil plans around summer hols. In fact, Voldemort isn’t even in this book, which on the whole will do wonders for his reputation!
Harry Potter is an unusual boy. Not only does he hate summer holidays, but he really wants to do his homework. Wait…what? Who is this intellectually curious boy who wants to practice his magic? Not the Chosen One I know!
Harry’s writing an essay on how Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless. So basically, he’s writing a whole essay on how Muggles are idiots and completely impotent when it comes to hurting Wizards, as if this is something any wizard might forget if they weren’t assigned it in class. Why do they even care about what Muggles were doing in the 14th century?
Not to mention, it wasn’t pointless whether or not they burned witches since it’s not like the whole period in history was really about chasing down wizards as defined by this book.
If nothing else all the death provided a joke essay for Harry to write, so there’s a point right there!
Btw, was Dumbledore’s sister the only witch in history hurt by Muggles? We relentlessly laugh at Muggles thinking they could ever do anything to even get a Wizard’s attention but when Dumbledore needs a back story suddenly they’re capable of producing brain damage in people who are dropped on their heads from six story windows by their own families.
Which btw makes me think of how unlikely it is that, memory charms or not, there’s no society of deadly Muggles taking out Wizards right and left in stealth. Or….is there?
Harry’s using a quill and a bottle of ink in his bed to write this essay, despite no doubt having ball point pens a few feet away. Surely the quill thing’s lost its novelty by now. Especially since he’s afraid the Dursleys will hear the scratching. Quills aren’t one of those magical things we Muggles can’t handle, Harry. We stopped using them because we invented something better.
The Dursleys have a very medieval attitude towards magic. Understandably, since most of the time they’ve experienced it some wizard has been going medieval on their ass.
The narrator telling us the Dursleys tried to squash Harry’s magic out of him by keeping him downtrodden is like a remnant of that early idea that maybe magic was like creativity or imagination. Remember, before we knew Wizards didn’t really have much of either?
Earlier the Dursleys went out to talk about their new company car in loud voices so the neighbors could hear. Too bad Vernon couldn’t fly the car in through the window while everyone was eating lunch in a big dining hall, huh? That would have been really ostentatious!
Remember this later when we learn that when you have a truly superior transport everyone will flock to you without your asking them too. Nice subtle pointer to the true moral of the series, that Harry is a more deserving version of Vernon.
Harry’s friend Ron is stupid when it comes to telephones, but knows a lot more than Harry about important things because he comes from a wizard family. Take a moment to savor that, Ron. This is the last book you’ll be anything like the authority on wizard life.
OMG, Vernon says he doesn’t want to hear from people ‘like YOU’ to Harry. It’s like he looks down on Harry just because of his magical standing! He must be a bad guy.
Harry assumes Ron told Hermione not to call him, even though she actually knows how phones work, and she’d have been sensible enough to not say she went to Hogwarts. So…would she have said she knew Harry from one of the many other places at which Harry meets people that call him? Because there are none.
One good thing this summer is that Hedwig gets to fly out at night instead of being stuck in her cage. Though she might have been willing to stay in the cage if it meant Harry would let her out four years from now when it comes time to get chased by Death Eaters. RIP Hedwig.
Dudley is enormous and makes loud noises in his sleep. Probably because his weight problems make breathing difficult.
Harry’s never received a birthday card in his life. It’s kind of disturbing how likable Harry still is here. If I didn’t know him better, I’d see a nice young boy who just wants to go to school, be with his friends and do his homework.
Btw, I suspect Harry’s birthday is now an international holiday for wizards. (Even if the world war only took place in Britain.)
Harry goes to the window and enjoys the fresh air without once thinking about how the nice weather conflicts with his own inner turmoil. Weird!
Harry’s also longing for Hedwig because she’s the one person in the house who doesn’t flinch at the sight of him like the Dursleys. Good to know that three years from now Dumbledore will show up and tease them. That will totally make up for this lonely life!
We’re told Harry’s parents didn’t die in a car crash—um, did someone say they did? (I know Harry was told that growing up, but this book just says it apropos of nothing.)
Harry had to admit he was lucky for even reaching his 13th birthday. Again…who is this boy who admits he’s lucky in any way?
Harry expects Hedwig to come back with a mouse in her beak expecting praise. Owls don’t work that way, Harry. You’re thinking of a cat or a dog. Owls don’t catch the dead thing to show you. Owls just eat the mice and expel the bones and fur and things in a little pellet.
The Weasleys are spending the summer in Egypt because they won a prize. This sounds like it might be kicking off an exotic story, but really it’s just a reason to show them in the paper.
Another sign we’re still pre-GoF: the Weasleys are going on a fancy trip and not taking Harry!
Instead of writing about the pointlessness of Muggles, Harry ought to write an essay on the pointlessness of wizards inventing black and white magic pictures for the newspaper just so they can make their world look like the Muggle world just out of date enough to be nostalgic. I might read that essay.
Harry can’t think of anyone who deserves to win a pile of gold more than the Weasleys, because they are very nice and extremely poor. The virtuous kind of poor, where Dad’s an important government official and they’re one of the premiere families in the country.
You can tell because no matter how much gold they get, how many promotions Arthur earns or how many children move out and get well-paying jobs, they always remain the exact same level of virtuous poor where Ron can’t get things as nice Harry.
Ron’s note hopes “the Muggles” didn’t give Harry a hard time. I wonder if his letters to Hermione refer to her family that way too.
Molly wouldn’t let Ginny enter a tomb with mutant skeletons—more stupid Muggles who broke into tombs without knowing how to undo the curse.
I’m sure that overprotection of Ginny will stop by the time she’s 16, though, right? And we learn how badass she is? If only she was out of the house and married to someone like Harry Potter. He would never tell her to stay behind for safety.
So Bill’s a grave robber, basically? And grave robbers work for banks?
The Weasleys have blown most of their money on this one trip to Egypt, but at least they’re going to get Ron a new wand for next year. Thank goodness the old one snapped or Ron would probably be spending another year backfiring on himself.
Percy’s looking smug in the photograph. Get used that word, Percy. It’ll be attached to you until you properly grovel at your brother’s feet. And even then it’ll only be lifted for that one moment.
Ron sends Harry a Sneakoscope that Bill says is rubbish because it kept flashing at dinner. Spoiler alert: it’s because of the rat. Luckily the twins are also at the table, and are also untrustworthy so JKR can cover it up. Probably the more expensive Sneakoscopes are attuned to be able to pick out the bad kind of untrustworthy from the good, fun kind.
Harry looks at the present happily for a few seconds. I love this Harry!
Hermione’s in France. I hope you enjoy that family trip, Grangers. It’ll be your last with your daughter. If you even remember you have a daughter.
Hedwig flew to France all on her own because she knew Hermione would be worrying about customs or something.
The theme of pets/animals having their own agendas starts off right away.
Don’t ask me why Hermione was worried about sending a gift through customs. It’s a wood polishing kit, not a baby dragon.
Hermione’s jealous of Ron’s trip since ancient Egyptian wizards must have been fascinating. Ancient Egyptians Muggles were as lame as the British kind, though.
Hermione’s essay is 2 rolls longer than was asked for. I hope Binns rejects it and makes her write it again within the correct word count.
Hermione gives Harry…an actually thoughtful present. To review: Harry finds pleasure in the good things he does have, Ron is the authority on the wizard world and Hermione thinks about what other people would actually want instead of what she thinks they should have. Who are these people?
Harry’s now got a broomstick polishing kit and a wand polishing kit. Without TV, wizards spend a lot of time polishing wood. Jealous yet?
I assume Hermione’s thoughtful present is also showing that she does have Harry’s best interests at heart when she tattles about the Firebolt.
Quidditch is the most popular sport in the magical world. It’s also the only sport in the magical world.
Also Harry’s the youngest person in the century to be picked for his school team. Which…should not be that impressive.
Harry opens Hagrid’s gift. Phew! At least Hagrid hasn’t changed. Still annoying as ever. It’s a book that bites. Go ahead and open it, Harry. Maybe it will rip your throat out and Hagrid can berate you for scaring it.
Harry stops grinning when he sees his permission slip for Hogsmeade, since he’ll never convince the Dursleys to sign it. The kids lie throughout the books, but it doesn’t occur to Harry to forge a signature?
“Extremely unusual though he was, at that moment Harry Potter felt just like everyone else — glad, for the first time in his life, that it was his birthday.” Awww! It’s sad that all this stuff that explains why Harry is sympathetic will just turn into the explanation for why he’s a pissy ass whenever people cross him.
I saw a presentation on Phoenix Rising about how JKR always does everything at least twice, so now I obsessively look for parallels and things that are going to happen again/have happened again. In this chapter I got:
Things that happen twice:
Vernon made a big show with his car and the neighbors. Later Harry will get that attention for his Firebolt.
That’s not the last time we’ll be seeing that Sneakoscope go off “accidentally.”
It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Throughout the books, JKR sprinkles lots of things that turn out to be important later on. These are often incorrectly referred to as “Chekov’s guns” because Chekov, when talking about set decoration in the theater, said that if you put a gun over the fireplace in act I it had better go off in act IV. In HP terms, a “gun” is any detail mentioned anywhere at any time, and even with thousands of pages to work with, some of them still didn’t go off. So I’m mentioning them when they appear and noting if they were fired or turned out to be duds:
Bill the Cursebreaker
Bill’s background with curses and magical artifacts will obviously come in handy at some point, say if Harry puts together a crack team of Horcrux hunters.
Status: Dud. Bill, in general, turned out to be important for looking cool and marrying a French person (yeah, he got scarred, but only to show the kind of girl Fleur really is). And Harry never had a crack team of Horcrux Hunters. Or a crack team of anything, really.
Bathilda Bagshot
Bathilda Bagshot wrote that book Hermione’s always reading.
Status: Fired! In a way far beyond what one might have expected—she became a snake snuggy.
Special note about PoA: I’ve always had a weird relationship to this book because it’s most peoples’ favorite and Scabbers/the Marauders is one of the best reveals. Yet I never wanted to re-read it. I thought it was because I just hated the Buckbeak story—and as you’ll see I really do hate the Buckbeak story, but reading it again I found it kind of boring. I mean, JKR keeps all the balls in the air, she darts back and forth between all the stuff she’s got to entertain you—Hermione’s secret, Quidditch, Sirius Black news, Snape and Lupin, Buckbeak, Hogsmeade. But in the end PoA is really just like HBP. The real story going on isn’t happening to Harry, it’s happening near Harry, usually just out of his line of vision—and there’s no villain going after him so there’s very little at stake.
The Cricket Rule
Day-for-Night
As Harry looks out the window into a balmy summer night, looking for Hedwig.
Foley Work
Cue Dudley and Vernon snoring and turning over in their creaky beds.
Informed Attributes
Because “youngest player in this century…” sounds a lot better than saying “Because there wasn’t anybody else handy in Harry’s quarter of the small student body, he got to join the school team for the sport everyone’s forced to support because there’s nothing else a year early.”
Nut o’Fun
The mutant skeletons were the best thing in the chapter.
Jabootu Score: 5
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 04:06 am (UTC)I think the best humour in all this is going to be your contrasting the book with what we know comes up in the sequels, particularly the last two books after the series jump an ocean of sharks. Anyway, I enjoyed the differences you highlighted here.
Actually, I take back my request to kill Ginny ... your answer would have been "Ginny who?". Given as how she'll be almost non-existent for the next two books. But really, we know better - we know she's wonderful and beautiful and a great quidditch player and 'a lot of the boys like her'. It's just that Harry doesn't notice her. Or her awesome awesomeness. At all. Riiight.
Ron’s note hopes “the Muggles” didn’t give Harry a hard time. I wonder if his letters to Hermione refer to her family that way too.
Ah, she loves him for it anyway, the scamp. And for his confounding Muggle driving examiners. They're only Muggles. But he's WON WON.
Can you perhaps keep a counter of the number of moments that pop up in this book that show how Harry and Ginny are soulmates, or how much Hermione loves Won Won? Or the respect that Ron and Hermione have for each other? Hmm. It might not be too exciting keeping score at that. Forget I asked.
Hermione gives Harry…an actually thoughtful present.
You forgot to tell us what Ginny gave him. Darn, my shipping bias is really showing, isn't it? I'm just a bitter survivor from the Interview o' Death when we were told to 'go back and re-read' if we didn't pick up on the ANVIL SIZED HINTS of how AWESOMELY 'Jo' wrote the romance in this series. I'll be quiet now.
Harry stops grinning when he sees his permission slip for Hogsmeade, since he’ll never convince the Dursleys to sign it. The kids lie throughout the books, but it doesn’t occur to Harry to forge a signature?
Heh.
Did the Dursleys actually give their permission for Harry to attend Hogwarts in the first place? Given as how they fled the country to try to escape the deluge of letters? And how Hagrid, in the end, kidnapped him?
If they won't sign a permission slip ... did they sign the paperwork sending him to the actual school?
Why doesnt Harry look into this?Why doesn't Hermione look into this?I assume Hermione’s thoughtful present is also showing that she does have Harry’s best interests at heart when she tattles about the Firebolt.
WAS THERE ANY DOUBT?
*is shocked at Magpie*
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 04:20 am (UTC)Actually the going theory is that she was murdered and buried in the forest at some point toward the end of OotP and an imposter took her place for the rest of the series.
But of course it might have happened anything up to a year earlier. No one was paying any attention to Ginny during Year 4 -- apart from Neville. So we can probably suppose that the real one lasted until after the Yule brawl. But she may not have made it past Easter break.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 04:25 am (UTC)Maybe the same person was behind the abduction of both girls. THIS PERSON MUST BE FOUND AND JUSTICE EXACTED for all the anguish we put up with in the last two books.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 04:56 am (UTC)He would have every incentive to keep Hermione from helping Harry. It would also help explain why Hermione refused to consider the possibility of Draco being up to something.
And Ginny could have been intended as a distraction. Isn't Ginny 2 an exaggerated stereotype of Gryffindorishness? Exactly how a Slytherin would visualize one? ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 05:06 am (UTC)Unfortunately the Hermione pod-person was given too much autonomy, made too much in the image of Hermione Granger, since over the summer after HBP she evolved and compensated for the loss of some of those brain cells. Sadly the neurons dedicated to the Dark Lord's programme could not be culled - she was still inexplicably attracted to Won Won throughout DH - but her 'helping Harry' genes proved stronger, driving her to stay with Harry rather than abandon him upon Ron's desertion.
The Ginny simulacrum, though, being a blank slate to start with, never recovered. Sadly, though, Harry either never noticed her change in personality (since he'd never noticed her before) or *liked* it. Voldemort had the last laugh when they married. :-)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 04:29 pm (UTC)This was also the motivation for the hatred on Snape's face when he finally offs Dumbledore three books later since he knows he's doing in the mastermind behind the dumbing down of the series and the entire WW.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 10:44 pm (UTC):-)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-31 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 03:22 pm (UTC)I was also a bit taken aback by how rudely Ron sometimes treats Hermione in this book--with Harry just sort of enjoying the benefits.
It is funny to think that the Dursleys would be given power of permission over Harry attending Hogsmeade, really. Given what we see of Dumbledore usually you'd think he would just file the special permission under making sure Harry had happy moments at Hogwarts.
WAS THERE ANY DOUBT?
LOL! God no. Not only is it obviously common sense, what other reason would she have for putting up with the crap she gets for it? I just thought the reason there was this specific gift here was to set up that Hermione is really supportive of Harry at Quidditch even though later she'll be accused of not caring about it. (Now I'm having flashbacks to one of Ginny's lowest moments, when she snaps the Hermione knows nothing about Quidditch--as if she hasn't watched every single game everyone else has with baited breath.)
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Date: 2010-01-30 04:35 pm (UTC)Yeees, it's rather disturbing and one of the reasons I am split between utter extremes when it comes to the characters, Ron in particular (in fact, most of the male characters in the HP series tbh). He's funny and cheeky - which I appreciate - but his disrespect towards Hermione and other young women becomes more than just a character flaw and turns into something really off-putting. My brother, for example, is hardly the paragon of feminist thinking, but being brought up with three sisters has at least taught him the value of holding his tongue/apologising (even if in sham)/insulting the next guy who comes along to make the girl feel less annoyed with him.
I can deal with stupid plotlines and such if the characters have some semblance of emotional evolution and depth. For JK Rowling, the kids just seemed to grow into soundbites and types (I hate hate hate that whole 'rational' character versus the 'spiritual' one especially when it turns out that the characters aren't even that rational or spiritual at all) which were often completely at odds with the bits of the 'real' character that occasionally managed to escape. It wasn't just bad, it was disturbing. And insulting too.
The more I think about it, so many of fandom's comparisons with the Marauders are completely off. Harry, especially in books 3 and 4, comes across as far more of a Lupin character than a Lily type, which, when one considers his childhood, is completely believable. But then what happens? He doesn't learn to stand up for himself, he learns to completely annihilate himself and any opportunity for personal growth to some ancient megalomanic's desires.
Give me Lyra Silvertongue any day (except for in the last book... but that's another thing entirely).
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Date: 2010-01-30 07:55 pm (UTC)By the time the letters were sent Sirius had just broken out of Azkaban. The permission slip business was Dumbledore's attempt to keep Harry out of Sirius' way. (Harry got both the photograph that triggered the breakout and the news of it belatedly because he wasn't following the Prophet.)
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Date: 2010-01-30 10:03 pm (UTC)It's never stated anywhere, but that idea makes sense!!
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Date: 2010-01-30 10:16 pm (UTC)I was -
- but in later chapters I'm sure there have been a few times where I wrote SOULMATES!
*gak*
Really?
No, really?
You've already found one or two chinks in my RON/HERMIONE WAS WRITTEN BADLY SO THERE armour over on Mike Smith's journal ... now you're going to try and set up Ginny as a - ugh - SOULMATE - over here?
Impossible. Even if (Brad starts setting up his retreat) HBP will cancel out anything you say about PoA now.
BRING IT ON!!
:-)
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Date: 2010-01-30 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 10:25 pm (UTC)fearawe of your canon acuity had me worried!I'll stand down and enjoy the forthcoming show! :-)
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Date: 2010-02-01 04:32 pm (UTC)Maybe in this book. In DH, she was the ANTI-SOULMATE! Or rather, Harry was. Geez. Can't get over that closing chapter where he's won the battle and he'd rather have a sandwich than even talk to Ginny or hug her.
I just finished my quest to watch all the Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes this weekend (it was a long quest, involving many weeks of waiting for library copies to come in), and now it strikes me as just plain weird how people in the Potterverse tend to end up dating/marrying in their own element.*
Maybe that's one reason why Bill and Fleur seem like the most successful canon pairing. He's associated with fire (like the rest of his family) and she's most associated with air. But of the main kids, Ron and Hermione are both fire, and so are Ginny and Harry. Meanwhile Draco presumably marries within the Slytherin House as well, since Astoria is the sister of his Housemate Daphne.
Only Neville breaks the mold by marrying a Hufflepuff--according to the interviews. And let's face it, Neville's practically a Hufflepuff himself. Probably the only reason he wasn't sorted into Hufflepuff was that it would have kept him too far from the main story.
*Not that most people in the Airbender's world don't marry their own. They are, after all, entire nations rather than school divisions. But when you look at the major characters, there's this wonderful notion that mixing the elements is far more interesting than segregating them.
Maybe that's one reason that people like to do alternate ships--from the idea that opposites attract. Like Draco/Hermione or Draco/Ginny (or Draco/Harry). Maybe that's why people were shippping Lily/Snape as far back as PoA. Opposite elements also carry the danger the annihilating each other (which makes it more exciting), but they are also more balanced and that's rather satisfying in a pairing.
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Date: 2010-02-01 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-01 08:13 pm (UTC)And yes, it's built into Aang's journey that he must learn to appreciate every element before he can master them, starting with the easiest, going to his natural opposite, and finally to the one that terrifies him.
But it was all set up there for Harry, too. We even had the setup of the elements out of balance and needing to be integrated (which goes along so nicely with a theme of "tolerance.") We had Harry having to find objects related to each of the other three founders--which could have meant learning about each element and internalizing them... why does this still bother me so much?????
It all turns out to have been backdrop. The elements were no more important to the theme than the school colors. In the end, Slytherin was defeated, contained, and then dismissed as a schoolboy taunt.
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Date: 2010-02-05 04:45 am (UTC)The ways Avatar did it better: Iroh figured out his own issues and worked through his painful epiphany moment (so he wasn't enslaved by Ozai via emotional abuse/blackmail) before he took on the role of mentoring Zuko. And Monk Gyatso actually meant it when he argued that Aang should be raised as a normal boy for as long as possible.
(Oh, the many, many ways I ♥ Avatar:TLA)
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Date: 2010-02-01 05:44 pm (UTC)How can anyone as introverted as Neville be a Hufflepuff? This is the kid who took Crabbe and Goyle up in a fist-fight in first year and wore bunny-slippers to boarding school in 3rd. Of course he is a Gryffindor. I admit he has more common sense than the typical Gryff.
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Date: 2010-02-01 08:16 pm (UTC)But why is Neville practically a Hufflepuff? Because he's modest and works hard, doesn't pick fights (even if he doesn't run away, either), and likes plants. And, like you say, he's got common sense. NOT a Gryffindor trait.