Chapter 24 - Sectumsempra
Harry tells Ron and Hermione about the horcruxes during charms. Ron is so astounded that he makes it snow which leads to the first time JKR uses a non-aggressive adverb in describing Hermione talking to Ron. SCORE! Of course, Lavender can tell that Hermione is talking "patiently" instead of snapping, berating, or otherwise belittling Ron and she
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Nice! I never thought there was a problem, though; because (a) I didn't see any problem with an Imperius spell being transitive in its application, and (b) I'd assumed that the person casting the Imperius on Rosemerta likewise cast it on Katie, once she was manoeuvred into the right spot. In any case, no 'crazy feedback', since there's no cycle or loop in the chain of spells - Katie wasn't casting Imperius in turn.
Did anyone actually care about Quidditch in this book?
No. I felt I was supposed to, but did not. Anticlimatic, really, how Harry was knocked out of one match and wasn't present for the final. But it served to grant Ginny her "hard, blazing look" which attracted Harry (and his monster) so at the right time.
Ah, Sectumsempra. Now that's a curse. Is it a sign of Snape's loyalty to the Order that the DEs at the DoM never even came close to using it?
Magic in JKR's world really bugs me sometimes, how often if you're in a predicament it's just a case of finding some obtuse spell out of a dusty tome to utter and save the day. In HBP we have the unheard of Felix Felices potion - which every Auror near you should have in his utility belt ready for a crisis - and now this spell of Snape's. The whole thing seemed a bit contrived to me, Harry could have used oodles of other spells I would have thought.
This is really one of those scenes that makes me wonder why these folks are the good guys.
Well, they're not perfect, but they're gooder than the not-so-good guys?
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Oh, by the time we found out about Rosemerta I'd forgotten about Katie actually being under Imperius herself, so I just assumed it was all by Draco. Looking at it here, it seems like it was probably Rosemerta. Which is . . . odd, since you usually don't suppose mind-controlled zombies retain declarative knowledge. Although, I suppose we could get into a deeply nerdy conversation about whether spell casting is declarative knowledge or procedural knowledge, when you take into consideration that silent casting seems to rely on the cast channeling the emotions and power necessary for the spell without thinking about it very much.
The whole thing seemed a bit contrived to me, Harry could have used oodles of other spells I would have thought.
Harry's use of the spell is kinda interesting to me. It seems to be reflecting his arc of darkening through the series. He wants to kill Sirius in PoA, he fantasizes about torturing Snape in GoF, he actually tortures Bella in OotP, and then he rips Draco's face off in HBP. As the books go on Harry, rather than becoming firmer in his moral resolve, is actually becoming more and more casual about the use of violence. So, while Harry could have used a different spell here (and against the Inferi), I think it actually says something about him that he doesn't.
The DEs though? Not so much. Same with Ginny and her ubiquitous Bat-Bogey Hex. I don't like that the spells which should have been known to characters who grew up in the universe are as new to them as they are to Harry. Lack of planning on JKR's part.
Well, they're not perfect, but they're gooder than the not-so-good guys?
Meh. Depends on the set of people we're talking about. The kids are better than the Death Eaters, and better than Voldemort. The Order is marginally better than the DEs. Are the "good" kids better than the bad ones though? Crabbe and Goyle show a lot of loyalty and devotion to Draco, far more than Ron and Hermione display in this book. When Draco is injured, Pansy flees to his side. Hermione didn't do that for either boy, and Ron clearly doesn't care that he hurt Lavender. What Draco does in this book isn't a heck of a lot worse than what Ginny did in CoS. How much free will did he have? He was under duress, threatened with death and probably the deaths of his parents. A confession under those circumstances wouldn't hold up in court, so how much of his actions can you truly prosecute him for? Obviously he should have come to Dumbledore and asked for help, but Dumbledore hasn't been the slightest bit interested in making sure his door is open to the Slytherin students. Draco had options, but he didn't think he did, which was pretty much just as bad as not having them at all for him.
But, big actions of nearly getting everyone in the school killed aside, I think that you shouldn't judge the characters off of their Big Moments alone. How good a person is Snape if he saves the world one in a while, but is an utter bastard every other day of the year? Not that good, imho. It's gotta be both. And I think the good guys really fall down when it comes to day to day goodness this chapter.
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EXACTLY!!!! Thanks, great to read someone summarising my feelings so much better!
Crabbe and Goyle show a lot of loyalty and devotion to Draco, far more than Ron and Hermione display in this book.
Ah, but Crabbe and Goyle are unthinking zombies, just slavishly following Draco around, not *actively* trying to go out of their way to help him at all. Whereas Hermione and Ron have always helped Harry, they've *partcipated* in assisting him to solve all his problems, they've .... hold on ... oh. HBP. Right. Sorry.
You have the right of it after all.
Sigh.
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I think these things really have to be judged within a similar context. Crabbe and Goyle's loyalty was significant throughout the year in which Draco was suffering his emotional/personality crisis. But as was Ron and Hermione's during the year in which Harry was suffering his. Whereas they are currently having more problems (um, if romantic problems are to be taken seriously) during this year, the situation turns so that it's his loyalty to them that's significant.
When Draco is injured, Pansy flees to his side. Hermione didn't do that for either boy
Harry in PoA (where she cried when he fell off his broom, and both she and Ron spent the entire weekend with him in the hospital wing) and Ron in HBP.
Okay, now that I've gotten the nitpickiness out of my system, that's an interesting point that was made about Ginny and Draco (I love how those two keep getting paralleled in fandom post-HBP! Hell, think it could be intentional?). You're right; in a way, they both might as well have been under Imperius, for all the choice they had.
The only thing I can think of to counter this is that Draco's straits were relatively self-inflicted, whereas Ginny's were non-existent. Of course, the threat of death to yourself and your whole family hanging over certainly influences any final choices you will have to make, but Ginny didn't even have this choice. It's arguable that had she been given the choice, knowing how virtuous a character she is supposed to be, she would have preferred death over injuring the students she did. Um, to explain further, Draco was being forced on pain of death to murder someone he didn't care about in the least, and in doing so ended up nearly killing people whom he possibly felt guilty over, but didn't really care about. Given the choice between said people and his family, it was clear who was going to win out.
Whereas with Ginny, there wasn't even this marginal choice: she was being used to attack people like her brother's best friend and her other brother's girlfriend...directly hurting her family, in other words. If this choice would have existed at all in this situation, it would probably have been between herself and her family, which is why I'm assuming that her family would have won out over herself.
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True, but I'm not so much trying to demonstrate the moral superiority of the Slytherin kids as the equability. It probably is overstating it to say that Draco's friends are more loyal than Harry's. I do think they are no less loyal, though.
Of course, the threat of death to yourself and your whole family hanging over certainly influences any final choices you will have to make, but Ginny didn't even have this choice.
Actually, we don't know for sure that she didn't have a choice. CoS never adequately explains why Ginny stole the diary back from Harry. Riddle says that Ginny stole it back because she was afraid that Riddle was going to spill all of her secrets to Harry. Unfortunately, he's an unreliable narrator. On the other hand, Riddle gladly takes credit to everything else terrible he's done, and seems genuinely annoyed that Ginny took the diary back -- so, that may be when Ginny did make a choice in the matter. She apparently chose that keeping her secrets from Harry was more important than the lives of students. Which, actually, puts her on a lower level than Draco. She's much younger, so she may not have understood the ramifications, one can argue. But she knew enough to throw it away in the first place. Makes me think that perhaps the Weasleys weren't misguided for their stern reaction at the end of the novel.
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Another really good point, one I can't believe I haven't even considered before. There is a bit too much that we don't know (and at this point, are unlikely to never find out). I saw a fanfiction once that suitably explained Ginny's reasons for stealing back the diary, one of which being that she didn't want the same thing that happened to her to happen to Harry. Which, considering Harry's susceptibility to any personification of an older male figure to fill the role of father (ie, the HBP book), wasn't entirely unlikely, and would explain at least part of Tom's fury with Ginny for stealing back the diary. (For everything he said about wanting to find out more about Harry, the one session of interaction they had before the Chamber was all about Tom's making Harry trust him, as he had made Ginny trust him.)
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Which is really totally beside the point. Ginny stole the book back and then wrote in it again. I don't think that wanting to keep Harry from being possessed explains the second part. The only way I can explain it without blaming Ginny is if we assume that the diary was addictive in some way, but that's still an extra-textual explanation. From the text it seems to be laid out straightforwardly that she stole it because she didn't want Harry to know her secrets, and then she wrote in it again to confirm that Riddle hadn't told on her.
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