Chapter Twenty-Seven - The Final Hiding Place

[erastes]

In which JKR proves that she can even make dragon riding dull, Voldemort kills more than the messenger and Harry makes (yet) another stupid decision

Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Final Hiding Place

Comments

[smurasaki]

There's another little problem with the dragon ride. Now, I know she doesn't make it clear exactly how high they are, but as you gain altitude, not only does it get colder, but you start to get low on oxygen. Now, it's been way too long since my couple of rides in a little Cessna, but I don't recall the plane being heated or terribly cold. Sure, in a plane you're out of the wind, but it still adds to my confusion about this dragon flight. I'm not sure how much higher than a small (non-pressurized) plane an animal, especially one that's likely cold-blooded, would fly. But I do have this funny feeling that if you get too far into cold air, you're also going to be getting into thin air. (And, for another airplane comparison, that British pilot who was sucked halfway out of the cockpit back in 1990 passed out from lack of oxygen and cold...hell, they thought he was dead...and the co-pilot got the plane down to safe oxygen height pretty quickly

[puzzlement]

I can't find good figures for this. Pressurised commercial aircraft seem to cruise at about 10000m altitude, where the outside temperature is about -52℃. So, they can't have been that high. A very small number people have stowed away in the landing gear of commercial jets and lived through a flight, but most die and are found when their bodies cause the landing gear to jam.

In the case of the Trio I suspect they must have been under 3000 metres above sea level, because 3000-5000 metres is the point where lack of oxygen leads to the onset of mild to moderate altitude sickness in people who are acclimatised to sea level and none of them have vicious headaches or start to vomit.

[puzzlement]

Actually while I'm on the subject, they also can't be that high because otherwise their steep ascent would give them the bends as well, and we don't have sore joints for days or seizures on their part...

[smurasaki]

Hm. A quick search of cloud types suggest that you can't get anything that might fit what she described below 2,000 meters. So...we now know that the Trio was somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 meters high. I wonder if that's high enough for a dragon not to be blindingly obvious to people on the ground. Which is, of course, the other problem with their mode of transportation. (Beside the fact that it should've eaten them.)

[ellecain]

And please. WHY HAS NO-ONE SPOTTED THE BIG DRAGON?

OMG, yes! Given that wizards use brooms routinely, you think they would have some sort of Air Traffic control, or at least the aerial version of the Coast Guard, with brooms on hand to chase criminals, but no! But I get it, wizards are stupid, we know, I didn't expect them to, really.

But Muggles? Hell, we've got airports with 747 jets, helicopters galore, we've got RADAR - why the hell weren't Muggles chasing the dragon? Wouldn't they have shot down the dragon, tranquilize it? It was a UFO, a freakin huge dragon, a threat to national security for that matter! And no Muggles noticed it?Wizarding incompetence I can excuse, but now the Muggles are dumbed down too?

Also, why didn't the dragon smash into planes or even birds? (it's blind, remember?) Aaargh!

*goes back to lurking (as sporkage = not good for my blood pressure)*

[erastes]

It's true, radar would have picked it up. English airspace is incredibly crowded, considering the size of the island - unless we are using the "Muggles can't see it because it's magic" excuse which I'm not falling for. I can beleive it for the Knight Bus because it's a charmed object able to leap from place to place and cause objects to leap out of its way.

However, if people could spot a little bitty blue Anglia in a blue sky which flickered in and out of vision, there's no WAY they'd miss this. *Infuriated*

[gehayi]

I'd like to know how Voldemort managed to forget that he didn't kill Double-D, seeing as how that was what blew Snape's cover and forced him out of his position as Voldemort's spy on the Order and all.

And yes, why has no one spotted the dragon? You know, I can remember a poem (pre-9/11) by Richard L. Wexelblat called "The Dragon over Hackensack, which describes the probable response of humans to an actual dragon:

Unexpectedly, a red dragon appeared over Hackensack, New Jersey

[erastes]

Perhaps JKR was setting it up for later when VM tells Harry that he killed DD - I don't know - any idea of this book making any sense at all died a while back. Chapter 2, I think.

Great poem, btw - love it. There's no way the dragon wouldn't have been seen, going on the shadow evidence and the slowness of the flight, especially.

[lonewolf_eburg]

And I just love Voldemort murdering his supporters randomly. Maybe this is an effort by JKR to remind us how Eeevil Voldemort actually is? If so, she overdid it a bit. Voldemort cames off as some boring maniac that escaped from the asylum... The villain must have some complexity, after all. The way he is characterized in this chapter, I don't know how he did attract his first Death Eater in the first place.

[erastes]

I can (almost) see his magic getting away from him as if he was a child, but we have to told that once a wizard has a wand that doesn't happen (unless he's like Ariana and it's not controlled, which we know isn't true). To randomly kill people just for such news is completely idiotic, i'd be angrier that they waited so long to tell me, to be honest, and i'd be killing Goblins, not Death Eaters!

[guardians_song]

"unless he's like Ariana and it's not controlled, which we know isn't true"

Funny you should say that... I have a theory on how he manages to have ANY supporters...

http://guardians-song.livejournal.com/19031.html

>_>

[lonewolf_eburg]

Seriously, I just can't stand Voldemort. He is the most one-dimensional character in the whole series... His idiocy and incompetency (which is meant to be seen as his Eeevilness) bugs me much more then dragon-riding logic contradictions...

[shadowkittykat_]

"Don't tell me he's the next Time Lord?"

I, I, oh gods. I stopped for a second, and imagined that, and ... I think a little part of me died. Can you imagine how horribly incompetent he would be?! Going around, trying to save worlds, ending up with his companions dead and planets in worse shape than they were before. I mean, sure, Real!Doctor is Chaotic Good at best, and tends to leave a fiery wake, but he also has averted many apocalypses. He's useful as well as destructive, kinda like a really pretty battering ram. But TL!Harry... is there a Sociopathic Good alignment? Cause that sounds a bit like him. It's true. He's a complete sociopath. Other people are furniture. And giving a petulant child like him all the power of a god...

*shudders in a corner*

Excellent spork, darling!

[erastes]

It just doesn't bear thinking about. However I wish that the Doctor would take Harry as an Assistant. I would love to hear him insult the stupid pratt.

Thank you!!

[shadowkittykat_]

And now, I have visions of 1st-episode-Rose!Harry. and then the eventual UST. lol.

I've always loved your sporks :) Always right to the point and merciless (and hilarious :])

[logansrogue]

Hmm. Ramming Doctor. *leer*