Chapter Eleven -- The Bribe

[gehayi]

oblivionhold said she couldn't do all three chapters, so I'm doing Chapter 11, erastes is doing Chapter 12, and oblivionhold is doing Chapter 13.

In which Harry reads the newspaper repeatedly, Lupin sounds like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Harry advises Lupin on his love life, Kreacher plays "bad cop," and the illogic becomes overwhelming.

Chapter Eleven -- The

Comments

[sistermagpie]

God, this chapter just starts to put into a nutshell what a bad idea it was for JKR to try to write WAR here. As you say, the actual bad things happening are hardly addressed. Who cares about Muggleborns when Harry doesn't know if Dumbledore loved him a hundred years before he was born

[gehayi]

Who cares about Muggleborns when Harry doesn't know if Dumbledore loved him a hundred years before he was born?

Not Rowling, that's for damned sure. Drives me mad, it does.

Everybody at the Ministry's just happily going along with this "stealing magic" idea even though no, it really doesn't make sense (and when Ron says something doesn't make sense it must be really obvious it doesn't make sense).I think that Rowling's mirroring the illogical claims against the Jews in pre-war Germany

[shyfoxling]

I am convinced beyond words that Remus knocked her up and married her because it was the honorable thing to do.

If you calculate back from Teddy's birth, isn't the probable conception date suspiciously close to their getting married? Not that no one ever conceives children on their wedding night, but I'm with you.

The Terrible Timeline

[gehayi]

Well, Tonks told Harry on the night of July 27th, according to the Lexicon, that she and Remus had gotten married. The Lexicon is also saying that the wedding took place sometime in July--I'd say early to mid-July

[bronze_ribbons]

This is the chapter that defeated me. Up until I looked up Lupin's exact words in it, I had insisted that even if carpet!book turned out to be the real thing, I would go ahead and buy a copy and school myself to enjoy it for what it was rather than what I'd (realistically, crack!OTPs aside) hoped it would be.

Then I checked out the "I, Remus John..." passages for myself, and I couldn't deal with it anymore. Not only because it sounds like bad Bronte (and I don't even like GOOD Bronte), but because it is utterly STUPID AND POINTLESS for all the reasons you spell out.

Remus silently casts a spell that sends Harry slamming into the kitchen wall. YAY!Hee

[gehayi]

What crack OTPs, may I ask? *approves of rarepairs*

Then I checked out the "I, Remus John..." passages for myself, and I couldn't deal with it anymore. Not only because it sounds like bad Bronte (and I don't even like GOOD Bronte), but because it is utterly STUPID AND POINTLESS for all the reasons you spell out.

He also sounds exactly like Snape in HBP. I've been told by English friends that both of them sound like the Demon King in a Christmas pantomime.

Not nice of either of us, I'm sure, but honestly, authorial intention IS NOT ENOUGH and pisses me off all the more when it's fairly blatant how I'm supposed to react.

Oh, God, yes! I hate being told how to feel. Just tell me what happened, author. I can decide for myself how it makes me feel.

So many of my friends actually like this book that it's reassuring to see other people articulating (more thoroughly, clearly, and snarkily than I can) why it disappointed me so.

Oh, you're welcome! I'm glad that the snark is helping. It's such an annoying book.

[bronze_ribbons]

*points to icon* I pretty much ship the Giant Squid and the Whomping Willow with anyone (including each other). I may have been the only person distraught when the US DH cover was released because the tree looked like it had gotten hit...

(I'm also devoted to Snape/Lupin and Tonks/Ginny, so yeah, I had extra reason to hope there would be more to Tonks/Lupin than emo-morph/wimpy-were. I didn't expect to despise the pairing even more. I used to claim I could write around anything canonical (hell, that's half of the fun where I'm concerned), but it's become such a expositionary headache establishing which parts of canon are "true" for any fic that's not outright AU that it's making writing Prydain non-con (*) look comparatively relaxing

[gehayi]

However, even though I will happily spend hours concocting Byzantine variations of fanon, I object to having to twist my brain into Gordian pretzels to make sense of canon.)

Amen to that. Canon should make sense on its own. No fan or fanficcer should have to twist herself in mental knots to make it work!

[asphodeline]

Ugh, I really, really had forgotten how awful this was. The Lupin part was terrible and very irresponsible in the way he was portrayed discussing Tonks in the way he did.

Suddenly in this final book, Rowling has become queen of the infodump.

[urbandruid]

You know, I'd forgotten- blocked out, is more like it- just how terrible this chapter was. This spork is excellent, and hits all the high (low?) points. I just... I'm boggled by the number of sporkworthy things in this book. The OOC characters. The continuity errors. The logic which isn't very logical... ARGH!

The Remus/Tonks thing read to me as JKR going "Hmm, I know I paired them up in the last book but I don't really like that anymore..." But then I thought the ship was pretty random to start with.

[anitaray]

Oh Geyahi, thank you for this marvellous sporkage! (BTW: I know you and erastes have a lot of chapters to do yet, and I only have two - Chapters 30 and 31. If you want to pass some of the others on to me I'd be more than happy to do them.)

Kreacher doesn't come back in a hurry, which immediately made me figure that he was off betraying the Trio to Narcissa and Bellatrix.

Oh, God, yes!! But heaven forbid this book become slightly *interesting*, oh no, we must save as much pagespace as possible for that f*cking camping trip...

You are SO SO SO spot on about Lupin. He's just all emo and wimpy and completely ineffectual. I can't believe this is the same cool guy who once stuck gum up Peeves's nose. :'( What is WITH the affected speech (and you're right, he sounds exactly as weird as Snape suddenly sounded in HBP), "It is I!" and "He has sown doubt and fear among many who would defend you" and "We shall peruse this epistle penned by Lord Humphrey presently". *gag*

Hermione, who was whiling away the wait for Kreacher by studying The

[erastes]

*dies giggling*

Yes - that's funny, I was thinking exactly the same kind of thing yesterday that DD couldn't possibly have imagined all the bizarre things that related to create an ending.

And I wish I'd seen this volunteering before I nearly killed myself doing the next chapter!

Thank you for putting yourself in the firing line, we may well be calling on you!

[jodel_from_aol]

Don't forget that they will eventually sneak into the chruchyard at Godric's Hollow and see the symbol on Ignotus Peverill's grave.

[rattyrayvn]

God, there was SO much potential in this book. I liked OotP because of all the politics going on - now here we have a full-scale war, and hardly any attempt to make us pity the civilian victims. And a chance to show a couple that doesn't work out, something you hardly ever see (except in HBP - NEEDS MOAR SNOGGING!)...

I must be one of the few people in HP fandom who never paid much attention to Remus, but his 'dramatic' entry made me laugh. Maybe there's a magical disease that makes you talk like a nineteenth-century novel.

And you have a damn good point there, at the end. I'm guilty of the odd extraordinary coincidence in a fic, but only in tiny 'verses, where it's less WTF. What we're seeing here is an attempt to create a century-and-continent-spanning fantasy epic full of history, and it just doesn't work.