Harry is noble enough to warn Cedric about the dragons, but wouldn't have done so for Severus or Draco. Ah, you miss the sort of aristocratic mindset of these books. Just like an aristocrat would feel honour bound to play fair with another nobleman but wouldn't dream of abiding by the same rules towards, lets say, a tailor (they didn't really need to be paid whereas debts from card games (i.e. towards the social peer)had to be paid). Gryffindors and to a lesser degree their associates require this fair play. Slytherins don't.
Barty has an excellent understanding of the Gryffindor mind. I have no doubt Rowling meant Barty to have been in Slytherin because he was evil, so where else could he have been? But to me, he always came off as very Gryffindorish - very emphatically NOT out for his own gain but all for glory (in his Lord's eyes) and daring. In fact, he and Bella are a match made in hell.
What matters is Ron's realization that being a champion was really dangerous, which of course proves Harry didn't volunteer for this.Oh my,
( ... )
Did Barty say that about Fleur in the US version? Or was it in the movie?
In the UK edition he doesn't give her any undeserved praise.
I suppose other members who have speculated that JKR wasn't, as a general rule, wildly enthusiastic about writing girls and women unless they were authorial avatars or had a very specific purpose, are correct. Amos Diggory was annoying, but he did have a distinct personality. His wife didn't even have that.
I know Harry is nervous, but Rowling's description of the difficulties he has getting dressed is beyond silly.
Is he still wearing robes at this point or has it movd on to the quantum indeterminate clothing? Because if it's robes, he's been wearing them for three and a quarter(?) years now and they're really not the hardest of clothes to put on.
When Harry tries to concentrate his brain is filled with blank buzzing.
Strangely enough this reminds me of the equally repugnant Sue Anita Blake and her descriptions of the white static she sees whenever she psychs herself up to kill people. And for the record, I have on many occasions had trouble concentrating and it's never manifested as a blank buzzing, it's manifested as my mind not focusing on whatever it should be but instead slipping away onto more interesting things. Does Harry simply have nothing interesting to think about?
'Moody' will not help Harry cheat, no way! He will only hint. Heavily. Repeatedly. So given that all the champions have received inside information from their
( ... )
The buzzing makes me wonder whether someone has cast a mental version of Muffliato on Harry so he can't focus until they decide to take it off. Or for that matter, an Imperius curse much more subtle than the one "Moody" demonstrated, and he was ordered not to focus well until a certain point for some reason?
I guess whenever we don't see her she is out there, being popular.
*snort*
Yeah, the whole awesome!Ginny thing was really quite a failure, wasn't it? Rowling wanted her to come out of nowhere and win Harry's heart in a big surprise ... but she tried to retcon that 'nowhere' as something else when it came time to implement her big H/G reveal in book 6. Which was one of the reasons the whole thing was too contrived to take seriously.
Why can't Rowling come up with ways to learn where the teacher's presence actually means something?
Because then she'd have to devise some sort of method behind her magic, a scheme of magical mechanics. And we know that Rowling is completely hopeless at anything like that. So that's why there's never the slightest hint of what makes her magic *work*. Which would be necessary to then proceed to show how the professors *teach* it.
What matters is Ron's realization that being a champion was really dangerous, which of course proves Harry didn't volunteer for this. (How exactly? ...)Yeah, I thought the
( ... )
So that's why there's never the slightest hint of what makes her magic *work*. Which would be necessary to then proceed to show how the professors *teach* it.
And here I always thought that I had missed something and that there was really a very logical explanation for her magic in-universe.
Nope. (You were being sarcastic, right? :-)) I doubt Rowling ever even thought of providing an 'explanation' or even noticed that anything was missing.
As always I'll tout Diane Duane's young adult 'Young Wizards' series as a far superior work which *does* put some effort into the 'mechanics' of the magic. And as a result - one of the results - the reader gets a real sense of the 'power' required for spells, the energy expended, the limits to which a wizard might go. In Rowling's books there was never any such 'realism' - from Harry up it was all a case of you say some words and wave your wand and hey presto. The Patronus was practically the only exception - maybe Apparation another?
It's a real pity that a touch of 'realism' was never incorporated within the HP series, but Rowling just isn't that sort of person at all, it's just not in her mentality. "Oh, maths!". Also linked to her intent not to paint Harry as a 'powerful' wizard too, of course.
No, I was definitely kidding. Actually, the sad thing is that when I first started writing fantasy, as a result of seeing this precedent I thought it was normal to never have any explanation of how magic worked and wrote accordingly. *blushes*
"I'm surprised that Viktor is the champion Harry is tied with when he was the only contestant whose strategy caused damage to the dragon's own eggs. Based on Ron's commentary I's say Fleur did the best of the other three."
Tell me about it. If we were supposed to think of the wizarding society as being institutionally sexist, it would actually make perfect sense- they might want to grade a girl lower if there was wiggle room. But Rowling would have us believe that wizarding society is MORE feminist than the real world, not less!
Fleur also got the smallest and cutest dragon, as you said. I could sort of understand their wanting to give lower scores to the students who dealt with smaller dragons, but then why get four different dragons? Couldn't they have all contestants face off against the same type of small, cute dragons (or big, scary ones)?
Regarding the scoring: We know exactly which score each of the 5 judges gave Harry. Viktor has an equal score of 40. I'm assuming Igor gave him a 10, which means the other 4 either gave him twice 8 and twice 7 or one of them (Bagman, my guess) gave him a 6 and the other 3 gave him 8 each. Any other combination would require at least one judge to give him at least 9, which I don't see happening considering everyone's biases.
We know Cedric scored 2 points less than Harry because in the second task he caught up with Harry after scoring 2 points more than him. So Cedric got 38 points, despite not having a single judge biased in his favor.
We don't know how much Fleur scored in this task, except that it was less than what Harry (and Viktor) scored. For all we know she scored one point less than Harry (ie one more than Cedric). She scored so low in the second task that however high her first task score may have been no longer mattered. I'm guessing Olympe gave her 10 points and the rest three 7s and one 8.
Good point about the dragons- it seems like it would be pretty hard to grade objectively if they were all facing different dragons. But maybe the point is to show off all of the awesome worldbuilding she has done?
Comments 25
Ah, you miss the sort of aristocratic mindset of these books. Just like an aristocrat would feel honour bound to play fair with another nobleman but wouldn't dream of abiding by the same rules towards, lets say, a tailor (they didn't really need to be paid whereas debts from card games (i.e. towards the social peer)had to be paid). Gryffindors and to a lesser degree their associates require this fair play. Slytherins don't.
Barty has an excellent understanding of the Gryffindor mind.
I have no doubt Rowling meant Barty to have been in Slytherin because he was evil, so where else could he have been? But to me, he always came off as very Gryffindorish - very emphatically NOT out for his own gain but all for glory (in his Lord's eyes) and daring. In fact, he and Bella are a match made in hell.
What matters is Ron's realization that being a champion was really dangerous, which of course proves Harry didn't volunteer for this.Oh my, ( ... )
Reply
Reply
In the UK edition he doesn't give her any undeserved praise.
I suppose other members who have speculated that JKR wasn't, as a general rule, wildly enthusiastic about writing girls and women unless they were authorial avatars or had a very specific purpose, are correct. Amos Diggory was annoying, but he did have a distinct personality. His wife didn't even have that.
Reply
Reply
Is he still wearing robes at this point or has it movd on to the quantum indeterminate clothing? Because if it's robes, he's been wearing them for three and a quarter(?) years now and they're really not the hardest of clothes to put on.
When Harry tries to concentrate his brain is filled with blank buzzing.
Strangely enough this reminds me of the equally repugnant Sue Anita Blake and her descriptions of the white static she sees whenever she psychs herself up to kill people. And for the record, I have on many occasions had trouble concentrating and it's never manifested as a blank buzzing, it's manifested as my mind not focusing on whatever it should be but instead slipping away onto more interesting things. Does Harry simply have nothing interesting to think about?
'Moody' will not help Harry cheat, no way! He will only hint. Heavily. Repeatedly. So given that all the champions have received inside information from their ( ... )
Reply
Reply
*snort*
Yeah, the whole awesome!Ginny thing was really quite a failure, wasn't it? Rowling wanted her to come out of nowhere and win Harry's heart in a big surprise ... but she tried to retcon that 'nowhere' as something else when it came time to implement her big H/G reveal in book 6. Which was one of the reasons the whole thing was too contrived to take seriously.
Why can't Rowling come up with ways to learn where the teacher's presence actually means something?
Because then she'd have to devise some sort of method behind her magic, a scheme of magical mechanics. And we know that Rowling is completely hopeless at anything like that. So that's why there's never the slightest hint of what makes her magic *work*. Which would be necessary to then proceed to show how the professors *teach* it.
What matters is Ron's realization that being a champion was really dangerous, which of course proves Harry didn't volunteer for this. (How exactly? ...)Yeah, I thought the ( ... )
Reply
And here I always thought that I had missed something and that there was really a very logical explanation for her magic in-universe.
Reply
As always I'll tout Diane Duane's young adult 'Young Wizards' series as a far superior work which *does* put some effort into the 'mechanics' of the magic. And as a result - one of the results - the reader gets a real sense of the 'power' required for spells, the energy expended, the limits to which a wizard might go. In Rowling's books there was never any such 'realism' - from Harry up it was all a case of you say some words and wave your wand and hey presto. The Patronus was practically the only exception - maybe Apparation another?
It's a real pity that a touch of 'realism' was never incorporated within the HP series, but Rowling just isn't that sort of person at all, it's just not in her mentality. "Oh, maths!". Also linked to her intent not to paint Harry as a 'powerful' wizard too, of course.
Reply
Reply
Tell me about it. If we were supposed to think of the wizarding society as being institutionally sexist, it would actually make perfect sense- they might want to grade a girl lower if there was wiggle room. But Rowling would have us believe that wizarding society is MORE feminist than the real world, not less!
Fleur also got the smallest and cutest dragon, as you said. I could sort of understand their wanting to give lower scores to the students who dealt with smaller dragons, but then why get four different dragons? Couldn't they have all contestants face off against the same type of small, cute dragons (or big, scary ones)?
Reply
We know Cedric scored 2 points less than Harry because in the second task he caught up with Harry after scoring 2 points more than him. So Cedric got 38 points, despite not having a single judge biased in his favor.
We don't know how much Fleur scored in this task, except that it was less than what Harry (and Viktor) scored. For all we know she scored one point less than Harry (ie one more than Cedric). She scored so low in the second task that however high her first task score may have been no longer mattered. I'm guessing Olympe gave her 10 points and the rest three 7s and one 8.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment