Deathly Hallows uberwank: Chapter 4, The Seven Potters
Yay! A chapter with some action! Bring it on!
The chapter begins with Harry, alone in the house, carrying out a bit of a greatest hits tour, pointing out such sights as the cupboard where he used to sleep and the doormat Dudley puked on once. This bit seems to take the place of that sequence we'd often get in earlier books, talking about how Harry is a very special boy who enjoys going to school and doing his homework - because he's a wizard!
Harry finishes his recap of the house when he hears a bunch of noises. Turns out it's the Rebel Alliance Order of the Phoenix showing up to escort Harry to a safe place. It's a bit of a high school reunion all round, with recap elements in case you've forgotten who anyone is. The cast of characters is as follows:
Oh... wait.
News is swapped, including the fact that Lupin and Tonks got... ugh... married. Tonks is wearing a ring that "glitters", which raises the obvious question: where the fuck did Remus Lupin get the money for bling? I can only conclude that it came from Claire's Accessories and is either cubic zirconia or possibly even one of those enormous chunky plastic things like I used to wear to sixth form when I was 17 and going through my Manic Street Preachers fan phase. Either that or it's a real diamond, but he got it on credit and it gets repossessed the day after this scene takes place.
Harry congratulates Tonks, then Moody provides some exposition which is fairly dull. Fred and George make some "hilarious" Chuckle Brothers-style gags. Moody continues to explain the plan, which goes like this: Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Fleur, and Mundungus will be polyjuicing up as Harry. Tonks, despite being the Mystique of the Potterverse, able to assume any appearance she chooses at will, is not going to act as a Harry decoy. One could fanwank that it's because she's a badass Auror and is therefore more suited to being a protector than a clone, or because she's up the pole by this stage and shapeshifting isn't possible when you're pregnant or something, but whatever. The fact that she doesn't use her powers in this scene - where her Metamorphmagus abilities would have put her in her element - only serves to underline what a truly pointless character she is and how truly Sue-ish those powers are.
I slate Tonks a lot but what I really feel is this - what a total waste of a potentially really cool, important, and interesting character.
Meanwhile, back in the present, Harry wangsts about not wanting to donate any of his hair to the polyjuice potion, but backs down after about three seconds. His hair is added to the potion, which turns "clear, bright gold". Hermione says the potion looks "tastier" than the Crabbe and Goyle ones they made way back in book 2, but the Harry potion has just been described as bearing at least a passing resemblance to urine, so I think this bit kind of raises more questions than it answers. They all drink the potion from shot glasses, which Lupin gazes at longingly. Oh, how the wine talks!
So. The clones, as they will be referred to, are paired up with a badass Auror each. The pairs are thus:
The clone Harrys are kitted out with rucksacks and stuffed owls. The owl thing is really stupid. They could just let Hedwig out and she could find them whenever. She's done that before, as have many owls in this series. But she has to die in a minute in order to provide us with the first Random Tragic War Death Of Someone Harry Loves of the book, so in her cage she stays.
Outside, my OTPs board their brooms and thestrals and, in the case of Harry and Hagrid, Sirius' old flying bike. (The bike has a sidecar, which is more or less the lamest thing I have ever heard. I don't think it's mentioned explicitly, but the implication seems to be that Arthur fitted the sidecar. I sure hope so, as I don't want Sirius to be the kind of person whose bike has a sidecar.) Harry goes in the sidecar, where even he is aware he looks like a tit. Hagrid wears goggles, but Harry doesn't get any because he's a knob. Meanwhile, Ron mounts Tonks... er, that is, he mounts the broom behind Tonks, and holds her by the tits. She doesn't seem to mind. I might be making this bit up. Then it's time for takeoff!
RED LEADER: All wings report in.
RED TEN: Red Ten standing by.
RED SEVEN: Red Seven standing by.
BIGGS: Red Three standing by.
PORKINS: Red Six standing by.
RED NINE: Red Nine standing by.
WEDGE: Red Two standing by.
RED ELEVEN: Red Eleven standing by.
LUKE: Red Five standing by.
RED LEADER: Lock S-foils in attack position.
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
They set out, but - well, I think Admiral Ackbar says it best.
As we already knew, the Death Eaters are in on this one, and indeed, there they are, right above the house, waiting for the clones. A fuckoff battle commences and for all my cynicism, it's pretty badass. There is actually stuff going on. I keep trying to read it, looking for stuff to criticise, but it's sufficiently exciting that I lose track of what I'm doing and get caught up in the action. It's almost exactly opposite to my experience of reading Chapter 2. The only bit that - for me - really jars is that Hedwig dies, which feels a bit gratuitous, like how that labrador survives the alien attack in Independence Day.
I won't bother giving a detailed breakdown of the action, because there's lots of it. Highlights, though: Harry loses a tooth, there's a Die Hard-style action sequence involving a levitating sidecar, Hagrid proves how incompetant he is by fucking the sidecar up (I know Hagrid is supposed to be a well-loved character and stuff, but that was a pretty stupid decision that someone made, to have the real Harry protected by someone who isn't allowed to do magic and has never been properly trained in it), and Harry's wand acts of its own accord to pwn Voldemort. Well, he reckons the wand acts on its own, but we all know Harry is using the Force, right? Oh, and also, Voldemort can fly of his own accord without a broom or anything, which is kind of funny. I imagine him flying through the air with all the grace of, say, a glove puppet.
Finally, the chapter ends on a remarkably subdued note as Harry lands in a pond. So it goes.
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The chapter begins with Harry, alone in the house, carrying out a bit of a greatest hits tour, pointing out such sights as the cupboard where he used to sleep and the doormat Dudley puked on once. This bit seems to take the place of that sequence we'd often get in earlier books, talking about how Harry is a very special boy who enjoys going to school and doing his homework - because he's a wizard!
Harry finishes his recap of the house when he hears a bunch of noises. Turns out it's the Rebel Alliance Order of the Phoenix showing up to escort Harry to a safe place. It's a bit of a high school reunion all round, with recap elements in case you've forgotten who anyone is. The cast of characters is as follows:
- Ron. His defining characteristic is that he is tall.
- Hermione. Her defining characteristic is that she has big hair.
- Fred and George. Helpfully, we are reminded that they are identical twins, which was useful for me, as I'd forgotten they were separate people.
- Bill, who has long hair.
- Mr "Arthur" Weasley. He is bald. Why are all these people being defined by their hair?
- Mad-Eye Moody, who has a mad eye and is a bit moody. People sometimes ask him how he got his name, but nobody really knows. It's one of life's mysteries.
- Tonks, who has pink hair. By the way, why do so many people assume Tonks is a punk? When I see her put a safety pin through her ear and spit on a policeman while yelling, "fackin' anarchy!", then I'll call her a punk. Her hair colour doesn't make her a punk, since she can change it back to a normal colour at will. Her having pink hair is no more hardcore than those kids who buy novelty coloured hairspray from a joke/costume shop on a Saturday, but have washed the colour out for school on Monday morning. (Which I did when I was fifteen, but that's my point, I did it when I was fifteen.)
- Remus Lupin. Here's the thing about him: the Remus Lupin we see in this book has a totally different personality than the Remus Lupin we know and love from, say, book 3, so I'm going to go out on a limb and make an assumption: he is drunk throughout this book. It fits with much of his behaviour: the loud, wild-eyed bellowing, that one bit where he gets violent with Harry, the "melancholy stage" bits when he just mopes around, the fact that he seemes to have impregnated a woman without realising he was doing it. I don't think he gets up on a table and sings "The Spaniard Who Blighted my Life" at any point in the book, but otherwise, I think it's a fairly safe assumption the guy is hammered all the fricking time.
- Fleur Delacour. Her defining characteristic is that she speaks in a cod-French accent. It's been going on a while now, to the point that everyone's too embarrassed to ask her why she does it. Also, she is hot, apparently.
- Kingsley Shacklebolt. His defining feature is pretty much that he's black, or at least it seems to be, since his ethnicity is mentioned almost every time he shows up.
- Hagrid. He is a bear.
- Mundungus Fletcher. Here he is starring in his own TV series!
Click to viewOh... wait.
News is swapped, including the fact that Lupin and Tonks got... ugh... married. Tonks is wearing a ring that "glitters", which raises the obvious question: where the fuck did Remus Lupin get the money for bling? I can only conclude that it came from Claire's Accessories and is either cubic zirconia or possibly even one of those enormous chunky plastic things like I used to wear to sixth form when I was 17 and going through my Manic Street Preachers fan phase. Either that or it's a real diamond, but he got it on credit and it gets repossessed the day after this scene takes place.
Harry congratulates Tonks, then Moody provides some exposition which is fairly dull. Fred and George make some "hilarious" Chuckle Brothers-style gags. Moody continues to explain the plan, which goes like this: Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Fleur, and Mundungus will be polyjuicing up as Harry. Tonks, despite being the Mystique of the Potterverse, able to assume any appearance she chooses at will, is not going to act as a Harry decoy. One could fanwank that it's because she's a badass Auror and is therefore more suited to being a protector than a clone, or because she's up the pole by this stage and shapeshifting isn't possible when you're pregnant or something, but whatever. The fact that she doesn't use her powers in this scene - where her Metamorphmagus abilities would have put her in her element - only serves to underline what a truly pointless character she is and how truly Sue-ish those powers are.
I slate Tonks a lot but what I really feel is this - what a total waste of a potentially really cool, important, and interesting character.
Meanwhile, back in the present, Harry wangsts about not wanting to donate any of his hair to the polyjuice potion, but backs down after about three seconds. His hair is added to the potion, which turns "clear, bright gold". Hermione says the potion looks "tastier" than the Crabbe and Goyle ones they made way back in book 2, but the Harry potion has just been described as bearing at least a passing resemblance to urine, so I think this bit kind of raises more questions than it answers. They all drink the potion from shot glasses, which Lupin gazes at longingly. Oh, how the wine talks!
So. The clones, as they will be referred to, are paired up with a badass Auror each. The pairs are thus:
- Moody/Mundungus
- Arthur/Fred
- Remus/George
- Bill/Fleur
- Kingsley/Hermione
- Tonks/Ron
- Harry/Hagrid
The clone Harrys are kitted out with rucksacks and stuffed owls. The owl thing is really stupid. They could just let Hedwig out and she could find them whenever. She's done that before, as have many owls in this series. But she has to die in a minute in order to provide us with the first Random Tragic War Death Of Someone Harry Loves of the book, so in her cage she stays.
Outside, my OTPs board their brooms and thestrals and, in the case of Harry and Hagrid, Sirius' old flying bike. (The bike has a sidecar, which is more or less the lamest thing I have ever heard. I don't think it's mentioned explicitly, but the implication seems to be that Arthur fitted the sidecar. I sure hope so, as I don't want Sirius to be the kind of person whose bike has a sidecar.) Harry goes in the sidecar, where even he is aware he looks like a tit. Hagrid wears goggles, but Harry doesn't get any because he's a knob. Meanwhile, Ron mounts Tonks... er, that is, he mounts the broom behind Tonks, and holds her by the tits. She doesn't seem to mind. I might be making this bit up. Then it's time for takeoff!
RED LEADER: All wings report in.
RED TEN: Red Ten standing by.
RED SEVEN: Red Seven standing by.
BIGGS: Red Three standing by.
PORKINS: Red Six standing by.
RED NINE: Red Nine standing by.
WEDGE: Red Two standing by.
RED ELEVEN: Red Eleven standing by.
LUKE: Red Five standing by.
RED LEADER: Lock S-foils in attack position.
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
They set out, but - well, I think Admiral Ackbar says it best.
As we already knew, the Death Eaters are in on this one, and indeed, there they are, right above the house, waiting for the clones. A fuckoff battle commences and for all my cynicism, it's pretty badass. There is actually stuff going on. I keep trying to read it, looking for stuff to criticise, but it's sufficiently exciting that I lose track of what I'm doing and get caught up in the action. It's almost exactly opposite to my experience of reading Chapter 2. The only bit that - for me - really jars is that Hedwig dies, which feels a bit gratuitous, like how that labrador survives the alien attack in Independence Day.
I won't bother giving a detailed breakdown of the action, because there's lots of it. Highlights, though: Harry loses a tooth, there's a Die Hard-style action sequence involving a levitating sidecar, Hagrid proves how incompetant he is by fucking the sidecar up (I know Hagrid is supposed to be a well-loved character and stuff, but that was a pretty stupid decision that someone made, to have the real Harry protected by someone who isn't allowed to do magic and has never been properly trained in it), and Harry's wand acts of its own accord to pwn Voldemort. Well, he reckons the wand acts on its own, but we all know Harry is using the Force, right? Oh, and also, Voldemort can fly of his own accord without a broom or anything, which is kind of funny. I imagine him flying through the air with all the grace of, say, a glove puppet.
Finally, the chapter ends on a remarkably subdued note as Harry lands in a pond. So it goes.
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