Half-Blood Prince Uberwank: Chapter 1, The Other Minister
Right, here we go then.
If you thought things had changed,
Friend, you'd better think again.
Bluntly put, in the fewest of words:
Cunts are still running the world.
- Jarvis Cocker, "Running the World"
Usual warnings apply: strong language (see above), ranting, politics, my thoughts on yaoi etc etc.
I'll be honest here. A major part of the delay on getting the HBP uberwank going stems from my inability to find anything much to say about this chapter. It's not all that interesting, and it provides precious few opportunities to snark over JK Rowling's inability to write convincing romance. (I'm not altogether happy with this anyway but I just want to get started, so this'll do.) It's my view that the opening chapter of anything should have enough punch to keep the reader interested, and this... well, in some ways it feels a little too mild. This gentle, gradual sort of introduction was fine in book 2, say, because at the point of that book being released, the average reader probably did need a few easy reminders that Harry Potter could do magic and shit like that. I'm not sure it's necessary here. OK, this is a little more subtle than that approach, but - what I'm getting at is, there's a war on, so the innermost thoughts of a fictional and irrelevant politician who we've never met before and will never encounter again are not exactly at the top of my agenda. (Unfortunately, this disregard of the war for the purpose of focusing on trivial matters will persist throughout the book.)
Nevertheless, here we are.
So yeah, the chapter, and the book, opens and we find ourselves hanging with the Prime Minister of the UK. Now, some of you may remember that prior to the release of this book, JKR made a statement on her website to the effect that the first chapter had almost appeared in three other books, and that it had been waiting in the wings for thirteen years; and therefore many of us found ourselves eagerly anticipating it, working on the assumption that it would actually have some bearing on the plot of the series as a whole. Turns out it was this - I guess it's a nice enough way of setting the scene and filling us in on what's been happening in the wider world since the end of OotP, and as I've already said it's a bit more subtle than the whole HARRY WAS A WIZARD thing in earlier books, but... having been built up in that way it's something of a disappointment. There's nothing like hype to RUIN EVERYTHING.
This isn't going very well so far, is it.
Right, so, anyway, the PM helpfully sets the tone for the rest of the series (and, I suppose, carries over much of the tone from the fifth book too) by... wangsting!
WOO FIRST WANGST OF THE UBERWANK!
He is pissed off that a rival politician accused him of running the country wrong, which makes me wonder if perhaps this guy isn't cut out to be Prime Minister. If dates in the book are anything to go by, this is John Major, so that works. Then again, we are talking about an alternative version of Britain where wizards exist, so I don't think there's any real merit in allowing the narrative to be bound by actual political history. (I recall a certain amount of wank/fussing, mainly by Steve Vander Ark, over the nonexistent problem of this PM's predecessor being referred to as "he" when the timeline suggests it should have been Thatcher. a) Who cares, b) Thatcher was more or less a man anyway, c) FICTIONAL WIZARDS, so sit down and eat your soup and shut the fuck up.)
Yeah, so the PM spends little time wangsting out and simultaneously providing some exposition concerning what's been going on since the end of OotP. A bridge fell down, by the sounds of things, and there was a hurricane in the westcountry, which sadly failed to destroy Plymouth. Also, a junior minister has decided to spend more time with his family, and I can't tell if he's supposed to be part of all this wizardly oddness, under the imperius curse or some such, or if he's just been caught with an orange up his arse, wearing a gasmask and fucking a rentboy or something.
This goes on for a while and takes in such topics as death and the weather before a magical painting interrupts the session to inform the PM of the imminent arrival of Fudge. OK, here's the thing with Fudge - that's what evil_underlord's cat is called, and that Fudge features in my life more than this guy from the books. So I am always momentarily thrown whenever he shows up, and there's an extent to which I have to really concentrate in order to get what's going on, because as far as I am concerned, Fudge is a dozy and mildly paranoid household pet that eats rubber bands and fights newspapers.
Do you want to see some footage of Fudge fighting a newspaper? Of course you do.
Right, so Fudge turns up and it isn't that one, it's the minister for magic from the books. He's dressed like a dick, as usual, although I'd like to know where he got that pinstriped cloak and lime-green bowler hat. I was in Camden only a couple of weeks ago and almost all the clothes there are shit these days (although I did come away with a very nice and rather steampunk military-style jacket, two in fact because I haggled with the guy and got him to give me a free one. Heh). He talks at the PM for a while, taking credit for all that stuff from earlier about the bridge and the bad weather and the death. Also, he mentions that Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance are dead; I should state now that I'm not, as a general thing, doing the Star Wars comparisons this time around, but if I was, well, this would be a many-Bothans-died moment.
For some reason, the screen goes all wobbly now as the PM does a bit of flashback stuff concerning the first time he met Fudge, which was the day he took office, and he thought that Fudge was a piss-take, which he sort of is, really. Anyway, that time Fudge said they'd probably never meet again, which turned out to be famous last words because he then turned up in a panic a few years later because some guy had escaped from some wizard prison and was going to kill a bunch of people or possibly just get a hell of a lot of homoerotic fan fiction written about him and some werewolf guy. This was important, for some reason, I forget.
Now, there are a variety of points within the final two books which are cringe-making on the grounds that whatever Jo is trying to do has already been done a million times over by the fandom. And despite being the person responsible for the existence of the fandom, JKR isn't in fandom in the same way that we are, you know? So she wouldn't necessarily know that the trope in question is a dead horse one by the time she got to using it, and therefore what she presumably assumes is a fresh and clever remark comes across as cliched and tired through no fault of hers. An example of what I'm talking about is the fact that in the DH epilogue, Harry's children are named after dead grown-ups, which no doubt struck JKR herself as a fitting tribute to those people, but came across as cliched to the rest of us because we'd seen it done so many times previously.
And another example comes now, when - because the Celebrity Paradox prevents him from having heard of Harry Potter and related concepts - the PM doesn't know who Fudge is talking about and comes away with the impression that this prisoner guy's name is "Serious" Black. I mean - is this for real? This was old, old meme a long time ago. It was old meme when this book came out. And more to the point, it was never funny. No, scratch that, because it's sometimes marginally amusing when fandom does it (although if I have to hear the phrase "Are you fucking serious?" "Did last night, LOL" one more time I am going to go crazy with a hammer in a shopping centre). JKR, on the other hand, is not funny - well, no, sometimes she is funny. Just not right now.
She did it in that recent 800-word prequel and all. (Well, at least she's allowed Ron to move on from making "Uranus" jokes.)
And anyway, if we're going to be really pedantic (which I am), "Sirius" and "serious" are pronounced slightly differently in standard British English, so it doesn't even work as a pun, not really. (At this stage please know that I was going to ilustrate that point using phonetics but even I draw the line at being that nitpicky, and also I don't know how, so, ha, yeah, the joke's on... uh.)
I've just had this horrible moment of JESUS CHRIST WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE, by the way.
Right, enough about Sirius (said JK Rowling) and back to the chapter: there are a couple more of these hilarious misunderstandings (concerning the "Kwidditch world cup" and stuff like that) and then, back in the present, we learn that the junior minister from earlier was badly imperiused and now thinks he's a duck. So nothing quite as interesting as bumming a rentboy, although I suppose from a certain point of view I could be right about the orange. Oh, and Lord Voldemort is back. Sorry, "You-Know-Who" is back. Whatever. We already knew this, so this is really just about Fudge finally accepting it. The PM wasn't listening a minute ago when I said we were going to stop talking about Sirius, and he asks if he had anything to do with anything, and we learn that Sirius is now officially innocent and there's going to be an "inquiry". And, in one swift move, Sirius Black is swept under the carpet (insert an hilarious joke about household furnishings/curtains here, if you wish), never to be mentioned again - well, OK, a couple times maybe, but not nearly enough. This reflects Harry's mental state, which is to work on a default setting of DON'T THINK ABOUT IT DON'T THINK ABOUT IT until he finally cracks and goes crazy with a hammer in a shopping centre.
Nonetheless, if you're a fan of Sirius you might want to enjoy that bit, because it's one of the last mentions of the guy you're going to get.
Fudge moves on, explaining that they're at war now. This makes the PM "nervous", and that in turn makes me give out a derisive snort. Man, now I know I'm reading a fantasy novel.
They talk for a while, and Fudge claims wizarding responsibility for all the bad stuff that's been happening, the murders and hurricanes and all that - well, specifically, it was the death eaters. Again, I know this isn't real life because in real life, the PM would probably just declare war on all wizards, choosing to ignore the fact that the attacks we've heard about were perpetrated by a very tiny, marginalised and radicalised group who in no way represent the larger population to which they belong. And then there'd be all sorts of horrible cases of, I don't know, an innocent muggle being gunned down by police at Stockwell tube station because they looked a bit wizardly. Oh, wait, this bit isn't remotely funny.
Ugh - this chapter is pissing me off so much and I am so fucking ratty right now. Fudge and the PM talk about a whole bunch of stuff, and then it is time to meet a new character, Rufus Scrimgeour, who looks like a lion or some crap, I don't even care any more. Rufus is the new minister for magic, because Fudge got sacked for being a useless asshat. Also, that killer badass Kingsley Shacklebolt is working as the PM's secretary, to provide magical protection (if I recall correctly he's still doing this at the start of the final book, so it must work out OK for him, although I can't help but wonder about how bored he's going to get, given that he trained as a badass). Eventually things wind up with Fudge and Scrimgeour and they GTFO, although not before the PM blurts out an impassioned panic attack about how they're supposed to be wizards, so why can't they just fix it all with magic, and JK Row- I mean, Fudge explains that the other side can also do magic, so don't ask questions like that. Thankfully, the chapter ends here.
You know, the main thing that jumps out at me from this chapter (all the exposition aside) is the implication that only the Prime Minister is aware of the Ministry of Magic, wizards in general in fact, and has little or no contact with anyone other than the minister himself. As I recall there's a Muggle Liaison Office, but who, exactly, are they liaising with? (I don't count random memory wipes as "liaising", either.) It's handy for JKR, I suppose, because it allows her to set her stories in contemporary Britain without having to deal with the issue of why we - as in me, possibly you, us actual real people who live in the UK - don't recall a dragon being seen over central London in 1998, for example. (It's a problem that, for instance, Doctor Who has just thrown away in the new series, and I think if it's truly disregarded like that, it can ultimately lead to that reinstatement of disbelief I've talked about in the past.) Nevertheless, it seems a sloppy solution to do it this way - couldn't there be, say, a Magic Liaison Office within the Home Office, run by a high-ranking civil servant and covered by the Official Secrets Act? (The OSA is pretty damn powerful. If you apply for a job with M16, even if your application is rejected, you aren't allowed to talk to anyone about having done so - or so I heard.)
Sigh. I am so bored already.
Still, I hear things will improve slightly with the next chapter, which has some goths in it.
All Chapters | Next Chapter
If you thought things had changed,
Friend, you'd better think again.
Bluntly put, in the fewest of words:
Cunts are still running the world.
- Jarvis Cocker, "Running the World"
Usual warnings apply: strong language (see above), ranting, politics, my thoughts on yaoi etc etc.
I'll be honest here. A major part of the delay on getting the HBP uberwank going stems from my inability to find anything much to say about this chapter. It's not all that interesting, and it provides precious few opportunities to snark over JK Rowling's inability to write convincing romance. (I'm not altogether happy with this anyway but I just want to get started, so this'll do.) It's my view that the opening chapter of anything should have enough punch to keep the reader interested, and this... well, in some ways it feels a little too mild. This gentle, gradual sort of introduction was fine in book 2, say, because at the point of that book being released, the average reader probably did need a few easy reminders that Harry Potter could do magic and shit like that. I'm not sure it's necessary here. OK, this is a little more subtle than that approach, but - what I'm getting at is, there's a war on, so the innermost thoughts of a fictional and irrelevant politician who we've never met before and will never encounter again are not exactly at the top of my agenda. (Unfortunately, this disregard of the war for the purpose of focusing on trivial matters will persist throughout the book.)
Nevertheless, here we are.
So yeah, the chapter, and the book, opens and we find ourselves hanging with the Prime Minister of the UK. Now, some of you may remember that prior to the release of this book, JKR made a statement on her website to the effect that the first chapter had almost appeared in three other books, and that it had been waiting in the wings for thirteen years; and therefore many of us found ourselves eagerly anticipating it, working on the assumption that it would actually have some bearing on the plot of the series as a whole. Turns out it was this - I guess it's a nice enough way of setting the scene and filling us in on what's been happening in the wider world since the end of OotP, and as I've already said it's a bit more subtle than the whole HARRY WAS A WIZARD thing in earlier books, but... having been built up in that way it's something of a disappointment. There's nothing like hype to RUIN EVERYTHING.
This isn't going very well so far, is it.
Right, so, anyway, the PM helpfully sets the tone for the rest of the series (and, I suppose, carries over much of the tone from the fifth book too) by... wangsting!
WOO FIRST WANGST OF THE UBERWANK!
He is pissed off that a rival politician accused him of running the country wrong, which makes me wonder if perhaps this guy isn't cut out to be Prime Minister. If dates in the book are anything to go by, this is John Major, so that works. Then again, we are talking about an alternative version of Britain where wizards exist, so I don't think there's any real merit in allowing the narrative to be bound by actual political history. (I recall a certain amount of wank/fussing, mainly by Steve Vander Ark, over the nonexistent problem of this PM's predecessor being referred to as "he" when the timeline suggests it should have been Thatcher. a) Who cares, b) Thatcher was more or less a man anyway, c) FICTIONAL WIZARDS, so sit down and eat your soup and shut the fuck up.)
Yeah, so the PM spends little time wangsting out and simultaneously providing some exposition concerning what's been going on since the end of OotP. A bridge fell down, by the sounds of things, and there was a hurricane in the westcountry, which sadly failed to destroy Plymouth. Also, a junior minister has decided to spend more time with his family, and I can't tell if he's supposed to be part of all this wizardly oddness, under the imperius curse or some such, or if he's just been caught with an orange up his arse, wearing a gasmask and fucking a rentboy or something.
This goes on for a while and takes in such topics as death and the weather before a magical painting interrupts the session to inform the PM of the imminent arrival of Fudge. OK, here's the thing with Fudge - that's what evil_underlord's cat is called, and that Fudge features in my life more than this guy from the books. So I am always momentarily thrown whenever he shows up, and there's an extent to which I have to really concentrate in order to get what's going on, because as far as I am concerned, Fudge is a dozy and mildly paranoid household pet that eats rubber bands and fights newspapers.
Do you want to see some footage of Fudge fighting a newspaper? Of course you do.
Click to viewRight, so Fudge turns up and it isn't that one, it's the minister for magic from the books. He's dressed like a dick, as usual, although I'd like to know where he got that pinstriped cloak and lime-green bowler hat. I was in Camden only a couple of weeks ago and almost all the clothes there are shit these days (although I did come away with a very nice and rather steampunk military-style jacket, two in fact because I haggled with the guy and got him to give me a free one. Heh). He talks at the PM for a while, taking credit for all that stuff from earlier about the bridge and the bad weather and the death. Also, he mentions that Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance are dead; I should state now that I'm not, as a general thing, doing the Star Wars comparisons this time around, but if I was, well, this would be a many-Bothans-died moment.
For some reason, the screen goes all wobbly now as the PM does a bit of flashback stuff concerning the first time he met Fudge, which was the day he took office, and he thought that Fudge was a piss-take, which he sort of is, really. Anyway, that time Fudge said they'd probably never meet again, which turned out to be famous last words because he then turned up in a panic a few years later because some guy had escaped from some wizard prison and was going to kill a bunch of people or possibly just get a hell of a lot of homoerotic fan fiction written about him and some werewolf guy. This was important, for some reason, I forget.
Now, there are a variety of points within the final two books which are cringe-making on the grounds that whatever Jo is trying to do has already been done a million times over by the fandom. And despite being the person responsible for the existence of the fandom, JKR isn't in fandom in the same way that we are, you know? So she wouldn't necessarily know that the trope in question is a dead horse one by the time she got to using it, and therefore what she presumably assumes is a fresh and clever remark comes across as cliched and tired through no fault of hers. An example of what I'm talking about is the fact that in the DH epilogue, Harry's children are named after dead grown-ups, which no doubt struck JKR herself as a fitting tribute to those people, but came across as cliched to the rest of us because we'd seen it done so many times previously.
And another example comes now, when - because the Celebrity Paradox prevents him from having heard of Harry Potter and related concepts - the PM doesn't know who Fudge is talking about and comes away with the impression that this prisoner guy's name is "Serious" Black. I mean - is this for real? This was old, old meme a long time ago. It was old meme when this book came out. And more to the point, it was never funny. No, scratch that, because it's sometimes marginally amusing when fandom does it (although if I have to hear the phrase "Are you fucking serious?" "Did last night, LOL" one more time I am going to go crazy with a hammer in a shopping centre). JKR, on the other hand, is not funny - well, no, sometimes she is funny. Just not right now.
She did it in that recent 800-word prequel and all. (Well, at least she's allowed Ron to move on from making "Uranus" jokes.)
And anyway, if we're going to be really pedantic (which I am), "Sirius" and "serious" are pronounced slightly differently in standard British English, so it doesn't even work as a pun, not really. (At this stage please know that I was going to ilustrate that point using phonetics but even I draw the line at being that nitpicky, and also I don't know how, so, ha, yeah, the joke's on... uh.)
I've just had this horrible moment of JESUS CHRIST WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE, by the way.
Right, enough about Sirius (said JK Rowling) and back to the chapter: there are a couple more of these hilarious misunderstandings (concerning the "Kwidditch world cup" and stuff like that) and then, back in the present, we learn that the junior minister from earlier was badly imperiused and now thinks he's a duck. So nothing quite as interesting as bumming a rentboy, although I suppose from a certain point of view I could be right about the orange. Oh, and Lord Voldemort is back. Sorry, "You-Know-Who" is back. Whatever. We already knew this, so this is really just about Fudge finally accepting it. The PM wasn't listening a minute ago when I said we were going to stop talking about Sirius, and he asks if he had anything to do with anything, and we learn that Sirius is now officially innocent and there's going to be an "inquiry". And, in one swift move, Sirius Black is swept under the carpet (insert an hilarious joke about household furnishings/curtains here, if you wish), never to be mentioned again - well, OK, a couple times maybe, but not nearly enough. This reflects Harry's mental state, which is to work on a default setting of DON'T THINK ABOUT IT DON'T THINK ABOUT IT until he finally cracks and goes crazy with a hammer in a shopping centre.
Nonetheless, if you're a fan of Sirius you might want to enjoy that bit, because it's one of the last mentions of the guy you're going to get.
Fudge moves on, explaining that they're at war now. This makes the PM "nervous", and that in turn makes me give out a derisive snort. Man, now I know I'm reading a fantasy novel.
They talk for a while, and Fudge claims wizarding responsibility for all the bad stuff that's been happening, the murders and hurricanes and all that - well, specifically, it was the death eaters. Again, I know this isn't real life because in real life, the PM would probably just declare war on all wizards, choosing to ignore the fact that the attacks we've heard about were perpetrated by a very tiny, marginalised and radicalised group who in no way represent the larger population to which they belong. And then there'd be all sorts of horrible cases of, I don't know, an innocent muggle being gunned down by police at Stockwell tube station because they looked a bit wizardly. Oh, wait, this bit isn't remotely funny.
Ugh - this chapter is pissing me off so much and I am so fucking ratty right now. Fudge and the PM talk about a whole bunch of stuff, and then it is time to meet a new character, Rufus Scrimgeour, who looks like a lion or some crap, I don't even care any more. Rufus is the new minister for magic, because Fudge got sacked for being a useless asshat. Also, that killer badass Kingsley Shacklebolt is working as the PM's secretary, to provide magical protection (if I recall correctly he's still doing this at the start of the final book, so it must work out OK for him, although I can't help but wonder about how bored he's going to get, given that he trained as a badass). Eventually things wind up with Fudge and Scrimgeour and they GTFO, although not before the PM blurts out an impassioned panic attack about how they're supposed to be wizards, so why can't they just fix it all with magic, and JK Row- I mean, Fudge explains that the other side can also do magic, so don't ask questions like that. Thankfully, the chapter ends here.
You know, the main thing that jumps out at me from this chapter (all the exposition aside) is the implication that only the Prime Minister is aware of the Ministry of Magic, wizards in general in fact, and has little or no contact with anyone other than the minister himself. As I recall there's a Muggle Liaison Office, but who, exactly, are they liaising with? (I don't count random memory wipes as "liaising", either.) It's handy for JKR, I suppose, because it allows her to set her stories in contemporary Britain without having to deal with the issue of why we - as in me, possibly you, us actual real people who live in the UK - don't recall a dragon being seen over central London in 1998, for example. (It's a problem that, for instance, Doctor Who has just thrown away in the new series, and I think if it's truly disregarded like that, it can ultimately lead to that reinstatement of disbelief I've talked about in the past.) Nevertheless, it seems a sloppy solution to do it this way - couldn't there be, say, a Magic Liaison Office within the Home Office, run by a high-ranking civil servant and covered by the Official Secrets Act? (The OSA is pretty damn powerful. If you apply for a job with M16, even if your application is rejected, you aren't allowed to talk to anyone about having done so - or so I heard.)
Sigh. I am so bored already.
Still, I hear things will improve slightly with the next chapter, which has some goths in it.
All Chapters | Next Chapter