I Don't Know
Had someone else get fired from my job last week. This time it was a new hire who, according to the scuttlebutt, refused to take the drug test. I don't know if it's true or not, although I have to admit, I can't imagine a lot of other ways to get yourself fired less than a month into a new job. Refusal to take a drug test has happened before in my experience, and the only reason I can think of not to do it is that you must know you won't pass. There might be some sort of personal dignity issue that could play into it, too, but a lot of jobs out there require some sort of drug testing, so I have a hard time imagining a person signing on to work at a place without considering that it'll come up.
I've seen people get fired in the past, and it always irks me, because most of the time it's over some petty thing that goes too far. In 2003, we had a guy who simply didn't show up for work for an entire month. He'd only been working there for less than a year, so doing this used up all of his vacation and sick leave. The boss kept calling him for some kind of update or explanation of his whereabouts, but never heard back. Then one morning he just shows up, like nothing was wrong at all, and he'd just go back to work as usual. I was far less pleased to see him, as I'd had to pull a lot of long hours to cover his workload, and I wasn't shy about telling him so. My lab manager and the VP in charge of our lab sat him down and basically asked him to explain where he'd been all this time, and he claimed to have been laid up in the hospital or something. When asked to provide medical records to prove his story, he responded by saying "I could... but I won't." They fired him on the spot. What I find the most galling, though, is that despite all the hassle he'd caused us, for apparently no good reason (I refuse to believe he was ever in the hospital, unless Jesus himself tells me otherwise), he tried to stay on with us just a little longer, offering to help train a replacement once we'd hired one. I know all this because our manager and VP were pretty casual around us, and we'd all started to think of this guy as a joke about three weeks into his unexplained absence.
It was so pathetic to me when I heard about that. "I'll stay on to train my replacement." In the first place, I trained him, so I hardly needed him to get a new guy up to speed. In the second place he didn't know how to do his own work right. I figured that out when I wound up covering for him while he was AWOL for a month. In fact, before he disappeared, he came to me asking if he could do such and such with this method, and I told him it wouldn't work, only to find that he'd been doing it anyway in spite of my informed opinion. The guy couldn't train or be trained, so what good was he? Besides, why would we need to replace him? We'd gotten along without him for a month, and managed to keep pace rather well. The mystery is why we hired him in the first place. Indeed, I strongly believe that this guy was the final straw in a long line of foul-ups that eventually got management to close down the lab portion of the business later that year. In a detached sort of way, I could understand it, since we were just a liability to the overall company. Still, it was pretty lousy when they started laying some of us off, and my manager was fired shortly after I quit to get the job I'm in now. Those people needed the work, and it angers me that some jerkoff who didn't care could have somehow contributed to their unemployment.
I complain about my new job from time to time, and we have unmotivated and apathetic employees here, too, from time to time. But the attitude around here is a lot more positive, and I think that's why I see a lot more productivity and organization going on. We hired this new girl to help me out with my lab duties, and she's really picked up on things well. It's because of her that I got to go to Las Vegas and Chicago this year, and I think I'll finally be able to return to DexCon in '07 as long as she doesn't quit in the meantime. It makes me proud to train some new people and actually see my own work ethic reflected in them for once, perhaps even magnified a little. The other day, she had been in a car wreck (not hurt, but rattled from the experience), and she had signed her notebook with the wrong date. "You put down a six, and it should be a nine," I said, just to make sure she corrected the error before one of us forgot about it. "Oh, well that figures, I have been up for the last two days," she replied, and set about fixing the entry. I was worried, since I figured she might be too strained to work safely, but she seemed to be fine after that. In five months, that's the only egregious mistake I've seen her make, besides dropping a large beaker, and that happens to everybody. I just appreciate that kind of thoroughness. No whining about smoke breaks or long lunch hours, no uncontrollable sobbing for no apparent reason, no yap-yap-yapping about whatever gossip is floating around. Just dedicated, consistent work. Newsweek did a feature on women in the workplace, and tips for how to get ahead, but in my experience, that's all you have to do, is stay focused on the work, and let everything else deal with itself. And that's advice that a lot of men could stand to follow, for that matter.
But anyway.
Chapter 15: The Quidditch Final
Original Japanese Title: "Hermione Staggers Señor Draco with Two Punches")
Previously in Harry Potter, and by "previously", I mean "right now", really, Hermione has informed her compadres in the nWo that Buckbeak is scheduled to be executed. Just so there's no confusion, she shows them the note he sent her confirming this, because dammit, Scholastic Press paid good money for "Hagrid's Handwriting (Tear Stained).ttf", and they're gonna use it.
Team Stupid concludes that Draco's dad Lucius Malfoy obviously scared the Council on Executing Buckbeak into rendering their verdict, so while there's an appeal, Hermione can't see what good it would do. Really, though, besides Lucius Malfoy being rich and influential, just what was he supposed to do about this? I've seen the guy, and other than the fact that he looks more like he should be Draco's mom, I don't see what's so scary about the guy. And surely there's some rich dude who loves hippogriffs out there who could bribe the Council the other way. But, no, this is Harry Potter Land, where Luke Malfoy's gonna waltz up to the animal shelter, swish his long, luxurious hair around, say a few foppish words about "My Dark Lord", and actually convince a bunch of grown men that "You Know Who" will murder them if they don't decaptiate some dumb animal. Honestly, I'd have an easier time believing the Council is simply doesn't care about Hagrid's position, because it makes more sense to me than Draco's dad actually wasting his time getting involved with his son's lame schoolboy vendettas. Yeah, Draco's spoiled, I get that, but the whole point of spoiling your kid is that you can just give him a big wad of cash when he complains so he'll leave you alone.
But Ron insists that there's still hope, and he pledges to help Hermione help Hagrid this time around. Sort of like he promised to help before, only he didn't actually do anything. At this, Hermione flings her arms around Ron and starts sobbing with gratitude. They make peace over the whole Crookshanks-Ate Scabbers thing, and now they're all reconciled again. Now really, I'm supposed to believe anyone bought into Harry/Hermione after THIS? I'm a retarded Dragon Ball Z fan, and even I can see where this would have gone. H/Hr is the "SSJ3 Goku > Mystic Gohan" of the Harry Potter, fandom apparently.
In Hagrid's class, the nWo try to reassure Hagrid that they'll somehow win the appeal, but Hagrid's convinced there's no hope left. He goes sobbing back to his cabin and Señor Draco mocks him as he goes. Harry and Ron start to go after him, but Hermione beats them to it and slaps him across the face. YEAH! The best part of the whole series, right here! If I reviewed Tenchi in Tokyo episodes, every one would be rated with a screencap of this. BOOM! Here come the BOOM, ready or not, how ya like me now? Strangely, "hermione hits draco" is the one HP-related image search on Google that doesn't turn up jack-all. Of course, if I wanted a bunch of anime fanart of them undressing each other, I'm sure that'd be easy to get. Well, screw the shippers. You can debate who'd shtup who until the end of time, but there's no disputing the outcome of VIOLENCE.
My only complaint is that this moment was so brief in its depiction. Really, just a couple of sentences to matter-of-factly report what happened. Considering how eager Rowling is to bore me to death with the story of how Fred and George got the Marauder's Map, or what the teachers were drinking that one afternoon in the pub, you'd think she could elaborate a little when it counts. I mean, is Malfoy bleeding? How red must his face be where she connected? Left hand or right? As you can see above, the original Japanese version involved TWO punches, but naturally those fools at Scholastic censored the second, thus BUTCHERING the entire book. Those money-grubbing corporate WHORES! How DARE they rape canon! I'm going to start an online petition to undo this senseless tragedy right now!
Anyway, so stunned are Crabbe and Goyle that they don't even know what to do. Hermione draws her wand, but Señor Draco just decides to withdraw before things go any further. I guess he doesn't see any upside to fighting a girl.
This brings me to an important point I want to make. Word on the street is that my views on this book have been biased in favor of Slytherin. This pisses me off with the white hot rage of ten thousand suns, because Slytherin blows. You know it, I know it, Moltar know it, Zorak know it, Tanzit know it, Brak know it, Metallus know it, Lokar know it. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: Among HP fans, it's not enough to say you hate Harry Potter, because they think you mean "I hate Harry Potter the individual, and thus by extension I love Draco/Snape/Voldemort/Whoever Else Hates This Kid in the Books." Let me assure you, I loathe them all. Occasionally, some character will have an epiphany moment of not sucking, like Hermione hitting Draco here, or that time Draco stomped on Harry's face and left him to bleed to death on a train, or those times Remus Lupin used common sense in a conversation, or any instance where Snape got a really good burn on one of the students. I'll point these things out, mostly to demonstrate that I don't just poo-poo everything I read, and I can almost hear some girl out there jumping for joy because I LOVE somesuch character. Well, no, I don't. The characters I like are the ones who insult people, hit each other, and use logic all the time. I can think of one who made fun of a dude's beard, hypothesized as to why a perfect duplicate might behave imperfectly, and then picked up a couch and threw it at a guy, all in the span of about five minutes.
With Slytherin characters in particular, the main reason I hate them is that they're supposed to represent the antithesis of everything Harry Potter stands for. This means they should be intelligent, competent, rational people, who solve problems quickly and never whine over their misfortunes. But they're not. They're just like Harry, except they have money and connections. Well, that, and they're only bit players in the books. This is why I don't make fun of them so much, because they're almost never around, and Harry's always there. He's like a big bullseye constantly in my field of vision.
Much like the folks who think the Decepticons are somehow the heroes of "Transformers", there are apparently those who cling to the notion that the Slytherins are somehow the real heroes of Harry Potter. I have a hard time accepting that, since the only thing Crabbe and Goyle ever seem to do is wear wacky disguises in an attempt to distract or confuse Harry, and they can't even do that right. Voldemort got his ass kicked by a baby, and if I understand correctly, he possessed an eleven-year-old girl's body as one of his nefarious schemes. Yeah. On a given day, Megatron might build an army of robots out of stolen cars, or telport entire planets in orbit around the Earth, causing ecological catastrophe. Voldemort, by contrast, possesses the bodies of eleven-year-old girls. Of course, that's still better than his follow-up plot in this book, which is apparently NOTHING. Snape comes in handy a time or two, but the trade-off to that is that you usually have to listen to him pule about his high school years. If I wanted to listen to some hook-nosed, greasy-haired, middle-aged egomaniac piss and moan about his childhood, I'd turn on my radio. Maybe if Snape had an overweight heroin addict from Mad TV sitting next to him, it'd help his image.
That leads me back to Draco. I sort of cut Draco some slack, since he's an unlikeable toad, but really, that's what he's supposed to be. That's hardly high praise, though, and when you get down to it, he's a pretty crappy foil for Harry and the gang. Buckbeak claws his arm, and he manipulates entire political systems to have him executed, but Hermione hits him and he just walks away? Couldn't Lucius Malfoy have a couple of dentist's licenses revoked or something? Or hell, just grow a set, and hit Hermione back. Yeah, it's a skeevy, underhanded thing, but that's what Draco's supposed to be. Just deck her. What's the point of BEING evil if you can't hit the occasional girl?
But no, we move on to the nWo rushing to get to their Charms class on time. Inexplicably Because Hermione is using time travel, Harry and Ron make it into the classroom but Hermione is nowhere to be found, depsite having been right behind them only a moment ago. Actually, if she's using time travel, then shouldn't Hermione be on time for every class, no matter the circumstances? She could oversleep six hundred times, and simply go back yet again and show up on time for the six hundred first. She misses lunch, too, and Ron wonders aloud if maybe Draco did something to her. Well, I doubt that, seeing as Draco's a colossal wuss and all. He's probably sobbing in the upstairs boy's room. They finally find her in G-Tower, asleep at a table. She's all upset over missing Charms, but at least she's right on time for Divination. Yeah, I'm really thrilled to be writing about Hermione's scholastic progress.
So, Divination. Trelawny's a flake, and Hermione's not shy about saying so. Sybil decides to have the class look into crystal balls. You know, all I've seen of these movies is what I glean from YTMND, and what I've seen looks insanely dull. Bad enough the students have to stare at inanimate objects, but does the whole classroom have to be decorated like a nursing home? Harry and Ron claim to see nothing at all, so naturally Trelawny insists that the ball somehow fortells of Harry's death. Hermione blatantly mocks her, and Trelawny fires back by pointing out how utterly mundane Hermione's mind is, since she lacks even the most basic grasp of the subject. This means little to Hermione, and so she decides then and there to quit the course in a huff, which ironically fufills one of Trelawny's predictions that someone would leave the class sometime around Easter. You know, I'm with Hermione on this one, but it's still pretty silly for two witches with goofy made-up superpowers to argue over whose goofy made-up superpowers are goofier.
Despite dropping a class, Hermione's busier than ever as the end of the year approaches, and since Harry has to get ready for the Quidditch Final, which I assume is fast approaching since that's the title of this chapter, that leaves Ron to do the legwork on Hagrid's appeal. In my mind, I see Hagrid wearing whatever the Big & Tall store could find for him, standing in front of important men, and saying "Yer'onners... LOOK! SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS! LOOK! AND D'YE KNOW WHAT WAS THERE?!"
Another thought that strikes me: If Draco were actually a COOL bad guy, what he could have done would be to tell Hermione, "Hey, I'll tell my dad to drop the whole thing. Buckbeak goes free, Hagrid's off the hook, everyone's happy. All you have to do... is make out with me. In front of Harry and Ron. For ten minutes. With tongue." Then start making a bunch of creepy noises like Hannibal Lecter. I mean, that'd be drama. Maybe she'd do it, which says a lot about her faith in the system, and Ron's ability to affect it. Or maybe she'd refuse, which kind of makes you wonder if she places her pride above Buckbeak's life. Actually, let's put that question to the ladies reading this right now: Would you make out with a dude to save the life of a condemned hippogriff? Don't just say yes because you got the hots for Tom Felton. Let's say it was Jabba the Hutt doing this. No slave outfit or anything like that. Just ten minutes of sugar for Jabba, or he'll chop off Buckbeak's head. Bo Shuda! Ha ha ha ha! Ho ho ho ho!
Back to the Quidditch final, much like the hypothetical situation I wrote up a while back, the only way G-Tower can win the championship is to win the final by more than 200 points. I'm finally starting to see how this works now. The Seekers determine the win-loss record of a team, but it's the other players who determine ranking, because even though the Slytherin team has won more games this year (I presume), the only reason they're ranked #1 right now is because their combined score for all three games is 200 points more than G-Tower's combined score. Had G-Tower beaten Hufflepuff back in Chapter 9, then they wouldn't have to be playing catch up now at the end of the season. But they didn't, so the idea now is for them to first gain a sixty-point lead on goals, and then Harry captures the Snitch. Until then, all Harry can do is simply prevent Señor Draco from catching it himself. Everybody got that?
This tension leads to about a week of G-Tower guys and Slytherin students generally messing with each other. Fights, abortive attempts to sabotage the other team's players, the works. Harry checks on his Firebolt every hour on the hour, because you never know when some Slytherin dude might break into his dorm and dismantle it. Oh, and there's that escaped killer on the loose. That might come up later. The night before, Harry has several dreams anticipating doom and failure, such as one dream where he oversleeps and they had to use Neville in his place, 'nuff said. Or another dream where the Slytherin team gets to ride dragons, and Harry forgot his broomstick. I have to admit, that'd make the game a lot cooler, if they could ride dragons.
But he wakes up and gets a glass of water to calm himself down. Pausing to look out the window, he thinks he sees the Grim one more time, except it's Crookshanks again... with the Grim. You know, the fact that it might simply be a large black dog and not an omen of impending doom never seems to occur to anyone. He wakes up Ron to confirm if anyone else can see it, but by the time he gets Ron out of bed, both animals are gone. Wow, that really moved the plot forward, thanks.
Onto the game. Even the other two houses--you know, them loser houses--are showing support for Gryffindor, which seems kind of dumb to me. Again, this is where Slytherin fails me. If they're so dastardly that they earn this kind of spite, then why don't we ever get to SEE it? Give me the chapter where Draco throws a Raveclaw down a well and blames it on the liberal media. Hufflepuff I sort of get. They're wearing red and gold today because they routinely forget which colors to wear all the time. The other 25% of the crowd is wearing green, because they're going to a M*A*S*H convention later. No, wait, those are the Slytherins. Right, I should have recognized them in the crowd, as they're best known for sitting still and NOT DOING ANYTHING. Snape's in the front row, probably plotting his whiny, tell-all autobiography in his head. He's also got Hawkeye sitting with him. Hawkeye's been kind of out of the picture for the most part, but Snape promised to buy him a six-pack of beer if Slytherin loses and Hawkeye likes them odds. The book states two hundred of them in the stands, which I assume means that Hogwarts has a student body of about 800 people. My high school was bigger than that, come to think of it.
Slytherin's team is basically Señor Draco and a bunch of big huge guys. I'm not sure what the advantage to this is, but for me it brings back fond memories of playing Ice Hockey on the Nintendo with my little brother. You could choose from three different sizes for your players, so I usually went with one little guy for speed, and three big fat dudes for power. Also, I'd always play the communist countries' teams. And Brad would smoke my ass every single frigging time. So props to Slytherin for their team selection, but I can't really say it'll do 'em any good.
Anyway, the game starts, and Alicia Spinnet scores the first goal, and after she does the black power salute in triumph, Slytherin's team captain crashes into her, claiming to have done so by mistake. Then Fred Weasley throws his club at him, giving him a bloody nose. E-C-W! E-C-W! E-C-W! So both sides get a penalty shot. Spinnet makes hers, while Captain Flint fails to score. So the moral here is that this bit doesn't work. Intentionally fouling the other team is a losing proposition for Slytherin, because they'll just get fouled in retaliation, and Gryffindor simply has a better goalie. If it's a war of free throws, Slytherin can't hope to win. Granted, they don't actually have to win, they just have to prevent G-Tower from winning by 210 points, but this is still a counterproductive strategey no matter what the plan is.
Resuming play, one of the Slytherin players intercepts Katie Ball, and instead of trying to get the ball from her, he grabs her head, causing her to cartwheel in the air and fumble. That's another penalty kick, and now Gryffindor is up thrity-zip. As the commentator calls is "THIRTY-ZERO! TAKE THAT, YOU DIRTY, CHEATING--" before McGonagall tells him to be more unbiased. And that's basically the tone of this entire rivalry. Look, I'm all for cheating for heel heat. That's not the problem. The problem is that Slytherin's creating the wrong kind of heat. If the ref sees you cheating, and penalizes you for it, then it does you no good.
You take Ric Flair, for example. One thing Ric Flair would never do is simply whack his opponent over the head with a chair, where the referee can see it. Because that's an automatic DQ, and that doesn't accomplish anything for him. If Flair were the defending champion, then it might be a different story, because then if he got DQ'ed, he still retains the title despite losing the match. It saves him the risk of losing his belt, as well as the exertion of completing his title defense against a worthy opponent. And yeah, I know wrestling is fake, but so is Quidditch, so stay with me here.
Now, what Flair WILL do a lot of times are tricks that might work to his favor, but won't get him penalized if he's caught. For instance, one of his managers might grab his opponent's leg when he's near the ring apron, tripping him up. If the ref sees that, he'll take the time to gripe out the manager, thus distracting him in case Ric wants to work over his opponent with brass knuckles, or maybe a roll of quarters. Alternately, the opponent might start griping out the manager himself, thus leaving his back turned so Flair can take a cheap shot. The key here is to distract the ref. A classic example of this is to cheat during a pinfall. If you position yourself near the ropes, you can grab a handful of the other guy's tights, making it harder for him to kick out. Or you can put your legs on the ropes for added leverage. Both of those moves are illegal, but the ref is oftentimes so busy counting the fall, he might not notice the chicanery going on in front of him.
Another good idea is when you're getting your ass kicked, to scramble over to the corner and get on your knees, begging for a time-out. So there's no confusion, you should make a really exaggerated "Time-out" sign with your hands. Of course, there are no time-outs in wrestling, but it's enough to make your opponent think he's got the upper hand, and when he reaches down to grab you, you just swing your arm between his legs, and give him the low blow. Always turns the tide.
The problem here is that Slytherin's team has no freaking clue how to cheat properly. This sucks, because they're made out to be the unbeatable villains here, and Gryffindor is picking them apart at will. That's lousy booking. You know why Sting was such a big time player in WCW? Because he beat Ric Flair, one of the all-time legends of professional wrestling, sixteen-time World's Champion, the Dirtiest Player in the Game. You know why the crowd was so hot at WrestleMania VIII? Because Macho Man Randy Savage was fighting Ric Flair for the championship, which he had won earlier in the year by cheating his way to victory in a thirty-man battle royal. Then he had photos doctored to make it look like he was boning Macho Man's wife, just to screw with Savage's head. The fans love to hate Ric Flair, and the reason why isn't because he gets caught all the time making blatantly obvious attempts to cheat. No. They hate him because he's a wheelin' dealin', kiss-stealin', jet plane flyin', limousine ridin', son of a gun. When he's not lying awake at night wishing he were Legolas, or David Bowie from "Labyrinth", Lucius Malfoy prays to God, that he could be Ric Flair. Whooo!
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Slytherin's team sucks at playing fair, and they suck at cheating, so they're kind of useless, no matter what role they're supposed to play in these books.
Back to the game, S-team tries to foul Harry this time, but his superior broomstick eliminates dustbunnies with the power of 10,000 hydrogen bombs, so they can't even touch him. Flint finally scores a goal to put them on the board, but they quickly revert to type, hitting Alicia again, then getting fouled in retaliation, and the score goes to forty-ten. I was about to point out that Gryffindor would be better off if they didn't retaliate and just quietly took their free points, but really, it doesn't matter what they do, since Slytherin can't hit a single one of their penalty shots. George Weasley could literally chop off Bole's arm, urinate in the open wound, and throw rocks at him for the rest of the game, and it wouldn't matter because the goalie's so damn good. And that's why Gryffindor sucks, because they act like they're overcoming some great and powerful adversary here, when really they're only winning because Slytherin sucks so hard. Going back to the Ric Flair analogy, Sting never made a name for himself fighting two-bit jobbers like Iron Mike Sharp, or Conquistador #2. How is Gryffindor supposed to look good is Slytherin sucks so hard at looking insurmountable?
Bell scores again, and I should point out that if Slytherin had simply played clean (or cheated more carefully), they'd only be behind ten points right now. At this stage, F&G have now resorted to flanking Bell, their clubs raised to defend her in case anyone tries anything funny. In a slight evolution of their strategy, Slytherin takes advantage by attacking the goalie, Oliver Wood, instead, since no one's close by to protect him. But the ref sees this, and it's another penalty shot, putting the score at sixty-ten. Then seventy-ten following another bout of regular play. And since that's the magic lead for G-Tower to win, Harry starts looking for the Snitch.
Realizing the implications, Draco goes after him, just in time to grab hold of the end of Harry's stick before he can grab the Snitch. That's ANOTHER penalty, although in this case I can see the justification. Draco was never gonna catch up to him, so better to risk giving G-Tower another ten points than handing them the entire game. And at least this time Alicia misses, which might suggest that Slytherin's actual plan was to get Gryffindor so frustrated that they'd lose focus. That's not a terrible idea, but it'd work a hell of a lot better if Slytherin had a better goalie. They score another goal to make it seventy-twenty, and now Harry has to shift back to defending the Snitch from Señor Draco.
Spinnet goes for another goal, but now Slytherin needs only to protect their goal and secure the Snitch, so everyone but Draco crowds around the goal to keep her from scoring. Noticing this, Harry launches himself straight for them at full speed, and they disperse to avoid being hit. This clears the way, and Spinnet restores the sixty-point lead. This seems like a costly move, since now Draco is free and clear to take the Snitch, but Harry somehow manages to swing around, dodge a Bludger, and beat him to it just in the nick of time. Wooo! Packers won the Super Bowl! Woo! Packers! Whatever.
To Rowling's credit, I have to admit that she managed to put three Quidditch games into this book and made each one distinctive. But like I was trying to say before, you're only as good as the opponent you beat, and Slytherin looked like garbage out there. You beat garbage, then all you can say for yourself is that you're better than garbage, and that's not saying much at all. All of that could have been fixed by simply giving Slytherin a crazy-awesome goalie, or something along those lines to balance out the advantage of Harry's Firebolt. For that matter, it's interesting to note that if Slytherin had simply played that game at the beginning of the year, before Harry got the Firebolt, they would have beaten them handily, then steamrolled over the other two teams and they'd be holding the championship right now. Going back to a tired point, weather is a neutral factor.
Points for Hermione hitting Draco, but I'm not really taken with this final game here. Rowling's like a lot of bookers. Able to make a good buildup to a match, but ultimately the players fail to deliver on the hype. At least now we can get on with the rest of the story, without having to constantly be reminded of Quidditch practice every seventh paragraph.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Finals week. I may have a heart attack from the unbridled excitement.
I've seen people get fired in the past, and it always irks me, because most of the time it's over some petty thing that goes too far. In 2003, we had a guy who simply didn't show up for work for an entire month. He'd only been working there for less than a year, so doing this used up all of his vacation and sick leave. The boss kept calling him for some kind of update or explanation of his whereabouts, but never heard back. Then one morning he just shows up, like nothing was wrong at all, and he'd just go back to work as usual. I was far less pleased to see him, as I'd had to pull a lot of long hours to cover his workload, and I wasn't shy about telling him so. My lab manager and the VP in charge of our lab sat him down and basically asked him to explain where he'd been all this time, and he claimed to have been laid up in the hospital or something. When asked to provide medical records to prove his story, he responded by saying "I could... but I won't." They fired him on the spot. What I find the most galling, though, is that despite all the hassle he'd caused us, for apparently no good reason (I refuse to believe he was ever in the hospital, unless Jesus himself tells me otherwise), he tried to stay on with us just a little longer, offering to help train a replacement once we'd hired one. I know all this because our manager and VP were pretty casual around us, and we'd all started to think of this guy as a joke about three weeks into his unexplained absence.
It was so pathetic to me when I heard about that. "I'll stay on to train my replacement." In the first place, I trained him, so I hardly needed him to get a new guy up to speed. In the second place he didn't know how to do his own work right. I figured that out when I wound up covering for him while he was AWOL for a month. In fact, before he disappeared, he came to me asking if he could do such and such with this method, and I told him it wouldn't work, only to find that he'd been doing it anyway in spite of my informed opinion. The guy couldn't train or be trained, so what good was he? Besides, why would we need to replace him? We'd gotten along without him for a month, and managed to keep pace rather well. The mystery is why we hired him in the first place. Indeed, I strongly believe that this guy was the final straw in a long line of foul-ups that eventually got management to close down the lab portion of the business later that year. In a detached sort of way, I could understand it, since we were just a liability to the overall company. Still, it was pretty lousy when they started laying some of us off, and my manager was fired shortly after I quit to get the job I'm in now. Those people needed the work, and it angers me that some jerkoff who didn't care could have somehow contributed to their unemployment.
I complain about my new job from time to time, and we have unmotivated and apathetic employees here, too, from time to time. But the attitude around here is a lot more positive, and I think that's why I see a lot more productivity and organization going on. We hired this new girl to help me out with my lab duties, and she's really picked up on things well. It's because of her that I got to go to Las Vegas and Chicago this year, and I think I'll finally be able to return to DexCon in '07 as long as she doesn't quit in the meantime. It makes me proud to train some new people and actually see my own work ethic reflected in them for once, perhaps even magnified a little. The other day, she had been in a car wreck (not hurt, but rattled from the experience), and she had signed her notebook with the wrong date. "You put down a six, and it should be a nine," I said, just to make sure she corrected the error before one of us forgot about it. "Oh, well that figures, I have been up for the last two days," she replied, and set about fixing the entry. I was worried, since I figured she might be too strained to work safely, but she seemed to be fine after that. In five months, that's the only egregious mistake I've seen her make, besides dropping a large beaker, and that happens to everybody. I just appreciate that kind of thoroughness. No whining about smoke breaks or long lunch hours, no uncontrollable sobbing for no apparent reason, no yap-yap-yapping about whatever gossip is floating around. Just dedicated, consistent work. Newsweek did a feature on women in the workplace, and tips for how to get ahead, but in my experience, that's all you have to do, is stay focused on the work, and let everything else deal with itself. And that's advice that a lot of men could stand to follow, for that matter.
But anyway.
Chapter 15: The Quidditch Final
Original Japanese Title: "Hermione Staggers Señor Draco with Two Punches")
Previously in Harry Potter, and by "previously", I mean "right now", really, Hermione has informed her compadres in the nWo that Buckbeak is scheduled to be executed. Just so there's no confusion, she shows them the note he sent her confirming this, because dammit, Scholastic Press paid good money for "Hagrid's Handwriting (Tear Stained).ttf", and they're gonna use it.
Team Stupid concludes that Draco's dad Lucius Malfoy obviously scared the Council on Executing Buckbeak into rendering their verdict, so while there's an appeal, Hermione can't see what good it would do. Really, though, besides Lucius Malfoy being rich and influential, just what was he supposed to do about this? I've seen the guy, and other than the fact that he looks more like he should be Draco's mom, I don't see what's so scary about the guy. And surely there's some rich dude who loves hippogriffs out there who could bribe the Council the other way. But, no, this is Harry Potter Land, where Luke Malfoy's gonna waltz up to the animal shelter, swish his long, luxurious hair around, say a few foppish words about "My Dark Lord", and actually convince a bunch of grown men that "You Know Who" will murder them if they don't decaptiate some dumb animal. Honestly, I'd have an easier time believing the Council is simply doesn't care about Hagrid's position, because it makes more sense to me than Draco's dad actually wasting his time getting involved with his son's lame schoolboy vendettas. Yeah, Draco's spoiled, I get that, but the whole point of spoiling your kid is that you can just give him a big wad of cash when he complains so he'll leave you alone.
But Ron insists that there's still hope, and he pledges to help Hermione help Hagrid this time around. Sort of like he promised to help before, only he didn't actually do anything. At this, Hermione flings her arms around Ron and starts sobbing with gratitude. They make peace over the whole Crookshanks-Ate Scabbers thing, and now they're all reconciled again. Now really, I'm supposed to believe anyone bought into Harry/Hermione after THIS? I'm a retarded Dragon Ball Z fan, and even I can see where this would have gone. H/Hr is the "SSJ3 Goku > Mystic Gohan" of the Harry Potter, fandom apparently.
In Hagrid's class, the nWo try to reassure Hagrid that they'll somehow win the appeal, but Hagrid's convinced there's no hope left. He goes sobbing back to his cabin and Señor Draco mocks him as he goes. Harry and Ron start to go after him, but Hermione beats them to it and slaps him across the face. YEAH! The best part of the whole series, right here! If I reviewed Tenchi in Tokyo episodes, every one would be rated with a screencap of this. BOOM! Here come the BOOM, ready or not, how ya like me now? Strangely, "hermione hits draco" is the one HP-related image search on Google that doesn't turn up jack-all. Of course, if I wanted a bunch of anime fanart of them undressing each other, I'm sure that'd be easy to get. Well, screw the shippers. You can debate who'd shtup who until the end of time, but there's no disputing the outcome of VIOLENCE.
My only complaint is that this moment was so brief in its depiction. Really, just a couple of sentences to matter-of-factly report what happened. Considering how eager Rowling is to bore me to death with the story of how Fred and George got the Marauder's Map, or what the teachers were drinking that one afternoon in the pub, you'd think she could elaborate a little when it counts. I mean, is Malfoy bleeding? How red must his face be where she connected? Left hand or right? As you can see above, the original Japanese version involved TWO punches, but naturally those fools at Scholastic censored the second, thus BUTCHERING the entire book. Those money-grubbing corporate WHORES! How DARE they rape canon! I'm going to start an online petition to undo this senseless tragedy right now!
Anyway, so stunned are Crabbe and Goyle that they don't even know what to do. Hermione draws her wand, but Señor Draco just decides to withdraw before things go any further. I guess he doesn't see any upside to fighting a girl.
This brings me to an important point I want to make. Word on the street is that my views on this book have been biased in favor of Slytherin. This pisses me off with the white hot rage of ten thousand suns, because Slytherin blows. You know it, I know it, Moltar know it, Zorak know it, Tanzit know it, Brak know it, Metallus know it, Lokar know it. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: Among HP fans, it's not enough to say you hate Harry Potter, because they think you mean "I hate Harry Potter the individual, and thus by extension I love Draco/Snape/Voldemort/Whoever Else Hates This Kid in the Books." Let me assure you, I loathe them all. Occasionally, some character will have an epiphany moment of not sucking, like Hermione hitting Draco here, or that time Draco stomped on Harry's face and left him to bleed to death on a train, or those times Remus Lupin used common sense in a conversation, or any instance where Snape got a really good burn on one of the students. I'll point these things out, mostly to demonstrate that I don't just poo-poo everything I read, and I can almost hear some girl out there jumping for joy because I LOVE somesuch character. Well, no, I don't. The characters I like are the ones who insult people, hit each other, and use logic all the time. I can think of one who made fun of a dude's beard, hypothesized as to why a perfect duplicate might behave imperfectly, and then picked up a couch and threw it at a guy, all in the span of about five minutes.
With Slytherin characters in particular, the main reason I hate them is that they're supposed to represent the antithesis of everything Harry Potter stands for. This means they should be intelligent, competent, rational people, who solve problems quickly and never whine over their misfortunes. But they're not. They're just like Harry, except they have money and connections. Well, that, and they're only bit players in the books. This is why I don't make fun of them so much, because they're almost never around, and Harry's always there. He's like a big bullseye constantly in my field of vision.
Much like the folks who think the Decepticons are somehow the heroes of "Transformers", there are apparently those who cling to the notion that the Slytherins are somehow the real heroes of Harry Potter. I have a hard time accepting that, since the only thing Crabbe and Goyle ever seem to do is wear wacky disguises in an attempt to distract or confuse Harry, and they can't even do that right. Voldemort got his ass kicked by a baby, and if I understand correctly, he possessed an eleven-year-old girl's body as one of his nefarious schemes. Yeah. On a given day, Megatron might build an army of robots out of stolen cars, or telport entire planets in orbit around the Earth, causing ecological catastrophe. Voldemort, by contrast, possesses the bodies of eleven-year-old girls. Of course, that's still better than his follow-up plot in this book, which is apparently NOTHING. Snape comes in handy a time or two, but the trade-off to that is that you usually have to listen to him pule about his high school years. If I wanted to listen to some hook-nosed, greasy-haired, middle-aged egomaniac piss and moan about his childhood, I'd turn on my radio. Maybe if Snape had an overweight heroin addict from Mad TV sitting next to him, it'd help his image.
That leads me back to Draco. I sort of cut Draco some slack, since he's an unlikeable toad, but really, that's what he's supposed to be. That's hardly high praise, though, and when you get down to it, he's a pretty crappy foil for Harry and the gang. Buckbeak claws his arm, and he manipulates entire political systems to have him executed, but Hermione hits him and he just walks away? Couldn't Lucius Malfoy have a couple of dentist's licenses revoked or something? Or hell, just grow a set, and hit Hermione back. Yeah, it's a skeevy, underhanded thing, but that's what Draco's supposed to be. Just deck her. What's the point of BEING evil if you can't hit the occasional girl?
But no, we move on to the nWo rushing to get to their Charms class on time. Inexplicably Because Hermione is using time travel, Harry and Ron make it into the classroom but Hermione is nowhere to be found, depsite having been right behind them only a moment ago. Actually, if she's using time travel, then shouldn't Hermione be on time for every class, no matter the circumstances? She could oversleep six hundred times, and simply go back yet again and show up on time for the six hundred first. She misses lunch, too, and Ron wonders aloud if maybe Draco did something to her. Well, I doubt that, seeing as Draco's a colossal wuss and all. He's probably sobbing in the upstairs boy's room. They finally find her in G-Tower, asleep at a table. She's all upset over missing Charms, but at least she's right on time for Divination. Yeah, I'm really thrilled to be writing about Hermione's scholastic progress.
So, Divination. Trelawny's a flake, and Hermione's not shy about saying so. Sybil decides to have the class look into crystal balls. You know, all I've seen of these movies is what I glean from YTMND, and what I've seen looks insanely dull. Bad enough the students have to stare at inanimate objects, but does the whole classroom have to be decorated like a nursing home? Harry and Ron claim to see nothing at all, so naturally Trelawny insists that the ball somehow fortells of Harry's death. Hermione blatantly mocks her, and Trelawny fires back by pointing out how utterly mundane Hermione's mind is, since she lacks even the most basic grasp of the subject. This means little to Hermione, and so she decides then and there to quit the course in a huff, which ironically fufills one of Trelawny's predictions that someone would leave the class sometime around Easter. You know, I'm with Hermione on this one, but it's still pretty silly for two witches with goofy made-up superpowers to argue over whose goofy made-up superpowers are goofier.
Despite dropping a class, Hermione's busier than ever as the end of the year approaches, and since Harry has to get ready for the Quidditch Final, which I assume is fast approaching since that's the title of this chapter, that leaves Ron to do the legwork on Hagrid's appeal. In my mind, I see Hagrid wearing whatever the Big & Tall store could find for him, standing in front of important men, and saying "Yer'onners... LOOK! SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS! LOOK! AND D'YE KNOW WHAT WAS THERE?!"
Another thought that strikes me: If Draco were actually a COOL bad guy, what he could have done would be to tell Hermione, "Hey, I'll tell my dad to drop the whole thing. Buckbeak goes free, Hagrid's off the hook, everyone's happy. All you have to do... is make out with me. In front of Harry and Ron. For ten minutes. With tongue." Then start making a bunch of creepy noises like Hannibal Lecter. I mean, that'd be drama. Maybe she'd do it, which says a lot about her faith in the system, and Ron's ability to affect it. Or maybe she'd refuse, which kind of makes you wonder if she places her pride above Buckbeak's life. Actually, let's put that question to the ladies reading this right now: Would you make out with a dude to save the life of a condemned hippogriff? Don't just say yes because you got the hots for Tom Felton. Let's say it was Jabba the Hutt doing this. No slave outfit or anything like that. Just ten minutes of sugar for Jabba, or he'll chop off Buckbeak's head. Bo Shuda! Ha ha ha ha! Ho ho ho ho!
Back to the Quidditch final, much like the hypothetical situation I wrote up a while back, the only way G-Tower can win the championship is to win the final by more than 200 points. I'm finally starting to see how this works now. The Seekers determine the win-loss record of a team, but it's the other players who determine ranking, because even though the Slytherin team has won more games this year (I presume), the only reason they're ranked #1 right now is because their combined score for all three games is 200 points more than G-Tower's combined score. Had G-Tower beaten Hufflepuff back in Chapter 9, then they wouldn't have to be playing catch up now at the end of the season. But they didn't, so the idea now is for them to first gain a sixty-point lead on goals, and then Harry captures the Snitch. Until then, all Harry can do is simply prevent Señor Draco from catching it himself. Everybody got that?
This tension leads to about a week of G-Tower guys and Slytherin students generally messing with each other. Fights, abortive attempts to sabotage the other team's players, the works. Harry checks on his Firebolt every hour on the hour, because you never know when some Slytherin dude might break into his dorm and dismantle it. Oh, and there's that escaped killer on the loose. That might come up later. The night before, Harry has several dreams anticipating doom and failure, such as one dream where he oversleeps and they had to use Neville in his place, 'nuff said. Or another dream where the Slytherin team gets to ride dragons, and Harry forgot his broomstick. I have to admit, that'd make the game a lot cooler, if they could ride dragons.
But he wakes up and gets a glass of water to calm himself down. Pausing to look out the window, he thinks he sees the Grim one more time, except it's Crookshanks again... with the Grim. You know, the fact that it might simply be a large black dog and not an omen of impending doom never seems to occur to anyone. He wakes up Ron to confirm if anyone else can see it, but by the time he gets Ron out of bed, both animals are gone. Wow, that really moved the plot forward, thanks.
Onto the game. Even the other two houses--you know, them loser houses--are showing support for Gryffindor, which seems kind of dumb to me. Again, this is where Slytherin fails me. If they're so dastardly that they earn this kind of spite, then why don't we ever get to SEE it? Give me the chapter where Draco throws a Raveclaw down a well and blames it on the liberal media. Hufflepuff I sort of get. They're wearing red and gold today because they routinely forget which colors to wear all the time. The other 25% of the crowd is wearing green, because they're going to a M*A*S*H convention later. No, wait, those are the Slytherins. Right, I should have recognized them in the crowd, as they're best known for sitting still and NOT DOING ANYTHING. Snape's in the front row, probably plotting his whiny, tell-all autobiography in his head. He's also got Hawkeye sitting with him. Hawkeye's been kind of out of the picture for the most part, but Snape promised to buy him a six-pack of beer if Slytherin loses and Hawkeye likes them odds. The book states two hundred of them in the stands, which I assume means that Hogwarts has a student body of about 800 people. My high school was bigger than that, come to think of it.
Slytherin's team is basically Señor Draco and a bunch of big huge guys. I'm not sure what the advantage to this is, but for me it brings back fond memories of playing Ice Hockey on the Nintendo with my little brother. You could choose from three different sizes for your players, so I usually went with one little guy for speed, and three big fat dudes for power. Also, I'd always play the communist countries' teams. And Brad would smoke my ass every single frigging time. So props to Slytherin for their team selection, but I can't really say it'll do 'em any good.
Anyway, the game starts, and Alicia Spinnet scores the first goal, and after she does the black power salute in triumph, Slytherin's team captain crashes into her, claiming to have done so by mistake. Then Fred Weasley throws his club at him, giving him a bloody nose. E-C-W! E-C-W! E-C-W! So both sides get a penalty shot. Spinnet makes hers, while Captain Flint fails to score. So the moral here is that this bit doesn't work. Intentionally fouling the other team is a losing proposition for Slytherin, because they'll just get fouled in retaliation, and Gryffindor simply has a better goalie. If it's a war of free throws, Slytherin can't hope to win. Granted, they don't actually have to win, they just have to prevent G-Tower from winning by 210 points, but this is still a counterproductive strategey no matter what the plan is.
Resuming play, one of the Slytherin players intercepts Katie Ball, and instead of trying to get the ball from her, he grabs her head, causing her to cartwheel in the air and fumble. That's another penalty kick, and now Gryffindor is up thrity-zip. As the commentator calls is "THIRTY-ZERO! TAKE THAT, YOU DIRTY, CHEATING--" before McGonagall tells him to be more unbiased. And that's basically the tone of this entire rivalry. Look, I'm all for cheating for heel heat. That's not the problem. The problem is that Slytherin's creating the wrong kind of heat. If the ref sees you cheating, and penalizes you for it, then it does you no good.
You take Ric Flair, for example. One thing Ric Flair would never do is simply whack his opponent over the head with a chair, where the referee can see it. Because that's an automatic DQ, and that doesn't accomplish anything for him. If Flair were the defending champion, then it might be a different story, because then if he got DQ'ed, he still retains the title despite losing the match. It saves him the risk of losing his belt, as well as the exertion of completing his title defense against a worthy opponent. And yeah, I know wrestling is fake, but so is Quidditch, so stay with me here.
Now, what Flair WILL do a lot of times are tricks that might work to his favor, but won't get him penalized if he's caught. For instance, one of his managers might grab his opponent's leg when he's near the ring apron, tripping him up. If the ref sees that, he'll take the time to gripe out the manager, thus distracting him in case Ric wants to work over his opponent with brass knuckles, or maybe a roll of quarters. Alternately, the opponent might start griping out the manager himself, thus leaving his back turned so Flair can take a cheap shot. The key here is to distract the ref. A classic example of this is to cheat during a pinfall. If you position yourself near the ropes, you can grab a handful of the other guy's tights, making it harder for him to kick out. Or you can put your legs on the ropes for added leverage. Both of those moves are illegal, but the ref is oftentimes so busy counting the fall, he might not notice the chicanery going on in front of him.
Another good idea is when you're getting your ass kicked, to scramble over to the corner and get on your knees, begging for a time-out. So there's no confusion, you should make a really exaggerated "Time-out" sign with your hands. Of course, there are no time-outs in wrestling, but it's enough to make your opponent think he's got the upper hand, and when he reaches down to grab you, you just swing your arm between his legs, and give him the low blow. Always turns the tide.
The problem here is that Slytherin's team has no freaking clue how to cheat properly. This sucks, because they're made out to be the unbeatable villains here, and Gryffindor is picking them apart at will. That's lousy booking. You know why Sting was such a big time player in WCW? Because he beat Ric Flair, one of the all-time legends of professional wrestling, sixteen-time World's Champion, the Dirtiest Player in the Game. You know why the crowd was so hot at WrestleMania VIII? Because Macho Man Randy Savage was fighting Ric Flair for the championship, which he had won earlier in the year by cheating his way to victory in a thirty-man battle royal. Then he had photos doctored to make it look like he was boning Macho Man's wife, just to screw with Savage's head. The fans love to hate Ric Flair, and the reason why isn't because he gets caught all the time making blatantly obvious attempts to cheat. No. They hate him because he's a wheelin' dealin', kiss-stealin', jet plane flyin', limousine ridin', son of a gun. When he's not lying awake at night wishing he were Legolas, or David Bowie from "Labyrinth", Lucius Malfoy prays to God, that he could be Ric Flair. Whooo!
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Slytherin's team sucks at playing fair, and they suck at cheating, so they're kind of useless, no matter what role they're supposed to play in these books.
Back to the game, S-team tries to foul Harry this time, but his superior broomstick eliminates dustbunnies with the power of 10,000 hydrogen bombs, so they can't even touch him. Flint finally scores a goal to put them on the board, but they quickly revert to type, hitting Alicia again, then getting fouled in retaliation, and the score goes to forty-ten. I was about to point out that Gryffindor would be better off if they didn't retaliate and just quietly took their free points, but really, it doesn't matter what they do, since Slytherin can't hit a single one of their penalty shots. George Weasley could literally chop off Bole's arm, urinate in the open wound, and throw rocks at him for the rest of the game, and it wouldn't matter because the goalie's so damn good. And that's why Gryffindor sucks, because they act like they're overcoming some great and powerful adversary here, when really they're only winning because Slytherin sucks so hard. Going back to the Ric Flair analogy, Sting never made a name for himself fighting two-bit jobbers like Iron Mike Sharp, or Conquistador #2. How is Gryffindor supposed to look good is Slytherin sucks so hard at looking insurmountable?
Bell scores again, and I should point out that if Slytherin had simply played clean (or cheated more carefully), they'd only be behind ten points right now. At this stage, F&G have now resorted to flanking Bell, their clubs raised to defend her in case anyone tries anything funny. In a slight evolution of their strategy, Slytherin takes advantage by attacking the goalie, Oliver Wood, instead, since no one's close by to protect him. But the ref sees this, and it's another penalty shot, putting the score at sixty-ten. Then seventy-ten following another bout of regular play. And since that's the magic lead for G-Tower to win, Harry starts looking for the Snitch.
Realizing the implications, Draco goes after him, just in time to grab hold of the end of Harry's stick before he can grab the Snitch. That's ANOTHER penalty, although in this case I can see the justification. Draco was never gonna catch up to him, so better to risk giving G-Tower another ten points than handing them the entire game. And at least this time Alicia misses, which might suggest that Slytherin's actual plan was to get Gryffindor so frustrated that they'd lose focus. That's not a terrible idea, but it'd work a hell of a lot better if Slytherin had a better goalie. They score another goal to make it seventy-twenty, and now Harry has to shift back to defending the Snitch from Señor Draco.
Spinnet goes for another goal, but now Slytherin needs only to protect their goal and secure the Snitch, so everyone but Draco crowds around the goal to keep her from scoring. Noticing this, Harry launches himself straight for them at full speed, and they disperse to avoid being hit. This clears the way, and Spinnet restores the sixty-point lead. This seems like a costly move, since now Draco is free and clear to take the Snitch, but Harry somehow manages to swing around, dodge a Bludger, and beat him to it just in the nick of time. Wooo! Packers won the Super Bowl! Woo! Packers! Whatever.
To Rowling's credit, I have to admit that she managed to put three Quidditch games into this book and made each one distinctive. But like I was trying to say before, you're only as good as the opponent you beat, and Slytherin looked like garbage out there. You beat garbage, then all you can say for yourself is that you're better than garbage, and that's not saying much at all. All of that could have been fixed by simply giving Slytherin a crazy-awesome goalie, or something along those lines to balance out the advantage of Harry's Firebolt. For that matter, it's interesting to note that if Slytherin had simply played that game at the beginning of the year, before Harry got the Firebolt, they would have beaten them handily, then steamrolled over the other two teams and they'd be holding the championship right now. Going back to a tired point, weather is a neutral factor.
Points for Hermione hitting Draco, but I'm not really taken with this final game here. Rowling's like a lot of bookers. Able to make a good buildup to a match, but ultimately the players fail to deliver on the hype. At least now we can get on with the rest of the story, without having to constantly be reminded of Quidditch practice every seventh paragraph.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Finals week. I may have a heart attack from the unbridled excitement.