Chapter 30: Trials
Another title for this post could be "Fandom-y things are fandom-y". Happy seventh birthday to Deathly Hallows! Oh, the marathon reading, the efforts to stay hydrated, the temptation to SLEEP before finishing (yes, I succumbed) and the tongue-biting to prevent spoiling family members who haven't read as far, or asking my daughter to clam up about future developments, because she'd already read further than I had.
Following close on the heels of this, we (the whole family!) went to Toronto for Prophecy 2007, a great gathering and celebration of all seven books of the HP series! It was also the venue where I presented J.K. Rowling and Little Red Riding Hood: Pentecostal and Fairy-tale Imagery in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a paper which is not substantially changed to serve as Chapter 9 of my book Quantum Harry: A Unified Theory of the Potterverse. (And whenever I speak to any other authors of HP books that deal with religious imagery in the series, to a person, NO ONE else has ever picked up on the Pentecostal themes in CoS.)
It hardly seems possible that was seven years ago, any of it. I shall give you all virtual cuddling now.
:cuddles:
And now, on to the continued annotation of Psychic Serpent...
Chapter 30: Trials
1. Anyone in the wizarding world who needed to get to London (or points in between) in the morning, but who couldn't Apparate, or who was traveling with someone who couldn't, such as small children, needed to get the early train.
It simply seemed to me that not everyone could be living with a fireplace large enough to step into, that could be on the Floo network, and not everyone could Apparate or arrange for a Portkey. It also seemed to me that Flooing into the Ministry would be a major security problem, but Rowling decided that it wasn't. Oh, and we didn't yet know about SIDE-ALONG APPARITION. :grumble: But if a parent can't Apparate, then that parent can't Apparate with the kids, so it still feels like there are transportation gaps (like the Knight Bus not being able to go across water).
2. They went through the barrier to come out in the Muggle part of the station in pairs
Having now been at the real Kings Cross Station, I'm still not clear on how JKR ever got so very wrong the configuration of the platforms. And now that I've ridden the tube, it's making me nostalgic to see the names of stations I've ridden through or been in!
3. He swallowed painfully, remembering the people who had died there. Others were daily remembering them too; the spot had turned into a small shrine. There were flowers, some rather old now; photographs of people who had been killed, many of them children. The thing that broke his heart was the stuffed rabbit someone had left. Hermione picked it up, looking at it, tears in her eyes, before she replaced it.
When did we start doing this sort of thing? I remember seeing that there were literally tons of stuff people left at her residence when the Princess of Wales died. And you see this at every accident site these days. I feel like it's a new-ish thing, perhaps in the last 30 years, but I could be wrong. It seemed appropriate, though.
The really eerie thing to me is that nine years ago, before HBP was released, my daughter and I were in New York City for her to be taped with the two other kids from the Harry Potter Amazon Kids' Review Panel who were going to be interviewed on NBC about what they expected from HBP. It was going to air the night of HBP's release, but it was recorded much earlier, on July 7 of that year. That morning we had a dreadful time getting a taxi to go down to the Scholastic flagship store in SoHo, where the interview was being filmed, because the subways had all been shut down due to the terrorist attack on the London Tube that morning. I can't help but think now about how I wrote of an attack on a Tube station two years earlier and on the day we were in New York to do something else Harry Potter related, this happened. No matter how coincidental events like this obviously are, it's hard not to get shivers when this occurs.
4. Overhead and on both sides was terra cotta-colored brick. Large red-orange tiles covered the floor. It was like being in a large sewer pipe with a flat bottom.
I was so pleased that JKR also put the Ministry underground! I did think her phone booth entry was just a wee bit derivative of Get Smart, though. I also liked putting the Muggle and Wizard centers of government in close proximity to each other.
5. Harry puzzled over the strange appearance of the doorways. The people walking past them appeared suddenly, then disappeared just as suddenly, exactly the same as people on a television or cinema screen appearing and then disappearing from one side to the other.
I was also pleased to discover the disused tube stations in the underground that had been offices during WWII. It seemed like a perfect use for them now--Ministry of Magic offices!
6. An ordinary life. Why did that seem so much to ask?
More foreshadowing for the sequel.
7. "I've caught a slew of dark wizards, and I think the reason I have is that I can think like them. Doesn't mean I act like them. But I understand how their minds work, so I'm able to be one step ahead of them. Understand what I'm saying?" Malfoy nodded.
"You were in Slytherin."
I really wish JKR had given us more fleshed-out characters who weren't evil and who were Slytherins. She gave us Slughorn in HBP, but not-evil Slytherin students were rather thin on the ground, as well as adults. One thing gives me hope: in the Quidditch World Cup coverage, the fact that young Albus Severus Potter was supporting Brazil (whose color was GREEN) instead of Bulgaria (color: RED) like the rest of his family. Between that, the epilogue of DH ("the bravest man I ever knew") and the fact that she gave this kid the initials ASP, you could try to tell me that he won't be sorted into Slytherin, but I won't believe you!
8. Eustace Bean
This was a Judge Roy Bean joke. A handful of people got it.
9. Dumbledore remained standing, as did Fudge, who was glaring back at the headmaster. "We are here for the truth, yes!" the bowler-hatted wizard declared. "Not fairy tales about You-Know-Who returning!"
I had no idea how far JKR would take Fudge's denial in OotP, but the way she carried it out was brilliant, I felt. And I'm so glad I had Harry speak up with the truth too--since that's just what he did in OotP!
10. "Charges Sixteen through nineteen," Bean continued, "Placing those three girls under the Imperius Curse and using a potion that acts like Imperius on another girl. Once these girls were all in your power, what did you order them to do?"
I liked that JKR also manipulated Harry with his emotions, though it was his attachment to Sirius, not to a girl.
11. "Lucius Malfoy, you placed the Cruciatus Curse on Ronald Weasley. That brings the number of unforgivable curses you cast to two. Do you have anything to say? Do you deny that you put this curse on him?"
Malfoy smiled unevenly. "Why don't you ask him? Or better still-why don't you ask him whether he put the Cruciatus Curse on his best friend, Harry Potter?"
This is, of course, why Lucius is being so insufferably smug. (Plus the ace he has up his sleeve.) It doesn't hurt that for Ron to go to prison for life would wound both Harry and Arthur.
12. "Did you or did you not put the Cruciatus Curse on Harry Potter?"
Ron bit his lip; when he spoke, his voice shook. "I-I wanted Mr. Malfoy to think so..." Still technically a truthful response, if not a yes-no one.
Told you there was a reason I had Ron throw down his wand, as well as Harry learning the pain-blocking.
13. "No, I didn't die for you! I lived for you! And your father did, too! But do you appreciate it?"
And Narcissa gives the first hint at Draco's Obedience Charm, which will also be a problem for Harry in the sequel. (The charm that's on him in ToGI as well as the charm on Draco.) Interesting that in canon, it was Sirius who was disowned by his Slytherin parents for being on the "wrong" side, and he went to live with James, while Draco will be in close proximity to Harry. And I liked canon-Narcissa better than mine, which is to say, she turns out to be a more likeable character, while mine has, um, "issues".
14. Moody directed them to a doorway which Harry had noticed before that had a number of long tables with benches, similar to the house tables in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, but a bit smaller, only seating about ten people each.
JKR didn't really address this, but it seemed to me that Ministry employees and visitors would need a cafe of some sort on the premises, to avoid the slightly complicated process of leaving and re-entering the Ministry multiple times in the same day. (And considering the toilet entrance, I still feel that way.)
15. "It is a very powerful magical object that Voldemort has bestowed upon him, and it is part of his body. And as it is silver..." he turned and looked at Lupin, and Harry understood. He in particular had to be very careful if ever he encountered his old friend Pettigrew. Silver was fatal to werewolves.
JKR never did anything with the Lupin-silver-hand thing, but that's fine with me. (I was far from the only person to expect this--tons of other people did too!) For my fic, though, this was foreshadowing.
Once again, happy seventh birthday to DH!
:throws confetti:
Following close on the heels of this, we (the whole family!) went to Toronto for Prophecy 2007, a great gathering and celebration of all seven books of the HP series! It was also the venue where I presented J.K. Rowling and Little Red Riding Hood: Pentecostal and Fairy-tale Imagery in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a paper which is not substantially changed to serve as Chapter 9 of my book Quantum Harry: A Unified Theory of the Potterverse. (And whenever I speak to any other authors of HP books that deal with religious imagery in the series, to a person, NO ONE else has ever picked up on the Pentecostal themes in CoS.)
It hardly seems possible that was seven years ago, any of it. I shall give you all virtual cuddling now.
:cuddles:
And now, on to the continued annotation of Psychic Serpent...
Chapter 30: Trials
1. Anyone in the wizarding world who needed to get to London (or points in between) in the morning, but who couldn't Apparate, or who was traveling with someone who couldn't, such as small children, needed to get the early train.
It simply seemed to me that not everyone could be living with a fireplace large enough to step into, that could be on the Floo network, and not everyone could Apparate or arrange for a Portkey. It also seemed to me that Flooing into the Ministry would be a major security problem, but Rowling decided that it wasn't. Oh, and we didn't yet know about SIDE-ALONG APPARITION. :grumble: But if a parent can't Apparate, then that parent can't Apparate with the kids, so it still feels like there are transportation gaps (like the Knight Bus not being able to go across water).
2. They went through the barrier to come out in the Muggle part of the station in pairs
Having now been at the real Kings Cross Station, I'm still not clear on how JKR ever got so very wrong the configuration of the platforms. And now that I've ridden the tube, it's making me nostalgic to see the names of stations I've ridden through or been in!
3. He swallowed painfully, remembering the people who had died there. Others were daily remembering them too; the spot had turned into a small shrine. There were flowers, some rather old now; photographs of people who had been killed, many of them children. The thing that broke his heart was the stuffed rabbit someone had left. Hermione picked it up, looking at it, tears in her eyes, before she replaced it.
When did we start doing this sort of thing? I remember seeing that there were literally tons of stuff people left at her residence when the Princess of Wales died. And you see this at every accident site these days. I feel like it's a new-ish thing, perhaps in the last 30 years, but I could be wrong. It seemed appropriate, though.
The really eerie thing to me is that nine years ago, before HBP was released, my daughter and I were in New York City for her to be taped with the two other kids from the Harry Potter Amazon Kids' Review Panel who were going to be interviewed on NBC about what they expected from HBP. It was going to air the night of HBP's release, but it was recorded much earlier, on July 7 of that year. That morning we had a dreadful time getting a taxi to go down to the Scholastic flagship store in SoHo, where the interview was being filmed, because the subways had all been shut down due to the terrorist attack on the London Tube that morning. I can't help but think now about how I wrote of an attack on a Tube station two years earlier and on the day we were in New York to do something else Harry Potter related, this happened. No matter how coincidental events like this obviously are, it's hard not to get shivers when this occurs.
4. Overhead and on both sides was terra cotta-colored brick. Large red-orange tiles covered the floor. It was like being in a large sewer pipe with a flat bottom.
I was so pleased that JKR also put the Ministry underground! I did think her phone booth entry was just a wee bit derivative of Get Smart, though. I also liked putting the Muggle and Wizard centers of government in close proximity to each other.
5. Harry puzzled over the strange appearance of the doorways. The people walking past them appeared suddenly, then disappeared just as suddenly, exactly the same as people on a television or cinema screen appearing and then disappearing from one side to the other.
I was also pleased to discover the disused tube stations in the underground that had been offices during WWII. It seemed like a perfect use for them now--Ministry of Magic offices!
6. An ordinary life. Why did that seem so much to ask?
More foreshadowing for the sequel.
7. "I've caught a slew of dark wizards, and I think the reason I have is that I can think like them. Doesn't mean I act like them. But I understand how their minds work, so I'm able to be one step ahead of them. Understand what I'm saying?" Malfoy nodded.
"You were in Slytherin."
I really wish JKR had given us more fleshed-out characters who weren't evil and who were Slytherins. She gave us Slughorn in HBP, but not-evil Slytherin students were rather thin on the ground, as well as adults. One thing gives me hope: in the Quidditch World Cup coverage, the fact that young Albus Severus Potter was supporting Brazil (whose color was GREEN) instead of Bulgaria (color: RED) like the rest of his family. Between that, the epilogue of DH ("the bravest man I ever knew") and the fact that she gave this kid the initials ASP, you could try to tell me that he won't be sorted into Slytherin, but I won't believe you!
8. Eustace Bean
This was a Judge Roy Bean joke. A handful of people got it.
9. Dumbledore remained standing, as did Fudge, who was glaring back at the headmaster. "We are here for the truth, yes!" the bowler-hatted wizard declared. "Not fairy tales about You-Know-Who returning!"
I had no idea how far JKR would take Fudge's denial in OotP, but the way she carried it out was brilliant, I felt. And I'm so glad I had Harry speak up with the truth too--since that's just what he did in OotP!
10. "Charges Sixteen through nineteen," Bean continued, "Placing those three girls under the Imperius Curse and using a potion that acts like Imperius on another girl. Once these girls were all in your power, what did you order them to do?"
I liked that JKR also manipulated Harry with his emotions, though it was his attachment to Sirius, not to a girl.
11. "Lucius Malfoy, you placed the Cruciatus Curse on Ronald Weasley. That brings the number of unforgivable curses you cast to two. Do you have anything to say? Do you deny that you put this curse on him?"
Malfoy smiled unevenly. "Why don't you ask him? Or better still-why don't you ask him whether he put the Cruciatus Curse on his best friend, Harry Potter?"
This is, of course, why Lucius is being so insufferably smug. (Plus the ace he has up his sleeve.) It doesn't hurt that for Ron to go to prison for life would wound both Harry and Arthur.
12. "Did you or did you not put the Cruciatus Curse on Harry Potter?"
Ron bit his lip; when he spoke, his voice shook. "I-I wanted Mr. Malfoy to think so..." Still technically a truthful response, if not a yes-no one.
Told you there was a reason I had Ron throw down his wand, as well as Harry learning the pain-blocking.
13. "No, I didn't die for you! I lived for you! And your father did, too! But do you appreciate it?"
And Narcissa gives the first hint at Draco's Obedience Charm, which will also be a problem for Harry in the sequel. (The charm that's on him in ToGI as well as the charm on Draco.) Interesting that in canon, it was Sirius who was disowned by his Slytherin parents for being on the "wrong" side, and he went to live with James, while Draco will be in close proximity to Harry. And I liked canon-Narcissa better than mine, which is to say, she turns out to be a more likeable character, while mine has, um, "issues".
14. Moody directed them to a doorway which Harry had noticed before that had a number of long tables with benches, similar to the house tables in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, but a bit smaller, only seating about ten people each.
JKR didn't really address this, but it seemed to me that Ministry employees and visitors would need a cafe of some sort on the premises, to avoid the slightly complicated process of leaving and re-entering the Ministry multiple times in the same day. (And considering the toilet entrance, I still feel that way.)
15. "It is a very powerful magical object that Voldemort has bestowed upon him, and it is part of his body. And as it is silver..." he turned and looked at Lupin, and Harry understood. He in particular had to be very careful if ever he encountered his old friend Pettigrew. Silver was fatal to werewolves.
JKR never did anything with the Lupin-silver-hand thing, but that's fine with me. (I was far from the only person to expect this--tons of other people did too!) For my fic, though, this was foreshadowing.
Once again, happy seventh birthday to DH!
:throws confetti: