Quotes of the Week 5
Some thought-provoking quotes from Beedle the Bard, not from the stories, but the Intro, commentary, and footnotes. (JKR writes that certain footnotes were written by her to explain things to Muggles, but some of them seem to come from Dumbledore, while others may have been written by Hermione ) Since these are spoilers, I'll put them under an LJ-cut.
1. "Beedle's story is quite explicit about the fact that the second brothers lost love has not really returned from the dead. She has been sent by death to lure the second brother into Death's clutches, and is therefore cold, remote, tantalizingly both present and absent."
~ Dumbledore writing about the "Tale of Three Brothers," making a slightly unexpected remark considering Harry's walk in the forest with his own entourage of cold, remote, present, and absent spirits, who could be seen as "luring him" to his death. Or maybe they were there to help him. Contradiction much?
2. "Ultimately, the quest for the Elder Wand merely supports an observation I have had occasion to make many times over the course of my long life, that humans have a knack for choosing precisely those things that are the worst for them."
~ Dumbledore writing about "Tale of Three Brothers," possibly contradicting a previous statement that "our choices make us what we are" in CoS (and what about all those kids choosing their Houses, or people choosing their marriage partners? *it is fun to speculate on this quote*)
3. "Animagi make up a small fraction of the Wizarding population....many witches and wizards consider that their time might be better-employed in other ways. Certainly the application of such talent is limited unless one has great need of concealment. It is for this reason that the Ministry of Magic has insisted upon a register of Animagi, for there can be no doubt that this kind of magic is of greatest use to those engaged in surreptitious, covert, or even criminal activity."
~ Dumbledore in the comments to "Babbitty Rabbity," possibly making a case for the Marauders wasting their energy and sinking to criminal activity, and begging the question of why practical Professor McGonagall decided to become a catimagus in the first place.
4. "This exchange marked the beginning of Mr. Malfoy's long campaign to have me removed from my post as Headmaster of Hogwarts, and of mine to have him removed from his position as Lord Voldemort's Favorite Death Eater." (And in the footnote: "My response prompted several further letters from Mr. Malfoy, but as they consisted mainly of opprobrious remarks on my sanity, parentage, and hygiene, their relevance to this commentary is remote.)
~ Dumbledore being quite pointed in his verbal attack on Lucius Malfoy, who wrote a letter to get "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" banned from the Hogwart's Library because it dealt with Muggle-Wizard intermarriage, and also quite interesting from the standpoint of recent witch-hunts in JKR's own fandom
5. "Hector Dagworth-Granger, founder of the most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, explains: "Powerful infatuations can be induced by the skillful potioneer, but never yet has anyone managed to create the truly unbreakable, eternal, unconditional attachment that alone can be called Love."
~ Footnote to "The Warlock's Hairy Heart," possibly written by Hermione or Dumbledore himself. Dagworth-Granger, with a name identical to Hermione's, was mentioned in HBP Chapter 9, when Slughorn asks Hermione if she is related to him. Thanks to the Harry Potter Lexicon for that information, because I did not remember that detail. Ah, Mark Evans, I remember him well!
6. "Beatrix Bloxam (1794-1910),author of the infamous Toadstool Tales. Mrs. Bloxam believed that The Tales of Beedle the Bard were damaging to children, because of what she called "their unhealthy preoccupation with the most horrid subjects, such as death, disease, bloodshed, wicked magic, unwholesome characters, and bodily effusions and eruptions of the most disgusting kind."
~ Dumbledore writing in the comments to "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot," possibly making a case that JKR is rather upset with the works and philosophy of author-illustrator Beatrix Potter, author of "Tale of Peter Rabbit" and other cute books for children that she must deem as dangerous due to "not" being about magic or bloodshed (books about disobedient bunnies in a garden are just unacceptable for small children!)
7. "This is certainly typical of a particular type of Muggle thinking: In their ignorance, they are prepared to accept all sorts of impossibilities about magic, including the proposition that Babbitty has turned herself into a tree that can still think and talk."
~ Dumbledore commenting on Babbitty Rabbitty, and being quite "Cattitty" about Muggles (and hey - why is it a stretch that someone could be turned into a tree? In PoA, the kids believed Sirius Black could turn himself into a shrubbery, and in HBP, Slughorn turns himself into an armchair. So . . . those gosh-darn ignorant Muggles are just so wrong?
8. "The Cruciatus, Imperious, and Avada Kedavra curses were first classified as "Unforgivable" in 1717, with the strictest penalties attached to their use."
~ Footnote to Babbitty Rabbitty (written by either Hermione, Dumbledore, or JKR?), which begs the question ~ when did Harry pay that age-old strict penalty for his various Cruciatus Curses? Oh wait, never mind.
9. "Though somewhat dated, the expression "to have a hairy heart" has passed into everyday Wizarding language to describe a cold or unfeeling witch or wizard."
~ Dumbledore in the comments to "The Warlock's Hairy Heart," with an interesting use of the word "hairy" which rhymes with "Harry" of course, and strange because "Harry's heart" is what saves him over and over, so this is making the point that . . . what? And how many witches and wizards really choose not to love because it is a waste of time? Let's see - Voldemort and this Warlock guy. So yeah, this story teaches a good lesson to almost nobody.
10. "Beedle's stories have helped generations of Wizarding Parents to explain this painful fact of life to their young children: that magic causes just as much trouble as it cures."
~ J. K. Rowling in the Introduction, sort of undercutting the fact that Harry loves being magical (in one of the movies he squees "I love magic!") and can't wait to get back to Hogwarts, his "real home"