Chapter Nineteen
The Lion and the Serpent
Useless Fact: This is the chapter I read first when I got my copy, purely on the basis of the title.
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Useless Fact: This is the chapter I read first when I got my copy, purely on the basis of the title.
( Read more... )
"Hey...wanna see my patronus?" *unzips flies*
It's amazing the way that works out, isn't it?
Heh. I love Hermione’s dialogue. So natural.
It demonstrates the precise problems with using certain characters as endless sources of clever. Hermione sounds less like a human being an more like the soulless automaton we all know she is. And by "we all", I mean "you and me".
Even though Rowling has more or less admitted that Hermione is her self-insert, I wonder if she ever comes out with stuff that sounds like she memorised it out of a book.
Also, presuming that the nearest equivalent to an OWL is a GCSE and a NEWT equals roughly an A-Level, Hermione isn’t necessarily a genius. And even if achieving a NEWT standard meant exceptional skill, it wouldn’t follow that skill = brains.
Plenty of people at GCSE level can grasp things taught to A-Level students. I could in some subjects, but I'm nothing spectacular. Besides, so much of Hermione's "intelligence" appears to involve memorising things from books and writing overlong essays (note: at university, one gets marks off for an overlong essay) rather than actually questioning things and making great leaps and bounds. That's booksmart, but not any sort of real genius. I'm actually quite insulted that Hermione is being held up as some manner of intellectual ubermensch when all she does is follow instructions.
And why is this the first we’ve heard of this? Especially since there’s no mention of any pause in Sorting in PS? Did Hermione get any say whatsoever? (I’ve never seen any evidence that the hat doesn’t merely put everyone in the house they want to go in, myself.)
I think Hermione's lying, mostly because she's absolutely nothing like a Ravenclaw. She has no intellectual or questioning impulses at all. But we can't be allowed to forget how full of herself wonderfully clever Hermione is.
I love how because McGonagall, unlike Dumbledore, makes an extremely lame attempt to appear impartial, Harry takes this as her not preferring him at all, and thus being a hard ass.
As I've said before, having Harry as a favourite and being massively biased towards Gryffindor is a sign of immense fairness/purity of soul and a sure sign of a Good Egg. Having someone other than Harry as a favourite (unless it's Neville, and even that's a bit suspect, see fakeMoody) and not showing any particular bias towards Gryffindor is the sign of someone deeply suspect that one has to watch onesself around. Appearing to be obviously unimpressed by Harry/Ron/Hermione and maybe being a dirty Slytherin is the clear sign of evil, and a rotting of the very soul.
McGonagall's attempts to be "fair" are as convincing to me as her attempts to be a "strong woman". "Fair" ain't fair when you do more for your own sports team than you'd ever think of doing for anyone else, and "strong" ain't strong when you still jump every time your boss tells you to, and when you agree with (pretty much) every miserable word he says.
To be fair, we never see any reaction from Snape when “odd things ke(ep) happening” to Slytherin students, such as being hexed with “horrible skin complaints” and having to miss class thanks to “growing antlers”.
Nevertheless, he is hugely biased towards Slytherin and lets them off everything. Indeed, he is obsequiously pally with them all, whereas Gryffindor teachers are Fair and Reasoned in their unqualified sycophancy and praise.
I mean, say what you like about Severus, at least he's a fairly consistent misanthrope. I do wish he gave less of a shit about Quidditch, though. Still, that's men for you ;)
I wonder what house the fourteen eye-witnesses were in.
I wonder why none of them went "Behind you!" or made any attempt to prevent this. Scared of shouting in the Library lest they get told off? Must be Hufflepuff!
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I can now imagine a scenario in which the Gryffindor team is for some reason playing some big international side and apparently getting roundly thrashed. Harry despairs and is consumed by woe until he looks up into the stands and, amongst all the faces booing him, he sees the face of his true love mouthing "I love you". Suddenly he has the morale to Go Out There and PLAY LIKE HE'S NEVER PLAYED BEFORE!!! It's all part of the Code. Or is it the Rules? Anyway, happens all the time.
BWHAHAHA. Wait a second. That’s not really that funny.
I see TV shows and hear things on the radio where this happens and it really pisses me off. I hold comedy in quite high esteem and I feel that if you want to get a laugh out of me, you've got to work for it. I'm not going to laugh just because you want me to, you speccy little toss. Anyway, if Hermione finds this teh_funneh, how can it be true comedy? Hermione hates fun.
I’m surprised their hats aren’t black. With little devil horns, like a Jack Chick cartoon! ;)
They're probably really ugly hats, though. Gryffindor colours are the most stylish combination, after all.
Of course, Harry isn’t.
It's normal for lesser mortals to be nervous. Harry is Experienced and therefore used to this kind of thing.
a pathetically misjudged attempt to mack on Ron/Harry
Could be. After all, people cite so many things to suggest that Luna hearts Ron that I wouldn't be surprised.
or else being a bit of a sycophant - she's just met these people, who don't even appear to like her and already they're her best friends and she supports them in every venture?
I am always amazed at people who insist Ginny is "friends" with Luna and ever so kind to her, when all I saw was Ginny taking the piss and laughing at her behind her back. Nevertheless, Ginny is so good to occasionally regard the physical presence of someone so unworthy.
If Luna was anything special, she'd realise what a bitch Ginny was and tell her to go and fuck herself.
her whole attitude is basically a more liberal version of Malfoy's "Blah, blah, Daddy says"
I hadn't entirely thought of it this way, but you're right. It's another example of how people who agree with their own parents are somehow not as good as others - whereas people who agree with their headmaster are Good and Righteous.
Am I the only one who has no opinion either way, and finds the suggestions of a love triangle horrifying and cheesy?
I think they all need to remain virgins forever. Especially Hermione, who clearly has no genitalia anyway. I admit, I will be subtly disappointed if any of them get together. Especially if there's a love triangle where Hermione is in love with Harry and Ron is in love with Hermione. Love triangles are shit.
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Seriously. It's like JKR's prodding the audience 'Look! Laugh! Pansy/Draco/Zacharias/Umbridge looks stupid and is gawping! The Trio thinks it's funny!' rather than, oh I don't know, just writing a half-way decent gag. Mind you, I'm suspicious of anyone who finds the twins witty, which appears to be the intent of JKR when writing them.
Anyway, if Hermione finds this teh_funneh, how can it be true comedy? Hermione hates fun.
Heh. Does Hermione ever even make any jokes herself? I can only remember about two, both at people's expense, neither wildly funny.
I am always amazed at people who insist Ginny is "friends" with Luna and ever so kind to her, when all I saw was Ginny taking the piss and laughing at her behind her back. Nevertheless, Ginny is so good to occasionally regard the physical presence of someone so unworthy.
How heroic! Like the way everyone treats Neville - occasional mockery combined with pity and a desire not to be around them in front of 'cool' kids.
If Luna was anything special, she'd realise what a bitch Ginny was and tell her to go and fuck herself.
Likewise the Trio, who's reactions to her so far have been: insulting Daddy Dearest's paper, saying she has a rubbish sense of humour cos HAGRID RAWKS, K?, denying the existence of crazy creatures, and muttering about her in an attempt to mack on Cho. Have any of them given her any indication whatsoever that they want her around? Why is she so pathetic that she roots for them, her new best friends, who don't even like her?
Love triangles are shit.
Totally. Besides the 'Of course Hermione loves Harry, what woman wouldn't?' and the two equally hideous outcomes: Hermione 'settles' for Ron or Harry loves her back; it's just so lame.
Like, god forbid people have friends of the opposite sex that they don't fancy. And of course, the girl is some kind of prize to be fought over, rather than having any value on her own merits.
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Oh yes. Mind you, I feel that about a lot of things. One of the reasons I never really got into Friends was that whenever a mildly funny joke was made, there was an atmosphere of "Hey, we made a joke!" I don't much like laughter tracks on things, especially since they tend to drown out the actual punchline anyway - and it's very offputting to be told when to laugh.
Mind you, as I've said elsewhere, people tend to believe what they read. So if we're told Ginny or whoever is very funny, they'll tend to remember her as such.
occasional mockery combined with pity and a desire not to be around them in front of 'cool' kids.
I know I "should" like Neville, but he's so damn wet. Surely he's not so dense that he can't realise that Harry despises him (also, how long do you think it'll be before Harry tells him about the prophesy, of which he might well have been the subject? I'm thinking at least two-thirds of the way through book six, and not before spending valuble page time angsting about how he has to carry this dreadful burden All Alone, woe)
Have any of them given her any indication whatsoever that they want her around? Why is she so pathetic that she roots for them, her new best friends, who don't even like her?
Harry even went as far as to try and prevent her from coming to the Ministry of Magic at the end because she (and Neville and Ginny) was so embarassing. I wouldn't be very impressed with someone who insisted on treating me like that.
And of course, the girl is some kind of prize to be fought over, rather than having any value on her own merits.
This is, by the way, another thing I hate about the repulsive Severus/Lily/James triangle hanging round the fandom like a stalker. Lily is so speshul that all the boys love her (we've seen literally no indication that Severus liked Lily at all, but obviously any sort of exchanged word counts as a declaration of love) but she's not actually anything better than a sparkly thing that boys fight over. I don't care what anybody says, she's got tit-all personality, she's just Harry's saintlike mother robot.
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I hate Neville. Neville is exactly what JKR attempts to make us loathe: a coward; and yet for him, it's supposed to be okay, presumably because he's a Gryffindor coward, blah blah doublestandardcakes. He just has no dignity, and while I don't put the emphasis on pride that apparently everyone in the HP!verse does, he really isn't very likeable.
Heh, I imagine it will be spun out for ages, until someone tells off Harry and he can use it to shut them up, in a fit of anger. And then, perhaps, he might consider telling Neville. Sooner or later. When Neville needs his help, is my guess.
And Neville will immediately feel sorry for Harry and console him, rather than considering it from his own perspective at all, because the best people care about Harry above all others.
Or maybe he'll go quiet and focus on DADA more as a way to revenge himself. Yay.
What I love is that train part where he wishes that Cho hadn't seen him with Neville and Luna. Not Ginny, though. Know why? BECAUSE GINNY IS COOL.
Of course Severus loved her. He called her a mudblood. Why, it's like Romeo and Juliet, in a way.
And Sirius and Remus (UGH I HATE MOVIE!REMUS MORE EVEN THAN BOOK!REMUS) and even fat, ugly Peter all fancied her, too. After all, she had almond-shaped eyes. *vomits*
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Movie Remus was as creepy as fuck, which is partly because David Thewlis is as creepy as fuck, especially in that creep-tache, and partly because of his oozing over Harry on that bridge scene. And his description of Lily! It's probably to do with Humbert Kloves and his fascination with teenage girls (am so glad he won't be writing the script for 1337 Ginny in the fifth film), but wouldn't you even be a bit creeped out if some teacher started vomiting out stalkerish praise of your own dear mum?
Also, the usual Lily-so-cool, Lily-so-good dribble. Show me some redeeeming vices, then I might start to agree with you.
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I know. I mean, at least with Harry or Draco, both of whom can be fairly obnoxious and react stupidly, you have at least a decent motive to fear a teacher - they hurt you.
With Neville, his biggest fear is based around a glare. Which is just lame.
My sister went into hysterics over Thewlis, since we've seen Total Eclipse (which features Gay!Thewlis nailing Leonardo DiCaprio, and gratuitious Thewlis!nudity.) She especially liked the line 'Believe me, I've looked worse.'
But seriously, I hate Movie!Remus. I'm not fond of Book!Remus, but at least he admits he makes mistakes. Movie!Remus is whiny and self-pitying and whitewashed and creepy, and the stupid Poor Gay Remus bit was one of the lowest points. And that's saying something. (I think I'm the only person in the world ((how very Harry! ;)) who doesn't a) like PoA the book best and b) doesn't like PoA the movie best. At least Columbus knew he was cheesy. Cuaron's film was cliched cheese that thinks it's art.)
God, the fifth film will be shite however writes/directs it. But imagine who they'll cast for Lily.
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The lycanthropy-is-homosexuality parts of PoA-the-movie offended me, as I've said before. The film looked better in a lot of ways, compared to the first two, but there was a lot of useless shit that could have been hoisted out in favour of explaining the backstory/Maurader's map/Snape connection. That busride was dreary in the book, we don't need it recreated in super-techno-two-mirror-o-vision complete with humourous shrunken Lenny Henry (thought: when exactly did Lenny Henry stop being funny? I'd swear he was once). Also, was most amused by the fact that Sirius' animagus form appears to be a terrier-ish mongrel. I was picturing a black labrador or something, but apparently not.
Someone on another forum suggested Daniel Radcliffe for young James and the girl who plays Ginny for young Lily. I do hope they don't do that ("HAY GUESS WHAT OUR OTP IS!!!!").
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I thought the direction was, um...showy? Pretentious? Like, ooh, look at me, I can do a closeup into SOMEONE'S EYE. Wow. I've never seen such an amazing technique before. Watch, as the Knight Bus appears to fold (that was a really, really, really cheap looking effect.) Marvel as I include homages....to ME! And make every single character dislikeable (Kloves/Cuaron/JKR - theirloveissoselfcongratulatory) Plot? Characterization? These things are unimportant next to the kicky pink hoody and showcasing Daniel Radcliffe's attempts at crying!
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But more importantly, I don't like the way his development is going--the "lesson" he's teaching seems all wrong. Like Luna, Neville is supposed to prove himself to the cool kids and tag along after them until he earns their friendship when I personally think it would be more satisfying and dignified for both of them to think Harry and his friends aren't half as great as they think they are. But of course Neville thinks of Hermione as "kind" rather than being annoyed at how she constantly draws attention to him in class and likes to see him as yet another unfortunate to protect, like the house elves. And he thinks Harry's the best and so heroic despite Harry obviously fidgeting whenever he has to spend time with Neville--not to mention Harry's OMG WOE TO ME THE ORPHAN I SUFFER SO!! when Neville himself has to deal with two Pod Parents. And of course he loves Ginny for proving how kind she is by being seen with him in public--it's good she was rewarded by meeting a better guy during their date.
Neville could be the character who stands against the stupid side of Gryffindor if he continued to stand up to peer pressure and refuse to become a bully. Instead we're supposed to cheer him on for conforming and getting the kids who used to completely ignore him to tolerate him--woo hoo.
It's the same with Luna, in a way, the way the book just assumes that of course she'd want to hang out with these kids even though they think she's as nuts as everyone else thinks she is. It's like that scene in The Breakfast Club where Molly Ringwald explains that Anthony Michael Hall's friends "look up to" her and her friends--it's the classic arrogant fallacy of the popular kids: other kids wish they were our friends. Certainly the geeks don't trash us to each other. I think that's one of the weirdest things about the way N/L was sunk to me--maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I got the impression that JKR thought that a) Neville should be even more put off by Luna's weirdness than a hero like Harry would be, despite being a nerd himself and b) that it was unhealthy for two outcasts to get together because that would imply they didn't mind being outcasts. Like it would sad if they wound up settling for marrying each other instead of hooking up with "normal" people who were socially successful. I don't think Neville and Luna *should* get together just because neither has real friends, but if they chose each other because they genuinely loved each other it would be just as good a relationship as any of the Trio ships.
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I must say that's not the way I read it at all, rather I thought what she was doing was generalising the motives of N/L-shippers, much like she generalised the motives of D/Hr-shippers ("they only want Draco and Hermione to get together because Tom Felton is pretty and girls usually go for 'bad boys' before they have acquired the wisdom and experience I have"), when she sunk that ship. And her assumption of the N/L-shippers' motivation was that they didn't want Neville and Luna together because they honestly thought they were suited, or because they love each other (which we now know they never will in Canon), but because they thought "everyone must necessarily be paired up", and "no one who is NOT a geek could ever possibly love Neville or Luna, so they better fall in love with each other, because that's the only chance they could ever get".
I completely agree with you on the "Neville-lesson" part, though. I still like Neville, but I'm really fearing that his "rise-storyline" will become more than I could handle, and I'd hate it if the lesson becomes that he has to transform to Harry's/Trio's/Rest of Gryffindor's standards, before he can "gain" other people's respect and his own peace of mind. This is why I loved this story so much, because it shows a Neville who cmes to the conclusion that he doesn't need other people's approval all the time, rather than having him transform, and then become accepted. It's also a big part of the appeal in the Neville/Cho-ship, for me. I mean yes, part of it IS because I think having Neville succeed where Harry doesn't is a far more satisfying and suitable resolution for this character, instead of having him go through some cheesy secondary hero's journey (kill me now!), but it would also be come across to me as "two people who Harry has deemed unworthy" (though for completely different reasons), deciding they love each other despite what other people (other people here meaning Harry ;-)) think of them. While N/L could supposedly tell this story as well, I think N/C would do it far better, not least because the fact that both Neville and Luna are, at least by the end of OotP, Harry-friend-wannabes, and I don't think JKR having them dating each other would have changed that in any way.
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But yeah, that's exactly what I don't like about Neville, that his own strengths aren't good enough so he better develop some kung fu double quick. Then we can have Hero!Harry, Second!Hero!Neville and Coming!Up!A!Distant!Third!Sidekick!Ron.
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Why does he have to be good at the subjects Harry deems best, like DADA, and 'prove' that he belongs in Gryffindor by fighting. Why can't it just be that he's brave because he has a rough time of it and doesn't whine (unlike other characters who shall remain nameless, lest I be accused of not having proper respect for Harry, the Only Boy with Hormones in the world...Oops.) and works hard?
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And now I'm curious as to whether any Neville/Cho exists. I know Invisible to See had a little.
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I would really like to see someone who genuinely doesn't conform. Someone who doesn't support Gryffindor at Quidditch - and not just because they're Slytherins, but because they hate Quidditch. Someone who actually resists conforming and refuses to hang around with the popular set on the basis that they're a shallow bunch of patronising fucks. Neville pisses me off because he does nothing to earn anyone's respect, we're just supposed to like him because he follows our heroes around like a slightly brain-damaged lost puppy. He doesn't have a single thought of his own in his head and no real personality beyond "charity case". Why should I care if he's bullied by anyone?
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