Half-Blood Prince Uberwank: Chapter 2, Spinner's End
So I was going to put this up towards the end of the week, but I decided to hurry it up and get it out a little earlier, just in case the CERN particle accelerator thing destroys the world. I would hate for any of you to be engulfed by a black hole without having first endured enjoyed My Thoughts On Snape.
Du
Du hast
Du hast mich
Du hast mich
Du hast mich gefragt
Du hast mich gefragt
Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab' nichts gesagt
- Rammstein, "Du Hast"
Woo chapter 2! This one doesn't focus on Harry either, which I rather like in principle; I like when the action (such as it is) shifts away from his limited perspective. Of course, the problem is so often that JKR doesn't really use it: in chapter 1, as well as the first chapter in DH, it's not like we get to see any action, we just get exposition presented in a slightly different style to normal. Here, although we mainly get talking and wangst, at least the plot is moved along and the characters given some development, so I'm cool with it.
OK, so here we go. We're in some kind of northern industrial town which for some reason reminds me of Stockport, although I've only been there once, so I may have that wrong. The skyline is dominated by the mill tower, which looms over the town like an enormous brick phallus. Or finger, it might say finger in the book, now I think of it. Two people apparate onto the banks of a river; we will discover in a moment that they are Narcissa Malfoy (alias "Cissy") and Bellatrix Lestrange (alias "Bella"), queen goths. Narcissa is on a mission, and Bellatrix is along to stop her. As soon as they arrive, Bella kills an urban fox, to give us an idea of how paranoid and evil she is and that sort of thing. They make their way up the river bank, through a gap in some railings and then through a series of streets lined with what I guess are typical former-industrial-town brick houses, all the while arguing about whether they should be here or not. I take back what I said, this is getting tedious. Get a move on, girls, I'm bored.
Eventually they reach their destination, where Snape's nose arrives at the door, followed shortly by Snape. As usual, he has greasy hair and black eyes. (JKR does that a lot, doesn't she, describing people we already know by their physical features as if they're a new character. Anyway, who actually has black eyes? Truly black eyes.)
Snape invites them in. His living room is full of books and otherwise has an air of not being normally inhabited, which is hardly surprising as Snape lives at Hogwarts most of the time, doesn't he? Anyway, they get settled, Narcissa asks if they're alone, to which Snape tells her that they are - well, Wormtail's here, but he doesn't count. To prove this, he opens a secret door hidden behind a bookshelf (LOLOLOLOLOL Snape has a secret door hidden behind a bookshelf! I hope he's also got an intercom into which he murmurs "Kill them!" after anyone leaves the room and a button on the underside of a desk which opens a trapdoor in the floor) and there is Wormtail, anyway, being generally pitiful. Snape makes him get drinks, then sends him to his room and strongly implies he'll be up to rape him later - or, at least, he'll be up to do something that Wormtail "winces" in anticipation of. Actually, Snape/Wormtail needs a ship name if it doesn't have one already. HMS How The Tables Have Turned or something like that. Anyway, they bicker and once again I find myself revising my original, favourable opinion of the chapter.
Interesting, I guess, that the death eaters call him Wormtail, given that it was his nickname amongst his friends at school. There are two possible explanations for this: firstly, the other death eaters seek to humiliate and torment Peter by using the name that was chosen by the friends he went on to betray, so that he is constantly reminded of what a generally miserable, pitiful bastard he is. Alternatively, JK Rowling reckons "Wormtail" sounds more evil, plus a bit like that guy Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings, and also it dehumanises him which means less character development is needed, so, yeah.
Right, where were we. OK, so Snape pours them all a glass of a wizarding drink called "pimp juice", and they toast Voldemort's health. Toasting the health of a guy who's effectively immortal strikes me as a particularly redundant exercise, but I guess it's a formality or something - and anyway, it's not like being immortal would prevent you from getting colds or ear infections or that thing where it hurts when you pee. Anyway, they all drain their glasses immediately, and Snape refills them. It isn't really pimp juice, it's wine. At the rate they're going they'll be playing Naked Twister and calling each other "my best friend" before the hour is up. (It's "elf-made wine", for the record, which I guess means made by elves and not from elves, if only because if it were made from elves, then I dunno if you could really class it as wine, because it would be meat.)
The piss-up underway, it's down to business - or it would be, except that Wormtail is still listening at the door. Snape makes a point of stressing that he's been doing that a lot lately. Why he bothers isn't clear, because Wormtail's keyhole habit will never come up again. So Narcissa starts over, only this time she is interrupted by Bellatrix whining about how she doesn't trust Snape. She is, of course, absolutely right not to trust him; shrewd lady, that Bella. JK Rowling doesn't like traitors, which is why that Marietta girl still has acne in this book (but I'll come back to that when we get to it). There's possibly a point in here somewhere... but I'm pretty headachey right now.
Anyway, Narcissa, in her frustration (and reflecting mine) lets out "a noise that might have been a dry sob". Might have been? Might have been? Well, Rowling, is it or isn't it? What kind of omniscient narrator are you? Was it a dry sob or not? Was it perhaps an impression of an old-fashioned car horn, or an orgasm, or the mating call of some hilariously obscure creature?
... Sorry, this is getting stupid. It's because Snape is here, his sarcasm seems to rub off on me. I don't even like him much, but I do appreciate what an utter bastard he is. He takes the easy route, anyway, and assumes that the noise she just made was a sob, and invites Bella to come and have a go if she's so clever. He acts all satisfied when Bella starts questioning whether he should be trusted. I bet he's spent hours in front of the mirror, practicing exactly what he will say when this topic comes up. That's probably why he's so tetchy about Wormtail listening at doors, actually - Wormtail keeps catching him interviewing himself in the bathroom. I'd say that Snape was using a hairbrush as a microphone, too, except that he doesn't own a hairbrush.
Anyway, as a result of Bella's whining, there now begins an extended sequence in which she plays the role of The Fandom, asking Snape a series of questions about loyalty and Voldemort and trust and so on. It goes on for something like six pages and takes in pretty much every point in the series where Snape did something to save Harry or that didn't help Voldemort, and each one is systematically shot down: Snape thought that Quirrell (from book 1, remember? I feel a little bad for that guy. He must have the smallest fanbase ever. He must be the only character in the books I've never seen slashed with anyone) had nothing to do with Voldemort, so he worked against him. He held off returning to Voldemort when he returned in order to secure his position as a spy at Hogwarts. And so on. In places, it reads less like an actual conversation and more like someone ticking boxes in order to pre-empt difficult questions from fans about this, that and the other. (It happens in the next couple of chapters as well, with Dumbledore handwaving away every loose end from the last book.)
There are a couple of quite good bits in there, though: for example, when they talk about the battle in the department of mysteries and how badly they cocked it up, and what can only be described as a bitch-fight breaks out between the ladies - Narcissa actually says, "Don't you dare blame my husband!" at one point, which is pretty funny. Then again, there are also a couple of bits of complete WTF, like when Snape says he can't tell them where the Order's HQ is because he isn't secret keeper, which sounds OK but nags at my brain because I'm not sure how well it fits with other bits of established canon about the whole secret keeper thing. I don't even want to start trying to examine it, though, because I suspect trying to pull a clear untangled thread of sense out of it is likely to leave things in an even worse mess than before. So let's just not go there.
Once all the excuses are done with and Snape has presented a summary and conclusion, Narcissa finally gets to talk about why she's here in the first place. There is a lot of talk around "the plan"; the upshot is that all three of them know about this plan, but we don't get to find out what it is yet, except that Draco is supposed to do something, but as is clear to everyone he is such a n00b he's going to fuck it up completely. Draco fucking it up completely is totally the point, pretty much because Voldemort is a dick. At this stage we don't know that the plan is to kill Dumbledore, but then it was always going to be something like that; it was hardly going to be a surprise birthday party, was it. Although, actually, for the sake of the lulz, let's just work on the assumption that is is, indeed, a surprise birthday party.
Anyway, the upshot is that Draco is going to fuck it up because he's a n00b and that's why Narcissa is here, to ask if Snape will throw the party instead, because he has much better access to lemonade and delicious caek and party rings and sausages-on-sticks and triangular sandwiches and chocolate fingers and cheese-and-pineapple-on-sticks and iced gems and pink wafers and jammie dodgers. Also he orchestrates a mean game of Sleeping Lions.
Where was I? OK, so Draco has been given a mission, which he is going to fuck up, and Narcissa wants Snape to help him do it so he doesn't die. She cries a lot and kisses Snape's hands and moans about "My son, my only son" which is a bit sad and poignant the first time she does it and annoying the 17th time. Also she spills wine down her front, and in another bit she throws her glass on the floor. There's also a quite funny bit where she is freaking out and Snape makes her STFU simply by giving her more wine. Meanwhile in the background Bellatrix is goth-ing out about how if she had sons of her own she would happily give them over to the service of the Dark Lord. Wait, I think I was at this party! In a minute someone rolls something called "The Millennium Joint" and Emily is sick in the gutter. Then Tom and Tarquin get out the bongos and that's when you know it's time to leave. This isn't the kind of party that has food on sticks, although there will come a point in the evening when you'll suddenly realise that cheese-and-pineapple-on-a-stick is basically the greatest thing ever, no really, it's just basically the best thing in the whole world and why can't I have any, this is fucked up, what kind of party is this anyway - oh look! An entire head of raw broccoli, that will do om nom nom nom, broccoli, that's a funny word isn't it. Broccoli broccoli broccoli.
Right, so then Narcissa puts Snape in an awkward position by asking him to make something called an unbreakable vow. Bellatrix acts as the "bonder", which I guess is a kind of magical witness: Narcissa and Snape grasp hands, and she puts her wand on their hands and magical fire comes out of it and does something important. What is interesting is that Bellatrix is completely incredulous the whole time and just gawps at the flames coming from her wand - in other words, it doesn't appear that any kind of magical effort is required on her part, it's just that there needs to be a third party to "witness" it. A total of three vows are made, so by the end of this, Snape has to watch over Draco, protect him, and bail him out when he inevitably fucks up.
The unbreakable vow is an interesting example of Potterverse magic and how it's defined, I think. One of the things you might take from this chapter is that the vow must be Dark Magic, although that conclusion mainly comes from who is doing it (OK, later in this book it transpires that you die if you do break it, which is fairly Dark - but then the wizarding world's official sport can kill you too, and kids play that at school). As a side note, I'm also reminded of the wedding ceremony we saw in the final book. We didn't get many details of that because Harry was too busy fantasising about Ginny's tits, and as a result things were left quite open - but I'd be interested to know how much of that ceremony was actually magical as well as official. And if there is a magical component to it, how closely related is it to the unbreakable vow? What happens if your marriage doesn't work out in the wizarding world? It's not like we've seen any divorces, although we have seen the odd unhappy couple. (Hey, if this vow thing leads to stuff like angsty post-epilogue H/D, for example, then I'm down with it. But, as always, I digress.)
So, then! This is the chapter that made us all go, shit, maybe Snape really is evil! (Or, at least, start totting up the evidence on each side of the argument.) I can't remember how I felt at first reading; I suspect I was mainly indifferent, possibly a bit spun out. The thing is, of the five previous books, four feature the specific plot twist where a good guy turns out to be a bad guy, or vice versa, or both (book 1 - Snape and Quirrell; book 2 - diary!Tom; book 3 - Sirius and "Scabbers"; book 4 - Crouch!Moody; and it's entirely possible it happens in book 5 as well and I've forgotten about it). So by this point, I suspect I was getting kind of bored of all the flip-flopping.
With hindsight, however, it's a little more interesting because obviously by now we know all this was an act. I do find Snape an interesting character (if not a likeable one), because he has more shades of grey than some of the other main cast. For example, in this whole scene we know he's really working for Dumbledore and against Voldemort, so we could just assume his hesitation over making the vow is to do with "How am I going to wriggle out of this one?" - but then when we've seen him teaching classes, he does genuinely seem to like Draco as a person, so it's safe to assume that's influencing him too (he's unduly nice to the little fuckstain all the time, and it would be ridiculous to assume he's doing that purely to piss Harry off). For related reasons, I think this is a more complex chapter now that we know what lies behind it.
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Du
Du hast
Du hast mich
Du hast mich
Du hast mich gefragt
Du hast mich gefragt
Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab' nichts gesagt
- Rammstein, "Du Hast"
Woo chapter 2! This one doesn't focus on Harry either, which I rather like in principle; I like when the action (such as it is) shifts away from his limited perspective. Of course, the problem is so often that JKR doesn't really use it: in chapter 1, as well as the first chapter in DH, it's not like we get to see any action, we just get exposition presented in a slightly different style to normal. Here, although we mainly get talking and wangst, at least the plot is moved along and the characters given some development, so I'm cool with it.
OK, so here we go. We're in some kind of northern industrial town which for some reason reminds me of Stockport, although I've only been there once, so I may have that wrong. The skyline is dominated by the mill tower, which looms over the town like an enormous brick phallus. Or finger, it might say finger in the book, now I think of it. Two people apparate onto the banks of a river; we will discover in a moment that they are Narcissa Malfoy (alias "Cissy") and Bellatrix Lestrange (alias "Bella"), queen goths. Narcissa is on a mission, and Bellatrix is along to stop her. As soon as they arrive, Bella kills an urban fox, to give us an idea of how paranoid and evil she is and that sort of thing. They make their way up the river bank, through a gap in some railings and then through a series of streets lined with what I guess are typical former-industrial-town brick houses, all the while arguing about whether they should be here or not. I take back what I said, this is getting tedious. Get a move on, girls, I'm bored.
Eventually they reach their destination, where Snape's nose arrives at the door, followed shortly by Snape. As usual, he has greasy hair and black eyes. (JKR does that a lot, doesn't she, describing people we already know by their physical features as if they're a new character. Anyway, who actually has black eyes? Truly black eyes.)
Snape invites them in. His living room is full of books and otherwise has an air of not being normally inhabited, which is hardly surprising as Snape lives at Hogwarts most of the time, doesn't he? Anyway, they get settled, Narcissa asks if they're alone, to which Snape tells her that they are - well, Wormtail's here, but he doesn't count. To prove this, he opens a secret door hidden behind a bookshelf (LOLOLOLOLOL Snape has a secret door hidden behind a bookshelf! I hope he's also got an intercom into which he murmurs "Kill them!" after anyone leaves the room and a button on the underside of a desk which opens a trapdoor in the floor) and there is Wormtail, anyway, being generally pitiful. Snape makes him get drinks, then sends him to his room and strongly implies he'll be up to rape him later - or, at least, he'll be up to do something that Wormtail "winces" in anticipation of. Actually, Snape/Wormtail needs a ship name if it doesn't have one already. HMS How The Tables Have Turned or something like that. Anyway, they bicker and once again I find myself revising my original, favourable opinion of the chapter.
Interesting, I guess, that the death eaters call him Wormtail, given that it was his nickname amongst his friends at school. There are two possible explanations for this: firstly, the other death eaters seek to humiliate and torment Peter by using the name that was chosen by the friends he went on to betray, so that he is constantly reminded of what a generally miserable, pitiful bastard he is. Alternatively, JK Rowling reckons "Wormtail" sounds more evil, plus a bit like that guy Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings, and also it dehumanises him which means less character development is needed, so, yeah.
Right, where were we. OK, so Snape pours them all a glass of a wizarding drink called "pimp juice", and they toast Voldemort's health. Toasting the health of a guy who's effectively immortal strikes me as a particularly redundant exercise, but I guess it's a formality or something - and anyway, it's not like being immortal would prevent you from getting colds or ear infections or that thing where it hurts when you pee. Anyway, they all drain their glasses immediately, and Snape refills them. It isn't really pimp juice, it's wine. At the rate they're going they'll be playing Naked Twister and calling each other "my best friend" before the hour is up. (It's "elf-made wine", for the record, which I guess means made by elves and not from elves, if only because if it were made from elves, then I dunno if you could really class it as wine, because it would be meat.)
The piss-up underway, it's down to business - or it would be, except that Wormtail is still listening at the door. Snape makes a point of stressing that he's been doing that a lot lately. Why he bothers isn't clear, because Wormtail's keyhole habit will never come up again. So Narcissa starts over, only this time she is interrupted by Bellatrix whining about how she doesn't trust Snape. She is, of course, absolutely right not to trust him; shrewd lady, that Bella. JK Rowling doesn't like traitors, which is why that Marietta girl still has acne in this book (but I'll come back to that when we get to it). There's possibly a point in here somewhere... but I'm pretty headachey right now.
Anyway, Narcissa, in her frustration (and reflecting mine) lets out "a noise that might have been a dry sob". Might have been? Might have been? Well, Rowling, is it or isn't it? What kind of omniscient narrator are you? Was it a dry sob or not? Was it perhaps an impression of an old-fashioned car horn, or an orgasm, or the mating call of some hilariously obscure creature?
... Sorry, this is getting stupid. It's because Snape is here, his sarcasm seems to rub off on me. I don't even like him much, but I do appreciate what an utter bastard he is. He takes the easy route, anyway, and assumes that the noise she just made was a sob, and invites Bella to come and have a go if she's so clever. He acts all satisfied when Bella starts questioning whether he should be trusted. I bet he's spent hours in front of the mirror, practicing exactly what he will say when this topic comes up. That's probably why he's so tetchy about Wormtail listening at doors, actually - Wormtail keeps catching him interviewing himself in the bathroom. I'd say that Snape was using a hairbrush as a microphone, too, except that he doesn't own a hairbrush.
Anyway, as a result of Bella's whining, there now begins an extended sequence in which she plays the role of The Fandom, asking Snape a series of questions about loyalty and Voldemort and trust and so on. It goes on for something like six pages and takes in pretty much every point in the series where Snape did something to save Harry or that didn't help Voldemort, and each one is systematically shot down: Snape thought that Quirrell (from book 1, remember? I feel a little bad for that guy. He must have the smallest fanbase ever. He must be the only character in the books I've never seen slashed with anyone) had nothing to do with Voldemort, so he worked against him. He held off returning to Voldemort when he returned in order to secure his position as a spy at Hogwarts. And so on. In places, it reads less like an actual conversation and more like someone ticking boxes in order to pre-empt difficult questions from fans about this, that and the other. (It happens in the next couple of chapters as well, with Dumbledore handwaving away every loose end from the last book.)
There are a couple of quite good bits in there, though: for example, when they talk about the battle in the department of mysteries and how badly they cocked it up, and what can only be described as a bitch-fight breaks out between the ladies - Narcissa actually says, "Don't you dare blame my husband!" at one point, which is pretty funny. Then again, there are also a couple of bits of complete WTF, like when Snape says he can't tell them where the Order's HQ is because he isn't secret keeper, which sounds OK but nags at my brain because I'm not sure how well it fits with other bits of established canon about the whole secret keeper thing. I don't even want to start trying to examine it, though, because I suspect trying to pull a clear untangled thread of sense out of it is likely to leave things in an even worse mess than before. So let's just not go there.
Once all the excuses are done with and Snape has presented a summary and conclusion, Narcissa finally gets to talk about why she's here in the first place. There is a lot of talk around "the plan"; the upshot is that all three of them know about this plan, but we don't get to find out what it is yet, except that Draco is supposed to do something, but as is clear to everyone he is such a n00b he's going to fuck it up completely. Draco fucking it up completely is totally the point, pretty much because Voldemort is a dick. At this stage we don't know that the plan is to kill Dumbledore, but then it was always going to be something like that; it was hardly going to be a surprise birthday party, was it. Although, actually, for the sake of the lulz, let's just work on the assumption that is is, indeed, a surprise birthday party.
Anyway, the upshot is that Draco is going to fuck it up because he's a n00b and that's why Narcissa is here, to ask if Snape will throw the party instead, because he has much better access to lemonade and delicious caek and party rings and sausages-on-sticks and triangular sandwiches and chocolate fingers and cheese-and-pineapple-on-sticks and iced gems and pink wafers and jammie dodgers. Also he orchestrates a mean game of Sleeping Lions.
Where was I? OK, so Draco has been given a mission, which he is going to fuck up, and Narcissa wants Snape to help him do it so he doesn't die. She cries a lot and kisses Snape's hands and moans about "My son, my only son" which is a bit sad and poignant the first time she does it and annoying the 17th time. Also she spills wine down her front, and in another bit she throws her glass on the floor. There's also a quite funny bit where she is freaking out and Snape makes her STFU simply by giving her more wine. Meanwhile in the background Bellatrix is goth-ing out about how if she had sons of her own she would happily give them over to the service of the Dark Lord. Wait, I think I was at this party! In a minute someone rolls something called "The Millennium Joint" and Emily is sick in the gutter. Then Tom and Tarquin get out the bongos and that's when you know it's time to leave. This isn't the kind of party that has food on sticks, although there will come a point in the evening when you'll suddenly realise that cheese-and-pineapple-on-a-stick is basically the greatest thing ever, no really, it's just basically the best thing in the whole world and why can't I have any, this is fucked up, what kind of party is this anyway - oh look! An entire head of raw broccoli, that will do om nom nom nom, broccoli, that's a funny word isn't it. Broccoli broccoli broccoli.
Right, so then Narcissa puts Snape in an awkward position by asking him to make something called an unbreakable vow. Bellatrix acts as the "bonder", which I guess is a kind of magical witness: Narcissa and Snape grasp hands, and she puts her wand on their hands and magical fire comes out of it and does something important. What is interesting is that Bellatrix is completely incredulous the whole time and just gawps at the flames coming from her wand - in other words, it doesn't appear that any kind of magical effort is required on her part, it's just that there needs to be a third party to "witness" it. A total of three vows are made, so by the end of this, Snape has to watch over Draco, protect him, and bail him out when he inevitably fucks up.
The unbreakable vow is an interesting example of Potterverse magic and how it's defined, I think. One of the things you might take from this chapter is that the vow must be Dark Magic, although that conclusion mainly comes from who is doing it (OK, later in this book it transpires that you die if you do break it, which is fairly Dark - but then the wizarding world's official sport can kill you too, and kids play that at school). As a side note, I'm also reminded of the wedding ceremony we saw in the final book. We didn't get many details of that because Harry was too busy fantasising about Ginny's tits, and as a result things were left quite open - but I'd be interested to know how much of that ceremony was actually magical as well as official. And if there is a magical component to it, how closely related is it to the unbreakable vow? What happens if your marriage doesn't work out in the wizarding world? It's not like we've seen any divorces, although we have seen the odd unhappy couple. (Hey, if this vow thing leads to stuff like angsty post-epilogue H/D, for example, then I'm down with it. But, as always, I digress.)
So, then! This is the chapter that made us all go, shit, maybe Snape really is evil! (Or, at least, start totting up the evidence on each side of the argument.) I can't remember how I felt at first reading; I suspect I was mainly indifferent, possibly a bit spun out. The thing is, of the five previous books, four feature the specific plot twist where a good guy turns out to be a bad guy, or vice versa, or both (book 1 - Snape and Quirrell; book 2 - diary!Tom; book 3 - Sirius and "Scabbers"; book 4 - Crouch!Moody; and it's entirely possible it happens in book 5 as well and I've forgotten about it). So by this point, I suspect I was getting kind of bored of all the flip-flopping.
With hindsight, however, it's a little more interesting because obviously by now we know all this was an act. I do find Snape an interesting character (if not a likeable one), because he has more shades of grey than some of the other main cast. For example, in this whole scene we know he's really working for Dumbledore and against Voldemort, so we could just assume his hesitation over making the vow is to do with "How am I going to wriggle out of this one?" - but then when we've seen him teaching classes, he does genuinely seem to like Draco as a person, so it's safe to assume that's influencing him too (he's unduly nice to the little fuckstain all the time, and it would be ridiculous to assume he's doing that purely to piss Harry off). For related reasons, I think this is a more complex chapter now that we know what lies behind it.
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