Chapter Nineteen

[merrymelody]

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.

Comments

You don't half write long summaries :O

[jollityfarm]

He can just show his Patronus to his examiners and get extra marks! (Or as he predicts himself, an ‘Outstanding’ in his OWL.)

"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.

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[mariagoner]

God Bless You for those links!

Mind you, I actually adored Neville when he was still nebbish and young and bullied and terrified... and yet still brave in the way he dealt with all the everyday dissapointments in his life. He reminded me of another nerd I had the biggest crush on in high school (and yet still didn't hook up with, damn it all.)

Of course, Super OOTP Harrified Neville turned me off because he seemed so contrary to the Neville in past books... though the way Neville treated his mother and stolidly underwent Cruciating in Book 5 still made me kind of... soppy...

I'm going to get lynched for saying this, aren't I? ;)

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[merrymelody]

I don't actually hate Neville. I'm not fond of the way he's written, and I don't think he's Teh Bravest Boy in all the Land, but in a real life situation, I'd rather be around him than a lot of characters.
And even I found the sweet bit kind of sad. Tell no-one!

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[mariagoner]

::whistles, starts gathering info for future blackmail::

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[mariagoner]

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.

I admit that even I (and I'm a huge, unabashed Luna fan who isn't even ashamed of it; look at my icon) was always put off by the way that Luna followed Harry and Co. around faithfully, though they were always put of by her. I just couldn't see Luna being with people who didn't like her as much as she'd like then.

But I just rationalized it by saying that:
a. Luna may have been more than a little blind to social cues, and probably thinks that the Golden Trio and their little sycophant Ginny might actually like her for herself, instead of keeping her around for her "comedy value"b. The idea of learning about the Trio's adventures in Hogwarts might intrigue her to the point where she does anything to get next to them and learn something about them. Maybe she's hoping to get an exclusive story for the Quibbler. As indeed does happen

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[sistermagpie]

That's true about Neville, you know. You're right.

And Luna too. I mean, there are scenes where she stands up to the good guys because she doesn't care what they think. It just seems sort of like the reason she keeps following after them is because she's a character in this book so she's going to.

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[jollityfarm]

It does seem a little unnatural that even though Luna is supposed to be friends with Ginny and is such a character, nobody had thought to mention her before this book - and suddenly she's everywhere. Mind you, Harry doesn't seem to know the names of people in his year - and these are people he has lessons with, mind you, people whose names he would have heard on the register and connected to a face after five years at the school. I mean, even I managed that little. Even my own dear elder brother could probably manage that, and he's as dozy as hell half the time.

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[mariagoner]

Yeah, it's sad to know that we've been deprived of upwards of 3-4 years of Luna goodness because JKR didn't even think of Luna before Book 5... and decided to clumsily dump her into the HPverse when she did.

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[go_back_chief]

But I just rationalized it by saying that:
a. Luna may have been more than a little blind to social cues, and probably thinks that the Golden Trio and their little sycophant Ginny might actually like her for herself, instead of keeping her around for her "comedy value";
b. The idea of learning about the Trio's adventures in Hogwarts might intrigue her to the point where she does anything to get next to them and learn something about them. Maybe she's hoping to get an exclusive story for the Quibbler. As indeed does happen!
c. If Luna around Harry, she wouldn't be in the narrative PERIOD.

How about
d. She just doesn't care what other people think of her, and doesn't let it faze her in the slightest. So if someone does something that intrigues her (to go along with b too), she'll hang around and see how that turns out, and she doesn't care about what others might think of the fact that she does, because it's unimportant to her. In her own inner world she probably makes her internal jokes about them anyway. (Or maybe I'm just

Re: Part two, because your summary is so huge!

[mariagoner]

I like that explanation as well! Even if the people she was around laughed at her, I can see her shrugging it off. Luna may be, like many great dreamers, more or less impervious to the opinions of others... which would only makes me like her that much more!

i know... *blushes*

[merrymelody]

It's amazing the way that works out, isn't it?

At least with that, it's something almost fair, since a Patronus is useful and something he developed for good (well, protecting himself, which I suppose is close enough.) The Polyjuice bit is like, I don't know, Crabbe getting marks for knowing how to land the most effective punch, or Malfoy getting marks for knowing Evil Spells that his dad taught him.

(note: at university, one gets marks off for an overlong essay)

Seriously. If you're told to write 1'000 words (or in HP terms, I guess, a scroll) and you write double that, I wouldn't consider you highly intelligent. I'd consider you too stupid to listen to the instructions (unless it was liek rilly rebellious not to or something) and too in love with your own thoughts to know when to stop.

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.Oh, totally. That's why

Re: i know... *blushes*

[jollityfarm]

I'd consider you too stupid to listen to the instructions (unless it was liek rilly rebellious not to or something) and too in love with your own thoughts to know when to stop.

I was always told that when people write reams and reams of stuff in exams, it doesn't mean they have better answers, it just means they've been writing Everything I Know About Thermodynamics or whatever and quite possibly padding out their paper by adding blank sheets and double-spacing. Likewise, an essay which is over the wordcount is usually considered to be full of waffle (although Rowling is a big fan of waffle, it seems). In fact, I would love the next DADA teacher to take Hermione to task for this, with the red pen of d00m.

Hermione to me, is like the Hollywood, layperson (oooh!) idea of a genius: She reads whole books and works an entire level above the rest of her class!Hermione is what somebody who isn't very bright thinks of as "clever". When you're in school, people who read a lot and get high marks because they're up all hours studying are often

Re: i know... *blushes*

[merrymelody]

Rowling is a big fan of waffle, it seems

Heh. I shouldn't really laugh tho, since my summaries aren't exactly concise. Oh well. I'm not getting paid to write.

I would love the next DADA teacher to take Hermione to task for this, with the red pen of d00m.

Oh lord. Then they'd be liek, totally evil!11
Teh Best Evar DADA teacher was Lupin, who adored Harry and Neville and thought Hermione was Teh Smartest!1

There should be some crazy K2K style theory about Hermione in actual fact being forty+. Makes a lot more sense than Ron.

Re: You don't half write long summaries :O

[aasaylva]

"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."
Exactly. Which is why I always wondered what prompted JKR to give McGonagall a cat-animagus form. If ever there was the type of faithful dog, it is her. Can't you just see Minerva changing into some sort of upright (cough uptight) shepherd dog, staunchly defending her master (or Hagrid for that matter as her master's pet dog)? Cats are independent and rather selfserving - in fact much more suited for Slytherin or perhaps Ravenclaw. No wonder snakes and cats were both associated with evil (and women, but that's another topic...).