pauraque_bk (
pauraque_bk) wrote2004-10-31 01:10 am
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CoS 15
[ETA:
asphodeline, I got your package! It arrived at a very timely moment.]
Don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour tonight if you're in an area that observes Daylight Savings Time. Liberals and conservatives alike enjoy an extra hour of sleep, says I.
Highlight of Chapter 14: What will become of Percy?
CoS 15: Aragog
ART: Due to a terrible typing error... by
iibnf (at the very bottom of the page).
I'm trying to figure out why this book is constructed the way it is. It makes sense that we have to eliminate Draco as a suspect, because in terms of character he naturally would act suspiciously. And of course that gives JKR the opportunity to introduce Polyjuice, which is important later.
The second part of the story explains why Hagrid was expelled, re-emphasizes his weakness for monsters, carries on the sentient-car gag (which is odd, but I'm not sure what to say about it), introduces Azkaban... introduces the whole concept of governmental corruption, really. Harry witnesses the wrongful arrest of someone who is innocent, someone he really likes. Hm.
Previous re-read posts are here.
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Don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour tonight if you're in an area that observes Daylight Savings Time. Liberals and conservatives alike enjoy an extra hour of sleep, says I.
Highlight of Chapter 14: What will become of Percy?
CoS 15: Aragog
ART: Due to a terrible typing error... by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
'Sir,' said Malfoy loudly. 'Sir, why don't you apply for the Headmaster's job?'Oh, Draco. I really doubt Snape is smiling because he wants to be Headmaster... more likely smiling at Draco's naivety. I don't think Draco gets that Snape *has* to be nice to him in order to maintain a necessary connection with Lucius (at least in my reading).
'Now, now, Malfoy,' said Snape, though he couldn't suppress a thin-lipped smile. 'Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I dare say he'll be back with us soon enough.'
'Yeah, right,' said Malfoy, smirking. 'I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job. I'll tell Father you're the best teacher here, sir...' (198)
[...]and off they went, crocodile fashion[...] (198)Huh?
'That Draco Malfoy character,' said Ernie, breaking off dead twigs, 'he seems very pleased about all this, doesn't he? D'you know, I think he might be Slytherin's heir.'Well, that's pretty uncharitable of Ron, given that he thought the same. Or was that a self-deprecating remark, Harry's perception aside?
'That's clever of you,' said Ron, who didn't seem to have forgiven Ernie as readily as Harry. (199)
'Er -- aren't there -- aren't there supposed to be werewolves in the Forest?' [Ron] added[...] (200)Now, that can't be true, can it? A rumor, but an interesting one... werewolves are reduced to the level of monsters living wild in the woods, not people with a disease. This comes from Ron... it's what he's gathered from the people around him.
[Harry:] 'There are good things in [the Forest], too. The centaurs are all right, and the unicorns.' (200)Centaurs are all right, eh? That's what he thinks.
'Don't you people realise,' said Lockhart, speaking slowly, as though they were all a bit dim, 'the danger has passed! The culprit has been taken away.'Hm! Way back in Chapter 6, I brought up the fact that he puts himself forward as an advocate for peace between wizards and Muggles, and thought he was trying to align himself definitely with Dumbledore. Now he comes off as a Ministry mouthpiece... but are Dumbledore and the Ministry seen as part of the same establishment at this point? Oy, I don't know if I'm up for picking apart the politics here. Somebody help.
'Says who?' said Dean Thomas loudly.
'My dear young man, the Minister of Magic wouldn't have taken Hagrid if he hadn't been one hundred per cent sure that he was guilty,' said Lockhart, in the tone of someone explaining that one and one made two. (200)
Instead he contented himself with scrawling a note to Ron: Let's do it tonight. (200)Snerk.
'C'mon, Fang, we're going for a walk,' said Harry, patting his leg, and Fang bounded happily out of the house behind them[...] (201)I like it when Harry's shown to be kind to animals. He's gentle and pretty conscientious with Hedwig and the other owls (as well as with Scabbers, pre-GoF).
Harry suddenly realised that the spider which had dropped him was saying something. It had been hard to tell, because he clicked his pincers with every word he spoke. (205)Convenient that the spiders speak English. It probably wouldn't have bothered me, except for the emphasis on Parseltongue in this book. Unless Hagrid taught Aragog to speak, and he taught his family? Hm, that could explain why Hagrid thinks he can teach Grawp English.
'The thing that lives in the castle,' said Aragog, 'is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others[...]' (206)Do spiders appear in the basilisk myth?
[Ron:] 'What was the point of sending us in there? What have we found out, I'd like to know?'And that Myrtle is the key, but there are other ways they could have found that out.
'That Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets,' said Harry[...] (208)
I'm trying to figure out why this book is constructed the way it is. It makes sense that we have to eliminate Draco as a suspect, because in terms of character he naturally would act suspiciously. And of course that gives JKR the opportunity to introduce Polyjuice, which is important later.
The second part of the story explains why Hagrid was expelled, re-emphasizes his weakness for monsters, carries on the sentient-car gag (which is odd, but I'm not sure what to say about it), introduces Azkaban... introduces the whole concept of governmental corruption, really. Harry witnesses the wrongful arrest of someone who is innocent, someone he really likes. Hm.
Previous re-read posts are here.
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My rapture at having an extra hour of sleep is modified by my sudden awareness that nobody is going to be on time for anything tomorrow.
Modified rapture!
Re: Modified rapture!
Re: Modified rapture!
Of course, there will still be wake-up calls in my future. They'll just be made to me!
Re: Modified rapture!
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Unless a very scary teacher was at the head -I suppose that's the snapping jaws - the crocodile usually broke down relatively quickly. The person behind you would pull your hair and start a fight or a particularly slow pair would annoy everybody and get overtaken.
TMI, I know ;)
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(Replying to old comments in older posts, here. HI! This one is a bit pointless. My apologies)
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Great, now I'm thinking of a Shelob/Aragog death match.
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This is OT, isn't it? Oops.
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Spiders 'flee' before them, apparently. So, you know, if you see a column of spiders in crocodile formation heading for your front door, its time to get in a plumber...
Yes, the whole 'lets go visit some giant spiders in the forest, and incidentally find out about Myrtle' plotline seems unnecessarily complicated to me - maybe Aragog will come to Hagrid's aid in The Last Battle for Hogwarts, or something. Or, you know, the spiders will help out Harry directly, because they know he got rid of the Basilisk for them.
So it looks like Harry is gradually amassing a potential army of scary/ Dark /alternative Creatures, almost by accident, as he goes along - werewolves, giant spiders, ghosts? , centaurs, Thestrals, House Elves and even Grawp the baby Giant are all emerging as potential allies against Voldemort. And I imagine Luna will be able to dig up a few more weird creatures later on from the Quibbler Files, too. Interesting.
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Hmm...verrry interesting. I'll have to keep that in mind. One of those things that hadn't yet occured to me.
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You can smile at someone's naivety and still be fond of them. I think that Snape does like Draco to an extent, regardless of the political situations between himself and Mr. Malfoy.
Well, that's pretty uncharitable of Ron, given that he thought the same.
I think Ron is often an example that even with a nice family and good intention, it's easy to be cruel and thoughtless. Ron express the subtler Wizarding prejudices (his reaction to werewolves, Giants, etc.), while Draco expresses the blatant ones.
Oy, I don't know if I'm up for picking apart the politics here. Somebody help.
Lockhart is just blowing whichever way the wind is. He's hardly a reliable supporter of anything, except himself.
At this point, Fudge is still relying on Dumbeldore for support and advice, but has begun to move more under Malfoy's guidance -- imprisoning Hagrid and supporting Dumbledore's ouster are definitely moves independent of the Order's interests.
Unless Hagrid taught Aragog to speak, and he taught his family? Hm, that could explain why Hagrid thinks he can teach Grawp English
That could explain a lot -- especially since a lot of creatures in the Wizarding world seem unusually bright.
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But the giants are dangerous, terribly so. And until very recently, being bitten by a werewolf was essentially a life-sentence. We don't know how recently that werewolf potion was invented. Lupin refers to it as being 'recent.' Even now, the potion that Lupin takes doesn't prevent the transformation, it only mitigates the effects.
I don't see Ron's statements as reflecting prejudice really, as much as a sort of residual but legitimate fear.
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A residual and legitimate fear of infection is not the reason behind the werewolf-employment restrictions in OotP. A sane government would be making it easier to werewolves to get by in society, instead of driving them into poverty and desperation -- unless you think it's a ploy by the Death Eaters to get werewolves so desperate that they'll join Voldemort's side of sheer lack of options?
I'll grant you that the Giants do seem dangerous as heck, but I wouldn't be that friendly towards the people who've driven my race to near extinction and totally disrupted what is left our society either.
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What we don't know is how easy it is to make that potion, or when it even became available. You'd think that a kind society would put it's effort towards educating the public and making the potion freely available to lycanthropy victims.
As for the Giants, I don't blame their near extinction entirely on the wizards (or the Muggles). The Giants are violent, dangerous beings. Crammed together they become even violent towards each other, but left alone they are still a hazard to themselves and others. But they can't be entirely bad. We have Hagrid as living proof that man and giant can co-exist and even cross-breed (though I have absolutely no idea how they managed it, nor do I want to know).
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I agree. Unfortunately, we have a great deal of evidence that this is not a kind society. I see this suggestion as a wizarding equivalent to socialized medicine, and I really *can't* see 98% of the wizarding world going for it, despite the fact that it makes *them* much safer. Far easier to make yourself "safe" by staying as far away from werewolves as possible, even if that position doesn't really make you safe. Another example of this (and where Ron gets it) is the first St. Mungo's scene in OotP; Arthur comments that a wardmate was bit by a werewolf, and Molly is upset that he's in a public ward, despite the fact that it isn't the full moon.
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I agree. I personally am a firm believer (I definitely want to believe) that Snape likes Draco independent of whatever ties he's trying to retain with Lucius. It's more interesting to me and also makes Snape and Draco more interesting and less one-note. This is, to me, one of the few (only?) positive smiles Snape ever gives in canon, one that he "can't suppress" indicating it's real. For once he's not smiling at someone's humiliation or something bad happening to someone else, but at someone complimenting him. Draco seems to genuinely like Snape and wants him to be headmaster--I don't see why Snape wouldn't honestly appreciate that kind of enthusiasm even while smiling at how artless and naive it is. Imagine this exchange between Harry and Remus (if the headmaster was one Harry didn't like) I think it would play much the same.
This exchange also came back to me in OotP when Sirius hints that Snape and Lucius have a long history. Draco doesn't seem aware that they know each other. So I thought part of Snape's smile was at the idea that Draco thinks he would be putting in a good word to Lucius when Snape is already not knowing Lucius already knows all about him.
Ron express the subtler Wizarding prejudices (his reaction to werewolves, Giants, etc.), while Draco expresses the blatant ones.
I love how very much alike the Weasleys and Malfoys seem to be underneath it all--when it comes down to it, Ron and Draco are from the same country, which is different than the one Harry and Hermione are from.
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I'm skeptical as to how much of that is directly due to Snape's favoritism. Would Draco like Snape any better than his other teachers if it weren't for that?
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IIRC, the only thing we really know before the end of GoF is Hagrid's comments in SS that the Minister sends daily letters to Dumbledore asking for advice. Later, he gets confident in office and worries that D'dore is trying to take over. I think it's possible that it's already moving this way by the start of SS, but Hagrid doesn't realize it yet, but I only think that because it seems like a very sudden change otherwise. I really wonder when Fudge was "elected," whatever that may mean in Wizarding Britain.
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I thought the whole Aragog thing was exciting! I never thought about how illogical it all is. Though it does tie up things about Azkaban/monsters, which are real monsters, blah blah. Interesting that again one of Hagrid's monsters *does* turn out to be completely dangerous...definitely not any case made that the things he raises are just ugly on the outside with hearts of gold. And...even without the Heir of Slytherin stuff, is it really prudent to be allowing your students to raise GIANT SPIDERS inside the castle? Just because Riddle was raising a even more pernicious beast, doesn't exactly excuse the lad...
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It's interesting that Snape doesn't put Draco in his place for insulting the Headmaster, another way Snape acts the role as the Slytherin favoritist. Maybe if Draco keeps Snape in his good book, he'll never think him a spy against his father's cronies?
Well, that's pretty uncharitable of Ron, given that he thought the same.
I think Ron is automatically caustic to those who don't take Harry's side, being one of Harry's most steadfast allies (dealing with a very traumatic childhood fear to stand alongside him, the 'sacrifice' in the giant chess board, etc).
With regards to the sentient car gag, I wonder if some of the other wild things of the Forbidden Forest might come out in later books, such as Fluffy...
I'm going to go waaaay out on a limb here, but I wonder if Dumbledore's complete trust in Hagrid (as introduced back in book one) is going to backfire again. Hagrid's yearning for a dragon got Quirrel information, his smuggling of Grawp to the Fordbidden forest, etc. I wonder if Dumbledore nurtures a bond between Harry and Hagrid, from having Hagrid bring baby Harry to the Dursleys to having the half-giant retrieve Harry from the Dursleys. If it wasn't the sudden "ew, squick" reaction that Harry/Hagrid usually conjures up from most, I'd think this is a pretty tight friendship. Perhaps in many ways, Hagrid and Harry are similar in their reckless disregard for rules, unwavering loyalty and such. And I'll stop there before I ramble further. *grins*
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My favourite spider theory is that Snape will turn out to be a spider Animagus...which I really think would suit him down to a T. I don't have much evidence for this, except that there is a suspicious reference in Book 5 to him looking like a spider, and there's that great big 'spy-d-er' clue, in the maze in Book 4. Then there's his 'glittering' eyes, and his attitude problem, generally... Its the perfect disguise for a spy, anyway, lurking around in a web high up in the corner of a ceiling...ewww, creepy!
But I can't say I really want to see any more *giant* spiders in the books...I guess I'd better start mentally preparing myself now. *sigh*
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I tend to agree with those who think that Snape and Draco genuinely like one another. Draco seems to come across as charming and fun to the people who share his point of view. And aside from their differences on Voldemort (which Snape at least cannot state openly), Snape and Draco in many ways share the same point of view. Draco also seems to IMO genuinely admire and respect Snape, and I think that would be very, very hard for Snape to resist.
Well, that's pretty uncharitable of Ron, given that he thought the same. Or was that a self-deprecating remark, Harry's perception aside?
I read that as Ron still holding a grudge against Ernie for thinking that Harry was the Heir of Slytherin.
Now, that can't be true, can it? A rumor, but an interesting one... werewolves are reduced to the level of monsters living wild in the woods, not people with a disease.
Draco says the same thing in PS/SS, so I would think it's a common perception. I think it could be a belief that werewolves are monstrous even when they're not 'changed' and a werewolf in human form is just as disgusting (if not quite as dangerous) as one during the full moon change. This would fit with the job restrictions, and Molly's worry about the man at St. Mungo's, and Ron's disgust when Remus tries to help him in the shack.
there are other ways they could have found that out.
Well, to be fair, by the time Harry and Ron go looking for Aragog both Dumbledore and Hagrid have been taken away. It's Hagrid who sends them, and I think 1) he didn't dare say anything more explicit in front of Fudge for fear of what would happen to Aragog, and 2) he's sure that Aragog will treat Harry and Ron with the same courtesy as he treats Hagrid. I can't believe Hagrid would've sent them to Aragog if he had any idea the spider(s) would try to eat them.
It really makes me wonder just exactly how much Dumbledore and Hagrid know about Tom, Myrtle, Aragog and the basilisk.
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When I said there were other ways they could have found out about Myrtle, I meant there were other ways JKR could have constructed the plot. She chose to go out of her way to introduce the giant spiders and the Hagrid-goes-to-Azkaban thread.
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But Draco's main idea of fun seems to be 'getting' Harry Potter, something Snape enjoys. (He certainly seems to when he's reading that Prophet article aloud in class.) Also, as a teacher and head of house he's in complete control of the relationship. I imagine Draco could easily grate on the nerves after a while, but with Snape his access is limited, and he's no doubt careful not to push too hard.
When I said there were other ways they could have found out about Myrtle, I meant there were other ways JKR could have constructed the plot.
Oh, I'm sorry -- I misunderstood.
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It's funny, because I understand where people are coming from when they think Snape must be playing Draco, but to me that seems as strange to me as his genuinely liking Draco seems to them. It seems to me like they really would like each other and have a lot in common. If they were exactly alike maybe Snape would like him less. Even disagreeing on the Dark Lord doesn't seem like an impossible barrier to me. We don't know exactly how they would approach the subject--Snape is now working against V, but he called people Mudbloods at 15 too. Draco supposedly supports V but is scared of his name just like any regular kid. So they might actually have more in common on that score than what one would immediately suspect.
So it's actually harder for me to imagine Snape so smoothly playing a little boy for all this time. Snape was a spy, but in special circumstances I think. He joined the DEs honestly and then just covered up his change of heart. Whereas usually we're told when Snape is irritated with people. He's never nice to anybody that we see, so when I think of Snape trying to fake being nice to a kid he doesn't like I think...Snape? How would he even know how to go about that? Seems like he'd be even scarier if he was faking being nice!
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That's a great observation. I don't think Snape could successfully be the kind of spy who has to infiltrate a group without raising suspicion, and report back to his masters without being caught. Deciding that Voldemort had to be stopped doesn't necessarily mean that he stopped liking his DE friends.
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I'm sure that Hagrid meant no harm in sending them to the Forest after the spiders, but this really shows how he just doesn't *think* about the monsters he loves. He makes an assumption that because he is okay around a given animal, everyone else must be, too. This is the most basic reason that he absolutely should *not* be teaching Care of Magical Creatures; any disobedience aside, how is he going to teach students the caution necessary around creatures when he doesn't think they're at all dangerous?
Chiming in my agreement with those who think Snape and Draco like each other. I agree there's naivety about politics that Snape finds amusing, but I think it has more to do with Draco consistently overestimating his father's (considerable) influence than with Snape only liking him as part of a broader plan. I also read it as a rare moment when Snape is genuinely flattered. We so rarely see him around anyone who actually likes him. McGonagall seems to, but this is played through rivalry; Hagrid respects him, but it seems to be a byproduct of his loyalty to Dumbledore. Dumbledore trusts him and probably likes him, but I suspect that the personality difference is such that most compliments would come across as very shallow or patronizing.
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Typical Gryffindor loyalty. Or rather, typical Ron loyalty. It's interesting that in PoA, when Hermione apologises for (what that point was believed) Crookshanks eating Scabbers, Ron forgave her as soon as she said she was sorry. But if someone insults Harry, someone who obviously does not SUPPORT Harry, it's a different story. I don't think he's being narrow-minded in the sense you mentioned, but rather narrow-minded in another sense altogether. Anyone who has or makes a problem for Harry has a problem with Ron.
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Kinda like how the Shrieking Shack is haunted started because of him as well.
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[Harry:] 'There are good things in [the Forest], too. The centaurs are all right, and the unicorns.' (200)
Centaurs are all right, eh? That's what he thinks.
Even in PS/SS I thought the centaurs were a bit hostile.
Instead he contented himself with scrawling a note to Ron: Let's do it tonight. (200)
Snerk.
I love the out-of-context quotes. (Looking forward to when you analyze OTP, and hopefully mention all that about Harry tucking his wand into his jeans.)