CoS 17

[pauraque_bk]

In Chapter 16, we discussed whether the books encourage rule-breaking, Harry and Ron's intentions in taking Lockhart down to the Chamber, and how the Basilisk has stayed alive.


CoS 17: The Heir of Slytherin

Then, as he drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.
Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: it was ancient and monkey-like, with a long thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes[...] (226)

It's confirmed a bit later that this is indeed Salazar. Monkey-like! Somehow this detail seems to have escaped Founder-fic.

'Well, that's an interesting question,' said Riddle pleasantly. 'And quite a long story[...]' (228)

And there's nothing Tom/V likes better than a loooooong story.

[Tom:] '[...]I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger.' (228)

Hm. Another reinforcement of the idea that it's unwise to confide in people.

Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. (228)

chresimos and I have discussed what we think a "high, cold laugh" is (it comes up again in GoF, where V also has a "high, cold voice"), and decided we don't know. It's high, so it's shrill? A hysterical giggle? But cold too? Dunno.

In any case, it seems this is a vocal quirk of Riddle's that pre-dates becoming a Dark Lord. Though, on the other hand, this incarnation of Tom shares a few odd characteristics with V, such as eyes that glow red (231) which you wouldn't think he'd have had at 16.

[Tom imitating Ginny:] '[...]Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Hallowe'en, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front[...]' (229)

Paint, then, not blood.

'Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry,' said Riddle. 'Your whole fascinating history.' His eyes roved over the lightning scar on Harry's forehead, and his expression grew hungrier. (229)

Yeah, this makes sense. The diary was made before V's disintegration, obviously, so he didn't know about Harry until Ginny brought him up.

'[...]On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school Prefect, model student[...]' (229-230)

Just as good at manipulating adults as Harry is!

'[...]on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed[...]' (230)

Beg your pardon? Werewolf cubs. If anything, this'd have to be a figure of speech.

'Well, [Dumbledore] certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid was expelled,' said Riddle carelessly. 'I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for it. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work.' (230)

Uh-huh. But now, "killing Mudbloods doesn't matter to [him] anymore" (230), all he wants to do is kill Harry, which I guess would explain why he hasn't actually... er, killed anyone. Perhaps it makes sense... he doesn't want Harry to get in the way of his future self returning to power.

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
'You see?' he whispered. 'It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course[...]' (231)

Random Slytherin: Fancy a fly around the pitch, Riddle?
Tom: *righteously enraged* I keep telling you, call me by my proper name!
R.S.: *puzzled* But that is your name...
Tom: *pounding fists* No! LORD VOLDEMORT!
R.S.: ...Uh-huh. Okay, Tommy, catch you later.
Tom: *angst*

'Twice -- in your past, in my future -- we have met. And twice I failed to kill you[...]' (233)

They have indeed met twice, but... huh? If Tom's trying to say something significant here, I can't penetrate its meaning.

Riddle opened his mouth and hissed -- but Harry understood what he was saying. (234)

In Chapter 16, we discussed how little JKR knows about snakes. She has a snake wink in PS/SS (snakes don't have eyelids), refers to a green shed snakeskin (they're white-to-brownish), and invents a spoken snake language when snakes can't hear! It would have been just as easy to make it a telepathic language and drop the references to it sounding like hissing, but apparently neither she nor her editor knew any better.

The movie also has Harry distract the Basilisk with the clatter of a thrown pebble, which is just... *facepalm* Even if the Basilisk had felt the vibration, Harry was right in front of its face; as Tom quite rightly points out, it can easily smell him.

A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the Hat, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs. (235)

idlerat has previously pointed out the phallic imagery there.

Harry could hear Lockhart dangling below him, saying, 'Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!' (239)

Not to make too much of a throwaway gag, but does this suggest to anyone else that Lockhart was Muggle-born? If he'd been raised in a magical environment, he never would have had the concept in his mind that something could be "just like magic" without in fact being magic, so it would be impossible for him to "forget" back to that point.


Past re-read posts are here. Just one more chapter left.

Comments

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

snakes can't hear!

Rowling and Conan Doyle. plaidder has written a Holmes/Watson revisiting the events of "The Speckled Band" and advancing a solution that gets the herpetology right.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

linky (http://www.hwslash.net/content/couldfill.html)

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

At least Conan Doyle couldn't look it up on the internet.

[hagia-sophia.livejournal.com]

You know, that's weird. In the Russian movie about Sherlock Holmes, Watson explains to Holmes that snakes can't hear, and Holmes offers some other solution on the spot. I was sure it was part of the original story. :) Must re-read it now.

But while I was reading Harry Potter, I totally forgot about the fact that snakes can't hear. I think it's because we are dealing with a fairy tale, after all. The idea of a snake language is so cool that one can forgive biological deviations. So what if this universe has hearing snakes? After all, any physicist will tell you that if you are invisible, you are blind by definition, and yet we don't say "The Invisibility Cloak is impossible".

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Random Slytherin: Fancy a fly around the pitch, Riddle?
Tom: *righteously enraged* I keep telling you, call me by my proper name!
R.S.: *puzzled* But that is your name...
Tom: *pounding fists* No! LORD VOLDEMORT!
R.S.: ...Uh-huh. Okay, Tommy, catch you later.
Tom: *angst*

Ok, now that I've stopped laughing too hard to type...

The anagram thing always seemed horribly juvenile to me, and the design of the Dark Mark is even worse. If Lil' Tommy Riddle had been at Hogwarts in the 80s at least he could have had the excuse of being a metalhead. I can only hope he designed it when he was a surly 12-year-old.


If he was a teenager now, he'd be shopping at Hot Topic. Just saying.

here via biichan

[cleverthylacine]

The Dark Mark is an actual occult symbol from the Alchemical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreutz and means "the triumph of wisdom (the serpent) over death and the flesh (the skull)."

I rather like it and always have.

What's ugly about the design is Grandpre's rendition of it. I have temporary tats of the snake and the serpent that I wear to cons, and they're quite pretty. (I've seen them without but mine also have roses.)

Also, adding "I Am" to a name is a declaration of godhood. G-d is "I am that I am" and so, if your name is I-Am-Lord-Voldemort, you are the god Lord Voldemort.

Alas, JKR has stopped using most of the interesting occult references and has instead gone for the B-movie feel in later installments... Brain...I must have braaaaaaaaaaaaaaain...

Though I suppose nowadays that means quite something else eh?

[katiescarlet.livejournal.com]

*also laughing very hard at the whole "Whatever, Tommy" exchange* XD

[usnbfs.livejournal.com]

Beg your pardon? Werewolf cubs. If anything, this'd have to be a figure of speech.
I'm sure 'keeping' a flock of small children under your bed isn't all that conspicuous. It's a school, there are kids around every corner. They might just be a wee little bit small for their age and very... shy. And around full moon they could be locked into the trunk :D

'It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course[...]'
maybe they really did call him Voldie. If one of my friends wanted to be called Lord Voldemort (or something similar demented for a perfectly ordinary teenager) I'd call them Voldie or Voldiepoo just to make them snap out of it.

[snakeling]

And there's nothing Tom/V likes better than a loooooong story. Typical archvillain's prattle. Do you think he watched too many James Bond movies? :oP

Paint, then, not blood. Dried blood wouldn't be "shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches." I was sure that the message was described as red, but rereading the relevant passage, I can't find traces of it. What colour was it in the movie? I may have seen screencaps and been influenced. Anyway, blood definitely wouldn't be red, though I'll admit that Harry probably would not know that (Hermione might, although she is a bit young at that point).

Re: werewolf cubs. [Disclaimer: I don't know jack about werewolves, I'm just repeating something I read somewhere, and unfortunately, I can't even remember where.] I read that there were two types of werewolves. Those, like Remus, who live as men and transform into wolves during the full moon, and those who live as wolves and transform into men during the full moon. That's the only explanation I can't think of that would explain that sentence. But, as likely as not, it's a flint.

'It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course[...]' :D Frankly, if one of my very good friends suddenly insisted to be called "Lord Whatever", I'd cut all ties really quickly :oP

Re: Lockhart as Muggle-born. That's an excellent point. It would also explain his need to shine, to carve himself a place within the Wizarding World, if he weren't born in it.

[pauraque]

In the movie, the message is in red, as I recall. But the book doesn't give a color. And of course you're right, if it were blood, it wouldn't be red in any case!

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

The werewolf thing - Tom might have been spreading rumors.

OTOH, Tom was too smart to make anyone who knew him call him Lord Voldything. More likely, that was his Secret Name - the one he called himself in his real diary. (Oh, my goodness. He was a thirteen year old girl.) Later, when he returned, powerful and dangerous, he could not only force people to call him that, but he could make an entire culture afraid to even say his name.

And you know they didn't know he'd been Tom Riddle, because if they had, they'd have known he was half-blood.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Oh, my goodness. He was a thirteen year old girl.

Or Adrian Mole.

[katiescarlet.livejournal.com]

(Oh, my goodness. He was a thirteen year old girl.)

No wonder he and Ginny got along so well! LMAO!! XD

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

It's confirmed a bit later that this is indeed Salazar. Monkey-like! Somehow this detail seems to have escaped Founder-fic.

He's the only Founder we even have a vague description of, but yeah, the monkey-like is funny. Perhaps JKR means to suggest he's got a shrewd look to him? Though what does it say about the man that he hid a giant statue of himself in the *basement*?

And there's nothing Tom/V likes better than a loooooong story.

Bond Villian Disease. It's terminal, one way or another.

'[...]On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school Prefect, model student[...]' (229-230)

I could have sworn Head Boy was in that list too, but I guess not. Though it *still* doesn't say a lot about Hogwarts ability to select student leaders, if we look at who gets the Prefect job.

but does this suggest to anyone else that Lockhart was Muggle-born?

Oh, good thought. Though 'Gilderoy' seems an unlikely name for a Muggleborn. Maybe a halfblood?

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

Oh, good thought. Though 'Gilderoy' seems an unlikely name for a Muggleborn. Maybe a halfblood?

Assuming that 'Gilderoy Lockhart' is even his real name. He was probably born Roy Lipschitz or something :-P

[thistlefinch.livejournal.com]

I could have sworn Head Boy was in that list too, but I guess not.

Wasn't his diary-self only about fifteen? He wouldn't have gotten as far as Head Boy yet.

[seventines.livejournal.com]

chresimos and I have discussed what we think a "high, cold laugh" is (it comes up again in GoF, where V also has a "high, cold voice"), and decided we don't know. It's high, so it's shrill? A hysterical giggle? But cold too? Dunno.

The highness of it makes him sound ridiculously melodramatic - more Dr. Evil than Dr. No.

I was rather intrigued by the fact that he didn't recognize Fawkes as Dumbledore's phoenix. I'd always assumed that Dumbledore had Fawkes as a 'pet' for many years. What did Fawkes do or who was he with while Riddle was at school?

[gmth.livejournal.com]

Maybe he did have Fawkes back in those days. Dumbledore was the Transfiguration professor when Riddle was at school, so maybe Riddle never saw Dumbledore's room or office or wherever he kept Fawkes, if he did.

[gmth.livejournal.com]

...all he wants to do is kill Harry, which I guess would explain why he hasn't actually... er, killed anyone.

I always considered this a lucky fluke. After all, there's no evidence in the book to suggest either Ginny or Riddle chased the basilisk around after releasing it, to direct it in its attacks, so they really didn't know who the thing was going to go after. It's actually kind of strange that the only people who got petrified were Muggle-borns, if you stop and think about it. (Well, them and Nick.) Seems to me Riddle was taking an awful chance of killing a pureblood.

[pauraque]

I guess it depends on how much inherent control Salazar had over the Basilisk, and by extension, how much Tom had. Binns tells the students that Salazar put the monster in the Chamber to "use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic" (114), which suggests that he at least tried to enchant it to only attack non-purebloods.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite quotes from this chapter is Tom saying that he poured a little of his soul into Ginny.

That is incredibly creepy. If I read this literally (and I don't see any reason why not to), I simply do not understand how Ginny could be "all better" in the next chapter. Dumbledore simply states that there has been 'no lasting damage' done to her. I don't buy it. That is an authorial cheat if I ever I saw one. JKR would like us to believe that the most evil dark lord in the last century "poured his soul" into a little girl and then she just skipped off happily ever after when the diary was destroyed?

[pauraque]

It's especially weird given that the next chapter is the same one that introduces the concept of V having left some of himself in Harry.

[theatresm.livejournal.com]

'Twice -- in your past, in my future -- we have met. And twice I failed to kill you[...]' (233)

They have indeed met twice, but... huh? If Tom's trying to say something significant here, I can't penetrate its meaning.

*sings* Three -- it's a magic number! /singing And boy, you date yourself if you can name that tune.

Third time's the charm. '[Those] who have defied the Dark Lord three times,' yadda yadda yadda... (paraphrasing, of course). It really is a "magic" number. Though what the heck JKR means by throwing in there is like Greek to me, too....

[pauraque]

But why is one in Tom's future, and one in Harry's past? What's the difference?

[ETA: Or maybe she meant that both incidents took place in Tom's future and in Harry's past, and I just misunderstood what she was getting at. Some of JKR's prose in this book is REALLY awkward.]

[mctabby.livejournal.com]

From this online chat with JKR:

Question: In Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid is supposed to have raised werewolf cubs under his bed. Are these the same kind of werewolves as Professor Lupin?

J.K. Rowling: No. Riddle was telling lies about Hagrid, just slandering him.

[pauraque]

And there it is. Thank you! :*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

And there's nothing Tom/V likes better than a loooooong story.

The folks over at TWOP call Brass of CSI "Captain Exposition." Hee. I love that icon of Tom Riddle that says, "Let me tell you all about my cunning plan so you can stop me."

The high, cold laugh for some reason always put in mind that the banshee-like nature of it was chilling, or sent chills up one's spine, but I can't quite see high-pitched as cold. It'll be interesting, if nothing else, to see how the movie does it.

With regards to the little Tommy Voldemort, I'm reminded of a comment at the Leaky Cauldron I saw when Book Six's real title was revealed.

"maybe voldemorts followers called him prince voldemort before he was old enough to be lord voldemort or something like that"

*anagrams* COVER MELT DIP RON? Ooh!

A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the Hat, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs. (235)

This always made me boggle because... whoa, that's a hell of a handle. How the heck did little Harry Potter get his hand around that thing? Eggs are no small thing.

*cough* No phallic imagery in that paragraph either.

[http://users.livejournal.com/lady_alatariel_/]

The high, cold laugh for some reason always put in mind that the banshee-like nature of it was chilling, or sent chills up one's spine, but I can't quite see high-pitched as cold.

Like that screeching of the Ringwraiths is high and almost cold?
That's defintely chilling... ::shudders::

[wolfie-thu.livejournal.com]

Paint, then, not blood.

I thought that maybe it really was blood, but Ginny was just in denial, or maybe that her first thought on seeing herself covered in something red wouldn't be that it was blood. More symbolism of adolescence?


I wouldn't be surprised if Lockhart was a Muggle-born- the "magic" quote, and the bit where he says that when he was young, he was a nobody- it just seems to fit.

And I can picture a high voice being cold, but it's more a colour than anything else.

[pauraque]

I thought that maybe it really was blood, but Ginny was just in denial

Yeah, that's a good point. Most people don't regularly have the experience of being covered in copious amounts of dried blood, and could easily not recognize it, especially if they didn't *want* to think it could be true.

More symbolism of adolescence?

Oh, good on ya! I hadn't thought of that.

[eponis.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you pointed out the the "monkey-like" description. Compare:

"it was ancient and monkey-like, with a long thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes"

"He looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows. . ." (from the HBP excerpt, of course)

Makes me think more and more that her book excerpt is a description of Godric.

[pauraque]

I think that's where the good money is.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Random Slytherin: Fancy a fly around the pitch, Riddle?
Tom: *righteously enraged* I keep telling you, call me by my proper name!
R.S.: *puzzled* But that is your name...
Tom: *pounding fists* No! LORD VOLDEMORT!
R.S.: ...Uh-huh. Okay, Tommy, catch you later.
Tom: *angst*

Tom: You will be the first to die when I come to power.
R.S.: Okay, Tommy, whatever.

Ten years later

R.S.: Aw, crap. *dies horribly at the hands of one of Voldemort's minions*

[pauraque]

Ha, that too.