CoS 18

[pauraque_bk]

Chapter 17 generated an unusual amount of discussion! Y'all are smart kids. :*


CoS 18: Dobby's Reward

[...]just as Harry found himself and Ron being swept up into Mrs Weasley's tight embrace.
'You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?' (241)

I think it's weird that we're not shown Molly hugging *Ginny*, just the boys. The way Ginny is treated in this chapter is weird generally. More on this in a few pages.

[Dumbledore:] 'Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He disappeared after leaving the school ... travelled far and wide ... sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind, underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognisable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here.' (242)

Except the "intimate friends" with whom Tom was already using the name at school! One wonders who they were... or if they even existed. We know Tom was a favorite of the staff, but was he popular? A half-blood in Slytherin today would meet with bigotry, but was that the case in the 1930s and 40s? Was he admired for his accomplishments, or seen as a geek, a weird uber-smart teacher's pet? Early on, I think it's Harry who compares Tom to Percy (though it might have been Ron, I can't recall).

Dumbledore offers no indication of *why* Tom disappeared, nor whether he set off to explore the Dark Arts or merely fell into them. My sense is that he was already interested in immortality, which could be confirmed by his urge to "back up" his memories in diary form, as caesia390 commented in Chapter 13. I can't find it now, but someone also said in a comment that it makes sense for him to have a great interest in permanence and personal security, given his childhood circumstances.

[Dumbledore:] 'This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort. [...] Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up [...] You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She's just giving out Mandrake juice -- I dare say the Basilisk's victims will be waking up any moment.' (243)

We talked about this passage a bit in the last post. How can it be considered sufficient to "not punish" an 11-year-old kid who's been mentally violated, forced to do terrible things, and very nearly killed? To dismiss her suffering with a prescription of bed rest and chocolate (even considering its known magical properties) seems like madness. But it's not inconsistent with the wizarding world's general attitude toward suffering and psychological damage -- these things just aren't taken seriously.

One can debate the rightness of that in the characters and their culture, but that's a separate question from whether JKR herself is taking Ginny's trauma seriously, and there's precious little evidence that she is. The last time we see her in this book, she's giggling over Percy and his girlfriend (250), and we hear nothing more from her about the events of CoS until OotP, where she seems offended that the incident slipped Harry's mind. But who can blame him? All the other characters seem to want nothing more than to gloss the whole thing over.

On another note, in the last chapter gmth quite reasonably asked how Nick was able to take the potion. _hannelore suggested that splashing it on him could work, but aside from that, I haven't the foggiest. Nick is mentioned once in passing in PoA, but what happened the previous year is not remarked upon.

'Am I a Professor?' said Lockhart in mild surprise. 'Goodness. I expect I was hopeless, was I?' (244)

Again, we don't know the exact nature of Lockhart's mental state here, but if we can take this as something he truly believes about himself -- or believed about himself at one time -- it's very interesting indeed.

'He tried to do a Memory Charm and the wand backfired,' Ron explained quietly to Dumbledore.
'Dear me,' said Dumbledore, shaking his head, his long silver moustache quivering. 'Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!' (244)

Hm, so Dumbledore knows about Lockhart's memory-modifying ways. And appears to be amused by his fate! I think this supports the notion that Dumbledore hired Lockhart in the first place to teach him a lesson of some kind.

'You can speak Parseltongue, Harry,' said Dumbledore calmly, 'because Lord Voldemort -- who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin -- can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm very much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure...' (245)

And yet, after intentionally pouring his soul into Ginny, she's left unscathed. Right-o.

'It only put me in Gryffindor,' said Harry in a defeated voice, 'because I asked not to go in Slytherin...'
'Exactly,' said Dumbledore, beaming once more. 'Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.' (245)

Man, where to start with this?

1) When Harry asked for anything but Slytherin, he wasn't making an informed decision. He'd heard some exaggerated claims about what Slytherins are like, and, more immediately, wanted to avoid getting stuck in a dorm with a kid he already disliked.

2) It's hard to read this and come up with anything but "Slytherin is bad", which is just... sigh. Possibly "personal ambition is bad", which goes along with Lockhart's severe punishment, but ambition is Slytherin's symbolic trait, so there you are again. Is Harry virtuous not because he fought to save Ginny, but because he chose to wear red and gold?

3) It may not be the best of ideas to incorporate a major "free choice" theme into a story where you've also got real prophecies, not to mention a time travel event that's depicted in a way that suggests pre-destination. If for no other reason than that it makes my little head hurt.

[Dumbledore to Lucius:] '[...] Several of them seemed to think that you had threatened to curse their families if they didn't agree to suspend me in the first place.' (246)

Mm. The implication being that Lucius is more powerful than your average wizard, I guess. Special Dark Powers?

'And imagine,' Dumbledore went on, 'what might have happened then ... The Weasleys are one of our most prominent pure-blood families. Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing Muggle-borns[...]' (247)

This seems to be conjecture on Dumbledore's part. It makes sense, but only Lucius knows for certain.

[...]and Lucius Malfoy had been sacked as a school governor. (250)

Who appoints and dismisses the school governors, I wonder?

And together they walked back through the gateway to the Muggle world. (251)

And that's that.


After allowing time for discussion of this chapter, I'll do a wrap-up post. The rest of the re-read posts are here.

Comments

[eponis.livejournal.com]

Hm, so Dumbledore knows about Lockhart's memory-modifying ways. And appears to be amused by his fate! I think this supports the notion that Dumbledore hired Lockhart in the first place to teach him a lesson of some kind.

Rack up another point for dubious!Dumbledore . . . seriously, if he chose a self-aggrandizing liar over Lupin (to return to a discussion of the past), then all I can think is that either Lupin was simply unavailable or he really, really, really didn't want a werewolf on staff.

It makes sense, but only Lucius knows for certain.

Does it? I mean, yes, the media often treats Harry Potter like an adult - but would anyone seriously believe that an 11-year-old girl was committing hate murders? The more that I think about this explanation, the less sense it makes to me. Particularly considering the widespread and well-known use of the Imperius curse during Voldemort's reign, it seems like most people would assume outside manipulation or control, not a homicidal first-year.

(Dumbledore takes care to note that the Weasleys are "pure-bloods." Why? The sentence makes just as much sense without it.)

[serriadh.livejournal.com]

This makes no sense to me either. Why would anyone think Ginny had been able to control the basilisk anyway? If you expect people to swallow the idea that there's been a huge snake living in Hogwarts since the time of Slytherin himself (or at least since Riddle left) and that it can be controlled and that it attacks muggle-borns then why the hell can't you also accept demonic possession of some sort?

Maybe Dumbledore just wants the WHOLE THING kept out of the press... that would be a more sensible idea, but it's not totally clear from what he actually says.

It also suggests that Lucius knew exactly what was happening and deliberately planted the diary on Ginny to annoy Arthur/destroy his career. I can't remember, but weren't we discussing his motivation earlier, and decided that this was unlikely?

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

(Dumbledore takes care to note that the Weasleys are "pure-bloods." Why? The sentence makes just as much sense without it.)
(Reply to this)

IMO, it is an important point that the Weasleys are a prominent "pure-blood" family. Had Riddle's scheme succeeded, Ginny (and the entire Weasley family) would have been implicated in a "Pure-blood vs. Muggle" murder scheme. Arthur Weasley champions Muggle causes. Being able to 'taint' the Weasleys with the same sort of anti-Muggle hatred would further Malfoy's DE agenda.

Arthur is regarded as being a bit "odd" in his love for Muggles. This oddness is probably excentuated by the fact that he is a Pure-blood. It would be nature for Muggleborns to retain a fondness for their Muggle roots, but not for a Pure-blood. Arthur and Lucius seem to have it in for each other. This would have been a terrific way to destroy Arthur's credibility in the wizard society. Poor Ginny was just a pawn.

[seventines.livejournal.com]

Poor Ginny.

On the other hand, demonic possession may well be considered a fairly commonplace thing in the magical world, (rightly or wrongly)

One of the things that JKR does rather well is to make the wizarding world seem commonplace. You grow up with magic, you know that giants and hags and centaurs are real. You have contact with house elves, presumably enslaved in some way we can't agree on, your parents speak in hushed tones about the dark powers of He Who Must Not Be Named In Front Of The Children. If you have an acceptance of memory modification charms and hexes and jinxes, a little demonic possession might be traumatic, but not as traumatic as it would be to someone who had never encountered magic at all. Or at the very least, your parents might see it that way.

Who appoints and dismisses the school governors, I wonder? I suppose they're a group of parents, mostly of current pupils. A majority can probably vote to remove one of their members.

[pauraque]

I see what you're saying. This is an issue I've seen brought up elsewhere, of how wizards really see the Imperius Curse and its ilk. Some readers see it as symbolic of rape, and of a similarly traumatic nature, but I don't know how accurate that is.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have some real problems with Dumbledore's speech to Harry there.

2) It's hard to read this and come up with anything but "Slytherin is bad", which is just... sigh. Possibly "personal ambition is bad", which goes along with Lockhart's severe punishment, but ambition is Slytherin's symbolic trait, so there you are again. Is Harry virtuous not because he fought to save Ginny, but because he chose to wear red and gold?

This, more than the point incident at the end of SS, makes me believe that Dumbledore genuinely does not like Slytherin house, but probably doesn't realize that. I think he believes he's a terribly fair headmaster, and the majority of his actions may even reveal that, but he does not like one of the houses, and they can almost certainly tell.

On point three, there's also the little problem that nearly every character we've ever met has had their position determined by their family. Sirius and Percy (and probably Snape) are the *only* exceptions to this, right down to Marietta Edgecombe. Various characters dislike or are deeply wary of Draco because Lucius was a Death Eater, and they rarely consider the possibility that he might do something else; this is extended to all other Death Eaters' children, just as it's assumed that the kids of Dumbledore supporters will do the same.

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

Various characters dislike or are deeply wary of Draco because Lucius was a Death Eater, and they rarely consider the possibility that he might do something else;

Sadly, that's often the case in real life though, isn't it? People are too often judged by their families alone, so I think it's keeping with reality that characters like Draco and Ron would be judged on the baises of their familes unless, like Sirius did, they should act radically different, which neither do.

this is extended to all other Death Eaters' children, just as it's assumed that the kids of Dumbledore supporters will do the same

Which is probably why Peter never was figured out as the spy. He's Gryffindor and not connected with Dark creatures in the way Remus is, so of course, he wouldn't go over to Voldemorts side *rolls eyes* He was one of Dumbledore's (ok yes, I ahd to bring up Peter, but at least it wasn't totally random, right?)

That said, to play Devil's advocate here (because personally, I'm for simplest explanation, at that seems to be author bias against Slytherin) but, perhaps Dumbledore's talk about choices didn't amoutn so much to houses, but was a warning against the desire for personal greatness.

The Sorting hat, IIRC, tried to tempt Harry into Slytherin by saying he could be great there. Harry rejected this preferring to take the house with no promise of greatness attatched to it. So the choice he made wasn't so much Slytherin of Gryffindor but assurred greatness versus the relatively unknown.

Of course that then breaks us back to, what on earth has JKR got against ambition? She seems to not be able to look at ambition outside of a negative, slefish trait, and really it's not.

I bit she really does not like Ayn Rand's books *L*

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

This, more than the point incident at the end of SS, makes me believe that Dumbledore genuinely does not like Slytherin house, but probably doesn't realize that.

Now, that's an interesting question. He let Slytherin win the House Cup before Harry came to school because it wasn't important enough to bother him, but when it came to Harry's year, was it's Harry's prescence alone that made the House Cup important?

And yes, there is a good case that Dumbledore doesn't like Slytherin House -- though he certainly seems to use its members when they're useful towards his goals. I wonder if he realizes how much his own actions antagonizes the Slytherins, though; Dumbledore reads like someone with gobs of charisma and no empathy to me.

there's also the little problem that nearly every character we've ever met has had their position determined by their family. Sirius and Percy (and probably Snape) are the *only* exceptions to this

Except that Sirius and Percy's positions are *also* determined by their family's. Sirius rebelled against everything his family stood for, while Percy took everything his family *said* they stood for, and ran with it. We still don't know enough about Snape's background to make a determination about what's up with him.

But your family is godawful important in the Potterverse. Only Muggleborns gets to make associations and decisions unburdened by their family's connections. It's actually more of something I'd expect from a cheifdom or tribal society, not a nominally state-level society.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I think it's weird that we're not shown Molly hugging *Ginny*, just the boys. The way Ginny is treated in this chapter is weird generally.

The part where Arthur immediately admonishes Ginny makes my skin crawl. Here's a quick discussion of it: http://www.livejournal.com/users/ajhalluk/78472.html?thread=1018504#t1018504
And yes, Molly certainly centres her ambitions and hopes on the boys - there's no dead!Ginny boggart in OotP, and 'that's everyone in the family' omits her.
That plus Ginny's now being the female version of Fred and George, all whom show adoration of their father and contempt towards their mother; and Molly's swift belief that poor sweet innocent Harry is being ruthlessly played by the conniving 'scarlet woman' Hermione, and OBHWF is looking less and less canonical.

Who appoints and dismisses the school governors, I wonder?

Yes, that seems a little odd, since the job is voluntary and doesn't pay anything, so you can't technically be 'sacked', as far as I know.
I suppose they could have all voted for Lucius' resignation, but it seems unlikely - whats stopping him cursing all their families over that?

Is Harry virtuous not because he fought to save Ginny, but because he chose to wear red and gold?

It's interesting that Dumbledore chooses not to congratulate Harry on his bravery or self-sacrifice in trying to rescue Ginny, but his loyalty to Dumbledore.
Nice priorities.
Also, I can't voice how much I hate his ending speech here. Hopefully someone else will. (Come to think of it, I hate the endings of all the HP books...huh.)

Hm, so Dumbledore knows about Lockhart's memory-modifying ways. And appears to be amused by his fate!

Creeeepy. How rewarding for Dumbledore that he 'taught Lockhart' a lesson. And at the expense of only a few (ugly hairlipped) people's brains! *shivers*

Again, we don't know the exact nature of Lockhart's mental state here, but if we can take this as something he truly believes about himself -- or believed about himself at one time -- it's very interesting indeed.

This reminds me of Peter Pettigrew actually, and the discussion about what house Lockhart was in - it appears they both have very 'Gryffindor' value systems, despite their actions.

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that Dumbledore chooses not to congratulate Harry on his bravery or self-sacrifice in trying to rescue Ginny, but his loyalty to Dumbledore.

*snerk* No joke. Is it me or is Dumbledore EXTREMELY self important -_-
Even in Ootp, he tries to put the blame for Sirius death indirectly on Sirius rather than admitt that maybe locking someone up in the house the abhore with only a crazy house elf for consistant companionship AFTER said person has been locked up in azkaban for 13 years might cause them to act a little irrationally *sigh*

I'd love to see Dumbledore have the same realization Mother Abigal had in the Stand, where he realizes his prideful, and that's harming people and he needs to go wonder in the woods away from everyone else for a long time in order to repent -_-

[cs-luis.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that Dumbledore chooses not to congratulate Harry on his bravery or self-sacrifice in trying to rescue Ginny, but his loyalty to Dumbledore.

Indeed. (OH THE HATE!!) This is another example of Dumbledore programming and grooming Harry into being the pawn weapon wizard he wants/needs him to be. It's so creepy.

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

The end of this book was just so... "WTF?" when I first read it. It sort of reminds me of the battle in the Dept of Mysteries in OOtP: highly unlikely, truly bizarre and the kind of suspension of belief that usually movies are made of.

Molly's coddling of Harry ever since Book 1 makes me wonder if the Weasleys had more ties to the Potters. She goes head-to-head with Sirius over the guardianship of Harry, it's Harry she hugs after her daughter has been presumed dead. She also picks out Harry as "family" when Arthur has been attacked. Also, it's boggling why the dread and horror of the Weasley family is so palpable in OOtP when Arthur is attacked, but the reaction of the Weasley parents at the end of CoS seem like a reaction to a prank gone wrong, not the fact that they were told their assumed Ginny was dead.

'Dear me,' said Dumbledore, shaking his head, his long silver moustache quivering. 'Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!'

Why would Dumbledore hire such an inept professor if he knew Lockhart was a fake? Hagrid (I think?) says Lockhart was "the only" candidate for the job, but can that be true if Snape applies for the job again and again?

*cough* Excuse me for the following, I'm an unabashed Tom/Albus fan. I think even though "Dumbldore kept an annoying close watch on me after that," Tom was Albus' "pet" (and dirty little secret). This might be why Dumbledore knows what has happened to Tom over the years, his transformation and the way he talks to Harry about him. He points him out as handsome, too.

I would have been all in favor of thinking that Ginny was treated to a little chocolate Oblivation too, but because she does talk about being possessed in OOtP, perhaps that rules that out. On the other hand, if there wasn't anything of this sort, it seems pretty crap of Rowling to insert the chipper "on the other hand, Ginny was perfectly happy" stupidity after all Ginny's been through. Also, when she awakes in CoS she calls him "Riddle" but in OOtP it's back to "You-Know-You."

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

And I don't have the book in front of me, but I wonder if Dumbledore is using Legimency on Lucius when he makes these claims:

'And imagine,' Dumbledore went on, 'what might have happened then ... The Weasleys are one of our most prominent pure-blood families. Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing Muggle-borns[...]' (247)

Or if he really knows, or if he's just doing a "Murder She Wrote" exposition for younger readers?

Off-handedly, I wonder if some of the simplistic "fixes" in these early books like PS and CoS are aimed for those younger reasons, while in OOtP, the scenarios are more complex because it's assumed the readers are older.

Lastly, because I forgot, the way Arthur is so completely horrified at Ginny almost sounds like he at one time was put under the spell of some Dark object. Working with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, maybe he stumbled across something that had been charmed with the Dark arts and he is thinking about this as he leaves so dazed and "shaken."

[snakeling]

Re: Ginny. Might she have been a disappointment for the Weasleys? They might have been expecting a seventh son, and instead they got a girl. That might explain (though not excuse) the weird way they seem to treat her.

To dismiss her suffering with a prescription of bed rest and chocolate (even considering its known magical properties) seems like madness. These are the people who, after Harry had seen a fellow student killed and Voldemort resurrected, sent him back with nothing more than, "Have a good summer at the Dursleys, see you in two months!" And then readers wonder why Harry has become CAPSLOCK!Harry in OotP. What do they expect? :) In fact, I was amazed that Ginny didn't show any more signs of psychological damage. Of course, there's the possibility that this is going to appear again in HBP or in HP7 to bite the characters in the ass. Maybe that's why JKR meant by HBP reusing a plot element from COS.

Re: Nick. When he was petrified, did he solidify or not? If he's more solid than in his "waking" state, then it might be possible to pour the potion in his mouth or rub it on his body (though it begs the question: how do you undress a ghost? :P)

Re: Lockhart's fate and Dumbledore's reaction. The more I read and think about Dumbledore, the creepier he seems. If he knew that Lockhart was a fraud before he hired him, then why on earth did he hire him? He knew that the kids would waste at least one school year with him, at a time when he knew for sure that Voldemort was not completely vanquished. It's completely irresponsible, both as a teacher and as a war leader.

And yet, after intentionally pouring his soul into Ginny, she's left unscathed. Especially as Harry only had contact with Voldemort for a few seconds, whereas Tom spent months possessing Ginny.

The implication being that Lucius is more powerful than your average wizard, Hmm, I wouldn't say more powerful. Rather more knowledgeable. The other school governors are probably average law-abiding citizens, which means they don't know as many curses as Lucius does :)

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

Re: Ginny. Might she have been a disappointment for the Weasleys? They might have been expecting a seventh son, and instead they got a girl.

I always interpreted it as Molly and/or Arthur wanting a girl (since there hadn't been a Weasley girl in some godawful long stretch of time) and just continuing to churn out children until they finally got what they wanted. Which doesn't necessarily preclude her being a disappointment to them. If they had some convoluted idea of what a daughter was supposed to be like and Ginny didn't fit the mold, they could be disappointed with her. Molly in particular seems to very fixated on her kids fitting into a mold rather than appreciating them for themselves.

[orlanstamos.livejournal.com]

'He tried to do a Memory Charm and the wand backfired,' Ron explained quietly to Dumbledore.
'Dear me,' said Dumbledore, shaking his head, his long silver moustache quivering. 'Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy!' (244)

I rather thought that Dumbledore meant that the spell backfired, and instead of the Memory Charm being cast on Harry and Ron as it was intended Lockhart was 'impaled upon his own sword' when the spell backfired. It doesn't necessarily have to imply that Dumbledore knew Lockhart was a fraud, though he doesn't seem to have any real respect for the man either.

For someone who seems prepared to fight the Dark Lord since PS/SS Dumbledore doesn't seem to be any good at picking out teachers who will pass any real DADA knowledge to the students. There's Remua and there evil!Moody out of five years of teachers.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's sort of scary that the best teacher -- the one the kids learned actually useful stuff from -- in five years was a DEATH EATER!

Can Dumbledore pick them or what?

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

A half-blood in Slytherin today would meet with bigotry, but was that the case in the 1930s and 40s?

We don't know for sure. While Salazar wanted to teach only students from magical families, some halfblood families (like Harry and Tonks' families) probably met his criteria. Yes, Malfoy makes a lot of loud-mouthed remarks currently, but I can't see the Sorting Hat deciding to offer Slytherin to only two halfbloods in a century. It would stuff too many students in the other dorms, for one thing.

How can it be considered sufficient to "not punish" an 11-year-old kid who's been mentally violated, forced to do terrible things, and very nearly killed?

This only one in a long string of happenings that make me think that the Wizarding World truly does not have the concept of emotional damage -- if you can't shake off a bad experience, you just aren't tough enough. Makes me wonder what the suicide rates for Aurors, Hit Wizards, and veterans of the First Voldemort War are. Pretty high is my guess.

, so Dumbledore knows about Lockhart's memory-modifying ways. And appears to be amused by his fate!

Dumbledore has this very worrying habit of tolerating bad behavior as long as it doesn't hurt *Harry* in the long term. He's quite cruel, in a jolly, 'why aren't you laughing?' kind of way.

It may not be the best of ideas to incorporate a major "free choice" theme into a story where you've also got real prophecies

And where a Hat can apparently see your destiny at the age of 11...

[pauraque]

While Salazar wanted to teach only students from magical families, some halfblood families (like Harry and Tonks' families) probably met his criteria. Yes, Malfoy makes a lot of loud-mouthed remarks currently, but I can't see the Sorting Hat deciding to offer Slytherin to only two halfbloods in a century. It would stuff too many students in the other dorms, for one thing.

Normally, belief systems tend to change over time to fit new circumstances. Salazar lived a thousand years ago, and since then, as Ron quite rightly points out in this book, almost no one is 100% pureblood anymore. I suspect that the criteria for Slytherin house became less rigid as the "purebloods only" demand became less realistic. Then, as sometimes happens, there was a fundamentalist backlash against the change, popularized and mobilized by charismatic leaders (Tom Riddle, certainly -- maybe also Grindelwald).

[playscape.livejournal.com]

Exactly,' said Dumbledore, beaming once more. 'Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. I always take that to really mean, "it makes you BETTER than Tom Riddle, and BETTER than who you would have been in Slytherin, because, man, you really dodged a bullet there, Harry! Slytherins are bad, bad, bad, and you are a good, brave, noble Gryffindor, which is the only way to be!"

Dumbledore makes mo effort to inform Harry that no, there is nothing wrong with being in Slytherin. He makes no effort to correct Harry's prejudices about Slytherins, and he in fact only encourages Slytherin-hate by, in so many words, telling Harry he's a better man for being in Gryffindor and saving the day by pulling the sword out of the hat because a true Slytherin could never have done that. As headmaster, I should think Dumbledore would present a non-biased view of his own students, especially to someone with as much responsibility as Harry, but apparently not.

In PoA when Lupin and Harry are drinking tea and Lupin toasts to "a Gryffindor victory" and then quickly says, "not that we're supposed to take sides as teachers", Lupin is so quick to correct his little slip-up there, but in the last chapter of CoS, Dumbledore is educating Harry--teaching him the lesson of the year here--and makes no bones about letting Harry walk out with the idea that Gryffindors are Great and Slytherins are Slime. This is one of the things I loathe about Dumbledore, and if the man were running his school with any amount of fairness, and sought to encourage house unity instead of shrugging it off, the Sorting Hat would never have felt the need to sing its new song in OotP.

[pauraque]

I can only agree. Ignorance is forgivable, but Dumbledore should know far better. Didn't Peter, one of his precious Gryffindors, betray him (or Sirius, if D believed his guilt)? Isn't Snape, a vile Slytherin, risking life and limb to help the Order? It simply doesn't make sense.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

Early on, I think it's Harry who compares Tom to Percy (though it might have been Ron, I can't recall).

It is Ron. He compares Riddle to Percy twice during CoS, because both of them were at the top of all of their classes and received recognition and reward. Jealous, some? Ron is dreadful to Percy.

The family is equally dreadful to Ginny throughout the story (either ignoring her suffering (Ron) or purposely scaring her (the twins), but Molly and Arthur both take the cake here. As you point out, Molly hugs Harry, not her own daughter. And Arthur -- yikes! He berates her! This is one of the only interactions that we ever see between Arthur and Ginny in the entire series. He yells at his 11 yr. old daughter because she was ... what? Acting like a normal little girl? Because she was "dumb" enough to become ensnared by the most powerful, evil wizard in the last 100 years??? What the hell was Arthur thinking? He is horrible here. I believe that Arthur was thinking only of himself. Somehow, someone got to his daughter and tried to turn her into an instrument of the Dark Lord so that she could be used to kill his pet Muggles. He's not thinking of her at all here.

I so often want to pick up Arthur and Molly and shake them and ask them if they have any freaking idea what they're doing to their children.

[arwencordelia.livejournal.com]

Somehow, someone got to his daughter and tried to turn her into an instrument of the Dark Lord so that she could be used to kill his pet Muggles.

Not to mention that Ginny's actions would reflect very badly on him. Between Arthur's reaction here, and Molly's vocal desire for her kids to have "respectable" jobs (she disapproves of the twins' joke shop), appearances (Bill's long hair and earring), etc., the Weasleys strike me like the kind of parents who measure their kids' achievements only by how well they reflect on their parents.

[kragey.livejournal.com]

[Dumbledore:] 'This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort. [...] Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up [...] You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She's just giving out Mandrake juice -- I dare say the Basilisk's victims will be waking up any moment.'

I'm glad you mentioned this, because it's always interested me! Physical pain and deforming mishaps don't seem to bother JK's wizards that much, although they seem to be fiercely afraid of death. This could be because of magic: they have a spell or a potion to fix almost anything. On top of that, they live for a VERY long time [Nicholas Flammel is friggin' ANCIENT]. It was always my opinion that wizards are so used to being "invincible" that the thought of actually dieing is 99% foreign and 100% terrifying to them, but actual pain/harm doesn't bother them so much.

Anybody agree?

[pauraque]

Yeah, I think you're on the right track. Neville has twice survived falls from heights that could easily have killed Muggles, and Harry's done the same. Wizards are more durable than Muggles.

Nicholas Flammel is friggin' ANCIENT

That's because he's been taking an immortality potion, though. :) Dumbledore, still very powerful and active at 150, is a much better example.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think it's weird that we're not shown Molly hugging *Ginny*, just the boys.

Yes, sometimes I seriously wonder about these books and girls. Does it mean something that Molly only ever seems affectionate towards men? Is that why there just aren't many examples of female-closeness in the books? Hermione and Ginny seem like sisters-in-law to me.

A half-blood in Slytherin today would meet with bigotry, but was that the case in the 1930s and 40s?

Despite Draco, I can't get a handle on Slytherin's views. Their password is Pureblood, right? (Smart--it's the word everybody associates with them. What was the next password...bigot? Ethnic cleansing? Clumsy Aryan Parallel?) But then Draco never calls Harry a half-bloodle, despite his mother being Muggleborn. I seem to recall Tom Riddle being more focused on Harry's being a half-blood but not Draco. Anyway, that leads me to believe I don't know even how Draco breaks it all down, much less Slytherin house.

One can debate the rightness of that in the characters and their culture, but that's a separate question from whether JKR herself is taking Ginny's trauma seriously, and there's precious little evidence that she is.

On one hand one could make a case that nowadays we're too focused on trauma in the wrong way. Our modern conventions of focusing on traumatic events as life-ending or altering is sometimes destructive. So on principle I'm okay with caring for the person's physical needs and letting nature heal them naturally. (Though here seems more like they literally don't think anything of it.)

Then there's the other problem, that we're talking about possession here and Harry, as you say, has apparently become linked to Voldemort through less than this. All Voldemort did to him was throw a curse at him that backfired on him, so why assume Ginny's prolonged experience had no lasting effects? In OotP she claims to be the only one who knows what it feels like to be possessed but her experience and Harry's seem different.

I think this supports the notion that Dumbledore hired Lockhart in the first place to teach him a lesson of some kind.

While I agree with the person who said he could just be referring to the spell itself backfiring, it does seem hard to believe that Dumbledore doesn't know the truth about Lockhart anyway, doesn't it?

Man, where to start with this?

Ugh, so ridiculous. In fact, I don't even buy the part about Harry's choosing against being successful just because the hat tells him he could do well in Slytherin, since the hat doesn't hint at all that Slytherin is the *only* place where Harry can do well; he sounds like he's just feeling Harry out about how he feels about the house. Anyway, it still comes down to Harry obviously not wanting this house because the people he's liked so far don't like it and the people he doesn't like so far do like it.

Dumbledore seems to practically be saying outright here that Slytherin sucks--and I wouldn't be surprised if along with thinking Slytherin proved bad character he also thought Gryffindor showed superior character (so Hermione also proved a better person by preferring it to Ravenclaw). He's just such a jerk about it and it's amazing his final message of the book is, "You did good, Harry. You proved you were loyal to me and my house!"

The Sorting Hat should be the Headmaster. Or let Phineas have the job back. He seems to see the students as students or spotty teens and that's about it. I doubt this will come to pass, but I wonder if the Hat saw Harry's rejecting Slytherin as a bad thing because he's the only member of the staff who thinks of Slytherin as an equal house.

The implication being that Lucius is more powerful than your average wizard, I guess. Special Dark Powers?

As someone else mentioned, if he has these special powers why are they not afraid to kick him off the board? Although I'm sure we're supposed to take Dumbledore's word here, frankly isn't it just as in character for the wizards to have lied about their motives now Dumbledore's back? It's certainly more interesting to me to believe that, but I think it almost fits more in with what we've seen.

[pauraque]

Their password is Pureblood, right? (Smart--it's the word everybody associates with them. What was the next password...bigot? Ethnic cleansing? Clumsy Aryan Parallel?)

Bwah!

But yeah, that really was clumsy. Are we meant to believe that Snape picked such a password? Or maybe it's the prefects who do that.

[arwencordelia.livejournal.com]

It may not be the best of ideas to incorporate a major "free choice" theme into a story where you've also got real prophecies

A very interesting essay discussing this topic was just posted in hp_essays a little while ago (link (http://www.livejournal.com/users/readerravenclaw/11888.html)). readerravenclaw has a convincing explanation of why the existence of the prophecy doesn't necessarily take away Harry's ability to make choices.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

You put your finger on a number of things that feel really odd about the ending. It almost makes you wonder, what book has JKR been reading? Dumbledore offers Harry a lecture on choice, but the book hasn’t really been about choice, it’s been about the temptations of various kinds of chaos and disorder, and Harry has hardly been immune to that. He rewards Harry for loyalty and reassures him that he’s nothing like Tom, but the comparison between Harry and Tom feels strained, and Harry’s loyalty has never been an issue. He shows real awareness of what Ginny has been through, but offers her a shockingly empty consolation.

I confess, though, that I am generally a Dumbledore fan, and I’d like to try to defend him if I can. I agree that he can be manipulative, but I don’t think he’s evil. One of the difficulties of reading Dumbledore, I think, is that a part of us very much wants to see him as the all-knowing, all-powerful projection of Harry’s childish imagination, and when he doesn’t live up to that, and of course he can never live up to that, a sort of adolescent disappointment and cynicism take over, and we yell for his head.

Dumbledore’s real mission, I think, is to prepare those who can handle it for an effective life in a morally chaotic world. His chief lesson is that there are no formulas or guarantees, no immunity from risk or suffering, no substitute for good judgment and a resilient character. To advance this lesson, he doesn’t bother much with grand, consistent lectures, but probes and hints and makes suggestions and reinforces behavior that he thinks will serve his individual students well. And he ruthlessly suppresses self-pity and second-thoughts. To see the relevance of his method, I think you have to look very closely at individual cases, at the psychological dynamics of individual characters, perhaps even more than at Dumbledore’s actual words.

I don’t agree, for example, that his praise for Harry’s choice of Gryffindor over Slytherin represents a prejudice against Slytherin. I think it has nothing to do with the houses, and everything to do with the particulars of Harry’s case. Look at what the Hat actually says to him – for Harry, Slytherin is an opportunity for greatness, for power, perhaps retributive power over a world that has injured him, and this temptation is being presented to a boy who has every reason to nurture resentment about his past. Of course Harry knows nothing about the “real” Slytherin or the “real” Gryffindor. But the point is that, based on what he thinks he knows, he chooses decency over power, fairness over retribution. Does it matter that the choice is based on a false perception of the Houses? What would a “true” perception be, anyway? I can’t imagine Dumbledore has any patience with an essentialist definition of what each house is “truly” about.

It may seem unnecessary for Dumbledore to stress this lesson at the end of CoS. True, Harry is re-evaluating a lot of his initial PS/SS impressions in CoS, but the temptation theme, the parallel with Tom, doesn’t seem to have any real bite to it. But maybe, here, Dumbledore is seeing further into Harry than Harry can see for himself. At twelve, Harry seems in no danger of becoming another Dark Lord. He’s reflexively decent, instinctively bounded and lacking in real malice. But what happens when he grows up and realizes that no one is enforcing those moral boundaries? What happens when he realizes how much stronger he is than other people?

On the surface, Harry has a normal boy’s fondess for disorder – the agreeable chaos of the Weasleys is a healthy contrast to the control-obsessed Dursleys. He likes the gross-out humor of the Death-day party and the Mandrakes. He’s attracted to the sense of disorder and danger presented by the CoS mystery, and by the implicit license for rule-breaking that solving the mystery represents.

[continued . . . ]

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You put your finger on a number of things that feel really odd about the ending. It almost makes you wonder, what book has JKR been reading? Dumbledore offers Harry a lecture on choice, but the book hasn’t really been about choice, it’s been about the temptations of various kinds of chaos and disorder, and Harry has hardly been immune to that.

I sometimes wonder, given that I think JKR has said things about parts of HBP being originally in CoS, whether what we're seeing is the result of that?

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

[. . . continued]

But there’s also a counter-theme to all this fun, that grows steadily stronger as the book progresses – and that is the image of chaos as something menacing and terrifying, a necessary corrective to its first presentation as something more innocuous, a challenge that separates ordinary people from heros. And people who can master or manipulate this chaos, like Tom or to a lesser extent Lockhart, have the power to impose on others, to exploit and harm them. There’s no question that Harry walks more confidently on the dark side than most other characters – at what point, as he grows older, might this lead to callousness, to a temptation toward exploiting other people? If Dumbledore’s job is to prevent Harry Potter from turning into another Tom Riddle, and some pre-emptive inoculations may not be totally out of order.

Dumbledore on Ginny is a tougher issue. Really, the question of how traumatized Ginny is by Tom is a key, subterranean issue for the entire series. She's so quiet in PoA and GoF. And is her OOTP personality a bit manic, maybe? Hard to interpret. What possible good can it do at this point, though, to blame her, to "mercifully" refrain from punishing her, for what she "did" in CoS?

One possible answer is that she's guiltier than she looks. A J Hall has a fascinating essay cited elsewhere in this thread that touches on Ginny's possibly subconscious resentment toward Penelope for taking Percy away from her. And while A J Hall would probably be scandalized by my extension of the issue here, it's worth wondering: is there a broader pattern where Tom and the basilisk serve as Ginny's poltergeists? We can infer that Ginny resents being excluded from the Trio. But the attack on Mrs. Norris agitates Filch and alarms the staff, which makes nocturnal rambling more difficult. The attack on Colin focuses on a weird sort of rival -- a more aggressive Harry-admirer. The attack on Justin consolidates suspicion about Harry, which serves him right! And the attack on Hermione goes right to the heart of the Trio. If Ginny is sharing her fears and resentments with Tom, might she not also be getting some satisfaction when he acts to avenge her?

If that's too much to take, maybe we can fall back on a more benevolent interpretation -- there are some studies of trauma that suggest that preserving a sense of agency, even an irrational sense of responsibility for the trauma, actually helps victims recover from the experience. It may be better for them to feel that they were active agents who just made a mistake, than that they had been reduced to utter helplessness. So Dumbledore, here, may be instinctively providing Ginny with all the therapy she's going to get.

Finally, I don't share people's suspicions about Dumbledore's approach to the DADA position. For example, as some people have pointed out, I don't see "impaled on his own sword" as evidence of guilty knowledge about Lockhart's memory charms -- it could be a simple observation about the spell backfiring. More generally, I actually think Dumbledore's approach to the DADA position is entirely consistent with the picture of his character and role I sketched out above. It's as if he's reminding the kids that complete safety is an illusion, that they should never let down their guard for some higher power that will keep them safe. Constant vigilance!

Lockhart provides a reasonably effective tour of the range of nasties out there, thereby fulfilling his basic educational mission, but maybe more importantly, he inoculates the kids rather effectively against hero worship. "Defense" aginst evil never requires subordinating one's own judgment (or political commitments?) to a man on a horse -- and that's a good liberal lesson.

Well, this has been a bit rambling, no? But I was feeling contrary, and I wonder if this has affected any received ideas.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Contrariness is good. :-) Going more or less backward, if I understand your man on a horse comment, this seems to be exactly the opposite of what we generally see. The good guys are usually identified in terms of their loyalty to Dumbledore, not so much their opposition to Voldemort (adjusted in book 5 for the third "side" of the Ministry). As has been noted above, Harry is praised primarily for showing loyalty to Dumbledore himself, not for fighting and risking his life to save Ginny.

As for teaching kids to be on guard, I have two main problems. One is that it's not a lesson to teach eleven year olds. In principle, sure. Putting them in highly dangerous situations, no. The second is that his entire demeanor opposes this lesson, and if he's trying to teach it, he's failing miserably. Everything Dumbledore presents (his general demeanor, for instance) seems designed to make kids feel safe, even when they aren't. Hermione says in SS, the Weasleys agree in PoA, and it's emphasized in the Ministry in OotP that Harry/everyone is safe as long as Dumbledore's around. I think there's a stronger message of relying on Dumbledore for your safety.

Skipping back to the house issue, though this has been brought up elsewhere. First, Dumbledore likely has no idea what the Hat offered Harry, though I suppose "personal greatness" is a reasonable guess. I'm not entirely sure it's true, but that's a different point. Harry's decision to not take it, though, has absolutely nothing to do with the virtues and opportunities from each house, whether "true" or not. All he knows is that Hagrid said Slytherins are evil, Ron said his family were all Gryffindors, and the kid who reminds him of Dudley is in Slytherin. Moreover, what you say about Dumbledore not caring about the essentials and true definition of a house really supports the idea that he dislikes Slytherin and can't be arsed to actually figure out who they really are. After all, they're the kids who choose power over all else and are thus bad. Which, of course, brings us back to praising Harry for choosing not to go with Slytherin values -- it's the same as praising him for not being a Slytherin.

I don't think Dumbledore is completely evil or anything. I think that on some levels he tries his best. On other levels, though, I think that he's complacent, or doesn't understand people at all, or has priorities that are just completely out of place.

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

Erm ... her parents do give her a hug. They throw themselves on her originally, then hug Harry and Ron. I'm sure that's true, I remember it.

I think the reason we hear no more about Ginny's feelings on this is because the books are from Harry's point of view and he doesn't really care. He's got other things to worry about and think about. Ginny isn't a part of his life yet - she's just Ron's little sister. It is why so many of the characters do fade away - because Harry doesn't see them as people. It's quite interesting actually because so many people are like this - you just zone people off and then suddenly start to notice that they are real and have reasons for their actions ... which has begun to come through in book five.

I disagree with what you say about Dumbledore. I don't think he's being anti-Slytherin at all - he's just saying that choices make us different from each other. I'm sure that if Harry HAD chosen to be in Slytherin, Dumbledore wouldn't have changed his feelings about Harry at all. And how else could Dumbledore sound? Harry was feeling very upset at that point, upset and worrying about being like the man who murdered his parents. The knowledge that he was a little like him but that his own choices had made him completely different was good for him.

But isn't the propechy ABOUT choice? To make it come true, Voldemort had to make a number of choices and his choices made it come about. He chose Harry and he chose to attack Harry. If he had waited and not marked Harry, it might never have happend at all. I can't remember the exact wording right now but if Voldemort had never acted, it might not have come true at all. Propechies are often like that in myths - if people didn't TRY to prevent them, they would never come true in the first place. (Oedipus comes to mind) As for the time traveling, it does make the head hurt but I don't think it's about predeterminism at all.

Anyway. I've enjoyed this. Do GoF next. :) (only when you have time)

[pauraque]

Erm ... her parents do give her a hug. They throw themselves on her originally, then hug Harry and Ron. I'm sure that's true, I remember it.

You're right, my eyes just skipped over it.

Propechies are often like that in myths - if people didn't TRY to prevent them, they would never come true in the first place.

Okay, but then what CAN the characters do to make the prophecy untrue? It just goes around in circles.

Do GoF next. :)

No. :)

I re-read GoF recently for my own edification, without doing commentary, and man, it's a slog. I'm really not looking forward to it. My current plan is to do it as a lead-up to the movie release, as I did with PoA, so it'll be a while.

Doesn't prevent you from posting about it yourself, of course...

[(Anonymous)]

I see you've already posted the wrap-up, but I hope this isn't too late. I just wanted to say that I really enjoy these re-reads, and they point out many details and ideas that I don't notice when reading the books again myself. Also, in the spirit of CoS, I read this incredible fic yesterday showing all of Ginny's entries in the diary, and the responses, and Tom's possession of her. You can find it here:

http://www.sugarquill.net/read.php?storyid=1026&chapno=1

It is well worth the read, and the last chapters are chilling, and complement canon wonderfully, along with a separate fic with Dumbledore's feelings about her and her recovery (Disenchanted).