GoF 4

[pauraque_bk]

Highlights from Chapter 3:

-So long, and thanks for all the mice (or, WTF post owls!)

-People we like are "round-faced", people we don't like are "the size of a young killer whale" (or, Sympathetic fat people in HP)


GoF 4: Back to The Burrow

Capitalization hers.

You know what? I think this might be my least favorite chapter in canon. Thankfully, it's also short.

[Harry] had rarely seen Mr or Mrs Weasley wearing anything that the Dursleys would call 'normal'. Their children might don Muggle clothing during the holidays, but Mr and Mrs Weasley usually wore long robes in varying states of shabbiness. (39)

So, I guess we can assume that there's a cultural shift in progress here. In Arthur and Molly's generation, you didn't wear Muggle clothes, ever. In the kids' generation, you do. Am I right that in the generation preceding Arthur and Molly, you didn't even have the first clue what a Muggle might wear? Are they older wizards, the ones we see dressed in nightgowns and so on? I wonder if this has anything to do with Dumbledore becoming Headmaster -- Muggleborns feeling more welcome, wizard children feeling more inclined to emulate them?

Dudley, on the other hand, looked somehow diminished. This was not because the diet was at last taking effect, but due to fright. Dudley had emerged from his last encounter with a fully-grown wizard with a curly pig's tail poking out of the seat of his trousers [...] It wasn't altogether surprising, therefore, that Dudley kept running his hand nervously over his backside, and walking sideways from room to room, so as not to present the same target to the enemy. (40)

There's a lot of this Dudley-being-terrified business in this chapter (which you really can't blame him for), but the key word is diminished. The bully isn't so big anymore, doesn't loom large in Harry's life. As usual, his bad actions are tied to his physical appearance -- the narrative lays the pig connection on pretty thick here, "porky hands" and so on. It's supposed to be funny, I don't know if you guys find it so. Doesn't work for me.

Etc etc, the Dursleys are anxious, they eat dinner, finally the Weasleys try to come in through the fireplace. This is just not smart of Arthur. He knows Muggles don't use the Floo network -- if they did, he wouldn't have had to pull strings to have the Dursleys' fireplace connected -- and he didn't tell anyone, even Harry, that he was going to attempt it. It also seems a bit dim to blast his way into the room instead of... well, anything else. He can fix the room via magic, but he can't take some paneling off without an explosion?

We're supposed to get a laugh out of the Dursleys' reactions, but it falls flat to me. This kind of humor doesn't work unless both parties are behaving reasonably (by their own standards), not idiotically.

'Well ... bye then,' Harry said to the Dursleys.

They didn't say anything at all. Harry moved towards the fire, but just as he reached the edge of the hearth, Mr Weasley put out a hand and held him back. He was looking at the Dursleys in amazement.

'Harry said goodbye to you,' he said. 'Didn't you hear him?'

'It doesn't matter,' Harry muttered to Mr Weasley. 'Honestly, I don't care.'

'You aren't going to see your nephew 'til next summer,' he said to Uncle Vernon in mild indignation. 'Surely you're going to say goodbye?' (46-47)

This is the only thing I kind of like in this chapter. Arthur's defense of Harry reads as sincere (and it would be reasonable too, if the Dursleys' living room hadn't just been blown up). He really can't imagine why they would treat him discourteously. I can't quite put into words why this affects me, but it does.

Harry wheeled around. Dudley was no longer standing behind his parents. He was kneeling beside the coffee table, and he was gagging and spluttering on a foot-long, purple, slimy thing that was protruding from his mouth. One bewildered second later, Harry realised that the foot-long thing was Dudley's tongue -- and that a brightly coloured toffee-wrapper lay on the floor beside him. (47)

There's this perpetual debate in fandom about the Weasley twins -- merry pranksters or sadists? And I tend to come down pretty hard on them, and it's because of things like this. I guess we're supposed to think Dudley deserved it for his mistreatment of Harry, but the fact is that Dudley isn't in a position to mistreat Harry anymore. He doesn't need to be taken down a peg: he's already there. Not to mention, as Arthur rightly points out in the next chapter, it's hardly acceptable or legal to do something like this to a Muggle.

I'll also point out that he's gagging and spluttering. In past discussions, some (myself included) have put a lot of weight on the fact that in OotP 28, James's soap-bubble hex makes Snape gag and choke, noting that cutting off someone's breathing is a pretty violent act.

Well, I feel like a bit of a wet blanket now. Anyone actually enjoy this chapter? I promise not to get in a snit if you did. :D


Previous GoF posts are saved in memories here.

Comments

[ook.livejournal.com]

Huh. I got quite a different distinction between the Marauders and the Twins. We hear in HBP that the majority of Sirius and James's detentions had to do with hexing random students (sort of contradicts their managing to get away with it, right?). Whereas the times we've seen or heard of the twins getting into trouble (with the school), it usually has to do with things along the lines of blowing up a toilet (PS) or setting off Dungbombs (PoA).

I suspect that the Marauders got away with a great deal during their school career (the notecards Harry had to transcribe may have been just the tip of the iceberg of their mischief). The existance of the Marauders Map was never discovered and the secret of the Invisibility Cloak probably did not come out until Seventh Year or later. Nor did anyone ever realize that three of the Marauders were Animagi (I wonder how many times Pettigrew changed into a rat to avoid capture...which might explain why the names of James and Sirius appeared most often in the notecards of punishments). Oh...I think the Marauders got away with murder (Sirius even attempted this literally but failed). I don't think that Fred and George ever tried to kill anyone on purpose though. ;)

Whereas the time we see the Marauders picking on a student, they are surrounded by other students who are openly laughing, and there is a very heavy air of "this is all a joke, can't you take it, hahaha?" which is used to conceal malice.

A great deal of the Marauders activities were done in secret (the Map, Cloak, Animagus forms), including the attempt by Sirius to harm Snape, so I don't think that an audience cheering them on was required by the Marauders. Perhaps, like ramped-up sense of Wizarding vengeance, the Wizarding sense of humor might also be severely out of whack?

[alya1989262.livejournal.com]

I think the main distinction between the Twins and the Marauders resides in whom they were picking on: the Twins hex people who seriously annoy them (like Zacharias Smith), and play pranks on the general public (or even for the general public's relish - cf. OotP!) and Professors. There isn't one particular person they persecute (apart from Percy, but we all know siblings are fair game!). Whereas the Marauders used Snape as, basically, a punching-ball! And that is what makes them guilty, in my eyes - the persecution of that one particular person, who, however disliked or an "oddball" he was, had never deserved it! (I also have strong issues with the description of Snape as an oddball by Sirius, primarily because I have always enjoyed being called 'weird' and 'odd'... Maybe I don't understand the English language perspective, but I don't see why "oddball"=nasty!) (I do, though, understand that Snape was nasty, but because he was "up to his eyes in the Dark Arts", not because he was "thaT little oddball")
For the record, I am by no means a Snape fan, I love Sirius and Remus (I have less sympathy for james, though), and I thouroughly enjoy the Twins.
~Alya~