GoF 28

[pauraque_bk]

GoF 28: The Madness of Mr Crouch

'Winky is getting through six bottles [of Butterbeer] a day now,' Dobby whispered to Harry.

'Well, it's not strong, that stuff,' Harry said.

But Dobby shook his head. ''Tis strong for a house-elf, sir,' he said. (466)

Because they don't weigh very much, presumably.

Remarkably, I still sometimes hear people doubting that Butterbeer is alcoholic! The wizarding world doesn't see a problem with selling alcohol to children.

Half-a-dozen house-elves came hurrying forward, looking disgusted. One of them picked up the bottle, the others covered Winky with a large checked tablecloth and tucked the ends in neatly, hiding her from view.

'We is sorry you had to see that, sirs and miss!' squeaked a nearby elf, shaking his head and looking very ashamed. 'We is hoping you will not judge us all by Winky, sirs and miss!'

'She's unhappy!' said Hermione, exasperated. 'Why don't you try to cheer her up instead of covering her up?'

'Begging your pardon, miss,' said he house-elf, bowing deeply again, 'but house-elves has no right to be unhappy when there is work to be done and masters to be served.' (467-468)

Since we were just talking about Sirius's depressive drinking, this reminds me of it again. In OotP, Sirius's misery will also be hidden away as Dumbledore stows him at Grimmauld Place rather than addressing his ultimately fatal unhappiness.

Have we already discussed the way the elves speak? Unless awkward speech is part of the original Brownie myth, JKR seems to have chosen to make her elves sound uneducated -- especially since they don't all make the same grammatical errors. If they were raised and educated as humans, would they speak like humans?

[Hermione's hate mail:] You are a WickEd giRL. HaRRy PottEr desErves BetteR. gO Back wherE you cAME from mUggle. (470)

The reaction to this is a little subdued... Ron tells Hermione again that she shouldn't have made trouble, rather than expressing horror that she should receive racist hate mail. Interesting that this one is made of cut-up letters, disguising the sender's handwriting. They're afraid to openly announce their anti-Muggleborn views.

Harry took off his watch, which he was only wearing out of habit, as it didn't work any more, and stuffed it in his pocket. (472)

This is the second time in two chapters that Harry's non-working watch has been pointed out (it stopped working after he spent all that time down in the lake). Is there any significance to it?

I had forgotten Hagrid's lesson with the Nifflers. Aw, it's cute!

'Count yer coins! An' there's no point tryin' ter steal any, Goyle,' he added, his beetle-black eyes narrowed. 'It's leprechaun gold. Vanishes after a few hours.'

Goyle emptied his pockets, looking extremely sulky. (472)

Hm! Are the Goyles hard up for money too, or is Gregory just greedy?

Percy's letter was enclosed in a package of Easter eggs that Mrs Weasley had sent. Both Harry's and Ron's were the size of dragon eggs, and full of home-made toffee. Hermione's, however, was smaller than a chicken's egg. Her face fell when she saw it.

'Your mum doesn't read Witch Weekly, by any chance, does she, Ron?' she asked quietly. (476)

Hermione can laugh off bullies (sometimes), and Rita causes her more anger than anguish, but Molly's harsh judgment gets to her. Understandably. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that Molly would jump to conclusions about her, since she's the one the "scarlet woman" talk was coming from.

'What d'you reckon it's going to be?' [Cedric] asked Harry, as they went together down the stone steps, out into the cloudy night. 'Fleur keeps going on about underground tunnels, she reckons we've got to find treasure.' (477)

Since when do Cedric and Fleur hang out?

'I've done ... stupid ... thing ...' Mr Crouch breathed. He looked utterly mad. His eyes were rolling and bulging, and a trickle of spittle was sliding down his chin. Every word he spoke seemed to cost him a terrible effort. 'Must ... tell ... Dumbledore ...' (482)

I guess the "stupid thing" is supposed to be going with his wife's plan to get Barty Jr out of Azkaban, though the way it's phrased makes it sound like something more recent than that.

It's also interesting that he now knows what happened to Bertha Jorkins; I wonder if he was treated to a little patented Evil Exposition before being placed under Imperius.

Crouch's extremely poor physical and mental condition could support theories that Peter let him escape intentionally (e.g., out of spite or to help Harry), rather than that Crouch had the strength to free himself.

'Mr Crouch!' Harry shouted. 'From the Ministry! He's ill or something -- he's in the Forest, wants to see Dumbledore! Just give me the password up to--'

[...]

Harry could tell Snape was thoroughly enjoying himself, denying Harry the thing he wanted when he was so panicky. (484)

I'm surprised that Snape doesn't take this seriously. He's usually quick to catch on when it's not an appropriate moment to toy with Harry. He never picks up on it here; Dumbledore hears them and comes out of his office himself.

Snape's presence in the corridor may be meant to serve as an alibi for him. It's pretty evident that Snape is not the one who conked Viktor over the head, whereas fake!Moody gets no such alibi.


Previous GoF posts are saved in memories here.

Comments

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Have we already discussed the way the elves speak? Unless awkward speech is part of the original Brownie myth, JKR seems to have chosen to make her elves sound uneducated -- especially since they don't all make the same grammatical errors. If they were raised and educated as humans, would they speak like humans?

Hmmm. Well, I've been discussing UG (Universal Grammar) lately in a number of contexts. Though I think most of the discussion of it in linguistics makes some fundamental errors in the mechanism by which UG arises, it's pretty clear that there's a lot about human language which is based heavily on patterns inborn in the human brain. So, it's not unreasonable that house elves are unable to master human language. Language is hard. It just happens that we're very good at it, and our languages are tailored for our brains.

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Though you're right that it might be expected for the elves to make a systematic errors. Probably becoming more similar in the errors they make a they become more emotional. Even if there were systematic errors, they might not appear in this context. I'd expect the Hogwart's elves in this situation to be pretty stilted, and show more randomness as they try very hard to get things right and succeed only scattershot.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

But spoken languages are learned socially, via interactions with more knowledgeable individiuals, not though any formal education. No one ever teaches you to speak your native language; you just learn it through interactions with your family when very young. Also, keep in mind that dialects that aren't considered standard by the larger society are still internally consistent. The reason it's so hard for outsiders to mimic the speech of people who speak certain dialects is that there are rules and conventions for syntax and grammar that may not be known outside that group. You say something because that's what "sounds right" to you when you're fluent. (For example, my husband did not grow up in the Appalachain mountains like I did, and when he tries to mimic the way my family speaks, he can't get it right. He says things that don't follow the unwritten syntax rules, and it's very clear when I hear it that it isn't "correct".) Languages are like that, independent of education level or the extent to which they;re accepted as legitimate by the larger society.

Of course, whether or not JKR has put a good deal of thought into how House Elves speak is another question altogether. I always thought they sounded as if they spoke a sort of pidgin English.

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

But spoken languages are learned socially, via interactions with more knowledgeable individiuals, not though any formal education. No one ever teaches you to speak your native language; you just learn it through interactions with your family when very young.

Exactly. (I've been known to go further and say no one ever *learns* any language. We each individually make it up, but that's another discussion :P)

Also, keep in mind that dialects that aren't considered standard by the larger society are still internally consistent.

Absolutely true! "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." But I was working from Eo's observation that the elves don't all make the same mistakes speaking English, they aren't internally consistent.

A pidgin lacks a full grammar and might be inconsistent in this way (a true pidgin, many languages that are called Pidgin are actually creoles and do have a full grammar and are as consistent as any other languages). But if elf language learning is the same as human language learning, than the only way they could still be speaking a pidgin is if they are still learning "Elfish" (or whatever) as a first language.

So either, (A) the elves have maintained a seperate spoken language that we never see and that all elves learn as a first language and never attain fluency in English (but learn languages basically like humans); (B) Elves just poor at language compared to humans; or (C) Elves have sufficiently different brains that English is an alien language to them which they are never able to attain fluency in, even as a first language.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

I love your icon.

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Why thank you! I made it one day in class :D

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

I love your user name, when my eyes don't automatically filter it out as a name.

[caesia390.livejournal.com]

The stupid thing Crouch had done - I thought it was that he didn't report that his insane, bitter, ex-Death Eater son had escaped? Because, officially, he shouldn't have been alive in the first place. Seems like the sort of thing Crouch would blame himself for, associated with his complicity in the swap to begin with.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Snape may have been aware that Dumbledore was headed that direction; does it specifically say why Dd came out of his office when he did? In any case, some fans like to blame Crouch's death on Snape's stalling Harry here, which conveniently ignores two points. First, Harry was running *away* from Dumbledore's office, having given up on getting in, when Snape catches him and holds him in place (however rudely or un/deliberately)until Dumbledore comes and finds them. Second, though you didn't say anything about this point, Crouch was already dead by the time this conversation takes place. In the great Veritaserum Exposition scene, Crouch Jr says that he killed, transfigured, and buried his father, *then* looked at the map and saw Harry talking to Snape, which then gave him his idea for how to arrive conveniently onto the scene.

Someone (can't remember who) did a brilliant analysis on elf speech and determined that each of our three major elf characters has different speech patterns, but each is entirely consistent with him or herself. I think Kreacher was determined to speak with perfect grammar, other than never using first person.

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised at Molly's reaction, since she certainly does seem to go for the very conservative viewpoints. It's still pretty horrifying, though. First, that she would believe nasty things about a girl she knows pretty well and that were printed by a source she knows to be completely untrustworthy, and also that she would express it in so obvious and cruel a way as to send comparable presents to each of three young teens, but have one gift be significantly smaller and of less worth than the others. Really, given the relationship they all have, she could have sent Hermione no gift at all and her own feelings would have been far less obvious, both to Hermione and to the guys.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

that were printed by a source she knows to be completely untrustworthy

Doesn't she lecture Amos later/earlier (can't remember) about being angry with Harry over Skeeter's article not mentioning Cedric?

Molly's odd like that - for instance, presumbly she knows that Lockhart was a fraud post-CoS; but she's still using his book in OotP.
She criticises Rita's article about Arthur, but seems to believe her criticism of Bill.

First, that she would believe nasty things about a girl she knows pretty well

Not many of the 'good' female characters in HP seem to get along, though.
There's Ginny and Hermione, who seemed to have forged an alliance based entirely around guys (if they have a conversation not involving them, it's never mentioned/described in canon), who are their first loyalty (witness Ginny's reaction to Hermione's questioning the Sectumsempra in HBP.)
Every woman despises Fleur.
Ginny fights with her mother with much more frequency than her father, who seems to take on the traditional protective role.

Parvati and Lavendar and Marietta and Cho seem to be the only girls who get along, and neither of them fare particularly well in the authorial voice's apparent opinion.

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

I never realized how truly awful the relationships between the female characters was before reading your comment.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

She criticized Amos *and* Percy -- both times were to defend Arthur. She doesn't so much believe the criticism of Bill as she is willing to use that criticism to back up her own opinions about Bill's hair. So in those cases, she seems to either agree with or thoroughly disparage Rita as corresponds with whatever she already believes about Rita's victim. Which, really, makes her swallowing the story about Hermione that much nastier.

That's true with the women of the series, though it's kind of hard to say how much of that is due to Harry's perspective. After all, he doesn't notice girls as much as boys (*restrains slashy commentary*), and is of an age to find typical girlishness -- like giggling, or paying attention to looks or boys -- extremely annoying. The authorial voice seems to back this up, and there certainly are a few female characters we know very well, but it's probably still a factor. In addition to the examples you gave, note that, in previous books, Pansy was accompanied by "her gang of Slytherin girls" who would giggle at the insults she threw at Harry.

Yeah, much as I hated Ginny throughout HBP, I liked her even *less* after Sectumsempra for completely turning on her best friend in order to defend Harry. (The content of her "defense" made it far worse, referring to Sectumsempra as "something good up [Harry's] sleeve".)

That's kind of a tangent, though; I hadn't meant to stress the female part of that reaction, but the fact that she would react that way to one of her children's best friends, who had stayed at their house, without apparently considering if it fit at all with the person she knew. Now that I'm thinking about it, there's a direct parallel between Molly's reaction here and Percy's reaction to Harry in OotP. We see that hurts Harry considerably more than the population at large because he knows Percy and Percy should know him, even though he's never been particularly fond of or close to Percy. I expect that would only magnify between Hermione and Molly, given Molly's status as Hermione's former host and Ron's mum. Also, we see once more where the traits that are shown so negatively in Percy clearly come pretty directly from or are shared with his family members.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

In addition to the examples you gave, note that, in previous books, Pansy was accompanied by "her gang of Slytherin girls" who would giggle at the insults she threw at Harry.

Cho has a bunch of female friends in GoF also, iirc.
And there's the endless girls who fancy Krum/Harry/Cedric, which the narrative usually points out, must be down to their fame/looks; whereas Ron and Harry dating girls based solely on finding them physically attractive (Cho, Lavendar, the Patil twins) is presented as almost understandable.

I liked her even *less* after Sectumsempra for completely turning on her best friend in order to defend Harry. (The content of her "defense" made it far worse, referring to Sectumsempra as "something good up [Harry's] sleeve".)

Precisely. Although I don't think anyone comes out of the Sectumsempra episode very well - I don't recall Ron's reaction, but Ginny seemed to approve wholeheartedly and focuses on petty issues to win an argument, such as Hermione's interest in Quidditch; Hermione's concern seemed to be being proved right about the Prince; and Harry getting into trouble rather than shock/objection to his actions themselves, and Harry goes from momentary guilt (although not quite strong enough for him not to remember to hide his book) to happily dating Ginny and irritation at Pansy for being upset and Snape for recieving detention; all in one chapter.

[pilly2009.livejournal.com]

Parvati and Lavendar and Marietta and Cho seem to be the only girls who get along, and neither of them fare particularly well in the authorial voice's apparent opinion.

Narcissa and Bellatrix? They've been used as an example of sisterly love overcoming love for Voldemort/Death Eating/etc. How fond of them JKR happens to be is debatable, but if she is not, it probably isn't because of their "girly" tendency to stick together.

[lanjelin.livejournal.com]

I wonder though, if Molly using the book isn't just a question of money? After all, what Lockhart did was publish other people's accomplishments in his own name, so presumably the spells work, and the Weasley's have to be careful about how much they spend.

Also, doesn't Angelina, Alicia and Katie get along pretty well? Harry is very vague about the older students (well, about most students really), so I can't say for sure. And as arclevel said, he does tend to notice boys more than girls.

(Oh, and it's "Lavender", by the way. With an "e".)

[nakedcelt.livejournal.com]

'She's unhappy!' said Hermione, exasperated. 'Why don't you try to cheer her up instead of covering her up?'

Could we read this as a symbol of Hermione's growing rôle as the emotionally wisest member of the Trio? It's advice Harry badly needs about his own feelings.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hermione's not very emotionally smart in this scene, though. She's notorious for offending the house elves. Here she's acting like Winky can just be cheered up while completely disregarding her actual feelings for being sad. Ron seems the natural favorite amongst them, iirc, and is usually the most likely to think of things from their pov. Like when he leaves Hermione's hats out in the open in OotP so that the house elves can know what their picking up and choose whether they want to or not.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I like Ron with the house-elves, since he's the only Trio member who doesn't appear to have an agenda.
Hermione wants to further their (or her) cause, whether they want help or not; and Harry's quick to use them (like most people) for his own ends (which is also a nice parallel with him taking advantage of Slughorn's drunkeness) both here and in HBP; whereas Ron immediately grasps Winky's feelings - 'she seems to love (Crouch)', for example.

[likethemodel.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Ron, IMO, is the emotionally wisest member of the Trio. Hermione tends to come up with her own conclusions about people's behavior and Harry ignores them, while Ron understands why people do what they do. I think it's from living in such a large family. The Weasley's are all such individuals that to coexist in (relative) peace Ron has to have a sense of each individuals needs.

Hermione spends all her time in the library, behavior I'm sure that was more pronounced when she was still in the muggle world. What she knows about people comes from books and then from removed observations. Rarely does she intuit.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

I think Ron may be emotionally wisest, unless he himself is invested (as most of us probably are). See, for instance, his complete inability to understand Percy leaving the family in OotP, Percy's continued estrangement in HBP, and Molly's distress over Percy after Christmas.

I can't actually think of a single character who seems to be particularly good at grasping other people's emotions. Dumbledore is frequently portrayed that way, including in HBP, but the entire plot of OotP is based on his complete incompetence at just that. Hermione analyzes, but doesn't understand. Harry is usually completely clueless. We don't really see many characters trying to understand or explain other people's actions or motivations.

[nakedcelt.livejournal.com]

Hermione analyzes, but doesn't understand.

I'm not sure that's quite it. I think she gets it pretty right when she coaches Harry in OotP, on how not to make Cho jealous. I think it's more that, while Hermione can see external emotional situations unfolding, and even figure out what the best course of action is, she loses that perspective once she's engaged in the situation herself.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Hm! Are the Goyles hard up for money too, or is Gregory just greedy?

I figure he did it just because it's supposedly Hagrid's money, and stealing it would be a fun prank to guffaw over later.

And what a great thought about Snape's presence in the corridor being an alibi. I never thought of it that way, but it makes perfect sense.

[amythis.livejournal.com]

Also I can't see Draco befriending someone poor.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I don't know, he talks to Harry in the robe shop, where the latter's still in his taped glasses, etc.
Plus a poor friend will be all the more excuse to lord it, surely?

[lanjelin.livejournal.com]

Also, I think Draco's reason to choose "poor" to insult Ron, is because it gets such a reaction from him.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

In OotP, Sirius's misery will also be hidden away as Dumbledore stows him at Grimmauld Place rather than addressing his ultimately fatal unhappiness.

When the series is over someone will surely do a piece on how alcohol is used throughout. Hagrid, Winky and Sirius are all depicted as drinking alone when they're depressed. Harry intentionally gets Hagrid and Slughorn drunk to get answers from them. Rita turns to drink when Hermione takes her job. Trelawney is dramatically drunk throughout fifth and sixth year. Ginny finds Mundungus' drunkenness funny. Draco's first unflattering (but true) report of Hagrid is the type to get drunk and tries to do magic, setting the bed on fire.

This just always stands out to me because as a kid I found adult drunkenness scary, not funny.

Actually, it's just striking me that it's maybe interesting that Gryffindors tend to be more associated with drinking than others. Slughorn is gotten drunk by Harry with Hagrid. But they don't seem as often associated with this type of thing. It seems like more part of the Gryffindor character, goes along with the sort of manly thing somehow, whereas you've got Snape offering elf wine in a more sophisticated setting and Draco being the one character to openly connected drunkenness with stupidity. I don't know if this means anything, but with the way Slytherin is the "Liquid" house with Potions etc. it just seemed interesting. We don't know Trelawney or Rita's house (I'm sure Rita would be considered Slytherin by many if she went to Hogwarts), though. It's just interesting how often adults are shown to deal with setbacks by drinking.

Interesting that this one is made of cut-up letters, disguising the sender's handwriting. They're afraid to openly announce their anti-Muggleborn views.

Really makes you wonder, doesn't it? Especially since that's not the way our Slytherins mostly approach the story. It's so rare you get a sign of a general prejudice against Muggleborns. The disguise makes it seem like this is more a Molly Weasley type sending the letter, not a DE.

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that Molly would jump to conclusions about her, since she's the one the "scarlet woman" talk was coming from.

For some reason people sometimes get defensive when you point out just how judgmental and thoughtlessly prejudiced the Weasleys can be, though it's part of their character. They are very conservative in many ways.

I wonder if he was treated to a little patented Evil Exposition before being placed under Imperius.

As it's Voldemort I think this is a given.

I'm surprised that Snape doesn't take this seriously. He's usually quick to catch on when it's not an appropriate moment to toy with Harry.

I admit this scene stands out for me that way too. As strange as it is to say, Snape is a bit OOC here. It's normal for him to want to get Harry in trouble, of course, but usually he understands what's going on very quickly and if he's still difficult it's because he's got his own take on the real situation. I can't think of any other time when Snape was working against his own agenda (if he's really DDM). If it's supposed to symbolize Snape's hatred for Harry distracting him from what's important, it doesn't quite ring true for me.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

p.s. Oh, and I think Gregory is just supposed to be greedy and stupid. Actually, while the Slytherins are often associated with money they don't seem to always have a lot of their own. I would imagine they are all on a budget from home and the kids in the house would welcome undeclared pocket money as much as anyone else.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Harry intentionally gets Hagrid and Slughorn drunk to get answers from them.

As does Dumbledore, with Mrs. Cole (iirc? the orphanage owner, at any rate.)

This just always stands out to me because as a kid I found adult drunkenness scary, not funny.

It appears Draco would agree with you! Of course, when his father drinks with his friends (according to Arthur) they end up rioting in their DE masks, so perhaps that's understandable...

It seems like more part of the Gryffindor character, goes along with the sort of manly thing somehow

Don't they sneak in Butterbeer to the dorms after some Quidditch win/party? And Seamus and Ron want to get firewhiskey to celebrate exams ending?

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

In OotP, Sirius's misery will also be hidden away as Dumbledore stows him at Grimmauld Place rather than addressing his ultimately fatal unhappiness.

I wonder if it's perhaps something to do with the mindset of our heroes not being particularly comfortable with emotion.
So many of the characters in the books are Gryffindors, and with the attendant bravery etc. does seem to be a machismo - uncomfortableness with emotions other than anger (especially from the men - and strict gender lines seems to be another WW/JKR thing.
Although Ginny and Molly are both fairly unsympathetic to troubles that aren't...well, Harry's. Molly thinks Sirius is sulking rather than genuinely depressed, Ginny comments on Cho needing 'comfort' from Michael Corner and thinks Umbridge is sulking rather than genuinely traumatised by the centaurs.)
The deaths of Cedric and Sirius are punctuated not by open tears/mourning, even from Harry; but explosions of anger - the train hexings in GoF and OotP, for example, as well as the obvious room trashing.
Hagrid appears to be the exception to this, but then he's not fully human...

JKR seems to have chosen to make her elves sound uneducated.

So they can be even more grateful for being educated into realising that they need to be rescued by the Wise White Woman Hermione, I guess.

They're afraid to openly announce their anti-Muggleborn views.

Odd, because JKR quite often comments on how prevalent anti-Muggleborn sentiments are, yet we really don't see much examples of this.
There's few examples of racism in the WW society (are Muggleborns paid less? Is there a glass ceiling? Are more in Azkaban?) and as you say, apparently anti-Muggleborn sentiments are rare enough that people don't wish to own to them publically.

This is the second time in two chapters that Harry's non-working watch has been pointed out (it stopped working after he spent all that time down in the lake).

Was Harry's watch ever mentioned before it broke, out of curiousity?

Molly's harsh judgment gets to her.

Hermione really has sort of become an honorary Weasley over the books, much like Harry.
(I'm sure there's interesting insights there about Muggleborns assimilation into wizarding culture and possible neglect from both Hogwarts system and said pupils themselves of their Muggle relations - is it coincidence Hermione's picked one of the oldest pureblood families around to ally herself with?)
So I guess Molly's the wizarding mother substitute (by OotP, Hermione's even leaving her own family at Xmas to spend the holidays with the Weasleys, yes?) that will eventually become mother-in-law. Hooray for OBHWF! *rolls eyes*

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Odd, because JKR quite often comments on how prevalent anti-Muggleborn sentiments are, yet we really don't see much examples of this.
There's few examples of racism in the WW society (are Muggleborns paid less? Is there a glass ceiling? Are more in Azkaban?) and as you say, apparently anti-Muggleborn sentiments are rare enough that people don't wish to own to them publically.

I think it's more that the subtler forms of anti-Muggleborn sentiment are so very pervasive. We don't know of blatant racism other than the DE sort, but then the general structure of the Wizarding World and what we've seen of its government, in particular, seems to suggest that who you know may be more important than what you know. That's the entire premise the Slug Club is built on, for instance. Families are also of primary importance, with people frequently judged or associated with their families. Slughorn, again, is an obvious example, but far from the only one. Fake!Moody noted aloud in his first class that Ron was Arthur Weasley's son, and basically thanked Arthur, via Ron. At the other end, we have the Weasley twins and/or Hagrid (I think it happens more than once) putting down Draco by pointing to Lucius and saying "the whole family's rotten to the core". Muggleborns would be free of specific prejudices against their families or family members, but they don't have the family connections and supporters that are probably used to get ahead.

We don't know how many Death Eaters there are or were, but we've probably seen a couple dozen, and they're generally spoken of in high volumes, both as a threat and in terms of their number in Azkaban (or, presumably, killed like Rosier and Wilkes). We've also seen people like the elder Blacks, who fully supported Voldemort's aims but chose not to become Death Eaters.

We more often see casual prejudices aimed at *Muggles*, rather than Muggle-borns, but then we see Slughorn, who not only doesn't hide his surprise at the idea of a brilliant Muggle-born witch, but who seems to assume that everyone feels that way. Probably quite a lot do. This is the second time this book someone has called Hermione a Muggle (Draco was the first, and he was referring to the way the mob -- which was led by, but not exclusively, Death Eaters), suggesting that plenty of people don't think of them as being much different.

I think the letter writer was expressing pretty common sentiments in using "Muggle" as an insult to a Muggleborn witch. If she felt the need to disguise herself, it was probably because she was blatantly threatening a 14-year-old who at Hogwarts, and therefore under Dumbledore's protection.

[nakedcelt.livejournal.com]

At the individual level, I think, the relationship between wizards and Muggles is much like the relationship between "normal" people and the mentally disabled. (The parallels with race relations on a larger scale have been pointed out so often I need hardly go into them.) I forget who pointed this out, but many of the dangerous "pranks" the Weasley twins and others play — notably the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident earlier this book — would be pretty much harmless annoyances if played on someone capable of defending themselves by magic; wizards just can't seem to realize how fragile Muggles are. Some wizards hate them, some merely ignore them, some actively tease them, and some try and protect them, but there's no question of letting them into the fullness of civilized society. How would they cope with the responsibility? If there's a problem involving Muggles, the solution will always entail sedation (read Obliviation). Maybe the Muggle didn't want to be Obliviated, but, you know, they don't have the mental capacity to make that decision. We, the normal people capable of full responsibility, have.

To some people's minds, Muggle-borns carry the same stigma. I can just picture a wizard from a pure-blood family trying to imagine the sex-life of a half-blood's parents, and going "ewwwwwww!" at the idea of what a Muggle might be like in bed. As for Muggle-borns, I don't own a copy of PS, but, in Madame Malkins', doesn't Draco say something like "they don't know how to behave"?

Excuse me for a minute while I remember where I was going with this...

Ah, yes. Basically, in that anonymous letter, I think, where you see "Muggle" read "retard", or whatever the local slang is in your area.

[marissa-214.livejournal.com]

Was Harry's watch ever mentioned before it broke, out of curiousity?


Here's (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/puzzles2.html#socks) a note from hp-lexicon about the wristwatch thing. Apparently, along with socks, watches are mentioned quite frequently.

[likethemodel.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking that the stupid thing was letting Barty out for the Quidditch World Cup.

[pauraque]

You're probably right!

[amythis.livejournal.com]

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that Molly would jump to conclusions about her, since she's the one the "scarlet woman" talk was coming from.

Also, eggs = fertility. Molly is saying that Hermione isn't worthy of becoming the mother of Molly's grandchildren. :-J

Since when do Cedric and Fleur hang out?

I got the impression that Fleur was interested in Cedric, esp around the time of the Yule Ball. Hm, "underground tunnels," speaking of symbolism.

I wonder if he was treated to a little patented Evil Exposition before being placed under Imperius.

Probably, knowing YKW. I'm looking forward to much EE in Book 7.

[lanjelin.livejournal.com]

Maybe the "real" champions are socialising, leaving Harry out as another form of punishment for his "cheating"?

[amythis.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, but Cedric's such a decent chap that he can't keep snubbing Harry.

[funwithrage.livejournal.com]

The wizarding world doesn't see a problem with selling alcohol to children.


That may be a European thing, too. Drinking ages are lower there, and I've heard that people are more willing to overlook a few years' difference, especially for wine or beer. Combine that with the even lower alcohol content of butterbeer, and it's not that surprising. Still, the WW does seem to take a more medieval approach to childhood/adolescence.

[tallulahgs]

In Britain, the legal age to buy alcohol is 18, but I think you're allowed to drink alcohol at home from about 14...
I think a lot of places are tightening up on serving underage drinkers now, but I believe it's still possible.
However, other European countries have a more laid-back approach to drinking - for instance, in France kids are given watered-down wine from a very young age. Maybe JKR is thinking of that. I don't think anyone's got smashed on Butterbeer, yet, have they? ^^