GoF 32

[pauraque_bk]

GoF 32: Flesh, Blood & Bone

No one will be shocked to learn that this is one of my favorite chapters in canon. It's also surprisingly short -- or at least, it surprised me until I realized the reason: Peter does not feel the need to indulge in several pages of theatrical exposition before performing his evil deeds. He's efficient. I admire that in a minion.

'Did anyone tell you the Cup was a Portkey?' [Cedric] asked. (553)

Another example of the usual characterization of Hufflepuffs as rather suspicious of others, I think. Cedric's first thought is to wonder whether Harry has inside information again. The emphasized you sounds accusatory.

Whoever they were, they were short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over their head to obscure their face. (553)

Presumably this is so that JKR can make the revelation of Peter's identity a bit more dramatic a few paragraphs later, but taken at face value, it could be that Peter does not want Harry to recognize him immediately and remove the element of surprise, which allows him to murder Cedric and incapacitate Harry without either of them even putting up a fight.

(Btw, good for JKR's editors for letting her use "they" as an indefinitely gendered singular pronoun. Bugs the hell out me when people call that wrong.)

And then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain. (553)

This seems more dramatic than consistent. Dumbledore's theory is that Harry feels pain when Voldemort feels "particularly murderous", but surely he is anticipating murder this entire time, not all of a sudden.

From far away, above his head, he heard a high, cold voice say, 'Kill the spare.' (553)

It's not immediately obvious why Voldemort should delegate this task, since he's quite capable of AKing Frank Bryce in Chapter 1. Some possibilities:

- It's easier to kill Muggles than wizards.

- He doesn't want to waste his strength on Cedric and be weakened when he fights Harry. (But has magic ever been shown to work this way? "Harry would have stunned the Acromantula, but he didn't have enough mana.")

- V is trying to strengthen his hold on Peter by making him commit this completely unnecessary and cold-blooded murder -- reducing the chances that Peter could be tempted to turn himself in and throw himself on the mercy of the Ministry.

- Voldemort really liked the "Kill the spare" line.

- JKR really liked the "Kill the spare" line.

Also, what the hell is a "high, cold voice"? Seriously. Did that just sound better than a "mean, squeaky voice"?

For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Cedric's face, at his open grey eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. (553-554)

This is exemplary of JKR's strategy for dealing with the violence throughout this chapter, using description that is relatively realistic and understated. I like JKR best when she writes like this.

Oh Cedric! Fandom mourns the premature passing of such a delectable piece of underage boyflesh fascinating character. Cough.

The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry, tying him from neck to ankles to the headstone. Harry could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood; he struggled, and the man hit him [...]

[Wormtail] was busy checking the tightness of the cords, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, fumbling over the knots. Once sure that Harry was bound so tightly to the headstone that he couldn't move an inch, Wormtail drew a length of some black material from the inside of his cloak and stuffed it roughly into Harry's mouth[...] (554)

This is way dirty, you guys. As I believe I mentioned back at "I bound and gagged Black, naturally", it is not unnecessary to gag a wizard, since wandless magic exists. But still, all this heavy breathing, heavy bondage, Peter roughing Harry up... It's like the beginning of an amanuensis1 fic. :D

Cedric's body was lying some twenty feet away. Some way beyond him, glinting in the starlight, lay the Triwizard Cup. (554)

Let's remember this when we're reflecting on how far Harry has to run back to the Cup on his injured leg.

Wormtail pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them, and Harry let out a yell that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his mouth.

It was as though Wormtail had flipped over a stone, and revealed something ugly, slimy and blind -- but worse, a hundred times worse. (555)

It's one of the vicissitudes of writing that the intensifier "worse, a hundred times worse" actually weakens this description. This passage is quite good up to that point, though, nicely vivid. Perhaps JKR could benefit from some confidence in her writing skills; I think writers add unnecessary "telling" like this because they're not certain that they've made their point.

The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Wormtail's neck, and Wormtail lifted it. As he did so, his hood fell back, and Harry saw the look of revulsion on Wormtail's weak, pale face in the firelight as he carried the creature to the rim of the cauldron. (556)

If I were beta-reading this chapter, I'd be writing a lot of "Good!"s in the margins.

When I read that Peter's face is "weak", I go back and forth between reading it as a moral judgment or as a matter of physical fact (indicating that none of his features are prominent). It could be both, I suppose.

V is described as resembling a "baby" or a "child" a number of times here, which strengthens the creepy pseudo-parental way Peter relates to him. There's a curious fascination to the image of him so trustingly reaching up to be carried. I always wonder here just how weak V really is. In Chapter 1 he voices fears that he won't survive if Peter doesn't constantly tend to him. Peter has already invested a lot of effort into bringing V back to life, but could he really change his mind at this point if he decided it wasn't worth it? Could he destroy V without being killed himself?

Although Peter is not looking forward to chopping off his hand, it's worth noting that he does not seem to be actually dithering over whether he's going to go through with the whole thing or not. He's already decided. This could indicate that it is too late to turn back, and that if he doesn't resurrect V, Barty or someone else will. Since V's coming back anyway, it behooves Peter to be on his good side.

He stretched his right hand out in front of him -- the hand with the missing finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand, and swung it upwards. (556)

In reality, it would be rather difficult -- perhaps even impossible -- to cut off one's own hand without resting it on a chopping block. Let's just say the knife is magic. :)

As Voldemort suggested in Chapter 1, Peter is giving his right hand for his master, but interestingly, he's not giving his dominant hand -- Peter is left-handed (see PoA 20). This may not literally matter, but at the very least, to me it symbolizes his half-heartedness in serving Voldemort. As V astutely realizes, Peter only came back because he had nowhere else to go.

Harry realised what Wormtail was about to do a second before it happened -- he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but he could not block the scream that pierced the night, that went through Harry as thtough he had been stabbed with the dagger too. (556-557)

Again, the description of Peter's pain is curiously empathetic!

'Robe me,' said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's head. (558)

As nice as the swirly mist!robes in the movie were, it seems a shame to have lost the hilarious line "Robe me". I seriously laugh every time I read it, and I've read this chapter many times. (Er, maybe leaving it out of the movie was for the best.)

Also, it was awfully thoughtful of Peter to bring a set of robes in Voldemort's size, wasn't it? Maybe he got them while he was out shopping for a person-sized cauldron.

But seriously, I have always considered the successful resurrection to be evidence that Peter is at least competent as a wizard, if not above average. I don't buy the objection that he's just mixing stuff together, and any old Muggle could do the same thing if they had the materials and said the magic words. (Yes, people have really argued this to me.) If it were Lucius or Bellatrix doing this magic, I doubt anyone would fail to be impressed.


By the way, vikingcarrot just mentioned to me that Ralph Fiennes plays Voldemort as left-handed, but didn't know whether this was intentional or if Ralph is just a southpaw. I don't know either; do any of you?


Previous GoF posts are saved in memories here.

Comments

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

Wow, this sentence is going to be so "hey remember that one time when we did that thing?" but doesn't someone at some point refer to someone else being killed by Voldemort himself? And it gives the impression that Voldemort only kills the important/powerful people or people whom he thinks would be like "worthy adversaries" and he lives the rest to his DEs.

[gmth.livejournal.com]

Do you mean the bit where Sirius says Regulus was killed by Voldemort himself? Because if so, he then goes on to say: "Or on Voldemort's orders, more likely; I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person." Which supports your idea here that Cedric wasn't considered important enough for Voldemort to kill himself (though there's some inconsistency here, because apparently Frank Bryce was).

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

Maybe that was it! Its like some vague memory floating around in my head ;)

Stupid Frank Bryce messing up my theory!

[pauraque]

Maybe V killed Frank Bryce to sort of test whether he was still capable of performing the curse. If he failed, only Peter would have been there to see it, and it's not like Frank would have been a match for Peter anyway, so there was no danger to V.

[conuly]

Maybe Frank Bryce was really Voldie's old arch-nemesis who had his memory completely altered, forcing him to live like a Muggle...

What? It could happen!

[trude.livejournal.com]

In chapter nine of OotP, Moody mentions an Order member named Dorcas Meadowes, who apparently was killed by Voldemort himself, though we are not given any reason why.