Weekly summaries - another update

[Neil Ward]

No: HPFGUIDX 6462

Thanks to Scott for that great summary at such short notice.  

CHAPTER 22: Sarah Rettger has volunteered to write a summary (slightly longer than my one liner) of Chapter 22, and, as it's so late in the week discussion may run into next week a little.   Let's go with the flow...  There's some overlap between these two weeks' summaries anyway.  Next week we're looking forward to "The Yule Ball" and Professor McGonagall from the pen of John Walton.  

Scott said:

1) Is Trelawny fighting a losing battle?  Is there anyone who 
believes in her powers (besides Lavender and Parvati)?

It's true that some people are gullible enough to fall for fakery if the 'right' things are said in the presence of all the expected accoutrement.  I'm disappointed that Lavender and Parvati have been portrayed as quite so silly in this context, but I guess JKR wanted to make a point about different reactions to this type of thing.   

To me, Divination seems an odd subject to be taught in a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and my assumption is that it is meant to help the kids channel their magical powers by developing their psychic potential.  I feel that it should be approached in a more scientific fashion than that favoured by Trelawney.  Her tea leaf and crystal ball nonsense smacks of too much of Muggle fortune-telling.  It would be good to see some real psychic ability being portrayed in future books.  

Trelawney reminds me of the sort of floaty, post-War landlady who would hold seances in her darkened drawing room. Hopeful 'guests' would link hands round a table in an attempt to contact 'the other side' but any ghostly activity would be limited to the landlady's daughter Muriel shaking a tasseled lampshade on cue.  Strange then to find someone like her teaching in a Wizarding school which has ghosts strolling around the place, large as life.  

Scott also made a reference to Gilderoy Lockhart, and there is prime evidence that Dumbledore makes very odd appointments to his staff.  I can't recall, did Dumbledore appoint Trelawney or was she there when he took over?  Maybe she's there because she's part of his faithful old gang, like Lupin.  On the other hand, perhaps Dumbledore is just too busy to be bothered about her incompetence.  

Neil

_____________________________________

Flying-Ford-Anglia

"Ron, full of turkey and cake and with nothing 
mysterious to bother him, fell asleep almost 
as soon as he'd drawn the curtains of his
four-poster."

[Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone]



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