Chapter 13 - Mad Eye Moody

stevekimmel at yahoo.com stevekimmel at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 9 00:41:45 UTC 2000


No: HPFGUIDX 2991

Sorry guys. I thought this was due this week.

Plunging right into it then...

First day of classes and this chapter introduces Harry's principle 
teachers for the new school year. We find Harry taking almost exactly 
the same slate of courses as every other year including Divination. 
The day begins with Hermione asking the question that occurred to 
me. "You should have given it up like me, shouldn't you? Then you'd 
be doing something sensible like Arithmancy."

Question 1. Why is Harry taking the same courses year after year when 
clearly other students at the same level are taking different 
courses? (Lack of imagination on the part of Miss Rowling?)

First class is Herbology with Professor Sprout where we find our 
intrepid band collecting pus from Bubotubers. The pus is extremely 
valuable in part at least because it makes an excellent remedy for 
Acne. Presumably there are no effective cures for Acne in the Muggle 
world and given a school full of teenagers a good cure for Acne might 
be highly valuable.

The second class is Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid. This 
year's magical creature of note are the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Blast-
Ended Skrewts are not good for much of anything and as Malfoy puts 
it, "Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting and bit all at 
once?" 

After our encounter with the Slytherins and Malfoy, Ron and Harry go 
to their third class, the ever popular divination while Hermione goes 
to the Library to work on her Elf Liberation project. Professor 
Trelawney is as misty as ever and immediately makes her initial 
prediction of doom for Harry. The first main topic this year is 
Astrology and Professor Trelawney declares that Harry must have been 
born in midwinter which is, of course, wrong. A couple cheesy jokes 
about Uranus and class is over.

Ron and Harry are heading to dinner when they run into Hermione and 
Draco Malfoy. Malfoy has a newspaper clipping about Ron's father. 
Some insults between Draco and Harry and Draco attacks Harry when his 
back is turned. Finally we get to the real point of the chapter and 
meet the chapter's title character: Mad-Eye Moody, the new Defense 
Against the Dark Arts professor. Moody transforms Draco into a white 
ferret. After inquiring into whether Harry is all right, Moody 
decides that Draco has not been sufficiently punished. Accordingly, 
he decides to see how high a ferret will bounce which turns out to be 
nearly to the ceiling. We also learn that his rolling eye is magical 
and allows him to see out the back of his head.

McGonagall saves Draco's bacon and reprimands Moody. "Moody, we never 
use transformation as a punishment!" McGonagall restores Draco and we 
find that Moody knows Lucious Malfoy and Professor Snape, "another 
old friend." 

After dinner, Hermione goes back to work on her elf project and the 
Griffindor proclaim Moody to be "Supercool."

This chapter is critical in our accepting the final answer to the 
book. We must "miss" the key point or the surprise ending will be 
given away. At the same time, we have to accept the events as being 
consistent with the final answer. In this case, the author 
must "plant" the essential details of Moody's character is such a way 
that we'll believe them to be friendly to Harry at the time but 
accept that Moody is really Harry's enemy later when that is 
revealed. 

Question 2 : Why did we believe Moody is Harry's friend and 
benefactor? 

Question 3: Why do we accept Moody's casual cruelty toward a student 
even if it's a slimeball like Malfoy?

Question 4: What do we think will happen between Moody and Snape and 
between Moody and Malfoy?






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