House-elves, TWT, Prefects, Sirius losing shape, Ron, MWPP/Trio

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 16908

Whew!  Catching up on a pile o' posts.

Scott wrote plaintively:

>Does anyone remember me? 

But of course!  So good to have you back, Scott.

>In the US civil war didn't escaped slaves who had fled to the
>North then join the Union army and fight against the south?

Yes--also freed slaves and lots of black freemen who had lived in the 
north for years.  

No parallel is exact, but the house-elves status seems not as bad as 
(US) slaves' to me.  If wizards could, for example, murder house-elves 
with impunity, as slaveowners could slaves, we'd have heard about it 
from Hermione.  The elves' situation seems more like 
African-Americans' before Civil Rights, or like women's before women's 
rights--or perhaps worse than that, since it is referred to as 
enslavement and involves unpaid labor (women and Blacks did at least 
get paid; they just got paid less than white men who did the same 
work).  Somewhere between that and the kind of slavery practiced in 
the US up until the 19th century.

Perhaps this will make their behavior more comprehensible to those who 
find it improbable that slaves would be so unwilling to challenge the 
institution of slavery (I don't find it incomprehensible, 
personally--there are always those who fear that things =could= be 
worse, and what's more, they're usually right).  In every liberation 
movement, there are vociferous opponents from within the very group 
that is being oppressed.  Some of the most vocal opponents of women's 
suffrage were women, who argued that it would lose them what status 
they had in society, that the health of society depended on a division 
between men (public citizens) and women (keepers of the home), that it 
was unnatural and unwomanly to participate in public life, etc. etc.

No matter what your oppression, there's almost always something to 
lose.  Women did stand to lose something with equal rights:  we're no 
longer regarded as deserving of kid-glove treatment, for example.  I 
say good riddance to that (and it was always half a myth anyway, since 
domestic violence, desertion, refusal of financial support, etc. were 
rampant), but I can sympathize with those who didn't want to challenge 
the system.  It doesn't mean the system shouldn't be challenged.  
Amanda, there's symbiosis and then there's the specific form 
of symbiosis called parasitism; that's the biological parallel that 
comes to mind for me.  Symbiotic, but benefitting one of the parties 
much more than the other.  

Magda wrote:

>GoF bugs me in a way that none of the earlier books did and it's
>because the darn plot just sprawls all over the place.  I just
>couldn't swallow a TWT that lasted the duration of the school year. 

The plot is definitely the most complicated and sprawling, but the 
more I read it (I think it's been 4 times now) the more I think it all 
hangs together just fine (though that final, crucial matter of needing 
the Cup to be a Portkey still seems like a stretch to me).  The 
all-year TWT never bothered me.  I figure it is so exhausting and 
demanding for the champions that the events have to be a few months 
apart.  Also, if the idea really is to foster international 
cooperation, it would make sense for them to use the TWT as an 
all-year immersion for the visiting groups.  This would be stronger if 
we actually saw the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students taking 
classes.  They appear to have spent their year eating bonbons and 
occasionally showing up at a ball or the library.

Florence wrote re: the French version:

>The largest deviation I've run into so far is when Harry asks Ron 
what 
>prefects are and gets a short explanation.

Ooh, tell us!  You may help clear up one of the Great Abiding 
Mysteries of HP:

Why Did Voldemort Try to Kill Baby Harry?
What Did Snape Do the Night of June 24, 1995?
and
What the *&$^# Do Prefects Do, Anyway?

Monika wrote:

>BTW, how do you think they forced him back into
>human form near the lake? That always puzzled me a bit. I think
>he was too weak to resist them any longer and had lost his
>immunity because of the new hope he had gathered, but I'd 
>really like to hear if someone has an idea why dementors are
>able to force an animagus to back into human form.

I imagine it's not so much forcing him into human form as draining his 
magical power.  "Dementors are supposed to drain a wizard of his 
powers if he is left with them too long..." (PoA 10).  He has held 
onto that power, but surrounded by "at least a hundred" Dementors (PoA 
20), he can't maintain his transformation.

Penny, soon-to-be-mother of the most powerful witch of the next 
generation (Penny, some free advice:  if a man with red eyes knocks on 
the door, don't open it), wrote:

>I also think it's pretty clear that he was likely trying
>to make overtures at an apology that evening, since, as someone said,
>why else would he wander down to the common room?

He also says something like, "I just wondered where you--" and then 
switches gears, no doubt too proud to say that he went looking for 
Harry because he woke up at 1 a.m. and was worried about him.  I think 
this quote makes it very clear that he didn't come down to pick a 
fight, or to go to the loo either.

Catlady Rita wrote:

>Ron, as you pointed out, has an ambition not to be poor any more. 
He's
>old enough to be working on that ambition.

True.  I just don't share Penny's view that he is not a good student. 
 By contrast with Hermione, neither he nor Harry is great shakes, but 
as far as I see, they are both quite good students.  They do do their 
homework (so they copy from each other--welcome to 8th grade), never 
cut class despite threatening to do so, etc.  In PS/SS it says Harry 
and Ron got good marks, "to their great surprise" (ch 17); I take the 
surprise with a grain of salt, knowing that Harry underestimates his 
own ability.  Remember, we're getting all this from the POV of a kid 
who actually says in all seriousness that he hasn't got any strengths 
besides Quidditch (GoF, when Moody feeds him the dragon hints).  Come 
on--talk about distorted self-esteem!  The Sorting Hat told him from 
day one that he was very talented.

Schools are full of kids who are never tiptop of their classes but 
consistently get A's.  When class rank comes out and they are in the 
top 10, they're surprised.  I think it's as likely that Ron, like 
Harry, is one of these as it is that he's an underachiever.

Neil wrote:

>As for Harry, Ron and Hermione, there really is no satisfactory name, 
is
>there?  Let's see - we have:
>
>(a)-(n) snipped
>
>Any other suggestions?  Um, I think I've dragged this into OT Chatter
>material...

Nah, let's keep it here.  I second Haggridd's recommendation:

(o) the troika, making it sound as if they are going to stage a coup 
at the MOM--which perhaps they are.

Great point about the Marauder's vs. Marauders' (this is where grammar 
really makes a difference).  I never really thought that MWPP referred 
to themselves as the Marauders, any more than HRH (lol!) refer to 
themselves as The Trio.  It's purely fan shorthand.  

Amy Z

----------------------------------------------
 . . . summoning the memory of the day I had 
 been voted President of the local Gobstones 
 Club, I performed the Patronus Charm.  
     -Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
----------------------------------------------