That marvelous Chamber (long)

[Caius Marcius]

No: HPFGUIDX 27408

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> 

Lockhart: While I appreciate Amy's problems with that most photogenic 
of DADA instructors, not only do I continue to find him highly 
amusing, I think part of the point of the caricature is the 
structural contrast with his successor in the post, Remus Lupin. The 
genuine gold of the shabby and unglamorous Lupin is rendered all the 
brighter in comparison with the fraudulent pyrite of Lockhart. 

> 
> -The parallels between Harry and young Voldemort, 

Parenthetic to that, I think it's in CoS that JKR finds Voldemort's 
true voice. Admittedly, his role in SS/PS is exceedingly brief, but 
his dialogue in that volume still strikes me as mostly rather 
pedestrian in tone.  Riddle/Voldemort's rage, mockery and resentment, 
OTOH, arevividly rendered in CoS ("So I made Ginny write her own 
farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and 
cried and became very boring.....  ")


> I could list all the small things I love about the book too  but 
this is the big 
> stuff.
> 

As I've said before, it was CoS that really turned me into an HP fan. 
Just to add another thing I love about CoS: Harry's liberation of 
Dobby is my favorite ending of any of the four HP books. I think it 
demonstrates another of Harry's abilities, which was once discussed 
by PG Wodehouse's Jeeves 

"The quality to which I allude is hard to define but perhaps I might 
call it the gift of dealing with the Unusual Situation."

Tricking Lucius into casting aside my old smelly sock to free Dobby 
is exactly the sort of thing I would have thought of doing - except I 
would have thought of it three or four days later, when Dobby was 
back home being kicked all over the Malfoy estate. Of one Harry's 
best traits is that he is almost always able to seize on such Unusual 
Situations and turn them to his account.  

  - CMC