[HPforGrownups] Re: PS/SS vs. CoS: It's A Tie!

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 57536

Another long post from yours truly. :-)

<snip "favourite book" into>

I'll start with the usual summary: I'm a 3,4,1,2 person.

On to why. Just to be original, I'm going to explain my views in the 
negative - the things to like about the books have already been well 
covered by others in this thread, so I want to explain why PoA is the book 
with which I have fewest *problems*, whilst CoS is the one with which I 
have most. Each of the books has plot or structural shortcomings of one 
sort or another, some large, some small. I'm going to detail them out of 
order, leaving my favourite and least favourite until the end:

Questions arising from PS/SS include how Hagrid disappears at Kings Cross, 
how the Dursleys get off the Rock in the Sea, how Quirrelmort apparently 
runs free under Dumbledore's nose for the entire year, and how Dumbledore 
lets himself get duped into leaving Hogwarts on the climactic night. And of 
course there's the "dissin' the Slyths" scene which has been the subject of 
much debate recently. Nevertheless, as a kids' book, it introduces the new 
world with wit and originality.

My main problem with GoF is that I simply don't buy the Triwizard 
Tournament as particularly ambitious in its scope. Why do the three 
challenges need to be spread over the school year, and what do the 
Durmstrang and Beauxbatons pupils do in the meantime? And what's happening 
at the two schools while their respective headmasters (and presumably star 
pupils) are away for a whole year? And of course there's that vexatious 
problem of how fake Moody remains undetected under Dumbledore's nose for 
the whole year (see also PS/SS).

PoA is the least formulaic of the four to date. There is no central mystery 
for Harry to solve, or a series of would-be bad guys set up on the way to 
proving who was to blame. There is one would-be bad-guy (who I realised 
from the first page had to be innocent, if only because Vernon took an 
immediate and prejudiced dislike to him) and no obvious real bad guy 
(Scabbers' revelation took me entirely by surprise). There is really one 
major plot/structure shortcoming, and that's why Lupin doesn't reveal to 
Dumbledore that Sirius Black is an Animagus much earlier. Lupin isn't 
stupid, and should've realised that prancing around as a black dog was the 
perfect disguise for a convict on the run.

I'll leave the slagging-off tone of this post for a moment to mention a 
couple of positives: the most poignant scene of all four books to date for 
me is that in the last paragraphs of the penultimate chapter of PoA, when 
Harry urges Sirius and Buckbeak to hurry up and leave, and Sirius's reply 
"You are truly your father's son". Harry, who's desperately wanted to leave 
the Dursleys all his life and has been offered a home by Sirius, foregoes 
the prospect, for Sirius's sake. He's desperate to know more about his 
parents. He gives up on that, for Sirius's sake. Unlike, say, the end of 
GoF, it's done without sentimentality or held-back tears, just disappearing 
into a speck in the night sky. My biggest fear about the forthcoming movie 
is that they screw up this scene by making it too teary.

The other thing I absolutely *adore* about this book is the time 
travelling. It's possibly the most misunderstood sequence in the books 
(judging by the number of comments I've seen which get it completely and 
utterly wrong) but it's just beautiful in its simplicity.

On to CoS, with which I have huge, major, plot issues. Alice mentioned my 
post over on the Movie list in which I listed some of them, and here they 
are again in a slightly abbreviated form (I am, incidentally, disappointed 
that my post met with no reaction whatsoever on that list, and hope for 
more here). :-)

During the Duelling Club, it becomes apparent that Harry is a Parselmouth. 
Snape throws Harry a "shrewd and calculating" look. Ron and Hermione get 
Harry away and explain that Parseltongue is Bad. How did they get out of 
the duelling room, filled with horrified students and at least two 
horrified teachers? Why didn't Snape take any action (at the very least, 
for Harry's own safety from a mob of terrified students)? I would have 
expected that Harry should have been dragged by the scruff of the neck to 
Dumbledore for a little tete-a-tete.

Harry *is* taken off to see Dumbledore the next day (once Justin has been 
petrified). Harry has the chance for a fairly lengthy conversation with the 
Sorting Hat, and admires Fawkes for some time before Dumbledore comes in. 
It's assumed that Dumbledore knows about Justin (how?), although talking 
about it is absolutely not on the agenda, and the sum of Dumbledore's words 
is to tell Harry even more about Fawkes. Why does Dumbledore not reassure 
Harry about the Parseltongue? Why doesn't Dumbledore share his reassurance 
that Harry didn't do it with the rest of the school? Of course, had 
Dumbeldore done so, Harry might have felt able to tell him about the voices...

And another one. It's possible that Binns is trying to save the children 
worrying by refusing to admit that the Chamber (and the "Monster") have 
made a previous appearance in recent Hogwarts history. It's possible that 
he was unaware of what happened fifty years previously. Nevertheless, the 
second is unlikely and there is absolutely no benefit from lying about the 
former. *Why* is he so categorical in denying the chamber's/monster's 
existence? (Totally incidentally, I suspect that there's more to Binns's 
death than "falling asleep in his chair" and it is somehow related.)

Furthermore, how come Harry is the first person to make the connection 
between Moaning Myrtle and the Chamber? All the pupils know about Myrtle's 
presence in the toilets, so it's pretty much inconceivable that Dumbledore 
doesn't. Myrtle seems to imply that Harry is the first person ever to have 
demonstrated an interest in the circumstances of her death. Dumbledore was 
at Hogwarts at the time: why has he never investigated this avenue of inquiry?

(The possibility remains that Dumbledore actually has done that and knows a 
heck of a lot more than he's letting on, but barring some spectacular 
about-turns in the upcoming plot, I find it highly unlikely.)

There is the separate issue throughout the book of the apparent lack of any 
investigation *whatsoever* by the teachers into the attacks or the 
Chamber.  It would have made some sense if among the various comments about 
the school might having to close down, etc., *something* had been said 
*somewhere* about a renewed investigation into the Chamber's whereabouts, 
but there is NOTHING, ZERO.

And yet another one. Dumbledore is reinstated towards the end because the 
Governors heard about Ginny's capture (how? - that's a *completely* 
separate issue, which I consider to be minor) and thought he was the only 
person who could do anything about it. In the Chamber, we discover that 
Ginny has mere moments left to live. As far as we're aware, Dumbledore 
doesn't turn up until everything is over and done with. So just *what* did 
he do?

One final, minor quibble: Dumbledore cancels the end-of-year exams. Does 
that include the OWL and NEWT students as well? :-)

And I won't even go into McGonagall's apparent complete capitulation faced 
with the unknown and her complete inability to run the school in 
Dumbledore's absence. I don't want to start a feminist debate, but this 
smells very bad to me.

As hinted above, there is a running theme in some of those problems: 
Dumbledore's relationship with Hogwarts and how much he knows. There's a 
very, very vague possibility that these things aren't plot holes, but 
foreshadowing of things to come, and many theories have been put forward to 
allay problems with Dumbledore's characterisation in GoF (MAGIC DISHWASHER 
foremost among them) - as I've said before,  as far as I'm concerned, they 
don't really need explaining. However, Dumbledore's role in CoS is a major 
problem with me and I have yet to discover any coherent explanation of it.