[HPforGrownups] Broken potionvial/Is Bella a killer?

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 163248

> Jen: Counter to what I said above, *if* Snape was ignoring Harry > because 
> he's embarassed or unsure what Harry would do and the broken > vial was 
> Harry's fault, why can't he keep his big mouth shut for once > and not act 
> so snide?  Why does the guy have to talk so much?  I'm > with Alla on this 
> one.  Seriously, is it because we can't hear his
> thoughts that we have to hear so much dialogue from him and much of > it 
> repetitive?

Magpie:
What's interesting to me in this moment is that Snape kind of is keeping his 
mouth shut here. I mean, he acknolwedges that the Potion dropped, but he 
doesn't make an example to the class or anything--you know how this guy can 
get. And then the reason that Harry doesn't get to hand in another Potion is 
that Hermione has destroyed it, not because Snape makes it into a bigger 
incident. He quietly says it's another zero--which it would be.

So either way rather than making a huge deal of it Snape is making it a 
slightly more private message between him and Harry, channeling his anger 
into legitimate classroom interaction instead of dragging Harry in front of 
everyone and making a show of picking on him.

However, I can also easily see it the way I did at first as well, that Snape 
just did this one thing to Harry quietly in breaking his Potion.

Neri:
The interesting distinction here, I think, is not between "oops" and 
"whoops" (although that's very interesting too). It's between parts of the 
story that are supposed to be read just like they appear
on first impression, with all the missing parts filled in by the reader in 
the most straightforward manner, and the parts that are meant to mislead the 
reader, and allow for a different interpretation after some revelation, like 
in red herrings. I agree the JKR isn't
very good at making this distinction obvious, and in large part it's her 
fault that many HP readers have adopted a policy of "trust nobody" and 
"believe nothing". But my impression is that JKR is frequently genuinely 
baffled as to why won't her readers just take some things at face value. I 
think it's very likely that she "neglected" to describe here even Harry's 
own interpretation of the incident because she believed it was self-evident. 
In any case, I don't see why she'd use intended ambiguity here, unless you 
believe that The Case Of The Broken Flask will be reopened in Book 7. And 
even then it still doesn't explain why she didn't even us Harry's opinion at 
least.

Magpie:
In general I agree that we tend to second guess things that are presented in 
a straightforward way. To me the thing about this scene is that it either 
way in this scene it's almost the same--Snape is picking at Harry through 
the broken vial. If someone read it the first time and instinctively assumed 
that the vial dropping was an accident of Harry's I think they'd still kind 
of get the same thing, so I don't think it's necessarily a wrong reading. 
Harry himself doesn't dwell on that aspect of it as much, but still thinks 
Snape's being a jerk.


> Magpie:
> As a native speaker, I don't associate any difference in sincerity between 
>  > whoops and oops. The two words are very close, but the difference
in my > experience is that usually "oops" just means a mistake after the 
fact while > "whoops" is more often used to punctuate a physical fumble or 
slip-up, like
> when you slip on the ice you say "whoops!" and when you do something wrong 
>  > you say "oops."

Neri:
I'm not sure I understand the distinction you describe. In any case I have 
to clarify here that I didn't mean so much informal *spoken* English (in 
which I certainly don't presume to know much) but more *conventions of 
writing* informal spoken English. The question here isn't so much what would 
be the exact transcription of the exact sound that each of us would utter 
when dropping something accidentally (I'm not sure about myself either...). 
The question is, why does a writer sometimes *writes* "oops" and sometimes 
"whoops". I'm not sure why I got the impression that the distinction relates 
to how authentic the surprise is, but I had it for many years of reading
books in English, and when I checked the examples from the HP series 
unthread they indeed fit.

Magpie:
It's hard to describe a distinction because there really isn't much of one. 
But I think in writing English the author just goes by what she "hears" in 
her head in a scene, and sometimes you're going to hear one more than the 
other.  I don't think you can ever take the choice of whoops vs. oops as a 
sign of whether the person is being sincere or not. Like I said, I tend to 
think of "whoops" being more about physical fumbles, which fits all these 
scenes as well.

> Magpie:
> You say "whoops" to a baby or a toddler when
> they fall down etc. So while "oops" would in my mind have to refer
to
> Snape's own mistake, "whoops" could either be Snape talking about
his own
> spill or Harry's.

Neri:
Yes, I certainly agree about the toddler example, but that fits my 
distinction too. That is, when you say "whoops" to a toddler it's not 
authentic surprise on your side, but something slightly artificial. More 
like "yes dear, I knew you were about to fall soon, but nothing happened so 
don't start crying on me."

Magpie:
Right, and I think that fits with what Snape is doing whether he destroyed 
the vial himself or not. Either way he's needling Harry with it. The use of 
whoops doesn't make it impossible that the Potion truly fell by accident. 
The use of it to me was more about being condescendng to Harry (whether or 
not Snape broke the vial himself or not).

Btw, to add another example, there's an older woman in my office who always 
says, "Whoops!" and steps dramatically back whenever she sees another person 
unexpectedly. You can be halfway down the hallway from her and as soon as 
she sees you she says, "Whoops!" and steps back as if you almost ran into 
her. So I now find the word annoying no matter who's using it.:-)  Though I 
think in her case she's not really being insincere. She's just weird.

Alla:

So, you are arguing that Bella is not a killer from her character 
perspective? Blinks. I see the exact opposite from her killing the fox so 
easily - I see her as soo trigger happy that she would kill in a second, 
without any hesitation.

And remember her being ready to sacrifice her potential sons for the cause?

I don't know, I have a problem with this line of argument. I need much more 
evidence to be convinced that Bella is **just** a torturer
( and you know, horrible torture is often a way to um... kill the person). 
Bella IMO is a sadist, yes, who won't stop from inflicting pain, but does it 
prevent her from being a killer as well, why?

Magpie:
I agree she's definitely a killer as well as a torturer. Remember she killed 
the fox because she thought it was an Auror, which indicates very little 
hesitation to kill to me. But in HP even confirmed killers don't always 
throw AKs. (And I think Harry's off-limits to DEs.)

-m