CHAPDISC: DH1, The Dark Lord Ascending

[mz_annethrope]

No: HPFGUIDX 176331

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> 
wrote:
>
> Geoff wrote:
> > 
> > I have to admit that I haven't had time to really look at the 
> thread on Chapter 1 but looking at the questions set for the 
> > OWL candidates, one has occurred to me which isn't on the list 
> > and I wonder whether other group members might have any 
> > theories....
> > 
> > Why did JKR create Charity Burbage, Professor of Muggle Studies,
> >  just to be killed by Voldemort in Chapter 1?
> > 
> > She is effectively a non-entity. we have no other references to 
her 
> > and  I have to say that it left me emotionally untouched because 
> > she was a stranger, just another name in the long list of 
Voldemort's 
> > victims.That probably sounds callous but that often happens in 
real 
> > life situations.
> > 
> > Had it been a name which we knew - even one of the lesser known 
> > staff such as Professor Sinistra or Professor Vector - for me, 
that 
> > would have had considerably more impact than the unfortunate 
> > victim we briefly met here.
> >
> 
> Carol responds:

snip:
> 
> IOW, the purpose of the Charity Burbage episode is to show us where
> Voldemort was going with his agenda and what would have happened to
> the WW had he not been sidetracked by the Elder Wand. As it is, the
> Death Eaters get essentially a free hand in running the MoM, but 
most
> of them share that agenda anyway. 

snip, snip:
> 
> I felt that "The Dark Lord Ascending" perfectly illustrated the 
state
> of affairs both among Voldie's followers (Snape as inscrutable as
> ever, the Malfoys humbled and fearful, the other DEs scrambling for
> favor or silent, Wormtail trying to be invisible) and in the WW  at
> large (as well as making clear what happened to the bodies of LV's
> earlier victims and setting up Nagini as both loathsome and 
terrifying).

mz_annethrope:

I agree that this chapter sets up for Voldemort's agenda in the rest 
of the book. In particular it readies us for Magic is Might and for 
what happens in that chapter.

I want to take the scene in a slightly different direction, i.e, 
Charity Burbadge who left Geoff, and me, emotionally untouched. Here 
are a couple of possibilities. One is that the chapter sets up Snape 
as ESE, while still allowing the reader to perceive Snape as 
trapped. What if the victim had been somebody we considered 
important, somebody we liked, somebody who seemed to get along with 
Snape, say McGonagall? It would have been much harder to "redeem" 
Snape at the end of the book if we had seen him watch the murder of 
a beloved character (though perhaps it would have made it more 
interesting.) The writing deliberately impersonalizes the horror of 
the scene.

It also sets us up for the encounter with Inferius!Bathilda 
(Inferia?), which I found the most horrific scene in the book. In 
both scenes a snake desecrates a human body, but the first is 
offstage and so we don't care about it as much. Because of the 
implied distance it allows the the reader to be a bit guilty of 
dehumanizing the almost anonymous victim. There are other scenes 
that allow the reader to be guilty observers. I think especially of 
Harry using the Cruciatus curse against Amycus and McGonagall 
responding with "Imperio." I found this scene terribly funny even 
though I knew the actions were terrible.

So I was relieved to find out that Voldemort's Chapter 1 victim was 
no one I cared about. I could go on enjoying the book, without being 
shocked out of my senses. But I don't think my reaction is supposed 
to be right.

JKR shows us another way in the underground Wizarding Wireless 
scene. Here Kingsley, who acts as this book's moral compass, enjoins 
listeners to protect their Muggle neighbors then says this, "We're 
all humans, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth 
saving." [Amer. ed., 440]

Chapter 1 allows for the dehumanization of a person and a people 
(Muggles) to foreshadow not only Voldemort's agenda, but also what 
may happen in the reader's heart.

mz_annethrope, who wonders if Charity did a clinical presentation of 
Muggles in her class.