CHAPDISC: DH32, The Elder Wand

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 184746

Montavilla47:
Thank you for the chapter summary.  It was very well done!

> Questions:
> 1) What is with ending chapters with the dramatic deaths of 
> characters, including, of course, descriptions of their eyes? (I 
> refer the reader to Dobby's sightless orbs staring unseeingly up at 
> the starry sky *sob*, Fred's eyes that stare without seeing, and 
> Snape's eyes, from which "something" vanishes as he dies.) Feel free 
> to comment on similarities and differences between these three 
> character deaths witnessed by Harry.

Montavilla47:
I never noticed before that this was done three times.  I don't
think it was a deliberate tripling.  JKR had a lot of people to 
kill in this book, and it's a dramatic way of ending a chapter. (Heh,
like Nancy Drew stories always ended the chapters on a cliff-hanger.)

You missed a chapter-ending death.  There was also Charity 
Burbage.  We didn't get to see her eyes go blank, however.

About those eyes, I think it was simply an easy way--actually
a very cinematic way--of showing that someone is dead.  Isn't
that the usual way that you *know* people are dead in a movie?
The camera focuses on the eyes which deaden and go blank.   If
you don't see that happen, it's possible that the person isn't really
dead and, especially if they are the villain, you shouldn't turn your
back on them.

> 2) Speaking of this something, what are we to make of it? These same 
> eyes have been elsewhere described thusly: "They were cold and empty 
> and made you think of dark tunnels". (Empty things have *nothing* in 
> them.)

Montavilla47:
I liked that image of Snape, even though it doesn't really fit
the way I think of Occlumency.  Snape can't simply block
Voldemort's Legilmency and hope to be trusted.  He has to allow
Voldemort to *think* he's reading Snape's mind.  

So, although it looks like Occlumency, I read it as despair, or
as Snape feeling dead every time he's forced to be around 
Voldemort.  But that's just my reading of it.  


> 3) What was your reaction to Snape's death on your first reading of 
> it? Did the following chapter change your view? Does it affect you 
> differently on rereading?

Montavilla47:
I think my reaction was, "Oh, that Carpet Book thingy must have 
been genuine after all."  I hadn't read the Carpet Book, but I had 
read a post reacting to it which jeered at the idea of Snape being
eaten by a snake.

I may be one of the few people who, although upset at many 
other things about DH, is *not* upset about Snape's death or 
the way he died.  I figured that there was a very big chance that
Snape would die, so I wasn't setting my heart on his living through
the book.  That he ended up dying for so useless a reason is 
upsetting on one level, but I think it also fits with Voldemort's
general contempt for mankind.  I don't suppose that matters
if you hate Snape, but if you feel for Snape, it's very poignant.

I think what was most important to me about Snape's death
was that he go down fighting.  I don't mean that he needed
to be dueling when he died (he wasn't, really), but that he was
trying to the end to do the job Dumbledore gave him.

So, I think it was more upsetting to me that he had to flee
the school than that he was killed by a snake (in a way that's
difficult to visual without looking extremely silly).  He died in
his boots, and, as someone once put it, he poured himself 
out to Harry as he did so.

The other disappointing thing was that Harry never got
his dramatic Snape confrontation scene.  JKR hinted that 
it would necessarily be very dramatic, because Harry's 
Snape-Hate-O-Meter had been dialed up to 11 at the
end of HBP.  Instead, what we got when these two Titans
of Tantrums met was Harry hiding under his cloak while
Snape jumped through a window, leaving his outline like
a Looney Toons character.  Not at all what I was expecting.

This death scene was actually their second scene together.


> 4) Voldemort compares Lucius and Snape. What meaning, if any, do you 
> ascribe to this?

Montavilla47:
I don't remember this either.  Can someone put up the relevant text?


> 5) Will Zara ask a question that is NOT about Snape? Erm, right, yes, 
> well
Personally, I prefer the battle scenes in this chapter to the 
> ones in the previous one, even though the last chapter was named 
> after the battle. Which is your favorite scene of the first part of 
> the battle (feel free to name one from the previous chapter!)? Why?

Montavilla47:
I liked little bits of it.  I liked the image of the desks charging, and I 
liked Trelawney throwing her crystal balls.  A lot of it was annoying 
because it was slowing down the plot.  But, what are you going to 
do?   A big battle is pretty inevitable, and there is something 
comical about the idea of the battle getting in the way of what needs
to happen, rather than *being* what needs to happen.

Ironically, what *needs* to happen at this point is for the hero
to go watch a movie.

Weirdest.  Battle. Ever.  

<g>

> 5) What was Draco doing on the upper landing of the marble staircase, 
> to need rescuing from a Death Eater, in your opinion? What do you 
> suppose happened to Goyle?

No idea.  

> 6) The Death Eaters brought a giant to the battle, and Grawp fought 
> him to defend the school. As payoff for Hagrid's back-story, Mme. 
> Maxime, "Hagrid's Tale", and the Grawp subplot in OotP, was this 
> sufficient for you? Why or why not?

Montavilla47:
Nope.  The giants and the werewolves turned out to be major 
disappointments.  Nor were the spiders, even though they showed up,
particularly satisfying.  

The turning point for me in the HP series, the moment when I went
from "this is a fun series" to "must have next book NOW!" was at the
end of GoF when Dumbledore urgently warned Fudge to contact the
giants and the werewolves ASAP, or Voldemort will win!

Well, it seemed like the last books were all about showing how 
irrelevant that was.  For the entire next book, all the Ministry did
was to waste time and effort harassing Dumbledore and Harry, and
that made no difference, Voldemort-wise.  Supposedly LV was 
gathering his forces.  Yet, what did he have at the end of OotP that
he didn't have at the beginning?  

Then, when Voldemort is known to be back and unrestrained by
discretion, are the werewolves and giants doing all that much?
There are occasional werewolf attacks, but did Fenrir really need
Voldemort to tell him to attack kids?  I didn't get the feeling that
he did.

The giants, of course, do simulate a tornado.  But that seems 
rather pointless, as does the bridge thing.  It matters to the 
Muggles, of course, but it seems to matter mainly because it
embarrasses the Muggle Prime Minister and not, because it
kills people or causes terror.  How can the Muggles be terrified
when they think these are random events?

And, as for working with the Ministry to combat Voldemort,
Dumbledore refuses to do so, even when Fudge is replaced by
a Minister who wants to fight LV.  At that point, it seems, the
urgency is not to actively oppose Voldemort, but to develop
Harry as a weapon.  All the other efforts turn out to be useless,
irrelevant, or counter-productive.

So, what was your question?  Oh, yes, Grawp.  Everything about
Grawp was annoying, although it was nice seeing him at 
Dumbledore's funeral.  

> 7) The Slytherin hourglass broke as Harry ran down the stairs into 
> the Entrance Hall, just as the Gryffindor one had in the fighting at 
> the end of HBP. Did you ascribe any particular meaning to this bit of 
> trivia on your first read? Do you now?

Montavilla47:
Yes, I noticed it immediately because of that image from HBP.  The 
rubies seemed like blood, and the image was a metaphor for the 
violence of the invasion into the castle.

That the Slytherin emeralds were now strewn underfoot seemed like
payback.  But it didn't make a whole lot of sense, because it wasn't
Slytherin who attacked the school, it was Voldemort.  Unless you 
lump LV, Draco, and the Death Eaters altogether under the Slytherin
banner.  Which JKR said she wasn't doing.


> 8) What was your reaction to Hagrid's defense of the giant spiders 
> and its results?

Montavilla47:
To be honest, I barely noticed it. 


> 9) How cool was it that Hermione defended Lavender from Greyback? 
> (Or, why was it not cool?) Why do you suppose Rowling chose Trelawney 
> as the person to finish him off?

Montavilla47:
Again, it was just a random detail.  I didn't even think about Hermione
and Lavender's history--mainly because Hermione never focused any
animosity towards Lavender, other than her general contempt for 
all things girlish.   She seemed to reserve all the anger for Ron.

> 10) Luna, Ernie, and Seamus's Patronuses are revealed to be, 
> respectively, a hare, a boar, and a fox. Do they suit your ideas of 
> these characters? Why or why not?

Montavilla47:
As Carol noted, Patronuses aren't meant to reflect one's personality,
but a happy memory.  But I liked Luna's hare and Ernie's boar.  They
seemed fitting.  Luna is hare-brained, and Ernie is one of those solid
beefeating English types.  As for Seamus's fox, I don't know.  Maybe
it's something Irish?  Seamus doesn't really seem to have much 
personality other than being Irish.

> 11) Hermione tells Ron "Are you a wizard, or what?" when he regrets 
> Crookshanks cannot open the Willow for them. This echoes the moment 
> in PS/SS when Ron said the same to Hermione as she worried 
> frantically that she has no matches. What does this serve, in your 
> view? Do you see other mirrors in this chapter?

Montavilla47:
When I read that, it struck me as being rather forced.  Ron didn't
even see Crookshanks open the willow in PoA (he was already in the
tunnel).  And, that Hermione would remind him that he was a wizard
rather than simply levitate the twig herself seemed out of character.


> 12) Please excuse the length of these last. They concern 
> the "official" subject of this chapter as expressed by the title. I 
> begin with some quotes from the text and an observation.
> 
> "Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?" <snip>
> "I do not understand. You – you have performed extraordinary magic 
> with that wand."
> 
> This seems to me to establish the fact that Snape is aware Voldemort 
> has acquired a new wand, and has been for some time.  If you 
> disagree, part a) of the question can be explaining to me why I am 
> wrong. <g> What, if anything, does Snape's choice of the 
> words "extraordinary magic" suggest to you? Would you expect Snape 
> recognized the new wand as the one Dumbledore has had throughout 
> Snape's entire life?

Montavilla47:
I'm with Carol in thinking this didn't make a whole lot of sense.  The
way I read the scene, Snape was focused on the fact that Nagini was in a
bubble and that he needed to find Harry.  I didn't think he was even
listening much to Voldemort and his replies were sort of automatic.  

I don't see how Snape could have seen much magic at all from Voldemort,
since he was at Hogwarts, where Voldemort wasn't.  

> 13) Do you think the acquisition of this new wand might be a matter 
> Severus would have mentioned to Albus? Why or why not, and what do 
> you suppose Albus would have said back, if yes? 

Montavilla47:
I'm  sure that Portrait Dumbledore would have assured Snape that it
wasn't important.  After all, why warn the guy you've told to deliver 
the most important message in the books that he might be killed 
for a stick of wood?

If we could have seen that Elder Wand completely refuse to act for
Voldemort, it all might have been more plausible.  I know that the
connection between wand and wizard is strange and mystical, but 
it just came off to me as driven by what was needed for plot.  

I'm sure there was a way to do this so that the final outcome would
have seemed glorious, satisfying, and deeply poetic.  But I think
that would have involved a greater exploration of wands than we
got in the series.  There were hints of that with Priori Incantatem, 
and the shades of LV's crimes.  But what it seemed to be mostly 
about in DH was making jokes about wands being substitutes for
penises.

> 14) How do you feel about not knowing the answers to these questions 
> about two major characters and the magical artifact that settled the 
> central conflict of the series?

Confused and indifferent.