To kill or not to kill and resolutions of the storylineWAS :Re: Disarming spell

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185516

Magpie wrote:
> As Carol pointed out, Harry is not the narrator. The line about 
Quidditch actually isn't one of the ones that suggest he doesn't know
many people (though it's true that often he knows a lot fewer people
than someone else would in his situation). It just tells us that a 
bunch of Hufflepuffs showed up to try out. In the Quidditch scene the
narrator, which is somewhat tied to Harry's pov but is not Harry 
giving us his own pov--there's a little difference there, even though
sometimes the narrator suggests Harry's emotional feelings about 
something or his own conclusions (and if those conclusions are wrong
we will learn that later because Harry's mistake is part of the
story)--we're told that there's a group of Hufflepuffs. <snip> But the
narrator is giving us a piece of straightforward information the same
way it tells us things like when Hermione enters a room or when Goyle
sniggers or when a group of  students stares at Harry. <snip>

Carol responds:

It's not just the line about the Hufflepuffs that's weird in that
scene. It's the sheer number of people--more than could possibly have
tried out. I blame JKR's inability to count or keep track of numbers,
though, not the narrator (who, by the way, is not a "which" or an "it"
but a human voice telling the story, whether male or female, we don't
know. The narrator's voice is a kind of persona that JKR takes on,
different from her real self because she can change it at will (the
voice and POV are different in, say, "Spinner's End" than the majority
of chapters) and because she, unlike the narrator, knows when Harry's
view of things is unreliable. (She knows, for example, that the
"little girl" whose scales Hermione kindly repairs is really Gregory
Goyle. The narrator does not.)

> Magpie:
> The narrator called them friends and family members so that's what 
> they are. 

Carpl responds:
I think not. The narrator says, "They [Charlie and Slughorn] *seemed*
to have returned at the head of *what looked like* the families and
friends of every Hogwarts student who had returned to fight, along
with the shopkeepers and homeowners of Hogwarts." Note the narrator's
uncertainty, which reflects Harry's. He has time only for a quick
impression of the many people who are "storming up the front steps,"
and time to identify only Slughorn and Charlie, both of whom would
stand out in any crowd, especially at the front.

Note that the students who *returned to fight* are following Slughorn,
the HoH of Slytherin, and that, of the students old enough to fight,
only the Slytherins (and a few others like Zacharias Smith and perhaps
a few Prefects) actually *left* the school. You can'-t *return* to
fight if you haven't left, and the Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and
Hufflepuffs who *stayed* to fight have not left the school grounds. It
stands to reason that most of the students who *returned* to fight are
indeed Slytherins, as indicated by Phineas Nigellus's proud claim that
"Slytherin played its part." His words are nonsense if only Slughorn
and the now-dead Snape played their part. (Regulus, much as I like
him, doesn't really count because no one but HRH and perhaps the House
Elves would understand Kreacher's rallying cry.)

Magpie:
If they're supposed to be Slytherins--particularly Slytherins that
both the narrator and Harry have never had any trouble identifying as
such--call them that. 

Carol responds:
I don't know whether the Houses have identifying badges in the books
as they do in the films, but these returning students are not wearing
House robes. The students were awakened and came down wearing pajamas
with dressing gowns or standard black cloaks thrown over them. Harry,
who really isn't good with faces, knows only a few Slytherins by name,
and three of those (Draco, Goyle, and the dead Crabbe) are definitely
absent. Pansy Parkinson probably is, too, or the narrator would have
pointed her out (unless, being short, IIRC), she's hidden in the
crowd. But Harry generally identified people in his own year as
Slytherins because they followed Draco or Pansy around or were on the
Quidditch team. He didn't identify them personally, not even Theodore
Nott, who was in gus Potions and COMC classes, until Hermione
identified him. 

In any case, just as the people Harry has tentatively identified as
returning students, their friends and families (how would he know
that? He's seen only a few parents, such as Zacharias Smith's haughty
father), as well as the people of Hogsmeade (a likely deduction, but
whether Charlie or Slughorn has recruited them is unknown), the
Centaurs "burst into the hall with a great clatter of hooves,"
followed immediately by a swarm of several hundred House Elves, who
immediately start biting and stabbing the knees of the Death Eaters, a
spectacle that quicklys take Harry's attention away from the people
behind Slughorn and Charlie. Harry has only a confused general
impression of DEs "folding under sheer weight of numbers, overcome by
spells, dragging arrows from wounds, stabbed in the leg by elves, or
else simply attempting to escape, but swallowed by the oncoming horde."

Notice that except for Bane, Ronan, and Magorian (Bane being the bad
Centaur turned good, if you will) and Kreacher, the narrator at this
point doesn't give any names, especially for the indistinguishable
Witches and Wizards from whom his attention has been distracted. Harry
speeds past unnamed duellers and prisoners (presumably DEs) into the
Great Hall where Voldemort is in the center of the battle. At that
point, Harry's attention returns to people he know (who are not among
the newcomers crowding into the entrance hall or trying to force their
way into the Great Hall. He identifies friends or known enemies:
George, Lee, Flitwick, Hagrid (rather hard to miss), Arthur, and Percy
on the one hand, and Yaxley, Dolohov, Macnair, Greyback, Rookwood,
andTthicknesse on the other, as well as the Malfoys running through
the crowd, screaming Draco's name. His attention turns to Voldemort,
fighting McGonagall, Slughorn and Kingsley all at once and to
Bellatrix fighting Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, pushed aside by Mrs.
Weasley, who claims and kills Bellatrix. What the newcomers are doing
or who they are, Harry doesn't know. He's found his quarry.

Magpie:
> After thousands of pages of this series I have every reason as a
reader to not read friends of family of the students left at Hogwarts
(who are from all the houses except that house) as including Slytherins. 

Carol:

But the narrator doesn't say that they're the students "left at
Hogwarts." Quite the contrary. They're the students who *left Hogwarts
and returned* with what Harry *assumes* to be their friends and
families. Who could they be except the Slytherins and a few
miscellaneous students from other Houses?

Carol, who understands why Magpie reads the scene as she does but
reads it differently