CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Chamber of Secrets Ch. 13: The Very Secret Diary

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 189072

CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Chapter 13: The Very Secret Diary.
<snip excellent summary>  
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> 1.  Ron is very attuned to Hermione's crush on Lockhart.  Is he merely disgusted with her infatuation, or is this one of JKR's "anvil-sized hints?  Did you pick up on this the first time you read CoS?

Carol responds:
I don't think that I thought of it in terms of Ron having a crush on Hermione, only of his being a little more aware of other people's feelings than Harry, who perceives other people's danger (the "saving people complex") but is generally oblivious to feelings and emotions (other than general assumptions related to Houses or Quidditch).
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> 2.  What do you think is the source of Lockhart's appeal to women and girls?  Is it his looks and charm, or is there magic involved?  Do you think he's capable of one of Flitwick's Entrancement Enchantments?

Carol:
Not magic, I'm sure, since the only bit of magic he's ever mastered is the memory charm. (We see his general ineptitude in his own subject demonstrated twice, with regard to the pixies and in the dueling club chapter and his pathetic attempt at healing when he removes the bones from Harry's arm.) I think it's a combination of his looks and his fame. (Even Molly Weasley likes to look at his photos.) We see something similar, minus the good looks, with the girls who chase Krum in GoF and the Quidditch fans who acquit Ludo Bagman based on who he is rather than what he may or may not have done. Celebrity worship (and the fickleness of the public, which will turn on its heroes based on rumors and bad publicity) is a persistent motif in the HP books, as is Harry's indifference or even aversion to his own celebrity status.

> 3.  Ron's initial reaction that the diary was dangerous proves correct, and he also correctly guessed that Riddle murdered Moaning Myrtle.  Ron's apparent knack for this led to a longstanding theory that Ron was a Seer.  What do these comments tell us about Ron?

Carol:
His father works for the Ministry, specifically with regard to enchanted Muggle objects, so Ron would be more aware than Harry (or the naive and lonely eleven-year-old Ginny) that such objects can be dangerous. I don't remember his guessing that Riddle killed Moaning Myrtle, so I can't comment on that.
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> 4.  What did you think of Riddle after reading this chapter? 

Carol:
At first I thought that he really was a school hero, but I didn't like the way he treated Hagrid. I also thought it was odd that he received an award for services to the school when the creature got away. I didn't suspect, however, that he was the murderer. (Maybe I faven't read enough mystery novels!) 
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> 5.  Do you think Riddle's memory is part and parcel of his soul bit, or is it a separate enchantment, like the curses on some of the other horcruxes?  Why did he incorporate this feature into a horcrux and not simply create a separate memorial?  And (really going off on a tangent here) does the Sorting Hat employ the same kind of magic?

Carol:
I think that he specifically created the diary to prove that he was the Heir of Slytherin and that it contained other memories that he didn't choose to show Harry, including, probably, his controlling the Basilisk and killing Moaning Myrtle. He certainly created it with the intention of using it to carry on Salazar Slytherin's great work, as he tells Harry (and presumably also told Lucius Malfoy), who knew quite well that it could be used to open the Chamber of Secrets. The fact that the ink disappears and Riddle writes back to Ginny as well as Harry indicates that it's intended to be interactive. I think that the diary was already special to Tom Riddle, as Dumbledore states in HBP, before he turned it into his first Horcrux. In fact, it might not even have been a Horcrux yet when he talked to Slughorn. I think he wanted to know whether it was possible to make more than one Horcrux before he dared to risk a piece of his soul in an object designed for some other use. (Of course, I'm not sure that JKR's ideas regarding the diary are clear and consistent, so I'm presenting the explanation that makes most sense to me.)

As for the Sorting Hat, which obviously is not a four-person Horcrux, yes, I think it employs the same sort of magic as the diary originally did, memories that can interact with or at least converse with other people (we see the same thing in the portraits). With the Sorting Hat, there's even an element of Legilimency (which we don't see with the portraits--I'm not sure about the pre-Horcrux diary). Possibly he created it before he knew about Horcruxes or before he knew how to make one. He may even have started putting memories in it before he had killed Moaning Myrtle and only gradually realized that it could also be used as a Horcrux if he used the Basilisk to kill someone (an unworthy Muggleborn, naturally).
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> 6.  There are obvious parallels between the memory Riddle showed Harry and the ones Dumbledore shows Harry in HBP; in fact, JKR once considered revealing much of Riddle's history in CoS.  How do you think she intended to handle the information, and what do you think of how Riddle's story was handled here?

Carol:
Did JKR consider revealing Riddle's history in CoS? I thought it was Snape's history (as revealed in his old Potions book) that she considered revealing (and thought better of). Besides, why have two devices through which Harry can enter old memories, the Pensieve and the diary, in the same book? As for the glimpse of Riddle's history that we get here, I think it's intriguing and well timed. We get to see that Voldemort was once a person in some ways very like Harry (but clearly evil from a young age) and that his transformation into a monster was somehow the product of his own will. We also see how he charmed and fooled a lot of people.
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> 7.  Why does Harry believe that Hagrid opened the Chamber?

Carol:
Because he sees the monster Aragog, which certainly looks (and is) capable of killing people and he knows from firsthand experience that Hagrid underestimates the danger of the "interestin' creatures" he loves so much. (Harry and his friends have already had a close call with Fluffy.) He also has no reason to distrust Riddle, who won an award for services to the school and seems so much like himself (but handsomer).
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> 8.  The introduction of Tom Riddle in this chapter adds a dark and chilling element to the storyline, yet the chapter is also very funny, with visions of surly dwarfs carrying harps, Moaning Myrtle as a carnival contest, and Ginny's pickled-toad valentine.  What do you think of JKR's juxtaposition of humor and seriousness here?

Carol:
I must be dense, but I don't know what you mean by "Moaning Myrtle as a carnival contest." However, as I know I've said before, combining comedy with tragedy or near-tragedy is a time-honored technique going back at least to Shakespeare (who was criticized by purists for doing so). Much of what people find funny borders on catastrophe (slipping on banana peels is a crude example) and is only funny because the tragic consequences are averted. "Romeo and Juliet" could have been a romantic comedy with only a few changes. Mercutio's speech would be funny if only he were pretending to die rather than actually dying. But also, the comic and the tragic exist side by side in real life and laughter provides a kind of escape or respite from the thought of danger. The students, for example, can hardly go around constantly fearing the monster's next attack. Even Ginny, who suspects that she's somehow responsible for the bloody words on the wall and the Petrified students, is still capable of writing an unintentionally comic verse about her green-eyed hero (and JKR takes a break from the hero worship of her own protagonist to poke a bit of fun at him).
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> 9.  Please add any questions you may have. 

Carol:

I'm just curious as to whether anyone besides me wondered how Tom proved to the headmaster and the Ministry that Hagrid had a monster. After all, the monster in question escaped. (I understand why they would have assumed that the monster was responsible for Myrtle's death--two monsters in the castle at the same time would have been inconceivable for anyone except Dumbledore, who obviously couldn't prove Hagrid's innocence and Riddle's guilt or he would have done so.) But was it only Tom's word against Hagrid's or did Hagrid admit to having a monster and just blurt out, "Aragog wouldn't hurt nobody?"

Carol, thanking Deb for the excellent summary and questions