Chapter Discussion: Prisoner of Azkaban Ch 15: The Quidditch Final

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 190176


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> 1.  Hermione misses Charms and is found asleep over her Arithmancy book.  Later, she is described as having bags under her eyes like Lupin.  Did you think she was just overdoing it, as Harry suggests, or did you think magic was involved?

Pippin:
I was sure there was some magical explanation for the mystery of her class schedule, but I had no idea what it was. As we find out, she'd been instructed only to use the time turner to get to classes, and she seems to have interpreted that instruction strictly -- no extra naps or extra time to do her homework. I don't know whether they would have allowed her that if she had asked. 

Hermione thinks of the time turner as a special favor to her, but from the board's point of view it might be a way to charge extra tuition without having to pay the teachers extra, as they might if she was doing an independent study or getting tutoring after hours. 

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> 2.  Which house has been winning the Quidditch cup?  Do you think it was one house more than any other or that the other three houses each had their share of winning seasons?

Pippin:
I suspect it was Slytherin, since they are more competitive than Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

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> 3.  Why were Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff rooting for Gryffindor?
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Pippin:
Because the Slyths were going to be insufferable if they won. As a House, they exhibit a classic superiority complex, constantly having to assert that they are better than everyone else because, deep down, they fear they are not. 

> 4.  Lee Jordan's commentary earns him a warning for bias.  Other than the most blatant examples, do you think Lee Jordan's commentary was fair, or was it biased all through the game?

Pippin:
Bias isn't something you can take off and put on like a pair of shoes, IMO. I don't think Lee believes it's important to be fair to the Slytherins. But he knows that McGonagall does, and he wants to keep his job as commentator, so he has to watch what he says. But he loses control and goes too far. Not so different from Snape and the M-word. 

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> 5.  In our world, imitation or correspondence can be considered "sympathetic magic."  During the Gryffindor/Slytherin match, three-quarters of the houses wear Gryffindor scarlet while one quarter of the houses wear Slytherin green.  Do you think there is a similar folk belief in sympathetic magic in the Potterverse?  If so, could the wearing of the team colors have helped Gryffindor win?
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Pippin:
Some Potterverse magic seems to work on that theory. The time turner is a good example. But lots of other magic doesn't work that way at all. Unicorn blood doesn't make you pure or innocent, it keeps you from dying, which it certainly didn't do for the poor unicorn.

Dressing up as  dementors didn't give Draco and his friends a dementor's powers, and no one seemed to have any idea that it would summon real dementors to the scene. Nor do bearing the Dark Mark and wearing Death Eater robes make Snape into a loyal Death Eater, nor is there any fear of that.

Pippin