HBP various responses and thoughts

[Amy Z]

I love this so much I have to reuse it.  Bravo, Eloise!

There was an old man with a beard
Who said "It is just as I feared
I drank lots of potion
Then swam in the ocean
And now I confess I feel weird."

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David wrote:

>Non-Christians (and those Christians who don't want to be preached
>at), too, can probably breathe a sigh of relief.

I'm not sighing yet.  Here we are debating whether Dumbledore might 
have gone willingly to a sacrificial death in order to save the 
wizarding world.  Sounds familiar.  And it's a great story, so I'll 
be happy with it as long as JKR doesn't hew to the Christian version 
too closely or try to slip us any substitutionary atonement.  And she 
has just assured us, "But, obviously, Dumbledore is not Jesus."  
(Time interview, 
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1083935-2,00.html)

Pippin wrote:

>I think the bad fanfic rap is undeserved

Here and there, it falls to the level of fairly *good* fanfic: 
written pretty well but with too much telling and not enough showing, 
I agree with Neri.  There are too many spots that are just clunky.  
For example:

Telling instead of showing:

"Harry did not say anything to this; he still felt angry at the 
reception his confidences had received, but could not see what was to 
be gained by arguing further." (ch. 17; 360 in US ed.)

Adverb abuse: 

"`Yes, sir,' said Harry quickly.  `Voldemort killed his father and 
his grandparents and made it look as though his Uncle Morfin did it.  
Then he want back to Hogwarts and he asked . . . he asked Professor 
Slughorn about Horcruxes,' he mumbled shamefacedly."

Jo, you don't NEED the adverb.  We can TELL he's ashamed.

Awkwardly delivered backstory:

"`–because she was a house-elf,' said Harry.  He had rarely felt more 
in sympathy with the society Hermione had set up, S.P.E.W."

I don't think the romance is fanfic-ish, except maybe for that "for 
your sake, we have to break up" scene.  It's the kind of cliche that 
JKR usually manages to transform.  The rest feels very genuine to me, 
rising out of the characters and what we know about them.  I don't 
even mind the way Harry's attraction for Ginny comes almost out of 
the blue (with a bit of a warning twinge back at the Hogwarts 
Express).  Attraction is like that sometimes–a lot of the time, in 
fact.  And Harry is growing up; instead of going for someone who's 
pretty but whom he barely knows, like Cho, he's suddenly seeing the 
appeal of someone he likes very much but has been beneath the 
romantic radar because of her younger-sister role.  Now, romance 
happens in a lot of ways, and I'd be just as convinced if Harry fell 
in love with Luna, or Hermione, or some character we've never met.  
But by the same token I'm not at all surprised that he should fall in 
love with Ginny (if that's what he's doing).

Sorry, Pippin, and I'm going to have to eat a flock of crows if ESE!
Lupin comes true, but I just don't get this:

>The mystery is the identity of the traitor 

We know the traitor.  His name is Peter Pettigrew and he confessed in 
detail.  

I'd like to say "time will tell," but I get the feeling that if Lupin 
still looks like a good guy at the end of Book 7, you'll use it as 
proof that he's so evil and clever he got away with murder.  :-P

Pip wrote:

>As to the book - do you think there are charms that can be set on
> something, so that it's given to a particular person?

Sure there are.  When we wonder how Snape (or Dumbledore, or whoever) 
could have guaranteed that Harry get that book, we're thinking like 
Muggles.  This is magic, and it would be easy.  We don't know the 
charm for it, but JKR could make one up in the blink of an eye and it 
would fit into what we know about the WW very nicely.

I'm still not sure what the point would be.  The whole HBP subplot 
feels like something that hasn't delivered yet.  I hope it bears 
fruit in 7.  Or maybe JKR thought "who is the HBP?" would be such an 
absorbing mystery that the revelation that it was Snape would be all 
the delivering she needed to do.  Hm.  Maybe I'll set up a poll to 
ask how many people honestly thought it was Snape before the 
chapter "Flight of the Prince" came along.  I bet it was a very 
sizable percentage.  (I notice under 4% of HPfGUers hazarded that 
guess in the poll before the book came out.  Good work, y'all!)

Pippin wrote:

>Okay, there are not one but three things in that paragraph
>that don't fit with AK. The trickle of blood, the closed eyes,
>and the peaceful expression. 

I don't buy the peaceful expression (could be because unlike the 
other victims of AK we've seen, Dumbledore wanted to die and knew it 
was coming) or the blood (because of heretofore argued point that a 
just-deceased body will bleed under tremendous impact), but I like 
the thing about the closed eyes.  While perfectly explainable, it 
does reek of clueness.

And I agree that if the AK didn't work, it's because Snape didn't 
want it to.  After that, the mechanics are unknown but easily 
explained by someone who knows more about magic than we do, namely 
JKR.  Maybe if someone sincerely agrees ahead of time to be struck by 
AK, it can't kill him.  Or maybe they put a countercharm in place 
beforehand.  Or maybe everyone is Confunded and didn't see what they 
thought they saw.

I agree with Mike, though, that Dumbledore has to be dead because of 
JKR's views on death.  She has been very selective and skillful with 
how she's used the "not really dead" plots (Pettigrew, Crouch Jr.), 
and she hasn't killed someone we care about and brought him/her 
back.  Those plots almost always reward wishful thinking, and JKR has 
a low opinion of it.  Live in dreams and you forget to live in 
reality–we learned that in book 1, and via the acid test, the most 
painful of losses: a child's loss of both parents.

OTOH, there is that Draught of Living Death.  It's just gotta be used 
at some point.  I'd prefer if it were used for someone we hoped was 
dead and turned out not to be.

Now Mike is swaying me on the question of whether we've seen the one 
and only twist regarding Tonks.  A double twist is in JKR's 
character, but to solve a minor mystery at the end of a book and then 
reopen it with the next one . . . the timing doesn't seem right.  And 
yet there are those loose ends.  What to do, what to do.

Pippin wrote:

>I think Dumbledore withheld the proof of Snape's
>repentance because it *was* proof. It would leave
>absolutely no doubt in Harry's mind -- or
>Voldemort's-- that Snape was faithful.
>As Harry is no Occlumens and never will be, that
>would be very bad news for Snape.

You're so right.  But he has to let Harry & the Order know the proof 
somehow, sooner or later, or Snape's life isn't worth a burnt 
bowtruckle.  At the very least, if Snape's killed by someone in the 
Order, we have to find out afterwards that he was innocent.  So there 
has to be proof somewhere, and we can continue to have fun wondering 
what it is.

Dungrollin wrote in response to Entropy:

>If DD dies in any way other than being killed by either Draco or 
Snape, Snape will have broken
>his vow, and will die. 

I don't think so.  Say Draco fails and as Snape is striding toward 
Dumbledore to finish him off, AD is run over by a truck.  Snape 
dies?  I think he's satisfied the spirit of the vow.  Likewise if 
someone else gets in there and kills AD first.

I just had to help Entropy out, in gratitude for the biggest laugh 
I've had all week.  Just the words ESE!Flitwick bring out the 
giggles.  Neatly argued theory, though.

Dungrollin also wrote:

>Interesting question though: if you tarnish your soul
altruistically, for the ultimate greater good of finally vanquishing
Voldy forever, does it count?

Hm.  I think it does, but that Dumbledore's death wouldn't count if 
it were truly what Dumbledore required Snape to do.  Of course it is 
still an evil (if only because Dumbledore isn't the only victim–
everyone who cares about him suffers too), but much of the evil is 
erased by the fact that the primary victim is willing.

Other things raise this issue more.  I'm thinking of Donnie Brasco, 
the movie about an FBI agent who infiltrates the Mafia.  More and 
more, to keep his cover, he participates in their crimes.  What has 
Snape done to stay undercover?  I bet Voldemort has tested him by 
requiring him to perform acts of cruelty.  Has he turned in Order 
members?  Killed anyone?  Tortured anyone?  How much can he do before 
the good ceases to outweigh the evil?

As for tarnishing one's soul, I don't know about heaven and brownie 
points, but I do imagine it would be very hard to live with oneself 
after such things–even if everyone assured you they were justified, 
indeed necessary.

Penny wrote re: Hermione:

>Oh yeah. Her character had to be completely altered beyond 
recognition. More
on that ........ some other time.

Come on, Penny, sock it to us.  You really think Hermione was 
unrecognizable?  She wasn't 

-a perfectionistic student
-psychologically astute (especially about other people's love lives)
-very balanced about her own matters of love (though able to get very 
pissed-off when slighted)
-insistent to the point of being annoying when she thinks someone's 
being illogical, even if it's Harry (you go girl)
-fond of making fun of Ron's crushes
-friends with Ginny and sympathetic to her concerns (dislike of 
Phlegm, troubles with Dean, attraction to Harry) 
-utterly committed to the side of the Order
-apt to run to the library to resolve any question 
-apt to push people to do what they've promised (Harry's Slughorn 
problem)
-and–sorry–uninterested in Harry romantically?  

In all those ways, she looked like the same old Hermione to me, 
though she's getting more mature.  In what ways do you see her acting 
out of character?

Pip wrote:

> On p. 582 [624 in the US edition–AZC note] Tonks is insisting to 
Lupin that she wants to marry him 
> and the narration (Harry's pov) goes: 'And the meaning of Tonk's 
> patronus ... all suddenly became clear to Harry.'

It's a good guess that her Patronus is now a werewolf, but the jury's 
still out.  After all, the sentence continues "the meaning of Tonks's 
Patronus and her mouse-colored hair. . ."  This doesn't mean she's in 
love with someone whose Patronus is a mouse.  It means she's in love, 
she's unhappy, and she's not herself.  The specific form her Patronus 
therefore takes is not necessarily relevant.

Mary Grandpre is being positively Rowlingesque with the ambiguity of 
the drawing, and there's a tidiness to its being a werewolf, but my 
feminist soul rebels.  Pining away for love is one thing, but having 
the very representation of your soul take the form of your rejecting 
lover?  Come on, Tonks, get yer backbone back.


Kneasy, great catch about the Tarot and the lightning-struck tower.  
I doubt we will find a regular correspondence to the Tarot running 
through the entire series in any detail (except insofar as the Tarot 
is so rich in archetypal symbolism, and so vague, that one can align 
it with almost anything), but this one is either deliberate on JKR's 
part or a very nifty coincidence.

Jo (mooseming) wrote:

>Can you *do* anything with Sectumsempra? Any ideas on the linguistic
origins of this particular incantation.

See my post #2114.  "Sempra" means "always," as in "Semper fidelis," 
("Always faithful," the US Marines' motto), "Sic semper tyrannis" 
("Thus always to tyrants," Booth's words upon assassinating Lincoln), 
and of course, "Rictusempra," which makes the victim laugh 
uncontrollably.

Rita wrote:

>*Why does my memory make that quote 'red hair, no money, and more
>children than they can afford'? Is it movie contamination?

*pats Rita reassuringly*  The movie line is more like "red hair, hand-
me-down robes–-you must be a Weasley."  You're not suffering from 
movie contamination, just plain ordinary memory failure.  It happens 
to us all.

A few things I'm really loving as I reflect and reread:

-The meeting of Dumbledore and the Dursleys.  "`Albus Dumbledore,' 
said Dumbledore, when Uncle Vernon failed to effect an 
introduction.  `We have corresponded, of course.'  Harry thought this 
an odd way of reminding Aunt Petunia that he had once sent her an 
exploding letter, but Aunt Petunia did not challenge the term."  Now 
that's the voice we're used to.

-The spoof of bureaucracy's response to terrorism.  "The Wizarding 
community is currently under threat from an organization calling 
itself the Death Eaters."  You don't say.
  
-The fact that the DADA job is truly jinxed–no one's lasted more than 
a year in 40 years!  Hilarious.  And I think it means that someone 
who really deserves it is going to get the job when Voldemort is dead 
and the curse is broken.  I plump for Harry, though it could be 
Redeemed!Snape if he lives.

-The minor characters and their little quirks.  McLaggen as the team 
member who's always trying to run the team.  Slughorn (I said this on 
HPfGU) as a great example of how one can have true Slytherin 
characteristics and be more of an annoyance than a danger.  He is as 
ambitious as the next person, but in him it takes the form of social 
climbing and namedropping.  Scrimgeour carrying on the Ministry's 
incompetence but in a different, just as believable way as Fudge's.

-Her abandonment of those stupid phonetic names.  Kreacher, Umbridge, 
Grimmauld Place–-OP was full of the things.  OTOH, she fluffed a 
great opportunity when it came to naming Horcruxes.  And Fenrir 
Greyback . . . OK, the only explanation at this point is that 
werewolves are required to take a "werewolf name" after they're 
bitten.  It makes it rather difficult for them to keep it secret, 
though, doesn't it?  Wouldn't you think a few Hogwarts parents would 
have noticed that their kids' favorite teacher had one of those great 
big flag-waving werewolf names?
	I really wanted to help Pippin out by theorizing that 
Greyback and Lupin are the same person.  I had it all worked out–
"they're never seen together!" but then I saw that they are.  Or 
nearly together.  I'm sure it's nothing Pippin couldn't explain 
away.  There you go, P, it's a gift from me.

Amy Z C

---------------------------------------------------------
"It is a long time since my last visit," said Dumbledore, 
peering down his crooked nose and Uncle Vernon.  "I must 
say, your agapanthus are flourishing."