Harry Potter Reread - Chapter 1.1
May 31st, 2015 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alasse_irenaSo over on Tumblr, a few friends and I embarked on an epic Harry Potter reread. (We are currently up to chapter 4 or something. This will take us like several years to complete at this rate.) Anyway, while we are having fun, Tumblr doesn't really seem to encourage discussion the way Dreamwidth does, so I thought I'd bring my part over here, bit by bit, on the off chance that anyone else wants to weigh in.
I presume I will encounter other Dumbledore outfits in the future, but if my memory serves me correctly, “long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots” is the most fabulours of them, and this disappoints me greatly. Why couldn’t there have been a scene in which Harry and Dumbledore go clubbing in tight pants and eyeliner? (Also, while we’re on outfits, McGonagall is apparently “wearing square glasses”. I choose to imagine that they are black framed super hipster glasses.)
Further questions about Dumbledore: do you know what’s hundred times less suspicious than all the streetlights in a street suddenly going out? Yup, it’s all the streetlights in the street not suddenly going out. Seriously. My house has a low brick fence at the front, and people sit on it in the dead of night to chat reasonably often. I and a lot less likely to question that than I am to question all the streetlights suddenly turning off. Seriously, guys. Not to mention that a) you’re in the city; it’s not going to get dark enough for you to be invisible; and b) you have a flying motorbike arriving pretty soon. I hardly think darkness is going to make a great deal of difference at that point.
Okay, my next issue is this:
“A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all.”
Surely, after eleven years of war - a war, notably, whose whole ideology is based around the superiority of wizards to Muggles - you might start thinking that maybe the way your society relates to Muggles at the moment isn’t really working? I feel like this is the time when maybe significant changes might be a good idea.
(On an aside, with regard to the eleven years war, Lily was I think 21 when she died. This means that her entire experience of the wizarding world has been war. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but it interests me.)
Hints about wizards’ problem with Muggles are all over the place here, though. When McGonagall raises objections to Harry living with the Dursleys, what she says is, “you couldn’t find two people who were less like us”. That’s the worst thing she can say about them. Similarly, Hagrid: “poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles”. It’s not, “Poor Harry, his parents were murdered.” The absolute worst thing about this situation is that he has to live with Muggles.
I suppose I could take from this that Dumbledore is more open-minded than the other two, because he deems this a legitimate home for Harry, in spite of knowing that Muggles are living there, but he also doesn’t seem to think it’s important to maybe have a conversation with a person before he leaves a baby on their doorstep, so I don’t think I can cut him much slack, even if he’s less prejudiced than the others.
On a totally different topic, this exchange happens:
"But you’re different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of.”
“You flatter me,” said Dumbledore calmly. “Voldemort had powers I will never have.”
“Only because you’re too – well – noble to use them.”
“It’s lucky it’s dark. I haven’t blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.”
Are they flirting? My limited experience with flirting is not really helping me here, but it looks a hell of a lot like some flirting is going on. So at first I presumed, given that we know (I think?) that Dumbledore’s not interested in women, that it’s affectionate teasing - maybe a little jarring in the middle of a conversation about Voldemort’s sinister dark powers, but hey, everything’s been so sinister and dark for the past decade that I can forgive them.
Then I thought about this: in the conversation that follows, McGonagall clarifies that the rumours she’s heard about James and Lily are true, and expressed surprise that this is where Harry’s family lives. So - she doesn’t know about the Potters’ deaths until Dumbledore clarifies. She doesn’t know the Dursleys are related to Harry until Dumbledore tells her. Anyway, dropping off a baby is not a three person job. The only reason I can see for her to be here is that Hagrid told her that Dumbledore would be here. And she’s been hanging out here all day. Is she crushing on Dumbledore? Does she think he’s up to something suspect? Why did she follow the Dursleys all day if she wasn’t vetting them as potential parents for Harry?
I presume I will encounter other Dumbledore outfits in the future, but if my memory serves me correctly, “long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots” is the most fabulours of them, and this disappoints me greatly. Why couldn’t there have been a scene in which Harry and Dumbledore go clubbing in tight pants and eyeliner? (Also, while we’re on outfits, McGonagall is apparently “wearing square glasses”. I choose to imagine that they are black framed super hipster glasses.)
Further questions about Dumbledore: do you know what’s hundred times less suspicious than all the streetlights in a street suddenly going out? Yup, it’s all the streetlights in the street not suddenly going out. Seriously. My house has a low brick fence at the front, and people sit on it in the dead of night to chat reasonably often. I and a lot less likely to question that than I am to question all the streetlights suddenly turning off. Seriously, guys. Not to mention that a) you’re in the city; it’s not going to get dark enough for you to be invisible; and b) you have a flying motorbike arriving pretty soon. I hardly think darkness is going to make a great deal of difference at that point.
Okay, my next issue is this:
“A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all.”
Surely, after eleven years of war - a war, notably, whose whole ideology is based around the superiority of wizards to Muggles - you might start thinking that maybe the way your society relates to Muggles at the moment isn’t really working? I feel like this is the time when maybe significant changes might be a good idea.
(On an aside, with regard to the eleven years war, Lily was I think 21 when she died. This means that her entire experience of the wizarding world has been war. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but it interests me.)
Hints about wizards’ problem with Muggles are all over the place here, though. When McGonagall raises objections to Harry living with the Dursleys, what she says is, “you couldn’t find two people who were less like us”. That’s the worst thing she can say about them. Similarly, Hagrid: “poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles”. It’s not, “Poor Harry, his parents were murdered.” The absolute worst thing about this situation is that he has to live with Muggles.
I suppose I could take from this that Dumbledore is more open-minded than the other two, because he deems this a legitimate home for Harry, in spite of knowing that Muggles are living there, but he also doesn’t seem to think it’s important to maybe have a conversation with a person before he leaves a baby on their doorstep, so I don’t think I can cut him much slack, even if he’s less prejudiced than the others.
On a totally different topic, this exchange happens:
"But you’re different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of.”
“You flatter me,” said Dumbledore calmly. “Voldemort had powers I will never have.”
“Only because you’re too – well – noble to use them.”
“It’s lucky it’s dark. I haven’t blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.”
Are they flirting? My limited experience with flirting is not really helping me here, but it looks a hell of a lot like some flirting is going on. So at first I presumed, given that we know (I think?) that Dumbledore’s not interested in women, that it’s affectionate teasing - maybe a little jarring in the middle of a conversation about Voldemort’s sinister dark powers, but hey, everything’s been so sinister and dark for the past decade that I can forgive them.
Then I thought about this: in the conversation that follows, McGonagall clarifies that the rumours she’s heard about James and Lily are true, and expressed surprise that this is where Harry’s family lives. So - she doesn’t know about the Potters’ deaths until Dumbledore clarifies. She doesn’t know the Dursleys are related to Harry until Dumbledore tells her. Anyway, dropping off a baby is not a three person job. The only reason I can see for her to be here is that Hagrid told her that Dumbledore would be here. And she’s been hanging out here all day. Is she crushing on Dumbledore? Does she think he’s up to something suspect? Why did she follow the Dursleys all day if she wasn’t vetting them as potential parents for Harry?
(no subject)
Date: June 2nd, 2015 05:51 am (UTC)