I’ve been wondering about Harry’s use of an Unforgiveable Curse also. But after he attempts it, Bella says “You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain–to enjoy it–righteous anger won’t hurt me for long–I’ll show you how it is done, shall I?” (p. 810). So I wonder if an Unforgiveable Curse attempted in the throes of righteous anger simply doesn’t work?
I found the Pensieve incident fascinating and wondered also if it was an accurate memory or Snape’s biased memory. It was good to see a non-idealized version of James, but that seemed sort of over the top and truly cruel.
I think Ron and Hermione end up together, as do Harry and Ginny (or is that too obvious???)
Hm. I’m not sure where I got that idea, but it was pretty firmly set in my mind. I don’t have time to pore through PoA and GoF, though; can someone else enlighten?
Regarding the Unforgivable Curse musings… it may depend on how literally you take the explanation of the (false) Moody regarding them in GoF.
Consider it like a gun: “this is a gun, it can kill people, if you use it to kill someone you’ll end up in prison for life”.
A fairly basic explanation, and not completely untrue, but it ommits self defence and all of the other complexities really associated. No one could argure that Harry wasn’t in a defence of his life sort of situation with Bellatrix.
Aside: for those who wonder if lack of witnesses to his use of the curse might be the answer, do you think the Ministry knows he used it? In CoS when Dobby levitates the cake, the message that the Ministry sends Harry re. underage use of magic states that charm used. Do you think they only track such things at young witches/wizards homes, or would spells cast inside the Ministry building also be recorded?
You know, maybe I’m missing something, but that bothered me too–in the beginning, when he uses the Patronus Charm, the ministry sends him an owl within a very short period of time stating, in part:
So why wouldn’t someone have known immediately that he performed the Unforgivable? The best explanations I could come up with are:
Maybe the Ministry only tracks underage wizards outside of school term–as they’re allowed to do magic during the school year, perhaps the spells they’re casting are not monitored at that time and thus no one knows he used it except Bellatrix.
The Ministry was so embarrassed by the first trial/ignoring Dumbledore’s warnings/the Harry smear campaign/escape of the Death Eaters/etc that they ignored it under the circumstances.
Either case, you’d think there would have been some mention of it, considering that it’s sort of the worst thing a wizard could do and worthy of a life sentence. I expect repercussions to abound in the next book–if only from Harry’s conscience–but it seems Dumbly ought to Give Harry A Talking To. Or something. It just seems like a huge, tremendous thing to not have been followed up–as though it’s conspicuously not mentioned.
I felt the Death chamber was rather straightforaward. Remember how Harry and Luna cold hear voices from it? The Unspeakables used that chamber to study the afterlife, a realm that remains mysterious to wizards. Crossing the curtain bodily, however, is lethal.
There was another former death Eater on the run at the end of Gof. Krum’s headmaster. Snape deaprted to reassume his position as Dumbledore’s mole at the end of IV.
I liked this book. Alot. PoA remains my favorite, however. This book felt much less self-contained than the others. Grawp, Luna, Neville, even Sirius’ death (which was the only major change in the status quo in this book, if you notice) felt left loose. This isn’t really a weakness, since they’ll probably be adressed in subsequent novels, but it stood alone much less readily than the others.
Sirius’ death was a disappointment, and backed in the middle of much too much action. The multiple weasly fakeouts were much more touching.
I hope to see more of Neville. I, too, suspect he may be somehow miore related to the prophecy than he seems.
A strong B+, overall.
The gun analogy is a good one, but unless Rowling gives more details about it, we can only guess.
I’d guess ideally, the Ministry has records of every magical going on in their jurisdiction. However, that seems to be conveniently brushed off. Highly doubtful, but perhaps a case could be made arguing that the Ministry has no need to keep records of uses of magic IN the building itself. Kinda ironic.
However, i’d like to think of it as one sophisticated machine, (sort of like a seismographer) that tracks magical currents and when an imbalance is spotted, zooms in on the event in question.
The other thing that has been pointed out is how easily Harry and co got into the MoM building. Was security really that lax? Did nobody work overtime/were there no security mechanisms in the building?
And the phone booth thing got me thinking of Superman. Did anyone wonder how soooo many people could squeeze into a phone booth?
To me that would see too much of a hassle to me. You’d have to wade throw yards of parchment to find anything.
My opinion: The Death Eaters cleared out security (but doing you know what) so that Potter would have a straight run into the trap.
My question is, is the prophecy sphere protected ONLY on the shelf itself? Cause it seems after Harry picked it up, then anyone could touch it (because the DEs all wanted it given to them).
I’m thinking the expanding charm that Mr. Weasley used on the trunck of the Ford Anglia.
Ahhh… this could then also explain the lack of notice taken of Harry’s use of the Unforgivable Curse.
If we can assume the Death Eaters turned off the Ministry’s security system – so that HP and friends, and later them could infiltrate the building – then it’s not much of a leap to surmise they turned off the Ministry’s thaumometer (or whatever it’s called), or at least tampered with it to prevent magical tracking within the building, otherwise alarms might have gone off once the DEs started using magic to fry HP and friends.
Just finished the book. I agree with those who think it’s the best yet (though I still haven’t read the first one). Like Goblet of Fire it had a darker and more sinister quality but there were fewer boring stretches in this one. It’s shaping up for a great climax with the last two books.
I liked that the book goes more into the politics of the wizard-world especially the bureaucratic battles between the Ministry and Dumbledore. The estrangement between Percy and his family was a nice,dramatic touch.
I agree that the death of Sirius itself was a bit abrupt but the scene afterwards where Harry talks to Nick and then to Luna was moving. It was nice to see Harry develop some empathy for someone who was being bullied: perhaps something he learnt from Snape’s memories.
Dumbledore’s revelation isn’t as interesting as I expected but it does set the stage nicely for future possibilities both with Longbottom and Harry’s aunt.
I thought it was clever of Rowling to announce in advance that a major character was going to die. She definitely does manipulate the reader and makes him guess who it’s going to be. I think the book would be a little less interesting if you didn’t know someone was going to die.
Well, I’ve looked through GoF, and I can’t find any reference to Cho being a year younger than Cedric. I think she was fifth-year in PoA, but I’m too tired to look now.
I did, however, remember another reason why she and Harry aren’t meant for each other. After her friend narcs out the DA and becomes disfigured (apparently permanently so, judging by the last chapter :eek: ), Cho is angry, and claims that “darling Hermione” should have warned people that the membership list was jinxed. But really, should that have been necessary? The omission was a true test of loyalty: DA members were supposed to protect their secrecy because they believed in the organization, not because they feared reprisal against themselves. If Cho couldn’t understand how wrong it was for whatsername to give them up, then she shouldn’t have been a member either.
“Open that thing he gave you!” “Why aren’t you opening the thing?!” “Did you forget about the thing, because I sure didn’t! Open it!”
And then he never once thinks, “Sirius would still be alive if I’d opened the thing!” when he finds it! Gah!
Can we share? Because I join in your swoonage.
I thought Dumbledoor’s revealing of the prophesy was a huge anti-climax. Honestly, is there anyone who even cracked the first book or saw the first movie and didn’t think it would all come down to a Harry/Voldemort showdown?
Rowling made me hate Umbridge with a passion I rarely even feel towards actual living people. There were about 30 points in the book that I wanted someone to use some heretofore unheard of spell and tear her limbs from her body.
I enjoyed this book a great deal, but my favorite remains PoA.
Hey, and you notice what wasn’t in this one? The old supporter-turns-out-to-be-an-enemy-and-supposed-enemy-turns-out-to-be-friend device seems to have been retired.
“As for his not feeling guilty afterwards, however, I have no defense.”
Well maybe it just doesn’t occur to him. The mirror makes him hope of meeting Sirius again and then he talks to Nick and Luna. Since the mirror is of no use maybe he doesn’t think about it any more.
Also remember that he already blames himself for causing Sirius’s death. All he would do is blame himself a bit more so the ommission isn’t very important.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Lily a mudblood - born of muggle parents, just like Hermione. In that case, her having magical powers is a bit of a fluke, so it would be even more strange for others the family (Petunia and Dudley) also having magical powers.
Is it really that much of a fluke for a Mudblood to have magical powers? I didn’t think it was implied to be as rare as, say, a squib born to a purebred family. In fact, I can’t think of a time when it was implied to be a fluke at all. In fact, Hagrid (maybe?) says that there are hardly any pure families left, so a lot of the witches and wizards must be coming mostly from muggle/magic unions nowadays.
I was wondering about the British slang thing too…
In my US version, it seemed to me that when the characters were speaking, British words were used, but in the narrative, American English was used. Course, now that I’m looking I can’t find an example, but it was an observation that I made. If they had to change it, I felt this was an effective way to do it, allowing the characters to retain their personality and language.
yeah, but being a witch/wizard born of one magical and one muggle parent is different than if both of your parents are muggles. If there’s no magic in your blood, it would have to be strange for you to become a wizard. If it were commonplace, than there wouldn’t be such a divide between the wizard and muggle communities - muggles would have to at least be more aware of the existance of magic.
True enough, but: 1, the term “Muggle-born” is the more polite one for, well, Muggle-born magical folks, please let’s keep a lid on the vulgarity; and 2, see my speculation above on Petunia’s possible abortive matriculation at Hogwarts. I gather there’s nothing unusual about Muggle-born siblings both turning out to be magical, c.f. the brothers Creevey.
BTW, I can state with authority that Cho Chang was a sixth year in this book.
Wisp00, it seems that Rowling and/or the publishers were a mite bit inconsistent w/r/t/ Americanizing the Anglicisms. For instance, contrary to your impression, in speaking at the Hog’s Head, the characters mention the Sorcerer’s Stone (rather than the Philosopher’s Stone), and this is the first book in which the narrative refers to sweaters as “jumpers.”
