Harry Potter, the second time around

Cafe Society
1

I’ve re-read* the first two Harry Potter novels and re-watched the first two movies recently, and I can’t help but notice little things jumping out at me.

In Chamber of Secrets, we meet Lucius Malfoy for the first time. Given what I think everyone now knows but which I will spoiler anyway, to whit

that Dumbledore was gay

Malfoy’s hatred of him takes on a very specific nature somehow. Is it just me?

It seems homophobic. A friend (who is a lesbian) responded to this comment that she didn’t think Dumbledore was really all that out. I don’t think someone like Malfoy would wait to have their homophobic suspicions confirmed, though.

To be honest, it brings a richness to the work for me. There are so many kinds of hatred in the Potterverse, and they surround all the main characters so much of the time, that adding one more only makes it more universal.

The other thing which I noticed, and did not like, was that when Harry tricks Malfoy into freeing Dobby, they did two things wrong. Well, one thing wrong, because it directly contradicts the book, and one thing wrong because it just seems wrong. The former is that Malfoy hands the book to Harry, who hands it to Dobby. I don’t think that would serve the pupose.

The latter, which bothered me much more, is that in his anger, Malfoy begins to use the Avada Kedavra curse on Harry. I mean … seriously? Someone canny and resourceful enough to work his way back into wizarding society after being one of Voldemort’s highest-ranking associates becomes so incensed over losing his house elf that he’s willing to risk going to Azkaban by using an unforgiveable curse? Against a 12 year old boy? Down the hall from Dumbledore’s office?

:rolleyes:

Just seemed sloppy to me, is all.

*Okay, technically, I re-listened to them on CD.

2

I just reread the first two books myself - read them, mind you, none of this audiobook rubbish! :smiley: - and I agree that knowing the whole story gives more depth to the earlier bits. Things that seemed throwaway are actually signifigant now that we’ve traveled the entire way.

Re: Malfoy and the Avada Kedavra, I think it’s plausible. He thought he was high in Voldy’s ranks, and probably figured that if he succeeded in killing Harry, he’d spend a few days in jail. Then You-Know-Who would rise to power again, and he’d be free and living the evil life once more.

With Dobby and the book, I got nothin’. Jo was still learning at that point, so I forgive her. All things considered, she did a damn good job of keeping things consistent and weaving a great plot.

3

It’s interesting that in the movie, the director (or someone) fixed the Dobby problem. Harry gives the book to Malfoy, who shoves it at Dobby.

4

I’m not really convinced that she meant for Dumbledore to be gay as she was writing the books. Maybe she did, but it seemed like it was something she thought to do after the fact simply b/c it wouldn’t really change anything about the story & because she regretted not introducing a gay character.

All the teachers seemed asexual to me, which is how I remember thinking of all my grade-school teachers.

5

(unboxed spoilers)
I think Malfoy’s problem with Dumbledore is Dumbledore’s acceptance of Muggles (particularly as a born-again Muggle lover since we find out Dumbledore once wanted to subjugate them). Also, nobody really knows how (at the point of Chamber of Secrets Voldemort was killed (to the extent that he was) when Harry was a baby, but it is known to them that Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort feared, so it’s possible that Malfoy and other Death Eaters assumed Dumbledore had something to do with whatever protection was on Potter.

Do you think that Malfoy knew the diary was a horcrux, incidentally? Obviously he had instructions to get it into the hands of Potter and knew it had value, and another horcrux was in the Malfoy vault, but I wondered when reading it if they knew what they were other than just “something cherished by Lord Voldemort and with some kind of protective power”.

JK Rowling has said that Dolores Umbridge (who TBMK was not a Death Eater, just an idealogue and a power-mad fool) was tried, convicted, and imprisoned after some Nuremberg trials like proceedings following the Battle of Hogwarts. Does anybody know if the Malfoys were imprisoned? Lucius of course had been sprung anyway, but because they did- somewhat- turn against Voldemort in the final days (and in fact without Narcissa’s treachery Harry’s return would have been much harder) I’ve wondered if that redeemed them.

As for Dumbledore, I always assumed it was going to be revealed he and Minerva had been the partners in a long term fling. I wonder when Rowling decided he was gay. (It’s ridiculous to me how hard some people took that bit of news, some even arguing that “no way! That’s impossible” when essentially Rowling is Dumbledore’s god- if she says he is, it’s an unappealable verdict.)

Incidentally, when reading the books I pictured (a younger than now) Anthony Hopkins as Malfoy with Joanna Lumley as his wife. I have to admit Jason Isaacs is better casting. (I still like Jennifer Saunders and Eric Idle [who were my mental images] better as the Weasleys though.)

6

It’s been a while since I’ve read the books, but if I recall correctly Harry shoved the diary into his nasty old sock and handed to it Lucius. Lucius then pulled the diary out and tossed the sock aside, and Dobby caught it.

Dumbledore tells Harry in book 6 that he doesn’t think Lucius knew exactly what the diary would do; he believed Voldemort gave it to him for safekeeping, told him only that it was the key to opening the Chamber, and not to plant it at Hogwarts until Voldy gave the go-ahead. But then Voldy got zapped, and Lucius ended up using the diary for his own ends - he planted it on Ginny Weasley, hoping that when she was discovered offing Muggle-borns it would discredit Arthur at the Ministry.

As far as Dumbledore being gay - a lot of writers will do character sketches on their main characters, filling in their childhoods, major and minor episodes in their lives, ice-cream preferences, favorite TV show, hobbies, whatever. Most of this stuff never makes it into the book, but it helps the author really get to know their characters, which helps them make the characters more believable in the book. Not saying that’s what Jo did, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

I didn’t like the whole Lucius/Avada Kedavra thing in the movie, either. It just didn’t seem to me that he’d be that careless. I suppose, though, that between his disappointment that the diary plot failed, and his anger that Dobby got freed, he just totally and completely Lost It.

7

I think it goes to the nature of what constitutes “canon.” Comments by an author that never make it to the pages of a book are certainly persuasive, but they aren’t as strong, canonically, as events that occur in the books.

I seem to remember reading once that the Star Wars universe had addressed this issues with levels of canon - the most authority went to the events of the movies, then to books sanctioned by Lucas, then to books unsanctioned by Lucas, and possibly other categories of things as well.

8

What’s weird is that Dumbledore’s brother’s attempts to use a romantic hex on a goat is canon (he even has a goat as his patronum) and I don’t think I heard any objections. At least she didn’t make him proprietor of The Painted Bird tavern. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Where did she say this? I tend not to keep up with all the Harry Potter websites, and I’d love to read “straight from the horse’s mouth” that Umbridge got hers.

10

Follow this link to the Harry Potter Lexicon. Scroll down to (or search the term) Dolores Umbridge. Rowling does indeed say it, at a Bloomsbury online chat. Here, in fact.

11

On a Leaky Cauldron chat soon after Deathly Hallows came out:

I somehow missed before that she said in the same chat Lucius does not return to Azkaban but is pardoned.

12

He put the sock in the diary, not the diary in the sock, didn’t he? (Sorry, I’m in a house with only foreign language HP books at the moment.)

13

In the book Harry puts the diary in the sock and throws the sock-covered-book to Lucius. In the movie, the sock is hidden inside the book.

This is all from memory, of course, but I think Marlitharn has it right.

14

Marlitharn does have it right.

I do kind of wonder what kind of magical socks Harry wore, that stretched enough to stuff a book into.

15

I know I do this, and I don’t write anything with nearly the cast size and complexity of Rowling’s world. Most of the time I sit down with a demographic chart and say, “Okay, I’m going to need thirty characters altogether, which means in all probability, 4-6 of them will be black, 4-6 Hispanic, a smattering of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage but probably no more than 2 or 3, plus on the average I’d say 4 or 5 of them will be gays or lesbians.”* I want to make sure that the characters reflect a good diversity, because characters in a story are like paints or brushes: the more diverse your palette, the more likely you’ll have somebody to fit the scene when you need it.

So yeah, I could see her doing something similar. In fact, she may have done: Dean is black; the two Indian girls — what, Pushme and Pullyou? I forget; there’s Irish and Welsh and Scottish kids at Hogwarts. She did a good job of spreading out the various ethnicities, I feel, so it probably was part of the plan.

*Based on the demographics of the U.S., anyway

16

In the book (in which the diary goes into the sock) I pictured a soft-leather bound book about half the size of what we see in the movie.

Well, now I’m going to have to watch the movie again, because I remember that as being what happens in the book, but in the movie I remember Malfoy shoving the book back at Harry, who gives it to Dobby.

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Relevant part at about :29 in this YouTube clip.

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Gracias.

19

He couldn’t have been in too much of a hurry, to have re-tied his shoe so nicely.

20

kaylasdad:

IIRC, Harry always got Uncle Vernon’s or Dudley’s old socks, which likely means they were pretty big.