| Twelfth Night. |
[Aug. 28th, 2005|02:07 pm] |
And now, a word from our sponsor.
 Hello, I'm Vincent Crabbe. You may remember me from such films as "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," and... "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The IMAX Experience." But today I'm here to talk about something more important. Some of you may recall that in Chapter Seven of the new novel Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I was seen on the Hogwarts Express, reading a comic book. Being a minor character in a wildly successful franchise, many fans often become interested in my hobbies, and so rarely a day goes by when I'm not asked just what comic books I like to read.
(walks over to a stack of comics on a desk, next to a fireplace.) Being from England, a lot of my fans--I affectionately refer to them as "Crabbe Lice"--naturally assume that I'm into the Marvel UK line, or possibly the classic tongue-in-cheek escapades of the mutant supergroup "Excalibur". (holds up polybagged copy of Excalibur #91). And since I'm a wizard, it's sometimes assumed that I'm a big proponent of DC's "Vertigo" line, for it's supernatural themes and high-brow storylines. (holds up an issue of Books of Magic: Life During Wartime, and that one issue of Neil Gaiman's Death where Death shows kids how to put on a condom.)
Well, those are good guesses, but the fact of the matter is that these comics suck. (tosses them all into the fire) Let's be clear about this: I'm a kid who looks like Tor Johnson trying to fit in with a group of ne'er-do-wells. I can't be seen reading this kind of crap. I'm this close to scoring Pansy Parkinson on the rebound once Señor Draco figures out he's gay and dumps her, so I have to make a good impression in the meantime, and the only way I'm gonna do that... is with this. (holds up a copy of New Thunderbolts #12.) That's right, Mudbloods, it's New Thunderbolts, the best comic book on the market today. In this upcoming issue, the Purple Man uses his powers of persuasion to force the Thunderbolts to fight amongst themselves, and that's only the beginning, because after that... oh, why should I give it away? Now, you may be asking right now, "Hey, Vincent, how'd you get that issue if it hasn't come out yet?" The answer to that question is simple: magic.
But enough about me, let's talk about what happens after #12. October sees TWO new issues of New Thunderbolts, as the team does battle with the New Avengers at the behest of the Commission of Superhuman Activities. Those New Avengers are a bunch of poncy idiots, if you asked me, so it'll be very satisfying watching the T-Bolts whip their bums around for forty-four pages.
Well, I won't take up any more of your time. I'm due to appear in a brief scene with Señor Draco in Book 7. Just remember, when you think of me, remember to support my favorite comic by purchasing New Thunderbolts each and every month, wherever non-crappy comics are sold. Because, well, I'm stealing my comics from the future, so someone should be buying them, at least.
Chapter 12: Silver and Opals (Original Japanese Title: "Lifted By My Own Pants!! The Magic Word is 'Levicorpus'.")
Where is Dumbledore? I don't really care, but Harry sure does, since Dumbledore's the only guy willing to put up with his crap. Lately, no one's seen him for days at a time, leaving Harry feeling a little abandoned. How emo.
Chapters 3-5 managed to cover the action of a single day. Meanwhile, 10-12 manage to skip around an entire month. Strangely, this hasn't helped the book's pacing much. So it's halfway into October, which means it's time for the first trip to Hogsmeade, whatever the hell that is. For our purposes, it's just the town where this chapter will be set.
But before that, let's see how Harry's doing with that book of his with notes from the Half-Blood Prince. Apparently he'll just while away his mornings reading these notes. I guess Halfy didn't have much else to do besides writing in his textbook. I have to seriously wonder why he didn't just get a notebook or something for all this stuff, but then there'd be no story, so... Not only does Halfy improve on the instructions in the book for making Potions, but he includes spells of his own design. You want to make someone's toenails grow super fast? Read the book. Hey, how can I make someone's tongue stick to the roof of his mouth? Read the book. What about a spell that generates this strange buzzing in people's ears, so they can't overhear you talking to your broker? Read the book.
Last, but certainly not least, is the spell Levicorpus. Halfy's shorthand notation says this has to be cast nonverbally, and while Harry's been sucking at that this year, he figures Halfy's been a way better teacher in print than Snape ever was in person, so he decides to give it a whirl. And it causes Ron to be lifted up out of his bed and into the air by his ankle. Fortunately, Halfy wrote the reversal in the book too, which is Liberacorpus. This causes Ron to fall headlong onto his mattress. Right about here, I'm thinking Ron really regrets not laughing at Harry's broken nose story.
Then again, Ron's kind of a wiener, because he's not only amused by all of this, he decides to tell the whole story to Hermione at breakfast. You ever knew a girl you'd tell literally anything to, just so you'd have an excuse to talk to her? Because I'm noticing here that Harry doesn't and Ron does. "Sometimes I just eat until I can't eat anymore. Then I have to go to the bathroom, and then I CAN eat more!"
Hermione is less than impressed. By the book I mean. I'm sure she's melting inside at Ron's heroic tale of being lifted into the air and then unceremoniously dropped again. If she's into grass and parchment then I wouldn't put it past her. No, her beef is with Halfy's book, because she thinks this Prince guy was a little dodgy. No, really? Just because he uses an alias and we have no idea who he is, you think he might have something to hide?
This discussion then reminds Harry that his father once used the same spell on Snape. This was all courtesy of that Pensieve thing from Chapter 10. I guess he's been messing with Pensives before now. All of this makes him suddenly wonder if the Half-Blood Prince could really be--! But then Hermione reminds him of all the other people they've known who used the same spell, mostly Death Eaters. Wait... hold on a second. It's a nonverbal spell. How would you know if they were using it or not? Yes, the effects would be the same, but couldn't there be other spells by other names that do the same thing? Also, if Harry's seen this thing before, why was it such a big deal that Halfy had it in his book? Unless he invented the technique, I don't see the significance. And I don't see "(c)1974 The Half-Blood Prince" showing up anytime soon.
Well, anyway, Ron argues that the only reason Hermione's all freaking out about Halfy is because he's better than her at Potions. This isn't terribly significant, but when he says this Rowling includes the phrase: "he added, pointing a sausage at her sternly." Yeah, I'll bet he'd like to point a sausage at her sternly. What would Dr. Granger, D.D.S. have to say about this?
In Halfy's defense, the boys point out that if he were such a bad guy, he wouldn't have incorporated "Half-Blood" into his name, since the Death Eaters and their ilk are always down on half-bloods. Hermione counters with the logic I've wanted to point out for some time: The Death Eaters can't all be purebloods, because there's probably not even enough true pureblood wizards left anymore to bolster their ranks. Of course, if Chapter 10 is to be believed, even Voldemort himself is the son of a Muggle. So she concludes that they've only really got it in for the Muggle-borns, such as her.
All right, let's stop for a minute so I can get all this straight.
Muggles are just your regular Joes. You, me, Captain America, Ted Koppel, the Australian guy from those old Energizer ads, etc. All Muggles who lack the genetic capacity to perform magic.
Purebloods have magical super powers, thanks to being descended from generations upon generations of other wizards. The Gaunts were purebloods (or so they claim), and apparently so was Harry's father, but we'll come back to that in a minute.
Muggle-borns CAN do magic, but rather than inheriting this capability from their parents, they were simply born with the ability. Hermione fits into this category, as both her parents are just mild-mannered Muggle dentists, or so I've been informed. Presumably, folks like her are reviled by the Death Eaters because they're freaks of nature, whose very existence threatens their belief that their bloodlines are the source of their powers. If people like Hermione can live in their society as equals, then what good is pureblood status at all?
Half-Blood would refer to the offspring of a pureblood and a Muggle, naturally. Other fractions would come into play with each successive generation, but I think I get the idea. They can still do magic, and apparently they're not as offensive to the Death Eaters as Muggle-borns, for the reasons Hermione described. I guess the thinking is that it's better to credit even a single drop of pureblood for your magical super powers than to attribute them to an accident of fate.
Blood traitors: Judging from the context in Chapter 10, I'm left to assume a blood traitor is a pureblood who defies the antiquated taboos surrounding Muggles and Muggle-borns. Ron explains that everyone in his whole family is a blood traitor, although I'm not sure how that adds up. Half his family would have to be Muggle-borns for that to work, right?
The one thing that's got me stuck is what you call the child of a pureblood and a Muggle-born. Harry's the quintessential example of this, I suppose. Is he a half-blood because he's only half-pureblood, or is he still a pureblood because at least both his parents were full-on wizards, if not actually pure? I'm asking because much of this chapter is a big waste of space, so it's not like I have anything more important to cover.
Anyway, it's during this conversation that Harry recalls his father's a pureblood, so it'd be pretty unlikely for him to have been the Half-Blood Prince. You know, it's Harry's dad, and yet he has to actually think about this to eliminate him from the list of suspects. Meanwhile I'm not even a fan of these books, and I've only read less than half of this one, and yet I worked it out much quicker. The Legendary Super Dumbass strikes again.
Then along comes Ginny to deliver a note from Dumbledore. Do the faculty at this school just grab any student they can find for this sort of work? Because I find it awfully convenient that every carrier so far knows where and how to find Harry. Famous as he is, I sort of doubt the younger students would recognize him on sight alone. Also, Harry was just angsting earlier over how he hadn't seen Dumbledore in a while, yet Ginny has? Would it have been so difficult for Mr. All-Powerful Wizard Principal to get off his own duff and find Harry himself? He can teleport. Anyway, the missive is to schedule their next private session.
Now it's onto Hogsmeade. There's security guys checking the kids on their way out, which prompts Ron to ask what the use is in checking to see if they're smuggling contraband OUT of the school. This remark ensures he gets probed extra hard. Nobody asked me, but it strikes me as a good idea, since a)a troublemaker wouldn't expect it, and b)it helps double-check the time they scanned the students on their way IN. Again, I have to wonder why it took an entire war to get them to start doing this, since I'd imagine Dark Objects are roughly a hundred times more dangerous than handguns, and kids have brought those to schools for much less reason than on Voldemort's say-so.
I don't know how they got there. Probably walked, although the idea of all these magical students having to pile onto a thirty-year-old Bluebird schoolbus with no seatbelts or shocks is highly amusing to me. What we do know is that it's cold as f*** outside. Gee, early fall in England, never would have imagined. Also, we find out that Zonko's Joke Shop has been boarded up. ROWLING RETURNS WITH A DARKER POTTER THAT WOWS CRITICS! What's next, is the cotton candy store gonna be closed for failing health inspections? Thankfully, Rowling doesn't bother explaining the long and storied past of Zonko and his whimsical Joke Shop. Would that Hagrid had gotten the same treatment.
So the nWo goes to Honeydukes instead. I'm not positive what-all they sell there, but it's warm inside and that's good enough for them. See, this is why I'm never that interested in travel, because my attitude is that it's warm at home. I'm sure the kids just wanted a change of scenery more than anything else, but I don't much see the appeal. Besides, Horace Slughorn is in the store to meet them, so it just goes to show that no matter where you go, there you are.
Now, I've felt twinges of guilt whenever I make fat jokes about Slughorn. With him, I draw inspiration from the MST3K episode that featured "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank", a made-for-TV-movie starring a very portly villain who sat in his chair all day making grandiose statements. "Fingalllll, you are MIIIINE!" is a typical line by the bad guy from OaTMB, which Mike and the Bots would follow up on by adding "with a side of potaaatoeeees!" The reason Slughorn reminds me of the guy from "Overdrawn" is because neither guy seems to be terribly suited for their role. I've yet to figure out what Slughorn's angle is supposed to be. He's not very funny, Harry seems to have little trouble avoiding him, and this "Slug Club" of his doesn't seem to be much of a threat to anything. Zabini is more interesting to me just because Slughorn shows an interest in him that I can't explain. So ultimately you're just left with this guy who's wandering in and out of the story with no apparent purpose, and all I have to say about him is he's a very large man. If any large men out there take offense at my rapier wit, then I might feel kind of bad about that, but as Rowling points out, here he is "occupying at least a quarter of the shop". Now I don't care how small an establishment this is, but that's just insane for a guy to be that big. This goes beyond pleasantly plump types like Andy Richter and moves on into the depressing spectrum of Yokozuna, the former WWF champion who ended up somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 pounds before he died in his hotel room a few years ago from very predictable, albeit tragic, causes. The whole "quarter of the shop" thing, plus the fact that every single appearance he's made involves food of some kind, are why I harp on Sluggy's weight. For example, in this chapter he's holding a large bag of crystallized pineapples, which I assume are enough like the regular kind that they're edible. He also reminds Harry that he's missed out on the last three dinner invitations and casually mentions a fourth.
Harry has good reason for missing out, though, because as the team captain, he's been deliberately scheduling Quidditch practice to coincide with whatever date Slughorn sets. This way, Ron doesn't get left out, and the two of them can have a laugh with Ginny, "imagining Hermione shut up with McLaggen and Zabini". Man, what a dick. This time, however, Harry's already got that date with Dumbledore to use as an excuse, so I guess Ron's on his own. "Unlucky again!" is Slughorn's response, and he teases that Harry can't evade him forever. Many cupcakes, who once thought as Harry did, can attest to that, I'm sure. Throughout all this, he totally ignores Ron, "as though he had been a display of Cockroach Clusters". Not to dispute the literary genius of J.K. Rowling, but Cockroach Clusters sound like something fairly conspicuous, whatever they are. Hermione tries to explain that the Slughorn dinners aren't that bad really, but this starts to annoy Ron, so she backs off.
So next they head over to some other store and run into Mundungus. Yes, Mundungus. Rowling's spell-checker must loathe her, I'm sure. Basically, Mundungus seems to be some kind of scavenger, or a thief. The latter is borne out when Harry spots an item of his and then slams him against the wall with his hand clamped around his throat. Then he pulls out the wand with his other hand. Dude, you're not Batman either, so drop it.
See, Harry recognized one of Mundunguseseses' silver goblets as belonging to Sirius Black, before he got killed/turned into a dog/whatever. Harry suspects Mundungus of robbing Black's home shortly afterwards, but before he can get an answer, he Disapparated... which is like Apparating I guess, except for... hmm.
Tonks shows up out of nowhere to half-heartedly console Harry and get him to go inside out of the cold. Yeah, why is Tonks in this book, by the way? Like several characters, it seems like she only shows up to remind us she still exists. That, and to show how different she is since whatever went down in Book 5. Wow, brown hair. OMG IT IS OF TEH DARK!
In the pub, Harry just pitches a bitch about Mundungus for stealing a dead man's stuff. Truthfully, it's all Harry's property, which pisses him off even more, despite the fact that he didn't even want the damn house to begin with. I swear, this guy's got some kind of persecution complex. He never cares about anything until something threatens it, and then he goes bananas. Harry plots to tell on Mundungus to Dumbledore, which seems to be his other problem. Wah, wah, wah, go run home to Dumbledore, ya big baby.
There's a brief moment in the pub where they calm the hell down, and Hermione watches Ron watching for that cute barmaid he seems to like. Just remember, GINNY GAVE HARRY A LOVE POTION EVERY 24 HOURS!
From there, they decided to mosey on back to school, and on the way they spot Katie Bell and a friend walking ahead of them. They argue over some package, to the point where she drops it. Then, as is the theme to this chapter, she starts to levitate into the air. Only this time it's more like she's possessed or something, and when she starts screaming Harry and Ron rush over to grab her feet and haul her back down. Harry runs off to find help, and ends up bringing Hagrid. He just looks at her and runs back to the castle with her in his arms. So I guess this town was in walking distance. Ah, well.
As the nWo starts to console Katie's pal, the investigation begins. The object in question turns out to be an opal necklace (Silver and Opals, see?). Harry recognizes it at the same necklace he saw in Knockturn Alley back in Chapter 6. He concludes that Katie must have touched it to end up in her predicament. When he asks where she got it, Katie's pal says that she went to the bathroom in the pub, and just came out with it, saying it was a surprise she had to deliver to someone at Hogwarts.
They meet Professor McGonagall on the way back to school, and she immediately sends them to her office and has the necklace sent to Snape. What, is he the resident necklace expert or something? She asks the nWo what happened and after they explain, Harry asks to see Dumbledore. What, is he the resident necklace expert now? Mickey G explains he's outta town this weekend, but she wants to know what's on his mind, so Harry shares his brilliant theory of the crime. Now get this: Harry hates Señor Draco's Malfoy's guts, right? So maybe... SEÑOR DRACO is behind all this. It's mind-blowing, I know.
Actually, Harry's case isn't entirely without merit. He tells McGonagall about how they followed Señor Draco in Chapter 6, how they watched him place some item on reserve, and how the Katie's necklace was in that very same store on the same day. Ironclad, right? For some reason, the rest of the characters feel the need to poke holes in Harry's theory over the course of the next two pages. Besides the obvious point that Señor Draco's ties to the necklace are purely coincidental, Hermione also has to mention that the reason Harry SAW the damn thing in the first place was because she went in the store and asked about it, and the cashier didn't tell her it was on reserve. Additionally, she also points out the same logic I used when I reviewed that chapter. Señor Draco said he couldn't take it with him at the time, because he didn't want to be seen with whatever "it" was. A necklace would be all too easy to conceal. There's also the matter of the increased security in the school that would have kept Señor Draco from ever bringing such a thing with him in the first place. Two reasons why this all pisses me off.
I. I freakin' already know all this. Rowling writes this scene like I never read Chapter Six, or like I read it and forgot all about it or something. I'm a little impressed that Hermione managed to eliminate the necklace the same way I had done earlier, but the point is that it's redundant for her to do so, because I already did. And the security measures have been pointed out in every single chapter since they got to the school, including the beginning of this one. This book is already long enough, so why waste time on what we already know?
II. Why can't Harry figure any of this out? Nothing against flawed characters, but I've yet to figure out why I'm supposed to like Harry Potter. Early on, he kind of impressed me with a few courageous statements. Sure, he won't back down from the Malfoys, and he won't be cowed into submission by Voldemort. But the kid's as dumb as a bag of hammers. Courage doesn't get you very far if you're too stupid to use it. He's so determined to bring down Malfoy that he's completely oblivious to the fact that he has to convince other people in order to accomplish this. The Boy Who Cried Wolf isn't a hero, so why should Harry be? And even if Señor Draco is masterminding all this, then what? Expel Señor Draco? That still doesn't resolve the matter at hand, which is where Katie got the necklace and what dark purpose was it supposed to serve.
As it is, the professor has one more beef with Harry's "Señor Draco Did It" theory: Señor Draco wasn't even in Hogsmeade when this all happened. In fact, she was with Señor Draco the entire time, since he was doing detention. Instead of realizing his mistake, Harry just gets mad at his friends for not taking his side. What a douche.
So after McGonagall dismisses them, they start speculating over who was supposed to get Katie's "surprise". Harry also wonders why Malfoy would have her take it into the castle when it would have been simpler to avoid the security systems and do the deed outside the school. One track mind, this one. Hermione gently reminds Harry that Señor Draco wasn't even there when all this happened, so Harry concludes that one of his friends gave it to Katie for him, or maybe his fellow Death Eaters. At this point, I half expect Harry to accuse Señor Draco of having weapons of mass destruction.
Finally, Ron points out that it wasn't a very well-thought-out maneuver, whatever its target was supposed to be. If Katie really did get the necklace in the restroom, then she didn't even make it more than a few blocks before blowing the entire operation, and in a very dramatic fashion at that. "But since when has Malfoy ever been one of the world's great thinkers?" is Harry's supposedly witty reply. I think Harry's managed to surpass the Super Dumbass and become some kind of souped-up Ultra Super Dumbass, but it's hard to be sure.
Sigh. It's a feint. First of all, if Katie really did get the necklace in the girls' room, then instead of suspecting Crabbe and Goyle, Harry might consider Pansy Parkinson, the only girl in Señor Draco's circle of friends. More likely, however, it was Señor Draco's mother who made the drop-off, since she could pick up the necklace and go straight to Hogsmeade without having to go through school security. Also, Pansy would have been scanned on her way out of the school grounds, so she probably couldn't have pulled it off. In any case, Katie's part of the plan would have been doomed to failure anyway, since she would have been caught by security on her way back into the school. That, and the fact that she blabbed the whole thing to her friend and made no effort to conceal the necklace, AND the fact that she pulled a Jean Grey as soon as she touched the thing, suggests to me that this was more about the appearance of an attack than an attack itself. A diversion, either to draw attention away from the delivery of Señor Draco's REAL mystery item, or to get the necklace into the school. Ron wonders how Katie would have gotten it into the school, when in fact he was with Harry as he carried the thing all the way there for her. McGonagall brings it through the gate, and she immediately passes it off to Snape, who could very well pass it along again to Señor Draco, if that's actually what the plan is supposed to be.
While this chapter wasn't really that offensive in and of itself, recapping it reminds me of just how frustrated I am with this plotline. I seem to be roughly one step ahead of Hermione and two steps ahead of Ron. Harry acts like he's read this book before, except he forgot all the details so he can't actually produce any rational thought process to harmonize our conclusions. We both know Malfoy's involved in all this, but only one of us has any idea what that means. I see Malfoy as the end of this investigation, and Harry seems to think it's the beginning, like a guy who tries to balance his checkbook backwards to justify a certain number. Again, this book isn't exactly moving at a breakneck pace. It wouldn't be a bad idea if these characters could move a little faster in figuring this kind of stuff out.
And there's a lack of charisma with the players, too. This whole chapter was very likely to set up how the Death Eaters managed to smuggle something into the school for Señor Draco's mission, while the Hogwarts staff flails around helplessly trying to figure out what happened. If I'm right, then it all smacks of countless "Hogan's Heroes" episodes I've seen, like the time Hogan sabotaged the wooden steps leading to the Commandant's office, so that he could suggest to Colonel Klink that the prisoners rebuild the steps with bricks, so they'd last longer, all so that Hogan could get some bricks into camp to swap out with gold bars the Nazis had taken from other countries. The only problem with all this is that McGonagall and Harry aren't as funny as Colonel Klink, and Señor Draco is no Robert Hogan. It's not enough to be clever with stuff like this. You have to lay on a little charm, so the reader can connect to the characters and feel like he's part of the plot. Well, Señor Draco's an obnoxious prick, and Harry's an Ultra Super Dumbass, so that's clearly not working out. The last time they matched wits, I was rooting for the train. This time, I think I'm rooting for the necklace, because at least with it I'm not totally sure what role it plays in the rest of this book. Go, necklace.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Can the Secret Riddle break the double-digit curse? |
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