![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's really hard to spend an intense long weekend listening to meta meta meta and come back and write about it. I don't even know where to start, except to say that PR was my first conference and I think I was spoiled by it. It was *really* well run. My biggest complaint was--and this is so cheesy and cliché--that I wish I had a Time Turner so I could have gone to more stuff that were at the same time. (And that's just the programming, of course--not even getting into just having a good time outside of the programming walking around and eating and drinking and talking and wtf flamingo? and yay!)
I will shamelessly say that my own paper was the most fun ever for me.:-) Especially because everybody started talking afterwards so it was just like having a great lj conversation but better because there were people there in person and Aja brought her Draco doll and let me have him on the stage with me.
I can't wait until they put the thing out with all the papers I didn't get to read and panels I didn't get to go to. It's still all sort of processing in my brain. Oh--and the Snape panel was also really fun. I admit I love the whole Snape=Anubis theory and was glad it was represented. Also, interestingly, the last question the Borders mod asked was whether we thought Snape would live or die. The three of us on Snape=Friend said he would die; the three on Snape=Foe said he would live.
For my first little blip of response to an actual paper, I saw a really cool one on PoA as a Gothic novel that
...got me thinking about Sirius' death.
The paper concentrated solely on PoA and showed how it followed the tropes and themes of the Gothic novel, including its anxiety about the failure of the patriarchal line (that's ultimately conquered when Harry learns it was he and not James that chased away the Dementors). Hearing about PoA discussed in terms of the Gothic makes me think how funny it was that at the time it came out, and even afterwards in GoF, we saw Sirius as a character presented as a man on his own who was part of *Harry's* family as one of the Marauders. He was like an uncle, along with Remus and even Peter. Harry saw him as family and a connection to his father.
But then in OotP it turns out Sirius actually exists in the context of this big, clanking Gothic structure of his own: the Black family. And that's what got me thinking about his death. One of the things that seems kind of important about the Black family is it's so deeply connected to Slytherin and Purebloods. Like, if ultimately Slytherin has to be integrated into the school, how does JKR go about attacking its problems? The obvious solution seems to be that she went Gothic, creating this family with a house full of secrets that is being destroyed. Sirius' father isn't really shown, but the mere fact that his mother is mad and screaming kind of indicates a failure there. Sirius and Regulus both failed in different ways as adults.
So why did Sirius have to die, besides Harry going on alone? Honestly, I think it may be important for Sirius to have died because Harry is his heir. In inheriting the Black House, which of course symbolizes all the secrets and tragedies of the Black family (literally and figuratively) Harry has become an Heir to the Black family in Sirius' place. Just as PoA gave us the Shrieking Shack that held the Potter family secrets Harry has now inherited and taken ownership of the even more insane Black family secrets--secrets it's going to be harder for him to uncover on his own.
I was reminded of this the other day talking to someone who was saying they felt it was a little OOC the way Ron and Hermione didn't back Harry up on his Malfoy obsession in HBP the way they'd always been by his side before. But I thought this was explained on both the superficial and deeper level. Superficially, HBP is the first time Harry himself really isn't being targeted, so that gives Ron and Hermione a reason that they can be interested in their own things. In the past they haven't just been interested in the mystery because Harry was interested in it; there was a shared sense of threat that isn't there in HBP. Harry is the only one who senses the threat in HBP, I think because it goes beyond just someone trying to kill someone for him.
In the PoA paper the writer (Brandy Ball Blake) talked about the Gothic's obsession with horror and terror, with horror being more like revulsion (decaying bodies and gore--like Dementor's hands) and terror, which is connected to the sublime and obscurity of potentially horrible events. I think one could make a case for some of the anxiety Harry feels about Malfoy being connected to terror--meaning that although everyone keeps telling him there's no rational thing to fear, Harry doesn’t quite fear something rational. After all, he's not literally worried about people dying or a specific person dying. He just really has a feeling that something dreadful is going to happen because of Malfoy--and he's right. (I may have totally gotten the whole idea of terror wrong there, btw--would appreciate corrections if Harry's fear of what's going to happen via Malfoy doesn't fit the terror definition at all.)
On a deeper level, it's important Ron and Hermione don't feel that sense of threat, because HBP has Harry alone dipping into Slytherin. He does it symbolically in all sorts of ways--submersing himself in Slytherin memories, watching Slytherins while immobilized more than once, taking shortcuts in class, using cunning to get the memory (while Ron and Hermione first assume Dumbledore will be teaching him more battle skills), watching Slytherins on the map, trying to get into the room that holds the Draco and his secret (which turns out to be, wonderfully, the room for hiding things).
But more importantly, his obsession with Malfoy entangles Harry alone in his new family. He calls on Kreacher, the Black slave he's inherited, instead of Dobby, to spy on Draco who is himself a Black. Kreacher specifically brings up to Harry when he gives him his task, so underlining that he knows Harry is using him to spy on "family." (Dobby, meanwhile, frantically insists that Draco is just a very bad boy--as if afraid of Harry's interest, and particularly not liking Harry's getting his information through Kreacher.)
One of the first reasons Harry is suspicious of Draco in HBP is that he thinks he's "taken his father's place" while Ron and Hermione, like most others, think Draco's age and general Draco-ness make him not a threat. The one time previously in canon that Harry and Draco had a brief meeting of the minds that shut out other people a bit was in PoA where Draco told Harry that if it were his family, he would want revenge on Sirius Black. Harry, iirc, is a bit unnerved by this and says "Malfoy knows..." Ron and Hermione think he's crazy for listening to Draco, who's just trying to make him do something stupid, but it's a little bit more than that. In HBP we see Draco really wasn't kidding when he faces his own anxieties about the failure of the patriarchy and tries to take it over himself and protect his mother. In both PoA and HBP the one boy is just a little more subtly tuned in to the other's family anxiety than other people. Iirc, one of the first things Harry says upon looking at the Black Tapestry is, unsurprisingly, to say, "You're related to the Malfoys!"
So how great is it that they are now essentially part of the same family? I feel like Harry is the heir on the patrilineal side, having inherited the house from Sirius, to whom he was first connected through his own father and his friends. Regulus was, of course, Sirius' only sibling and younger brother. The only Black woman in the Black house in Harry's experience has been Mrs. Black, who is mad and dead. The Order spends most of its time shutting her behind her curtains, trying to not listen to her, and also not listening to Kreacher loudly adoring her.
Draco, then, inherits from the distaff side as the child of Narcissa, herself one of three sisters. Andromeda also has a child--a girl. She's been disinherited but also forces herself into Harry's male line via Lupin even when he's trying to shut her out. Bellatrix is obviously also female and it is she Snape thinks has been teaching Draco Occlumency.
Sirius and the other Marauders were all in the Fire House, the house of Will. Draco, his mother, his aunt--and even Snape who seems to fit in here somewhere--is in the Water house of Emotion. To go further into the female stuff, Slytherin is also the house with the chamber (rather than the Tower), the locket and ring (rather than the sword).
Don't know where all this is going, of course. I just love Harry almost unwittingly being drawn into the drama of the family he inherited.
I will shamelessly say that my own paper was the most fun ever for me.:-) Especially because everybody started talking afterwards so it was just like having a great lj conversation but better because there were people there in person and Aja brought her Draco doll and let me have him on the stage with me.
I can't wait until they put the thing out with all the papers I didn't get to read and panels I didn't get to go to. It's still all sort of processing in my brain. Oh--and the Snape panel was also really fun. I admit I love the whole Snape=Anubis theory and was glad it was represented. Also, interestingly, the last question the Borders mod asked was whether we thought Snape would live or die. The three of us on Snape=Friend said he would die; the three on Snape=Foe said he would live.
For my first little blip of response to an actual paper, I saw a really cool one on PoA as a Gothic novel that
...got me thinking about Sirius' death.
The paper concentrated solely on PoA and showed how it followed the tropes and themes of the Gothic novel, including its anxiety about the failure of the patriarchal line (that's ultimately conquered when Harry learns it was he and not James that chased away the Dementors). Hearing about PoA discussed in terms of the Gothic makes me think how funny it was that at the time it came out, and even afterwards in GoF, we saw Sirius as a character presented as a man on his own who was part of *Harry's* family as one of the Marauders. He was like an uncle, along with Remus and even Peter. Harry saw him as family and a connection to his father.
But then in OotP it turns out Sirius actually exists in the context of this big, clanking Gothic structure of his own: the Black family. And that's what got me thinking about his death. One of the things that seems kind of important about the Black family is it's so deeply connected to Slytherin and Purebloods. Like, if ultimately Slytherin has to be integrated into the school, how does JKR go about attacking its problems? The obvious solution seems to be that she went Gothic, creating this family with a house full of secrets that is being destroyed. Sirius' father isn't really shown, but the mere fact that his mother is mad and screaming kind of indicates a failure there. Sirius and Regulus both failed in different ways as adults.
So why did Sirius have to die, besides Harry going on alone? Honestly, I think it may be important for Sirius to have died because Harry is his heir. In inheriting the Black House, which of course symbolizes all the secrets and tragedies of the Black family (literally and figuratively) Harry has become an Heir to the Black family in Sirius' place. Just as PoA gave us the Shrieking Shack that held the Potter family secrets Harry has now inherited and taken ownership of the even more insane Black family secrets--secrets it's going to be harder for him to uncover on his own.
I was reminded of this the other day talking to someone who was saying they felt it was a little OOC the way Ron and Hermione didn't back Harry up on his Malfoy obsession in HBP the way they'd always been by his side before. But I thought this was explained on both the superficial and deeper level. Superficially, HBP is the first time Harry himself really isn't being targeted, so that gives Ron and Hermione a reason that they can be interested in their own things. In the past they haven't just been interested in the mystery because Harry was interested in it; there was a shared sense of threat that isn't there in HBP. Harry is the only one who senses the threat in HBP, I think because it goes beyond just someone trying to kill someone for him.
In the PoA paper the writer (Brandy Ball Blake) talked about the Gothic's obsession with horror and terror, with horror being more like revulsion (decaying bodies and gore--like Dementor's hands) and terror, which is connected to the sublime and obscurity of potentially horrible events. I think one could make a case for some of the anxiety Harry feels about Malfoy being connected to terror--meaning that although everyone keeps telling him there's no rational thing to fear, Harry doesn’t quite fear something rational. After all, he's not literally worried about people dying or a specific person dying. He just really has a feeling that something dreadful is going to happen because of Malfoy--and he's right. (I may have totally gotten the whole idea of terror wrong there, btw--would appreciate corrections if Harry's fear of what's going to happen via Malfoy doesn't fit the terror definition at all.)
On a deeper level, it's important Ron and Hermione don't feel that sense of threat, because HBP has Harry alone dipping into Slytherin. He does it symbolically in all sorts of ways--submersing himself in Slytherin memories, watching Slytherins while immobilized more than once, taking shortcuts in class, using cunning to get the memory (while Ron and Hermione first assume Dumbledore will be teaching him more battle skills), watching Slytherins on the map, trying to get into the room that holds the Draco and his secret (which turns out to be, wonderfully, the room for hiding things).
But more importantly, his obsession with Malfoy entangles Harry alone in his new family. He calls on Kreacher, the Black slave he's inherited, instead of Dobby, to spy on Draco who is himself a Black. Kreacher specifically brings up to Harry when he gives him his task, so underlining that he knows Harry is using him to spy on "family." (Dobby, meanwhile, frantically insists that Draco is just a very bad boy--as if afraid of Harry's interest, and particularly not liking Harry's getting his information through Kreacher.)
One of the first reasons Harry is suspicious of Draco in HBP is that he thinks he's "taken his father's place" while Ron and Hermione, like most others, think Draco's age and general Draco-ness make him not a threat. The one time previously in canon that Harry and Draco had a brief meeting of the minds that shut out other people a bit was in PoA where Draco told Harry that if it were his family, he would want revenge on Sirius Black. Harry, iirc, is a bit unnerved by this and says "Malfoy knows..." Ron and Hermione think he's crazy for listening to Draco, who's just trying to make him do something stupid, but it's a little bit more than that. In HBP we see Draco really wasn't kidding when he faces his own anxieties about the failure of the patriarchy and tries to take it over himself and protect his mother. In both PoA and HBP the one boy is just a little more subtly tuned in to the other's family anxiety than other people. Iirc, one of the first things Harry says upon looking at the Black Tapestry is, unsurprisingly, to say, "You're related to the Malfoys!"
So how great is it that they are now essentially part of the same family? I feel like Harry is the heir on the patrilineal side, having inherited the house from Sirius, to whom he was first connected through his own father and his friends. Regulus was, of course, Sirius' only sibling and younger brother. The only Black woman in the Black house in Harry's experience has been Mrs. Black, who is mad and dead. The Order spends most of its time shutting her behind her curtains, trying to not listen to her, and also not listening to Kreacher loudly adoring her.
Draco, then, inherits from the distaff side as the child of Narcissa, herself one of three sisters. Andromeda also has a child--a girl. She's been disinherited but also forces herself into Harry's male line via Lupin even when he's trying to shut her out. Bellatrix is obviously also female and it is she Snape thinks has been teaching Draco Occlumency.
Sirius and the other Marauders were all in the Fire House, the house of Will. Draco, his mother, his aunt--and even Snape who seems to fit in here somewhere--is in the Water house of Emotion. To go further into the female stuff, Slytherin is also the house with the chamber (rather than the Tower), the locket and ring (rather than the sword).
Don't know where all this is going, of course. I just love Harry almost unwittingly being drawn into the drama of the family he inherited.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
One thing that's always cool in reading the early books is you see how the whole "if Draco just left Harry alone Harry would never think about him" was never true (which is probably why the "Draco ignores Harry and then Harry gets obsessed came from). Draco bothers Harry even when he's not bothering Harry.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I missed the Gothic panel so it's intersting to hear your thoughts on it. I've been fascinated by the Black family, and the ties it creates between Harry and Draco, ever since we first learned more about it in OotP. It's presented as a hugely important, powerful and dark family and yet it is very much a house in crisis otherwise how would Harry have that entry to it. I think that Regulus is going to be important in Book 7 and as such the House of Black and Grimmauld Place and I wonder if that will give Harry a better insight into the family, and more importantly into Draco.
From:
no subject
The interesting thing about the Gothic paper was how it didn't even touch on anything in OotP, which is probably the point when I started seeing Sirius connected to the Gothic because it was more obvious. But this paper showed how he was already playing that role for the Potter family in the book that revealed all of their secrets in the Shrieking Shack.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
With Sirius it's kind of hidden, in a way. Harry never consciously thinks about the Blacks--he says he doesn't want the house or Kreacher. Yet he's drawing towards them throughout the book after he says Sirius would want him to go on etc. It's especially interesting that he's dealing with Kreacher who was so much part of Sirius' murder. And of course in OotP Draco is more closely linked with Bella as well.
From:
no subject
And again, and again. I'm beginning to think LJ hates me today!)
...themes of the Gothic novel, including its anxiety about the failure of the patriarchal line... *snip*
The obvious solution seems to be that she went Gothic, creating this family with a house full of secrets that is being destroyed.
Oh, wow. This goes right to something that's been bothering me about Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore was the Secret-Keeper; Dumbledore's dead. JKR has said that the secret dies with the SK. So, not only is the patrilineal Black line dying out, but once everyone who was in on the secret of 12GP is dead, the house will disappear forever, too.
Maybe this is movie contamination, but didn't the physical house of the Usher family disappear at the end? Heck, even if it's movie contamination, it fit so well with the story!
Oh, and the mad woman hidden, not in the attic this time, but behind a veil/drape, whose escapes cause trouble for everyone. The whole tragedy of the brothers who went their separate ways - Oy, yes, the Blacks are certainly worthy of the Brontes or of Poe.
Sirius and the other Marauders were all in the Fire House, the house of Will. Draco, his mother, his aunt--and even Snape who seems to fit in here somewhere--is in the Water house of Emotion. To go further into the female stuff, Slytherin is also the house with the chamber (rather than the Tower), the locket and ring (rather than the sword).
Don't know where all this is going, of course. I just love Harry almost unwittingly being drawn into the drama of the family he inherited.
Heh. I don't know where it's going, but it's a path I'd like to follow. The whole idea of the most talked-about characters outside of Harry himself being in a house diametrically opposed to their sex is just... likeable, for lack of a better word. And, Snape and emotion, after his warning about wearing one's heart on one's sleeve, is too delicious. I could see Draco as emotional, even before HBP. But, he's a teenager. Isn't that a defining trait of that breed? Lucius, also a Slytherin, certainly puts a more calculating and less emotional face to the world.
The Chamber rather than the Tower, the locket and ring rather than the sword or a wand, and oh, the end of the "Slytherin Book" taking place completely out of the water realm, on a Tower which is obviously in the sky realm - where is that going?
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
If you look at it in terms of astrological signs, the water signs - Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces - are the most strongly emotional, but are also the least likely to show their real emotions upfront. I find it interesting that Snape is a Capricorn (earth) and Draco a Gemini (air), but I would bet anything that Snape has Scorpio ascendant, and, having drawn up a birth-chart for Draco, I'm 99% sure he has Mercury in Cancer and Moon in Pisces (poor lamb).
From:
no subject
I can't remember what literally happens in the story (and am apparently too lazy to walk over to the bookshelf and check) but the house does actually fall iirc, so it's gone.
Heh. I don't know where it's going, but it's a path I'd like to follow. The whole idea of the most talked-about characters outside of Harry himself being in a house diametrically opposed to their sex is just... likeable, for lack of a better word. And, Snape and emotion, after his warning about wearing one's heart on one's sleeve, is too delicious. I could see Draco as emotional, even before HBP. But, he's a teenager. Isn't that a defining trait of that breed? Lucius, also a Slytherin, certainly puts a more calculating and less emotional face to the world.
Isn't it? The whole weird connection to emotions and female qualities has always so interested me. Even the snake, while obviously a phallic symbol, I think is often associated with the female. As well as both poison and healing, of course. It's interesting that Harry as a teenager gets emotional mostly through (fiery) anger like in OotP. Draco, meanwhile, goes all Victorian pale and thin, so that he looks like his cousin who's pining away for a lover. And then he weeps.
From:
Welcome back!
By the way, as long as I'm posting, I also wanted to ask whether your "Two Faces of Ginny Weasley" essay is available anywhere in public/unlocked form. I know the original post has been locked, but I'd really like to show it to some friends if there's another version somewhere.
From:
Re: Welcome back!
I remember I did put up a version on my lj after the comm locked. Here it is:
http://sistermagpie.livejournal.com/100169.html
From:
Re: Welcome back!
You're right about the different genres, though really, HBP shook my faith in the whole thing. But DH has a chance to win me back, and maybe it's good for me to go in with low-ish expectations anyway.
From:
Re: Welcome back!
Y'know, there was ample opportunity for one of the DEs in the raid to have Imperiused Ginny while she was stunned. Hermione and/or Luna as well. They didn't all immediately chase after Harry and Neville when the boys made that break for it to draw them off and left Ron fighting the brain.
That could possibly come back to bite us.
Much of HBP!Ginny's behavior is remarkabley consistent with a bullying (male) DE's interpretation of acting like a "powerful" female. (Whose closest example, now one thinks about it, probably *is* Bellatrix.) And, yet, the Ginny who smacked Harry down on a couple of occasions in OotP is suddenly nowhere in sight. Just about anything Harry does all through HBP is somehow just fine with Ginny, even if she is dating someone else. I mean, can anyone really call up a point in HBP where Ginny *ever* openly criticizes Harry? I doubt that is because he is suddenly the Captain of her QUidditch team.
ETA: I mean if "see it once, see it again" is as strong a pattern as it's always been in this series, we probably ought to be looking for the "missing partner" to poor Madam Rosemerta's Imperiused assistance.
OTOH, it does make it a little less likely that Ginny is going to be put at risk if it is understood that she is under control, even at long distance from Azkaban.
From:
Re: Welcome back!
It has suddenly occurred to me to wonder if Ginny's "personality transplant" after GoF could be explained as her reaction to something that truly was traumatic- Harry Potter, the boy she likes AND the one who stopped Voldemort- nearly died. At a school event. One of the older students- who from her vantage point would look nearly grown up- was actually murdered. I can kind of see her reassessing her world (as she probably was too affected to do after her own trial of her first year) and deciding that she needs to be ready, because danger is coming and its coming for people her age. And she knows now that even Dumbledore can't really protect her all the time, even when she's at school. Getting involved with the Twins and their schemes and figuring out how to use them seems like the perfect way for her to contribute and protect herself (I wonder how much of their stuff she might have access to, and maybe kept with her at school, just in case. Like the darkness powder.)
If JKR thought about it, that works much better than "She was being spunky when you weren't looking". Though I still can't explain the callous bitch she basically turned into for HBP. She's made me want Harry/Luna instead, and I was a Harry/Ginny shipper since I knew Ron had a sister at all (it just works, in a Dickensian sort of way, to give everyone a happy ending). Luna would tell Harry when he was being hurtful or wrongheaded, and she'd be able to say it in a way that wouldn't get his back up and make him defensive. Can you imagine her reaction to what happened to Draco?
From:
Re: Welcome back!
From:
no subject
I thought the criticism of Ron and Hermione not backing Harry up with Draco was pretty lame since we have the benefit of reading the entire book before making any sort of public declaration. I believe that the events at the end of OOTP played a big part as well. They supported Harry, at least against Hermione's better judgment, and it ended up with Sirius dead and themselves badly injured. Following that I don't think it's any surprise they didn't support Harry seemingly going off half-cocked after someone who'd only ever been merely obnoxious.
I wish I'd seen the Snape Friend or Foe panel. Though I think he's a horrible person I do believe he's a Good Guy. And I also think his character arc is clearly set up for some sort of redemptive death. Peter Pettigrew is the one that I think will get away. I can see him doing the minimum possible to alleviate the life debt he owes Harry and I think thematically him escaping makes some sense because the bad guys don't always get caught.
From:
no subject
I agree--especially since part of the thing in that story is that Harry's really just going on a feeling and there's no clear thing they can get into that makes them think they've got to act. He seems to feel a greater danger about the whole thing than anyone else does. Even Dumbledore knows what's going on and doesn't think there's a danger.
Peter Pettigrew is the one that I think will get away. I can see him doing the minimum possible to alleviate the life debt he owes Harry and I think thematically him escaping makes some sense because the bad guys don't always get caught.
I had never thought of that but now that you say it I can absolutely believe it. That's Peter's thing, after all, that he's a rat and a survivor. I can totally imagine him going free in the end.
From:
no subject
I was actually annoyed by Dumbledore when it came out that he know what was going on. His first priority as headmaster should be the students and Katie Bell and Ron nearly got killed through his inaction. I'm not really sure what JKR wants us to feel from that, either. But maybe Dumbledore is very utilitarian and decided that Snape's role as a doubleagent and the potential to bring down Voldemort was much more important than the safety of any student, except Harry, of course. If that's the case, however, he should recognize that he is no longer an acceptable headmaster and ought to step down.
I may be way overthinking this! But it's not like Katie and Ron merely got hurt. She'd have died if she had touched more of the necklace and Ron would have died if Harry hadn't remembered the bezoar and knew where to quickly find one.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
It's not like anyone is going to be raising any real objections, so long as he *stays* there.
From:
no subject
If one of the secrets the Black House holds is the Slytherin locket, Harry will be able to use one of the Blacks' secrets (not that Mrs. Black knew what it was) to destroy Voldemort. Funny that just as the Blacks handed their heritage (and a horocrux) to Harry by killing their rightful scion, Voldemort gifted Harry the skill of Parseltounge. Harry's ability to speak Parseltounge helped him destroy one part of Voldemort's soul and will probably come in handy later. Despite priding themselves on their cunning, the Slytherins seem to have given Harry everything necessary to destroy them.
It never occurred to me that Harry becomes more Slytherin in HBP but he does--at least he gets in touch with that part of himself. Although he's admirably noble, brave and even kind most of the time, Harry is anything but trusting or innocent. Let us not forget that Harry was forced to live in a cupboard for 10 years by his "family". This is not a boy who is well acquainted with love and harmony. In the vein "it takes one to know one" Harry can see what's happening with Draco because Harry has experienced the darker aspects of himself and the Slytherins. Having been pushed to the point where he tried the cruciatus curse on Bella in Ootp, Harry knows a little more about what hate and grief do to people. Because Harry understands anger and hatred, he doesn't underestimate what lengths Draco is willing to go to to avenge his father or to help Voldemort. Not to mention that Harry has experienced first hand how the Black Family is a cancer that destroys everything it touches. Bella killed her own cousin and Narcissa set Harry up for capture/death/whatever using information gained from Kreacher. So, Harry doesn't see Draco, who is both a Slytherin and a Black, as harmless even though Draco has proven himself to be a coward and ineffectual. If a house elf (I like that you call then slaves, 'cause that's what they are) can lead to the downfall of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, then Harry understands that even Draco can wreck havoc. And, of course, Harry is correct in his assumption that Draco is doing something dangerous and needs to be stopped.
From:
no subject
Ron and Hermione seem so normal by contrast when you compare them to the Blacks. Harry also sees them as a weird family, but in a different way, because he actually was brought up in his own version of a crazy, angry family with secrets. And he has more experience with people related to someone and also hating them, but still being tied to them.
From:
no subject
Sirius Black = Roderick Usher.
Even that stupid duel at the Veil was right out of Poe.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Usher committed serious abuse against his sister. Even though Sirius was a bully, I don't think he ever went near Bellatrix during their school years. He couldn't bully her, she was the more powerful one.
But Sirius throwing Bellatrix in the veil? That would be more Usher-like. Perhaps we will see a bit of that in 7.
From:
no subject
♥
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
So how great is it that they are now essentially part of the same family? I feel like Harry is the heir on the patrilineal side, having inherited the house from Sirius...Draco, then, inherits from the distaff side as the child of Narcissa...
It would
be awesomemake sense that these two factions of the Black family confront each other in Grimmauld Place at some point in DH (as well as the outcast Tonks/Andromeda fragment) but...we'll see what happens.From:
no subject
It also makes me think of Maya's fic where the house loves Draco as a Black, so the curtains keep caressing him and so forth.
In the panel the woman was telling the story of Isis searching for her son chopped into pieces, with Anubis having Vowed to protect him for her sake. Snape protecting Harry for Lily anyone?
From:
no subject
Whether or not Rowling had such parallels in mind, it does provide food for thought re: connections between Harry and Draco to be resolved in DH.
From:
no subject
I hadn't twigged just how much inheriting the Black's house brings Harry into the heart of the Slytherin/Voldemort world. Harry, of course, shies away from the place and all that it signifies. But he is the rightful heir - a big deal was made of this with the Kreacher test - so in some way he belongs there.
... anxiety about the failure of the patriarchal line (that's ultimately conquered when Harry learns it was he and not James that chased away the Dementors).
This is a positive take on what for me is one of the saddest bits in the books. Harry so wanted it to be James, and then it wasn't, and he had to save himself. It's like the magic had run out, and hard reality reasserted itself. I know that Harry drew strength from his realisation and was able to save himself so it was a growing up moment, but still terribly sad.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Really neat. Cheers!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Just a quick question that may already have been answered somewhere: is there any way/place for the masses to read your renowned paper? It has gotten much hype!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Thanks a lot in advance!!!