Chapter Twenty-Three -- Malfoy Manor

[gehayi]

In which Harry suffers a frontal lobe migraine for most of the chapter, the Random Death Eaters show common sense, Rowling completely ignores her own set-up for a character arc, all the wizards forget that they're wizards and Dobby is a deus ex machina.

Chapter Twenty-Three -- Malfoy Manor

Comments

[smurasaki]

After Greyback tells her that it was in the prisoners' tent, she frees him and tells Draco to take the unconscious guys outside and kill them...or, if he doesn't have the nerve, to leave them for her to kill.

So why didn't she kill them instead of stunning them? I really don't think unconscious bodies are that much easier to carry than dead ones. Besides, they are wizards, even if they do keep forgetting it.

Drat. The villains are reverting to their normal state of stupidity.

Bellatrix just had to go and Stun the sensible ones. *sigh*

Ron tells her that he has a Deluminator full of light.

Does it even work that way? I could have sworn that it always returned the light to whatever it removed it from.

For all she knows Griphook could use that Sword and go kamikaze on everyone in the room.Which would have been all kinds of awesome

[nixitall]

And Peter's and Dobby's deaths have to be the stupidest examples of "death by script" I've encountered. Of course, Peter is also yet another wasted character, and the whole house elf magic thing... words fail me.

If Dobby could do it, why couldn't Kreacher get Regulus out? *sigh*

[smurasaki]

If Dobby could do it, why couldn't Kreacher get Regulus out? *sigh*

Oh, look, another stupid example of "death by script." -_-

[gehayi]

If you examine the story that Kreacher tells, it doesn't hold up very well, nor does it make much sense. Nor does it explain why Kreacher would instantly start treating Harry as a beloved master the second that Harry said the word "Regulus."

Personal fanon -- After Regulus snatched the locket (and got Kreacher to drink the poison, because a house-elf's metabolism is not the same as a human's, and if Kreacher died, oh well), Reg put Kreacher under Imperio, and gave him a hastily improvised story about what had happened to the young master. If anyone asked Kreacher, his evident grief would be enough to convince them that Regulus was dead. It's not as if wizards use logic, after all. And as long as everyone believed that Regulus was dead, no one would think of looking for the Imperius Curse or for Reg.

And then, once Kreacher was in place with the story he told with such great conviction, Regulus buggered off to Tahiti.

He was, after all, a Slytherin. Give him some credit for sense, Rowling.

[nixitall]

I think I figured it out. The editors decided to play a drinking game where they did a shot everytime there was an inappropriate colon use. They all died from alcohol poisoning by chapter three.

And Peter... I had such high hopes for him. He had character development, conflict, potential for awesomeness and... No. Plus, why do they all call him Wormtail? They were not exactly school chums or anything. Peter Pettigrew is actually one of the better names she came up with. Oops, I just explained why she never uses it.

Good job with the sporking, there was a lot of WTFery to cover in this one.

[gehayi]

Thank you. There really was enough WTF to fill the entire Pacific Ocean.

And Peter... I had such high hopes for him. He had character development, conflict, potential for awesomeness and... No.

There was. And it was all just thrown away for no reason. It doesn't make sense.

Plus, why do they all call him Wormtail? They were not exactly school chums or anything. Peter Pettigrew is actually one of the better names she came up with. Oops, I just explained why she never uses it.

I honestly think that she uses the nickname "Wormtail" to express how she feels about Peter. Starting in Book 4, he rarely uses his given name or his surname in the series or in interviews. I think this is because she really doesn't see Peter as a person. He's just a rat to her, in every sense. And rats are animals. They aren't human, and they aren't redeemable.

[aunty_marion]

A friend of mine had an uncle, who died a few years ago. His name was (yes, honestly!) Peter Pettigrew... I didn't ask in what circumstances he met his end.

[minkhollow]

And to think, a lot happens in this chapter.
Pity it's a lot of stupidity.

[gehayi]

It truly is stupid. Spectacularly so.

What annoys me is that it didn't HAVE to be. There was tons of potential here, and she threw it all away.

[jodel_from_aol]

Including the potential that Peter Pettigrew *knew* about Horcruxes. About one of them, anyway.

If BabyMort made Nagini *into* one, before they even left lbania (let alone during their stay in Little Hangleton -- which she has been trying to rewrite in interviews, since we are on to *that* being a stupid lie) and Rowling isn't simply lying to us about Horcruxes needing to be made in *stages* with all kinds of advance prep work, then BabyMort -- who couldn't even walk unaided -- had to have Peter HELP him do it!

To say nothing of whatever complex magic it must have taken to create the homonucleus that creating the BabyMort iteration required. Peter has to have been one of the best-informed Dark wizards in the bloody Potterverse.

And everyone in the Potterverse treats him like it don't they?

I am exhaustd by the stupid.

[not_the_lion]

Merlin, but this woman has no idea how to finish writing her characters. Or plots. Or the two combined. Who let her pick up a pen, again?
(Though the thought of Bella failing to improve with age... rather doesn't surprise me.)

[pjpettigrew]

I've no idea. Did you notice that she never explained why my counterpart would betray anyone? I think she made a stab at it in the third book by saying that Voldemort had weapons no one could dream of, and then decided, "Well, he's a traitor, that means he's EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL, I don't need to explain any more than that!"

And here my counterpart was merciful by accident, which I think should mean that he wasn't merciful at all, because mercy is supposed to be a conscious choice. She definitely fails at religion.

Also, given Rowling's gift for characterization butchery, I'm astonished that adult Bella didn't become a Little Sister of the Poor who tends plague victims at the North Pole.

And don't even get me started on the plots, Reg.

[not_the_lion]

Better still, if one squints, what she had my counterpart do would count as a betrayal. Certainly getting out of the cave alive likely wouldn't sit well with the rest of the Death Eaters (presuming Voldemort paid attention enough to know someone was there, of course - but one would hope he did, as it's his own life on the line). But presumably, it doesn't matter since she said it was all for the bloody house elf.
(If I ever attempt anything that monumentally stupid... find out who's either pretending to be me or buggering around with my mind.)
I suspect she wrote the business with your counterpart simply to get it out of the way, and show she hadn't neglected that bit of the series. Except it only proved she had forgotten it, otherwise it would have been much more entertaining.

[pjpettigrew]

Oh, but what your counterpart did was All For the Greater Good, i.e., the side she likes. And besides, your counterpart didn't betray a PERSON--which she seems to define as a wizard. He put a house elf in peril and then, and this is the important bit, died pointlessly rather than simply ORDER KREACHER TO APPARATE THEM BOTH HOME.

Pointless death seems to be a virtue in her eyes. If it actually accomplished something, she'd probably loathe it.

And yes, you would think that Lord Wossname would have some sort of alarm system in the cave to protect his life and soul, wouldn't you? I never pictured Voldemort as being the sort to say, "Why, someone's stolen one-eighth of my soul. Oh, tosh. I expect I shall have to go get a new one."

(If you ever attempt anything that stupid, I shall presume Imperio automatically and hit you with Finite Incantatem so fast your head will spin completely around

[logansrogue]

*groans* Orbs! ORBS! Bloody hell!

[gehayi]

I know. No one over the age of thirteen and no one not writing on FFnet should be writing about orbs. Especially not orbs sprinkled with starlight. GOD.

[aunty_marion]

By a few chapters into DH (at Sectus), I was wondering which fanfic stories JKR had pinched the whole thing from. I actually identified several myself, and other people pointed out there were more, too - ones I hadn't read.

[gehayi]

Which stories did you identify, out of curiosity?