Deathly Hallows uberwank: Chapter 6, The Ghoul in Pyjamas
No, of course I'm not revising. Uberwank time!
After a few tears, some laughter, some more of those classic jokes about death, and a heartwarming conclusion, it's time for serious business...
Moody's death is causing Harry to angst again (Jesus, Harry, get a frigging Livejournal!) which leads to him becoming obsessed - even more so - with those fucking horcruxes. Our intrepid trio plan to leave the Burrow right after the wedding, to find them - but Molly Weasley has other ideas.
One night, Mrs Weasley confronts Harry, brandishing a sock at him and telling him that, uh, no way are you guys dropping school and going travelling. Harry is all like, "But it's my gap year!" We also hear that Harry has been anticipating this "'concerned parent' attack", which strikes me as unbelievably cold and cynical (and this is coming from me, a person whose boyfriend saw a picture of her at the age of seven and said she looked like a "pint-sized Daria"). It's the quote marks that do it, I think. Harry has never really had a parent, and yet she has accepted him as a son and is, in her own incredibly annoying and mollycoddling way, showing him love, which he pretty much rejects. And I don't even like Molly much.
Another oddity from this sequence: Harry notices how Mrs Weasley's eyes are just like Ginny's. What's with that? It can't be as a way of reminding us how beautiful Ginny is, since Mrs Weasley has been described as "dumpy". Is it just supposed to parallel how Harry's eyes also resemble his mother's (and therefore how suited he and Ginny are)? Is it supposed to imply that Harry rather fancies Mrs Weasley? (You know there's Harry/Mrs Weasley/Ginny pron somewhere out there on the internet. Rule 34 says so.) Is it just another dimension to add to Harry's already complicated mother/lover complex? Who knows. Although, funnily enough, Harry is reminded of Ginny again much later in the book, when he sees Bellatrix in the woods, wild-eyed and panting. Let's just move on.
Anyway, Mrs Weasley drops the argument for now, but oh, she's a cunning sort. In order to prevent our intrepid trio from planning their getaway, she puts them to work - cleaning cutlery, matching wedding favours, cooking canapes, polishing boots, cleaning the bog with a toothbrush, ironing the lawn, helping with the annual pig slaughter and subsequent curing of meat, polishing plates the way they do in upmarket Indian restaurants, giving Mrs Weasley foot massages, climbing up chimneys to clean them, mining coal in the back yard pit, bringing in the harvest, learning French, and making sure every guest bedroom contains a fruit bowl full of novelty condoms. Harry being Harry, it takes him two days and a spelling-out on Ginny's part for him to realise Mrs Weasley's ulterior motive. During this spelling-out, Harry and Ginny realise they are alone together, and they share a moment which contains absolutely no sexual tension whatsoever as they both remember that one time he felt her boobs and got a hard-on and she could feel it pressing into her leg. So romantic!
At dinner, Harry/Ginny sexual tension levels actually drop below zero as they avoid bumping elbows. Over the food (which is wok seared calamari in teppanyaki jus, Japanese pickles, miso fusion risotto and an Asian kimchi mayo) we learn that Moody's body was never recovered, so there was no funeral. Where is this written, that no body = no funeral? Don't people have memorial services and stuff all the time? More boring exposition and a mention that Harry will go to the wedding in disguise. Ron throws a tantrum about having to clean his room. He's a t00b, but he does use quite an imaginative cuss, so I'll let him off. Harry gets told to muck out the chickens, but Art Weasley is keeping Sirius' bike in the henhouse. I'm sure Sirius, wherever he is now, will be pleased to know his bike is smeared in bird excrement.
Finally, then, our intrepid trio can get together! Harry and Ron make some particularly callous remarks about Moody being dead, and Hermione cries, giving Ron a perfect opportunity to put his arm around her, gradually inching his hand down from her shoulder towards her boob. She's piling up loads of books to bring on the Horcrux Quest (tm), which prompts a discussion about how Harry doesn't want them to come with him. They're going to anyway. Hermione explains that she's convinced her parents they have different names, no daughter, and a desire to move to Australia. She's done this using a memory charm, but a few chapters later she claims she's never done one. Fanwank explanation (and possibly the Official Rowling Explanation) is that making someone believe something is different from making them forget something they already knew, but logically you'd think the former would be more difficult (after all, Hermione's had to make her parents both forget their names and the existence of their daughter and give them a totally new history to remember). I'd also call it an oversight that the Imperius curse is considered "unforgivable", but this isn't. Anyway.
Ron has also taken precautions to keep himself safe on the quest, albeit in a rather random and roundabout way. He has disguised the ghoul from the attic as himself with a disease. That's where the title of this chapter comes from, geddit?!!!?!??! That's something that irritates me, actually, and I've noticed it in every book as far as I can remember. The chapter title will be something like "The disappearing watch" or "Draco's rodeo penis", and then the thing that gets mentioned in the title will be one of many miscellaneous points in an expositiony chapter with no single plot development. The chapters tend to all be about the same length regardless of how many things happen in each one. The fact that they are broken up that way is kind of arbitrary. It doesn't matter enormously, but I find it can make the narrative feel a bit forced and shoehorned in places.
They talk about Godric's Hollow and about RAB, and then the conversation turns to how they are going to destroy the Horcruxes once they have them. Hermione has, of course, done the research, in this case by half-inching a load of books from Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts. She claims it wasn't stealing, as they are library books but weren't on the shelves. Hermione, dude, I work in a library and I assure you it is stealing. Just because the books are free for you to borrow doesn't mean they're free in the first place... um. Sorry. (What's tragic about that last bit is that I hate my job.) She used accio, the summoning charm, which should be called something like the Applied Plot Device Charm, considering how it works remarkably well when it needs to and not at all when the plot requires it doesn't.
We get some Horcrux exposition then, about how they are evil and how they can be destroyed by being stabbed with a basilisk fang and how the soul exists beyond death, pretty much, and I know JKR can give her characters any beliefs she likes and those are likely to reflect her own, but I have some trouble buying Hermione providing this totally logical and academic-sounding explanation of the soul, especially when she's normally rather sceptical (consider the way she questions the existence of the hallows in chapter 21). OK, there are ghosts at Hogwarts and stuff, and presumably this book she's been reading explains it all, but still, the existence (or not) of the soul is one of the big questions philosophers have been pondering for centuries. She seems to buy it all a bit too cheerfully.
The conversation tails off again when Harry begins angsting about Dumbledore again, and then finishes for good when Mrs Weasley storms into the room in an absolute blinder of a rage, shrieking about them not helping her sort out wedding presents or something.
Next morning, Fleur's family arrive - another moment that doesn't fit under this chapter title, but it's vaguely interesting, I guess. Harry et al have been scrubbed and forced - forced, I tell you - to put on matching socks and brush their hair. The garden is all tidy and stuff. Mr Weasley arrives with the Delacours in tow - Maman Delacour is tall and beautiful and looks like Fleur, and Papa is bouncy and wears high heels. Lol whut? Also present is Gabrielle, who we met way back in book 4, in a lake. She is eleven, and she smiles at Harry; Ginny, seeing in Gabrielle a rival for Harry's affections, leaps on her, pushes her to the ground, and rips out her soul with her teeth. Well, no, she hem-hems at her, but still, dude. If a little kid with a potential crush bothers you that much, then your relationship is on shaky ground. Is this supposed to show us how Ginny is all loyal and stands by her man and stuff, because it doesn't, it makes her look kind of irrational and jealous, especially considering they are supposed to be co-bridesmaids and it's Ginny's house and that's pretty rude and not very welcoming, actually. Perhaps Ginny is simply painfully aware of how similar she and Gabrielle are (except for the part where Gabrielle seems like a pleasant and affectionate kid). OK, perhaps I'm over-analysing, but that's what I do.
With all the new arrivals, the house is crowded. The trio are hanging around outside to get away from the crowds, and Mrs Weasley shows up to tell Harry she's going to invite a couple of people over for a birthday mash-up, and Harry feels bad that he's being an inconvenience to her, causing her more trouble right before the wedding. He's apparently emotionally aware enough to realise that she'll be going to more trouble for him, but not enough to think, say, "Why don't I order a takeaway for everyone, and pay for it myself, that'll be a nice way to celebrate but it won't put any extra pressure on anyone and it'll be a small gesture to thank the Weasleys for everything they've done for me while I've been here". OK, so if that had happened I'd probably be complaining that it was boring, and it's such a minor issue, but my point is, off the top of my head I can think of an obvious solution to Harry's wangst over this issue. Oh well. End scene.
I guess this chapter is OK, but it could easily have been split into several smaller chapters, or certain elements of it could have happened elsewhere. As it is it feels a bit like a case of all the exposition, small plot developments, and moving people around that needed to happen around now, shoved into one chapter. So it's not awful, but it's not particularly exciting either. Moreover, I didn't get a single opportunity to refer to Star Wars, nor to whack in any gratuitous macros. In fact, the enormous wodge of text, unbroken by embedded Youtube videos or pictures of cats, is making me uneasy. Macros in comments pls?
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After a few tears, some laughter, some more of those classic jokes about death, and a heartwarming conclusion, it's time for serious business...
Moody's death is causing Harry to angst again (Jesus, Harry, get a frigging Livejournal!) which leads to him becoming obsessed - even more so - with those fucking horcruxes. Our intrepid trio plan to leave the Burrow right after the wedding, to find them - but Molly Weasley has other ideas.
One night, Mrs Weasley confronts Harry, brandishing a sock at him and telling him that, uh, no way are you guys dropping school and going travelling. Harry is all like, "But it's my gap year!" We also hear that Harry has been anticipating this "'concerned parent' attack", which strikes me as unbelievably cold and cynical (and this is coming from me, a person whose boyfriend saw a picture of her at the age of seven and said she looked like a "pint-sized Daria"). It's the quote marks that do it, I think. Harry has never really had a parent, and yet she has accepted him as a son and is, in her own incredibly annoying and mollycoddling way, showing him love, which he pretty much rejects. And I don't even like Molly much.
Another oddity from this sequence: Harry notices how Mrs Weasley's eyes are just like Ginny's. What's with that? It can't be as a way of reminding us how beautiful Ginny is, since Mrs Weasley has been described as "dumpy". Is it just supposed to parallel how Harry's eyes also resemble his mother's (and therefore how suited he and Ginny are)? Is it supposed to imply that Harry rather fancies Mrs Weasley? (You know there's Harry/Mrs Weasley/Ginny pron somewhere out there on the internet. Rule 34 says so.) Is it just another dimension to add to Harry's already complicated mother/lover complex? Who knows. Although, funnily enough, Harry is reminded of Ginny again much later in the book, when he sees Bellatrix in the woods, wild-eyed and panting. Let's just move on.
Anyway, Mrs Weasley drops the argument for now, but oh, she's a cunning sort. In order to prevent our intrepid trio from planning their getaway, she puts them to work - cleaning cutlery, matching wedding favours, cooking canapes, polishing boots, cleaning the bog with a toothbrush, ironing the lawn, helping with the annual pig slaughter and subsequent curing of meat, polishing plates the way they do in upmarket Indian restaurants, giving Mrs Weasley foot massages, climbing up chimneys to clean them, mining coal in the back yard pit, bringing in the harvest, learning French, and making sure every guest bedroom contains a fruit bowl full of novelty condoms. Harry being Harry, it takes him two days and a spelling-out on Ginny's part for him to realise Mrs Weasley's ulterior motive. During this spelling-out, Harry and Ginny realise they are alone together, and they share a moment which contains absolutely no sexual tension whatsoever as they both remember that one time he felt her boobs and got a hard-on and she could feel it pressing into her leg. So romantic!
At dinner, Harry/Ginny sexual tension levels actually drop below zero as they avoid bumping elbows. Over the food (which is wok seared calamari in teppanyaki jus, Japanese pickles, miso fusion risotto and an Asian kimchi mayo) we learn that Moody's body was never recovered, so there was no funeral. Where is this written, that no body = no funeral? Don't people have memorial services and stuff all the time? More boring exposition and a mention that Harry will go to the wedding in disguise. Ron throws a tantrum about having to clean his room. He's a t00b, but he does use quite an imaginative cuss, so I'll let him off. Harry gets told to muck out the chickens, but Art Weasley is keeping Sirius' bike in the henhouse. I'm sure Sirius, wherever he is now, will be pleased to know his bike is smeared in bird excrement.
Finally, then, our intrepid trio can get together! Harry and Ron make some particularly callous remarks about Moody being dead, and Hermione cries, giving Ron a perfect opportunity to put his arm around her, gradually inching his hand down from her shoulder towards her boob. She's piling up loads of books to bring on the Horcrux Quest (tm), which prompts a discussion about how Harry doesn't want them to come with him. They're going to anyway. Hermione explains that she's convinced her parents they have different names, no daughter, and a desire to move to Australia. She's done this using a memory charm, but a few chapters later she claims she's never done one. Fanwank explanation (and possibly the Official Rowling Explanation) is that making someone believe something is different from making them forget something they already knew, but logically you'd think the former would be more difficult (after all, Hermione's had to make her parents both forget their names and the existence of their daughter and give them a totally new history to remember). I'd also call it an oversight that the Imperius curse is considered "unforgivable", but this isn't. Anyway.
Ron has also taken precautions to keep himself safe on the quest, albeit in a rather random and roundabout way. He has disguised the ghoul from the attic as himself with a disease. That's where the title of this chapter comes from, geddit?!!!?!??! That's something that irritates me, actually, and I've noticed it in every book as far as I can remember. The chapter title will be something like "The disappearing watch" or "Draco's rodeo penis", and then the thing that gets mentioned in the title will be one of many miscellaneous points in an expositiony chapter with no single plot development. The chapters tend to all be about the same length regardless of how many things happen in each one. The fact that they are broken up that way is kind of arbitrary. It doesn't matter enormously, but I find it can make the narrative feel a bit forced and shoehorned in places.
They talk about Godric's Hollow and about RAB, and then the conversation turns to how they are going to destroy the Horcruxes once they have them. Hermione has, of course, done the research, in this case by half-inching a load of books from Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts. She claims it wasn't stealing, as they are library books but weren't on the shelves. Hermione, dude, I work in a library and I assure you it is stealing. Just because the books are free for you to borrow doesn't mean they're free in the first place... um. Sorry. (What's tragic about that last bit is that I hate my job.) She used accio, the summoning charm, which should be called something like the Applied Plot Device Charm, considering how it works remarkably well when it needs to and not at all when the plot requires it doesn't.
We get some Horcrux exposition then, about how they are evil and how they can be destroyed by being stabbed with a basilisk fang and how the soul exists beyond death, pretty much, and I know JKR can give her characters any beliefs she likes and those are likely to reflect her own, but I have some trouble buying Hermione providing this totally logical and academic-sounding explanation of the soul, especially when she's normally rather sceptical (consider the way she questions the existence of the hallows in chapter 21). OK, there are ghosts at Hogwarts and stuff, and presumably this book she's been reading explains it all, but still, the existence (or not) of the soul is one of the big questions philosophers have been pondering for centuries. She seems to buy it all a bit too cheerfully.
The conversation tails off again when Harry begins angsting about Dumbledore again, and then finishes for good when Mrs Weasley storms into the room in an absolute blinder of a rage, shrieking about them not helping her sort out wedding presents or something.
Next morning, Fleur's family arrive - another moment that doesn't fit under this chapter title, but it's vaguely interesting, I guess. Harry et al have been scrubbed and forced - forced, I tell you - to put on matching socks and brush their hair. The garden is all tidy and stuff. Mr Weasley arrives with the Delacours in tow - Maman Delacour is tall and beautiful and looks like Fleur, and Papa is bouncy and wears high heels. Lol whut? Also present is Gabrielle, who we met way back in book 4, in a lake. She is eleven, and she smiles at Harry; Ginny, seeing in Gabrielle a rival for Harry's affections, leaps on her, pushes her to the ground, and rips out her soul with her teeth. Well, no, she hem-hems at her, but still, dude. If a little kid with a potential crush bothers you that much, then your relationship is on shaky ground. Is this supposed to show us how Ginny is all loyal and stands by her man and stuff, because it doesn't, it makes her look kind of irrational and jealous, especially considering they are supposed to be co-bridesmaids and it's Ginny's house and that's pretty rude and not very welcoming, actually. Perhaps Ginny is simply painfully aware of how similar she and Gabrielle are (except for the part where Gabrielle seems like a pleasant and affectionate kid). OK, perhaps I'm over-analysing, but that's what I do.
With all the new arrivals, the house is crowded. The trio are hanging around outside to get away from the crowds, and Mrs Weasley shows up to tell Harry she's going to invite a couple of people over for a birthday mash-up, and Harry feels bad that he's being an inconvenience to her, causing her more trouble right before the wedding. He's apparently emotionally aware enough to realise that she'll be going to more trouble for him, but not enough to think, say, "Why don't I order a takeaway for everyone, and pay for it myself, that'll be a nice way to celebrate but it won't put any extra pressure on anyone and it'll be a small gesture to thank the Weasleys for everything they've done for me while I've been here". OK, so if that had happened I'd probably be complaining that it was boring, and it's such a minor issue, but my point is, off the top of my head I can think of an obvious solution to Harry's wangst over this issue. Oh well. End scene.
I guess this chapter is OK, but it could easily have been split into several smaller chapters, or certain elements of it could have happened elsewhere. As it is it feels a bit like a case of all the exposition, small plot developments, and moving people around that needed to happen around now, shoved into one chapter. So it's not awful, but it's not particularly exciting either. Moreover, I didn't get a single opportunity to refer to Star Wars, nor to whack in any gratuitous macros. In fact, the enormous wodge of text, unbroken by embedded Youtube videos or pictures of cats, is making me uneasy. Macros in comments pls?
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