Deathly Hallows uberwank: Chapter 8, The Wedding
I am so failing this module.
DARTH SIDIOUS: This turn of events is unfortunate. We must accelerate our plans. Begin landing your troops.
NUTE GUNRAY: Ah, my lord, is that... legal?
DARTH SIDIOUS: I will make it legal.
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Here's something - ages ago, I wrote a few chapters of a really bad snarky fic, imaginatively titled Harry Potter and the Ocarina of Time. I couldn't be arsed to think of what I considered JK Rowling-style fancy titles for my chapters, so they were all called things like "The Usual Stuff" and "A Train Journey". One was called "A Wedding". So that's my first point, and it's one I may return to: JK Rowling's chapter titles suck ass. As I work on this review or whatever it is I have a separate notepad file for every chapter, titles with that chapter's name, and yet I find myself constantly referring to my book or the Lexicon to verify which chapter is which, as they are all called really nonspecific things like "The Woods" or "A Tent" or "Some Cheese" (I may have made those up).
Right then. Chapter opens right before the wedding, with Harry et al waiting around outside the marquee. Harry has been disguised as "Cousin Barny", a Weasley relative, because there are literally so many Weasleys that you can invent one and nobody will question it. The obvious Barney reference is, of course, Barney the Big Fucking Purple Bastard Dinosaur Bellend, but I'd also like to mention Barny from Modern Toss, a man who morphs into a giant, red, angry monster whenever Alan Titchmarsh is mentioned. "Barny", Ron, Fred and George are acting as ushers. The wedding features, amongst other things: four ushers, two bridesmaids, a band, hired waiters, a marquee. Fleur's "colours" appear to be gold, white and purple; there are white flowers and a purple carpet and golden balloons. "Golden balloons" sounds like a badfic euphemism for breasts: "Harry cupped Ginny's golden balloons, stroking their already-hardening ..." Um. Yes. Fred makes a comment about his hypothetical future wedding, which is all like OMGFORESHADOWING!, like that time Cedric's dad went on about hypothetical future grandkids, and makes me almost sad to see him go, as his wedding plans sound eminently sensible. (Note "almost".)
A little background (Percy not there, Harry's disguise has made him fat) and then guests start apparating in. Here's a description of them:
Exotic flowers and bewitched birds fluttered on the witches' hats, while precious gems glittered from many of the wizards' cravats
I don't even know where to begin. What kind of wizard wears a cravat?
Fred and George piss off to hit on some hot French girls and then a variety of old people arrive. Following this, Tonks and Lupin show up. She's gone blonde for the occasion. I went blonde once. We had a bleach party at my house, and three of us all went peroxide, and the next day at school someone told us we looked like the Romanian football team. Oh, the lulz. Anyway, she's blonde, Lupin is being emo and not-so-surreptitiously swigging from a hipflask, off they go. Meanwhile, Hagrid misunderstands Fred's directions and sits on five small chairs, crushing them, instead of the chair specifically designated for him. How hard can it be to understand "Sit on the chair you can fit in"? I actually had a whole rant prepared about - oh shit, is Hagrid supposed to have an extra Y chromosome? - but then I looked up XYY syndrome and found out that half the stuff I was going to mention is only stereotyping and rumour anyway, which pissed all over my hilarious joke. DAMMIT.
Back outside, Ron introduces Harry to one Xenophilius "Lando" Lovegood, dad of Luna and mad cultist. Luna shows up too. They're both wearing bright yellow robes, like a mini summer-themed version of the Polyphonic Spree. Luna can totally tell Harry is Harry and not Barny (presumably she mentions Alan Titchmarsh and he doesn't hulk out). They fangirl over the gnomes. They bugger off.
Next up we meet Auntie Muriel, who is a total cow, a xenophobe, and an absolute legend, given that she manages to offend or annoy everyone ever in the space of about three lines of text. Apart from the part where she's a bigot, she is pretty much exactly how I see myself once I'm old. Or, you know, now. Hermione shows up and is hit on by Ron; she too was insulted by Muriel. They all express regret that Uncle Bilius was unable to attend (on account of being dead), given that he used to amuse people at weddings by crapping flowers. Christ almighty.
Next to be wheeled onstage to provide some exposition and never be heard from again arrive is our old mate Viktor Krum, a guest of the bride. He's described as "a dark-haired young man with a large, curved nose and thick, black eyebrows", and I start picturing him as looking like Sylar from Heroes. Man, Heroes is good.
For some reason I can't put my finger on, I really like the fact that Fleur and Krum kept in touch; I like stuff like this, things that aren't of any consequence for the main plot, but give us little hinty details about a character's personality or life. I enjoy the idea that after GoF, Krum and Fleur's activities weren't limited to their role in the story. Anyway, Hermione leaps on Krum and fangirls him; Ron gets pissy and ruthlessly mocks Krum's beard. BUUURRRRRNNNN!!!
The guests are getting restless by this point, so everyone takes their seats ready for kick-off.
The ceremony begins. Music "swells" from the golden balloons, which is practically begging for me to take the piss. Wearing a white dress, Fleur glides down the aisle while her comedy dad bounces alongside her; her very radiance apparently "beautifies everyone it falls upon", making them look more attractive as they bask in her reflected glory. Well, except me, but then I never look good when I'm puking. The officiant is the same guy who emceed Dumbledore's funeral, so quite possibly there is only one registrar for all of wizarding Britain. Not totally out there, I suppose; there's one secondary school, one bank, one entirely wizarding village, one wandmaker, no primary or tertiary education at all, and as nk_aoede pointed out, there only seem to be two musical acts. (Then again, the economy can support two joke shops, several brands of quite specialised sweets and, like... *checks Lexicon* thirteen professional sports teams, so whatever.)
Anyway, the ministry registrar guy starts giving it all, "we are gathered here today" etc. I wonder how many HP fans will use the vows out of this as their own "we're writing our own"-type wedding vows in the next few years? (Hey, I'm not judging. In the unlikely event I ever get married, I want Han Solo and Princess Leia action figures as cake toppers, a "first skank" instead of a first dance, and tables named after punk songs like "California Uber Alles", "Blitzkreig Bop" and "Drunk Sincerity". I'll be sitting Grannie at "Strickly Hardcore".) As the ceremony goes on, so JKR doesn't have to write any more vows, Harry's attention wanes: he finds himself reminiscing, as per usual, about Ginny and all those heavy petting sessions last year. Well, it's not spelled out in so many words, but of course that's what he's thinking about - no teenage boy, when idly fantasising about the stuff he did with his girlfriend, is remembering the time they got the Hogwarts house-elves to bring them a glass of warm milk and a plate of digestive biscuits before bed. That, and the fact in that the sentence before his mind starts wandering, Muriel makes a comment about Ginny's dress being too low-cut. OK, we get it!
Meanwhile, Hermione, Molly, Fleur's mum and, er, Hagrid are sobbing. I've never understood why people cry at weddings, I don't do it - but then again, I have a heart of ice. Finally, Bill and Fleur are declared "bonded for life", which makes me feel faintly uncomfortable for reasons that are probably linked to me having "marxist feminism" listed as an interest, but also makes my ears prick up a little when I realise it's non-gender-specific, so gay wizards could presumably get married, if only there were any. This book is full of stuff that makes me feel all contradictiony like that. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Serious Business.
Party tiem nao! Those golden balloons spray glitter and birds and stuff everywhere, and - as if by magic - the marquee becomes a canopy, under which a dancefloor, bandstand and lots of tables appear. Also, waiters, carrying plates of sandwiches (mmmmmm sandwiches) and trays of pumpkin juice, butterbeer, and firewhisky, which sound like the three most mismatched drinks ever. First, JKR, have you ever handled a pumpkin? Not much juice in one of those. You can make soup with it, but juice, not so much. Secondly, I would like a glass of wine. What's that you say? I can only have a low-alcohol content drink considered suitable for thirteen-year-olds, or a glass of hard liquor? What kind of freak serves those drinks at their wedding? Does the wizarding world only have three kinds of drink as well as everything else?
Harry and the rest of the Phoenix Crew sit down with Luna; the band soon strikes up "Rape Me" by Nirvana, so Luna gets up to join the moshpit. Krum grabs her seat, and Ron immediately removes Hermione from the scene. Paranoid bunch, these Weasleys! Krum then enquires about Xenophilius Lovegood and, specifically, that fancy symbol he's wearing, which Krum is offended by. He mentions that the symbol was Grindelwald's symbol, and that Grindelwald was responsible for the deaths of several of his family members. I'm not sure if we're supposed to be sympathetic to Krum in this bit or not. Essentially I don't think we're supposed to hate him or like him - he's just here to provide exposition. Nonetheless, I'm with Krum, and I think Xenophilius is kind of a twat, albeit a well-meaning twat. Xenophilius can claim he's going for the "original meaning" of the symbol as much as he likes, but he's basically the wizarding world equivalent of Crispian Mills from Kula Shaker, that time he declared that he thought it would be really cool to have flaming swastikas on the stage. Whatever. Meanings change and once a symbol gets used as an emblem of fascist genocide, claiming you're wearing it to represent old-school Hindu style peace and love (or the deathly hallows, whichever) puts you on pretty thin ice. Anyway, Harry sticks up for Xenophilius, explaining that he and Luna are just fucking weird, but Krum is not interested in this type of shit. He merely sits and stares at Luna as she skanks. Then, as a way of segue-ing into Harry realising who Gregorovitch is (some eastern European wandmaker or something), we get the following sentence:
[Krum] drew his wand from the inside of his robes and tapped it menacingly on his thigh; sparks flew out of the end.
Dayum.
Er, yeah. The exposition we get here reveals that Gregorovitch is a renowned wand maker, that he retired a few years back, that Voldemort is probably after a new wand from him. Meanwhile, Ginny appears on the peripheries of the scene, and Krum admires her enormous boobs, shiny teeth, symmetrical tail feathers and wet nose (or whatever, I wasn't paying a lot of attention). He asks Harry if she's single, which she technically is. Harry effectively tells Krum to fuck off or he'll chin him, demonstrating again the immense power of love in these books. Krum laments his lack of a Premiership football-style WAG of his own.
The evening continues. Things kick off; Fred and George disappear into the darkness with a pair of Fleur's cousins to engage in kinky sex activities. Harry finds himself chatting with Elphias Doge, an ancient, leathery wizard, dressed in nothing but a fez and a smile. (Some of that last sentence is true, but I'll leave it to you to decide which bits.) They talk about Dumbledore, and Elphias reassures Harry that Dumbledore was a good guy, but he accidentally mentions Rita Skeeter, which has the effect of drawing Auntie Muriel into the conversation. She fangirls for a while, and says that Dumbledore sucks and stuff like that, and the following seeds of doubt as to Dumbledore's integrity are planted in our minds:
1. Albus Dumbledore had a sister, Ariana, who died young.
2. This sister was kept away from the world and was maybe a squib.
3. Their mum was called Kendra, which is surely not a real name? It just sounds far too contemporary ... OK, I've just looked it up, and apparently it is a modern form of the Gaelic name Kendrick, and has only had any significant popularity since the 1950s. Almost every site I've found that lists it gives a different meaning for it, but several acknowledge that it might just be a portmanteau of Ken and Sandra (or similar). NOT A REAL NAME. Wait, why am I even bothering with this bit?
4. At Ariana's funeral, Aberforth broke Albus's nose.
5. Auntie Muriel is a drinker. (Hey, she should hang out with Remus for a while! They could have a contest.)
6. The Dumbledore dad went to prison.
7. Bathilda Bagshot, writer of textbooks, was mates with Albus Dumbledore and lives in Godric's Hollow. The graves of Albus's family are there too.
Harry angsts about how he and Dumbledore had this in common, but never shared it. Never shared a joint or some cocoa, and talked about how, like - we're the same, you and me. We totally are. I mean, we're not, but we totally are. Hermione sits down, rubbing her feet, but before Harry can even begin to bore her like he's been boring me, Kingsley's patronus suddenly shows up and says, "The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming", which is really quite badass. I bet this is Jar-Jar Binks' fault.
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DARTH SIDIOUS: This turn of events is unfortunate. We must accelerate our plans. Begin landing your troops.
NUTE GUNRAY: Ah, my lord, is that... legal?
DARTH SIDIOUS: I will make it legal.
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Here's something - ages ago, I wrote a few chapters of a really bad snarky fic, imaginatively titled Harry Potter and the Ocarina of Time. I couldn't be arsed to think of what I considered JK Rowling-style fancy titles for my chapters, so they were all called things like "The Usual Stuff" and "A Train Journey". One was called "A Wedding". So that's my first point, and it's one I may return to: JK Rowling's chapter titles suck ass. As I work on this review or whatever it is I have a separate notepad file for every chapter, titles with that chapter's name, and yet I find myself constantly referring to my book or the Lexicon to verify which chapter is which, as they are all called really nonspecific things like "The Woods" or "A Tent" or "Some Cheese" (I may have made those up).
Right then. Chapter opens right before the wedding, with Harry et al waiting around outside the marquee. Harry has been disguised as "Cousin Barny", a Weasley relative, because there are literally so many Weasleys that you can invent one and nobody will question it. The obvious Barney reference is, of course, Barney the Big Fucking Purple Bastard Dinosaur Bellend, but I'd also like to mention Barny from Modern Toss, a man who morphs into a giant, red, angry monster whenever Alan Titchmarsh is mentioned. "Barny", Ron, Fred and George are acting as ushers. The wedding features, amongst other things: four ushers, two bridesmaids, a band, hired waiters, a marquee. Fleur's "colours" appear to be gold, white and purple; there are white flowers and a purple carpet and golden balloons. "Golden balloons" sounds like a badfic euphemism for breasts: "Harry cupped Ginny's golden balloons, stroking their already-hardening ..." Um. Yes. Fred makes a comment about his hypothetical future wedding, which is all like OMGFORESHADOWING!, like that time Cedric's dad went on about hypothetical future grandkids, and makes me almost sad to see him go, as his wedding plans sound eminently sensible. (Note "almost".)
A little background (Percy not there, Harry's disguise has made him fat) and then guests start apparating in. Here's a description of them:
Exotic flowers and bewitched birds fluttered on the witches' hats, while precious gems glittered from many of the wizards' cravats
I don't even know where to begin. What kind of wizard wears a cravat?
Fred and George piss off to hit on some hot French girls and then a variety of old people arrive. Following this, Tonks and Lupin show up. She's gone blonde for the occasion. I went blonde once. We had a bleach party at my house, and three of us all went peroxide, and the next day at school someone told us we looked like the Romanian football team. Oh, the lulz. Anyway, she's blonde, Lupin is being emo and not-so-surreptitiously swigging from a hipflask, off they go. Meanwhile, Hagrid misunderstands Fred's directions and sits on five small chairs, crushing them, instead of the chair specifically designated for him. How hard can it be to understand "Sit on the chair you can fit in"? I actually had a whole rant prepared about - oh shit, is Hagrid supposed to have an extra Y chromosome? - but then I looked up XYY syndrome and found out that half the stuff I was going to mention is only stereotyping and rumour anyway, which pissed all over my hilarious joke. DAMMIT.
Back outside, Ron introduces Harry to one Xenophilius "Lando" Lovegood, dad of Luna and mad cultist. Luna shows up too. They're both wearing bright yellow robes, like a mini summer-themed version of the Polyphonic Spree. Luna can totally tell Harry is Harry and not Barny (presumably she mentions Alan Titchmarsh and he doesn't hulk out). They fangirl over the gnomes. They bugger off.
Next up we meet Auntie Muriel, who is a total cow, a xenophobe, and an absolute legend, given that she manages to offend or annoy everyone ever in the space of about three lines of text. Apart from the part where she's a bigot, she is pretty much exactly how I see myself once I'm old. Or, you know, now. Hermione shows up and is hit on by Ron; she too was insulted by Muriel. They all express regret that Uncle Bilius was unable to attend (on account of being dead), given that he used to amuse people at weddings by crapping flowers. Christ almighty.
Next to be wheeled onstage to provide some exposition and never be heard from again arrive is our old mate Viktor Krum, a guest of the bride. He's described as "a dark-haired young man with a large, curved nose and thick, black eyebrows", and I start picturing him as looking like Sylar from Heroes. Man, Heroes is good.
For some reason I can't put my finger on, I really like the fact that Fleur and Krum kept in touch; I like stuff like this, things that aren't of any consequence for the main plot, but give us little hinty details about a character's personality or life. I enjoy the idea that after GoF, Krum and Fleur's activities weren't limited to their role in the story. Anyway, Hermione leaps on Krum and fangirls him; Ron gets pissy and ruthlessly mocks Krum's beard. BUUURRRRRNNNN!!!
The guests are getting restless by this point, so everyone takes their seats ready for kick-off.
The ceremony begins. Music "swells" from the golden balloons, which is practically begging for me to take the piss. Wearing a white dress, Fleur glides down the aisle while her comedy dad bounces alongside her; her very radiance apparently "beautifies everyone it falls upon", making them look more attractive as they bask in her reflected glory. Well, except me, but then I never look good when I'm puking. The officiant is the same guy who emceed Dumbledore's funeral, so quite possibly there is only one registrar for all of wizarding Britain. Not totally out there, I suppose; there's one secondary school, one bank, one entirely wizarding village, one wandmaker, no primary or tertiary education at all, and as nk_aoede pointed out, there only seem to be two musical acts. (Then again, the economy can support two joke shops, several brands of quite specialised sweets and, like... *checks Lexicon* thirteen professional sports teams, so whatever.)
Anyway, the ministry registrar guy starts giving it all, "we are gathered here today" etc. I wonder how many HP fans will use the vows out of this as their own "we're writing our own"-type wedding vows in the next few years? (Hey, I'm not judging. In the unlikely event I ever get married, I want Han Solo and Princess Leia action figures as cake toppers, a "first skank" instead of a first dance, and tables named after punk songs like "California Uber Alles", "Blitzkreig Bop" and "Drunk Sincerity". I'll be sitting Grannie at "Strickly Hardcore".) As the ceremony goes on, so JKR doesn't have to write any more vows, Harry's attention wanes: he finds himself reminiscing, as per usual, about Ginny and all those heavy petting sessions last year. Well, it's not spelled out in so many words, but of course that's what he's thinking about - no teenage boy, when idly fantasising about the stuff he did with his girlfriend, is remembering the time they got the Hogwarts house-elves to bring them a glass of warm milk and a plate of digestive biscuits before bed. That, and the fact in that the sentence before his mind starts wandering, Muriel makes a comment about Ginny's dress being too low-cut. OK, we get it!
Meanwhile, Hermione, Molly, Fleur's mum and, er, Hagrid are sobbing. I've never understood why people cry at weddings, I don't do it - but then again, I have a heart of ice. Finally, Bill and Fleur are declared "bonded for life", which makes me feel faintly uncomfortable for reasons that are probably linked to me having "marxist feminism" listed as an interest, but also makes my ears prick up a little when I realise it's non-gender-specific, so gay wizards could presumably get married, if only there were any. This book is full of stuff that makes me feel all contradictiony like that. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Serious Business.
Party tiem nao! Those golden balloons spray glitter and birds and stuff everywhere, and - as if by magic - the marquee becomes a canopy, under which a dancefloor, bandstand and lots of tables appear. Also, waiters, carrying plates of sandwiches (mmmmmm sandwiches) and trays of pumpkin juice, butterbeer, and firewhisky, which sound like the three most mismatched drinks ever. First, JKR, have you ever handled a pumpkin? Not much juice in one of those. You can make soup with it, but juice, not so much. Secondly, I would like a glass of wine. What's that you say? I can only have a low-alcohol content drink considered suitable for thirteen-year-olds, or a glass of hard liquor? What kind of freak serves those drinks at their wedding? Does the wizarding world only have three kinds of drink as well as everything else?
Harry and the rest of the Phoenix Crew sit down with Luna; the band soon strikes up "Rape Me" by Nirvana, so Luna gets up to join the moshpit. Krum grabs her seat, and Ron immediately removes Hermione from the scene. Paranoid bunch, these Weasleys! Krum then enquires about Xenophilius Lovegood and, specifically, that fancy symbol he's wearing, which Krum is offended by. He mentions that the symbol was Grindelwald's symbol, and that Grindelwald was responsible for the deaths of several of his family members. I'm not sure if we're supposed to be sympathetic to Krum in this bit or not. Essentially I don't think we're supposed to hate him or like him - he's just here to provide exposition. Nonetheless, I'm with Krum, and I think Xenophilius is kind of a twat, albeit a well-meaning twat. Xenophilius can claim he's going for the "original meaning" of the symbol as much as he likes, but he's basically the wizarding world equivalent of Crispian Mills from Kula Shaker, that time he declared that he thought it would be really cool to have flaming swastikas on the stage. Whatever. Meanings change and once a symbol gets used as an emblem of fascist genocide, claiming you're wearing it to represent old-school Hindu style peace and love (or the deathly hallows, whichever) puts you on pretty thin ice. Anyway, Harry sticks up for Xenophilius, explaining that he and Luna are just fucking weird, but Krum is not interested in this type of shit. He merely sits and stares at Luna as she skanks. Then, as a way of segue-ing into Harry realising who Gregorovitch is (some eastern European wandmaker or something), we get the following sentence:
[Krum] drew his wand from the inside of his robes and tapped it menacingly on his thigh; sparks flew out of the end.
Dayum.
Er, yeah. The exposition we get here reveals that Gregorovitch is a renowned wand maker, that he retired a few years back, that Voldemort is probably after a new wand from him. Meanwhile, Ginny appears on the peripheries of the scene, and Krum admires her enormous boobs, shiny teeth, symmetrical tail feathers and wet nose (or whatever, I wasn't paying a lot of attention). He asks Harry if she's single, which she technically is. Harry effectively tells Krum to fuck off or he'll chin him, demonstrating again the immense power of love in these books. Krum laments his lack of a Premiership football-style WAG of his own.
The evening continues. Things kick off; Fred and George disappear into the darkness with a pair of Fleur's cousins to engage in kinky sex activities. Harry finds himself chatting with Elphias Doge, an ancient, leathery wizard, dressed in nothing but a fez and a smile. (Some of that last sentence is true, but I'll leave it to you to decide which bits.) They talk about Dumbledore, and Elphias reassures Harry that Dumbledore was a good guy, but he accidentally mentions Rita Skeeter, which has the effect of drawing Auntie Muriel into the conversation. She fangirls for a while, and says that Dumbledore sucks and stuff like that, and the following seeds of doubt as to Dumbledore's integrity are planted in our minds:
1. Albus Dumbledore had a sister, Ariana, who died young.
2. This sister was kept away from the world and was maybe a squib.
3. Their mum was called Kendra, which is surely not a real name? It just sounds far too contemporary ... OK, I've just looked it up, and apparently it is a modern form of the Gaelic name Kendrick, and has only had any significant popularity since the 1950s. Almost every site I've found that lists it gives a different meaning for it, but several acknowledge that it might just be a portmanteau of Ken and Sandra (or similar). NOT A REAL NAME. Wait, why am I even bothering with this bit?
4. At Ariana's funeral, Aberforth broke Albus's nose.
5. Auntie Muriel is a drinker. (Hey, she should hang out with Remus for a while! They could have a contest.)
6. The Dumbledore dad went to prison.
7. Bathilda Bagshot, writer of textbooks, was mates with Albus Dumbledore and lives in Godric's Hollow. The graves of Albus's family are there too.
Harry angsts about how he and Dumbledore had this in common, but never shared it. Never shared a joint or some cocoa, and talked about how, like - we're the same, you and me. We totally are. I mean, we're not, but we totally are. Hermione sits down, rubbing her feet, but before Harry can even begin to bore her like he's been boring me, Kingsley's patronus suddenly shows up and says, "The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming", which is really quite badass. I bet this is Jar-Jar Binks' fault.
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