Deathly Hallows uberwank: Chapter 26, Gringotts
Click to viewHere's something that amuses me. Article 5 of the Evil Overlord List states that:
The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
Voldemort has obviously read the Evil Overlord List and attempted to put some of its suggestions into practice, specifically by putting Hufflepuff's cup in a bank vault. However, said bank vault is located in a magic bank, so it ends up being guarded by a dragon, goblins, and an enchanted waterfall anyway. Doomed to failure!
Voldemort constantly n00bs up in this way, and it almost makes me feel sorry for him. Another example is Article 101:
I will not order my trusted lieutenant to kill the infant who is destined to overthrow me - I'll do it myself.
And of course, we all know how that one turned out.
Yes - as you will have guessed from the not-so-enigmatic chapter title, this is the one where our intrepid trio go to the bank. It takes a little over three pages before they set off, though; first Harry needs to wangst a little over Dobby, and JK Rowling needs to let us know that Bill has lent the trio a new tent (luckily, though, they don't get a chance to use it), that they have no halfway decent plan for double-crossing Griphook, that Harry and Ron have been sharing a room with Dean, that unicorns are white, that I have new socks on today, that poodles don't moult, etc, etc. I might have some of that wrong, but it's late as I'm writing this bit.
So. Morning dawns. Hermione will be dressing today as Bellatrix, polyjuicing into her using a hair found on her robes after chapter 23. I'm a little surprised they're using that technique, considering that they did it in CoS and Hermione temporarily became some kind of furry (I think. I haven't re-read that one for a few years now). Not that it matters, because it is a Bellatrix hair anyway. Accessories-wise, she will be carrying Bellatrix's wand. She doesn't like the feel of it, and Harry doesn't give a fuck about that until she reminds him that this is the wand that tortured Neville's parents and killed Sirius, and then he wants to snap it in two.
Next, it's time for Ron's disguise. Hermione tells him to "come here so I can do you". You can check that if you want, it's on page 422 of the UK edition. I guess this is one of those anvils I keep hearing about. It certainly hurt to read it. Anyway, she "does" Ron, which does not, in fact, involve doing him in the Beavis and Butthead sense but means giving him various disguises, including a beard. (Fun beard fact: Lupin also has a beard in this book.) Finally they set off: Ron with his beard, Hermione as Bellatrix, and Harry under his cloaking device, with Griphook hanging around his neck. Griphook-around-Harry's-neck will provide a running commentary for most of this chapter, explaining what each new magical artifact is as they encounter it (although never mentioning them before then, which is not enormously helpful). Together, they disapparate to the Leaky Cauldron (quick question, does anyone else automatically think of the website first, and then the pub?).
Yeah, so they go in, and - wait, I thought it was first thing in the morning? I guess that wizards are pretty heavy drinkers, even if they only have about two alcoholic beverages to pick from. (And, of course, one wizard in particular is the heaviest drinker of them all.) Actually, I admit I'm being silly about this - it's an inn as well, isn't it. The barman is that Tom guy who's always behind the bar. I wonder if he ever sleeps, or perhaps he is some kind of automaton? He greets them - "Madam Lestrange", which makes me wonder, out of interest, why it's "Madam Lestrange" (and Madam Hooch and Madam Pomfrey) but Mrs Weasley - well, except that "Mrs" sounds much more cosy and cuddly and all-round mumsy than "Madam", which is presumably reserved for those with more authority.
They head for Diagon Alley, where most of the shops are abandoned. There is a genuinely horrible moment, which JKR wins points for, where a dude with, presumably, a missing eye (covered with bloody bandages) accosts Bellatrix!Hermione, asking what has happened to his children. Ron stuns him to get rid of him - which is OK, I guess, since that's what the real Bellatrix/her homies would probably have done.
Next, a dude named Travers - another death eater, apparently - shows up. Hermione is almost epic fail when she yells at him, but manages to cover it up; he is surprised to see "Bellatrix", because he was under the impression she was at Malfoy Manor doing whatever it is they do there (which, as I have discussed in the past, is mostly listening to Demis Roussos and eating vol-au-vents). Somehow, Hermione manages to cover this up too.
The doors to the bank, when they reach it, are guarded by badasses carrying magical instruments called probity probes, which is an annoying name, but I have just looked up "probity" and discovered that it is, in fact, a real word, so it's not as dumb as I originally thought. Our intrepid trio do not have time for this type of bullshit, so Harry uses a confounding spell (or something) on the guards and they pass through unchecked. Once inside, he takes things up a notch, using the imperius curse on the goblin security guard and then on Travers so that they all just leave him the hell alone. The imperius curse is supposed to be unforgiveable but it's only evil when the bad guys do it. When the good guys do it... well...
... Well, then I guess it's OK.
Once inside and having put the imperius curse on practically everyone, our intrepid trio plus goblin plus death eater are escorted to the entrance to the vaults by a goblin called Bogrod, which sounds like a death metal band. Bogrod brings a bag of something called "clankers" which will be marginally important in a couple of pages' time. Yet another swift imperius curse and Travers simply wanders off into the vaults to hide, which is perhaps a little sloppy, but they are pressed for time. Bogrod, like a hideously deformed theme park employee, loads them all into a cart.
The cart sets off along a rickety track, taking bends at high speed and looping all over the place before eventually shooting through a waterfall, whereupon our heroes are flipped out of the cart and hit a wall. You know, speaking as someone who has been to Disneyland, I'd argue this sounds awfully familiar, but anyway. Oh, man, that fucking Harry Potter theme park is so going to include a Gringotts ride, isn't it? With animatronic goblins and a log flume at the end. (The rest of my predictions for the theme park are, of course, documented.)
Er, anyway, so the cart throws them all against a wall, and when they get up they realise they are all soaking wet and their magical disguises have disappeared. Griphook loudly exclaims (for our benefit) that it's a magical defence against thieves, and that alarms are sounding. So - wait - those terrible things that Gringotts threatens will happen to thieves - it's a waterfall? That's it? (Well, and the dragon we meet in a second.) Like I said before, DISNEYLAND.
Anyway, after this trouser-browning experience they pick themselves up, send a few pisspoor defensive spells back up through the waterfall to hinder any theme park attendants who may be coming to investigate, and stumble off around a corner where they meet... a dragon! Griphook continues to provide a running commentary about how the dragon is blind and it is pissed off and stuff like that. Those "clankers" we were introduced to about three pages ago turn out to be, in fact, literal clankers - bits of metal that go clank. They are used to subdue the dragon, which - as Griphook explains - has been trained to expect pain when it hears the clanking sound. In other words, the dragon has undergone classical (or Pavlovian) conditioning, whereby a stimulus (in Pavlov's classic experiment, a bell) is repeatedly presented at the same time as a stimulus that already elicits a response (such as food) leading eventually to what we call a conditioned response (salivation when the bell is sounded). Here, the dragon has been hurt while hearing the clanking noise and therefore can be subdued with the sound alone.
The thing is, if you keep on presenting the conditioned stimulus (the clankers) without the pain, you end up weakening and eventually eliminating the conditioned response (the fear) as the dragon learns that the noise is not necessarily always accompanied by pain - a process called "extinction". (Extinction is - as I recall - used in the treatment of specific phobias, where you gradually unlearn the association between fear and the thing that causes the fear.)
The goblins might not want to rinse the clankers, is all I'm saying. Because they won't be effective any more.
Right, anyway, they finally get inside Bellatrix's vault and start looking for that fucking horcrux, which was the reason they came over here in the first place, but I am bored of the horcruxes, so bored of the fucking horcruxes... Harry has a moment of wangst over whether it will even be a recognisable horcrux in there or whether it'll be the one that they don't even know what it is yet, but luckily Hermione interrupts this by grabbing a random goblet. It turns out everything you touch gets hot and multiple versions of it appear - and, as Griphook puts it, "if you continue to handle the treasure, you will eventually be crushed to death by the weight of expanding gold!" - which I think is meant to sound incredibly harsh and scary and weighty, but makes me laugh every time I read it, I think at least partly because it reminds me of Scrooge McDuck swimming in a pool of gold coins (look out at 0.19 for the classic moment):
My first thought was "Woah, Bellatrix is paranoid", given that the heat and multiple-worthless-copies spells are on top of the wizarding bank, goblins, dragon, magic waterfall etc etc. But on second thoughts, these three fuckers managed to get in, so in many ways perhaps Bellatrix isn't paranoid enough.
Inevitably, then, our intrepid trio immediately brush against every loose coin in the place, ensuring within about a minute that they are up to their knees in red-hot metal. A goblet burns part of Ron's shoe away, although - and I will tell you this now - they don't die as a result of being trapped in what is basically an oven with a constantly increasing temperature and a constantly reducing amount of space, so exactly how hot the metal gets is unclear. The increasing temperature thing raises questions about where the energy is coming from to produce this heat. Also, I am a massive nerd.
At some point they spot Hufflepuff's cup. Their method for obtaining it is in line with the way they usually do things: try Accio and then just do whatever stupid thing comes into your head first. In this case, that is a Levicorpus spell aimed at Harry, who jerks into the air ankle-first, hitting a fucking suit of armour on the way up. Why didn't they use Wingardium Levi-fucking-osa, for crying out loud? Ron used it to levitate a troll's club all the way back in book 1, so it's not like weight is an issue. The falling suits of armour pretty much bury the goblins; Harry rescues that little shit Griphook, who thanks him by taking Gryffindor's sword, thereby neatly solving the problem of how to double-cross him by fucking them over first. As he scampers away, Griphook flips them off.
Harry catches the horcrux, which burns him like a really hot thing. Because that's what it is. Can you guess, I am running out of stuff to say about this one? Ugh, let's get it finished, anyway. They surf out of the vault on a wave of gold. That is pretty much the blingingest thing that ever happened in a Harry Potter book (well, other than that bit in PS/SS where Professor Flitwick teaches them the "Ghettofabulus!" charm and they all act like pimps for a day. Which, I suspect, only actually happened in my head). They hit the assembled goblins with stunning spells (although we never find out what happened to Bogrod, so I guess it's OK to kill goblins some of the time, or whatever) and then... release the dragon! Fuck Yes! Well, the reaction should be Fuck Yes! except that I am bored and it's a stupid dragon. So, I guess... "yeeaaahhh...!" is about right.
No, it is quite badass really, and I oughtn't to let my own boredom affect that. It's not a stupid dragon. I'm sorry, dragon. So, yeah, they nick the dragon and then, sitting on its back, blast a whole bunch of holes in the roof and somehow, despite being blind, the dragon knows the way out (which, once again, is the sort of inconsistency that we shouldn't have to deal with in real life, but are happy to take for granted at DISNEY-FUCKING-LAND where it's attached to a rail). The chapter ends in a genuinely badass way as the dragon arrives in the Gringotts foyer, flips off the surrounding goblins and wizards, completely fucks the doors up as it pushes through them (although our intrepid trio, still clinging on to it, don't seem to be in any way injured by this), and GTFOs.
Now that, my friends, is metal.
Mad-Eye would be proud.
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