And Me.
And so concludes my Labor Day Weekend of reviewing this lousy book. Doing these things once a day is kind of rough, but it's worth it to get to the halfway point in a little over a month.
Chapter 11: The Firebolt
(Original Japanese Title: "Here We Go Again!! Harry's Routine Burst of Anger")
Returning from Hogsmeade, where Harry has overheard the full depths of Sirius Black's crimes, he's totally furious, wondering why no one told him that Black not only means to kill him, but that he was the one who betrayed his father's trust when Voldemort killed his parents. Hmmm... maybe because they knew you'd do something stupid if you found out? Harry checks out his photo album to find a picture of his parents' wedding day, and sure enough, he finds Sirius Black standing in the shot as the best man, although he looks nothing like the dude in the wanted posters. From there, Harry lies awake most of the night, brooding over what he's just learned.
The next morning marks the beginning of the Christmas break, so that pretty much leaves Ron and Hermione to try and talk Harry out of doing something stupid. "But the thing is, you mustn't go doing anything stupid," Ron advises. You know, when Ron is the freaking voice of reason, you know you've crossed some kind of line. They don't get very far, since Harry's rage seems to trump the notion that he might die in the pursuit of revenge.
In fact, Harry doesn't even know what he'd do exactly, just that he wants to do it. And this is why I hate Harry Potter. Like the Terminator said "Anger is more useful than despair." I don't mind a character whose main motivation is anger or revenge. But Harry doesn't have the tools to use his anger. He's like the Hulk without the super strength, or Raphael from Ninja Turtles without the sai training. He doesn't want to just sit there waiting for the authorities to catch Black, but at the same time, when Ron and Hermione wonder aloud if he seriously wants to kill Black, Harry doesn't really know. The thing is, Harry couldn't kill Sirius Black even if he wanted to, and whatever other plans he might think of, well those would be just as empty. He's like Bruce Wayne in the flashback sequences to "Batman Begins", only without the rest of the movie where he figures out how to focus his anger constructively. And the worst part about is that Harry never will figure it out, because Book Six has him plotting the same sort of half-baked quest to hunt down and defeat Snape, despite the fact that Snape defeated him effortlessly days earlier. Never once does it occur to Harry that he might need to figure out some kind of advantage over his enemies. Maybe he's just too suicidal to care, but that sort of undermines the noble cause of his vendetta. If it were me, I wouldn't want my son to avenge me in the first place, but if he did I'd at least like to think that he'd care enough about my memory that he'd put some thought into his plan first. Like the Klingon proverb says, revenge is a dish best served cold.
In an attempt to defuse Harry's fury, the Outsiders suggest they visit Hagrid and see how he's doing. This sort of backfires, since Harry plans on giving Hagrid an earful about why he didn't tell Harry the truth about Black in the first place. And yet, when they get to his place, Hagrid's all sobbing like a baby (shocking, I know), which sort of makes it tough to yell at a guy, I guess.
As Hagrid finally explains, he's recieved a letter from the board of school governors. The good news is that they don't hold him responsible for Buckbeak clawing up Señor Draco's arm back at the beginning of the year. You know, it damn sure took these guys long enough to rule on this situation. And who are these guys, anyway? Because everyone talks about Dumbledore like he runs the school, unless something comes up where the decision needs to be unclear as a matter of suspense. It's like in wrestling, where you have like eight guys running the company at the same time. Anywho, the bad news is that the board still has reservations about Buckbeak himself, and so they've referred the matter to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, who'll hold a hearing to decide whether or not to have the animal destroyed. I dunno, this seems like a win-win situation to me, but then, I'm not a nine-foot tall oaf who lives with spiders in the forest and constantly blubbers like a two year old leaving the toy aisle at Wal-Mart. Come to think of it, I think I'd prefer it if Buckbeak were spared and Hagrid got executed, but the board of governors clearly doesn't see things my way.
The nWo expresses confidence that Hagrid can prove Buckbeak is safe at the hearing, but Hagrid's convinced that the entire Committee is in Lucius Malfoy's pocket, so he's got no chance. Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you let his son wander around your animals, hoss. I mean, just because Draco brought it on himself doesn't give you the right to be an idiot, you know? The main thing is that Hagrid's troubles seem to have distracted Harry from his ill-conceived mad-on, at least for the moment.
The conversation then turns to Hagrid's experiences in Azkaban Prison, and he describes the dementors as being only interested in human host to feed upon. As he puts it, they don't really care who's innocent or guilty, as long as they have a hundred-odd humans to leech the happiness out of. This suggests to me that using the dementors to guard Azkaban was mostly an arrangement of convenience. The criminals aren't locked in with them; the criminals and the dementors are locked in with each other. This could almost seem like a good idea, except it probably means that they need a second set of guards to keep the dementors in line when they transfer prisoners, or in Hagrid's case, release them. And really, that doesn't begin to explain how the dementors are supposed to help search for an escapee. From what I've seen, the dementors don't seem to care if they find Black or not, and they'd probably be happier back at the prison where they can feed off of the remaining inmates. It's like using an electric chair to hunt down a guy who broke out of Alcatraz. Nevertheless, this is why Hagrid doesn't simply release Buckbeak into the wild, because seeing the dementors around town just makes him that more fearful of defying the law. The kids promise to read up on old cases involving similar circumstances, but let's face it, that's pretty weak help if I ever heard of it.
Cripes this chapter still ain't over. We pick up on Christmas morning, when Ron wakes up Harry with "Oy! Presents!" Much like Snape dressed up as Neville's Grandma, this might make a good YTMND. I may have to rent the movie version sometime. It's mostly clothes anyway, so I don't see what Ron's so excited about. Finally, Harry discovers one last present for him, and lo and behold, it turns out to be the broomstick he saw in Chapter Four, the Firebolt. Just like the title of this cartoon! You know, I need a soundbyte of that, too, because I think it works better when you hear Billy West saying it.
Yeah, check that out. Friggin' awesome. Anyway, there's no card, so no one's sure who'd spend that much money on a present for Harry. While Hermione sizes up the situation, her damn cat starts acting up again, and this bit's getting pretty old, I'll tell you that. During the "zany" hijinks, Harry's Sneakoscope falls out and starts going crazy, which I'm sure is supposed to mean something, but I'm too annoyed by the pet antics to care. NEDM.
Since there's only a dozen or so people left in the school at this point, it's pretty much the nWo, a handful of other students, and the faculty having lunch together in the Great Hall. You know, here's a thought: why not let the dementors search the school over break, and Dumbledore can just take everyone to Tiajuana over the holidays? They'd have to keep it a secret, I guess, or else all the students would wanna go, but it sounds better than spending two weeks in an empty castle. Dumbledore suddenly shouts "Crackers", and hands some sort of noisemaker to Snape. Yeah, I'm starting to think D-Dore's just perpetually coked out of his mind. Recall that Snape is wearing his bright red sweater with "HO HO HO" knitted into it in white letters.
Because this scene isn't awkward enough, Sybill Trelawny shows up, claiming she was lookng into the future and saw herself having lunch with the others, so she decided to fufil her own prophecy by coming down to eat. Great, now she's gonna spend the whole meal telling everybody about how Christmas used to be Saturnalia, and how her Goddess ate your God, and all that other hippie crap. Of course, despite forseeing her own participation, Sybill refuses to take a seat, since that would mean thirteen people at the table, and superstition holds that whenever thirteen people eat a meal together, the first one to leave the table is the first one to die. Much of the conversation is between McGonagall and Trelawny being all catty to one another, and you know you're a kook when an old lady in a pointed hat who turns into cats for a living is making fun of your hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo. Trelawny asks where Lupin is, and upon hearing he was too sick to attend, she claims to have already known that, but was feigning ignorance so as not to weird everyone out with her scary amazing inner eye. Dumbledore double-checks with Snape to make sure he gave Lupin a dose of his potion again, which just goes to show that Snape poisoning Lupin would be a pretty dumb way to murder him. Harry and Ron are the first to leave, and Trelawny has a fit. You know, that just settles it for me that she's full of crap. Dumbledore was the first one out of this group to actually die, and the only other instance of thirteen people eating together that I know of was the Last Supper, where Jesus was the first to leave his seat (to wash the disciples' feet) and Judas was the first one to die (albeit by his own hand). Of course, maybe if Sybil didn't spend all her time smoking weed at Stonehenge and not shaving her armpits, she'd know that. OK, that last one went too far, and I apologize.
The chapter ends with Hermione being a total narc, telling McGonagall about Harry's new broom, so she confiscates it to have it checked for booby traps and such, since, as Hermione explains, they both agree that Sirius Black may have the one who sent it. Dunh dunh DUNHHH!
Weak chapter. Harry's pissed, Hagrid's pathetic, and Trelawny's a flake. The broom's an interesting development, but surrounded by all the filler, I'm not impressed.
Since we're at the halfway mark, let's review what we've seen so far.
1: Owl Post Harry does his homework, and reads his mail. RATING: BAD
2: Aunt Marge's Big Mistake A done-to-death "obnoxious relative" episode, except for the twist where Harry nearly kills her and leaves the house as a fugitive. RATING: BAD
3: The Knight Bus Harry rides around on a stupid bus all night, then the Minister of Magic rewards him for his criminal recklessness. RATING: BAD
4: The Leaky Cauldron Our first actual plot point, as escaped convict Sirius Black is revealed to be a servant of Voldemort, and plans to hunt down and kill Harry Potter. Harry eats ice cream sundaes and watches his friend buy a cat. RATING: BAD
5: The Dementor Harry rides the train to school, only to pass out when a horde of soul-eating ghouls board the train in search of Sirius Black. Some homless guy named Remus Lupin fights them off with magic and chocolate. RATING: GOOD
6: Talons and Tea Leaves First day of classes. Hermione time travels. Sybil Trelawny acts like a total kook. Draco Malfoy is savagely attacked by some sort of bird-horse thing. RATING: GOOD
7: The Boggart in the Wardrobe Snape treats Neville Longbottom like gum on his shoe, while Remus Lupin builds up his confidence by using his fear of Snape to defeat a shape-shifting monster. RATING: GOOD
8: Flight of the Fat Lady Sirius Black infiltrates the school and attacks the G-Tower paining, putting the whole school on Red Alert. But the chapter is mostly about Harry sitting around watching Lupin drink stuff. RATING: BAD
9: Grim Defeat An exhaustive search for Black turns up nothing. Snape fills in for Lupin while he's sick. Dementors storm the Quidditch field during play, putting Harry in the hospital and losing the game to Hufflepuff. RATING: BAD
10: The Marauder's Map Fred and George offer Harry a magic map that allows him to sneak out of the school and join his friends on the field trip to Hogsmeade. There, he overhears the teachers discussing Sirius Black, and how he betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort in spite of their close friendship. This story takes for friggin' ever the way they tell it. RATING: BAD
11: The Firebolt Harry swears revenge, but in a sort of open-ended sort of way. Hagrid's dumb monster has to appear in Dumb Monster Court. Harry gets a new broomstick for Christmas, but it may be a trap laid by Sirius Black. RATING: BAD
So the book's batting... 0.273. And this is the GOOD book of the series. Would someone care to explain that to me one more time? Because this book just does all the same crap people bashed Half-Blood Prince for doing. Harry sits around listening to more interesting characters talk, Harry gets super mega angry but can't act on it, the forces of law and order who are supposed to protect Harry can't get their act in gear. It's the same dumb book, only shorter. Unless this turkey starts to turn it around in the second half, I really don't understand what all the fuss was about.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: The Ghost of Suitcase Future.
Chapter 11: The Firebolt
(Original Japanese Title: "Here We Go Again!! Harry's Routine Burst of Anger")
Returning from Hogsmeade, where Harry has overheard the full depths of Sirius Black's crimes, he's totally furious, wondering why no one told him that Black not only means to kill him, but that he was the one who betrayed his father's trust when Voldemort killed his parents. Hmmm... maybe because they knew you'd do something stupid if you found out? Harry checks out his photo album to find a picture of his parents' wedding day, and sure enough, he finds Sirius Black standing in the shot as the best man, although he looks nothing like the dude in the wanted posters. From there, Harry lies awake most of the night, brooding over what he's just learned.
The next morning marks the beginning of the Christmas break, so that pretty much leaves Ron and Hermione to try and talk Harry out of doing something stupid. "But the thing is, you mustn't go doing anything stupid," Ron advises. You know, when Ron is the freaking voice of reason, you know you've crossed some kind of line. They don't get very far, since Harry's rage seems to trump the notion that he might die in the pursuit of revenge.
In fact, Harry doesn't even know what he'd do exactly, just that he wants to do it. And this is why I hate Harry Potter. Like the Terminator said "Anger is more useful than despair." I don't mind a character whose main motivation is anger or revenge. But Harry doesn't have the tools to use his anger. He's like the Hulk without the super strength, or Raphael from Ninja Turtles without the sai training. He doesn't want to just sit there waiting for the authorities to catch Black, but at the same time, when Ron and Hermione wonder aloud if he seriously wants to kill Black, Harry doesn't really know. The thing is, Harry couldn't kill Sirius Black even if he wanted to, and whatever other plans he might think of, well those would be just as empty. He's like Bruce Wayne in the flashback sequences to "Batman Begins", only without the rest of the movie where he figures out how to focus his anger constructively. And the worst part about is that Harry never will figure it out, because Book Six has him plotting the same sort of half-baked quest to hunt down and defeat Snape, despite the fact that Snape defeated him effortlessly days earlier. Never once does it occur to Harry that he might need to figure out some kind of advantage over his enemies. Maybe he's just too suicidal to care, but that sort of undermines the noble cause of his vendetta. If it were me, I wouldn't want my son to avenge me in the first place, but if he did I'd at least like to think that he'd care enough about my memory that he'd put some thought into his plan first. Like the Klingon proverb says, revenge is a dish best served cold.
In an attempt to defuse Harry's fury, the Outsiders suggest they visit Hagrid and see how he's doing. This sort of backfires, since Harry plans on giving Hagrid an earful about why he didn't tell Harry the truth about Black in the first place. And yet, when they get to his place, Hagrid's all sobbing like a baby (shocking, I know), which sort of makes it tough to yell at a guy, I guess.
As Hagrid finally explains, he's recieved a letter from the board of school governors. The good news is that they don't hold him responsible for Buckbeak clawing up Señor Draco's arm back at the beginning of the year. You know, it damn sure took these guys long enough to rule on this situation. And who are these guys, anyway? Because everyone talks about Dumbledore like he runs the school, unless something comes up where the decision needs to be unclear as a matter of suspense. It's like in wrestling, where you have like eight guys running the company at the same time. Anywho, the bad news is that the board still has reservations about Buckbeak himself, and so they've referred the matter to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, who'll hold a hearing to decide whether or not to have the animal destroyed. I dunno, this seems like a win-win situation to me, but then, I'm not a nine-foot tall oaf who lives with spiders in the forest and constantly blubbers like a two year old leaving the toy aisle at Wal-Mart. Come to think of it, I think I'd prefer it if Buckbeak were spared and Hagrid got executed, but the board of governors clearly doesn't see things my way.
The nWo expresses confidence that Hagrid can prove Buckbeak is safe at the hearing, but Hagrid's convinced that the entire Committee is in Lucius Malfoy's pocket, so he's got no chance. Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you let his son wander around your animals, hoss. I mean, just because Draco brought it on himself doesn't give you the right to be an idiot, you know? The main thing is that Hagrid's troubles seem to have distracted Harry from his ill-conceived mad-on, at least for the moment.
The conversation then turns to Hagrid's experiences in Azkaban Prison, and he describes the dementors as being only interested in human host to feed upon. As he puts it, they don't really care who's innocent or guilty, as long as they have a hundred-odd humans to leech the happiness out of. This suggests to me that using the dementors to guard Azkaban was mostly an arrangement of convenience. The criminals aren't locked in with them; the criminals and the dementors are locked in with each other. This could almost seem like a good idea, except it probably means that they need a second set of guards to keep the dementors in line when they transfer prisoners, or in Hagrid's case, release them. And really, that doesn't begin to explain how the dementors are supposed to help search for an escapee. From what I've seen, the dementors don't seem to care if they find Black or not, and they'd probably be happier back at the prison where they can feed off of the remaining inmates. It's like using an electric chair to hunt down a guy who broke out of Alcatraz. Nevertheless, this is why Hagrid doesn't simply release Buckbeak into the wild, because seeing the dementors around town just makes him that more fearful of defying the law. The kids promise to read up on old cases involving similar circumstances, but let's face it, that's pretty weak help if I ever heard of it.
Cripes this chapter still ain't over. We pick up on Christmas morning, when Ron wakes up Harry with "Oy! Presents!" Much like Snape dressed up as Neville's Grandma, this might make a good YTMND. I may have to rent the movie version sometime. It's mostly clothes anyway, so I don't see what Ron's so excited about. Finally, Harry discovers one last present for him, and lo and behold, it turns out to be the broomstick he saw in Chapter Four, the Firebolt. Just like the title of this cartoon! You know, I need a soundbyte of that, too, because I think it works better when you hear Billy West saying it.
Yeah, check that out. Friggin' awesome. Anyway, there's no card, so no one's sure who'd spend that much money on a present for Harry. While Hermione sizes up the situation, her damn cat starts acting up again, and this bit's getting pretty old, I'll tell you that. During the "zany" hijinks, Harry's Sneakoscope falls out and starts going crazy, which I'm sure is supposed to mean something, but I'm too annoyed by the pet antics to care. NEDM.
Since there's only a dozen or so people left in the school at this point, it's pretty much the nWo, a handful of other students, and the faculty having lunch together in the Great Hall. You know, here's a thought: why not let the dementors search the school over break, and Dumbledore can just take everyone to Tiajuana over the holidays? They'd have to keep it a secret, I guess, or else all the students would wanna go, but it sounds better than spending two weeks in an empty castle. Dumbledore suddenly shouts "Crackers", and hands some sort of noisemaker to Snape. Yeah, I'm starting to think D-Dore's just perpetually coked out of his mind. Recall that Snape is wearing his bright red sweater with "HO HO HO" knitted into it in white letters.
Because this scene isn't awkward enough, Sybill Trelawny shows up, claiming she was lookng into the future and saw herself having lunch with the others, so she decided to fufil her own prophecy by coming down to eat. Great, now she's gonna spend the whole meal telling everybody about how Christmas used to be Saturnalia, and how her Goddess ate your God, and all that other hippie crap. Of course, despite forseeing her own participation, Sybill refuses to take a seat, since that would mean thirteen people at the table, and superstition holds that whenever thirteen people eat a meal together, the first one to leave the table is the first one to die. Much of the conversation is between McGonagall and Trelawny being all catty to one another, and you know you're a kook when an old lady in a pointed hat who turns into cats for a living is making fun of your hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo. Trelawny asks where Lupin is, and upon hearing he was too sick to attend, she claims to have already known that, but was feigning ignorance so as not to weird everyone out with her scary amazing inner eye. Dumbledore double-checks with Snape to make sure he gave Lupin a dose of his potion again, which just goes to show that Snape poisoning Lupin would be a pretty dumb way to murder him. Harry and Ron are the first to leave, and Trelawny has a fit. You know, that just settles it for me that she's full of crap. Dumbledore was the first one out of this group to actually die, and the only other instance of thirteen people eating together that I know of was the Last Supper, where Jesus was the first to leave his seat (to wash the disciples' feet) and Judas was the first one to die (albeit by his own hand). Of course, maybe if Sybil didn't spend all her time smoking weed at Stonehenge and not shaving her armpits, she'd know that. OK, that last one went too far, and I apologize.
The chapter ends with Hermione being a total narc, telling McGonagall about Harry's new broom, so she confiscates it to have it checked for booby traps and such, since, as Hermione explains, they both agree that Sirius Black may have the one who sent it. Dunh dunh DUNHHH!
Weak chapter. Harry's pissed, Hagrid's pathetic, and Trelawny's a flake. The broom's an interesting development, but surrounded by all the filler, I'm not impressed.
Since we're at the halfway mark, let's review what we've seen so far.
1: Owl Post Harry does his homework, and reads his mail. RATING: BAD
2: Aunt Marge's Big Mistake A done-to-death "obnoxious relative" episode, except for the twist where Harry nearly kills her and leaves the house as a fugitive. RATING: BAD
3: The Knight Bus Harry rides around on a stupid bus all night, then the Minister of Magic rewards him for his criminal recklessness. RATING: BAD
4: The Leaky Cauldron Our first actual plot point, as escaped convict Sirius Black is revealed to be a servant of Voldemort, and plans to hunt down and kill Harry Potter. Harry eats ice cream sundaes and watches his friend buy a cat. RATING: BAD
5: The Dementor Harry rides the train to school, only to pass out when a horde of soul-eating ghouls board the train in search of Sirius Black. Some homless guy named Remus Lupin fights them off with magic and chocolate. RATING: GOOD
6: Talons and Tea Leaves First day of classes. Hermione time travels. Sybil Trelawny acts like a total kook. Draco Malfoy is savagely attacked by some sort of bird-horse thing. RATING: GOOD
7: The Boggart in the Wardrobe Snape treats Neville Longbottom like gum on his shoe, while Remus Lupin builds up his confidence by using his fear of Snape to defeat a shape-shifting monster. RATING: GOOD
8: Flight of the Fat Lady Sirius Black infiltrates the school and attacks the G-Tower paining, putting the whole school on Red Alert. But the chapter is mostly about Harry sitting around watching Lupin drink stuff. RATING: BAD
9: Grim Defeat An exhaustive search for Black turns up nothing. Snape fills in for Lupin while he's sick. Dementors storm the Quidditch field during play, putting Harry in the hospital and losing the game to Hufflepuff. RATING: BAD
10: The Marauder's Map Fred and George offer Harry a magic map that allows him to sneak out of the school and join his friends on the field trip to Hogsmeade. There, he overhears the teachers discussing Sirius Black, and how he betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort in spite of their close friendship. This story takes for friggin' ever the way they tell it. RATING: BAD
11: The Firebolt Harry swears revenge, but in a sort of open-ended sort of way. Hagrid's dumb monster has to appear in Dumb Monster Court. Harry gets a new broomstick for Christmas, but it may be a trap laid by Sirius Black. RATING: BAD
So the book's batting... 0.273. And this is the GOOD book of the series. Would someone care to explain that to me one more time? Because this book just does all the same crap people bashed Half-Blood Prince for doing. Harry sits around listening to more interesting characters talk, Harry gets super mega angry but can't act on it, the forces of law and order who are supposed to protect Harry can't get their act in gear. It's the same dumb book, only shorter. Unless this turkey starts to turn it around in the second half, I really don't understand what all the fuss was about.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: The Ghost of Suitcase Future.