Dr. Lee, PhD (feat. Money Mark)
It's... yeah, it's not looking very good for this book. Let's leave it at that.
Chapter 21: Hermione's Secret
(Original Japanese Title: "The Dumbass From Nowhere... Harry's Savior Revealed!!")
So in the last chapter, Team Good totally blew it. Peter Pettigrew got away clean, and without him, Sirius Black has no way to prove his innocence. Also, everyone was rendered unconscious, thanks to a brief encounter with the dementors. Well, all except for one guy, who was apparently just coming to while all this was going down. And that man has since put two and two together and gotten eleventy-six.
Yes, as the chapter opens, Snape is telling the whole story to Cornelius Fudge, Britannia's ineffectual Minister of Magic. The way Snape tells it, it was clear from the start that Sirius Black was in cahoots with Remus Lupin, and they were mind controlling the kids shortly before he arrived, so that they would attack Snape in Black's defense, furiously insisting Black's innocence all the while. So they knocked him out, and when he came to, he found them all passed out across the yard. Naturally, he did his civic duty and collected Black and the kids, and returned to the castle to contact the authorities.
Because it's Snape, and he can't let anything f***ing drop, he has to take a few digs at Harry Potter as well, noting that none of this would have happened if the Ministry and Hogwarts staff had reigned the little punk in from the beginning. After all, the whole point of the heightened security this year was to protect Harry from Black, and yet Harry's running around the lawn after dark, futzing around in secret tunnels that lead into town, carousing with werewolves and who knows what else. Yeah, that's funny, because I seem to remember he had Harry dead to rights in Chapter Fourteen, and instead of giving him detention on the spot, he spent ten minutes yammering back and forth with his life partner, and let him leave. Seriously, who's the bigger dope in all of this: Fudge and Dumbledore for ignoring Harry's defiance, or Snape for recognizing it and still doing nothing about it? It's not like Snape needed definitive proof that Harry visited Hogsmeade, either. He's a teacher, so his suspicions outweigh a student's word from what I've seen. Hell, Harry told him to shut up, and I'm pretty sure that's a big no-no in itself. And even if he needed proof, he's got it now, because he's seen the Marauder's Map fully activated by this point, so he now knows how Harry could have left the school without being caught.
But no, Snape's not about handling things himself, he's about whining to the higher-ups. "WAH, I don't think hiring Lupin's a good idea, WAH! WAH, nobody's keeping Harry in line, WAH! WAH, I almost got mauled in high school, and no one cares but me, WAH!"
I mean, he certainly has a point, the same point I've been bitching about since the book started, but it's not like he can't take a stand and do something about it. Relying on the Ministry is foolhardy, since after he makes this argument, Fudge replies with a definitive maybe. "Well, well.... we shall see, Snape, we shall see.... The boy has undoubtedly been foolish...." Gee, hoss, ya THINK? What was your first clue? Was it when you found the kid running around on the Knight Bus at two in the morning with everything he owned? Or maybe when you went to his house and found his aunt magically bloated and his uncle dripping with blood? Can someone make me one of those Potterpuff icons of Fudge, with the text "Cornelius Fudge is possibly going to consider thinking that Harry Potter has maybe sort of been acting kind of reckless this year."? I guess that's too many words.
Eventually, the narration makes it clear that the two men are in the hospital wing of Hogwarts, within earshot of Harry, who's still shaking off the effects of the dementors. As he comes to, he learns that Hermione's laying in the next bed over, while Ron's in some other part of the hospital, having his leg fixed, no doubt. As to Black, he's locked up in some part of the castle, until the Ministry can sort everything out and have his soul eaten. Harry stubbornly pulls himself out of bed, demanding to see Dumbledore and insisting to Fudge that Black is innocent. Hermione joins him, begging Fudge to hear them out. But, alas, this only serves to support Snape's version of events. "WE'RE NOT CONFUNDED!" Harry screams. Yeah, and that's so convincing, too.
Really, though, let's assume Snape's right, since that's what everyone seems to be doing anyway. If Harry and the others really were being manipulated by some magical technique, shouldn't there be some way to prove it? Basically, Snape's story requires only one plot twist (Black confunds his enemy instead of killing him), while Harry's version demands several (Peter faked his death, he's an unregistered Animagus, and he's been living with Ron for twelve years). But neither account is impossible, so you'd think someone would want to gather some empirical data here. For starters, Harry's story holds that Black is an unregistered Animagus as well, and since they've got Black under lock and key, it'd be a fairly simple matter to prove that. And whether he's guilty or innocent, the Ministry would want to know either way, right?
I mean, this is why I hate child protagonists so damn much. Inevitably, the writer always gives in to the stupid temptation to do that tired old "Kid knows the truth, but the adults refuse to believe him" schtick. They did it on Star Trek once. The one where they found Data's evil brother, and he ended up coldcocking Data and impersonating him? Wesley figured it out in two seconds, but suddenly the ship operated entirely by scientists refuse to consider his accusations. Yeah, shut up Wesley! Just because we let you fly the freaking ship and fix the engines doesn't mean you're a credible witness to anything! So what if we picked up an exact duplicate of the second officer? That doesn't mean a thing. And I hate Wesley almost as much as I hate Harry Potter, but that doesn't mean Captain Picard still wasn't a douche and a half that day. And then he wonders why Crusher washed out of Starfleet Academy in three years.
This is also why I find it amusing when I bitch about what an idiot Harry is, and the fans all defend him the exact same way. "Well, he's only [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16] years old. Cut him some slack." But that's my point all along. It's not my job to give the hero a free pass, it's the author's job to provide me with a more reliable hero. If this is the best a teenager can do in this story, then maybe this story shouldn't be about a teenager in the first place. Sirius would have been better off if he'd never gone near Harry at all. Telling him the truth is like telling him nothing at all.
And then Dumbledore shows up. Well, super. Now it's a complete clusterf*ck. He notes that Black tells the exact same story as Harry and Hermione, but Snape is all offended that his version is being disregarded. He was there, and he certainly didn't see Peter Pettigrew anywhere. SNAPE: THE HERO WHO CONFUSES EVIDENCE WITH LACK OF EVIDENCE. Hermione tries to explain the hole in his logic, but Snape shouts at her in all caps, which as we all know, trumps logic in the Harry Potter-verse.
Finally, D-dore insists on speaking to Harry and Hermione in private. Snape is dismayed that Big Al would even consider beliving their tale. "Sirius Black showed he was capable of murder at the age of sixteen. You haven't forgotten that he once tried to kill me?"
"My memory is as good as it ever was, Severus." Translation: Yeah, how could I forget, since you've been reminding me every five minutes for the last twenty years?
Anyway, once D-Dore finally has his chance to be alone with the kids, he explains to them the gravity of the situation. He belives their story, but the fact remains that there's not a whit of proof for any of it. Lupin could corroborate, except he's still running around the forest smelling other wolves butts right now. Besides, the mere fact that Lupin is a werewolf practically invalidates any testimony he'd have to offer. The bottom line here is that it's simply too late to help Sirius Black. The dementors will eat his soul presently, and without any way to prove his innocence in the next few minutes, the Ministry has no reason not to buy into Snape's version of events.
HOWARD FINKEL: Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please? Severus Snape has reversed the decision. Therefore, the winner of this book--as the result of a sister-kissing technicality--Peter Pettigrew!
Dusty finish, in every way, shape and form. All we're missing is the part where the readers throw garbage at the book.
Hermione points out that this is all because Snape had it in for Black from the beginning. "All because of some stupid trick Sirius played on him--". To which Dumbledore replies with an uncharacteristic word of common sense:
Sirius has not acted like an innocent man.
Of course, he's referring to all the shenanigans Black has pulled throughout the course of this year: breaking into the school, attacking a defenseless painting, standing over Ron with a knife, and of course Dumbledore doesn't even know that Black's been stalking Harry for months as a dog. But let's face it, Sirius had sealed his own fate long before any of that, when he concocted that insipid prank that Snape never shuts up about. If not for that, Snape might have been willing to hear Black's side of the story, and things might be turning out differently than they are now. Instead, Black befriended Pettigrew and plotted to kill Snape, and now, decades later, he desperarely needs the reverse.
What sucks about this irony is that Rowling can't even connect the dots. It's the theme of the entire book, yet she can't seem to crystallize it. This was why I was so outraged that Harry should attack Aunt Marge and no one seems to care. It mirrors exactly the prank Sirius attempted years earlier, and you'd think Rowling would want to draw the comparison, but she doesn't. I doubt we'll ever see the day when Aunt Marge holds Harry's life in her hands, but I'm sure Black never dreamed he'd need Snape to save his life, and here we are. The moral, whether Rowling cares to use it or not, is that your actions can have far-reaching consequences, so you'd be wise to choose them carefully. But that assumes a linear progression of cause and effect...
Instead, Dumbledore concludes that the only solution to this mess is to get some more time. Hermione instantly realizes what he's saying, and Dumbledore tells them exactly where Black is being held, and warns them not to be seen. Then he leaves the room and locks the door behind him. Harry's confused about the whole thing (big shock), until Hermione at last produces an hourglass from her robes and turns it three times, which somehow transports them to the entrance hall of the building, several hours earlier. 88 MPH.
At this point, I start laughing out loud. Time travel. That's the big secret weapon to salvage this mess. Time travel.
You're sure about this, book? This is really what you wanna do? We can stop right here, and forget this ever happened. I may be a ruthless, demanding reader, but I'm not without a sense of honor, and it's clear to me that you're no longer able to defend yourself. From here on, this stops being a critique, and it turns into a beating, and I'd just as soon not go there. No? You want to go on? Well, I admire your courage, if not your sense.
In the first place, this whole time travel angle has been an insult to my intelligence from the start. From the beginning, I knew it'd be involved, because of the comments page at the beginning of the book. SLJ praises the book for, among other things, "some skillful time travel". I mistakenly attributed this to the copy on the back cover, which naturally led someone to blather on about how the British edition doesn't do that, but it's the comments page at the very beginning, so blame SLJ, and not the American arm of Scholastic.
But it doesn't really matter, because Rowling blows the whole secret from the start. It's pathetic. Hermione has an overloaded schedule, and everytime the boys look at it, it lists her as taking multiple courses in the same hour. Throughout the book, she disappears and reappears without explanation. Naturally, Harry and Ron stand around like a couple of morons wondering what this all could possibly mean. Well, maybe the book's target audience was confused, too, but this ain't my first barbecue. Obviously Hermione has time travel powers in this book. There's no other explanation, unless she somehow divided her consciousness among multiple bodies, but in that case she wouldn't keep slipping out of sight whenever Harry and Ron turn around.
The only thing that stymied me was why Rowling should waste such a cool power on such a mundane application. Talking to Jim about it, we decided that using time travel to do extra classwork might well be the worst possible use of time travel. Except, as he suggested, the only thing worse might be if you were watching a video at home, and you missed a few minutes while yu went to the bathroom, and instead of rewinding the tape to see what you missed, you went back in time to see it instead. Because in that case, you're just wasting time travel. Still, as far as I'm aware, no fictional character has ever done such a frivolous thing, so this would make Hermione's time-travelling experience the dullest on record.
The whole thing's been bass-ackwards from the beginning, treating time-travel like some kind of big secret when the whole point of time travel is that it runs counter to nature itself. Hermione got the hourglass from the Ministry, who gave her special permission to use it. So if the Ministry has access to this sort of power, then why don't they simply use it to observe the recent past and see if Peter Pettigrew is alive or not? Oh, there's some crap about non-interference, but they have the Invisibility Cloak, right? But no, that'd make too much sense, and instead, Dumbledore decides to use time travel illegally, to save Sirius, which is technically a crime in itself. Didn't the Ministry consider any of this? The way Fudge sees it, Hermione's been confunded, right? Yet she STILL has her time-travelling hourglass? The school year's over anyway, so shouldn't she have already returned it to the authorities? This has to be the only time-travel story in the history of fiction where the plot holes surprisingly have nothing to do with the actual time travel. Snape may want you to turn to page 394, but I for one would rather be anywhere else.
Anyway, Hermione drags Harry into a broom closet, so they won't be spotted by their past selves as they leave the school to visit Hagrid in Chapter 16. I have to give Rowling credit, her continuity on this matter is rock solid. Chapter 21 Harry and Hermione rush into a broom closet and slam the door on page 395, and in Chapter 16, the nWo hears the door slamming on page 327. In spite of this, Harry's still confused, so Hermione uses the break in the action to explain it to him.
HERMIONE: You've gone back in time with me. This is not a joke.
HARRY: Oy. So do we get any money for this?
HERMIONE: You'll get paid after we get back.
HARRY: So what if we run into any dinosaurs or something like that?
HERMIONE: Must bring your own weapons.
HARRY: Oh, right, got me wand right here. Silly me. Say, is this safe?
HERMIONE: Safety not guarenteed. I have only done this once before.
HARRY: Right, well, off to it, then.
The only catch is that while Hermione has followed Dumbledore's instrctions, dutifully transporting them back three hours, she has no idea what he expects them to do in those three hours. Harry considers it with all the power of his tiny pea brain, and concludes that they should rescue Buckbeak, since his execution hasn't started yet. Then, it's a simple matter to fly on Buckbeak to the window of the room where Black's being held, and take him to the forest where he'll be safe. Then, they just need to encode a message in Data's severed head so the crew will know to send Mark Twain back for them with a phaser and that snake-headed cane.
So they sneak over to Hagrid's house, while their Chapter 16 selves do the exact same thing. From a hidden position, they watch as the whole thing plays out all over again, waiting patiently for an opening to save Buckbeak. You know, I didn't really enjoy this scene the first time. Of course, this is about the time when they found Scabbers in Hagrid's house, so Harry wonders if it wouldn't be a lot easier to simply grab Scabbers and expose him as Pettigrew right off the bat. But Hermione insists that this would be a big mistake. Harry doesn't see the harm, since only Hagrid and Ron would see them, along with their own past-selves, but Hermione asks what he thinks would happen if he saw himself, and Harry accurately realizes that he'd probably freak out and attack himself. Well, it's an honest appraisal, I have to say. So they stick to the original plan, and eventually their past selves leave and the Ministry group arrives to execute Buckbeak.
You'd think this would be difficult, freeing Buckbeak without being seen or implicating Hagrid, but Rowling's contrivances cleave both ways, as Ministry protocol requires various paperwork to be read and signed by both Hagrid and the executioner, a dude named McNair. This gives them plenty of time to untie Buckbeak and sneak him away. When the adults finally make their way to do the deed, Buckbeak's gone, and so Hagrid weeps with joy, while McNair strikes a fence with his axe in frustration. So that would be what the nWo heard when they thought Buckbeak had been killed. Chapter-17 Dumbledore, probably figuring those pesky kids had a hand in all of this, aids their getaway by suggesting the Ministry search the skies for Buckbeak, rather than the grounds. Then he goes with Hagrid to get hammered. Real professional, that Dumbledore.
So that takes care of Phase I of the plan. Now all they have to do is pull off Phase II: Waiting THREE HOURS for Black to be locked in the castle so they can fly up and get him out. I hope they brought a snack. So they move to a spot where they can see the Whomping Willow, where all the action will be taking place. I already covered all this stuff the first time around, and seeing it again only reinforces my contention that this time travel bullcrap is a waste of space, since any semi-competent set of characters could have gotten it right the first time around.
While they wait, Harry and Hermione wonder who it was who saved their asses from all those dementors in the previous chapter. Harry seriously wonders if it wasn't his own dead father he saw, since it looked a lot like him, even though he didn't see him all that well. More crap we've already seen, and then Harry decides to wander over by the lake where they ran into the dementors, partly to ensure that they don't mess up the timing, and partly to see for himself who their mysterious benefactor was. At the last possible second, he has a "no duh" moment and realizes that the guy he saw was himself from the future. The dementors had made a fatal miscalculation, assuming they only had to deal with one Super Dumbass when there was another one standing right here on the other side of the lake. So he stands up from his hiding place, and lets it rip. "BURNING ATTACK!" Wait, I mean "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Yeah, that's the ticket. Without the dementors to throw him off, the damn thing finally works, and this big huge stag made of silvery light comes charging across the lake, to chew some gum and kick some ass. And patronuseses can't chew gum.
So that causality loop's been resolved, and when Hermione finds him Harry has to explain that he had to do it, because it had already happened. Yeah, whatever. All I know is that it's kind of stupid that the whole point of the Patronus Charm is that it's a defense against dementor attacks, and yet the only time Harry manages to do it right is when the dementors aren't actually attacking him. Really, having seen that part from the movie trailer, it never occurred to me that such a supposedly dramatic moment was actually Harry covering for his own incompetence.
Anyway, Snape comes along shortly afterward, to gather up Chapter-20 Harry and Hermione, and that'd be the signal that it'll soon be time for Chapter-21 Harry and Hermione to make their move. They mount up on Buckbeak, and finally they fly up to Black's window and bust him out. I guess this is that "symbolic flight" the Harmonians keep talking about. For some reason, they must have glossed over the part where they have a greasy, middle-aged escaped prisoner sitting behind Hermione. They land somewhere safe and tell Black to take Buckbeak and get as far away as they can.
Before he leaves, Black tells Harry "You are--truly your father's son, Harry...." Why? This was all Dumbledore's idea. And it's Hermione's time-travel gizmo.
Seriously, the book's gotten so lame now I feel sorry for it. Most stories, the time travel is merely a plot device to set up the problem. Consider:
DRAGON BALL Z: Trunks travels back in time to inform the present-day Z-fighters that a pair of killer androids will rise up and slaughter them all. The information gives them a chance to prepare themselves for the battle, hopefully boosting their chances. Complicating matters, however, the much more powerful Cell uses the same time machine to invade the present, thus making the situation even more dire than Trunks had anticipated.
BACK TO THE FUTURE: Marty McFly accidentally ends up in the year 1955, and must rely on the time machine's inventor to get him back home using a device he won't invent for another thirty years.
BACK TO THE FUTURE II: Biff Tannen corrupts the timeline by giving his 1955 self a 2015 sports almanac, thus enabling Biff to make a fortune in gambling, which he uses to rule Hill Valley in 1985. Marty and Doc go back to 1955 to somehow destroy the almanac before young Biff can abuse its information.
BACK TO THE FUTURE III: Stranded in 1885, Doc Brown plans to retire in the Old West, but Marty learns he'll be shot dead less than eight months after his arrival in that era. In his zeal to rescue Doc, Marty damages the time machine's gast tank, effectively stranding them both in the 19th Century, unless they can find a way to recreate the conditions necessary for time travel using 1885 technology.
THE TIME MACHINE: H.G. Wells' novel primarily uses the concept to speculate on the possible future of humanity. The protagonist journeys to the distant future and is horrified to discover that Man has devolved into two classes, each devoid of intelligence or imagination.
THE END OF ETERNITY: Isaac Asimov's 1995 novel, in which a vast time travel network is established, spanning millions of years throughout Earth's history, beginning with the 27th Century. Time travel, governed by the extemporaneous Eternity, is used to trade goods and services from different eras, and to adjust the timeline for the betterment of human life. However, some contend that the entire premise of Eternity is flawed, as it has confined the human race and cut off its ability to evolve and grow.
THE TERMINATOR TRILOGY: A powerful genocidal computer is defeated by a band of human freedom fighters, and so sends a cyborg assassin to 1984 to murder the mother of their leader, another to 1992 to murder the man himself as a boy, and finally a third cyborg to 2003 to murder those who would eventually become his highest-ranking subordinates. To ensure their hard-earned victory, the humans send their own agents to the same points in the past to defeat the Terminators and maintain the integrity of the timeline.
STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME: An alien probe investigates the planet Earth in the 24th Century, disrupting all Federation technology in its path. Admiral Kirk and his crew determine that the probe had been in contact with Earth's humpback whale population, which had been hunted to extinction centuries ago. Realizing that the probe will only be satisfied when by communication with live humpback whales, Kirk resolves to travel to the 20th Century, and return with a pair of humpbacks to answer the probe's signals. The bulk of the film deals with the various obstacles to completing this task.
There are other examples, but the point here is that in each case, the time travel is mainly used to facilitate the plot, or to create a problem for the characters to overcome. In Prisoner of Azkaban it's literally nothing more than an opportunity for the lackwit main character to correct his failures, and even then, only partially. At least when they did it in Superman I he got it right. And it had less to do with the actual time travel than the fact that Superman was forbidden to use it but did it anyway because he wuvs Lois so much. (LUV MADE THE MIRACLE).
Sigh... This book blows.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Square One, Population: Us.
Chapter 21: Hermione's Secret
(Original Japanese Title: "The Dumbass From Nowhere... Harry's Savior Revealed!!")
So in the last chapter, Team Good totally blew it. Peter Pettigrew got away clean, and without him, Sirius Black has no way to prove his innocence. Also, everyone was rendered unconscious, thanks to a brief encounter with the dementors. Well, all except for one guy, who was apparently just coming to while all this was going down. And that man has since put two and two together and gotten eleventy-six.
Yes, as the chapter opens, Snape is telling the whole story to Cornelius Fudge, Britannia's ineffectual Minister of Magic. The way Snape tells it, it was clear from the start that Sirius Black was in cahoots with Remus Lupin, and they were mind controlling the kids shortly before he arrived, so that they would attack Snape in Black's defense, furiously insisting Black's innocence all the while. So they knocked him out, and when he came to, he found them all passed out across the yard. Naturally, he did his civic duty and collected Black and the kids, and returned to the castle to contact the authorities.
Because it's Snape, and he can't let anything f***ing drop, he has to take a few digs at Harry Potter as well, noting that none of this would have happened if the Ministry and Hogwarts staff had reigned the little punk in from the beginning. After all, the whole point of the heightened security this year was to protect Harry from Black, and yet Harry's running around the lawn after dark, futzing around in secret tunnels that lead into town, carousing with werewolves and who knows what else. Yeah, that's funny, because I seem to remember he had Harry dead to rights in Chapter Fourteen, and instead of giving him detention on the spot, he spent ten minutes yammering back and forth with his life partner, and let him leave. Seriously, who's the bigger dope in all of this: Fudge and Dumbledore for ignoring Harry's defiance, or Snape for recognizing it and still doing nothing about it? It's not like Snape needed definitive proof that Harry visited Hogsmeade, either. He's a teacher, so his suspicions outweigh a student's word from what I've seen. Hell, Harry told him to shut up, and I'm pretty sure that's a big no-no in itself. And even if he needed proof, he's got it now, because he's seen the Marauder's Map fully activated by this point, so he now knows how Harry could have left the school without being caught.
But no, Snape's not about handling things himself, he's about whining to the higher-ups. "WAH, I don't think hiring Lupin's a good idea, WAH! WAH, nobody's keeping Harry in line, WAH! WAH, I almost got mauled in high school, and no one cares but me, WAH!"
I mean, he certainly has a point, the same point I've been bitching about since the book started, but it's not like he can't take a stand and do something about it. Relying on the Ministry is foolhardy, since after he makes this argument, Fudge replies with a definitive maybe. "Well, well.... we shall see, Snape, we shall see.... The boy has undoubtedly been foolish...." Gee, hoss, ya THINK? What was your first clue? Was it when you found the kid running around on the Knight Bus at two in the morning with everything he owned? Or maybe when you went to his house and found his aunt magically bloated and his uncle dripping with blood? Can someone make me one of those Potterpuff icons of Fudge, with the text "Cornelius Fudge is possibly going to consider thinking that Harry Potter has maybe sort of been acting kind of reckless this year."? I guess that's too many words.
Eventually, the narration makes it clear that the two men are in the hospital wing of Hogwarts, within earshot of Harry, who's still shaking off the effects of the dementors. As he comes to, he learns that Hermione's laying in the next bed over, while Ron's in some other part of the hospital, having his leg fixed, no doubt. As to Black, he's locked up in some part of the castle, until the Ministry can sort everything out and have his soul eaten. Harry stubbornly pulls himself out of bed, demanding to see Dumbledore and insisting to Fudge that Black is innocent. Hermione joins him, begging Fudge to hear them out. But, alas, this only serves to support Snape's version of events. "WE'RE NOT CONFUNDED!" Harry screams. Yeah, and that's so convincing, too.
Really, though, let's assume Snape's right, since that's what everyone seems to be doing anyway. If Harry and the others really were being manipulated by some magical technique, shouldn't there be some way to prove it? Basically, Snape's story requires only one plot twist (Black confunds his enemy instead of killing him), while Harry's version demands several (Peter faked his death, he's an unregistered Animagus, and he's been living with Ron for twelve years). But neither account is impossible, so you'd think someone would want to gather some empirical data here. For starters, Harry's story holds that Black is an unregistered Animagus as well, and since they've got Black under lock and key, it'd be a fairly simple matter to prove that. And whether he's guilty or innocent, the Ministry would want to know either way, right?
I mean, this is why I hate child protagonists so damn much. Inevitably, the writer always gives in to the stupid temptation to do that tired old "Kid knows the truth, but the adults refuse to believe him" schtick. They did it on Star Trek once. The one where they found Data's evil brother, and he ended up coldcocking Data and impersonating him? Wesley figured it out in two seconds, but suddenly the ship operated entirely by scientists refuse to consider his accusations. Yeah, shut up Wesley! Just because we let you fly the freaking ship and fix the engines doesn't mean you're a credible witness to anything! So what if we picked up an exact duplicate of the second officer? That doesn't mean a thing. And I hate Wesley almost as much as I hate Harry Potter, but that doesn't mean Captain Picard still wasn't a douche and a half that day. And then he wonders why Crusher washed out of Starfleet Academy in three years.
This is also why I find it amusing when I bitch about what an idiot Harry is, and the fans all defend him the exact same way. "Well, he's only [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16] years old. Cut him some slack." But that's my point all along. It's not my job to give the hero a free pass, it's the author's job to provide me with a more reliable hero. If this is the best a teenager can do in this story, then maybe this story shouldn't be about a teenager in the first place. Sirius would have been better off if he'd never gone near Harry at all. Telling him the truth is like telling him nothing at all.
And then Dumbledore shows up. Well, super. Now it's a complete clusterf*ck. He notes that Black tells the exact same story as Harry and Hermione, but Snape is all offended that his version is being disregarded. He was there, and he certainly didn't see Peter Pettigrew anywhere. SNAPE: THE HERO WHO CONFUSES EVIDENCE WITH LACK OF EVIDENCE. Hermione tries to explain the hole in his logic, but Snape shouts at her in all caps, which as we all know, trumps logic in the Harry Potter-verse.
Finally, D-dore insists on speaking to Harry and Hermione in private. Snape is dismayed that Big Al would even consider beliving their tale. "Sirius Black showed he was capable of murder at the age of sixteen. You haven't forgotten that he once tried to kill me?"
"My memory is as good as it ever was, Severus." Translation: Yeah, how could I forget, since you've been reminding me every five minutes for the last twenty years?
Anyway, once D-Dore finally has his chance to be alone with the kids, he explains to them the gravity of the situation. He belives their story, but the fact remains that there's not a whit of proof for any of it. Lupin could corroborate, except he's still running around the forest smelling other wolves butts right now. Besides, the mere fact that Lupin is a werewolf practically invalidates any testimony he'd have to offer. The bottom line here is that it's simply too late to help Sirius Black. The dementors will eat his soul presently, and without any way to prove his innocence in the next few minutes, the Ministry has no reason not to buy into Snape's version of events.
HOWARD FINKEL: Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please? Severus Snape has reversed the decision. Therefore, the winner of this book--as the result of a sister-kissing technicality--Peter Pettigrew!
Dusty finish, in every way, shape and form. All we're missing is the part where the readers throw garbage at the book.
Hermione points out that this is all because Snape had it in for Black from the beginning. "All because of some stupid trick Sirius played on him--". To which Dumbledore replies with an uncharacteristic word of common sense:
Sirius has not acted like an innocent man.
Of course, he's referring to all the shenanigans Black has pulled throughout the course of this year: breaking into the school, attacking a defenseless painting, standing over Ron with a knife, and of course Dumbledore doesn't even know that Black's been stalking Harry for months as a dog. But let's face it, Sirius had sealed his own fate long before any of that, when he concocted that insipid prank that Snape never shuts up about. If not for that, Snape might have been willing to hear Black's side of the story, and things might be turning out differently than they are now. Instead, Black befriended Pettigrew and plotted to kill Snape, and now, decades later, he desperarely needs the reverse.
What sucks about this irony is that Rowling can't even connect the dots. It's the theme of the entire book, yet she can't seem to crystallize it. This was why I was so outraged that Harry should attack Aunt Marge and no one seems to care. It mirrors exactly the prank Sirius attempted years earlier, and you'd think Rowling would want to draw the comparison, but she doesn't. I doubt we'll ever see the day when Aunt Marge holds Harry's life in her hands, but I'm sure Black never dreamed he'd need Snape to save his life, and here we are. The moral, whether Rowling cares to use it or not, is that your actions can have far-reaching consequences, so you'd be wise to choose them carefully. But that assumes a linear progression of cause and effect...
Instead, Dumbledore concludes that the only solution to this mess is to get some more time. Hermione instantly realizes what he's saying, and Dumbledore tells them exactly where Black is being held, and warns them not to be seen. Then he leaves the room and locks the door behind him. Harry's confused about the whole thing (big shock), until Hermione at last produces an hourglass from her robes and turns it three times, which somehow transports them to the entrance hall of the building, several hours earlier. 88 MPH.
At this point, I start laughing out loud. Time travel. That's the big secret weapon to salvage this mess. Time travel.
You're sure about this, book? This is really what you wanna do? We can stop right here, and forget this ever happened. I may be a ruthless, demanding reader, but I'm not without a sense of honor, and it's clear to me that you're no longer able to defend yourself. From here on, this stops being a critique, and it turns into a beating, and I'd just as soon not go there. No? You want to go on? Well, I admire your courage, if not your sense.
In the first place, this whole time travel angle has been an insult to my intelligence from the start. From the beginning, I knew it'd be involved, because of the comments page at the beginning of the book. SLJ praises the book for, among other things, "some skillful time travel". I mistakenly attributed this to the copy on the back cover, which naturally led someone to blather on about how the British edition doesn't do that, but it's the comments page at the very beginning, so blame SLJ, and not the American arm of Scholastic.
But it doesn't really matter, because Rowling blows the whole secret from the start. It's pathetic. Hermione has an overloaded schedule, and everytime the boys look at it, it lists her as taking multiple courses in the same hour. Throughout the book, she disappears and reappears without explanation. Naturally, Harry and Ron stand around like a couple of morons wondering what this all could possibly mean. Well, maybe the book's target audience was confused, too, but this ain't my first barbecue. Obviously Hermione has time travel powers in this book. There's no other explanation, unless she somehow divided her consciousness among multiple bodies, but in that case she wouldn't keep slipping out of sight whenever Harry and Ron turn around.
The only thing that stymied me was why Rowling should waste such a cool power on such a mundane application. Talking to Jim about it, we decided that using time travel to do extra classwork might well be the worst possible use of time travel. Except, as he suggested, the only thing worse might be if you were watching a video at home, and you missed a few minutes while yu went to the bathroom, and instead of rewinding the tape to see what you missed, you went back in time to see it instead. Because in that case, you're just wasting time travel. Still, as far as I'm aware, no fictional character has ever done such a frivolous thing, so this would make Hermione's time-travelling experience the dullest on record.
The whole thing's been bass-ackwards from the beginning, treating time-travel like some kind of big secret when the whole point of time travel is that it runs counter to nature itself. Hermione got the hourglass from the Ministry, who gave her special permission to use it. So if the Ministry has access to this sort of power, then why don't they simply use it to observe the recent past and see if Peter Pettigrew is alive or not? Oh, there's some crap about non-interference, but they have the Invisibility Cloak, right? But no, that'd make too much sense, and instead, Dumbledore decides to use time travel illegally, to save Sirius, which is technically a crime in itself. Didn't the Ministry consider any of this? The way Fudge sees it, Hermione's been confunded, right? Yet she STILL has her time-travelling hourglass? The school year's over anyway, so shouldn't she have already returned it to the authorities? This has to be the only time-travel story in the history of fiction where the plot holes surprisingly have nothing to do with the actual time travel. Snape may want you to turn to page 394, but I for one would rather be anywhere else.
Anyway, Hermione drags Harry into a broom closet, so they won't be spotted by their past selves as they leave the school to visit Hagrid in Chapter 16. I have to give Rowling credit, her continuity on this matter is rock solid. Chapter 21 Harry and Hermione rush into a broom closet and slam the door on page 395, and in Chapter 16, the nWo hears the door slamming on page 327. In spite of this, Harry's still confused, so Hermione uses the break in the action to explain it to him.
HERMIONE: You've gone back in time with me. This is not a joke.
HARRY: Oy. So do we get any money for this?
HERMIONE: You'll get paid after we get back.
HARRY: So what if we run into any dinosaurs or something like that?
HERMIONE: Must bring your own weapons.
HARRY: Oh, right, got me wand right here. Silly me. Say, is this safe?
HERMIONE: Safety not guarenteed. I have only done this once before.
HARRY: Right, well, off to it, then.
The only catch is that while Hermione has followed Dumbledore's instrctions, dutifully transporting them back three hours, she has no idea what he expects them to do in those three hours. Harry considers it with all the power of his tiny pea brain, and concludes that they should rescue Buckbeak, since his execution hasn't started yet. Then, it's a simple matter to fly on Buckbeak to the window of the room where Black's being held, and take him to the forest where he'll be safe. Then, they just need to encode a message in Data's severed head so the crew will know to send Mark Twain back for them with a phaser and that snake-headed cane.
So they sneak over to Hagrid's house, while their Chapter 16 selves do the exact same thing. From a hidden position, they watch as the whole thing plays out all over again, waiting patiently for an opening to save Buckbeak. You know, I didn't really enjoy this scene the first time. Of course, this is about the time when they found Scabbers in Hagrid's house, so Harry wonders if it wouldn't be a lot easier to simply grab Scabbers and expose him as Pettigrew right off the bat. But Hermione insists that this would be a big mistake. Harry doesn't see the harm, since only Hagrid and Ron would see them, along with their own past-selves, but Hermione asks what he thinks would happen if he saw himself, and Harry accurately realizes that he'd probably freak out and attack himself. Well, it's an honest appraisal, I have to say. So they stick to the original plan, and eventually their past selves leave and the Ministry group arrives to execute Buckbeak.
You'd think this would be difficult, freeing Buckbeak without being seen or implicating Hagrid, but Rowling's contrivances cleave both ways, as Ministry protocol requires various paperwork to be read and signed by both Hagrid and the executioner, a dude named McNair. This gives them plenty of time to untie Buckbeak and sneak him away. When the adults finally make their way to do the deed, Buckbeak's gone, and so Hagrid weeps with joy, while McNair strikes a fence with his axe in frustration. So that would be what the nWo heard when they thought Buckbeak had been killed. Chapter-17 Dumbledore, probably figuring those pesky kids had a hand in all of this, aids their getaway by suggesting the Ministry search the skies for Buckbeak, rather than the grounds. Then he goes with Hagrid to get hammered. Real professional, that Dumbledore.
So that takes care of Phase I of the plan. Now all they have to do is pull off Phase II: Waiting THREE HOURS for Black to be locked in the castle so they can fly up and get him out. I hope they brought a snack. So they move to a spot where they can see the Whomping Willow, where all the action will be taking place. I already covered all this stuff the first time around, and seeing it again only reinforces my contention that this time travel bullcrap is a waste of space, since any semi-competent set of characters could have gotten it right the first time around.
While they wait, Harry and Hermione wonder who it was who saved their asses from all those dementors in the previous chapter. Harry seriously wonders if it wasn't his own dead father he saw, since it looked a lot like him, even though he didn't see him all that well. More crap we've already seen, and then Harry decides to wander over by the lake where they ran into the dementors, partly to ensure that they don't mess up the timing, and partly to see for himself who their mysterious benefactor was. At the last possible second, he has a "no duh" moment and realizes that the guy he saw was himself from the future. The dementors had made a fatal miscalculation, assuming they only had to deal with one Super Dumbass when there was another one standing right here on the other side of the lake. So he stands up from his hiding place, and lets it rip. "BURNING ATTACK!" Wait, I mean "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Yeah, that's the ticket. Without the dementors to throw him off, the damn thing finally works, and this big huge stag made of silvery light comes charging across the lake, to chew some gum and kick some ass. And patronuseses can't chew gum.
So that causality loop's been resolved, and when Hermione finds him Harry has to explain that he had to do it, because it had already happened. Yeah, whatever. All I know is that it's kind of stupid that the whole point of the Patronus Charm is that it's a defense against dementor attacks, and yet the only time Harry manages to do it right is when the dementors aren't actually attacking him. Really, having seen that part from the movie trailer, it never occurred to me that such a supposedly dramatic moment was actually Harry covering for his own incompetence.
Anyway, Snape comes along shortly afterward, to gather up Chapter-20 Harry and Hermione, and that'd be the signal that it'll soon be time for Chapter-21 Harry and Hermione to make their move. They mount up on Buckbeak, and finally they fly up to Black's window and bust him out. I guess this is that "symbolic flight" the Harmonians keep talking about. For some reason, they must have glossed over the part where they have a greasy, middle-aged escaped prisoner sitting behind Hermione. They land somewhere safe and tell Black to take Buckbeak and get as far away as they can.
Before he leaves, Black tells Harry "You are--truly your father's son, Harry...." Why? This was all Dumbledore's idea. And it's Hermione's time-travel gizmo.
Seriously, the book's gotten so lame now I feel sorry for it. Most stories, the time travel is merely a plot device to set up the problem. Consider:
DRAGON BALL Z: Trunks travels back in time to inform the present-day Z-fighters that a pair of killer androids will rise up and slaughter them all. The information gives them a chance to prepare themselves for the battle, hopefully boosting their chances. Complicating matters, however, the much more powerful Cell uses the same time machine to invade the present, thus making the situation even more dire than Trunks had anticipated.
BACK TO THE FUTURE: Marty McFly accidentally ends up in the year 1955, and must rely on the time machine's inventor to get him back home using a device he won't invent for another thirty years.
BACK TO THE FUTURE II: Biff Tannen corrupts the timeline by giving his 1955 self a 2015 sports almanac, thus enabling Biff to make a fortune in gambling, which he uses to rule Hill Valley in 1985. Marty and Doc go back to 1955 to somehow destroy the almanac before young Biff can abuse its information.
BACK TO THE FUTURE III: Stranded in 1885, Doc Brown plans to retire in the Old West, but Marty learns he'll be shot dead less than eight months after his arrival in that era. In his zeal to rescue Doc, Marty damages the time machine's gast tank, effectively stranding them both in the 19th Century, unless they can find a way to recreate the conditions necessary for time travel using 1885 technology.
THE TIME MACHINE: H.G. Wells' novel primarily uses the concept to speculate on the possible future of humanity. The protagonist journeys to the distant future and is horrified to discover that Man has devolved into two classes, each devoid of intelligence or imagination.
THE END OF ETERNITY: Isaac Asimov's 1995 novel, in which a vast time travel network is established, spanning millions of years throughout Earth's history, beginning with the 27th Century. Time travel, governed by the extemporaneous Eternity, is used to trade goods and services from different eras, and to adjust the timeline for the betterment of human life. However, some contend that the entire premise of Eternity is flawed, as it has confined the human race and cut off its ability to evolve and grow.
THE TERMINATOR TRILOGY: A powerful genocidal computer is defeated by a band of human freedom fighters, and so sends a cyborg assassin to 1984 to murder the mother of their leader, another to 1992 to murder the man himself as a boy, and finally a third cyborg to 2003 to murder those who would eventually become his highest-ranking subordinates. To ensure their hard-earned victory, the humans send their own agents to the same points in the past to defeat the Terminators and maintain the integrity of the timeline.
STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME: An alien probe investigates the planet Earth in the 24th Century, disrupting all Federation technology in its path. Admiral Kirk and his crew determine that the probe had been in contact with Earth's humpback whale population, which had been hunted to extinction centuries ago. Realizing that the probe will only be satisfied when by communication with live humpback whales, Kirk resolves to travel to the 20th Century, and return with a pair of humpbacks to answer the probe's signals. The bulk of the film deals with the various obstacles to completing this task.
There are other examples, but the point here is that in each case, the time travel is mainly used to facilitate the plot, or to create a problem for the characters to overcome. In Prisoner of Azkaban it's literally nothing more than an opportunity for the lackwit main character to correct his failures, and even then, only partially. At least when they did it in Superman I he got it right. And it had less to do with the actual time travel than the fact that Superman was forbidden to use it but did it anyway because he wuvs Lois so much. (LUV MADE THE MIRACLE).
Sigh... This book blows.
RATING: BAD
NEXT: Square One, Population: Us.