Friday 1 March 2013

"'Harry,' he said, very seriously, 'whoever put your name in that Goblet- I- I reckon they're trying to do you in!'"

Firstly, I just need to say... Do you know how DIFFICULT it is to be in the middle of Harry Potter when you're ill and need something lovely to read and then to have to STOP? It is the difficultest, and only my immense respect for the boundaries of the readalong prevented me from reading... well, all the books this week. Also because I didn't want to miss out on the future fun, but it's MAINLY the respect thing.
So. I wonder if anyone in the history of ever has been surprised by Harry's name coming out of the Goblet of Fire. I think it was pretty smart to have him be like an 'extra' champion rather than the actual Hogwarts champion, so there was that element of it to be surprising, but other than that... I mean, THEY ARE HIS BOOKS, so obviously he has to take part in the Tri-Wizard Tournament! It wouldn't make sense otherwise!

Now let's talk about Ron. Who is being an idiot, but who I think also can't really help it and I see it from his perspective and daaaamn it must hurt being Ron Weasley. I'm not really down with him not speaking to Harry at all, and just adding massively to Harry's stressload (speaking of, HOW STRESSFUL was basically this whole section?! I was not a fan of HARRY'S PAIN!) and I wouldn't really like to get into who is worse off, but Ron does get a pretty raw deal at all times, and it's not really his fault.
I think that really what they need is a freaky Friday situation where Harry gets to see what it's like being a sidekick, and Ron gets to see what it's like nearly being murdered all the time. And THEN they'd know.

And now the time comes, as it does almost every week, to talk about Snape. I'm willing to admit that I tend to err on the side of letting things go when it comes to Snape, because of... Reasons, but this time... I'm actually really cross with him. FIRSTLY for being all like 'Yep, Harry Potter definitely got his name in the Goblet, even though he's RUBBISH AT MAGIC like I tell him all the time,' because, really Snape? WHERE IS THAT LOGIC WE SAW IN BOOK 1?! (did we all catch this though? "'He's been crossing lines ever since he got here'"
Gotta love that wordplay!) But much much more annoying is when poor Hermione has the teeth growing going on, and he just looks at her and goes "'I see no difference'" and I'm like
Because NO, you can't say shit like that to teenage girls and ANYWAY Hermione is a goddess and SHUT UP SNAPE.

Phew. Bullet point time?

  • "'Does he still think I entered myself?'" Presented without comment.
  • I enjoy Madame Maxime and her frenchness and her accent: 'Dumbly-Dorr'- Amazing!
  • It's fun reading and talking about these with other people (Obviously...) Because you pick up on things that don't really bother you but you know will annoy/amaze someone else. E.g. I assume Alice is annoyed by Beauxbatons because they sit at the Ravenclaw table, and I assume that Tika's MIND WAS BLOWN by the fact that you can have Veela hair as your wand core! OMG!
  • This: "'You only like him because he's handsome,' said Ron scathingly. 'Excuse me, I don't like people just because they're handsome!' said Hermione indignantly. Ron gave a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like 'Lockhart!'"
  • It constantly seemed like a bad idea allowing Rita Skeeter to be alone with Harry. I mean... Yeah. No. Are there no adults supervising this thing?!
  • The thing with the dragons was pretty awesome. Dramatic and exciting, but I kind of love that we sat with Harry through most of it, because JK perfectly built up the feeling of when you're waiting to do something really intimidating and scary and it's the WORST and you feel like you might die, but then when you're actually doing it, and when you've done it, it's fine. So, you know, nice work JK!
And that's about all I've got, people! I think this section ended at a really good point, where Harry has Ron back, and the whole school doesn't HATE him anymore, and we can go back to all having a good time! Because nothing bad could possibly happen! Ever! Right?

27 comments:

  1. Aaaah, Dumbly-dorr... I still sometimes call him that in my head. "Does he still think I entered myself?" I JUST managed to swallow my mouthful of coffee before it ended up sprayed across the shop, ta for that! :P

    Are you feeling any better, munchkin?

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    1. I think I will forever call him Dumbly-dorr now. It's just sexier. You should have LEARNT by now that I'm too hilarious to drink things while you're reading me! Hehehe.

      I am feeling a lot better thank you miss, I even bravely went to work yday! (And obvs will again today... Cause that's how a job works...) I'm mostly fine, it's just that I have like no inclination to eat any foods, but I can do so without feeling sick at all. WINNING!

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    2. And if there is anything Dumbledore was lacking, it was sexiness!

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  2. One of my favorite things that ever happens in this series is that thing in the seventh book (oo, am I allowed to say this? I'll be super vague) where Ron does something scary and brave, and Harry's like, "You did a scary brave thing!" and Ron's like, "Well that makes it sound way cooler than it was because it really sucked when it was happening," and Harry's like, "Welcome to my life."

    I mean it's not exactly the Freaky Friday situation you were envisioning, but it was a nice little moment.

    Also, there are never any adults supervising Harry. Ever. The adults are all terrible at supervising Harry.

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    1. Ooooh, I don't remember that but I LOVE IT. (I may have loved it at the time, so in that case, I re-love it!) That... Yeah, that's a fine substitute for a freaky friday moment!

      They are The Worst at supervising Harry. Maybe they ALL secretly hate him.

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    2. I don't remember that part of Book 7 at ALL (but I've only read the last book the once), but now I am super-excited about it because they DO need a Freaky Friday swap so they can walk around in each other's shoes. Couldn't they just Polyjuice Potion to play each other for a bit, just to see what it's like? I feel like this is something Hermione could have cooked up mid-Goblet-fight to help them see each other's POV a bit.

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    3. Oh man if they polyjuiced during GoF and then Ron had to do a challenge he would have died SO HARD, bless 'im.

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  3. I am not annoyed by the Beauxbatons students, for they have pretty robes. But that was a good assumption.

    "and he just looks at her and goes "'I see no difference'"

    OK RIGHT? I didn't exactly do all the reading for this section, so I didn't know that that was in this week's part, but IT MAKES ME THE ANGRIEST and whenever people are doing Snape defense, I always revert back to that part. 'Cause other things, ok, I get it, but he had NO REASON TO DO THAT. What an asshole.

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    1. Snape may be tops at potions, but he is a dillweed of a human being. He let his SPOILER for SPOILER get twisted into this nasty, hurtful thing and he lashes out at freaking CHILDREN.

      I've definitely said some really hateful things to people, but the difference is that I regret them afterward. I don't think Snape does.

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    2. Wasn't it? I was like 'ohhh, Alice is going to think that THEY think they're all clever and she will be cross at their french asses' but I forgot that pretty robes cancel out all other things.

      I genuinely can't defend Snape for that because, hello, like teenage girls don't have it hard enough already! I mean, he obviously doesn't like Hermione cause she's friends with Harry and also AWESOME, but... There's really no excuse. And THIS is why I didn't like Snape AT ALL until book 7 when apparently I forgive everything!

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    3. I do not get why Snape says that. It seems above and beyond his usual nastiness. I think book 7 + Alan Rickman = me liking him more than I should. Damn you, Alan Rickman (jk i love you 4eva).

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  4. I would be ALL FOR a Harry/Ron Freak Friday swap!

    OMG Snape being mean to Hermione! I forgot to write about that cos WTF SNAPE? It's one thing to be a dillhole to Harry even though it's totally unfair and based on the fact that he didn't like his dad when they were in school. But you're a TEACHER making fun of a teenage girl for her appearance. Snape loses soooo many sympathy points with me here.

    Are adults really supervising anything ever at Hogwarts?

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    1. I know right? And Ron would have to deal with Colin Creevey (Creevy? NEITHER LOOKS RIGHT) and everyone hating on you and then loving you and also all the crap Harry gets, and Harry would have to deal with being the person being pushed to the side all the time. It would be interesting!

      It's totally not ok. I can't defend Snape at all. No excuses. Nothing.

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  5. VEELA HAIR! Another renewable resource. Although Krum's wand has a dragon heartstring core, so other wandmakers are using it too. WHERE DO THEY ALL COME FROM?!?

    Ollivander is one of the weirdest - in the old, King Arthur times sense of the word - characters. I strongly suspect that he is Not Human and is possibly the founder of Ollivander's Wands.

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    1. Ok, so maybe dragons have GIANT hearts and each one has like thousands of heartstrings? And whenever a dragon dies they harvest the heartstrings and make wands? I STILL DON'T KNOW TIKA!

      He is a strange strange little man. Scenes with him in feel sort of... Eerie. I am willing to believe that he's a bazillion years old!

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  6. Yeah, I let Snape go on a lot of things, but his treatment of student's makes it really hard. There is no reason to make Hermione cry like that, is it because she's a Gryffindor? Friends with Harry? What is your reason Snape for making a teeny tiny girl with big hair cry?!

    I loooooove how the first task is told, you get enough details about the others to know how they're doing, but it doesn't spoil the challenge so that when Harry comes to it it feels fresh and new and exciting. I think JK went out of her way to try different things this book, like the intro chapter, and for the most part it worked really well.

    Also, I am so in love with Jennifer Lawrence, that gif is amazeballs.

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    1. I just don't think there IS a reason- maybe bitter horribleness is so ingrained in him by this point that he just does it automatically, you know? Although I still refuse to defend him for this, so DON'T take this as a defence!

      Isn't it so so good though?! And you find out from Ron vaguely what the others did, but really the whole time you're there with Harry, freaking out together! Frankly, you don't need to see the same challenge 4 times, so it's great.

      I KNOW RIGHT?! I fell down a gif-finding hole (again) when I found that one- I was actually looking for a specific, older one, but there were too many new ones from the Oscars that I was like fuck it, I'll take that one. JLAW FOREVS!

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  7. "I think that really what they need is a freaky Friday situation where Harry gets to see what it's like being a sidekick, and Ron gets to see what it's like nearly being murdered all the time." YES. Oh my god, we need to create a petition to send to JKR so that she can write this because YES.

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    1. I think we need a LOT of petitions for JK. SHE NEEDS TO WRITE EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING OMG

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  8. I'm sorry you were sick! I didn't even send you Twitter-soup. But I guess it's lucky that I'm coming down with something right at the beginning of a new HP week. And if that fails, Attachments. So MUCH comfort reading. OK...no more talky on the Internet while feverish. Too risky.

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    1. Awww, that's ok! I don't know how well twitter-soup would have stayed down... I'm sorry that you're getting sick! But you do indeed have SO much comfort reading! I kind of wish I'd read Attachments last week, but I was alllll about staring at a computer screen (AS ALWAYS hahaha)

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  9. Sometimes I call Dumbledore Rumbleroar in my mind and then giggle.

    Harry and Ron should totally polyjuice into each other for a few days to learn some things. And then they can polyjuice into Hermione* and realize how they're being douchwaffles all the time to her.

    *that sounds so, so wrong

    Also YAY DARIA and also YAY PAM.

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    1. Awwww, that's the cutest! For reals!

      Oooooh, polyjuice would work! I'm fairly opposed to 'polyjuicing' into Hermione though. For obvious reasons. *shudders*

      YAY THOSE THINGS INDEED

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  10. Wouldn't that have been AMAZING if this whole book was just Harry being a really enthusiastic spectator and supporter of Cedric Diggory: Hogwarts Champion?

    I almost mentioned that Snape comment. I love you, Snapers, but that was OVER THE LINE.

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    1. It would definitely have been unexpected and different! But maybe a tad, um, undramatic?

      That comment was SO far past the line, Snape can't even see the line! The line is a DOT to him. (I need to watch Friends more. Or maybe less. I'm not sure.)

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    2. This book would have been SO MUCH LESS STRESSFUL if HP hadn't competed.

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  11. HAHAHA, does he think I entered myself. Hilarious.

    I totally get you with Ron. Cause he's being an ass, but dude poor him. JK does a good job with making me feel conflicting things in this book - Ron's attitude, Hermione's SPEW campaign, etc.

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