It’s the first day of September, and the Hogwarts Express has left the station. Ginny, Neville, and Luna boarded the train, but Harry and Ron and Hermione are still ensconced in Grimmauld Place. Death Eaters watch the square.
Dealing with Moody’s anti-Snape jinxes has become routine, the horror diminished. Harry, having made it past both spells and Death Eaters, is greeted by an unrecognizable Kreacher–clean, happy, hard at work making a home out of the grisly old place. The locket of Regulus Black hangs over the old elf’s heart, catalyst to its change.
Plans and Schemes
Harry has news: Voldemort has put Snape in Dumbledore’s old role as headmaster, assuming control of Hogwarts by proxy. Hermione, with the very uncharacteristic exclamation of “Merlin’s pants!”, remembers that a portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black connects Grimmauld Place to the Hogwarts headmaster’s study. Phineas Nigellus goes in the beaded bag, from whence he will later appear with important consequences.
Over steaming bowls of French onion soup, the trio discusses plans to break into the Ministry, where they hope to capture the Horcrux from Umbridge. Harry breaks up the standard Ron-and-Hermione squabbling by suggesting the Ministry raid should be done the next morning. Ron, with clumsy chivalry, attempts to keep Hermione from the dangerous mission, and discussion is interrupted by a news flash from Harry’s scar.
Cold-Blooded Murder
Our Gothic heroine bolts to the bathroom and sees–metaphorically speaking–blood (make of that what you will). Overcome with pain, Harry puts his head down on a black sink with open-mouthed serpents for taps; the Blacks’ grotesque bathroom décor fades into Voldemort’s vision, where a woman and probably her children are murdered merely because Gregorovitch does not live there and they do not know where he went.
A bout of unconscious yelling from Harry brings Ron and Hermione running, and Harry explains to an argumentative Hermione why he still lets Voldemort inside his mind. He will use the connection, though at this point it still controls him; he needs to know Voldemort’s plans and actions.
Imposters
Hours of planning and one short night later, Harry and friends eat their last decent meal for awhile and Hermione apparates them to the Ministry, where they target some workers for the purpose of impersonation.
Hermione becomes Mafalda Hopkirk, who works in the Improper Use of Magic office and in fact sent Harry the letter of warning (CoS) and the letter of expulsion (OotP) for unlawful underage magic.
Ron immediately notices something off about his character, Reg Cattermole, who came to work not dressed in his usual uniform. Later, when accosted by a threatening Death Eater, Yaxley, Ron learns that he has unwittingly stepped into the shoes of a man whose wife is on trial for being Muggle-born. Yaxley suggests that the woman’s fate may depend on Ron’s ability to stop the raining in Yaxley’s office.
In the body of someone he does not know, Harry finds himself physically far larger than he is used to and is given the alternates of sniveling respect and cold treatment normally offered a bully. His name proves to be Albert Runcorn, a government thug who set Dirk Cresswell from the Goblin Liaison department running for his life.
Having assumed their temporary identities, the trio makes another trip to the loo; the Ministry has apparently gone quite literally down the toilet. A random Ministry worker cracks a joke about Harry Potter getting in, right in front of the man himself–and they are in.
The Dark Lord’s Domain
The Atrium is darker than Harry recalls. His thoughts hearken to the fountain that used to form the centerpiece: a centaur, goblin, and house-elf all staring slavishly up at a witch and wizard. Dishonest sentimentality, however, is hardly enough for an organization controlled by Voldemort, and in the place of the inappropriately-named Fountain of Magical Brethren stands a new statue.
The witch and wizard carved here are richly robed, enthroned, and frightening. Black stone curves in ornate patterns to form that awful seat, and when Harry looks closer he sees “hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together”. Hermione points out the idea: “Muggles, in their proper place.” At the bottom of the statue are the words “Magic is Might”.
Claiming control by virtue of superiority typically develops straight into this idea: Magic is Might, and Might Makes Right. As the horrific statue goes to show, the most inhuman thing any human ever does is dehumanize another.
The trio get in line for a lift and take it. Ron heads to Yaxley’s office, desperate to protect Cattermole’s wife. Harry and Hermione continue on, and the chapter closes with the opening of the grilles to the very toady in question: Dolores Umbridge.
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post, Jenna! Wish I could comment right now but it’s almost time for catechism class.
Very vivid. You’ve captured the pace and mood of the chapter well, young Blogengamot.
The description of the thrones the witch and wizard are sitting on reminds of a lot of things: Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, Rodin’s Gates of Hell, and most closely, Vigeland’s Monolith. According to Wikipedia, the Monolith:
is meant to represent man’s desire to become closer with the spiritual and divine. It portrays a feeling of togetherness as the human figures embrace one another as they are carried toward salvation.
My own feeling when looking at it was a sense of a mass of humanity being crushed.
The sculpture (of the seated witch and wizard, not the Monolith) is also reminiscent of Nazi and Soviet era art, with its emphasis on large, static masses. And the words “Magic is Might” also evokes not-too-distant fascist slogans.
Nice job JKR.
I was determined not to post so much here anymore – ah but Hogshead, I wish I knew how to quit you!
When I first read this chapter – I thought about T. H. White obviously because of the title of the chapter. Now reading it, I see more than before.
Magic is Might – Might for Right, A falcon’s view of the Hogwarts Express, How can you have boundaries if you fly? Merlin’s name invoked three different times, Hermione asking “Why are you so determined not to take responsibility for your own power?”, the wand choosing the wizard (or the sword the king), the ants of the Ministry of magic and Badger’s dissertation, etc. etc. and then there’s the Merlin’s Most Baggy Y-Fronts! It’s as if Ms. Rowling picked up the whole set of The Once and Future King and threw it at my head.
Dumbledore’s most tighty-whities!
Of course, there’s also the Orwellian overtones with the slogan. War is peace. Ignorance is Strength. Etc.
This chapter is really where we see truly, terrifying evil. But it doesn’t look like it, because it’s normal, everyday evil. The fact that the Ministry could just segue into being a total apparatus for Voldemort and things go on pretty much as normal. Every day hundreds, if not a thousand or so, people, walk into the ministry to work, going through the humiliation of being flushed in, walk past the grotesque statue, and then go about their regular jobs.
Yes Rev. George – this is the ultimate chapter in comparison to WWII. They walk in – give up – and are gassed. If you read about T.H. White’s take on the Arthurian legends, they are all are about WWII. Every single one of them. They were written right after world war II. One can easily see Ms. Rowling being supremely influenced by his writings, since his writings were a re-telling very specifically of world war II in context of the the Arthurian legends.
What I found interesting was the Sculpture Art used as propoganda.
When we read the books, I wonder how many fear this chapter as viscerally as much I do. I actually think this is one of Ms. Rowlings finest chapters.
God, I love this woman.
You can add that those who dehumanize others, dehumanize themselves as well. Good overview of the chapter.
Johnny, what do you specifically mean by dehumanizing themselsves as well? I must be confused by your point of meaning.
Johnny – Are you talking about the Nazis? Yes they do a good job of de humanizing. Sick. But true!
While in one sense, the Trio has been in exile since the wedding, in another sense, their exile begins here. Between the wedding and now, the Trio has lived in a house, had good meals, and even had a chance to interact with other people (Kreacher, Dung, Lupin). But this is the point where they actually start their mission, getting horcruxes, and this is the first event in the sequence that will drive them out into the wilderness. The fact that this episode begins around the same time as the Hogwarts Express leaves doesn’t seem very coincidental.
Is getting flushed down the toilet a callback to CoS? If so, is the Ministry supposed to be the Chamber? I suppose the CoS was left to rid Hogwarts of Muggle-borns, and now the MoM is doing the same thing. I’ll have to think about that some more.
And yes, the throne of Muggles is disgusting.
Johnny, a perfect example would be Voldemort himself. The more he falls into the dark arts and embraces the philosophy of “Magic is Might”, the more animal-like he becomes, both physically and in his actions.
Thank you, Derek D, for the most marvellous opening to what I have been longing to discuss! Having failed to establish my premise through the previous 11 chapters where you all have been holding forth most admirably, I’ll just begin here:
The Deathly Hallows (imho) is a mirror of the series and as such it is split into seven distinct parts. As Derek D has so aptly alluded to above, section one and its mirror imaging of PS/SS came to an end at the wedding, and with the troubling revelations of Skeeter’s book of memories and a flight into isolation, we have entered CoS territory.
Since the wedding, the trio have been isolated and trapped at Grimmauld Place recalling Harry’s isolation and entrapment at the Dursley’s in the beginning of CoS. After a year of repreive, Harry’s Scar-o-scope is operating again, emphasizing the Harry/Voldemort duality introduced in Book 2. Kreacher has surfaced to tell us a harrowing tale just as Dobby appeared to introduce us to the troubles of house elves. The blood predjudice of a schoolboy bully who has bribed his way onto his Quidditch team has become the fully realized pogrom of the Ministry, and just as in CoS, Ron gallantly defends Hermione against such unfairness. Harry and Ron miss the Hogwarts Express as they did in the 2nd book. And now plans have been laid, not to storm the mirror image of the Chamber of Secrets, but the Slytherin common room that the Ministry has become.
They drink their polyjuice potion and come in via the loo. As Jenna noted in the summary, Hermione has assumed the identity of that very same Mafalda Hopkirk introduced in the 2nd book. Ron has turned himself into Reg Cattermole (remember Herione’s polyjuice disaster?) and as such will not be following along with the other two as they make their way down to the Ministry dungeon in their search for the “Heirloom of Slytherin”.
Nice job, Jenna! I especially liked your points about the Ministry going “down the toilet”, Magic is Might, and the worst thing someone can do being to dehumanize another. Johnny added in the other crucial aspect, that when we dehumanize others, we’re also dehumanizing ourselves.
In reading this chapter I thought, “what is this reminding me of that I read recently??” and then it came to me, A Tale of Two Cities. I mean specifically Ministry employees like Runcorn turning in people as much for personal vendettas as anything else. In Dickens’ work people like the Defarges denounced people like Darnay because they were connected with a social class that had caused them pain and that they hated, ignoring the fact that Darnay had spent his life esquewing his title and the oppression it entailed. Another Ministry employee congrdulates him on his turning in Dirk Cresswell saying “I might get his job now!”. Like all totalitarian regimes where there are no fair trials, this is a system where people can denounce each other for vengence or personal gain, as if imprisoning people over their blood status and denying non-human magical creatures their rights because they’re not human wasn’t bad enough. The main difference between Dickens’ work and this one was that Paris’s revolution was one of oppressed people rising up against opppressors and then becoming as brutal. The M.O.M. is close to Hitler’s regime, though every totalitarian regime runs the risk of meeting the same fate at the French aristrocracy.
The idea that anyone can turn anyone else in and no one is safe in a facist society is also discussed in Naomi Wolf’s book “The End of America”, a very interesting and important read that I recommend.
Joivre I liked your parallel’s to the White’s book. I really do need to read that at some point.
Intriguing discussion going on here. And thanks for the kind compliments!
Red Rocker, yes–I get the same feeling from the Monolith. It seems like a colossal failure in artistic communication, if joy and salvation were what Vigeland was going for. Maybe it works for some people.
Revgeorge, that struck me too: people walking past that statue every day, going about their work. I wonder how normal it would have felt, how many would suppress their revulsion out of fear, how many would flee the country in the night, how many would consider it just an open practice of what was merely hidden before.
Johnny, very true. You said it better than I did.
Sevenkeys and Derek D, the theory of Deathly Hallows as mirroring the other six books is fascinating! I’ll look forward to hearing more about that.
Good work Jenna and all the commenters so far. Some very though-provoking analysis by all.
The statute (specifically the base of “mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together”) evokes the description of the bodies of those murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, pressed together and entangled, in Herman Wouk’s War and Remembrance (Fontana 1978 paperback edition, pp. 303-304, 1108-1109). A good point above about fascist/communist monumental art. It’s a little like the giant statutes of Stalin and dictators in other countries that were pulled down with the fall of Communism.
I believe the names Ronald and Reginald both mean advisor to the king. Reg Cattermole seems to be Ron’s alter ego: somewhat incompetent at magic, well meaning, muggle-born SO.
Kreacher wears Regulus’ locket and it inspires him to become a better being. Later the trio wears Voldy’s locket and it engenders bickering, depression, and Ron’s departure.
Oops, I meant “statue” not “statute.” Although the new laws regarding muggle-borns etc. are abominations, too.
I wanted to comment about Kreacher’s transformation and as the beginning of this chapter is when we see the changed Kreacher this seems to be the place. I have seen elsewhere discussion about Dobby as a slave/servant who liberates himself by making the difficult decision to serve the master of his choosing. Later, Harry, the chosen master, is able to actually free Dobby. Winky, in contrast, is denied the ability to serve the master of her choosing, thus liberty is useless to her. She does not have the freedom to do what she wants to do, which is to serve the Crouch family. Kreacher is in bondage when we first meet him, serving people he despises. He rebels in whatever ways he can, stealing back the belongings of those he wishes he was still serving, muttering, then happily serving, presumably at Bellatrix’s command, and contributing to Sirius’s death. One can argue that he had no way of knowing that his actions would result in Sirius’s death, but he certainly knew that he was not faithfully serving Sirius. Then Harry takes the time to find out what matters to Kreacher and, voila, the situation is totally transformed. Kreacher is now able to do what he has longed to do, but been unable to do. That is to help find, in order to destroy, the locket. When he is free to do what he feels is his duty he is a joyful servant, and although bound to Harry he now feels free.
Just some thoughts re freedom and servanthood.
Which statue would you say is better art? The dishonest, sentimental Fountain of Magical Brethren? Or the horrible, yet honest, Magic is Might?
I would have to go with Magic is Might. It is an honest depiction of the Ministry’s aims under Death Eater domination. Further there is a certain truth in the basic idea. Magic is Might. Even if it is only used to keep Muggles ignorant instead of subjugated, that is still a power that Wizards have and Muggles do not.
And Magic is Might is also more affecting than The Fountain of Magical Brethren. It touches emotions deeper and more sophisticated. Just as The Monolith is a greater work of art than the statue of Peter Pan, so too is Magic is Might more of a “real” work of art.
To use another comparison, the statue of Magical Might is better art than the Fountain in the same way that The Tales of Beedle the Bard is better art than the bowdlerized versions by Mrs. Bloxam. And in the same way that the Harry Potter books are better art than most of the more treacly children’s book printed each year. Horror is a more sophisticated emotion than sentimentality and creating it in a novel setting elevates a work.
Interesting point, SPT. I suppose the counter-argument is that the Brethren version represents the ideal that the Ministry (nominally) desires and that it’s a better vision than “Magic is Might” even if less truthful. And besides, there’s always the chance that someone might actually take the Brethren statue seriously, and call others to pay attention to how they aren’t living up to its standard.
We say “‘Til Death Do Us Part” in wedding vows, but the divorce rate shows that’s not actually the case for many of us. Should we instead say “Until you wrong me, or I get tired of you, or I don’t feel quite as fulfilled as a person, or I meet someone I like better” since it’s more brutally honest? You can call “Til death do us part” sentimental, but you can also call it the ideal, what we hope our marriages will attain to, even if they do not.
I don’t think that the old statue represents an ideal. It still represents inequality – albeit one in which the underprivileged don’t seem to mind their lack of equality. It’s hypocritical because it pretends that those with lesser rights don’t mind their status.
On the other hand, although the new statue “outs” the agenda of domination, and is in some ways more honest, it too is dishonest because the people who are being sat upon are depicted as less than human.
Less rights vs no rights; memory wipes vs murder: I think most of us would choose the former as the lesser of two evils.
There is a beautiful moment when Wart discovers something in the Once and Future King. He debates Might is Right, Might can be Right, and then discovers Might for Right. This is the only path to follow. I do not know how I stumbled upon this. But I love it and it is part of my very being.
Jenna, I apologize for getting to this so late and being so brief. Two large writing projects, my own upcoming chapter, a trip, and you know the other I’ve sunk my teeth into (heh).
I’m filled with admiration for your work on a difficult, sprawling chapter that covers several subjects and directions.
Might can always call itself right, can’t it, as it holds the power card, shutting down And trampling opposition and innocents alike. Very, very ugly picture of the Ministry’s complete degradation.