Comments on: Chapter 11: The Bribe

By: korg20000bc

korg20000bc — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:47:16 +0000

Well done everyone.
Let’s move on now.

By: Joivre

Joivre — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:25:35 +0000

Thanks RR – I was a queen of the wild things….

But Joivre stepped into her private boat and waved goodbye and sailed back over a year, and in and out of weeks, and through a day, and into the night of her very own room where she found her supper waiting for her….
and it was still hot.

By: Red Rocker

Red Rocker — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:05:50 +0000

No problem Joivre.

By: Joivre

Joivre — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:38:47 +0000

This past weekend I went to a beach party and drank three (very large) margarites, barely bicycled home and proceeded, very unwisely, to post on in site. I shall never do that again because there are only three possible outcomes when you do that:

A. You wind up calling someone a Mudblood
B. You wake up the next day with the dark mark on your left arm
C. Or as in the case of Snape, both of the above.

Thankfully B. did not occur, but I sincerely regret my stupid posts (in particular to RR) and seek redemption. I promise not to do it again and to be more constructive and positive on this site, as I like it very much.

Contritely yours,
Joivre

By: Red Rocker

Red Rocker — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:29:35 +0000

If there is an intended parallel, and if it’s that Snape is not so different from Lupin, then what exactly is the similarity? That Harry is right and they are both cowards? That Harry is right and they are both emotional cowards? That Harry is wrong and neither is a coward?

I’m of the school that Harry is wrong in both cases, although he has more justification in the first case. But I also think that if the author wanted us to realize that Harry was wrong – and was using the Lupin example to give us a clue about Harry’s wrongness re: Snape – she did not make her meaning very clear. As we can see from the wide discrepancy in the way readers interpret the same text.

Or we could just fling authorial intent out the window and say that the text is capable of multiple interpretations. Which is not an idea I’m comfortable with. I prefer to think that the author didn’t do a good job making her meaning clear than to think that we don’t need to figure out what she meant.

By: Lily Luna

Lily Luna — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:28:57 +0000

As I said, my ideas about Lupin and Snape and whether Snape was polyjuicing Lupin are theories I had considered and discarded. I do think there was an intended parallel to perhaps hint that Snape was not so different from Lupin but not that we were supposed to think one was the other.

By: Travis Prinzi

Travis Prinzi — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:02:51 +0000

Derek D, you might be interested in my podcast, Quills, Queries, Quests, which is a talk on education and Harry Potter that I gave at a conference. Here's one I did on Harry Potter & literacy. Here's a paper and lesson plans I wrote up on the same subject. And here's an article I wrote for Suite101.com on Fred and George and subversive students. (I really need to migrate that article over here, as I no longer write for Suite101).

By: Derek D

Derek D — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:56:06 +0000

In the initial recap, Travis does a great job talking about the educational changes implemented, and it makes me wonder about Rowling’s stance on education in general. Is pedagogy talked about in more detail on this site or at others? I assume OotP would have a huge amount of insight, but all the books would to some extent. I would be very interested in hearing more analysis on education in Harry Potter.

By: Arabella Figg

Arabella Figg — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:37:51 +0000

Fricka, I agree with your comment #68. I think you’ve laid out your case well. I agree that it must have been extremely agitating for Harry’s protectors to have him call them cowards. And how Lupin must have suffered as part of Fenrir’s pack as a double agent. I see him as the most tragic hero in the books, followed by Snape (Snape is second because he made his own tragedies and stubbornly clung to his bitternesses).

During the Interlibrum, the speculation of polyjuicing ran high, until almost everyone and everything was polyjuiced, practically to George’s severed ear. So, Lily Luna, your polyjuicing theories fit in with what was being considered at the time.

By: Fricka

Fricka — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:23:47 +0000

Geee! The things one misses out on when gone from this site for a day!
Glad everything seems to be sorted out now in re the C. Harris books.
Anyway, I will bravely throw myself in the gap here and get back to Lily Luna’s intriguing idea of the Lupin in this scene really being a polyjuiced Snape. It’s true that both Lupin and Snape have quite similar reactions to Harry’s calling them “coward.” However, might not this be because both Snape AND Lupin have been serving as Double agents–dangerous work that takes courage? I don’t see either of them having a problem with someone who doesn’t know them calling them that name, but when it’s coming from Harry, that’s another story altogether. Snape, after all, is doing what he’s doing in spying on Voldemort to help keep Harry alive. I think we can say the same for Lupin, and assume that Dumbledore asked him to perform a similar function with the Werewolf contingent. It can’t be easy for Lupin, having to have contact with the Werewolves, especially as he has that twisted history with Fenrir Greyback. Maybe he’s even had to watch Greyback bite other young boys(or girls) as part of being in the pack. The point I’m trying to make is that both of these characters were doing extremely dangerous work, and it was on the behest of Harry. For him to call them “Coward” to their face must have seemed like a terrible insult, and the problem is, they can’t tell him what they are doing to protect him, because it’s still secret. Well, Harry knows that Lupin is working with the Werewolves, but I’m sure he doesn’t understand all the ramifications of that. It seems to me that it’s hitting below the belt when he calls Lupin “Coward”, not that I approve of Lupin’s actions in leaving Tonks and Teddy, or what he says about his marriage. That’s a different issue, at least for me at this point. I don’t know if I’m making sense here, but it just doesn’t seem that likely to me that Snape would polyjuice Lupin to check on the trio. For one thing, what’s he going to do with Lupin while he’s visiting them? For another, I don’t think Jo Rowling would have a character like Snape impersonate Lupin and not reveal it later. We did, after all, find that the Professor who seemed to be Alastor Moody was Barty Crouch, Jr. in GOF. However, there’s no reference in canon to this kind of action between Snape and Lupin.
Anyone else have some thoughts on this?