Let the snogging begin! Chapter 14 of Half-Blood Prince centers on the continuing misunderstanding between Ron and Hermione and their frustration with each other. There’s probably a lot to say about that, but I’ll leave it to the pub.
I want to talk about Harry. It turns out we don’t have to wait for the Slughorn memory caper to observe Harry learning from Dumbledore. Harry’s trick with the Felix Felicis is very Dumbledorian. Harry believed he had reason enough to let Hermione believe a lie and make a fool of herself, even if just momentarily, in order to bolster Ron’s confidence and get him playing well.
The only problem is, Harry doesn’t have his priorities straight yet. This is Quidditch, not war. In the last thread, Red Rocker made an interesting comment in agreement with revgeorge:
But I’m not that concerned about the legal and moral implications of forgery and getting Mrs. C drunk. Agree with revgeorge here: much better for all if Tom Riddle moves to Hogwarts.
Which seems to me to suggest that many of us would be inclined to do very much what Dumbledore does, given certain circumstances. We’ve discussed before the ethical dilemmas presented by war and the kind of threat Voldemort presents. Dumbledore, being the only one with all the necessary knowledge, was perhaps in the most difficult position of almost anyone in the series. We might say the same sorts of things about many of Dumbledore’s more manipulative moves. “I’m not that concerned about the legal and moral implications of X; Voldemort needed to be stopped.” Then, of course, there’s the problem with the slippery slope.
But this is Quidditch, not war, and Harry’s willingness to toy with the emotions and trust of his friends backfires on him when the plan doesn’t work out as well as any of Dumbledore’s plans ever did. Whatever you think of Dumbledore’s decisions throughout the series, by the end, Harry is at least being like Dumbledore (“Neville, kill the snake”) for actual reasons of life and death.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Agree totally about the dangers of the slippery slope: what else might one countenance in order to defeat Voldemort?
Believe it or not, I worked out the consequences of the forgery and the drunken interview before I countenanced them. It’s all to easy to imagine the potential danger in pretending to have the authority to take an 11 year old boy away with you. That’s why we have laws. If Dumbledore had been another kind of person, then the act would not bear scrutiny: it would be abduction. But the point is, we know Dumbledore’s intentions were good – and it wasn’t just because of what we know in retrospect: a boy wizard belongs in Hogwarts, so he was actually going along with the social expectations of the wizarding world and restoring Tom to his right place.
Does all that make the forgery right? Well, it makes it less wrong.
Of course Dumbledore could have done it the right way, revealed to Mrs. C that Tom was a boy wizard and belonged at Hogwarts. But he’d only have to wipe her memory afterwards, which we’ve agreed is a pretty rotten thing to do to anyone. So the forgery was more convenient. Again, words used to advance along that slippery slope. But as bad deeds go, not the worst.
I actually think pumping Mrs. C full of gin to get her to talk was a bit less acceptable, and further down the slope, mainly because she obviously had a thing for the drink. It was a weakness, and Dumbledore took advantage of her weakness. On the other hand, we have no evidence that she was trying to abstain, so once again, as bad deeds go, not the worst.
But I agree: the end is not a justification for the means. The means have to withstand scrutiny in and of themselves.
I’ll tackle the distasteful parallel between Harry’s actions and those of Dumbledore in another comment.
Maybe Harry felt justified pulling his Felix Felicis stunt on Ron after Hermione confounded McLaggan at the Quidditch tryouts–most out of character for her. Harry seems to be channeling Oliver Wood as much as Dumbledore here. The stunt backfires more on Hermione though, Ron thought the Felix ruse was great.
To his credit, Harry does seem to side more with Hermione during her dustup with Ron. He can’t tell her Ron is angry with her because she might of snogged Victor Krum two years earlier, and who can blame him? It would have only made matters worse.
I’m probably not alone to admit that during my first read through of the HP books, I was rather impatient with the teen romance stuff. It got in the way of the main conflict between Harry and LV. Now that the resolution of the war with Voldemort has been seen, on re-readings I’ve paid more attention to the comedy of manners between the main characters, especially the Trio. It really is quite delightful and amusing. And JKR’s delicacy and comedic touch in dealing with romance certainly helps.
deacondon, good points. Yeah, I definitely think it’s fair to suggest that Harry was being more Hermione here than Dumbledore, but we’d also want to add that Hermione wasn’t exactly being Hermione when she pulled that Confundus!
Regardless, on a very minor scale, the Dumbledore parallel is there – Harry’s decided that winning the Quidditch match is worth taking the risk, making Hermione upset, and deceiving both her and Ron. Simply stated, the deception is justified, because the end is too important. Harry justifies it to himself in precisely this way, pondering Hermione’s lack of understanding about the importance of Quidditch.
Of course, he had hoped it would all work out in a way that would resolve their argument, not increase it, and it didn’t do that at all!
Did Harry actually deceive his friends? They came to their own conclusions from what they observed. Sure, he didn’t try to talk them out of their belief but that’s not outright lying.
He was trying to teach Ron about his abilities and worth in a way that Ron understood. Hermione wanted to encourge Ron to but thought Harry was acting counter to that.
Sure, he let them come to their own conclusions, but his actions were intended to deceive. He was trying to deceive without using actual words.
Keep in mind, I’m a big Dumbledore fan … I’m not exactly coming down hard on Harry, here. Just observing.
You reminded me, though, that I really wanted to do some commentary on Ron in this chapter! I think you’re right that Harry was trying to teach Ron about his abilities and worth, which is a good thing and a noble goal. Ron, however, despite gaining confidence as a keeper, doesn’t really begin to overcome his fears. He doesn’t do that until he stares them down in the locket Horcrux and overcomes them by the little pool in DH.
The word “Lucky” pops up 6 times in the Felix Felicis chapter 14 and in the HBP book 6 in the whole book the word “Lucky” comes in the play 29 times by the computer word-count.
JKR is not just repeating words or phrases it’s literary playing a kind of Word Association as a teacher she is getting the words to sink in, (repeat then repeat and for good measure say it again) In our lives our words control the out-come our choices and they do define our futures, positive and negatively. Do we believe in ourselves and others to overcome obstacles? As Harry said. “… He looked at Ron. “You saved everything because you felt lucky. You did it all yourself…” One big help for Ron was that Harry believed that Ron could do anything that Ron could imagine.
We are seeing an every-day application of the meaning of “Under the Influence” in a positive way.
So many times we can talk ourselves out of a great opportunity
If we can persuade younger minds – sway – bring to mind – yes even manipulate – give positive reinforcement – encouraging others as with our children sometimes even bribe them to a good outcome, we have done our job for today, tomorrow it starts all over new. Should I change my name to “Soapbox Bob” ?
All’s fair in love and war?
These issues were also raised back in GOF in connection with Mr. Crouch, who sanctioned extreme measures in the first war against the Death Eaters, including sending Sirius to Azkaban without trial and giving aurors the power to kill as well as capture.
Travis said, “Hermione wasn’t exactly being Hermione when she pulled that Confundus.” Maybe, but it was Hermione who captured and kidnapped Rita Skeeter, imprisoned her in an unbreakable jar, and blackmailed her in GOF, then blackmailed her again in OOTP, all with Harry’s and Ron’s acquiescence. They could hardly do otherwise after Rita had listened in on the very sensitive conversations in Harry’s hospital room at the end of GOF. But again, it’s a slippery slope.
Harry doesn’t actually do anything illegal with the felix feint, he only fools his friends for a short time to bolster Ron’s confidence and win a match. It is a nice foreshadowing of what Dumbledore does, however. Harry cons Hermione and Ron into thinking Ron’s taken lucky potion. Dumbledore cons Snape and Harry into thinking Harry has to sacrifice himself. There’s also a nice bit of ironic flashback as Harry asks Ron what he’ll have to drink. It reminds me of Umbridge asking Harry what he’ll have to drink when she’s trying to slip him veritaserum in OOTP.
Sigh. I just got done reading this chapter before bed in hopes of commenting on it tomorrow. Now all the good points’ll be taken before I can get to it.
Good points about Hermione and Rita Skeeter, Lily Luna
Robert, interesting thoughts about being “lucky.” This chapter struck me as Rowling’s suggestion that there’s not really anything to Felix Felicis in the first place. After all, Ron didn’t take the potion, and still, stuff that was entirely outside of his own attitude (“feeling lucky”) occurred – Slytherin players being injured, great weather, etc.
Pair this chapter with the end of “The Fountain of Fair Fortune,” and it just might be that Felix is yet another deceiver
Travis, Yes I see the connection with Felix and Fountain a kind of placebo effect, take a sugar pill just don’t tell me about it.
Just some random thoughts. First on love & romance. I liked this chapter because I liked the romance aspects. It’s all very real. The way it actually happens, sans the magic, in real life too. The chapter strongly points to what Dumbledore claims, “Love makes fools of us all.”
One could see Voldemort, & the warlock from the Hairy Heart, looking at all this & saying, “Really, now, is this all worth it? All this uncertainty & pain?” Better to love no one than yourself or to make yourself incapable of love.
Because loving someone entails the risk that they won’t love you back or even if they do love you, that you’ll still be hurt. Loving someone else leaves you open to hurt, disappointment, & eventually bereavement.
Second thought. This chapter kind of points up a difference between Harry & Draco, which in this case is a point in favor of Draco. Draco learns the lesson quite well that when the Dark Lord takes charge he won’t care how many OWLS you had but what kind of service you gave him.
Here in this chapter we see Draco taking his mission seriously & working towards it. Harry, on the other hand, is passive. Life just goes on as normal for him, even though he knows he’s the Chosen One who has the only chance of defeating LV & even though he’s seen the effects of war first hand, with Cedric’s death, & then Sirius, & now all that’s going on in the wider Wizarding world.
Harry however is just content to let DD feed him information. He shows no initiative of his own. Unless DD has a session with him or gives him a task, Harry just goes on as normal. Never asks, “Is there something else I can be doing, Sir, to prepare for the confrontation with LV?”
He has a rather lackadaisical attitude towards it all.
revgeorge,
You point out another reason why Dumbledore had to die. Harry wouldn’t have stepped up like a man until his guardian was removed.
Some of Dumbledore’s apparent manipulation of Harry is put into a bit of a different light too. Was it a rebuke that Harry needed to grow up and take a lead in the fight or for Harry to find being told what to be do irksome and restrictive, and thus make him grow up?
The passivity is interesting and a contrast to his younger self in a way. In Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets, Harry is the one who steps up and acts even when everyone else is saying stay in your common room. In fact in SS he says in response to Hermione’s concern that he’ll be expelled if found out after curfew again, “SO WHAT? . . . Don’t you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort’s coming back! Haven’t you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won’t be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He’ll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts! Losing points doesn’t matter anymore, can’t you see? D’you think he’ll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor wins the house cup? . . . I’m never going over to the Dark Side! . . .” (SS 270). Draco’s comment about grades almost parallel’s Harry’s comments about losing points and the House cup. In POA and GOF he’s dragged into the fray but steps up when he has to. OOTP, the alchemical nigredo novel, pulls him apart. He doesn’t step up enough to apply himself to his occlumency, then tries to step up to rescue Sirius, with disastrous consequences. In HBP he takes seriously Dumbledore’s direction to keep his cloak with him, but uses that in a pointless, though accurate, pursuit of Malfoy. But when Dumbledore gives him homework he makes only half-hearted attempts at it. He doesn’t apply himself to really learning DADA from Snape even though the skills could be important in the future. Even his pursuit of Snape at the end is pointless except to help bolster D’s and Snape’s deception. His lessons with D, assisting D in the cave, saving Ron’s life (twice), and giving his friends the rest of the lucky potion are the only truly useful things he does in HBP. But maybe Harry needed this pause, this one (relatively) peaceful year to recharge, to be purified as it were (albedo) before the crucible of DH.
Oy, a superfluous apostrophe in “parallels.” How annoying.
Guess I should have added that in OOTP he does step up, with Hermione’s prodding, to teach DADA to his classmates. The one big good thing he does in OOTP (aside from saving Ron’s dad).
I think M*A*S*H pulled the placebo card one too many times for me to be fooled by Harry’s felix trick. Besides, I didn’t really think he would so blatantly break the law; he does, of course, have “a certain disregard for the rules,” but pumping Ron up with performance-enhancing potions seems pretty low. Plus I thought it would be a real waste of such a useful potion, when he knows he’s got life and death situations ahead of him in which it will come in handy.
I think that Harry’s actions are at least somewhat justifiable here. Mostly what he’s doing is just giving Ron’s ego a boost. He should’ve known better than to drag Hermione into it, though; if he was trying to ease tensions between them, that wasn’t the way to do it. While Harry wants to win the match, I think he’s mostly thinking about Ron. If his chief concern was Quidditch, he wouldn’t be so keen for Ron to stay on as Keeper anyway. Ron can be good, but usually he’s no great shakes; Cormac, while obnoxious, would probably be better for the team. But not picking Ron would have been a major blow to his best friend, as would him performing terribly in that match. So I think he mostly did it out of friendship to Ron, and out of hope that a really good game would bring him out of his funk and allow him and Hermione to reconcile.
The idea that felix felicis could be a whole lot of nothing is really interesting, though I tend to think that it is an actual potion that works the way it’s said to. Some of the things that Harry does the night of Aragog’s funeral arise from him feeling pulled in a certain direction, and not knowing why at first. That seems like a function of the luck, as does the fact that none of the drinkers of the felix felicis were badly injured in such a dangerous battle.
I think my favorite aspect of this chapter is that it introduced me to the word “snog”. Never heard of it before this, but by the end of the book I felt like I’d known the word forever. I loved, too, that the action it described was not nearly as… graphic as the word made me suspect. I couldn’t help wondering, as I reread the chapter, how the sixth year might have played out differently if Ron and Harry hadn’t happened to stumble upon Ginny and Dean that night. Ron and Hermione might’ve gotten together a lot sooner. And it might’ve taken Harry a lot longer to totally admit to himself he’d fallen for Ginny…
Also love Neville’s moment of triumph in Sprout’s class! Just goes to show that he’s not afraid to take a beating in pursuit of a noble goal…