|
Post by vegablack on Jul 25, 2009 13:46:00 GMT -5
On pate 735 of the Flaw in the Plan in Deathly Hallows we are told that Harry saw "Ron and Neville bringing down Fernrir Greyback." Does that mean that they killed him or at least gave the appearance of killing him?
We are told in the same paragraph that George and Lee Jordan slammed Yaxley to the ground Aberforth stunned Rookwood and Dolohov fell with a scream at Flitwick's hand. Did that mean that Dolohov died and Rookwood was captured and Yaxley could go either way.
The problem I have with having the bad guy kill and the good guy merely attempt to capture or subdue is its impracticality. This turns a battle for life or death, into a giant all too serious game of freeze tag. The baddies kill their opponents. The goodies, only disable theirs until someone comes to remove the disabling curse allowing them to fight again while the goodies lose their numbers one by one. Remember Voldemort has threatened to kill them and they lost fifty of their own side. These freed enemies could go on to kill or maim a friend of the person who merely disabled them. Is that moral in a battle?
That the baddies do go on to fight again is shown by the fact that Percy had early in the battle turned Thickness into a giant sea-urchin while at the end he had to floor Thicknesse again.
Does the incident with Thicknesse mean that none of the goodies were killing or was that just an incident with Percy.
I think JKR purposefully used careful language to protect her youthful audience. This is important because I'm writing fic and I like to know what is going on. I'm leaning toward Neville and Ron killing Greyback but I want to be sure.
The same issue applies to the Mandrakes. Mandrakes are deadly if they are mature. If they were dumping mature Mandrakes they would have killed many. If they were young they would have immobilized many. Perhaps they were among the most affective tools they had.
|
|
|
Post by dancingpony on Jul 26, 2009 18:21:15 GMT -5
I would guess that Greyback was killed. Probably Dolohov was also killed. We know that Bellatrix was killed.
I had the impression that there were injuries as well as deaths on both sides of the battle. Not all of the combatants were using death curses in every situation -- and not every combatant was equally skilled in casting curses.
Personally, I have a problem with the use of Mandrakes at all. The thing that crossed my mind, when I read that section for the first time, was "Why in the world would they toss Mandrakes out into the battle? Mandrakes would be just as likely to kill the good guys as the bad guys."
|
|
|
Post by vegablack on Jul 26, 2009 20:50:53 GMT -5
I'm not so sure. If you were well organized you could use them. You'd keep your own side from the location. The way Muggle soldiers would set land mines, alerting their own side to avoiding the location. Though unlike land minds they wouldn't be hidden. They could also be quickly retrieved and repotted which would quiet them and render them safe. If you were short on numbers you could use them to defend a particular part of the castle without stationing many of your own people there.
You would have to alert your own people to avoid the area though.
|
|
|
Post by dancingpony on Jul 27, 2009 22:13:18 GMT -5
A bomb and a mandrake are dangerous in different ways, though. A bomb explodes once, and then the danger is over. A mandrake, once lobbed over the wall of the castle, is dangerous to anyone who stumbles across its path until someone (wearing ear muffs) finds it and "disarms" it. It would take incredibly good communication to ensure that all of the defenders of the castle knew about the use of and the location of the mandrakes -- something that would be nearly impossible to achieve given that people were arriving on the scene almost constantly from different directions.
About Thicknesse: Perhaps Percy used a non lethal curse on him because he was under the Imperius curse. Ie, he was fighting on the wrong side, but he wasn't necessarily a Voldemort supporter.
|
|
|
Post by vegablack on Aug 13, 2009 20:33:49 GMT -5
perhaps they only used them early in the battle when people were placed rather carefully. I think they would be useful in a battle when people were outnumbered, the way a mine field is also used at those times especially in defence as the fighters were defending Hogwarts. I thought the mandrakes were the closest thing to a modern battle weapon in the story. The only that really created a mass attack rather than a duel style attack.
They could send people to disarm them when their use was no longer required. WE don't even know how long they scream. Perhaps they quiet down after a set amount of time.
|
|
|
Post by vegablack on Nov 7, 2009 22:22:08 GMT -5
I've been thinking about the criticism leveled at Tonks in the last Battle. It tends to go in two directions. The first is that as a mother of a newborn she had no business leaving such a young baby to fight. And the second is by asking where Remus was she was proving to be romanticly obsessed and puting a man ahead of all else.
I find the first interesting, both because women of childbearing age serve in the military and are deployed in the American Army within weeks of giving birth. There was a pregnant woman among the dead in Fort Hood. We as readers want to see women in action-roles fighting. We want to see Ginny fight in the last battle and play a Harry Potter type role. We would want to see Ginny be an Auror like Harry, yet that desire stops short if Ginny is a mother. (Do we want women in combat in real life if that means children are left motherless?) Would it have mattered if Teddy was six months old or two years old like Harry and Neville were when their mothers were taken from them?
I ask because I rarely see criticism of Remus being at the battle.
Would point two have bothered us in a man? If a man trained as a professional fighter arrived at a battle where his wife was fighting asking where she was and running off to join her would we have thought he was obsessed with a woman? Would we have found it romantic? Would it have merely made sense. Tonks was a trained professional, Remus though skilled had one year teaching defense against the dark arts as professional experience. If the roles had been reversed and Remus was the Auror wouldn't we have thought it made sense that he rushed to his nonprofessional wife's side?
ETA: corrected because I must have been half asleep when I wrote this.
|
|
|
Post by queenie on Nov 8, 2009 0:28:07 GMT -5
At first I was upset with Tonks for risking her own life and that of her husband, with the chance that her baby would be left orphaned. However, I read a fanfiction on the whomping_muses by katie_ay which was really well-written and deeply moving, which gave me a new perspective on the entire situation. It's here. Everyone should check it out. --> community.livejournal.com/whomping_muses/1782.htmlAnyway. After reading that fic, I think that Tonks had every right to fight for what she believed in, and it was natural that she should look for her husband. She was lucky enough to have a mother who she knew would look after her baby. Now, do I think that JKR was right to treat Tonks' character the way she did, as in, kill her off with a single sentence? No, I don't. I don't even like the situation of Tonks getting pregnant in the middle of a war in the first place. But that has nothing to do with the last battle itself. If the gender roles were reversed, Remus would be seen as a daring, darling romantic hero. You're quite right about that.
|
|
|
Post by birdg on Nov 8, 2009 3:35:59 GMT -5
Of course it would and fandom would find it romantic... while at the same time blaming the wife for getting him killed by being out there fighting in the first place so that Remus had to go look for her.
If there's a way to blame a female character for something, fandom will find it.
|
|
|
Post by vegablack on Nov 8, 2009 19:27:39 GMT -5
Queenie thanks for the Rec of the Tonks story. I enjoyed reading it and it covered a lot of thoughts I had.
I find it interesting that we want to see women in these roles, but only if there are no consequences. New borns aren't abandoned. No child is left motherless; no woman is maimed in a way that diminishes their physical appeal.
Though how Tonks going to the battle fits with Harry's anger at Remus for wanting to follow him and fight is also a question.
I wonder about Tonks pregnancy. Remus says that few werewolfs have children and he practically says that he assumed he would never have any. Perhaps they never used birth control because they assumed pregnancy was impossible.
But it is interesting readers rarely blame Lily or Alice for having babies in the middle of a war.
|
|
|
Post by starsea on Nov 9, 2009 17:01:09 GMT -5
I wonder about Tonks pregnancy. Remus says that few werewolfs have children and he practically says that he assumed he would never have any. Perhaps they never used birth control because they assumed pregnancy was impossible. I always thought that was because Remus never thought he'd meet anyone who'd want to marry him, let alone have children. Because so few werewolves have children, there's probably very little research on whether the children are affected in any way by the disease. I thought it was good that Tonks had Teddy. It showed that life went on, despite everything.
|
|
|
Post by vegablack on Nov 9, 2009 18:20:52 GMT -5
I agree starsea, it was life affirming.
BirdG I can't help thinking of how fandom would react if other characters acting as Tonks did: Ron rushing to the battle scene asking for Hermione, Remus asking where Sirius could be found so he could fight along side of him.
|
|
|
Post by queenie on Nov 9, 2009 19:35:29 GMT -5
Remus asking where Sirius could be found so he could fight along side of him. *snerk* *puts on a serious face* Is this the phrase that launched a thousand fics? Harry running into the battlefield asking for Ginny would have been disappointing; Ginny doing the same for Harry would have been roundly trounced. Ron " " for Hermione would have been romantic and darling and sweet; Hermione " " for Ron would have been disappointing. I think Ron can get away with it because he's supposed to be the more emotional one in the Trio - the McCoy to Harry's Kirk and Hermione's Spock. Now, Mrs. Weasley demanding to know where Arthur was would be perfectly normal and expected - assuming she was equally anxious about the state of her children. But that's because we already have a set identity of Mrs. Weasley as a wife and a mother. (And btw, Mr. Weasley doing the same thing for his wife would be downright sweet.) Tonks we barely got to know - and what we did know of her was "Auror." Her romantic entanglements lay (until book 6) entirely in the realm of fanfiction. I don't know what I'm trying to say here, except that I think Tonks' character and family really got the short end of the stick in DH.
|
|
|
Post by siriusgirl on Jan 21, 2010 19:35:23 GMT -5
Vega-- the criticism towards Tonks greatly irks me. She is an AUROR and and Order member, so I think she felt she had to fight, yet no one complains about Lupin, or Lily or Alice fighting. Hello? It's almost like a sexism in fans to want women to not fight and be mothers.
Also, people complain that Molly beating Bellatrix being unrealistic and out of character.
I would beg to differ: 1) Molly has never been a meek and mild woman, sure she's maternal and a mother hen, but she's also a "saber-toothed tiger" when angry. As JKR said, just because Molly chose to be a mother and wife doesn't make her weak, she dedicated her life to her family and for that reason, it leads to reasn #2 2)Molly was defending her child. MATERNAL INSTINCT!!! She already lost Fred, she's NOT going to lose another child esp. Ginny, her only daughter! Mothers protect their child no matter what costs. 3) It goes perfectly with the theme of love being the most powerful magic. Love caused Voldy's fall both times, and also Bella who also probably doesn't get it. This woman talks about being happy to sacrifice her children to the Dark Lord if she had children. She totally doesn't get love, save for her obsession with Voldemort. Maternal love is past her comprehension, and it's her downfall.
JMO. Maybe we should start a thread of maternal love somewhere? Since we see it in many ways and it's always powerful
|
|
|
Post by birdg on Jan 26, 2010 11:34:57 GMT -5
Another important thing to remember is that Bellatrix did not have her own wand and had been fighting for hours at that point. So while still a very skilled fighter who was able to do quite enough damage, she probably wasn't at the top of her form.
And yet, she did not see Molly as a serious threat. A fatal mistake.
|
|
|
Post by siriusgirl on Jan 26, 2010 12:41:47 GMT -5
She didn't have her wand? Does it say so?
Yeah, it's arrogance that causes Bella's death. Molly, a talented witch in her own right, is a mother bear: Threaten her children and you are DEAD!! Bellatrix, a fanatic and full of arrogance and disdain, took Molly as a mere housewife, unworthy of any notice and pays for it. Like when Sirius laughed at her, her arrogance towards Molly is fatal.
|
|
|
Post by MWPP on Jan 31, 2010 23:17:39 GMT -5
We don't really know who's wand she's using. Hermione had Bella's in the Vault before the dragon ride, but I have lost track after that. Unless Ollivander made her another, it is hard to tell what wand Bella was using.
The devaluation of a homemaker has to do with the industrial Revolution. From around 1900, men went to work and women stayed home, then along came WWII and the men were needed elsewhere, so women working outside the house was glamourized and it was "cool" to give all for the war effort. When the boys came home there was a concerted emphasis on "Home Economics" to make women working in the home seem as important as what they were being talked into giving up so that the men could have their jobs back, but it didn't work. Women either continued to work outside the home, or at least being a home-maker wasn't considered as important.
Prior to that providing prepared food, stocking up for non-growing seasons,, clean and mended clothing, growing food, tending to the upkeep of of the hearth (this is actually a life-or-death thing, by the way. Before matches were common, if the coals died out, everyone was cold and hungry and damp) and home, and so forth was as valuable to the survival of a family as all other work was. (In that society all ages had jobs for the good of everyone. If you were elderly or very young you could still shell peas or gather eggs and tinder) .
But now our society seems to only "value" that which can monitarily be compensated. (How many times have you heard "only a housewife"?)
I thought Molly (not discounting maternal instincts) was showing the younger readers of the books that being a home-maker is not to be underestimated.
|
|