Harry Potter and the deathly hallows

Ha! Just checked the wiki. So it is! That should tell you how fucked up the narrative was in this movie. I just assumed it was a piece of Erised.

The dobby stuff didn’t bother me. From what I remember, he only pledged allegiance to Harry since Harry tricked Malfoy’s dad into freeing him. And from what I remember, his past help has always been most unhelpful. I thought it was cool that he finally came into his own, and felt bad that he got axed in the end (though I recognize it was good for the story).

What was he looking into it for? I still don’t remember this from the books. If Sirius gave it to him, than it must have appeared – what? in the movie where Sirius died? I’m getting all my movies mixed up. I know Sirius was introduced in book #3, Prisoner of Abakaszn (sp?). But I thought only Dumbldore died last movie.

Might have to take it to the nerd rage thread, but I hate it when people act like (not anyone here, necessarily!) every aspect of every sequel in the entire Potter series has to stand on its own.

It’s a series, for God sake! If you jump into it in the middle, you’re going to miss out on some stuff already.

That wasn’t the Mirror of Erised. As far as I know that particular mirror was never broken. According to the Potter wiki, the mirror shard is from the Two-Way Mirror.

If people are this confused about the first half of the book, wait until they get to the part that actually barely makes any sense…

Sirius gives a mirror to Harry for Christmas in Book 5, Order of the Phoenix. It was one of a pair that allowed the holders to communicate over long distances. The irony is that Harry puts the mirror in his chest and forgets all about it, so when he thinks Sirius has been captured and is trying desperately to find a way to communicate with him or the Order it doesn’t occur to him he’s been given something for that specific purpose. After Sirius dies Harry finds the mirror while packing and tries to use it to contact his uncle beyond the grave, but that doesn’t work. In the beginning of Book 7, the Deathly Hallows, Harry finds the mirror broken at the bottom of his chest and thinks he sees Dumbledore’s eye looking back at him. He puts the shard and a few other mementos in a pouch he wears around his neck, IIRC. When he’s trapped in the Malfoy’s basement he thinks he sees Dumbledore’s eye again and asks for help. That’s when Dobby appears.

Dobby, incidentally, after being freed from the Malfoy’s employ, goes to work in the kitchen at Hogwarts in the books. He is a free elf but out of friendship offers his services to Harry on a number of occasions, including informing Harry about the Room of Requirment in Book 5 and tailing Draco for Harry in book 6.

That’s ringing some bells, thanks! I’m glad you pointed out about Dobby having been a successful help, prior to his big finale. His most memorable scene (besides saving Harry and others in 7) for me was beating himself up at the Dursleys. Now that I think of it, I believe he was still working for Draco and company at that point.

I may have to sit down and do a Potter movie marathon before part 2 in the summer. Big fun!

I always thought that the whole Slytherin thing was weird, too. They were the de facto villainous house and I always wondered why they even HAVE such a thing at Hogwarts. Just …expel them! I kept waiting for Rowling to explore it and show some shades of gray or to show that the Slytherin hallmarks could be a force for good, but she never really did.

I think Harry found out at one point that he was close to being put in Slytherin, didn’t he? And of course he had the parsel tongue. I generally enjoyed the different houses, but found Hufflepuff to be the really abhorrent one.

Slytherin is important because they are so easily manipulated by their fear/hatred of mudbloods. The big pay off is watching Voldermort rise to power and the reaction of the Slytherins, who have been quietly seething through most of the books, but end up in fear for their own lives as Voldermort ascends. The big themes that Rowling seems to explore are fascism and prejudice – Full bloods vs. mudbloods, wizards vs. elves. That sort of thing.

Yeah, he does. Dumbledore tells him that he has some Slytherin qualities --ambition and disregard for the rules in particular. But the sorting hat decides to put him in Gryffindore because of his bravery (and possibly because Harry begged it to).

But the Slytherins were painted in broad strokes as the “bad kids.” Which was fine in the early books when the target audience was younger kids and EVERYTHING was done in broad strokes. But what I appreciated about the series is that as you go along the complexity, nuances, and tone of the books gets more complex, which is great for young readers who may need easing into that kind of literary depth. But with the exception of just two characters, the Slytherins were just as one dimensional at the end of book 7 as they were in the beginning of book 1.

I think there is some reasonable dialogue from Dumbledore at some point explaining their presence, along the lines of even rich, snobby, entitled dickheads should be given a chance. But from a story point of view, she included it to have a ready-made villain. Just like the rules of the game of Quidditch are designed such that Harry can be solely responsible for winning every game he plays while the rest of the team does nothing of importance.

Slytherins were just as one dimensional at the end of book 7 as they were in the beginning of book 1.

They get their comeuppance in a sort of “Careful What You Ask For” turn of events. I thought that was particularly well done. This is the sort of thing that separates Rowling from the rest–she knows when its important to offer believable character motivations, and when it’s okay to drop in a unbelievable “spells and charms” that save the day and move the plot along. I am glad Draco or someone didn’t turn to the light and suddenly become a hero – I wouldn’t have wanted that at all. For me, it was enough to see him struggle with turning in (the disguised) Harry in the last part.

I don’t know that Slytherin is completely irredeemable. It is a house for people who are incredibly ambitious and seek to maximize their power. Not completely evil character traits in and of themselves, but they look out for #1, which is exactly what the Malfoys do. Also, Horace Slughorn is a Slytherin, and while not exactly a paragon, he’s ultimately an all-right guy (although I forget if he actually stuck around for the final battle, he’s not exactly brave, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he saw his students out of the castle and then didn’t come back)

I don’t know that this was Rowling’s intentions, exactly, but when you look at Harry’s classmates, they are all kids that were born at roughly the same time: during the peak and immediate aftermath of Voldemort’s first rise to power. And considering the influence parents have over their children’s values and ambitions in her universe, it’s probably a fair conclusion that most of the kids in Slytherin when Harry is in school have parents who were either Death Eaters themselves or pretty sympathetic, and would have raised their children accordingly. So when Voldemort returns to power, their lifetime of training to fear and respect him would probably be kicking in.

I think that Rowling’s biggest mistake regarding Slytherin house was not making Percy a Slytherin. Considering how much of a complete dick he was to his family in order to become powerful in the ministry, it seems like that Gryffindor isn’t his primary quality. And I call bollocks on the Sorting Hat having omniscience to know that Percy would eventually do the right thing then when it was literally impossible to ignore what was happening.

Harry asks the sorting hat not to put him in Slytherin because he thinks being in Gryffindor will check his worst impulses. If Hogwarts really wanted to bring out the best in their students they could do that sort of thing more often. That is, put the students where they need to be to address their deficiencies, rather than sorting on their current personality. How many Slytherins could have been well adjusted wizards if it weren’t for the 7 years in Slytherin house?

For that matter, dividing the students by personality seems like a bad idea in general. Schools don’t put all the bad actors in the same room, they divide them up, which can help them get back on track as it adjusts their expectations of normal.

An excellent point, Pony.

I remember Percy’s betrayal, but not really how it turned out in the end. Is that in the next movie? Does he redeem himself?

I don’t have any evidence for this at the moment but I seem to recall reading that that wasn’t the case, at least in real life. Bad students are more likely to adversely influence the good ones rather than the good ones positively influencing the bad ones.

He does in fact stick around, which I took to be Rowling’s way of saying “See, they’re not all bad!”

I too feel that the whole “houses” thing was a bit problematic, and Slytherin particularly difficult, it just doesn’t make sense that you’d keep a demonstrated font of evil around in a school. But we never see anything to leaven that impression.

Yeah, you can try to justify it however you’d like (and I’m sure dedicated Potter-philes have a ton of canon to back up their arguments) but the whole Slytherin segregation thing makes no sense at all.