The Task Most Made of Awesome?

I can’t believe it’s been Saturday since I last posted… but then again, I can. My husband’s out of town, and I’ve been running around all over the place, and today I had to keep the kitties calm while they were locked in a room because workmen were installing a furnace.

So, before we move on, let’s take a poll!

Which House Head’s task beyond the Trap Door is most made of awesome… and why?

Please explain your choice in the Comments thread!

I’ll be back to check after I’ve had a chance to see this Alan Rickman movie that’s been in my queue forever. Something called Sense and Sensibility.

ETA: I just remembered… some of you are dropping in randomly and haven’t read the last four posts! So if you need a refresher on the tasks, here you go…

• Devil’s Snare (Sprout)
• The Filius Charm (Flitwick)
• Shall We Play a Game? (McGonnagall)
• An Ounce of Logic (Snape)

And with that, I really will go watch my Rickman / Austen movie. :)

Master of Death? (gasp!)

Well, it’s official. After completing four challenges, I won the “Quest for the Hallows” contest on the CoS Forum! And that, according to Professor Dumbledore, makes me “Master of Death”… whether I like it or not.

So here’s how it all breaks down:

Task #1: The Elder Wand: For the Elder Wand task, we had to write a story (or submit a graphic) about one person who was canonically Master of the Elder Wand.

I found the whole idea of writing a fictional story terrifying because I have always rather emphatically not specialized in fiction. But I entered the contest to help my House (Gryffindor) get enough entries into the contest to rack up some House points. I honestly never expected to win anything myself. But I got an idea, and people really liked it.

My entry took “2nd Place” and “Best Overall” (thanks to split votes between “Best Story” and “Best Overall”). Here’s my entry. And here are my banners:

Task #2: The Resurrection Stone: Having done well in a task, I was excited going in to the next one. For the Resurrection Stone task, we could create a HP-related story (or image) or a Personal story (or image) showing how we would use the Stone.

The most popular HP-related scenario was to bring Fred back so that George could say goodbye. But I did something entirely different. I was a bit confused by the task. When the instructions said you, I thought they literally meant me (not a narrator). Since I did not want to use the Stone, I came up with an elaborate workaround on how I could use the Stone without actually intending to use the Stone.

The entry took 4th place for HP-related story and 5th place overall. No banners this time, but I did get extra points. Here’s my entry.

Task #3: The Invisibility Cloak: After placing in the first two tasks, I was one of the contest leaders. But this was the task that I thought was going to destroy me. We had to cover something that we never wanted to see again with a Cloak of Invisibility unlimited by size. But I just didn’t see any logic in merely covering something if the thing was still actually there.

So I thought and thought and thought… and ultimately overthought it! Eventually, the only logical thing I could think of to cover was my garage. I didn’t want to remove the garage. I just didn’t want to see it. I knew I had no chance of winning the task the minute I saw the winning entry (Entry 17). But at least I placed 4th again! (oh, and here’s my entry!).

Task #4: Master of Death: Having placed in all three tasks, I was now in 2nd place in the contest overall, thanks to cumulative points. In the final task, we had to tell why we would or would not unite the Hallows and become the Master of Death.

Within a day, I got an idea. How about a narrator from the distant future, looking back on the past – sort of like the Babylon 5 episode “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars”? Eventually, this idea morphed into a post-apocalyptic Wizarding future in which goblins rule.

I knew the idea was potentially catastrophic for my contest chances. But being a Gryffindor, I reasoned that now was the time for a bold move, not a time to play it safe. I decided that if I was going to go down, I was going to go down in flames. Here’s my entry. Thankfully, enough people liked it that it again got into the final round of voting… and this time I tied for 3rd place (and I won a whole new banner!):

Tallying it all up: At this point, I was the only participant in the competition who had placed in all four tasks, and this gave me the highest cumulative score, which gave me First Place in the Contest. But there was an additional surprise. Because I also scored the highest number of House Points in the contest, I was the 1st Place House Champion (Go Gryffindor!). So here are  those cool banners:

Finally, what all this means is that I get the title “Master of Death.” And even though I don’t really want to be MoD, I do like the banner:

I put all of my banners into that nifty little animated GIF that opened this post. It is now my sig pic on the CoS Forum.

ETA: Oh! I forgot the best part! My big prize was the User Title of my choice! Custom User Titles are highly coveted on CoS (they appear right under the username). I chose, of course, my favorite HP quote: “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!”

Okay… snarking is open now on the Comments thread! Have fun!

A Few House Elf Duties

This is proving to be a hectic week. I’m taking a Math course, and I have a midterm next week. So I’m busy trying to relearn everything that we learned before Combinatorics broke my brain.

At any rate, this is my explanation for the Snapespicion post that strings together a bunch of quotes and offers precious little analysis, and I’m sticking to it! I will revise that post and re-post it after I finish my midterm! And we will also move on with the re-read… after I finish my midterm!

Okay, so now that I’ve informed readers of where we are and when to expect some more (and better) re-read posts, I’m finished with performing the house elf duties mentioned in my title. Now we can move on to some search terms!

Here are a few more search terms that have landed people on this blog. Some of these have pretty simple answers… and some are just perplexing:

Search term: who said nitwit! blubber! oddment! tweak
Answer: Albus Dumbledore, in his opening remarks at the Welcoming Banquet the first night Harry was ever on Hogwarts grounds. Harry, consequently, asks his prefect (Percy Weasley) if Dumbledore is a bit mad.

Search term: le patronus de drago malefoy
Answer: He doesn’t have one. For starters, Hogwarts does not teach the Patronus charm. Harry learned it in one-on-one lessons from Remus Lupin and in turn taught it to Dumbledore’s Army. Secondly, JKR has said that Death Eaters cannot cast a Patronus – with the exception of Severus Snape, who is no longer a true Death Eater by the time the series begins.

Search term: can you learn expecto patronum in year 5
Answer: Not in the Hogwarts curriculum… though you can learn it from Harry if you are a member of Dumbledore’s Army.

Search term: how to get past professor snape poa vide
Answer: I don’t have an answer! But I’d love to know what this is all about! I searched google using that search term and came up with nothing. I mean, I did see the link to my blog on the first page of Google results. It landed me at “Forgiveness and the Final Pensieve” – one of the first posts I ever wrote. And sure enough, somebody landed on that post on June 27… but oddly, the search term was not used until June 28, and then it was used twice. I’d like to know what page the searcher landed on!

Search terms: godric’s hollow map / map of diagon alley
Answer: I looked these up too, and the closest I came was this (from the theme park). This blog does not appear to be in the first five pages of Google results for either of these search terms, so I’m a little surprised that people landed here using these terms.

Search term: why isn’t hagrid in half blood prince
Answer: Ummm… he is.

Well, that’s it with search terms for now. I’ll be back soon to clean up the Snapespicion post and carry on with the re-read! But first… that Math midterm! Wish me luck!

Got Shiny New Banners in the Quest for the Hallows

Well, I’m just returning from my Easter holiday. I will resume posting on the re-read in a day or two. We’re on “The Sorting Hat” chapter in PS/SS.

In the meantime, I got the banners for my entry in the Quest for the Hallows contest.

I won the “Best Overall” category:

I placed third in the “Story” category, which gave me a tie for 2nd Place on the Elder Wand Task:

The next task (the Resurrection Stone) will be a bit more difficult for me, I think. We’ll just have to see how it goes!

First View of Hogwarts Castle… and a personal note

The first-years’ first view of Hogwarts castle closes up the chapter that transports Harry from the Muggle world entirely into the Magical world.

Here is an artists’ rendering of what the ickle firsties – approaching Hogwarts in the boat fleet – would see.

And now that we’re at Hogwarts, I have a couple of personal notes.

Quest for the Hallows: I just won “Best Overall” entry for the First Task in a Potter fanfic contest called “The Quest for the Hallows.” Winning was a shocker because I never write fiction.

For the First Task, we had to write a story or create a comic about one of the people known, in DH, to have possessed the Elder Wand. “Known to have possessed the Elder Wand” means anyone at any point in the Wand’s long and bloody history.

I had planned to do either Gellert Grindelwald’s duel with Albus Dumbledore or Grindelwald confronting Voldemort. But then this crazy little idea popped into my head. I hope you enjoy it.

BTW, I did not win in the “Best Story” category. The story I voted for, however, did. Here’s that story.

Holy Week: Also, you’ll have to excuse me this week. It’s Holy Week, and I’m Catholic. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll get a chance to write any re-read posts before Easter. But when I do, we’ll be on “The Sorting Hat” chapter. In the interim, I may yet find some Potter-related items to post.

Snowmageddon, Severus, and the “Betrayal” of Snape

Well, I’m back. We did have to put Rusty down yesterday. To celebrate his life, we will be looking for a pair of (boy and girl) kittens to name Severus and Minerva. Don’t worry, though. They won’t be treacly Umbridge kittens!

I’m still not quite up for a bit of “Flight of the Dursley’s” slapstick, but I am starting to recover enough from the Rusty trauma to write about Severus Snape.

Did Severus Snape Betray the Order of the Phoenix?

If you have read this blog before, I’m sure you already know my answer to this question. However, I have recently encountered an argument insisting that since Snape was not reporting to any living member of the Order, the information he passed to Voldemort in “Dark Lord Ascending” was an act of betrayal. Never mind that he was taking orders from Dumbledore’s portrait. To say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement.

Here is the Snape-Betrayal argument, along with my response.

Snape-Betrayal Point 1:

Neither Snape nor Dumbledore’s Portrait is working with or for the Order. Therefore giving information to Voldemort without informing living members of the Order is an act of betrayal.

My response:

• Headmasters’ portraits have the imprint of the deceased Headmaster’s thoughts and memories.
• The purpose of the portraits is to provide counsel to future Headmasters, from the “voice” of the deceased Headmaster. They occasionally provide counsel to others.
• Harry regards Dumbledore’s portrait as having the same authority of wisdom as Dumbledore himself, as we see in Harry’s visits to the Headmaster’s office at the end of DH.
• Dumbledore founded the Order of the Phoenix, and the Order would not have existed in either war without Dumbledore’s initiative.
• Snape’s job was to serve as a spy, and Dumbledore was a brilliant Spymaster and wartime Strategist.
• Both Snape and Dumbledore were accomplished in the arts of Occlumency and Legilimency.
• There is no evidence in the text indicating that anybody else in the Order is an accomplished Occlumens, Legilimens, Spymaster, or Strategist. Failure in any of these areas would almost certainly have proven catastrophic for the anti-Voldemort forces.
• Given that the portrait is the imprint of the Headmaster’s thoughts and memories, it is clear that Dumbledore planned before his death to continue to serve as Spymaster for Severus Snape on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix.

Essentially, Dumbledore founded the Order, he clearly planned to continue his work for the Order after death, and it is crucial that he keep his plans secret from the other members of the Order unless there is some other unknown member of the Order who is an accomplished enough Occlumens to withstand a session of Legilimency with Voldemort. (Since there is zero evidence that such an Order member exists, my assumption is that there is no such member).

In other words, Snape is working for the Order in a top secret role. While this would not be possible in the Muggle world, Headmasters’ portraits make it possible in the Wizarding World.

Additionally, if we assume that Severus Snape was wrong to follow orders from a portrait with regard to the Battle over Little Whinging, then we should also assume that he was wrong to get the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry in the Forest of Dean – on the word of two Headmasters’ portraits. And yet, if he had failed to get the sword to Harry at that time, what would the outcome have been with the locket Horcrux? It was already destroying the trio. It is quite likely that Voldemort would have triumphed in the end without Harry receiving the sword at that specific time.

Snape-Betrayal Point 2:

Since Dumbledore is dead, Snape is not working for the Order. He’s only working for (dead) Dumbledore and is not really a double agent.

My Response:

See above. Also, this is clearly not how Harry sees it once he has seen the memories. The portrait is conveying the overall game plan Dumbledore hatched before his death, while he was leader of the Order. Harry regards Snape in retrospect as working for the Order, not independently of it and not against it.

Snape-Betrayal Point 3:

The only purpose for Snape giving the information to Voldemort was to get himself in good with Voldemort, not to protect the Order or Harry.

My Response:

Actually, that’s exactly what spies do in order to protect those they are protecting. It is a pretend betrayal and the entire purpose is to protect Harry and help defeat Voldemort, over the longterm.

Actually, this entire scenario is parallel to the work of a British double agent during WWII with regard to D-Day. He was told to give the Germans real information that they in turn would not be able to use effectively, in order to establish the credentials of the double agent with the Germans – just as the 7 Potters tactic that Snape passes on to the Order similarly prevents Voldemort from using Snape’s real information effectively but helps establish Snape’s bona fides as a Death Eater.

Snape-Betrayal Point 4:

Dumbledore and Snape had a different agenda than the Order, and it involved callously using the lives of Order members as canon fodder. Dumbledore and Snape should have communicated their plans to the Order and coordinated with the Order.

My Response:

Well canon fodder, sorry, is part of war. This is what war commanders do, and Dumbledore clearly hatched his general game plan while he was indisputably war commander for the anti-Voldemort side. Unfortunately, every member of the Order is expendable if it means the success of the war effort – even Dumbledore and Snape.

And why should Dumbledore and Snape have set up any plans to communicate and coordinate with members of the Order? Spy work is always kept secret. Snape’s mission was too sensitive to reveal to other members of the Order – short of the Order possessing another accomplished Occlumens, Spymaster and Strategist. It was strategically crucial that he appear to be Voldemort’s man. It was strategically crucial that nobody know this because otherwise the secret could have been betrayed, even unwillingly, by somebody who could not stand up to Voldemort’s Legilimency – basically, I think, any other member of the Order.

Snape’s action, in my opinion, is no betrayal. It is crucial for defeating Voldemort in the long strategy.

Okay, short of some new catastrophe beyond the Snowpocalypse, I will finally be back this week with “The Flight of the Dursleys.”

Pre-Flight of the Dursleys

For my Harry Potter re-read, I’m supposed to be writing a post called “The Flight of the Dursleys.” It’s about one of the funniest, most stapsticky chapters in the entire Harry Potter saga – the letters for Harry from Hogwarts, and the Dursleys’ most extreme measures to avoid them.

The problem is, my terminally ill, 18 year old cat is declining fast, and I’m just not feeling very slapsticky right now. So, please excuse me for a few more days while I tend to Rusty. Here is Rusty’s Twitter profile.

Here’s a Rusty photo taken 1/29/10:

Here’s a Rusty photo from a couple of months ago:

I’ll be back shortly with more on Harry Potter.

UPDATE (2/4/10):

Tomorrow, we will be sending Rusty “on.” I will be spending most of the day just hanging out with him. I should be back with “The Flight of the Dursleys” by early next week.

If you’re new here, there’s still plenty to read. The archives should keep you busy for awhile.