Sunday, July 15, 2007

Harry Potter Book 2 (Chamber of Secrets) Curios

Shavuah Tov and Happy Bastille Day. Upon reading HP2:COS this Shabbos I came up with the following questions or things that somehow interested me (less than the more pertinent, IMHO, book 1):

Ch6: Gilderoy Lockhart
Pg 94: Why was Justin Fletch-Finley or whatever his name was (Justin Finch-Fletchley... close enough...) scheduled to go to Eton. That would have been two years after he started Hogwarts...

Pg 96: How did this muggle-born wizard Colin Creevey and his muggle milkman father know of Harry Potter prior to coming to Hogwarts?

Pg 124: Sir Properly Decapitated-Podmore... Great name, but is he related to Sturgis Podmore?

Pg 130: "Why would anyone want to celebrate the day they die"... (Hasn't Ron ever heard of a Yahrzeit Kiddush?)

Pg 133: The ghosts can't eat, yet they have food. This is the 500th deathday party of Nearly-Headless Nick but he said he hasn't eaten in nearly 400 years in the previous book. How is this possible. Also, did Nick die in the Spanish Inquisition or during Columbus' exploration. Interesting to find out as he died in October 1492.

Pg 155: Did Fred perform wandless magic when he was five years old by turning Ron's teddy bear into a giant spider? Who can perform wandless magic?

Pg 158: How can Percy take points away? According to HP5:OOTP Prefects don't have that power, only inquisitor squad members.

Pg 186: "Deliberately causing mayhem in Snape's Potions class was about as safe as poking a sleeping dragon in the Eye". Hogwarts Motto: Draco Dormiens Nunquam Tittilandus (Latin: "Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon")

Pg 194: In the book the snake instantly listens to Harry but in the movie it does not listen and rounds on JFF even after Harry starts talking to it in Parseltongue

Pg 206: The Sorting Hat: "I stand by what I said before... you would have done well in Slytherin." What is the power of the sorting hat and what does it know. Is it enchanted with Legilimency and can/has one learned the art of legilimancy from it. Also, would Harry really have done well in Slytherin? For one, he's not a pure-blood. Then again, neither is Voldemort...

Pg 224: Anything come of the floorboard stuff. Did Ron write home about it or tell his dad about what Harry saw in Borgin and Burkes?

Pg 233-4: "Harry was sure he had never heard the name T. M. Riddle before, it still seemed to mean something to him, almost as though Riddle was a friend he'd had when he was very small, and had half forgotten." Firstly, I don't think Riddle would have been his friend, but anyway, how would he have known this name even with his remarkable flashbacks of his childhood (parents' death scene, sirius' motorbike) as Dumbledore mentions later that very few people knew Voldemort's real name.

Pg 263: How did Lucius Malfoy know that Hagrid was headed for Azkaban. Nobody mentioned it when he showed up to Hagrid's hut (unless he had possibly asked Fudge to send him there...)

Pg 263-4: "You will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it". -Dumby. Ok, explain and does this apply posthumously as well? Also how does Dumbledore see them under their invisibility cloak (Legilimency? Chocolate Frog Cards?)

Pg 264: "Prevent any - ah - killins" -Mr. Malfoy. WTF? Is this some sort of british slang for Killings? A typo?

Pg 271: They feed the dog fudge? Are they crazy or trying to kill the dog? That'll shut Fang up... killing him...

Pg 277: Aragog: "A traveller gave me to hagrid when I was an egg". Sound familiar? Norbert? Also, who gave it to him? And who gave him Norbert?

Pg 283: A typo I remember from the first time I read it: "Professorr".

Pg 286: Percy: "Well, er, if you must know, Ginny, er, walked in on me the other day when I was -- well -- polishing my 11 1/2 inch wand". Okay he doesn't say that, but up to the "well" is direct from the text. The scene goes on to more graphic ambiguities. It turns out that he was making out with Penelope Clearwater, but still...

Pg 290: Basilisks can live hundreds of years? But Salazar left over 1000 years ago! Did he put the basilisk there or did someone later?

Pg 293: Pr. McG: "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said..." What? What did Dumbledore always say?

Pg 310: "Riddle laughed a high cold laugh that didn't suit him". See my comments on Snape in book one. This has been used to describe both snape and voldemort...

Pg 310: "Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..." IS GINNY A HORCRUX?!

Pg 311: Tom describes himself as brilliant and brave. Why is he not a Ravenclaw or Gryffindor? Perhaps the Sorting Hat suggested it, opposite of what happened to Harry... Also, why was he made a prefect? I guess you need two in each house...

Pg 312: Dumbledore taught transfiguration... I mentioned that Lily transfigured stuff at home in the last book. Was Dumbledore her Transfiguration teacher or was McGonagall her teacher? Also, what methods did Dumbledore use to keep his eye on Riddle?

Pg 313: Music! Dumbledore claims that music is more powerful than any magic (1st year sorting ceremony)! Hmm...

Pg 315: Similarities between riddle and potter. Also black hair. Perhaps Voldemort is Harry's biological father, Darth Vader style!

Pg 320: What is it with that friggin' sword? Why does a wizard need a sword?

Pg 328: What sources tell Dumbledore that Voldy is hiding in the forests of Albania and to what capacity can they do anything about it?

Pg 330: How can a good man like Dumbledore advocate the persecution of house-elves? SPEW Forever!

Pg 333: "Voldemort put a bit of himself into me" -Harry; "It certainly seems so"-Dumby. HARRY'S A HORCRUX TOO?!

Movie version: Is Lucius Malfoy about to use Avada Kedavra on Harry after he frees Dobby? I hear him choke "AVADA..." before Dobby uses elvish magic against Malfoy.

Ze-oo. For now.

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