HBP Chapter 28 Re-read
“Flight of the Prince”
Flight of the Prince: JKR. Flight of the Phoenix: Elleston Trevor, aka Adam Hall. Advantage: Trevor. Has it occurred to JKR that Princes do not, intrinsically, fly, whereas Phoenixes do?
Harry stumbles into the free for all and fights up a storm. Ginny dodging hexes nimbly with the aid of Felix.
I felt a surge of love for Neville as Harry came across him clutching his stomach but saying “I’m all right.
Does JKR ever identify the “big blond” Death Eater? She must have had a compelling reason for keeping his identity secret as it becomes quite tiresome to read “big blond DE” over and over again, let alone type it. It would have been easy enough to have one of the side characters (McGonagall) recognize this person.
Harry uses Crucio on Snape twice. Interesting that Snape tells him you haven’t got the nerve or the ability to use the Unforgivable spell. Rowling doesn’t tell us or show us that Harry is in any way holding back, but Snape seems to think so.
“Fight back! Fight back, you coward!” One of many lines that is pretty suspicious if you fall in the “Snape-is-secretly-good” camp.
“Coward, did you call me, Potter?”
“Blocked again and again until you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed, Potter!” Another line that sounds suspiciously like Snape is “coaching” Harry.
Snape intervenes to protect Harry – “he belongs to the Dark Lord!”
A few moments later, Harry sees Snape’s face “full of rage.” The reason for the rage is not specified. It could be because of the threat to Harry.
Harry actually makes some progress and slows Snape down – he screams “No, Potter!” very much as if he is reprimanding someone who is actually on the same side as he is.
“DON’T CALL ME COWARD!” Ok, I’ll bite. Why does Snape have an issue about being called a coward? We haven’t actually seen him do anything cowardly in any of the books, have we? I recall him being bullied a lot, casting nasty spells, casting nasty looks … but never running away from a confrontation. In fact, many would argue that playing a cool double or triple game between Voldemort and Dumbledore calls for cold-blooded blavery in the most Slytherin sense. And it’s not as if Slytherins particularly value bravery – that’s Gryffindors – Slytherins don’t put highest value on bravery. So why does it cheese Snape so much to be accused of cowardice? I know that’s a fairly typical “issue” for insecure men and for mustachio-twirling villains in drama, but something just doesn’t quite fit here. There must be an actual episode of painful and humiliating cowardice that we haven’t seen yet.
Great scene where Buckbeak descends in front of Snape. That’s got to be in the movie!
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