Soccer Dad: Of portkeys, thestrals and more

February 20, 2007

Of portkeys, thestrals and more

A few weeks ago a Washington Post editorial got it right about Harry Potter:

In fact, J.K. Rowling's amazing ability to get young people to read is valuable in itself, as her American publisher's name, Scholastic, would imply. While there may be more abstract educational value in other tomes, there's a great deal to be said for inspiring the sort of page-turning passion that makes kids want to rip through a novel in a day and be hungry for more. Will it move them to a similar passion for Willa Cather or Vikram Seth as they get older? Who can say? Maybe today's Potter addicts someday will even read a newspaper.

Though I admit to no passion for Willa Cather or Vikram Seth (what's with the pretentious name dropping?) the point here is right. My eight year old was just bragging that he's reading The Goblet of Fire for the 4th time.

But with the Harry Potter phenomenon coming to an expected end, I have a few questions. (And if you haven't read Harry Potter yet, be forewarned there are spoilers here. I will try to minimize the spoilers, but certain things can't be finessed.)

1) On page 70 of The Goblet of Fire

"...For those who don't want to Apparate, or can't, we use Portkeys. They're objects that are used to transport Wizards from one spot to another at a prearranged time."

(emphasis mine.)

One of the things I like about Harry Potter is that J. K. Rowling doesn't spring something on the reader at a critical moment. Portkeys aren't just introduced at the end of the Goblet of Fire to capture Harry, their utility is established early on. But their usage at the end of the book aren't consistent with the "prearranged time" bit. I guess you could argue that in the maze Voldemort's plant had arranged things so that Harry would find the Portkey at just the right time. But for Harry's escape later how is it possible that Harry used the Portkey at a prearranged time? Is it possible to reset the Portkey? How? Or was "prearranged time" something thrown in without thought to the limit that it would impose?

2) On page 446 of The Order of the Phoenix, Heroine is describing thestrals.

"The only people who can see thestrals," she said "are people who have seen death."

All indications are that the Order of the Phoenix is the first time that Harry sees the thestrals because he witnessed Cedric's death. But why? Hadn't he witnessed his own mother's death?

3) My final two questions have to do with Dumbledore. These are things that I'd hoped he'd have explained before the end of the series.

How is it that someone described as the world's greatest wizard would allow two undercover enemies and one charlatan to serve as Defense of the Dark Arts teacher in the first 4 books? In fact at the end of the Sorcerer's Stone Dumbledore gets called away by a phony message by the plant at a critical moment. Is it that easy to fool him? (Apparently Tom Riddle couldn't fool him, but the lesser lights who took the position he wanted did!)

4) On page 810 of the Order of the Phoenix, Harry casts Cruciatus Curse at Bellatrix. The problem is that the Cruciatus Curse is an unforgiveable curse and forgetting about its effectiveness, Harry used an illegal curse. Dumbledore, if he kew about it, never talked to Harry about that. (I guess it's possible that Dumbledore didn't know about it, so then there's no question.) But I do find it odd that Harry used the curse with no particular reprecussions.

UPDATE: Elie's Expositions has questions of his own.

Blogdigger tags: Harry Potter, Thestrals, Portkeys, Albus Dumbledore, Cruciatus Curse.