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Tags: chamber of secrets
Published : 11 months, 2 weeks ago (Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:36:38 PST)
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Let's start with this, because it's relevant to my interests, the Dragon Ball: Evolution trailer.
I don't know why it has Japanese subtitles. Maybe they released the trailer in Japan first, because I get the impression this is a bigger event over there than it is here. Anyway, my understanding is that ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) brucha has been dying to hear me get pissed about the handling of this movie, because... I don't know, I guess Brucha enjoys my pain. While I've been stubbornly optimistic about the movie so far, this trailer does push a few buttons, and I'll be discussing them here.
My problem with movie adapations of cartoons and comic books is that the movie studios tend to feel a need to "update" things, or change them in ways to make them more realistic. A good example is the first X-Men movie, where the X-Men's colorful comic book uniforms have been replaced with black leather. This never really bothered me, since the X-Men change their costumes regularly anyway, so it's not like there was a traditional look that had to be followed, the way Superman's default costume has hardly ever been altered in seventy years. Besides, half the time the X-Men do their thing in plainclothes. I doubt it bugged anyone else, since Marvel Comics adopted a very similar style for the comic book X-Men shortly after the movie came out. What did kind of irk me was when Wolverine teams up with the X-Men at the end of the movie, and he says something snarky about the black leather costumes, and Cyclops quips "What did you expect? Yellow and blue spandex?" referring to the original X-Men uniforms from the 60's. In a vacuum, it's a funny injoke, but it just annoys me that they couldn't settle for changing the costumes, they had to mock the idea of even using an element from the source material. It didn't hurt the movie in my eyes, but it did sort of betray the fatal flaw movie studios make with these kinds of projects. Deep down, they don't really take this stuff seriously, and they probably feel that they're doing the source material a favor by making it into a movie.
This was what killed the "Steel" movie in my eyes, because the director would cheerfully admit in interviews that Steel wouldn't be able to fly in the movie, as if this was some ridiculous notion from those awful comics and he had rescued the movie with his pragmatism. A flying superhero. Why the very idea! I'm not saying that putting rocket boots on Shaquille O'Neal would have made the movie a hit, but it again exposed the general mindset that I think sabotaged the project. If the studio doesn't believe in Steel, why should the audience pay money to see him?
So it filled me with a fair amount of envy to see that "Speed Racer" seemed to get it right. It's not fair, since no one really seems to love Speed Racer, so all the faithfulness was wasted, but the people who made that thing really went balls to the wall. Dumb as it may have been, Speed Racer wears white slacks and penny loafers to a racetrack. His father dresses like Bluto from Popeye. He has a pet monkey, and his little brother hides in the trunk of his car. Racer X wears a mask and the racing authorities seem to have no problem letting him compete anonymously. I like that I could see a McDonalds display for Speed Racer Happy Meal Toys, and actually recognize the girl on the artwork as Trixie. They didn't put cabbage leaves over her eyes and have her dress like Avril Lavigne. The movie bombed, but that's only because Speed Racer sucks, not because of anything the movie did wrong, I suspect.
Still, I admit that movies like "X-Men" simply have to take some liberties with the characters. This is why Hugh Jackman was cast, in spite of the hardcore fans protests that he wasn't short enough to play Wolverine. No big deal, because his haircut makes him look like Wolverine, and that's what's important. Mystique looks dramatically different than she did in the comics, but this was probably for the sake of making her look more visually interesting than a merely blue-skinned woman. And the movie version of Toad turned out to be way, way better than the one from the comics, so there is room for improvement at times.
With that in mind, I've been pretty forgiving of the changes made to the characters to put Dragon Ball on the big screen. Goku wears blue pants, but at least the color scheme of his uniform is correct. Maybe orange shirt with blue pants is his away game uniform. I don't know. Bulma doesn't have blue hair, but the style of the hair is perfect, and there's a blue streak in it to demonstrate that they knew what they were supposed to be going for. The conclusion I drew from this was that the movie studio was trying to translate Dragon Ball into a less fantastic world. In the original story, anthropomorphic animals lived among human beings, blue hair was perfectly natural, and so forth. This movie is clearly trying to tone that down, which is probably why Mai made the cut and her fellow henchman Shu didn't, because he's a fox in a ninja costume. I expected as much, which is why it doesn't bother me to see it. King Piccolo's missing his antennae and most of his pigment, but he sounds like King Piccolo, and that's worth it.
However, the trailer gives me pause. Master Roshi explains the origin of the Dragon Balls, which bears no resemblance to the origin stated in the manga. Granted, that origin wasn't revealed until partway into the series, so that might explain it, but I suspect what's going on here is that the movie is trying to tie together all these disparate plot elements. Thus, the Movie Dragon Balls were created specifically to thwart the menace of King Piccolo, whereas in the comics they were two separate concepts that just sort of dovetailed into one another as the story wore on. Also, the line about having to find the Dragon Balls before the eclipse makes no sense to me, but that may only be because I don't know the context.
I'm not wild about the way the Capsule Corp technology is depicted here. It looks an awful lot like the live-action "Transformers" movie tech, which again suggests to me that the studio is more interested in making a movie that looks like a modern American movie than a twenty-five-year-old Japanese cartoon. I'm not sure what they could have done instead, but even if I liked Michael Bay's "Transformers", I don't want to see it imitated in other films.
The fighting doesn't really feel like Dragon Ball, but I think that's understandable. In any case, I'd assume they're not putting the best action in the trailer, so I reserve judgement.
What bothers me the most, though, is the part where Roshi tells Goku he's the "chosen warrior" to save the world or whatever, and Goku says "I'm not ready for this". This really, really pisses me off. Even if there's some good reason for him to say that, it's easily the most un-Goku-like line I've ever heard. It's certainly not how you sell a movie about the guy. For comparison's sake, here's the intro Toonami used to use for the part of Dragon Ball this movie is adapting:
I think the stakes are probably the same, with a rag-tag team of good guys trying to gather the Dragon Balls before King Piccolo can usher in his reign of terror. But notice Goku's attitude in this spot. Piccolo's killing guys left and right, basically promising to buttape the whole world because he's a hundred times stronger than everybody, and Goku growls "I'll tear that monster apart!" He's not promising to stop Piccolo, or to simply kill him, he's swearing to dismember the magnificent son of a bitch for killing so many of his friends. What makes the line even cooler is that Goku says it right after he gets his ass handed to him by King Piccolo. That's the character's greatest strength and biggest flaw. He lets his righteous anger get ahead of his ability, and he's fully prepared to go charging after Piccolo and die in the rematch. He doesn't care, because he'd rather die than live in a world he can't save because of a fight he can't win. The only way his allies managed to talk him out of it was by offering him a way to get stronger and even the odds.
"I don't think I'm ready for this." Bullshit. Admittedly, an older, wiser Goku was more aware of his limitations, but that never stopped him from trying to surpass them. In the Cell Games, he fought Cell first, then surrendered once the battle was too much for him, and later everyone realized that he only fought Cell first so Gohan could see Cell's moves for when he would be fighting him with his superior power. That may be true, but I think the real explanation is that even though Goku knew he couldn't beat Cell, he still wanted to take him on just to see how far he could go. The notion that Master Roshi would have to plead with Goku to challenge the strongest fighter in the world is idiotic at best, and I hope the trailer is just screwing with me.
And this is once again why I loathe Harry Potter, because I blame his impact on Western culture for making this sort of insecure boy hero archetype popular. I know that's what's going on here. Some dick decided that kids love the Harry Potter and if Goku acted all wussy at the beginning of the movie, kids would like him better or something. "Whoa, you mean I can call out and this flying cloud will let me ride it? That's crazy talk! I'm awfully nervous about all this fighting stuff!" My biggest fear is that they'll introduce some subplot where Goku can't quite get the hang of the Kamehameha Wave until the very end when he needs it most. This would be horrible, since the Goku I know mastered the attack on the first attempt. "How do I saved world?" Gimme a break.
I don't know, I could have it all wrong, and I'll probably watch the movie no matter what, if only so I can complain about it, but this trailer leaves serious doubts in my mind.
Anyway, we've got other things to complain about in the here and now, so let's get on with it.
Chapter 16: The Chamber of Secrets
(Original Marvel Comics Title: "...Beyond the Farthest Toilet!")
Let me just summarize the last seven chapters in one sentence: They should have asked the dead girl in the first place. In Chapter 15, Harry and Ron finally figure out that Moaning Myrtle was the student at Hogwarts killed fifty years ago when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened, and she's been haunting the scene of the crime ever since. I could almost forgive them for this oversight, except they've been practically roommates with Myrtle for large chunks of this story, and I think the first thing I'd ask a ghost would be "How did you die?" This seems especially worth asking since Myrtle is so obsessed over that particular moment. I'd ask her just in the hopes that she'd stop hinting at it once she had a chance to get it out of her system.
Also, and I think I made this point earlier in the book, but the ghosts have been around for a long time, so when a situation like this arises where it'd help to talk to a person about some moment in the castle's history, it makes sense to ask a ghost. Even if Myrtle had died some other way, the fact that she was at least there fifty years ago would mean she might know something. Frankly, they could have asked living people who remembered what happened fifty years ago. Harry should have thought of Hagrid the moment he learned the Chamber had been opened before, even before he found out he was blamed for the previous incident. And now that I think of it, why didn't Professor Binns mention anything about the Chamber being opened in the 1940's? Even if he wasn't there, he would have surely discovered the even in researching the history of the school. Granted, the faculty of the time covered it up to save their own asses, but he should at least be aware of the cover story they sent Hagrid to prison for. This book makes no sense.
So now the problem is that Harry and Ron can't talk to Myrtle, because the new security restrictions make it nearly impossible for them to sneak off to a girl's restroom that's been out of order since the Roosevelt Administration. Also, of apparently tantamount importance, McGonagall announces that they'll still be having final exams in June. Honestly, who gives a shit? The kids all whine about how the monster attacks have disrupted every other element of their school lives, so I guess they sort of figured that exams would be called off along with everything else. That's classic kid logic for you, but I really don't see why Harry and Ron would actually let this news distract them from what they've been doing. At least they can still take exams.
Then again, I think they really did cancel the finals in Book 6, but maybe that was a bigger disaster. I don't know how these things rank. Later, McGonagall makes a big announcement to the student body, but it just turns out to be that they've almost finished making whatever antidote they needed to revive the monster's victims. I'd just like to say how much is sucks that all the potions in this book take entire months to complete. It's purely to justify the year-long timeline of the book, but I think it would have been easier to just have all the victims come back to life when the monster dies. That's basically what happens anyway.
The main reason McGonagall is making this announcemnt is because there's still a possibility that one or more of the victims saw the thing that attacked them, and might somehow provide enough information for them to defeat it for good. You know, if it's really that desparate, maybe they should close down the school and build a new one. I mean, it has a monster living in it. At least if the new building has a new monster in it, they won't have to wonder about when it got in. You know, if this were a more clever book, McGonagall's announcement would be a trap to lure the culprit out of hiding to protect his identity, like how they caught the killer in Star Trek VI. But no.
So on the heels of this news, Ginny sits with Ron and Harry with something important to say, but she can't get the words out. Harry notices that she reminds him of Dobby, who basically dragged the book to a screeching halt the same way. She stalls for like a whole page, and then just before she can spill it, Percy shows up, which spooks her off. Ron gets pissed about this, but Percy insists that whatever she had to say had nothing to do with the Chamber, because she walked in on him while doing... something... and he made her promise not to tell, so that's probably what she was about to say. You know, considering that the book is nearly over and we'll find out all about the Chamber soon anyway, this scene really is a pathetic waste of time.
Later, Harry figures out that the hole in Hogwarts' new security measures is Gilderoy Lockhart, who thinks the crisis ended months ago. He whines about having to escort all the students to their next class, and Harry agrees with him, buttering him up just enough to convince him to head back to his classroom and let Harry and Ron go on by themselves. I'd congratulate Harry for finally outsmarting someone, except he only did all of this so he can go talk to an annoying ghost, so I'm not so sure he got the better of anyone there. Indeed, he can't even pull that off, because McGonagall catches them without an escort a few seconds later. Damn, McGonagall's all over the place lately. In another uncharacteristic moment of intelligence, Harry makes up a story about how they snuck off to visit Hermione, which McGonagall totally believes. The book implies rather strongly that McGonagall was friends with Myrtle fifty yearsa ago, and perhaps being so close to the place where it happened has clouded her judgement on this matter. You know, the funny thing is, Myrtle's dead, but McGonagall can go visit her whenever she likes. I guess it's still tragic, but it's weird that she's all choked up over the death of someone she could go talk to right now. You'd think she would have barged in on Harry and the others before just because she makes routine visits to the bathroom.
So now the problem is that they have to actually go through with visitng Hermione in the hospital, which is pointless since she can't even hear them in her petrified state. The trip turns out to be productie anyway, though, because Harry notices a piece of paper in her hand, and after some considerable effort, he gets it loose and discovers that Hermione's already cracked the case. Couple problems I have with this. First, if Hermione's holding this paper tightly enough not to drop it when she's frozen, how can Harry possibly get it loose? I'm imagining this would be like dipping a piece of paper into wet cement and then trying to yank it out after it sets. Maybe I'm not understanding how this works. Second, if the faculty is so determined to solve this mystery, why didn't they check the victims for clues like this one? They found Colin Creevy's camera, and the mirror that was next to Hermione where they found her, so why didn't they notice the note in her hand?
This is Detective Work 101 stuff here. The convenient thing about this situation is that all the victims are basically frozen where they stand, so it's like getting a snapshot of the attack. McGonagall asked Harry and Ron if they had any idea what Hermione was up to, but never bothered to take the issue up with Hermione by searching her for clues. To take it a step further, no one's bothered to ask questions or establish patterns behind the attacks. Harry and Ron speculated that the monster might be invisible to be able to sneak around the school so easily, except all the victims were found alone, often in places where people don't usually go, so maybe the monster just knows how to stay out of sight. That's not to say it couldn't have been invisible, but if they'd taken it a step further and considered where and when the monster struck, they might have figured out basic things like its size and shape, based on where it would have had to go to get to the victims. For instance, if it hasn't attacked anyone behind a door, then it probably isn't humanoid enough to turn the knob, or powerful enough to break the door down.
Anyway, the paper Hermione had turns out to be a page torn from a library book, with a monograph on the basilisk. The paragraph describes it as a giant snake, with a lifespan of centuries, born from a chicken egg hatched beneath a toad. The basilisk is said to have super-deadly venom, but the main event, so to speak, is it's death vision, which kills instantly. Spiders flee the basilisk, and the basilisk flees from rooster crows, because that's like basilisk kryptonite. In addition, Hermione wrote the word "Pipes" on the page.
So now everything comes together. The Heir of Slytherin was unleashing a basilisk on the school, and it was using the plumbing to travel throughout the building undetected. Harry could hear it because he's a Parselmouth, so whenever the basilisk was in a nearby pipe he would hear whatever it was saying. Let me just stop right here to explain why this is a dumb way to reveal the mystery.
OK, so the girlfriend's apparently into Will Smith, so she invited me to go with her to see "Seven Pounds", the new Will Smith movie. I hadn't heard much about it at all, and what piqued my interest was when I asked what it was about, and she told me she didn't know. Turns out, this was one of those movies where they deliberately tried to keep as much of it secret as possible, including a twist ending. My understanding is that studios tend to do this sort of secrecy campaign when the movie totally suck and they want to buffer the negative press (see: Nash, Pluto). So I went along, planning to lambast an awful movie or to be pleasantly surprised, two things which I really enjoy doing.
Coming back from it, I really don't know what to think. The movie sucks, frankly, but does so in a way I didn't really expect. For example, my girlfriend really liked it, even crying at the end, which was what the movie was intended to do. Me, I was just furious with the way the movie was executed. See, the reason no one can properly summarize "Seven Pounds" is because the simplest way to explain the story gives away the ending. It's a lot like "The Village", which I enjoyed in spite of itself, because I found the twist ending a neat idea, but then I realized that the only way to explain why I liked the movie was to spoil the surprise. And without the surprise, it falls flat. Still, you can at least describe the superficial premise of "The Village": People living in a small, 18th Century Era community surrounded by unseen monsters. With "Seven Pounds", you can't even do that, because Will Smith's character is utterly and hopelessly defined by the big reveal at the end.
That's the problem in a nutshell. The twist ending of this movie is basically the TV Guide synopsis. To apply the "Seven Pounds" formula to Indiana Jones, you'd have to re-order the entire movie around until it's told in such a way that only at the end do you learn that he's an archaeologist trying to foil the Russians' attempts to harness the power of the Crystal Skulls. See what I mean? At the end of the movie, you'd be expected to slap your forehead and say "Oh, that's why he's so pissed at the Russians. He's an American in 1957! And leading up to that moment you'd have flashbacks of Indy fighting that one guy surrounded by ants, and Cate Blanchett teams up with him some of the time and fights him at other times, and Ox blathers on but no one knows why, and maybe you'd have some scenes from the first three movies too. The nuking the fridge scene would take place at the very beginning of the movie, with a voice over from Harrison Ford saying "Why didn't you make him stay in school!?"
Basically, I just got frustrated with "Seven Pounds" because it was so disjointed chronologically that I felt the movie was challenging me to figure it out. The sad thing is that I deduced what was going on about halfway in, which I'm pretty sure was way sooner than I was supposed to. So after feeling frustrated with the movie for an hour because it made no apparent sense, now I was sitting through the second hour waiting for it to catch up, because it was still slowly dropping hints at the reveal that I'd already figured out. Thing is, if the story had been told in order, with more focus placed on inter-character conflict rather than taunting the audience with non-sequitors, it'd be a pretty compelling premise for a movie. I think it's a case where they seriously over-thought matters and wound up making a mystery out of a story that didn't need to be one.
There's a similar effect going on here. Now, to her credit, Rowling at least has the decency to write her narrative in chronological order. Still, she's guilty of trying to turn a children's fantasy-adventure novel into a murder mystery, and this simply doesn't work. For starters, no one's actually getting murdered. Myrtle's the only victim of the monster, and for all dramatic purposes she's still a living, breathing character. It says a lot that when there's a lull in attacks, everyone sort of calms down and forgets about the danger in their midst, since it really doesn't seem all that dangerous. The bigger problem, though, is that the clues and leads and theories used in the story aren't necessarily cut and dried. Hermione's theory fits the facts perfectly, but how do we know it's not an invisible wizard using some petrification spell on people when they least suspect it? How do we know it's not a bumblebee with all the same powers as a basilisk? It's not like the book has firmly established that there's no such thing.
In a way, Chamber of Secrets makes the same mistake as "Seven Pounds", but from the other direction. "Seven Pounds" tried to be a mystery but was too obvious. This book is too opaque. A plucky reader might have worked out that Harry was hearing snakes in the pipes, and a reader with some knowledge of mythical creatures might have realized that a basilisk would have been the ideal monster for the snake-loving Slytherin to employ, but who was going to figure out that basilisks hate roosters and spiders? I'm willing to bet that she's making that up wholecloth, which would normally be fine. She's got free reign to reimagine these monsters any way she likes. But the solution to this mystery hinges upon somehow being able to know all this stuff about basilisks, and that's probably impossible. Not that a reader has to be able to solve a mystery to enjoy it, but it's more satisfying when you can read the solution and know that it was at least possible to have figured it out from the information provided.
And really, even if you knew about basilisks, you wouldn't have figured this out, because the traditional basilisk simply kills you, either by breathing poison or making eye contact. This one's been immobilizing people, more like the Medusa. Again, Rowling's free to add stuff like that in, but this is presented as if it's common knowledge, and how could it be? Harry's logic is that the victims from this school year must have all managed to look at the basilisk indirectly and thus were partially shielded from its lethal effects. That makes sense, but how does he know it's true? His reasoning is that Mrs. Norris saw the basilisk's reflection in the water on the floor, Colin was looking through his camera when the basilisk showed up, and when Ernie MacMillan saw the basilisk, Nearly Headless Nick was positioned between them. His translucent body shielded Ernie, while he himself was frozen because he was already dead. Finally, Hermione and that Ravenclaw were using a mirror, because Hermione had figured out not to look the monster in the eye. The problem I have with all of this is that Hermione's library book says the basilisk can kill you by looking at you, but Harry's theory depends on how you look at it. This seems to be the way the basilisk works in folklore, but Rowling has dicked that all up. Still, every version seems to agree that the basilisk has deadly venom, on top of being a giant snake with death ray eyes. So why didn't it bite its victims after freezeing them? Considering its size, I'd think it'd eat them, too, but at the very least, I'd expect a confirmed kill. The monster seemed to have a real bloodlust from what Harry heard, and yet it never even tried to finish anyone off.
The rest of the clues fit as well, but this should come as no surprise. Hagrid reported that something was killing the chickens, and now it seems reasonable to assume that the Heir of Slytherin was doing it to protect his monster from its one weakness. As for the pipes, this leads Harry and Ron to speculate that the Chamber of Secrets might be tied into the plumbing somehow, and it just might be in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. What I want to know is how it gets out of the pipes to attack anyone. Yeah, the pipes might lead all through the building, but unless it can squeeze out of a water fountain spigot or a faucet, the only way out is to come up from a toilet or out into the sewer.
For once, Harry and Ron decide to take their case to the professionals, but when they get to the teachers' lounge there's an announcement over the intercom ordering all students to quarters. Harry chooses to ignore this and he and Ron hide in a closet to see what's going on.
Sure enough, all the dumb teachers file in and McGonagall gives them the news: the monster has taken a student down to the Chamber itself, as explained by a second message written on the same wall as the first. Flitwick squeals, then cries when he finds out it was Ginny Weasley. Geez, Flitwick, grow a set. Snape grabs "the back of a chair very hard", because he thinks that's what Wolverine would do in this situation. You still suck, Snape. You all suck. Each and every last one of you.
McGonagall declares that they'll have to evacuate the school, since there's no way they'll be able to keep the place open after this. You know, the question here is why they couldn't have taken this course of action before a student was dragged to her apparent death. Was Hogwarts so important that it had to come to this? Further confusing priorities, Lockhart comes in late and oblivious to anything being wrong. Snape informs him of the situation and says suggests that this is his big chance to kick the monster's ass like he's been bragging about all year. The others concur, and Gilderoy gets all "But I-But I-But I--!" like when Fred Flintstone gets caught up in his own web of lies. Only substantially less funny. Unable to convince the others that he doesn't remember saying anything about all that, he agrees to their request and heads back to his office to "get ready". Well, that's sort of satisfying. A red-hot poker up his ass would have helped things a bit. Just my two cents.
You'd almost think the teachers are finally getting their shit together and working out a last-ditch effort to save Ginny, but instead McGonagall simply orders the teachers to prepare to abandon ship. This defeatist attitude would go down easier if they had at least tried to find the Chamber earlier in the book. This scene makes it seem like they've already exhausted that possibility, but we've never seen it.
Somehow, Harry and Ron get back to their dorm without being noticed. The book just skips ahead to that night, and now they're just waiting for the others to go to bed so they can discuss their next move. Ron's convinced that Ginny was taken because she knew something, since she's a pure-blood and thus the Heir wouldn't want her killed. He further suggests that they may as well sneak out and tell Lockhart what they know, seeing as he's planning to try something tonight. Oh, Ron, you poor naive fool.
So they head over to his office, and it turns out he's packing up all his crap. I don't see why he needs to take a million portraits of himself wherever he's going. Even if he couldn't take more, I assume there's a large supply of them out there. Harry confronts Lockhart about his cowardice, citing all the stuff he claimed to have done in his books. Wait, you think the books were factual? I'm getting the impression Rowling wrote this chapter first.
Lockhart explains his elaborate scam. The accomplishments he wrote about were real, but instead of giving credit to the people who actually did them, he interviewed them extensively, then wiped their memories so he could take the credit and they wouldn't remember. Considering how long we had to put up with this guy, it's not really worth the payoff. I guess I'm impressed he even bothered to base his tall tales on any sort of reality whatsoever, but it doesn't really explain why Dumbledore hired him, unless he was just setting the guy up to fail.
Lockhart then turns his wand on Harry and Ron, saying that he'll have to mind-wipe them, too, since they know the truth about him. Wouldn't they just figure it out all over again after he leaves? Was he gonna mind-wipe Ron's parents and make them forget Ginny's dead? And the teachers already see through his bullshit, so when was he gonna mindwipe them? Or does he even realize he needs to? This is one of those cases where I can't tell if the character's really supposed to be this thick, or Rowling just failed to think this through.
Anyway, Lockhart's plan has one fatal flaw: He totally sucks at everything. Before he can wipe their memories, Harry uses his red disarming laser to knock him on his ass. It might have helped if he hadn't told Harry what he was going to do before he did it. Lockhart asks them what they expect him to do, since he doesn't even know where the Chamber is, but Harry and Ron think they have a pretty good idea, so they march him to the girl's room at wandpoint. Wait, they're bringing him along? What the hell is the point of that? Haven't you idiots been listening? He's not good at anything. Maybe they planned to use him as bait.
And what happened to telling McGonagall what they've found out? Instead of waiting all afternoon to sneak back out, they could have revealed themselves to the teachers before and they could have all gone down to the bathroom together. Better odds than this, I think.
SUPERFRIENDS ANNOUNCER: Later, in the bathroom...
You know, I've never considered myself a Lord of the Rings fan, but you have to hand it to them for having the decency not to stage a big climax in a damn restroom. Harry asks Myrtle how she died and the short version is that she was in the stall having another pity party when some boy came in and said something in what Harry realizes is Parseltongue, then she saw a pair of yellow eyes and she wound up dead. So I guess Myrtle died just because she happened to be the first thing the monster saw. Myrtle says it came from somewhere near the sink, and Harry discovers a small snake scratched into one of the taps. Harry tries to command the Chamber to open with Parseltongue, but it doesn't really work until he sort of squints and pretends the snake is alive somehow. I guess that's pretty clever. Even if you knew where to go and you found that barely noticable snake, and even if you could speak Snake-ese, you'd still have a hard time knowing how to get the thing open unless you knew that's what you were supposed to do. Dumbledore's still an idiot for not finding this thing, though. When the sink recesses into the floor, it leaves a pipe big enough for a grown man to fit in. I'm betting that would be pretty easy to spot if you took some ultrasound scans of the building or something along those lines. Really, they should have just demolished this entire restroom fifty years ago, seeing as no one's used it in all this time. Just pave it over and the Chamber is sealed off for all time. Dopes.
Immediately, Harry resolves to go down the pipe. Ron does too, and they both agree to force Lockhart to go first. This is just like Super Mario Bros. The movie, I mean, because the movie sucked ass, just like this book.
The pipes are said to lead "miles" under the shool, which I assume is just a wild guess, but who can tell with these books? The Three Stooges come out in a damp stone tunnel, and Harry uses his wand to light the way ahead, warning the others to close their eyes if they see any sign of movement. Yeah, because a giant snake would have no other way of killing you. They really should have gone with a less powerful monster for this book. There's small animal bones all over the tunnel floor, which could be from the basilisk's excrement over the last several hundred years, except I don't see how it got any rats to come this far down for so long. Maybe Salazar Slytherin knew it'd take this long for someone to set it loose, and arranged some way for it to feed. Eventually, they come to a twenty-foot snakeskin shed on the tunnel floor. Lockhart feigns weakness, and when Ron prods him to get back up, he tackles him and grabs his wand. Oh, please.
Lockhart gloats that he'll take the snakeskin back to the surface, and claim that he was too late to save Ginny, and that Harry and Ron went insane from the sight of her mangled body, to cover up the mindwipe he intends to perform. I haven't really mentioned this lately, but Ron's broken, malfunctioning wand has been a running gag for far longer than necessary, so it goes without saying that Lockhart's plan backfires and the wand explodes, caving in the tunnel. So now, conveniently, Harry is trapped on the side of the collapse that leads further into the Chamber, while Ron and Lockhart are on the other side that leads back the way they came. Deciding he has no time to waste, Harry chooses to press on alone, leaving Ron to try to clear the rocks if he should return.
Finally, Harry comes to a wall with snakes carved onto it, and it opens up at his Snake-ese command. So I'm assuming this is the actual Chamber of Secrets, and not this damn tunnel we've been dealing with. Maybe this is just the entryway to some other secret room, whatever.
Now that I think of it, Ron and Hermione went back down this thing in Book 7, and at the time I read about it, it was treated like no big deal. Granted, by that time the monster was dead and they probably had the tunnel cleared or something, but considering how you have to slide down a pipe to get to this thing, it seems like getting back up would be a job in and of itself.
Chapter sucks, by the way, in case you couldn't tell.
RATING: BAD
MEANWHILE
MEPHISTO: Behold! I show you a vision of she whom you love, lost and forsaken upon the savage planet earth! Hidden by Mephisto (that's me, natch), among the earth's teeming billions, where you shall never find her!
MEANWHILE, IN A BATH HOUSE...
SHALLA BAL: Where am I? How did I get here? And why are all these naked men here?
VEGETA: Hey, where'd she come from?
DUMBLEDORE: Whilst I may not be one of your Muggle "weathermen", my better-than-average brainpower suspects that it is, "rainin' bitches".
SHALLA BAL: Norrin! Help meeeeeee!
MEANWHILE, BACK WHERE WE WERE BEFORE
SILVER SURFER: No! No! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
MEPHISTO: The vision is gone, but her plight remains! How much longer can the female survive? And all because you shall not yield to the will of Mephisto!
SILVER SURFER: Very well! May the fates forgive me... I shall do your bidding!
MEPHISTO: And so... I shall put you to the test! That Shalla Bal may live, and rejoin you once again... you must destroy the entity known as Hogwarts!
SILVER SURFER: Wait, seriously? Because I was thinking about doing that anyway...
MEPHISTO: Just shut up and do it.
NEXT: The Serpent and the Suck! |
