Chapter 8- The Potions Master
- Quirrell "rescues" Harry and Ron from Filch when they get lost on the first day of school. Any way this could be important? I don't think it really is.
- Why do wizards study Astronomy? How is Astronomy any more magical then math or english, and they don't learn those at Hogwarts. The only time they ever use their Astronomy knowledge is in Divination, and they wouldn't learn Astronomy every year just for that.
- In Transfiguration, Professor McGonnagall turns a desk into a pig. Doesn't this sort of break all the rules because she is, in a sense, creating life? How much knowledge and power does this pig have? Does it have normal pig instincts? If you were powerful enough at transfiguration could you change a desk to a more complicated life form?
- "His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African Prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story." This is sort of like Lockhart, don't you think? Its all lies....
- One thing I read today, in the live chat J.K. Rowling did a couple years ago after Deathly Hallows was realesed, somebody asked how was their a curse on the position if Quirrell had tought DADA before Harry's year, something I had been wondering as well. It turns out that Quirrell was the Muggle Studies teacher before he went to Romania! Isn't that cool.
- "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." I think that is such an epic quote!!!! I'm trying to figure out what the things are, "bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death." stopper death comes up in the sixth one... and he could be implying felix felicis for either of the first two.....
- Two of the three questons Snape asks Harry at the first potions lesson are brought back up in the sixth book, the Draught of Living Death and bezoars.
- What are rock cakes?
Omg I had a rock cake in England!!!!! In fact it was at Stonehenge. Haha Stonehenge...rock cake...anyway it's hard to describe. It's like a cakeish thing that also resembles a cookie...mine had chocolate chips in it but they can also have raisins I think. After reading all about them in Harry Potter I was expecting it to be disgusting but it was actually quite good...I guess it wasn't cooked by Hagrid :) I took a picture...I'll put it on this blog!! Okay now back to the book.
ReplyDeleteAstronomy has always seemed like a sort of...I don't know...leery class. I mean, they have the kids staying up til after midnight on Wednesdays to look at the stars! Isn't that teaching them bad habits? They could have at least had them do it on Friday nights.
All those Transfiguration things give me a headache...like Vanished objects go into nonbeing which is to say everything. What does that even mean? And I don't really get why they can't conjure food...I think Hermione explains it in the seventh book when we first learn that rule but I don't remember what she says. So I'm not going to attempt to answer the pig question :)
All the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers lie about something at some point, right? Or at least hide something major throughout most of the book. Quirrell about his turban, Lockhart about pretty much everything, Lupin about being a werewolf, Moody about being an impostor, Umbridge about sending the Dementors after Harry, and Snape about all the things we find out about in his memories.
That's really interesting! I love when JK Rowling shares little tidbits of random information like that. And we'll get so much more of them in Pottermore!! So excited.
Oh, I love Snape! And I love in the movie the way Harry takes notes...he writes it like a poem, skipping lines where unnecessary. Like he puts "death" on its own line beneath "put a stopper in" and it's quite dramatic. I also love when JK Rowling puts in little things of seeming unimportance that end up being part of a major plotline in later books. Like, for example, the infamous gleam of triumph.
Ok. I aways just imagined rock cakes basically being rocks. I know that couldn't be right, but I thought that anyways. It is Hagrid. I didn't know they were a real thing :)
ReplyDeleteThey never even talk about Astronomy either. It doesn't seem very important. The only time they ever go to Astronomy is during their OWL's. It would interefere with homework too. How can Harry go to detention with Umbridge on Wednesday nights if he has Astronomy?
Yeah... some law of elemental transfiguration or something. It makes no sense.
Defense Against the Dark Arts always has sketchy teachers. It's a sketchy subject.
Yeah his notes were so cool.... i tried to put a video in the post but it didn't work.