- Professional, post-graduation wizards who are not professors, including Bill and Charlie, Percy's new appointment to the Ministry, Mad-Eye Moody's work as an Auror, etc.
- More about the Ministry of Magic than just the Minister and the occasional ax-man, including a Department of Magical Games and Sports, Aurors (wicked cool profession, no?), the Improper Use of Magic Office, the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the Department of Mysteries, and the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad.
- Other wizard schools, including Durmstrang and Beauxbatons.
- The awesome and wonderful and amazing extent the wizarding world goes to to make sure Muggles don't know about wizards at all. Although I do have to wonder if those Memory Charms do lasting damage... seems to me that messing with memory that often is a dangerous thing.
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| Don't let the Muggles see you. |
Also, aren't the Weasleys just the grandest? I was crying from laughing when they plastered their "normal" letter with postage to get it to the Dursleys, and then Mr. Weasley's attempts to fix the living room, and standing up for Harry when his uncle is (yet again) a total jerk to Harry, and then when they get all mad but secretly love it when Dudley eats the tongue-growing candy, and then when Arthur is so awesome with the big scare at the World Cup.
Which brings me to the darker side of the wizarding world that is revealed here--house-elf slavery, Death Eaters, dark marks, painful scars, extreme mudblood loathing. There's a lot of set up in this first chunk of HPatGoF, but it's all pretty spectacular set up.
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| Hermione after learning her food is made by house elves. |
I'd forgotten how much I love this book! (And, let's face it, what I crush I have on Cedric.)
The Weasley's ARE tops. I especially love Mr W. for standing up for Harry. It must have been a bit of a "oh Ron wasn't exaggerating, oops" moment.
ReplyDeleteI think you could totally count Diagon Alley and the other places as Hogwarts since they're always there on school business.It's so cool to see how well Jk planned out the world.
Yep, I'm sure the Weasleys were always convinced Harry (and Ron) overstated the awfulness of the Dursleys... until now! I love JK's world so much, and this book is so fun for giving us more of it than we've seen before.
DeleteI love the insult "Mudblood". That's such a great insult. Everything about it is great. That whole side of the wizarding world has awesome terminology. "Blood traitor" is my favorite. It sounds so creepy and horrible. It is totally a term that wizard Nazis would use.
ReplyDeleteThe Weasleys are awesome. Every single one of them, if we don't count Percy (and let's not, cause he sucks).
ReplyDeleteI also love how the wizarding world is expanded like tenfold in this book. It definitely shows how much more mature the series is getting :)
Yeah, let's not count Percy. Where did he go so wrong, anyway?
DeleteI loved learning that there were other wizarding schools, blew my mind! I planning a trip to the Harry Potter Wizarding World this fall (I know!) and I want to re-read the books right before I go. But all your reviews are making me want to re-read them now!
ReplyDeleteIt is SO much fun! You should definitely re-read them. I'm having a blast going back and revisiting them all, especially these later books as I've re-read them less than the first three (which I've probably read seventy gabillion dozen times, approximately).
DeleteYes with the memory charms, that is concerning. And can "obliviate" be reversed? I don't remember. (Ha!)
ReplyDeleteIt is so satisfying when Arthur stands up for Harry at the Dursleys.
I am also worried about all these memory charms they're performing on the Muggles. I mean, we've seen that they CAN go wrong. They seem really willy nilly handing them out to poor Mr. Roberts.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the memory charm point. The things we learn about Bertha Jorkins later on show that memory charms can seriously mess you up. I don't at all like the idea of the wizarding world deciding to descend on Mr. Roberts's property for a huge event and then constantly be messing with his mind to keep him from getting suspicious.
ReplyDeleteI mean, is repetitive memory charm-usage THAT different from the imperius curse, which is illegal? Instead of forcing someone to do something against their will, they take away their will by removing their memories/options. Blech.
Oh lord, I used to love Cedric so hard. And then RPattz was cast as him and that was fine but NOW he's Edward Cullen in my mind which makes CEDRIC Edward Cullen which unsexifies him GREATLY.
ReplyDeleteSMeyer, you keep ruining things for me.