The Final Battle in Order of the Phoenix
Clearly not photoshopped at all... (((cough)))
Don’t get me wrong, I think I have a pretty awesome group of friends. They show up to all my plays and pretend to like them (even the really boring ones), help me move and assemble my Ikea furniture (and my bed hasn’t fallen apart yet), and even read long rambling blogs like this one. But five books into the Harry Potter series, and I have to say if anyone has a ridiculously (unrealistically) amazing group of friends, it’s Harry. It’s one thing to ask your buddies to squeeze your queen size mattress up a winding Philadelphia row home staircase (thanks guys, by the way); it’s another thing entirely to ask them to fly off to the Ministry of Magic to battle the Dark Lord. How do you pay your friends back for something like that? Beer and pizza just doesn’t seem to cut it.
Why do Harry’s friends sign-on for all these crazy adventures? You know what? No – I’m not going to call them “crazy adventures”, because that’s like saying they all agreed to go skydiving or something. Why do Harry’s friends sign-on for all these suicide missions? It was one thing when they were too young to really understand they could die, but they are fully aware in Order of the Phoenix that they could zap out of existence with the flick of a wand. Why go through with it?
One explanation seems to be that Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Neville are part of Gryffindor, so it’s in their nature. Luna, on the other hand, is just Luna. I don’t think that’s enough of a reason, though. Hermione and Ron clearly care about Sirius, but not in the same way as Harry. And while all of them support Harry, they didn’t have the “vision” of Sirius and Voldemort and they don’t even seem to fully believe it was true when they head off to the Ministry.
Maybe the explanation is simply that Harry has a group of brave friends who will have his back no matter what. I guess that’s a good enough reason, but part of me still wants a little something more. At least with Neville we can see a grudge toward Voldemort and a need to prove himself to everyone. Ginny doesn’t seem to want to be left behind and wants to assert herself as one of the group. Luna seems brightly up for anything anyone tosses her way. And Ron and Hermione are probably used to this sort of thing by now. Perhaps that’s all there is to it. Perhaps that’s the reason why this select few battle the Death Eaters at the end, as oppose to the entirety of Dumbledore’s Army. I’d expect a much better explanation for why all those students, many who have not particular allegiance to Harry, would blindly follow him into battle.
Throughout the series, Harry keeps finding himself alone. He is ousted and villianized, isolated and beaten. Almost every parental figure in his life is taken away (more on that in another entry). Maybe he has incredibly supportive friends because he needs incredibly supportive friends. Eventually, he will have to go it alone, but there’s no need to go it alone at this point. That would just be sad.
I love Ralph Fiennes, even when he looks like this handsome fella with no nose
While we’re on the topic of Harry’s absurdly fantastic friends, how about that final battle? It was nice to see the Order of the Phoenix come back and kick ass, but the real part worth focusing on his how well the kids did against the Death Eaters. Fictionalized battles between adults and children sometimes take on a Tom & Jerry air, with the sneaky children tripping up the bumbling adults, followed by an obligatory laugh track and a wailing “Wha, wha, whaaa…aw, shucks!”
That was not the case with the battle in the Department of Mysteries. Quite the contrary, in fact. I mean, I knew none of the kids died during this scene (since they’re all back for Half-Blood Prince), but I still found myself getting nervous. Yes, I was nervous at a fiction book…when I knew everything would turn out okay…don’t judge me.
Still, I found it impressive how skillfully (and somewhat haphazardly) the kids were able to fend off the Death Eaters. In the end, they were mostly down for the count and there was absolutely no way they would have been able to win on their own, but they had a good showing, which makes me hope we’ll have some more incredible battles later in the series.
The hero of the battle, of course, was Dumbledore. The hero is always Dumbledore – which means it’s going to be that much more interesting when Dumbledore is no longer in the game.
But we’re not quite there yet.
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Why is everyone so fond of Ron? (Don’t answer that… I’m sure it will come up later in the series).
I’m a little more credulous than you, I guess. I totally buy teenagers (who never think they’re going to die, much less get old) figuring that this is the only appropriate response to Harry’s vision. This particular group, as well, has been subjected to Umbridge’s teaching/propaganda all year, and has figured out they’re being lied to. I’m not so sure that they followed him “into battle,” either: they seemed just to be his posse, and along to make sure nothing went wrong. I’m not so sure, in other words, that everyone in the gang figured that Harry had it right in saying that Sirius was in danger. *Harry* was going to place himself in danger, and that was enough for them to jump up. I wonder if you don’t remember similar situations from your own adolescence, on one side or the other.
This was the book where I truly began to love Neville, rather than simply feeling sorry/affectionate for him. (The image of him holding his bleeding nose with one hand, wand out in the other, and saying, “I’m with you, Harry!” just got me to the core.) He was sorted into Gryffindor for a reason, all right.
This was also the book where I found myself shaking my head and muttering, “It’s time for someone to take out that bitch Bellatrix.” She causes entirely too much trouble.
I’m not sure why everyone is so fond of Ron as Harry’s sidekick (believe it or not, after the above testimonial about Neville, I voted Fred and George). JKR herself has said that he is her favorite character, and is there to provide comic relief. Wait until Deathly Hallows.
Off to Half Blood Prince yet?
I think you have a point about the group being more Harry’s “posse” than his battle buddies. They don’t seem fully convinced they will be in real danger, so much as in trouble for breaking into the Ministry.
As for Neville, he’s such a delight to read! I want more Neville in my Harry Potter stories.
And as for “Half-Blood Prince”, I am in the process of casting a musical all week, so I’m spending all my time after work in a theatre. I cannot possibly start the book until Sunday at the earliest. Sad, yes. But I still haven’t quite finished processing “Order of the Phoenix”, so I think we’ll be okay.
Great point on the way the kids do battle. This is yet another subtle brilliance of the series. JKR writes scenes that allow kids that are overmatched in knowledge and experience to stand toe to toe with adults. And their victories aren’t cheapen because when they succeed it’s very believable.
As to why his friends show up? Come on weren’t you a teenager
Remember this is war and 15 yr olds are not going to sit around and let someone else do the battle. How many young kids joined the military after 911 or in WWII they had to turn kids away who were faking their age.
His friends follow him in earlier because they don’t understand, and at this point because the war now effects them as much as anybody. They know death and evil, and how they will also lose what they love if Harry doesn’t win.
Also, the friends have banded together because they can only trust each other at this point. The administration is lying to them. Umbridge lies. The ministry lies. Even Dumbledore isn’t truthful all the time. So they have to believe in Harry.
Also, Ron just kicks ass. Everybody loves the comic relief