post-soiree

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

My first thought on reading alt_boot's post is: house elves are set free when they receive clothes from their owners; it's a pity it doesn't work that way for Terry. Next thought: what if it does work that way in some terrible ironic sense? What if the clothes are going to kill him? Or nearly so.

This morning alt_amycus's second post reads differently to me, not only in light of Terry's report on the "soiree" but also in retrospect of our conversation with Amycus' player yesterday:

tidbit's getting quite the sense of self-esteem!

So, tidbit, to celebrate, Alecto and I are holding a little soiree tomorrow night. I've got a surprise for you that will, I hope, drive you mad.

Be sure to wear your new clothes, too.

In other news, the pigeons are driving me crazy. The twittering's been worse than ever. Ha. When they see me coming, the birds all try and hide. But I'm onto them.

So, this morning, with a bit of hindsight and in the cold aftermath of a strangely anti-climactic soiree, I think Amycus has been practicing on the pigeons for a formula he has now applied to Terry's new clothes. The pigeons didn't like it very much. Amycus hopes it will "drive [Terry] mad". I hope Terry catches on and finds a way to get help before too much harm is done by his lovely new jumper, soft corduroy trousers and new boots.

Comments

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Could pigeon equal students?

It could -- and, if so, then it would presumably not mean that he's been experimenting on them. We would surely hear pretty directly if Professor Carrow's shift from mean to creepy involved physically harming students. I think it won't turn out that way (yet, at least) because I don't think McG's going to luck into a quick and easy way to dismiss Carrow from the staff. (To put it in other terms, I don't think they'd have cast him if they were going to shove him out of Hogwarts right away.)

For the moment, I'm assuming that a pigeon is just a pigeon, but that's only one hypothesis. I do absolutely see that the students try to avoid Carrow when they see him coming and that they're exuberant studenty noises might ring in Carrow's crazy ears like bird twittering. (Did you point out yesterday that pigeons don't really twitter at all, they coo like the downlist doves they are. That might be a point on the side of 'pigeon'=metaphor.)

What do we gain in terms of understanding Carrow and the game if pigeon=student?

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

He doesn't really want to teach?

I didn't point that out about pigeons but it is true.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

My working theory is still that pigeons = Muggles. Because of the overpopulation thing and the maggots/vermin thing. In order to explain the fact that he worries about deafening twittering interfering with his plans to sleep in, I think he'd have to have actual Muggles being held at his quarters for him to experiment on. Or being held at whatever location he refers to as 731, and presumably also sleeps in or near.

Although, if he had them captive, then the bit about them hiding wouldn't make sense, since they'd have nowhere to hide. So that one perplexes me... unless his 731 is located next to an actual Muggle camp, and so he'd be able to hear them nearby while he slept, but they'd also be able to hide when they saw him coming. Or unless he means something non-literal by lie in.

But then, wouldn't Terry have mentioned something if the Carrows frequently slept away from school? I am having a lot of trouble piecing together all these clues into any coherent picture.

Could the twitters be something he's able to hear without needing physical proximity to the source? If it is in fact dream-related, could he be hearing some of the thoughts or dreams of Muggles in his head, and that's the twittering he means?

If we assume the pigeons are literal, does that make the clues fit together better?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

If the pigeons are literal, then I think he's using animal subjects first before turning to human ones. He probably has access to a lot of pigeons at Hogwarts, and nobody cares about pigeons. Who would notice if their population dwindled? Who would intervene? On the other hand, he only has one Mudblood servant, and he knows that there's an audience watching what happens to Terry, so I think he might have worked on whatever his experiment is a bit before applying it to the more important (and much rarer) test subject.

(I did take note of Hermione's suggestion that Carrow's been eyeing her up recently, as though he might be considering whether she might be a replacement if his test on Terry proves fatal or if its results are promising but require another live test subject.)

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

...

That does actually make a lot of sense. Maybe I'm looking too hard for the non-literal. After all, pigeons could run away when they see him coming. Pigeons could make irritating noises, even if technically not twittering. They would be audible from near where he sleeps, and they would have large populations and be expendable. It would not be implausible for him to be keeping some or doing experiments on them without drawing attention from any of the people who might walk in on it. This is definitely the theory that requires the least amount of crazy jumping-through-hoops to justify it.

If they *are* literal pigeons, can we at least pretend that the reason he chose that species is that he enjoys the connection in his mind between them and Muggles/Mudbloods?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

If they *are* literal pigeons, can we at least pretend that the reason he chose that species is that he enjoys the connection in his mind between them and Muggles/Mudbloods?

I'm totally down with that! Similarly, he collects poems about overpopulating, grubby maggots and recites them because he's preoccupied with things he believes to be filth -- and because he knows it makes other people (like McG) squirm to hear him spin out nonsense rhyme about maggots. (And because maggots populate not just poor Northumbrians' hats, but also rotting meat -- and he has an affinity for dead things.) Um, all of that, in my book!