Tuesday, August 21, 2012

What does George know about the Basilisk?

Does George Weasley have some extra sense that no one else shares? Does he have some understanding of  the dark arts that everyone else lacks?

Stupid questions?

Maybe. But consider this.

There's a point about two-thirds of the way through The Chamber of Secrets, when Harry is feared to be the Heir of Slytherin and no one, not Albus Dumbledore nor even Hermione Granger herself, has figured out what creature dwells within the fabled Chamber. Fred and George have decided to have fun with everyone's fear of Harry by loudly telling people to get out of his way as he makes his way through the halls of the school.

Percy attempts to intervene but George tells him to to get out of Harry's way because Harry is "nipping off to the Chamber of Secrets for a cup of tea with his fanged servant."

Hmmm... "fanged servant", eh?

As you will recall, the creature in the Chamber was, in fact, a Basilisk, a massive snake with long, curving fangs, deathly poison and a killer glance. But, at the time of George's comment, the only thing anybody knew about the creature was that it had petrified a number of people.

Nobody had been bitten; no blood had been spilt.

So help me to understand why George would refer to the creature as Harry's "fanged servant".

A good guess, probably. Merely a coincidence.

Or did George know something more?

3 comments:

  1. I dont think George knew something more. He was making an assumption based on the fact that the symbol of Slytherin house was a serpent. Slytherin himself was a renown Parselmouth, so it was assumed that Slytherin's monster was a snake.

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  2. You make a logical point, bookworm-Mary. George probably did connect Slytherin with snakes and concluded that the creature in the Chamber is a snake. So why didn't anyone else make the same deduction? Dumbledore, perhaps, or Hermione? If we start with the logical assumption that the beast in Slytherin's secret Chamber is some sort of a snake, we reduce the number of possibilities immensely and probably can figure out that it's a Basilisk a lot sooner. And, therefore, be in a position to warn the rest of the school.

    I know. It's a kid's book. Stop being so uptight about details like this, right? Okay, I'll try. But it is interesting, I think.

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  3. I don't think George was speaking about a snake. A snake isn't the only animal with fangs.
    I think George said "his fanged servant" because if someone says "monster" the first thing you imagine are fangs and claws.

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