I have started the Chamber of Secrets🤩But I feel the need to express my feelings on the Philosopher’s Stone after chapter 14–
Firstly, is it only me who thinks Hagrid kinda didn’t handle the whole Norbert dragon issue properly?? Getting an illegal dragon is already risky. Also, his living environment is prone to burning, causing students to get hurt if there’s a fire. Added with how temperamental Norbert is, many students may get bitten if Norbert escapes his hut. That’s a lot of ‘if’ scenarios here, but they can come true, especially as this is the first time Hagrid got a dragon. I know his dream was to have a dragon and letting go of his dream was hard, but still…
Can he help a bunch of first-years think of a more reliable plan?! Maybe he could accompany Harry and Hermione up to the Astronomy Tower so Harry and Hermione would get a pass from being outta bed-? Hermione could act as a lookout while Harry and Hagrid could hand the dragon over to Charlie’s friends. This plan isn’t 100% reliable, but it’s def better than the one in the book… (as seen in Harry and Hermione getting caught afterwards)
As we can see in Hogwarts, detention isn’t ‘writing lines’. It’s going into an off-limits forest at night to search for a dangerous creature who has the power to kill a saintly unicorn. It’s also about meeting centaurs who may see you as a threat and shoot you to death. Oh forgot to mention, there may be werewolves too!
Yeah I get it, Hogwarts is a place for extraordinary education. But is it really appropriate for detention to be like that?!?! Maybe Hogwarts could make them go to the Forbidden Forest during daytime—werewolves won’t appear during daytime. Or maybe Hogwarts could make them help Filch clean the castle. Facing Filch for more than 1 hour is a depressing, but not dangerous!!
I found some hints of future plot in the book too. In the Forbidden Forest, Ronan and Bane kept on saying ‘Mars is bright tonight’. Mars is the Roman god of war, so that indirectly means war is coming, with blood and deaths. Mars is also a male god, so that means a male (Voldemort) is going to wage war against others.
Apart from that, readers can predict Quirrell set the troll trap through the trapdoor as DADA teacher. In earlier chapters, Quirrell was the one who warned Albus of a troll in the dungeons. Bit of a coincidence? Haha nope.
Also, I think I found a potential plot hole. In the scene where Hermione was sorting out which bottle belonged to which, she assumed every bottle was arranged in order to the piece of paper Severus wrote. But Quirrell was expecting Harry to come; could he’ve mixed up the bottle’s order to kill them off-? But again, that didn’t happen so just a thought.
Okay time for some appreciation: Neville was really brave alright. He had come a long way from being a low-confidence boy to a boy who stood up to his friends and handled Crabbe and Goyle on his own. I have to give JK Rowling that that is well-written character development. Later in Deathly Hallows, Neville is even the leader of Dumbledore’s Army. RESPECT🫡👏
The friendship between Harry, Ron and Hermione is also so amazing😃 Ron was willing to sacrifice his life in chess to let Harry and Hermione defeat Voldemort🥲 (luckily the chess pieces didn’t kill-) Hermione also went from ‘we could’ve died, oR wOrSe, eXpElLeD’ to ‘I’M DEF COMING WITH YOU. YOU NEED ME FOR CHARMS!!’ BFFs until death✨💀
People say Gryffindor gaining those sudden points in the end was weird, but I totally thought Harry, Hermione, Ron and Neville deserved it😃
Onto the ultimate battle, the contrast between Harry and Quirrell is so well-written- Quirrell was so afraid of death and yearned for power from Voldemort; while Harry would fight to the death against Voldemort and didn’t desire power or fame… Harry also saw the image of him finding the Philosopher’s Stone instead of his family in the Mirror of Erised, so he had got over his unfulfilled dreams and accepted reality🥲 When I was reading the scene, I was so breathless even though I knew the outcome already😂
In the end, we see Albus saying his classic quote, ‘Death is but the next great adventure.’ I love that Nicolas Flamel destroyed the Stone and embraced the unknown of death. Death isn’t something to be avoided or feared when you had a great full life😃
Overall, I liked rereading this book although some of the scenes were…concerning. I look even more forward to the Chamber of Secrets because that book was my favourite in the series when I was in elementary school.
(Has Minerva never caught the Marauders outta night before😂)
