Mark Reads ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’: Chapter 10

In the tenth chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we finally learns the rules of Quidditch. Brains explode. WHAT. And then there is a troll. And it is not one on the Internet. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Harry Potter.

CHAPTER 10: HALLOWEEN

Now that this is out of the way….onwards to TROLLS.

No, not those.

Unfortunately, not this either.

It’s unexplained, but during Hogwarts’ Halloween celebration, festivities are interrupted because a troll has gotten inside the building. Weird thing is…it’s like a 20 foot tall beast. How do you miss this?

But what’s important about the troll scene has less to do with the existence of some sort of physical beast and more to do with what happens with the characters. Prior to the Halloween celebration, Ron and Hermione have a bit of a tiff in Charms class when trying to make objects fly.

  • “It’s no wonder no one can stand her,” he said to Harry as they pushed their way into the crowded corridor, “she’s a nightmare, honestly.”

Yikes.

  • Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him. It was Hermione. Harry caught a glimpse of her face–and was startled to see that she was in tears.

🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁

What impresses me is how quickly Harry immediately becomes selfless when things with the troll get out of hand. As the students are making their way back to their respective towers, Harry remembers that Hermione wasn’t around to know that there’s a troll in Hogwarts. So he sets off, with Ron, to go find her.

(By the way, there’s a strange fleeting scene where the boys see Snape crossing through a corridor when everyone else has already evacuated to the dungeons below. It’s unexplained. WEIRD.)

The scene in which Ron and Harry find the troll in the girl’s bathroom with Hermione is ok. I think it’s the first instance in this book where I wasn’t impressed with Rowling’s writing. Perhaps I realized the scene existed more to set up Snape’s character and served as a means to an end:

  • But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.

Can’t say I relate, but I was very impressed that Rowling has so quickly avoided making Hermione an annoying, abrasive side character by having her become friends with Ron and Harry.

Next up: MORE QUIDDITCH. AND ANEURYSMS.