Like Dudley’s birthday, the fifth book seems compelled to bring us more than the last - more pages, more chapters, and more questions than ever before. Order of the Phoenix is so massive and complex that at times it can be difficult to decide just what it is ultimately about. Prior books have kept more or less to the subject emblazoned on their covers - the quest for the philosopher’s stone, for the Chamber of Secrets, for the prisoner of Azkaban, even (more obliquely) the Goblet of Fire in representing the Triwizard Tournament. But book 5 is not strictly about the Order of the Phoenix, although we certainly learn much about them. It is also not entirely about the trials at Hogwarts under the lash of Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge. The almost ubiquitous showdown with Voldemort is inconclusive (as it must be). Yet while the book cannot be easily summarized, it contains a wealth of important character development, revealing aspects of the wizarding world, and critical new clues about what we can expect from the final conflict.

Apart from the introduction of several new wizardkind (Umbridge, Luna Lovegood, ancillary members of the Order like Tonks) we get to see many familiar characters in extremis, that famous crucible which reveals our basest nature. Many of these are not flattering portrayals, but they ring much truer to life, providing depth to what could easily have remained more stock-in-trade archetypes. Moreover, they represent the expanding perception that comes with maturing - by age 15, Harry and his friends come to realize that adults are no longer just good or bad, but have foibles and weaknesses of their own; boys and girls are no longer interchangeable; and the intersection of myriad motivations complicate matters when the idea of working “for the best” is no longer a unified thought. As we learn to our cost, doing what seems most straightforward and ‘right’ can have the gravest consequences.

To start, we have Mrs. Weasley’s boggart. As shown in year 3, the boggart assumes the form of what each person finds most frightening. In the DADA class, with 13-year-olds, this is typically monsters - Ron sees spiders, while even Harry sees a dementor, despite it representing ‘fear itself’ to Lupin. Later we learn that Hermione is haunted by a conceptual anxiety, namely (as Ron predicted) failure at school - she sees McGonagall reporting that she has flunked every subject. Lupin himself is almost bemused by the appearance of his moon, which is the bane of his existence but hardly a hairy beastie; clearly fear has a different significance to him, more dread than panic. So when we learn that the drawing room at 12 Grimmauld Place indeed houses a boggart, we do not expect that an adult like Mrs. Weasley will be much affected by it. We are deeply mistaken. For Mrs. Weasley has reason for very great fears indeed, not restricted to a single phantom. She has the latent worries of every mother for her children, including her “as good as” son Harry, but that inherent concern is vastly multiplied by the direness of their situation. Mrs. Weasley fears, more than just the incidental death of one of her prodigious brood, the human cost of bravery against Dark forces. She recalls the toll that membership in the Order of the Phoenix took on so many brave souls while standing against the original rise of Voldemort. We learn of the fate of many in that original group, and the tension of putting so many of her own on the front lines again comes through in the boggart’s cycling appearance - “half the family’s in the Order, it’ll be a miracle if we all come through this.” War is not a victimless conflict, and the price in blood can be high. The sacrifices all must make to resist tyranny are not to accepted lightly.

Sirius and Snape prove that growing up does not mean putting away childish behaviors. During a row with Mrs. Weasley, she exclaims, “He’s not James” - suggesting that Sirius is pining for his best friend at the expense of doing what is best for Harry’s welfare. Later when Harry implores Sirius not to meet them in Hogsmeade, Sirius sulks, saying “you’re less like your father than I thought.” And the occasions of Sirius’ bad moods, with the notable exception of the Christmas holidays, grow ever more frequent and severe. He mopes, paces like a wild cat within a cage in the confines of his mother’s wretched house, seethes at his inability to contribute to the Order and at Snape’s taunting for it, and shows reckless bravado up to his final moments. Meanwhile Snape seems to have focused on Harry as a proxy for his dislike of James and Sirius. His hatred of Harry’s father, enhanced rather than tempered by the event of his having been saved from a run-in with Lupin at full moon, has not mellowed with age and carries on in his ceaseless torment of Harry. Despite all his exhortations to Harry during Occlumency lessons to ‘discipline the mind,’ spitefully continuing his own long-held vendetta is not consistent with this, and his raging dismissal of Harry after the pensieve incident is not the mark of one in control of their emotions.

For his part, Sirius upbraids Mrs. Weasley in turn for excluding Harry from conferences by the Order, retorting “He’s not your son.” And indeed she does act to protect him as she would her own children against the full weight of an awful truth, with the best intentions but not perhaps the best results. We discover later that this protective reflex is shared by Dumbledore, and its ultimate effects are wide-ranging and tragic. Apart from the specifics of these arguments, their very nature is also illuminating - the members of the Order disagree, forcefully at times, over weighty matters and quibble over inconsequentials. Even united by a common cause, and ostensibly pursuing a plan already in motion, individual views still clash and minor prejudices (such as Mrs. Weasley’s dislike of Mundungus Fletcher) are not vanquished.

Through Snape’s pensieve, Harry learns that his own father was no saint. Indeed, “judging from what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him.” This is a crushing blow to Harry’s esteem, for the sanctity of his parents as flawless and noble has been one of the cornerstones of his self-image. “He had been so sure that this parents had been wonderful people that he never had the slightest difficulty in disbelieving Snape’s aspersions on his father’s character.” Through all of this, the message comes through that now is the time in Harry’s life when he realizes that his parents, and indeed all adults, are only too human.

As for Harry himself, we must endure his anger. His frequent anger. Also, his outrage, temper, glaring, nettlement, hot-headedness, and other manifestations of pique. One might even be tempted to call it ANGER (and indeed the dread all-caps makes several appearances throughout the book). I found myself briefly tempted to count just how many times Harry is depicted as becoming overcome with Wrath, and settled for just the times he gets called on it.

• We first get the all-caps at Grimmauld Place, and Fred and George take the measure of his ‘dulcet tones’.
• After his first tell-off of Seamus, Hermione remarks, “it would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down Ron’s and my throats, Harry, because if you haven’t noticed, we’re on your side” with admirable dignity.
• Ron later passes on that “Hermione says she thinks it would be nice if you stopped taking out your temper on us.”
• Hermione gets in another, “will you please stop biting my head off?”
• Before his detention, Professor McGonagall exasperatedly exclaims, “Do you really think this is about truth or lies? It’s about keeping your head down and your temper under control!”
• In detention, Umbridge unctously observes, “we’re getter better at controlling our temper already, aren’t we?” (and it must be noted, for the moment, he had).
• He is warned parenthetically of “inflaming of the braine…hot-headedness and recklessness” by his Potions text.
• He gets taken to task by a picture of Phineas Nigellus, “Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up popinjay, that there might be an excellent reason why the headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every tiny detail of his plans to you?…Now if you will excuse me, I have better things to do than to listen to adolescent agonizing.”
• Hermione takes a direct tack, “Oh, stop feeling all misunderstood.”
• After mauling Draco in Quidditch with the help of an equally livid Fred, Umbridge comments (with great satisfaction) on their “Dreadful tempers.”
• During futile attempts to teach him Occlumency, Snape rails at him, “Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily…they stand no chance against his powers!”
• …and “Control your anger, discipline your mind!”
• Following his fit of breaking things in the Headmaster’s office, Dumbledore serenely offers, “By all means continue destroying my possessions…I daresay I have too many” (quite the Buddhist at this moment)
• He even suggests that Harry is not furious enough, “because you are not nearly as angry with me as you ought to be. If you are to attack me, as I know you are close to doing, I would like to have thoroughly earned it.” This is both a testament to Dumbledore’s remorse for his well-intentioned mistakes in judgment, and a brilliant application of reverse psychology. The more he intones that Harry is truly justified in lashing out, even contending that he has not been violent enough, the clearer a picture he draws for Harry of his own actions without confronting him. Harry cannot continue in a mindless fury, seeking the release of acting out of control, with Dumbledore calmly reflecting his feelings back at him through adroit emotional aikido.
• Finally, Harry reacts even to Dumbledore’s quiet, becoming “even angrier that Dumbledore was showing signs of weakness. He had no business being weak when Harry wanted to rage and storm at him.” Dumbledore’s response is again to invite the vitriol, “I am going to tell you everything…You will have your chance to rage at me - to do whatever you like - when I have finished. I will not stop you.” And thus we learn of the prophecy, and Harry is so thoroughly stunned by the truth that by the end he can barely speak, cold fury giving way to deep foreboding and dread. We leave them in near silence, Harry distant, and with Dumbledore’s tear trickling down his face into his long silver beard.

But none serve as a final antidote, as we continue to encounter descriptions - “Harry’s temper rose to the surface like a snake rearing from long grass”, “A reckless daring seized him” - which must have tested Rowling’s own patience in finding enough different ways to convey the same idea. We can perhaps attribute some of this to the growing connection with Voldemort, who has frequent reason for frustration, but that is arguably better affiliated with the constant burning of Harry’s scar. Whether we are meant to take the balance of this effervescent rage as an adolescent phase, a new facet of Harry’s personality (combined with his ’saving-people-thing’ suggested by Hermione), or sheerly a reaction to the perceived injustices endured throughout the year is left unsettled.

In striking contrast, Neville at last makes his escape from comic relief into both poignancy (his visit at St. Mungo’s) and competency (his marked improvement in the DA after Bellatrix’s escape from Azkaban). He receives rare encouragement from a teacher other than Professor Sprout, when Professor McGonagall reassures him, “There’s nothing wrong with your work except lack of confidence.” He manages to be the last DA member standing along with Harry during the climactic battle at the Department of Mysteries, still trying to cast Stunning Spells with a borrowed wand and a disfigured nose. He even single-handedly defeats Voldemort’s plan to recover the prophecy, given its being smashed while falling from his pocket, although that is akin to praising Chunk for finding the map to One-Eye Willy’s pirate treasure in The Goonies by dropping the picture frame. Neville also provides a measure of how much Harry matures through the year - when Cho first walks by on the Hogwarts Express he is an embarrassment to Harry (who imagines sitting with ‘cool people’) even without being covered in Stinksap, yet by year’s end Harry is totally at ease sitting in a compartment as Neville strokes his Mimbulus Mimbletonia when Cho again crosses his door.

Ron’s own ascension from out of Harry’s shadow takes some curious turns. The unforeseen assignment as house prefect takes everyone by surprise - and we learn much later than it is truly intended to shield Harry from further trials rather than suggest Ron’s suitability - but the fact remains that he becomes the fourth Weasley to attain the post and takes a step towards that dream first glimpsed in the Mirror of Erised in year 1. He seems delighted, naturally enough, at the chance to upgrade his broom to a Cleansweep, but is less enthused at Moody’s assessment, “authority figures always attract trouble, but I suppose Dumbledore thinks you can withstand most major jinxes or he wouldn’t have appointed you.” And likewise he shows little compunction to assume the actual duties, particularly when they involve telling off the irrepressible Fred and George (the notable exceptions to the prefect legacy). But perhaps most welcome, from my perspective, is Harry’s recognition that it is his turn to support Ron - the simple “well done, mate” is a refreshing alternative to his increasingly self-absorbed tirades. The reversal of “Weasley is our King” is another hard-won achievement, after endless bouts of low self-confidence, the lifelong ban of Harry, Fred and George, and many fruitless practice sessions. It seems to take a shift in perspective, that things had perhaps had gotten as bad as they could get so they might as well not bother him anymore, for him to take stock in himself and rise to the challenge. Whether this inner reserve will return when the time warrants is something to watch. But at least he gets to hold the Quidditch Cup for now, one more piece of his dream in place.

Let us not overlook the Weasley twins, models of entrepreneurship. Much is made even back in book 4 about Mrs. Weasley’s disapproval over their lack of attention to O.W.L.s, and particularly their ambitions of opening a joke shop instead of “a sensible trade.” Harry contributes to their cause by giving them the Triwizard winnings as seed money at the end of year 4. Now they begin to show some of the fruits of their research, such as the various forms of Skivving Snackboxes along with Headless Hats, building up to their Wildfire Whiz-Bangs and finally the Portable Swamp. The lengths they go to produce these products raises some ethical eyebrows, first experimenting on first-years without disclosing the full effects of their Nosebleed Nougats and then possibly slipping a Sleeping Draught in Hermione’s butterbeer so she cannot interfere - “‘Let her sleep,’ said George hastily. It was a few moments before Harry noticed that several of the first years gathered around them bore unmistakable signs of recent nosebleeds.” Of course they choose rebellion against Umbridge over graduation, and fly away to apparent great success in their new venture at Diagon Alley. This triumph is an echo of Ghostbusters, which has been proposed as a Reaganesque fairy tale with private enterprise (”no job is too big, no fee is too big”) overcoming government regulation (Walter Peck, after all, is from the EPA) after being ejected from academia (”You, Dr. Venkman, are a poor scientist”). So capitalism has its noble defenders even here.

And then we have Luna. Ah, Loony Luna. Apart from her idiosyncratic fashion sense, even for a witch, Luna expresses two traits thus far unique - she is an adherent to radical honesty, and “apparently she’ll only believe in things as long as there’s no proof at all.” The notion of faith-based belief being associated with such an odd personality may have no greater significance (and religion is never explicitly mentioned within a wizarding context), but it is worth commenting how many positive attributes Luna seems to possess. She is a member of Ravenclaw house (which prompts her to tell Ron that her housemate Padma Patil, his date to the Yule Ball, “didn’t enjoy it very much”) so she must be clever. She reassures Harry of his sanity (to little gain, of course). She is active within the DA, supportive of both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw in Quidditch, protective of her father vis-a-vis The Quibbler, reverent towards her mother’s memory, and insistent on following Harry to the Ministry of Magic. She keeps a level head in trying moments, like Umbridge’s office, selecting thestrals, and in fighting the Death Eaters. Even when posting notices asking for the return of her possessions she seems completely non-judgmental. If the worst you can say of Luna is that her eyes pop a bit and she has a propensity for insisting on the as-yet-unverified existence of creatures with names worthy of Roald Dahl (Crumple-Horned Skorkacks?), she remains practically a saint.

Cho Chang serves primarily as the examplar for the everpresent conundrum of how to relate to the opposite sex. Early on, Harry finds delight in most anything Cho does in his presence. The first recruiting for the DA takes on added significance when Hermione asks, “What about Cho and you?…she just couldn’t keep her eyes off you, could she?” and Harry realizes he “had never before appreciated just how beautiful the village of Hogsmeade was.” We learn how the sensation of budding attraction is curiously like falling - “Cho laughing and felt the familiar swooping sensation in his stomach, as though he had missed a step going downstairs” - or outright paralysis - “He could not think. A tingling sensation was spreading throughout him, paralyzing his arms, legs, and brain.” Later, despite the risk of nargles, they kiss under mistletoe and Harry seems more confused than ever. If snogging is a good thing, why was she crying? Hermione succinctly enumerates the vast chasm between the emotional landscape of Boys and Girls - “Don’t you understand how Cho’s feeling at the moment?” she asks before proceeding to give an exhaustive summary of the many layers battling in Cho’s psyche. Likewise she intuits all of the behavioral ciphers and proper responses Harry ought to have employed in Madam Puddifoot’s to forestall Cho’s next ‘human hosepipe’ moment. It’s bewildering enough for Harry and Ron to both wish there were some universal decoder, or proper education for how to navigate this secret world: “That’s what they should teach us here, Harry thought…how girls’ brains work…it’d be more useful than Divination anyway” / “You should write a book, ” Ron told Hermione…”translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them.” Yet by year’s end, Harry finds he can see Cho without losing composure and hear of her latest pairing without the familiar pangs of jealousy. With the first crush behind him, can he move on to deeper relationships?

Ginny takes on greater significance throughout book 5. She names Dumbledore’s Army, brings in recruits through then-boyfriend Michael Corner, and becomes Seeker in Harry’s place to good effect. We learn she has been secretly learning to fly since the age of 6, and has been inspired by Fred and George to think that anything is possible if you have the nerve. She convinces Harry he is not possessed and reminds him of her own trial with Voldemort (a distinction they alone share). By the time he prepares to return to Hogwarts after the Christmas holiday, she is portrayed more as a peer to Ron and Hermione rather than just a little sister (Fred and George are frequently absent, for example). She asks him forthrightly when things are going badly, insists on helping him contact Sirius, deploys her formidable Bat-Bogey Hex in escaping Umbridge’s office, and then follows to the Ministry of Magic. This is all a far cry from the starstruck Ginny of book 1 and the giggling/mortified Ginny of book 2/3, and she appears even more comfortable around Harry than we saw in book 4. By book’s end, they are slyly sharing jokes at Luna’s dottiness, and she sit ins their compartment along with their other new equal, Neville. And two flattering descriptions reminded me of an essay I found that first gave me hope that Ginny had a future as more than just another Weasley backdrop: first during Christmas - “Ginny was curled like a cat on her chair, but her eyes were open; Harry could see them reflecting the firelight” and then later coming in from Quidditch “looking very windswept.” More grist for the mill of H/G ’shippers (myself among them).

Apart from individuals, we also have several ruminations on the nature of family. For one, we learn about the “noble and most ancient house of Black” with its motto, Toujours pur (”always pure”). Sirius is evidently kin to Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy, even the Weasleys, for “if you’re only going to let your sons and daughters marry purebloods your choice is very limited.” This sums up the threat facing any blood-pure movement, where extensive intermarriage without outside parties to add to the genetic pool creates both recessive traits (cf. historical royalty) as well as shrinking opportunities. An extreme example of this is the end result of the Grail’s sacred bloodline from Preacher. Oh, and we also learn of a brother named Regulus who joined up with Voldemort and got killed for his pains after trying to back out. Good to know.

The question of family loyalty is raised several times. In Percy’s prideful ‘advice’ to Ron on hearing of his prefecthood, he insists, “Your loyalty, Ron, should be not to him, but to the school and the Ministry…and I do hope, Ron, that you will not allow family ties to blind you to the misguided nature of our parents’ beliefs and actions either.” Hagrid ponders his own ties, gloomily intoning “Whatever yeh say, blood’s important…” and takes heavy punishment in trying to care for Grawp, his half-brother. Even though Harry’s worship of his father is shaken, Harry and the twins receive their lifelong ban from Quidditch for reacting to Draco’s taunts about their mothers, while Harry’s own rejoinder to Seamus is taken as an attack on his mother. Even Draco shows righteous concern for his father after the capture of the Death Eaters, Lucius included, at the Ministry. Yet while family loyalty is almost universally presented as a virtue, Percy’s note does raise a valid concern about loyalties overwhelming better judgment. Family ties or tribal loyalties (including Percy’s own self-serving devotion to the Ministry) are like an active 4th circuit in Timothy Leary’s 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness, just as Harry’s persistent anger could represent the 2nd. In these terms, adherence to the family/tribe crowds out all other concerns, either for self-interest or greater social welfare. Hagrid’s devotions to Grawp are at the expense of his own health, succor with the centaurs, and the relative safety of his friends. The tribal model of sports fan shows itself in Ron’s telling off Cho for supporting the Tornadoes, insinuating that she might not be a ‘real’ fan. Likewise Harry puts his ‘family’ before logical conclusions he then refuses to accept, such as defending Ron’s performance as Keeper and Hagrid’s aptitude for teaching Care of Magical Creatures in spite of the prevailing evidence.

Finally, for the looming question of Snape’s ultimate dispensation, two tidbits. First - “Poisonous toadstools don’t change their spots,” said Ron sagely. Second - Harry notices that he calls Voldemort the “Dark Lord” consistently during Occlumency lessons, but gets no reply as to why.

(And there we will have to pause for the moment, so I can get some sleep. More to follow on HP5, starting with themes such as the Ministry’s interference with the rule of law, and a large collection of clues pertaining to events to come.)