Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (novel)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Angst? What Angst?: Ginny despite Tom Riddle's Mind Rape, is described as perfectly happy soon after being rescued from the Chamber of Secrets (or at least, in Harry's POV). This is either because Ginny is a Type A Stepford Smiler, or Harry really is oblivious to her suffering. Or the fact that being rescued by Harry is what she wants most. Also see Any Torment You Can Walk Away From.
    • On second thought, only true in the film. In the book, Ginny is crying from the climax to the middle of the next chapter. Harry doesn't appear to be oblivious, he leads her to adults who can comfort her better than he can.
      • Well, when Ginny's awoken in the film, she sounds like she could be in shock. She's not crying or stuttering like in the book, but it was probably best to drop that. On a simple practical level, there are very few child actresses who could pull off that level of emotional intensity, especially without it ending up as Narm. (Of course, there's still the fact that she looks all cheerful in the ending feast scene, which presumably occurs later the same day.)
    • Also, Harry is rather oblivious to her - by his fifth year, he'd forgotten (albeit briefly) about the fact that she was possessed at all, while she indicates quite clearly that she was far from unaffected.
      • It's not so much that he forgot, more that in his Wangst he was all "They all think I'm a monster. No one can understand the pain I'm going through."
  • Complete Monster: Tom Riddle, aka young Lord Voldemort, qualifies big time. He’s the one who wants to kill every Muggle-born in Hogwarts, after all.
  • Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: There are a few people that feel this way when the basilisk shows up, due to how scary she is. But on the lighter side, Dobby is set free.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Harry Potter's (and presumably Ginny Weasley's) interaction with Tom Riddle's Diary is extremely similar to that of an online chat room, as well as the part about the person being conversed with being revealed to not be trustworthy at all to begin with, a similarity made even more apparent apparent in the film.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: "Training for the ballet, Potter?"
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks: Sadly film critics other than Roger Ebert talk down to this film for taking a slow paced,Adaptation Distillation approach like the first film. After the 3rd came out and every movie after that one tried apeping it,only purists mention this one. The book is also given very similar treatment.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Tom. Marvolo. Riddle.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Lucius Malfoy crosses it when he plants Tom Riddle's diary on Ginny and again in the film when he attempts to use Avada Kedavra on Harry.
    • Then there's Lockhart's attempt to destroy Harry's mind--and Harry's obviously the only person who can stop the monster and save Ginny--simply because He Knows Too Much.
  • Nightmare Fuel: J. K. Rowling received several angry letters from readers who weren't able to finish the novel because they were too scared to go on reading.
    • The serpent's voice is quite disturbing in the audiobooks.
    • The more you think about it, the more disturbing the things Riddle does to Ginny becomes.
      • Especially when he mocks her genuine and understandable fears to Harry.
    • The spiders in the movie. Just the fucking spiders.
  • Woolseyism: Voldemort's Significant Anagram name, revealed in this book, in the original was Tom Marvolo Riddle, an anagram of "I am Lord Voldemort." Translations changed various parts of his name; for example, in the German version, his name was Tom Vorlost Riddle, which becomes "...ist Lord Voldemort" (is Lord Voldemort). Something is gained in the German version particular here, as his middle name sounds an awful lot like Verlust, meaning "loss," which applies to Voldemort in a variety of ways.
    • Other languages aren't quite so lucky. Just ask Tom Elvis Jedusor, of the French translation.
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