Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (novel): Difference between revisions
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (novel) (view source)
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{{work|
{{Infobox book
| title = Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets
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| author = J. K. Rowling
| central theme =
| elevator pitch = A legendary monster terrorises the school and can only be controlled by a descendant of Salazar Slytherin. After Harry is found to share a rare ability with the late Slytherin, he is suspected of having released the monster.
| genre = Fantasy
| franchise = Harry Potter
| preceded by =
| followed by =
| publication date = July 2, 1998
| wiki URL = https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
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The main plot involves the Chamber of Secrets, a hidden chamber within Hogwarts built by Salazar Slytherin. A big fan of [[Fantastic Racism]], Slytherin built the Chamber to house a monster which can only be controlled by his heir and which is intended to attack all those [[Witch Species|Muggle-borns]] "unworthy to study magic". Now, someone has opened the Chamber, implying the Heir of Slytherin has returned to Hogwarts, but who is it?
You may have noticed this storyline has rather little to do with the overall [[Story Arc]]. ''Chamber'' is often accused of essentially being devoted to a [[Wacky Wayside Tribe]] for this reason. In reality, the book is just an [[Innocuously Important Episode]], and introduces a major [[Chekhov's Gun]] among other bits of [[Foreshadowing]] for several later books, particularly ''[[
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{{tropelist}}
* [[All of the Other Reindeer]]: Harry is hated because his fellow students think he's attacking them.
* [[Are You Sure You Can Drive This Thing?]] "No, but we're far too anxious to consider another plan."
* [[Artistic License Animal Care]]: The kids feed a ''dog'' fudge. (Then again, he's a wizard's dog.)
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** Averted, in that we find out what he was actually doing - {{spoiler|making out with his girlfriend, who he hadn't told anyone about.}}
* [[Cerebus Syndrome]]: While not as tense and brooding as the later books, Chamber of Secrets presents a huge leap in violence from the first book. More importantly, though, it introduces elements that are flat-out horror and can be argued not to have been surpassed even in the later books. Harry hearing the Basilisk's macabre ramblings while the monster stalks the piping system and the sinister, hostile message in blood aren't even the only examples.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: The whole series [[Chekhov's Gun/Literature/Harry Potter|gets its own page.]]
* [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]]: Harry having to answer Lockhart's fanmail as detention.
* [[Cover Identity Anomaly]]: Harry and Ron use Polyjuice Potion to pretend to be Crabbe and Goyle, but their infiltration of Slytherin House is stymied by the fact that they don't know how to get in to Slytherin's chambers. They ask a passing student, but she's from Ravenclaw. Fortunately, Crabbe and Goyle are so dim that they're not really acting out of character.
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*** And Dobby had no trouble intercepting Ron's and Hermione's owls to Harry; he could have intercepted Hedwig too.
* [[Disappointed in You]]: Dumbledore and McGonagall to Harry after he flies the car to Hogwarts.
* [[Disney Death]]: Ginny Weasley gets one
* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: See what this sounds like: {{spoiler|An eleven-year-old girl exchanges messages with a seemingly sympathetic older stranger she has never met in real life. It's so easy! She enters her thoughts and he immediately transmits back. She confides in him, but he's really using her and preying on her insecurities. He makes her do horrible things for him which she doesn't want to do, but she still doesn't tell anyone. Finally, he meets her in person and ''nearly kills her''. [[The Hero|Harry]] has to [[Rescue Romance|save Ginny]] by going into a '''chamber of secrets''' and fighting a '''giant snake''' that belongs to a very weird, much older guy that's been corrupting Ginny for the whole book. With a legendary sword that holds strange powers.
* [[Do Wrong Right]]: Arthur Weasley is far more pleased than his wife when his sons steal his flying car and use it to pick up Harry.
* [[Enemy Within]]/[[The Killer in Me]]: {{spoiler|Poor Ginny.}}
* [[Eureka Moment]]: Harry deduces that {{spoiler|Lucius Malfoy was the one who set the whole plot in motion when he saw Malfoy arrive with Dobby, the elf that warned Harry in the first place.}}
** Hermione has one when she realises what the monster of Slytherin is, but doesn't get to tell anyone else. Harry gets the moment secondhand when he reads her note later.
* [[Eye Scream]]: {{spoiler|Fawkes vs. the Basilisk}}, to give Harry a fighting chance against the latter. He can’t do anything about the toxic venom though.
** Also a book the Ministry had confiscated, mentioned in Ron's response to Harry asking him how a book could possibly be dangerous: it burned out its reader's eyes.
* [[Face Palm]]: Flitwick does one with both hands after Lockhart suggests students visit him for advice on Entrancing Enchantments.
* [[Faux Symbolism]]: According to [[The Other Wiki]], several Christians -- those who don't think that these books teach Satanism -- compare the climax to John Bunyan's ''[[The Pilgrim's Progress|The Pilgrims Progress]]'', a pinnacle of Christian literature.
** In his relationship with {{spoiler|Ginny}}, it's easy to see Tom Riddle as a kind of metaphorical Internet predator. [[J. K. Rowling]] herself acknowledged in an interview on the DVD of [[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)|the movie]] that the diary is really a lot like an Internet chat room, but said she hadn't been in one at the time she wrote it so it's just a coincidence.
*** Rowling has also said her inspiration was the fact that she found diaries to be really scary, as a person's deepest darkest secrets are hidden in them. So rather than the focus of the danger being on talking to strangers, it's more on playing with something you don't understand.
* [[Feet of Clay]]: Gilderoy Lockhart.
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** [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|Follow the spiders? Why can't we follow the butterflies?]]
* [[Foreshadowing]]: {{spoiler|"Potter, you've got yourself a girlfriend!"}} More seriously, {{spoiler|when Ginny decides to confess, who does she go to? One of her older brothers? One of the teachers? No. She goes to Harry.}}
** In chapter 14 when second-years sign up for electives to take next year, it mentions Hermione signed up for every class offered. This becomes a key plot point [[Harry Potter and
** "I would advise you not to shout at the [[Harry Potter and
** "Sir, why don't you apply for the Headmaster's job?" {{spoiler|Malfoy to Snape}}.
** The fact that the first half of the book is spent with the Trio trying to figure out whether or not Malfoy's up to something. Four years later, it's Harry by himself, [[Cassandra Truth|because no one believes him.]] [[Wham! Episode|He was right this time.]]
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* [[Informed Ability]]: In-universe: Lockhart completely fails to live up to any of his hype, as Harry and Ron are quick to point out...
* [[Inept Mage]]: Gilderoy Lockhart.
* [[Innocuously Important Episode]]: Some readers found the novel to be heavy in the padding department, particularly the [[Wacky Wayside Tribe]] aspect. But the novel is quietly setting up ''[[Harry Potter and
* [[Involuntary Group Split]]: Gilderoy Lockhart's wayward spell sets off an earthquake that separates Ron from Harry, so Harry has to go alone into the Chamber.
* [[Irony]]: In retrospect, Ron trying to comfort Ginny after the attack on Mrs. Norris by telling her that "they'll catch the maniac who did it and have him out of here in no time." Assuming Ginny had begun to suspect herself at that point, this might also count as [[Oblivious Guilt Slinging]]. After all, at the end of the book, she ''was'' [[Fridge Brilliance|convinced that she was going to be expelled]]. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Way to go, Ron.]]
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* [[Motive Misidentification]]: {{spoiler|While Tom certainly didn't ''mind'' using the Basilisk on Muggle-borns, he was less interested in "purging the school" and more in trying to bait Harry.}}
* [[Narm]]: Invoked with [[Word of God|the twins']] valentine to Harry. Fred and George continually tease him with it and Peeves [[Stupid Statement Dance Mix|adds a dance routine]].
* [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity]]: Lockhart is very happy when a fight breaks out at a book signing for his latest book.
* [[Not Me This Time]]: Harry and Ron use Polyjuice potion to imitate Crabbe and Goyle, Draco Malfoy's two mooks, in the hopes of getting Draco to admit that he's the heir of Slytherin, and thus the cause of all the shenanigans happening at Hogwarts that year. Instead, they hear Draco ranting about how thrilled he is that it's happening and how he'd love to congratulate whoever is ''actually'' behind it.
* [[Orifice Evacuation]]: Slug-puking spell.
* [[Parody Magic Spell]]: Harry threatens Dudley with the words "Hocus pocus! Squiggly wiggly!"
* [[Pensieve Flashback]]: Although the actual Pensieve wasn't introduced until ''[[Harry Potter and
* [[Politically-Incorrect Villain]]: It's in this book that Malfoy introduces the anti-Muggle-born slur "mudblood".
* [[Post-Mortem Comeback]]: The entire basis of the plot; Voldemort hid pieces of his memories in a book, who took the form of Tom Riddle, but it's inverted - Voldemort himself was already alive to begin with... somewhat.
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* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Harry gives one to {{spoiler|the memory of Riddle, gloating over how his Muggle-born mother reduced Voldemort to almost nothing.}}
* [[Red Herring]]: Ginny, Percy, Hagrid and Malfoy -- and Harry -- are all set up as possible Heirs of Slytherin, with Malfoy being the choice that's so obvious it's stupid, and Ginny, Percy and Hagrid all having Really Big Secrets that make them act suspicious.
** Naturally, Malfoy is the one our heroes suspect and they spend half the book finding out that it isn't him. For example, Harry and Ron realize that the person who was in possession of Tom Riddle's Diary was a Gryffindor, meaning that it couldn't have been Malfoy.
**Ginny turns out to have opened the Chamber of Secrets, but she wasn’t the heir. It was Tom Riddle who was possessing her this whole time.
* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: Basilisk. Also the decoration of the Chamber of Secrets. Salazar must have been swapping design tips with [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Jafar]].
* [[Shout-Out]]: Fawkes is a fiery phoenix that dies in an explosion. Guy Fawkes, a real life person, tried to explode Parliament with gunpowder.
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* [[Ted Baxter]]: Gilderoy Lockhart.
* [[Thoroughly Mistaken Identity]]: Professor Binns is always calling students by the names of students of long ago.
* [[Monster of the Week|Villain of the Week]]: Subverted. Up until the last couple of chapters it looks like the series will be heading this way, with the [[Big Bad]] Voldemort introduced in the [[Harry Potter and
* [[Villain with Good Publicity]]: Lucius Malfoy, who is a distinguished Ministry official despite being a former Death Eater.
** He manages this by attributing his past affiliation with the [[Big Bad]] to [[Mind Rape|the Imperius Curse.]]
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* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: {{spoiler|Lucius Malfoy's}} plan has two possible outcomes: either {{spoiler|Ginny}} is caught, thus {{spoiler|disgracing Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act}}, or the culprit is not apprehended, and either kills every Muggle-born in the school or drives them all away. The former seems to be his preferred option, interestingly enough, but either would presumably satisfy him. {{spoiler|Of course, his plan backfired worse than he could have possibly imagined, which we learn in ''Deathly Hallows''.}}
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