I actually interpreted it the way you did when I saw the film. I imagined Bellatrix biting the apple and Fenrir snapping the bird's neck. But now that I've read through all these comments and thought on it, I don't think that was the film makers' intent. I think they intended to represent splinching and death as signs of the cabinet's failure.
That said, I think they could have made it much clearer. The symbolism of apples and white birds lends itself so well to our interpretation. They could have had a different (mundane) item come back in pieces or a brown or grey bird come back dead.
I do think that book!Draco was very upset each time he failed and thrilled (deliriously so) when he succeeded. I think his situation, in his mind, was that he had a piece of furniture to fix and failing to fix it would lead to death for his family. I don't think he ever stopped to think about what the Death Eaters would really do with the fixed cabinet. And there was little point in him wasting thought on it when he felt that his only choices were to fix the cabinet or condemn his family to certain death.
That night, when he actually sees the results of his actions and fully realises that he is expected to murder Dumbledore, is when I think he has his turning point. He was a boy of 16, and I think that moment in the Astronomy Tower is when he suddenly grows up and understands what war really means.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-10-13 01:43 am (UTC)That said, I think they could have made it much clearer. The symbolism of apples and white birds lends itself so well to our interpretation. They could have had a different (mundane) item come back in pieces or a brown or grey bird come back dead.
I do think that book!Draco was very upset each time he failed and thrilled (deliriously so) when he succeeded. I think his situation, in his mind, was that he had a piece of furniture to fix and failing to fix it would lead to death for his family. I don't think he ever stopped to think about what the Death Eaters would really do with the fixed cabinet. And there was little point in him wasting thought on it when he felt that his only choices were to fix the cabinet or condemn his family to certain death.
That night, when he actually sees the results of his actions and fully realises that he is expected to murder Dumbledore, is when I think he has his turning point. He was a boy of 16, and I think that moment in the Astronomy Tower is when he suddenly grows up and understands what war really means.