| 1 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1551063417042330300 |
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| 4 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_hp2.png]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:350:''Enemies of the Heir, beware…'']] |
| 6 | ->''"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."'' |
| 7 | -->-- '''Albus Dumbledore''' |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'' is the second book in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series, published on July 2, 1998. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | The main plot involves the Chamber of Secrets, a hidden chamber within Hogwarts built by Salazar Slytherin. A big fan of FantasticRacism, Slytherin built the Chamber to house a monster which can only be controlled by his heir and which is intended to attack all those, mainly Muggle-borns, whom he considered "unworthy to study magic". Now, someone has opened the Chamber, implying the Heir of Slytherin has returned to Hogwarts, but who is it? |
| 12 | |
| 13 | You may have noticed this storyline has rather little to do with the overall StoryArc. While the books were still being written, ''Chamber'' was accused of essentially being devoted to a WackyWaysideTribe for this reason. In reality, the book is actually an InnocuouslyImportantEpisode, and introduces a major ChekhovsGun among other bits of {{Foreshadowing}} for several later books, particularly ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince''. Indeed, as Creator/JKRowling was still a freshly-starting-out author, her editors [[ExecutiveMeddling made her remove some parts she wanted to leave in]], and so she had to cram them into book six. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Followed by Harry's third year at Hogwarts, in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban''. [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets It was adapted into a film released in 2002.]] |
| 16 | |
| 17 | ---- |
| 18 | !!Tropes exclusive to this book or at least especially prominent in it: |
| 19 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 20 | |
| 21 | [[folder:#–C]] |
| 22 | * TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: Nick's 500th Deathday cake says he died in 1492. Hence, the book must be set in 1992 even though it was published in '98.[[note]]The Deathday cake was the only piece of evidence in the first six books that gave a definitive answer to when exactly the books took place, leading the system of dating derived from it to be labelled the "Deathday Cake Dating" by fandom prior to the publication of Book Seven, which provided another piece of evidence agreeing with the Deathday cake, namely that Voldemort killed Harry's parents in 1981.[[/note]] |
| 23 | * AbortedArc: Ron learns that the Malfoys have a secret room in their mansion where they keep most of their illegal dark artifacts. He writes to his father and informs him, but we never hear if anything comes from it. Nothing in Draco's or Lucius' later behavior suggests that he got in trouble for this, nor is it mentioned again. Knowing Lucius, he probably bribed, blackmailed, or threatened his way out of legal action, assuming the secret room was discovered in the first place. |
| 24 | * AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Hogwarts has pipes wide enough for a huge snake to move around in. {{Invoked|Trope}}, as the architect who introduced said huge snake to the castle specifically designed them to be that big. |
| 25 | * AccidentalMisnaming: Professor Binns is always calling students by the wrong name. For example, in this instalment he calls Hermione "Miss Grant," Parvati Patil "Miss Pennyfeather," and Seamus Finnigan "O'Flaherty." |
| 26 | * ActuallyPrettyFunny: Harry enjoys Fred and George's mockery about the whole "Heir of Slytherin" business because it assures him that they don't actually believe any of it, feeling it's ridiculous and ''should'' be mocked. It helps that both Ernie Macmillan (the most vocal accuser) and Malfoy show obvious irritation towards them whenever the twins do it in front of them. |
| 27 | * AnAesop: Your choices, not your abilities, determine who you truly are. |
| 28 | * TheAllegedExpert: Gilderoy Lockhart wrote a whole series of books chronicling his defeat of various magical monsters. His only real skill turns out to be [[FakeUltimateHero stealing the credit]] from the wizards and witches who ''really'' defeated those monsters. |
| 29 | * AllForNothing: Subverted. While it turns out that Malfoy isn't the Heir of Slytherin and doesn't even know who it is, the Trio's efforts with the Polyjuice Potion weren't entirely fruitless as Malfoy had mentioned to Ron and Harry (as Crabbe and Goyle) that his family has a secret vault under their drawing room that they hide all their illegal Dark artifacts inside. An elated Ron decides to mention this to his father to ensure the Ministry confiscates them. Not to mention that Malfoy has ''some'' information: his father said that the last time the Chamber was opened was fifty years ago. It caused a scandal because a student actually died. That doesn't give them much to go on, but Hermione makes the connection when the boys show her Tom Riddle's diary from around the same time, suggesting it may have a clue. |
| 30 | * AlliterativeTitle: Most of Lockhart's books have them. Assigned to Hogwarts' students this year are ''Break with a Banshee'', ''Gadding with Ghouls'', ''Holidays with Hags'', ''Travels with Trolls'', ''Voyages with Vampires'', ''Wanderings with Werewolves'', and ''Year with the Yeti''. He also wrote the [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie "autobiography"]] ''Magical Me''. |
| 31 | * AllMythsAreTrue: Professor Binns insists the Chamber of Secrets is a tall tale. You can probably guess from the book's title that he's wrong. |
| 32 | * AloneWithThePsycho: Harry sees an unconscious Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets and tries to rouse her. He looks over for a moment and sees Tom Riddle, looking semi-solid. Harry stands and says they need to run, ''now'', before the Basilisk comes. Tom reassures him that the Basilisk won't come until it is called. Slowly, [[spoiler:it dawns on Harry that Tom is [[DissonantSerenity inappropriately calm considering the circumstances]]; sure enough, Tom reveals that ''he'' is the Heir of Slytherin. Also known as Lord Voldemort. Oh, and he has Harry's wand]]. |
| 33 | * AlternateIdentityAmnesia: [[spoiler:Happens to Ginny when Tom Riddle takes over.]] |
| 34 | * AngerBornOfWorry: Mrs. Weasley's reaction to her children and Harry arriving at the Burrow is "Beds empty! No note! Car gone--could have crashed--out of my mind with worry--did you care?" (She then makes a point of telling Harry that it's not ''his'' fault.) |
| 35 | * AntiInterferenceLockUp: |
| 36 | ** When the Dursleys find out that Harry is not allowed to use magic outside school, they keep him locked in his room, and have bars fitted to the window. |
| 37 | ** When Harry and Ron use Polyjuice Potion to impersonate Crabbe and Goyle, they leave cakes filled with sleeping draught for Crabbe and Goyle to eat, and then lock them in a cupboard, to make sure they do not suddenly appear. |
| 38 | * ArcVillain: The "Heir of Slytherin" ([[spoiler:Tom Marvolo "Lord Voldemort" Riddle's living memory]]). |
| 39 | * AreYouSureYouCanDriveThisThing: No, Ron and Harry can't really manage Mr. Weasley's flying car, but they're far too anxious to consider another plan. |
| 40 | * ArtisticLicenceBiology: Madame Pomfrey chases Harry's teammates from his bed by saying he has thirty-three bones to regrow in his arm. A human arm, from fingers to shoulder girdle, contains only thirty-''two'' bones (fourteen phalanges, five metacarpals, eight carpals, one radius, one ulna, one humerus, one scapula and one clavicle). JKR may have missed the fact that the thumb contains only two phalanges.[[note]]Or maybe she didn't; Harry is not quite physically mature yet, and humans are born with smaller bones which fuse together during the growing process.[[/note]] |
| 41 | * ArtisticLicenceGeography: A newspaper that Snape shows Harry and Ron reporting the sighting of their flying car by {{Muggles}} mentions them being spotted flying over [[UsefulNotes/EastAnglia Norfolk]]. The boys are ostensibly trying to follow the Hogwarts Express train, and a direct route from King's Cross in UsefulNotes/{{London}} to Hogwarts in the UsefulNotes/{{Scot|land}}tish Highlands (north-north-west of London) would not pass through Norfolk (north-east). |
| 42 | * ArtisticLicenseHistory: The kids are shown going to classes on Valentine's Day, but Valentine's Day 1993 was a Sunday. |
| 43 | * AttractivenessDiscrimination: After Gilderoy Lockhart accidentally lets slip to Harry and Ron that [[spoiler:his entire resume as a HunterOfMonsters was in fact done by several other people whose memories he erased]], he claims in his defence that his books wouldn't have sold otherwise because [[spoiler:the actual monster-hunters]] were all much less handsome than he. |
| 44 | * AscendedExtra: Ginny Weasley, who had two short scenes {{squee}}ing over Harry in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'', starts at Hogwarts this year and is crucial to the plot. |
| 45 | * BackwardsFiringGun: Backwards-Firing Wand. Ron breaks his wand early in the book and it becomes prone to malfunctioning for the rest of the year. He ends up vomiting slugs thanks to a curse he meant for Malfoy coming out the wrong end. |
| 46 | * BasiliskAndCockatrice: The Basilisk is a snake the size of several buses that uses the school plumbing system to get around. It attacks several times, but the instant-death gaze apparently needs to be direct: the victims escape death by seeing it through a ghost (who was already dead), camera, mirror, or reflected in a puddle. They get completely paralysed instead. |
| 47 | * BathroomStallOfOverheardInsults: Moaning Myrtle haunts the third-floor girls’ lavatory because [[spoiler:she was killed in one of the stalls after overhearing Tom Riddle opening the Chamber of Secrets.]] |
| 48 | * BatScare: Non-flying example: Huge crawling masses of spiders flee from Hogwarts. They do no harm, but badly frighten Ron, an arachnophobe. |
| 49 | * BeastInTheMaze: The Basilisk, which resides in the Chamber of Secrets beneath the castle. |
| 50 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: For a good portion of the book, many of Harry's classmates think he is the Heir of Slytherin, to his great chagrin. Eventually they stop, but only after [[spoiler:Hermione gets petrified, and everyone realizes Harry would never attack one of his best friends.]] |
| 51 | * BecomingTheBoast: Subverted. Lockhart seems like a KnowNothingKnowItAll with a grossly inflated ego. In fact, he's exactly that, ''plus'' [[spoiler:amoral enough to claim credit for other people's accomplishments and leave a child to die. When the other teachers suggest he go after the Basilisk, it's clear they're doing it to watch him squirm. When Harry and Ron '''force''' him to accompany them, since he's the closest thing they've got to a competent adult, he betrays them at the first opportunity.]] |
| 52 | * BigBad: [[spoiler:The memory of Tom Riddle.]] |
| 53 | * BigBrotherInstinct: Ron is more than motivated to save his little sister from the Chamber of Secrets in the climax. |
| 54 | * BiggerOnTheInside: The Ford Anglia. The passenger seat is the size of a park bench. |
| 55 | * BizarreBelching: After his wand backfires on him during a confrontation with Malfoy, Ron is left repeatedly burping loudly and puking up slugs until the curse wears off. |
| 56 | * BlankBook: Riddle's diary. At first. |
| 57 | * BlastingItOutOfTheirHands: The Disarming Charm, "''Expelliarmus''", which Harry learns in this book. |
| 58 | * BlownAcrossTheRoom: [[FakeUltimateHero Lockhart]] and Snape have a duel. Cue OneHitKO. |
| 59 | * BodyHorror: Lockhart removes all the bones in Harry's broken right arm (it's mentioned that he has to eat his porridge left-handed in the next chapter). As a result, the bones have to be regrown overnight. At one point, Harry wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling of large splinters in his arm. |
| 60 | * BookSnap: Hermione slams the book ''Moste Potente Potions'' shut when Harry and Ron express doubts on their highly daring act of making Polyjuice Potion. |
| 61 | * BreakTheHaughty: [[spoiler:Lucius avoids prison time but suffers several blows to his ego. A twelve-year-old both stops his plan and tricks him into freeing Dobby, who takes the first opportunity to pay Lucius back for years of abuse by ''effortlessly'' blasting him down a flight of stairs.]] And Lucius loses his position on Hogwarts' board of governors, which he could have avoided had he not threatened the other governors' families. |
| 62 | * BribingYourWayToVictory: Lucius Malfoy attempts this when he buys a Nimbus 2001 broomstick, the new fastest for each member of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and gets Draco made Seeker to boot. Subverted in their match against Gryffindor, when Harry catches the GoldenSnitch and wins the game 150–60. |
| 63 | * BrickJoke: |
| 64 | ** When Harry and Ron are flying the car to Hogwarts, Harry can't help but imagine Fred and George getting jealous upon seeing the two arrive at the castle in such fashion. Sure enough, once they make it to the common room, Fred and George angrily ask them why they couldn't come in the car as well. |
| 65 | ** Early in the school year, as Malfoy is mocking Harry over signed photographs, Ron tells him, "Eat slugs." In their next confrontation, at Quidditch practice, he casts a backfiring curse which makes himself ''vomit'' slugs. |
| 66 | * BringingBackProof: Professor Lockhart finds a shed piece of skin from the Basilisk and announces that he's going to take part of it back to the school to corroborate his story about heroically slaying the beast -- after [[LaserGuidedAmnesia wiping the memories of the witnesses]], of course. |
| 67 | * BuffySpeak: While he and Harry debate whether to fly the car to Hogwarts, Ron points out that underage wizards are allowed to use magic in special circumstances according to "section seventeen, or something, of the Restriction of Thingy." |
| 68 | * BugsHeraldEvil: When looking for clues as to who attacked Mrs. Norris, one of the first things the Trio observe is that spiders are fleeing the scene en masse. This is later used to fuel speculation that an [[spoiler:Acromantula named Aragog]] is Slytherin's Monster, but it's [[spoiler:because the spiders can see all around and don't have eyelids, so they have no means of protecting themselves from the Basilisk's glare]]. |
| 69 | * ButtDialingMordor: A variant of this occurs with [[spoiler:Ginny and the magic diary of Tom Riddle that Lucius Malfoy slips into her bag]]. [[spoiler:She writes into the diary many things that happened in the school, allowing Riddle to get information about Harry Potter, and he slowly drains her soul to give himself a more corporeal form.]] |
| 70 | * CallingOutForNotCalling: |
| 71 | ** Fred, George, and Ron fly the car from their home to the Dursleys, pick Harry up, and bring him back. Molly is very upset with her own boys for not having written a note (to be fair, she was upset that they went at all), but since Harry wasn't involved in planning it, she doesn't blame him. |
| 72 | ** After flying the car into the Whomping Willow, [=McGonagall=] wonders why Harry didn't just send Hedwig with a note that they had missed the train instead of trying to fly the car to school. Harry admits he didn't think of it at the time. |
| 73 | * CallingParentsByTheirName: When the Acromantula colony bring Harry and Ron to Aragog, one of the spiders calls out to Aragog while addressing him by name, even though they are all his children. |
| 74 | * CallingTheYoungManOut: Mrs. Weasley does this twice over her kids using the flying car without permission. While the first instance is downplayed because kids left at night to save Harry from his cruel aunt and uncle, this makes the second instance all the more justified: Harry and Ron left in broad daylight, were spotted by a handful of muggles, nearly got killed by the Whomping Willow, broke Ron's wand, caused the car to get lost in the Forbidden Forest, and got Ron's father in trouble at work. And it all could have been avoided if Harry had just sent an owl ahead or if they had waited to see if the Weasleys could get off of Platform 9¾. Mrs. Weasley sends a Howler to Ron over this second instance, so that everyone in the Great Hall can hear it. |
| 75 | * CameraFiend: Colin Creevey. [[spoiler:His camera even saves him from being killed by the Basilisk, as he sees it through the reflection in his camera lens, meaning he only gets Petrified.]] |
| 76 | * CaughtWithYourPantsDown: Implied when Percy mentions that Ginny caught him doing something and it embarrassed him, but subverted when we find out what he was actually doing: making out with his girlfriend, Penelope Clearwater, about whom he hadn't told anyone. |
| 77 | * CerebusSyndrome: The first book presented the wizarding world almost entirely as a place of wonder and whimsy. While the threat of Voldemort loomed large over the heroes, he was presented mostly as a bad apple in an otherwise magical place. With this book, however, the honeymoon is over, and the series begins to dig deeper into the problems of the magical world as a whole, namely the undercurrent of prejudice and FantasticRacism that goes back centuries, and of which Voldemort is only the most recent manifestation. |
| 78 | * ChekhovsGun: The whole series [[ChekhovsGun/HarryPotter has its own page.]] |
| 79 | * ChekhovsGunman: |
| 80 | ** Harry, Ron and Hermione interact with [[spoiler:Moaning Myrtle]] throughout the book, and only near the end do the former two realize that [[spoiler:she's the girl the Heir of Slytherin killed fifty years before]]. |
| 81 | ** The book offhandedly checks in with Ginny Weasley periodically before she disappears near the end and then becomes pivotal to the climax. |
| 82 | * ChekhovsSkill: Harry's ability to communicate with snakes, which was treated as no more significant than any of the other underage magic that he did as a child before he knew about Hogwarts in the first book, becomes majorly significant here. |
| 83 | * ChoresWithoutPowers: When Harry and Ron get detention for crashing the Weasley family's car into the Whomping Willow, Harry has to help Lockhart answer his fan mail, while Ron has to polish the silver in the Hogwarts trophy room using elbow grease. Harry comments that he'd gladly switch, as he's had lots of practice cleaning while living with the Dursleys. |
| 84 | * ClownCar: Arthur Weasley enchanted his Ford Anglia to be BiggerOnTheInside. |
| 85 | * ComicallyIneptHealing: Lockhart attempts to heal Harry's broken arm with a spell, but accidentally removes all of the bones in his arm instead. |
| 86 | * ContrivedCoincidence: |
| 87 | ** All the victims of the Basilisk see it indirectly, except for the last two victims who knew what the monster was and were deliberately looking around corners with a mirror. According to Tom Riddle it was the same way when the Chamber was opened in the 1940s, [[spoiler:save Moaning Myrtle, that is]]. |
| 88 | ** Dobby's plan to seal the entrance to Platform 9¾ to keep Harry and Ron out and miss the train would have failed if (1) Harry and the Weasleys didn't arrive super-late, after all the other students had already gone through, and (2) Molly didn't pick that very year to go through the barrier before Harry and Ron. If either of those rather unlikely events didn't happen, some other witch or wizard would have been on the main station floor to help them through, or stop the train. |
| 89 | ** Ron only knows who Tom Riddle is because (1) he had to clean the trophy room as punishment for the flying car incident, (2) his wand was broken in said incident and resulted in the slug-vomiting spell he attempted on Malfoy backfiring on him, and (3) the spell caused him to keep vomiting slugs on Riddle's award while he was cleaning it. |
| 90 | * CoolAndUnusualPunishment: An unintentional case. As punishment for flying the car to school, Ron has to clean the trophy room without magic, while Harry has to help [[SmallNameBigEgo Lockhart]] answer his fan mail. Cue roughly four hours of Harry being bored senseless by Lockhart's "advice" on being a celebrity. |
| 91 | -->'''Harry:''' Oh, no -- can't I go and do the trophy room, too?\ |
| 92 | '''Professor [=McGonagall=]:''' [''With [[FascinatingEyebrow her eyebrows raised]]''] Certainly not. Professor Lockhart requested you particularly. |
| 93 | * CopycatMockery: Malfoy does a "cruel but accurate" impression of HeroWorshipper Colin Creevey, a Gryffindor first-year who won't stop taking pictures of Harry and doesn't realize how annoying he is. |
| 94 | * CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: |
| 95 | ** After the whole incident with the flying car, Professor [=McGonagall=] asks if it ever occurred to Harry and Ron to just ''[[StatingTheSimpleSolution send an owl to Hogwarts and let the school know they missed the train]]''. |
| 96 | ** [[spoiler:At the end of the book, Arthur Weasley chastises Ginny for not recognizing Riddle's diary as a suspicious object and showing it to her parents. Had she done so, the entire plot of this book wouldn't have happened.]] |
| 97 | * CoveringForTheNoise: The Dursleys have invited guests and ordered Harry to stay upstairs without revealing his existence. Naturally, this is the moment Dobby chooses to enter and make a lot of noise by hitting his head against the wall in self-punishment (ruining the punchline of Vernon's "Japanese golfer" joke). Vernon attempts to cover for this by claiming Dudley left his TV on (as far as he knows, Harry is deliberately making noise). |
| 98 | * CoverIdentityAnomaly: 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 hadn't planned far enough ahead to get into the Slytherin common room. 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. Even their best friend Draco only thinks that they're acting mildly slower and weirder than normal. |
| 99 | * CurbStompBattle: |
| 100 | ** Snape defeats Lockhart quickly and pathetically easily with a single disarming spell. |
| 101 | ** Dobby of all characters [[spoiler:sends Lucius Malfoy flying across the room when he pointed his wand at Harry. Though Lucius was focusing his attention on Harry, and likely didn't expect Dobby to do anything.]] |
| 102 | [[/folder]] |
| 103 | |
| 104 | [[folder:D–G]] |
| 105 | * TheDandy: Gilderoy Lockhart always wears colourful, immaculate robes and has his hair curled and styled and his teeth gleaming. |
| 106 | * DangerousDeviceDisposalDebacle: [[spoiler:Ginny attempts to stop the attacks on the school by flushing Tom Riddle's diary down the toilet. Unfortunately, the toilet backs up and Harry and Ron find it, bringing it back to the Gryffindor common room and right back into Ginny's hands.]] |
| 107 | * DarkerAndEdgier: While not as tense and brooding as the final 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 may not have been surpassed even in the final 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. |
| 108 | * DeadAnimalWarning: |
| 109 | ** The school caretaker's cat is hung up as a warning after the Chamber of Secrets is opened. As this is technically a children's book, it turns out that she's petrified but not dead, and she's revived later. |
| 110 | ** Later played straight when [[spoiler:Tom Riddle forces Ginny to strangle the two school roosters because the rooster's call can kill the Basilisk.]] |
| 111 | * DeaderThanDead: Discussed and ultimately defied when the Basilisk petrifies Sir Nicholas. It turns out the monster's gaze petrifies ghosts ''by default'' because they simply cannot die twice. |
| 112 | * DeadGuyJunior: Tom Marvolo Riddle, named for his father and his maternal grandfather. Or for both grandfathers, considering that "Tom" is usually short for "Thomas." It's possible that Marvolo was dead when Tom Marvolo Riddle was born. However, his father was still alive. |
| 113 | * DeadlyBook: Two cases: |
| 114 | ** Ron mentions a book that [[EyeScream burns the reader's eyes out]]. |
| 115 | ** Also, [[spoiler:Tom Riddle (Voldemort)'s]] diary, which [[spoiler:has been sapping Ginny's life and making her cause the attacks. It was able to do this because Ginny confided a lot of her secrets to the diary by writing them in it, making Riddle able to have [[MindControl influence]] over her.]] It's later revealed in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince the sixth book]] that the diary [[spoiler:is one of Voldemort's [[SoulJar Horcruxes]].]] |
| 116 | * DeadlyGaze: The Basilisk can kill people who meet its eyes. However, it doesn't kill anybody with it over the course of the novel, either because they didn't technically look it in the eye or because it was blinded. |
| 117 | * DespairEventHorizon: Played with. Harry and Ron are resigned to the worst after [[spoiler:Ginny is taken into the Chamber]]; they only decide to help Lockhart [[spoiler:look for her]] because they have nothing else to do (and don't want to do nothing). |
| 118 | * DickDastardlyStopsToCheat: In the Quidditch match, the Slytherins at a distinct advantage over Gryffindor due to their [[BribingYourWayToVictory new brooms]], as well as a rogue Bludger forcing the Gryffindor Beaters to protect Harry instead of watching out for the rest of the team. This enables Slytherin to take an early 60–0 lead without much trouble. But Draco, instead of immediately trying to find the Snitch and win the game, gets so caught up in taunting Harry that he doesn't even notice the Snitch hovering ''inches'' above his own ear -- but Harry does. This ends up costing Slytherin the game, and Flint tears a strip off of Draco for it. |
| 119 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: |
| 120 | ** Harry and Ron steal Mr. Weasley's FlyingCar to get to Hogwarts after they find themselves barred from Platform 9¾. This results in Mr. Weasley facing an inquiry at work because some Muggles spotted his car, while the car itself crashes into a tree on the school's grounds and drives off into the Forbidden Forest. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by [=McGonagall=] when she points out other, more reasonable, things they could have done to get to Hogwarts, and Harry reluctantly admits to himself that stealing a car was ill-advised. |
| 121 | ** Despite the trio spending a month brewing the Polyjuice Potion to sneak into the Slytherin dorms, none of them attempts to figure out where those dorms ''are'' until they've already taken the potion and have to find the dorms before it wears off. |
| 122 | ** [[spoiler:Back in 1943, Tom Riddle sets the Basilisk upon several Muggle-born students, eventually killing Myrtle -- and only during his interview with Dippet does he realise that the school will close if the culprit isn't found (let alone if there are ''more'' deaths) and he'll have to go back to the Muggle orphanage he hates.]] |
| 123 | * DinnerWithTheBoss: Mr. Dursley's potential client and his wife come over to discuss a huge business deal over dinner. When Harry retires to his bedroom, Dobby the house-elf appears and begs Harry not to return to Hogwarts. When he refuses, Dobby levitates Aunt Petunia's pudding and drops it. |
| 124 | * DirtyCoward: [[spoiler:Lockhart]] turns out to be one. Not only were all his heroic deeds actually done by other people, but when he enters the Chamber of Secrets with Harry and Ron, he tries to flee at the first opportunity and they have to prod him along the whole way. |
| 125 | * DisappointedInYou: |
| 126 | ** Dumbledore and [=McGonagall=] to Harry after he flies the car to Hogwarts. Harry feels that the disappointment in Dumbledore's voice is worse than shouting. |
| 127 | ** [[spoiler:From Tom Riddle's memory: Dippet to Tom Riddle, when he says something which implies he knows who might be behind the attacks and hadn't spoken up.]] |
| 128 | * DisneyDeath: [[spoiler:Ginny Weasley]] gets one in the Chamber of Secrets. |
| 129 | * DisproportionateRetribution: Tom Riddle complains that [[DisappearedDad his Muggle father abandoned his magical mother before he was born]] because of her magic. |
| 130 | * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Harry's (and [[spoiler:Ginny]]'s) interaction with [[spoiler: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 in the film. It looks like the fear of every early Internet user's parents: a shady character takes advantage of an unsuspecting kid who met them online. [[spoiler:Naïve Ginny pours out her soul “to an invisible stranger” she knows only through their text conversations and thinks she is making friends with this person. In reality he’s manipulating her, getting her to do things she normally wouldn’t, and when she goes to meet him in person she nearly ends up dead.]] |
| 131 | * DoWrongRight: Arthur Weasley is far more pleased than Molly when Ron and the twins steal his flying car and use it to pick up Harry. |
| 132 | * TheDragon: [[spoiler:Ginny Weasley has been acting as Tom Riddle's subordinate due to being under his diary's influence throughout the year by opening the Chamber, releasing the Basilisk and setting it on Mrs. Norris, Colin Creevey, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Nearly Headless Nick, Penelope Clearwater, and Hermione, and writing threatening messages on the walls.]] |
| 133 | * DragonInChief: The [[spoiler:Basilisk]] is causing most of the trouble, but it's made clear she's merely a tool for use by the "Heir of Slytherin". |
| 134 | * DudeNotFunny: |
| 135 | ** Percy tells Fred and George to stop teasing Harry when rumours spread about Harry being the Heir of Slytherin. |
| 136 | ** [=McGonagall=]'s reaction to Peeves accusing Harry of killing students and his "Potter, you rotter" song. |
| 137 | * EarlyBirdCameo: Mr. Weasley mentions early on that Mundungus Fletcher tried to hex him while his back was turned. Fletcher gets another brief mention in the [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire fourth book]], before appearing properly in the [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix fifth]], sixth, and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows seventh]]. |
| 138 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: |
| 139 | ** In early chapters, Rowling recaps the lore and events of ''The Philosopher's Stone'' as if the reader has not read the previous entry; Harry is a wizard, Lord Voldemort killed his parents, he goes to Hogwarts and so on. This eventually stops about halfway through the series. |
| 140 | ** This book implies (through Lockhart stealing real people's accomplishments and not just making them up) that there is a charm that can cure lycanthropy. Later books state that lycanthropy is incurable; at best, it can only be managed so the werewolf isn't a danger to others. |
| 141 | ** Ron and Percy get into an argument and Percy uses his prefect's authority to deduct five points from Gryffindor. This kind of thing never happens again and it's later established, or at least insinuated, in ''Order of the Phoenix'' that prefects ''can't'' give or take house points. (WordOfGod ''does'' say that prefects have the authority to do so, but it still never happens again in the text itself.) |
| 142 | * EasilyCondemned: [[spoiler:Riddle]] admits to Harry that even he was surprised at how easily Headmaster Dippet bought his story that Hagrid was responsible for the attacks on Muggle-borns. After all, Hagrid wasn't very academically inclined and even geniuses like Dumbledore hadn't been able to find the Chamber of Secrets. Of course, it helped that [[spoiler:Riddle]] was a VillainWithGoodPublicity while Hagrid was always getting into trouble with magical creatures. (Everyone, even Harry, agrees that Hagrid's first thought upon hearing there was some kind of monster locked away in a secret chamber of the castle would be that the poor thing could probably use a friend and some walks.) |
| 143 | * EatingOptional: When Harry visits Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday party, there's a banquet of rotten food laid out for the ghosts. Hermione figures they let the food rot so that the flavours are strong enough for the ghosts to taste. |
| 144 | * EnemyMine: Nearly Headless Nick and Peeves briefly team up to get Harry out of detention with Filch; Nick convinces Peeves to smash a large cabinet over Filch's office while he's in the middle of writing up the detention so that Filch leaves to investigate. |
| 145 | * EnslavedTongue: Books can be bewitched to cause harm to anyone who attempts to read them. One example mentioned is ''Sonnets of a Sorcerer'', which causes the reader to speak in [[GratuitousIambicPentameter limericks]] for the rest of their lives. |
| 146 | * EpicFail: |
| 147 | ** Ron trying to curse Malfoy for racism ends in this as the curse backfires spectacularly due to his use of a broken wand that had just gone through a quick fix with some magic tape and he ends up getting hit with the curse himself instead. [[ChekhovsGun Gilderoy Lockhart has the same thing happen to him when he tries to use Ron's wand on Ron and Harry on the way to the eponymous Chamber.]] |
| 148 | ** Lockhart, trying to mend the broken bones in Harry's right arm, ends up removing them. In his first class, he unleashes a swarm of pixies in the classroom, but fails to get them back under control. Basically, everything Lockhart does proves to be a failure. |
| 149 | ** Draco spends so much of his first Quidditch match taunting Harry that [[FailedASpotCheck he doesn't notice the Golden Snitch hovering]] ''[[FailedASpotCheck just above his own head]]''. After Harry grabs the Snitch and wins the game for Gryffindor, Draco gets [[YouFool an ass-chewing]] from Flint (though Fred has to tell Harry about it). |
| 150 | ** Hermione took what she thought was Millicent Bulstrode's hair to use in the Polyjuice Potion. As she found out when she took it (and after Harry and Ron's doses had worn off), it wasn't Millicent's hair. It was cat hair. [[ForcedTransformation Oops.]] |
| 151 | * EurekaMoment: |
| 152 | ** Harry deduces that [[spoiler:Lucius Malfoy was the one who set the whole plot in motion when he sees Malfoy arrive with Dobby, the elf who warned Harry in the first place. It helped that Dobby kept pointing to the Diary, then to Malfoy, then punching himself in the head.]] |
| 153 | ** Hermione has one when she realises what the monster of Slytherin is, but doesn't get to tell anyone other than Penelope Clearwater. Harry gets the moment secondhand when he reads her note later. |
| 154 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: The rumours about Harry being the heir of Slytherin eventually stop [[spoiler:when Hermione is attacked, because nobody can entertain the idea that Harry would hurt Hermione, one of his TrueCompanions, even if he ''were'' evil]]. |
| 155 | * EveryoneHasStandards: |
| 156 | ** Most of the time, Cornelius Fudge goes along with whatever Lucius Malfoy wants, but he quite firmly argues against him when he learns that Dumbledore is being dismissed from Hogwarts at the worst possible time. |
| 157 | ** Gilderoy Lockhart talks and acts as though he's magically superior to everyone else, but he never once claims or pretends to be more powerful than Dumbledore. He also shamelessly refuses to say Voldemort's name, even though it would make him appear even more impressive, implying that he fears the Dark wizard and refuses even to pretend otherwise. |
| 158 | ** Hermione realizes the threat of the monster of the Chamber of Secrets is so great that [[spoiler:the second she finds out what it is]], she ''rips a page out of a library book'' [[spoiler:just to make sure the information gets passed on to somebody should something happen to her before she can tell anyone. [[CrazyPrepared And that was a good call]], because that was exactly what happened.]] |
| 159 | * EverybodyLives: Assuming [[spoiler:the Basilisk, roosters and the soul fragment of Tom Riddle]] don't count, this book and ''The Prisoner of Azkaban'' are the only books in the series where no character dies during the course of the story (though Moaning Myrtle's death is a major part of the backstory). |
| 160 | * ExactWords: At the beginning of the book, Dobby says [[spoiler:that "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" is not involved in the plot he's trying to warn Harry about]]. At the end of the book, Harry asks why he said that when [[spoiler:the whole thing revolved around one of Voldemort's [[SoulJar Horcruxes]]]], which Dobby explains as [[spoiler:actually intended to be a clue -- the Horcrux in question was made when he was still Tom Riddle, and so "could be freely named", meaning that ''at the time'' he wasn't "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" yet]]. |
| 161 | * ExpositionParty: The night Harry rescues [[spoiler:Ginny]] from the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore arranges an impromptu feast in celebration, which everyone attends in their pyjamas. In what Harry describes as the most unusual Hogwarts feast he has been to, we learn that the petrified victims have been cured, Gryffindor wins the house cup thanks to his and Ron's heroics at the Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid is released from Azkaban, Lockhart is not returning as a professor the following year, and that the end of term exams are cancelled. Perhaps we should blame late-night exhaustion on why he couldn't decide whether [[SkewedPriorities one of his best friends being alive and well was better than exams being cancelled]]. |
| 162 | * EyeScream: |
| 163 | ** [[spoiler:Fawkes versus the Basilisk]], to give Harry a fighting chance against the latter by disabling her killing gaze. |
| 164 | ** 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 readers' eyes. |
| 165 | * FacePalm: Flitwick does one with both hands after Lockhart suggests students visit him for advice on Entrancing Enchantments. |
| 166 | * FeetOfClay: Gilderoy Lockhart, who has a grand reputation but is revealed to be pretty much incompetent as a wizard, [[GeniusDitz except for his knack with Memory Charms.]] |
| 167 | * FiveSecondForeshadowing: When [[spoiler:Lockhart]] steals Ron's wand and prepares to use it to [[spoiler:wipe Harry and Ron's memories]], the wand is described as being "Spellotaped", reminding readers that it's broken and no longer casts spells properly. It promptly explodes, causing the spell to backfire. |
| 168 | * FollowTheWhiteRabbit: Harry and Ron follow a trail of spiders to [[MrExposition Aragog]]. |
| 169 | * ForebodingFleeingFlock: Harry and Ron find a swarm of spiders leaving Hogwarts by an open window and heading for the forest. They later find out that the castle is home to a monster that spiders consider their mortal enemy: the Basilisk. |
| 170 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: Has [[Foreshadowing/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets its own page]]. |
| 171 | * ForgottenBirthday: Invoked by the Dursleys after Harry comes home from Hogwarts. Vernon recognises what also happens to be Harry's twelfth birthday not as that, but as "[what] could very well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career." |
| 172 | * ForgottenPhlebotinum: ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' [[http://www.cracked.com/article_21025_5-reasons-harry-potter-wizards-are-huge-threat.html wondered why innocent Hagrid had to go to jail]] in a world with truth potions and mind-reading spells. Though as these methods can be resisted, the Ministry and Prof. Dippet may have assumed that the "heir of Slytherin" was powerful enough to do so. |
| 173 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: It is very apparent that none of the other teachers like Lockhart. Even the usually cheery Professor Sprout quickly tires of his rampant narcissism. When the Chamber of Secrets is opened, they all eagerly nominate him for the task of [[spoiler:rescuing Ginny]], seeing a chance to get rid of him. |
| 174 | * FunnyBackgroundEvent: When Professor [=McGonagall=] comes running to investigate the attack on Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, she has her class with her, one of whom still has black and white striped hair. This also serves as {{Foreshadowing}} for when the trio work on human Transfiguration in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince''. |
| 175 | * GambitRoulette: Lucius' plan to discredit Arthur Weasley involves [[spoiler:slipping Tom Riddle's diary to Ginny and waiting for it to cause trouble at Hogwarts]]. Lucius has no idea what [[spoiler:the diary is capable of]], basically goes on a hunch, and has little (if any) control of the situation once [[spoiler:the diary is out of his hands]]. |
| 176 | %% * Getting CrapPast TheRadar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition. |
| 177 | * GhostsAbhorAVacuum: Played with. When the ghost of Nearly Headless Nick is petrified and simply hangs there, Professor [=McGonagall=] instructs Ernie to use a fan to waft him out of the way. |
| 178 | * GiantSpider: Aragog and his relatives are all giant spiders hidden away in the Forbidden Forest. [[spoiler:So fearsome are they that Aragog was at first believed to be the monster within the Chamber of Secrets.]] |
| 179 | * GreaterScopeVillain: |
| 180 | ** Voldemort does not personally appear in this book, but the conflict at Hogwarts this year is caused by his [[spoiler:diary containing a fragment of his soul.]] |
| 181 | ** [[spoiler:Lucius Malfoy, who gave Ginny Tom Riddle's old diary so it would possess her and make her carry out his work.]] |
| 182 | ** Salazar Slytherin could be seen as this, as he [[spoiler:bred and raised the Basilisk to purge Hogwarts of Muggle-borns.]] Ron also suggests that he dreamed up the idea of pure-blood supremacy. |
| 183 | [[/folder]] |
| 184 | |
| 185 | [[folder:H–N]] |
| 186 | * HammyHerald: Fred and George show their support for Harry not by squashing rumours about him, but rather by following him around crying "Make way for the heir of Slytherin! Seriously evil wizard coming through!" |
| 187 | * HandOfGlory: Draco Malfoy notices a Hand of Glory in Borgin and Burkes and takes an interest in it. [[spoiler:He [[ChekhovsGun eventually uses it]] in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince Half-Blood Prince]]'' for his plan to let Death Eaters into the school.]] |
| 188 | -->"Can I have ''that''?" interrupted Draco, pointing at the withered hand on its cushion.\ |
| 189 | "Ah, the Hand of Glory!" said Mr. Borgin, abandoning Mr. Malfoy's list and scurrying over to Draco. "Insert a candle and it gives light only to the holder! Best friend of thieves and plunderers! Your son has fine taste, sir." |
| 190 | * HarmfulHealing: Gilderoy Lockhart fixes Harry's broken wrist … by [[WorstAid making the bones vanish entirely]]. Of course, this being the wizarding world, there's a cure for that too. ([[FridgeHorror Maybe this is a common side-effect of botching a bone-mending spell?]])[[invoked]] It's called "Skele-Gro". Unfortunately, Skele-Gro regrows bones gradually, so the patient will have to endure a night or two of bone splinters forcing their way through muscle, blood and nerves, since, for reasons unknown, even competent doctors don't use anesthesia for that process. |
| 191 | * HateSink: Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father, manages to be an even bigger JerkAss and {{Fantastic Racis|m}}t than his son. He openly insults the Grangers for being Muggles and the Weasleys for being poor, harshly berates his son for his poor grades, glowers at 13-year-old Hermione for being a Muggle-born, and, in his most loathsome act not directly connected to being a Death Eater, [[spoiler:has the 11-year old Ginny brainwashed to open the Chamber of Secrets]], [[WouldHurtAChild which could have killed several children]] and did result in said children being petrified, intending to take advantage of the situation to have Dumbledore sacked and Arthur Weasley's life ruined, all to settle a [[EvilIsPetty petty grudge]] with Arthur and rid himself of an incriminating dark artifact. |
| 192 | * HeadlockOfDominance: At the Duelling Club, Hermione gets paired with Slytherin Millicent Bulstrode, a [[BrawnHilda much larger and stronger girl]]. After the chaos of the duels settles down, Bulstrode is found to have forgone wands and grabbed Hermione in a headlock that she couldn't get out of. Harry has to free her physically. |
| 193 | * HearingVoices: Harry is the only person who hears a voice in the wall that repeats "''Kill!''" He, Hermione, and Ron realize it is not good to be the only person able to hear certain voices. [[spoiler:It turns out to be the Basilisk moving in the pipes.]] |
| 194 | * HeelFaceTurn: Dobby at the end, [[TheDogBitesBack going against his master.]] |
| 195 | * HeroicBSOD: It's implied that the Weasley brothers understandably suffered from one after they learned that [[spoiler:Ginny was taken.]] |
| 196 | * HijackedByGanon: The book plays out like this. So a monster controlled by the Heir of Slytherin has been attacking students. At the end, we discover that [[spoiler:— surprise! — Voldemort]] was behind the entire thing. [[spoiler:Only it's not Voldemort himself, just a piece of his soul containing the memories of his sixteen-year-old self. Riddle even makes a point to explain his actions and motivations before revealing himself to be a young Voldemort, hinting that he was something of a PredecessorVillain.]] |
| 197 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: |
| 198 | ** Ron, when trying to curse Malfoy, inadvertently curses himself, thanks to his broken wand. This is [[{{Foreshadowing}} important later]] with [[spoiler:Lockhart, hit by his own rebounding Memory Charm while using Ron's broken wand.]] |
| 199 | ** Cited by Dumbledore's line to [[spoiler:Lockhart]] at the end: "Impaled upon your own sword, [[spoiler:Gilderoy]]!" |
| 200 | * HoldingInLaughter: In the opening chapters, the Dursleys are having a rich builder and his wife over for dinner, in hopes of getting a big order for Uncle Vernon's drill-manufacturing company. When Uncle Vernon suggests flattering them with compliments at dinner, Dudley says, "How about 'We had to write an essay about our hero at school, Mr. Mason, and I wrote about you.'" Harry has to duck under the table so his aunt, uncle, and cousin won't see him trying not to laugh. |
| 201 | * HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: The message in blood announcing the opening of the Chamber and the first petrification victim, Mrs. Norris, are discovered on UsefulNotes/AllHallowsEve. |
| 202 | * HotForTeacher: Hermione seems to be one of many girls who have a crush on Lockhart, which makes her oblivious to the fact he clearly has no idea what he's doing. |
| 203 | * IdiotBall: Hermione mistaking a cat hair for human hair leading to her unfortunate Polyjuice Potion accident, which is something she shouldn't have failed to do with how smart she is, which is what progresses the plot. |
| 204 | * IHaveJustOneThingToSay: After the climax Dumbledore seems about to give a criticizing speech to Harry and Ron about their behaviour, only to change course mid-sentence: ''"I seem to remember telling you both that I would have to expel you if you broke any more school rules … [''{{Beat}}''] … which goes to show that the best of us must sometimes eat our words."'' |
| 205 | * IHaveThisFriend: Filch initially claims that the Kwikspell letter on his desk is for a friend so Harry doesn't guess that he has no magic. After the attack on Mrs. Norris, he openly refers to the incident around other staff members, though, and says of Harry, "He knows I'm a Squib!" |
| 206 | * IJustWantToBeFree: Dobby, the House-Elf of the Malfoy family. His situation is so pitiful that even when the Malfoys ''aren't'' around, he inflicts punishments upon himself when he "misbehaves." [[spoiler:He's naturally ecstatic when Harry frees him at the end.]] |
| 207 | * IllTimedSneeze: Inverted. When Harry and Ron sneak out of bed, Ron stubs his toe near Professor Snape. Snape happens to sneeze just as Ron swears in pain, so they avoid detection. |
| 208 | * IncapableOfDisobeying: Dobby works for a wizarding family with a grudge towards Harry that are plotting against him. Dobby ''wants'' to help Harry, but cannot warn him directly and his attempts to help anyway generally do more harm than good. Once Harry arranges for him to be freed, Dobby has nothing holding him back and he can lay his former master flat on his back to defend Harry. |
| 209 | * INeedToGoIronMyDog: Ron uses this to get away from Malfoy when the Polyjuice Potion starts wearing off, citing he needs medicine for a stomach ache which he had cited earlier in the scene to explain away an angry look. |
| 210 | * IneptMage: Gilderoy Lockhart, who bungles it every time he has to do magic. Ron is also ''temporarily'' one when he has a broken wand, which makes his spells go awry, but under normal circumstances his skill and knowledge of magic are average. |
| 211 | * INeverGotAnyLetters: In the first chapter, Harry is upset that his friends haven't written to him all summer. Then it's revealed that an elf has been intercepting their letters. |
| 212 | * INeverSaidItWasPoison: Dobby inadvertently reveals that he has been stopping Harry's letters when he mentions that Harry's friends haven't written to him -- which he should have no way of knowing. |
| 213 | * InformedAbility: In-universe: Lockhart completely fails to live up to any of his hype, as Harry and Ron are quick to point out. |
| 214 | * InnocuouslyImportantEpisode: Some readers found the novel to be heavy in the padding department, particularly the WackyWaysideTribe aspect. But the novel is quietly setting up ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'' and, to some extent, foreshadowing ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows''. See the [[ChekhovsGun/HarryPotter Harry Potter Chekhov's Gun page]] for a list. |
| 215 | * InvisibilityFlicker: Harry and Ron fly the car to Hogwarts, but the Invisibility Booster is faulty, causing the car to flicker in and out of sight, allowing them to be seen by Muggles, which gets them into trouble. |
| 216 | * InvisibleWriting: The team initially thinks that Tom Riddle's diary was written with invisible ink, with Hermione trying spells and a magicked eraser called a "revealer" to try making something visible. {{Subverted|Trope}}: [[spoiler:The diary contains Tom Riddle's memories in a very literal sense, and is capable of responding to written messages.]] |
| 217 | * InvoluntaryGroupSplit: Gilderoy Lockhart's wayward spell sets off a cave-in that separates Ron from Harry, so Harry has to go alone into the Chamber. |
| 218 | * {{Irony}}: |
| 219 | ** Harry {{lampshade|Hanging}}s one such irony in chapter one. While most kids look forward to the summer holidays, Harry dislikes it for being the two months out of the year he has to live with his horrible relatives. |
| 220 | ** In retrospect, Ron trying to comfort Ginny after the attack on Mrs. Norris by telling her that "they'll catch the nutter who did it and have him out of here in no time." Assuming [[spoiler: Ginny had begun to suspect herself at that point, this might also count as ObliviousGuiltSlinging. After all, at the end of the book, she ''was'' [[FridgeBrilliance convinced that she was going to be expelled]]. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Way to go, Ron.]]]] |
| 221 | ** When wondering what Tom Riddle got a Special Award for Service to the School for, Ron sarcastically suggests that maybe he killed Myrtle as "that would've done everyone a favour." [[spoiler:Riddle did kill her and he got the award for successfully framing Hagrid as her murderer.]] |
| 222 | ** Hermione suggests that whoever flushed Riddle's diary may have been the culprit, trying to stop anyone from finding out details about the last time the Chamber was opened. It ''was'' the culprit (sort of), but they did it to ''stop'' the attacks. |
| 223 | * IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat: Harry assumed that Parseltongue was just a thing wizards in general could do. It's not until after he scares everybody at the Duelling Club that he learns it's an uncommon ability associated with Salazar Slytherin and Dark wizards. |
| 224 | * ItIsDehumanizing: Harry defies this when Dobby introduces himself to him. Harry ''wants'' to ask Dobby, "What are you?" but instead says, "Who are you?", thinking the former interrogative would be extremely rude. |
| 225 | * ItsLikeIAlwaysSay: Provided by Arthur Weasley: ''"What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain!"'' |
| 226 | * JerkassHasAPoint: |
| 227 | ** While it doesn't ''remotely'' excuse him going out of his way to barricade Harry in his room and stop him from going back to Hogwarts, Vernon, from a ''purely technical'' standpoint, is right to be pissed off that Harry withheld from him that he's not allowed to use magic outside of school since he basically kept the Dursleys in a constant state of fear since he returned, even if Harry [[AbusiveParents had a very, very good reason for doing so.]] And even before that, since he never discovers [[MadeOutToBeAJerkass Dobby's treachery in spoiling Petunia's cake and]] [[FrameUp framing Harry for it]], as far as he's concerned Harry is guilty as charged in trying to cause even more grief for them. |
| 228 | ** Malfoy finds Colin Creevey's fanboying of Harry ridiculous and starts imitating the kid to make fun of him. Harry, who's by that time very tired of Colin's constant squealing, finds that while the imitation is cruel, it's also rather accurate. |
| 229 | * JobsOnlyVolunteer: when discussing new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Gilderoy Lockhart and his displays of incompetence with Hagrid, Hermione defends him by saying Dumbledore wouldn't have hired Lockhart out of all the applicants if he felt Lockhart was unqualified. Hagrid informs her that Lockhart was the only applicant. |
| 230 | * JokeAndReceive: Used as a BrickJoke. When Harry and Ron discover a trophy awarded to a Tom Riddle for undisclosed services to the school, Ron jokes that maybe Tom killed Moaning Myrtle (who is currently a ghost) because she's so annoying. [[spoiler:Much later in the book, Tom Riddle's own memory reveals that he did cause Myrtle's murder, although that's not why he received the trophy -- more likely it was for when [[FrameUp he "turned in" Hagrid for his misdeeds]].]] |
| 231 | * KidsDrivingCars: The Weasley family's flying car gets this several times. First, the Weasley twins (age 14) "borrow" the car to rescue Harry, getting in huge amounts of trouble. Later, Harry and Ron drive the car across Britain when they miss the train, and get into deep trouble after they crash the car into a tree on the Hogwarts grounds, though this had more to do with the car malfunctioning than their driving. |
| 232 | * KnowNothingKnowItAll: Lockhart is set up as one, only it turns out he's actually well aware of his own incompetence. It seems the only spell he can perform correctly is the Memory Charm. |
| 233 | * LaserGuidedKarma: Lockhart [[spoiler:tries to use the memory charm on Harry and Ron, as he has done to countless others in order to steal their accomplishments, but Ron's faulty wand causes the spell to backfire and it hits Lockhart himself instead, thus wiping his own memory]]. |
| 234 | * LeeroyJenkins: At first, it is assumed that Hermione was petrified because she acted like this, looking for the Chamber alone and unprepared. [[spoiler:It's a subversion: she ''was'' prepared, the reason she wasn't ''killed''.]] |
| 235 | * LetMeAtHim: Ron attempts to beat the hell out of Malfoy, without magic, with Snape only a few feet away, [[spoiler:when Malfoy says he bets the next attack is fatal and, "Pity it wasn't Granger."]] Harry and Dean have to drag Ron away from Malfoy physically to prevent him from jumping right then and there. |
| 236 | -->'''Ron:''' Let me at him … I don't care, I don't need my wand, I'm going to kill him with my bare hands! |
| 237 | * LittleNo: Harry in the Chamber when Riddle tells him [[spoiler:that Ginny was the one who opened the Chamber, strangled the roosters, wrote the messages on the walls and set the Basilisk on its victims.]] |
| 238 | * LivingMemory: The Diary of Tom Riddle. It looks like a BlankBook, but writing in it reveals it contains Tom's memories, left as a warning in case the Chamber of Secrets was open again. Also, [[spoiler:that last part was a lie; it's a ''Horcrux'' containing part of Tom's soul, capable of talking to whomever it pleases and still adamant to purge Hogwarts of the "unworthy."]] |
| 239 | * LoopholeAbuse: |
| 240 | ** Invoked by Arthur Weasley. There's a law to stop wizards from misusing Muggle artifacts, but Arthur uses a loophole in a law that ''he wrote'' to let him misuse them on his own time. |
| 241 | ** Ron, Fred, and George don't get in trouble for doing underage magic outside of Hogwarts because their dad was the one who enchanted the car. They're just driving it. |
| 242 | ** Ron and Harry don't lose any points for Gryffindor for flying the car because the school year had not started yet. |
| 243 | * LovePotion: Lockhart suggests students visit Snape for advice on brewing love potions. Snape's [[DeathGlare expression]] makes it clear anyone who does so risks being poisoned. |
| 244 | * MagicMisfire: Everything cast with Ron's broken wand backfires or fails. This becomes important. |
| 245 | * MaliciousSlander: Many students believe Harry is the Heir of Slytherin after the incident with the snake and Justin Finch-Fletchley at the Duelling Club. |
| 246 | * MilkyWhiteEyes: The blind Aragog's eyes are described as being milky white when Ron and Harry encounter him. |
| 247 | * MindRape: |
| 248 | ** [[spoiler:Ginny's trust in Tom Riddle (in the diary) makes it easier for him to slowly but surely take control over her mind. Her realization comes too little too late, and Tom forces her to write her own death threat against the school walls and seal herself within the Chamber.]] |
| 249 | ** Lockhart's only ''real'' skill, aside from being MrFanservice, is [[spoiler:wiping the memory of witches and wizards and taking their accomplishments for his own.]] |
| 250 | * MissedTheBus: [[spoiler:Dobby]] blocks Harry's access to Platform 9¾, causing him and Ron to miss the Hogwarts Express and take alternative transport. Once the two get to school (causing trouble for themselves and others along the way), [=McGonagall=] asks why Harry didn't just [[BoringButPractical send a message to ask for help]]. |
| 251 | * MissingStepsPlan: You'd think the trio would have found out where the Slytherin common room was before drinking the Polyjuice Potion that only lasts an hour. |
| 252 | * MonsterOfTheWeek: {{Subverted|Trope}}; the Heir of Slytherin turns out to be [[spoiler:Voldemort -- or rather a younger version of him]]. |
| 253 | * MotiveMisidentification: [[spoiler:While Tom certainly didn't ''mind'' using the Basilisk on Muggle-borns, he was keener on baiting Harry so he could take revenge for what the latter did to his future self than in "purging the school."]] |
| 254 | * MuggleBornOfMages: This book introduces the concept of Squibs, people who were born into wizarding families but can't use magic. Filch is revealed to be one. |
| 255 | * MyNewGiftIsLame: Harry's Christmas presents from the Dursleys are one toothpick and a a note "telling him to find out whether he’d be able to stay at Hogwarts for the summer vacation, too." He gets much better presents from his friends, though. |
| 256 | * {{Narcissist}}: Lockhart. Good God, ''Lockhart''. Whenever he mentions himself, he [[CatchPhrase always mentions]] [[TryToFitThatOnABusinessCard his achievements]] ("Order of Merlin, Third Class, honorary member of the Dark Force Defence League, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and]] five-time winner of ''Witch Weekly''[='=]s Most Charming Smile Award"), his books made up the whole year booklist, the quiz at the start of the year concerns questions about himself from his books, Harry is made to answer Lockhart's fan mail with him for his detention, and his office is filled with pictures of himself. |
| 257 | * {{Narm}}: In-universe. |
| 258 | ** Invoked with [[WordOfGod Ginny's]] valentine to Harry. Fred and George continually tease him with it and Peeves adds a dance routine. |
| 259 | ** Dudley's ass-kissing compliment to the Masons ("We had to write about our hero at school, Mr. Mason, and I wrote about ''you''"). Harry hides under the table to conceal his laughter from the Dursleys. |
| 260 | * NearVillainVictory: Harry Potter is fatally wounded while stabbing the Basilisk, and due to effects of its venom has mere minutes to live. It seems as if Lord Voldemort has finally won, as he waits for Harry to die. The only thing that saves him is Fawkes, who heals Harry with phoenix tears. |
| 261 | * NerdsLoveToughSchoolwork: In the ending, Professor Dumbledore cancels the final exams on account of the terror and stress of the attacks disrupting a normal school year and holds a grand celebration instead, much to Hermione's dismay. |
| 262 | * NiceJobFixingItVillain: |
| 263 | ** [[spoiler:Lucius Malfoy planting the diary on Ginny Weasley. As we learn in the sixth book, this set off a chain of events that destroys one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, provides Dumbledore with the first real proof that Voldemort split his soul, and alerts Dumbledore to the possibility of multiple Horcruxes (Voldemort would be unlikely to put his only Horcrux in harms way). Good going, Lucius.]] |
| 264 | *** While not explicitly pointed out in later books, this also ends up having another long-term repercussion. [[spoiler:While Dumbeldore can't officially prove Lucius was behind the reopening of the Chamber and get him arrested, he ''can'' use the incident as leverage to oust Lucius from the Board of Governors. This removes Lucius' influence on Hogwarts, lessening his value as an asset when Voldemort returns (and ironically leaving Snape in a position to usurp that vacated influence to preserve his cover.]] |
| 265 | ** Moreover, luring Harry into the Chamber of Secrets leads to him [[spoiler:discovering one of the few ways to destroy Horcruxes: Basilisk venom. In killing the Basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor, the sword itself absorbs some of the venom, making it another weapon that can be used on Voldemort's Horcruxes.]] |
| 266 | * NoisyShutUp: In the ensuing panic after Justin and Nearly Headless Nick have been attacked, Professor [=McGonagall=] uses her wand to set off a loud bang, to restore calm. |
| 267 | * NoodleIncident: During the final confrontation in the Chamber, [[spoiler:Tom Riddle]] says that Dumbledore never seemed to like him as much as the other professors. Exactly what he did to trigger Dumbledore's suspicions won't be revealed until the sixth book. |
| 268 | * NoSell: Draco calls Hermione "Mudblood", which is a vicious wizard slur for a Muggle-born witch or wizard. But since Hermione ''is'' a Muggle-born witch, she's never heard the term before and only knows it's an insult from how the others around her react with fury. |
| 269 | * NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: In-universe; after Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy have a fight in Flourish and Blott's during Lockhart's book signing, it's mentioned that Lockhart was trying to work the fight into the article about the book signing by saying it was a publicity stunt. |
| 270 | * {{Not}}: Moaning Myrtle uses the old-fashioned version. Someone tosses Tom Riddle's diary in the girl's bathroom haunted by Moaning Myrtle, hoping to get rid of it. It ends up hitting Myrtle, much to her dismay, though Harry points out that it couldn't hurt her, it would just go right through her. This is the wrong thing to say: |
| 271 | -->'''Moaning Myrtle:''' "Let's all throw books at Myrtle, because she can't feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her ''head''! Well, ha ha ha! What a lovely game, I don’t think!" |
| 272 | * NotMeThisTime: |
| 273 | ** 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 raving about how thrilled he is that it's happening and how he'd love to congratulate and help whoever is ''actually'' behind it. |
| 274 | ** Also subverted. [[spoiler:The book tries to convince you that Lord Voldemort is not behind the mystery this time given the fact that the Chamber was originally opened almost 30 years before Voldemort rose to prominence, and Dobby even telling Harry that "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" is not involved. Of course, it turns out the perpetrator is a manifestation of the young Voldemort, then known as Tom Riddle. At the end, Dobby explains that his earlier comment was a subtle clue: [[MetaphoricallyTrue "The Dark Lord, before he changed his name, could be freely named, you see?"]] Though it would have been lost on Harry at the time, not finding out until it was almost too late that Riddle and Voldemort were the same person.]] |
| 275 | * NotSoAboveItAll: |
| 276 | ** Hermione, "The Brightest Witch of Her Age", who normally plays the OnlySaneMan of the main trio, is completely taken in by Lockhart's charms, while Harry and Ron see him for the narcissistic buffoon he really is immediately and are baffled by her falling for him. |
| 277 | ** While Lockhart loves to demonstrate his bravado and claim superiority to everyone else, even he refuses to say Voldemort's name. |
| 278 | [[/folder]] |
| 279 | |
| 280 | [[folder:O–S]] |
| 281 | * OddReactionOut: When Dumbledore cancels the final exam to reward the students, [[BookDumb most of them cheer]], but [[TheSmartGuy Hermione]] says, "Oh no!". |
| 282 | * OhCrap: |
| 283 | ** Ron says "Uh-oh …" very calmly when the Ford Anglia's engine gives in midair, shortly followed by a BigNo as they plummet towards the ground. |
| 284 | ** Ron panics on the first day of term when he receives a Howler from Mrs. Weasley. |
| 285 | ** [[spoiler:Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick have identical OhCrap expressions on their faces when the Basilisk petrifies them.]] |
| 286 | ** Lockhart gets a few good ones. He has this reaction during the Duelling Club when he realized that his arrogant comments were starting to push Snape too far (especially since Snape had just effortlessly defeated him in a duel). He has an even greater one when the rest of the staff suggest that he go into the Chamber of Secrets, as he had been bragging throughout the book that he could defeat Slytherin's heir and monster easily. |
| 287 | ** Harry and Ron get this when the Polyjuice Potion starts to wear off in front of Malfoy and they start turning back into themselves. Cue a hasty exit. Hermione presumably got one as well when she took her dose, [[EpicFail because it turned her into a cat-person]]. |
| 288 | %%* The Only Volunteer: When discussing new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Gilderoy Lockhart and his displays of incompetence with Hagrid, Hermione defends him by saying Dumbledore wouldn't have hired Lockhart out of all the applicants if he felt Lockhart was unqualified. Hagrid reveals that Lockhart was the only applicant. - Unlaunched Trope |
| 289 | * OrificeEvacuation: Slug-puking spell. |
| 290 | * OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Lockhart hires a load of dwarfs dressed as Cupids to deliver SingingTelegram[=s=] on Valentine's Day. Weirdly they're never mentioned again in the franchise besides Harry spotting a few "raucous dwarves" in the Leaky Cauldron in the next book. |
| 291 | * OurPixiesAreDifferent: Pixies are depicted as winged humanoids that are electric blue in colour and fond of mischief. They also don't wear any clothing and appear to be incapable of speech like other magical races. |
| 292 | * PaperworkPunishment: After Harry and Ron flew the car to Hogwarts, with disastrous results, they are given detention, and Harry is made to help the highly egotistical Professor Lockhart answer his fan mail. Lockhart tells Harry he must not expect a treat like this for future detentions. |
| 293 | * ParodyMagicSpell: Harry threatens Dudley with the words "Jiggery pokery! Hocus pocus! Squiggly wiggly!" around noon on his birthday, and [[DisproportionateRetribution earns himself an afternoon of menial housework for his joke]]. |
| 294 | * PensieveFlashback: Although the actual Pensieve wasn't introduced until ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', Riddle's diary displays the same mechanism here, two books earlier. |
| 295 | * PeopleZoo: Early on, Harry has a nightmare where he's displayed in one, with a table on his cage saying "UNDERAGE WIZARD." |
| 296 | * PetTheDog: |
| 297 | ** Snape has a couple of moments. During the Duelling Club, he quickly intervenes when Draco and Harry jinx each other and dispels Draco's snake when it goes for Justin. He also seems just as distraught as the other teachers when they learn that [[spoiler:Ginny was taken into the Chamber of Secrets]]. |
| 298 | ** In the same scene where Cornelius Fudge arrives to bring Hagrid to Azkaban prison in effort to end the attacks, Fudge objects to Lucius Malfoy and the Hogwarts governors' motion to suspend Dumbledore because he knows this will only make the school even more dangerous for the Muggle-borns. |
| 299 | * PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: In this book, Draco Malfoy introduces the anti-Muggle-born slur "Mudblood". The book also expands on the prejudice towards Muggle-borns held by pure-blood wizards and makes it clear that many of them want the Muggle-borns ''dead''. |
| 300 | * PortalSlam: Harry and Ron rebound painfully from the portal to Platform 9¾. |
| 301 | * PostMortemComeback: The entire basis of the plot; Voldemort hid bits of his memories in a book, [[spoiler:who took the form of Tom Riddle]], but it's inverted -- Voldemort himself was already alive then … somewhat. |
| 302 | * PredecessorVillain: Salazar Slytherin ''built'' the Chamber of Secrets and put the Basilisk there in the first place, but he died nearly a millennium before this story begins. |
| 303 | * ProofDare: At the end, when Lucius Malfoy comes storming into Dumbledore's office, Harry makes the connection of Malfoy trying to get rid of a number of dark items, like the diary that caused all the trouble, before term started and realizes that he is the one responsible for the year's events, explaining that Malfoy slipped the diary into Ginny Weasley's stack of textbooks. Malfoy can only say, "Prove it." Dumbledore admits there's little chance of that, but warns Malfoy that the Ministry of Magic, and Arthur Weasley in particular, will be paying much closer attention to him. |
| 304 | * PunnyName: Knockturn Alley, like its good counterpart Diagon Alley, is this ("Nocturnally" or "Nocturne" Alley). |
| 305 | * RansackedRoom: Ginny ransacks Harry's dormitory to get Tom Riddle's diary back. |
| 306 | * TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Harry gives one to [[spoiler:the memory of Riddle, gloating about how his "common Muggle-born mother" reduced Voldemort, the greatest Dark wizard ever, to almost nothing.]] |
| 307 | * RedHerring: |
| 308 | ** Malfoy, Percy, Hagrid, and even Harry are set up as possible Heirs of Slytherin, with Malfoy being the choice that's so obvious it's stupid, and Percy and Hagrid both having Really Big Secrets that make them act suspiciously. Naturally, our heroes suspect Malfoy immediately and spend several chapters investigating him, only to find out he's not the culprit. Much later, Ernie Macmillan asks Harry and Ron if it could be Malfoy, but they have long since discovered his innocence. |
| 309 | ** At times, Lockhart seems to be set up as another possible Heir of Slytherin with possible ObfuscatingStupidity, though that also turns out not to be the case. |
| 310 | * ReinforceField: Harry guesses that The Burrow is probably held together with magic. |
| 311 | * ReptilesAreAbhorrent: The Basilisk. Also the decoration of the Chamber of Secrets. Salazar must have been swapping design tips with [[WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} Jafar]]. |
| 312 | * RewatchBonus: All the books have quite a bit of this, but Ginny seems largely irrelevant on the first read, until the end. The second time, it becomes apparent that every single mention of her once they get to Hogwarts is important to the plot. |
| 313 | * RhetoricalQuestionBlunder: When Harry and Ron first find Tom Riddle's diary, Ron warns Harry that it could be dangerous. When Harry incredulously asks how a book could possibly be dangerous, Ron tells him about all the freaky books his father's told him the Ministry's had to deal with, including one that burns your eyes out, one that you can't ever stop reading, and one that curses you to speak in limericks for the rest of your life. |
| 314 | * RhymingWizardry: Harry threatens his JerkAss and [[DoesNotLikeMagic magic-phobic]] cousin Dudley with the words ''"Hocus pocus! Squiggly wiggly!"''. |
| 315 | * RightBehindMe: Harry and Ron excitedly speculate on reasons why Snape is absent from the teachers' table at the beginning of the year, not realizing that Snape is actually just behind them, until he interrupts them. |
| 316 | -->'''Ron:''' Maybe he’s ill! |
| 317 | -->'''Harry:''' Maybe he’s left, because he missed out on the Defence Against the Dark Arts job again! |
| 318 | -->'''Ron:''' Or he might have been ''sacked''! I mean, everyone hates him-- |
| 319 | -->'''Snape:''' Or maybe he's waiting to hear why you two didn't arrive on the school train. |
| 320 | * RightForTheWrongReasons: |
| 321 | ** Ron's sarcastic suggestion that Tom Riddle might have [[spoiler:killed Moaning Myrtle]]. |
| 322 | ** Ron suggests that Dobby might belong to the Malfoys, and that his whole spiel about "protecting" Harry is just Draco's trick to get him sent home. Dobby ''does'' belong to the Malfoys, but his motive is legitimately good. |
| 323 | ** Their suspicions that Malfoy is involved with the Chamber opening is correct, they just suspected the wrong Malfoy. |
| 324 | * ARottenTimeToRevert: Harry and Ron attempt to uncover information about the Heir of Slytherin by using Polyjuice Potion to transform into [[DumbMuscle Crabbe and Goyle]] so they can spy on the Slytherins up close. Unfortunately, the potion starts to wear off while they're questioning Draco Malfoy in the Slytherin common room, forcing them to make excuses about needing medicine for a stomachache and leave as quickly as possible before the reversion becomes noticeable. |
| 325 | * RuleOfThree: Harry and the Weasleys have to return to The Burrow three times to pick up items left behind they need to bring with them to Hogwarts. First, George's box of Filibuster Fireworks, then Fred's broomstick, and finally Ginny's [[spoiler:diary]]. |
| 326 | * SavedByTheAwesome: After the flying car incident, Harry and Ron are threatened with expulsion if they're caught breaking any more rules. At the end, Dumbledore points out that they did just that when they went into the Chamber … then happily awards them several hundred points and special awards for services to Hogwarts. |
| 327 | * ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Arthur Weasley wrote a loophole into the law saying he could enchant a car to fly if he had no intention to actually fly it. |
| 328 | * SealedEvilInACan: |
| 329 | ** The titular chamber contains Slytherin's monster, an enormous Basilisk. |
| 330 | ** [[spoiler:Tom Riddle's diary has the "memory" of the teenage Voldemort sealed inside, which Ginny unknowingly awakens through her liberal use of the diary.]] |
| 331 | * SecretPetPlot: During Hagrid's time at Hogwarts, he had a secret pet Acromantula (giant spider), Aragog. Unfortunately, this happened to be the same time the Chamber of Secrets first opened; with the Beast of Slytherin's attacks threatening the future of Hogwarts, Tom Riddle turned Hagrid and Aragog in. Aragog was driven into the Forbidden Forest and Hagrid was expelled. |
| 332 | * SecretRoom: The eponymous chamber built by Salazar Slytherin, located [[spoiler:through a secret passage in the second-floor girls' bathroom and only accessible to Parselmouths (i.e., snake talkers). The entrance was originally just a hidden trapdoor, but because of plumbing reforms that threatened to reveal its existence, it had to be adapted into an elaborate mechanism by one of Salazar's descendants]]. |
| 333 | * SelfDamagingAttackBackfire: Ron Weasley tries to cast a slug-vomiting spell on Draco Malfoy with his broken wand. It backfires, causing Ron to vomit slugs instead. [[spoiler:Before the climax, the same happens to Gilderoy Lockhart when he tries to wipe the memories of Ron and Harry.]] |
| 334 | * SentientVehicle: The Ford Anglia becomes this -- apparently the enchantment placed on it gave it some level of sentience. After crashing into the Whomping Willow, the car ejects Harry and Ron and takes off into the Forbidden Forest, where it [[GoingNative goes native]] and putters around the woods all year. [[spoiler:It later saves Harry and Ron from being eaten by Aragog's clan of Acromantula.]] |
| 335 | * SeriesContinuityError: Two mentions of werewolves in this book make absolutely no sense come the very next instalment: Lockhart claims he used a spell to turn a werewolf back into a man, and Riddle claims that Hagrid raised "werewolf cubs" during their school days. The former could be InUniverseFactoidFailure, though it would require the wizarding public to be ignorant enough about werewolves that Lockhart's claim ''doesn't'' immediately reveal him as a charlatan. The "werewolf cubs" error was straightened out much later by WordOfGod: apparently if a male and female werewolf meet in their wolf forms, they can breed and produce a litter of "beautiful and unusually intelligent" wolves, incapable of spreading the condition. The brood raised by Hagrid is apparently still running around the Forbidden Forest. |
| 336 | * SerpentOfImmortality: The Basilisk that lives beneath the school has an incredibly long lifespan. It was first stored under the school around a thousand years earlier. |
| 337 | * ShoutOut: |
| 338 | ** Fawkes is a fiery phoenix that dies in an explosion. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes Guy Fawkes]], a real-life person, tried to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot blow up the British Parliament]]. |
| 339 | ** There's a really clever and subtle (not to mention [[ParentalBonus strictly for adults]]) one when the students think Harry is the Heir of Slytherin and Fred and George make fun of the idea by walking in front of Harry shouting [[Film/Scarface1983 "Make way for the Heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through …"]] |
| 340 | ** Another subtle one comes from when Harry and Ron find Riddle's diary. Ron stops Harry from touching it saying it could be dangerous. When Harry asks [[Franchise/EvilDead "How can a book be dangerous?"]] Ron replies, "You'd be surprised." |
| 341 | ** Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/TheWintersTale'' also features a character called Hermione [[spoiler:who is frozen into a statue but later revived.]] |
| 342 | * ShrineToSelf: Lockhart's room is filled with pictures of himself. Since this is the wizarding world, they're all nearly as vain as he is and tend to nod along to whatever he's saying. |
| 343 | * ShrinkingViolet: Ginny, pretty much only in this book as she's [[DemotedToExtra hardly in the next two]] and in the fifth she's revealed to have [[TookALevelInBadass Taken a Level in Badass]]. |
| 344 | * SignificantAnagram: [[spoiler:TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE <-> I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.]] Other languages revise the anagram to make sense in their tongues -- or [[{{Woolseyism}} change his birth name]]. [[spoiler:One of the funniest examples of this is the French version, which gives him the name "Tom Elvis Jedusor." Some other translations are even further out there -- in Danish he becomes "Romeo G. Detlev Jr." while in Icelandic he's "Trevor Delgome".]] |
| 345 | * SingingTelegram: Ginny sends a Valentine poem to Harry using a singing dwarf. The message ends up embarrassing both of them in front of Malfoy. |
| 346 | * SkewedPriorities: PlayedForLaughs. Professor [=McGonagall=] announces that she has good news (the Mandrake potion, which will revive the Petrified students, is ready); while many students correctly guess that the news has to do with the dire Chamber of Secrets situation, Oliver Wood hopes that the suspended Quidditch season will resume. |
| 347 | * SlowerThanASnail: While staying with the Weasleys, Harry plays a few friendly Quidditch matches with them. According to the narration, Ron's old hand-me-down Cleansweep broom is so slow compared to his own Nimbus 2000 that passing butterflies sometimes overtake it. |
| 348 | %%* SmallNameBigEgo: Gilderoy Lockhart. |
| 349 | * SoulJar: [[spoiler:Tom Riddle's diary is a Horcrux that holds a piece of his soul.]] |
| 350 | * SpannerInTheWorks: Lucius Malfoy being careless with [[spoiler:the diary certainly qualifies as this. It is a Horcrux, after all.]] |
| 351 | * SpiderSwarm: The giant spiders (also known as Acromantula) appear to be social, although instead of a queen, they are led by an elderly male spider named Aragog. It's explicitly stated that Aragog had a bride called Mosag, so apparently, Acromantula females don't feed on their male. |
| 352 | * SpinningOutOfHere: Travel by Floo sends the traveler spinning to his/her destination. |
| 353 | * StalkerWithACrush: Colin Creevey is this to Harry in this book, albeit in a HeroWorshipper way with no overt romantic interest being shown. |
| 354 | * StarstruckSpeechless: When Ginny Weasley first meets Harry Potter, the [[LivingLegend legendary]] Boy Who Lived, she scurries away, unable to speak to him. Much later, in-universe and in RealLife, this is a DiscussedTrope when she admits that she had to learn to lose the uncharacteristic ShrinkingViolet behaviour and get to know him as a person. |
| 355 | * StealingTheCredit: [[spoiler:Lockhart]], on a fairly horrifying scale. Be careful if you're a witch or wizard who has done something either brave or impressive. He doesn't just steal the credit, he [[spoiler:''wipes your memories'']]. |
| 356 | [[/folder]] |
| 357 | |
| 358 | [[folder:T–Z]] |
| 359 | * TauntingTheTransformed: The attempt to use [[HumanShifting Polyjuice Potion]] for infiltration goes slightly wrong when Hermione unknowingly uses a cat hair instead of Millicent Bulstrode's while making her share of the potion, leaving her with cat features that don't wear off in the allotted time. Moaning Myrtle is ''delighted'' to see this, gleefully remarking at what people will think when they notice that Hermione now has a tail. |
| 360 | * TemptingFate: |
| 361 | ** Inverted. Ron says of Hermione's plan for the PowerTrio to impersonate Slytherins, "Have you ever heard of a plan where so many things could go wrong?" |
| 362 | ** Later double-subverted, when the boys accomplish their part without a hitch, but Hermione, who refused to go with them, transformed into a cat by accident. |
| 363 | * ThirdPersonPerson: Dobby talks this way, and not only when referring to himself. Later books reveal that the latter, at least, is uniform among house-elves. |
| 364 | * ThisIsGonnaSuck: |
| 365 | ** Harry and Ron fully expect to be expelled after Snape catches them having flown the car to Hogwarts. |
| 366 | ** Ron when he receives the Howler. |
| 367 | * ToiletHorror: In a nod to this trope, students avoid a certain bathroom because it's haunted by an unpleasant ghost. This isn't really played for horror, as Moaning Myrtle is just gloomy and annoying, not vengeful. The trope is later played straight, however, when the same bathroom [[spoiler:turns out to be the portal to the Chamber of Secrets, home of the monster that's been terrifying Hogwarts. It's also revealed that Myrtle was killed there by the same monster.]] |
| 368 | * TomeOfEldritchLore: |
| 369 | ** The ''Moste Potente Potions'' book has shades of this with illustrations showing a man turned inside out and a woman with several pairs of arms growing out of her head. |
| 370 | ** Riddle's diary [[spoiler:contains part of Voldemort's soul and manages to take control of Ginny.]] |
| 371 | ** Ron mentions a book that makes you keep reading it for the rest of your life. |
| 372 | * TomTheDarkLord: [[spoiler:A younger incarnation of Voldemort turns out to be the {{Trope Namer|s}}.]] |
| 373 | * TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The true identity of the monster lurking in the Chamber of Secrets is supposed to be a mystery until the last third of the book -- which did not stop multiple editions from spoiling it by heavily featuring snakes and snake imagery on their covers. The cover featured on this very page has the FinalBattle between Harry and the Basilisk in plain view, thereby leaving nothing at all to the imagination. |
| 374 | * TrickedIntoSigning: A signed permission slip from a teacher in order to check out a book from the restricted section of the library. Our heroes decide to get the signature from their dumbest teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart. While they do tell him [[ExactWords the truth that it's for checking out a book]], Lockhart clearly doesn't care and happily signs it as though it were yet another autograph. |
| 375 | * TwistedEchoCut: When Harry, Ron and Hermione decide to make Polyjuice Potion, they need a signed note from a teacher to obtain the book they need from the library. At the end of the chapter, Ron says that no teacher will be thick enough to give them one; and at the beginning of the next chapter, the inept Professor Lockhart is mentioned, who is indeed the teacher they ask for this. |
| 376 | -->'''Ron:''' Oh come on, no teacher is going to fall for that. They'd have to be really thick … |
| 377 | -->[In the next chapter] Since the disastrous episode of the Cornish Pixies, Professor Lockhart had not brought any live creatures to the class. |
| 378 | * UnseenPenPal: [[spoiler:Tom Riddle, though he lacks any StalkerWithACrush tendencies toward Ginny, manipulates Ginny into thinking he's a genuine friend of hers. By the time Ginny realizes the truth, it's too late, and Tom has control over her.]] |
| 379 | * UnwantedAssistance: ''Dobby.'' Harry actually asks him never to try to save his life again at the end. [[spoiler:[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Good thing]] Dobby [[HeroicSacrifice didn't listen]].]] |
| 380 | * VillainWithGoodPublicity: |
| 381 | ** Lucius Malfoy, who is a distinguished Ministry official despite being a former Death Eater. He manages this by attributing his past affiliation with the BigBad to [[MindRape the Imperius Curse.]] |
| 382 | ** Lockhart is another example, although he's more of an AntiVillain. |
| 383 | ** [[spoiler:Tom Riddle, fifty years prior to the events of the story. He used the Basilisk to murder a student, then framed Hagrid, took credit for catching him, and received a Special Award for Services to the School.]] |
| 384 | * WatchOutForThatTree: What tree?! The Whomping Willow! |
| 385 | * WeaksauceWeakness: The Basilisk would die at the crowing of a rooster (presumably because it is hatched from a chicken's egg incubated by a toad). One wonders just how effective a weapon a Basilisk would be to a Dark wizard in any other situation, given everyone knows this and roosters aren't exactly hard to come by. (In fact, [[spoiler:Tom Riddle]] anticipated this [[spoiler:and made Ginny kill all the roosters on the grounds to prevent any from stopping the Basilisk]].) |
| 386 | * WellIntentionedExtremist: Dobby. |
| 387 | -->"''Your'' Bludger?" said Harry, anger rising once more. "What d'you mean, your Bludger? ''You'' made that Bludger try and kill me?"\ |
| 388 | "Not kill you, sir, never kill you!" said Dobby, shocked. "Dobby wants to save Harry Potter's life! Better sent home, grievously injured, than remain here, sir! Dobby only wanted Harry Potter hurt enough to be sent home!" |
| 389 | * WeNeedADistraction: When Harry, Ron and Hermione need to steal potion ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion, Harry shoots a firework into Goyle's cauldron and makes it explode, causing enough panic to enable Hermione to sneak into Snape's cupboards. |
| 390 | * WhamLine: Tom Riddle's [[TheReveal reveal]]. Turns out his full name ("Tom Marvolo Riddle"), [[SignificantAnagram can be rearranged]] to spell … [[spoiler:"I AM [[ActuallyIAmHim LORD VOLDEMORT.]]"]] |
| 391 | * WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Those poor Mandrakes. Even though everything suggests that they are sapient, social lifeforms (they get "moody and secretive" in their adolescent phase, enjoy partying, and when they reach adulthood, start moving into each other's pots), nobody seems to think chopping a Mandrake up for a potion is any different than chopping up a carrot. |
| 392 | ** The gnomes in the Weasley garden are similarly intelligent (or at least appear that way). Harry actually feels bad about participating in removing the gnomes from the garden … until they start trying to bite him. |
| 393 | * WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: At the very end of chapter nine, "The Writing on the Wall", Hermione comes up with the idea of using Polyjuice Potion to get information from Malfoy. However, the book with information on how to make it is in the Restricted Section of the library, and they need permission from a professor to take out the book, which would raise suspicion from any professor they ask. |
| 394 | -->'''Last line of chapter nine:''' "Oh, come on, no teacher's going to fall for that," said Ron. "They'd have to be really thick …"\ |
| 395 | [''[[GilliganCut Chapter break]]'']\ |
| 396 | '''First line of chapter ten, "The Rogue Bludger":''' Since the disastrous episode with the pixies, Professor Lockhart had not brought live creatures to class. … |
| 397 | * WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Or in this case, spiders? Poor, poor Ron. However, it speaks to his character that he goes into the Forbidden Forest anyway. Ron even lampshades it in the [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets film]]. |
| 398 | -->'''Ron''': Why spiders? Why couldn't it be "follow the butterflies"? |
| 399 | * WokenUpAtAnUngodlyHour: Ron, Fred, and George Weasley rescue Harry from the Dursleys in the middle of the night. The boys unintentionally wake the Muggle family up. Harry and the Weasleys manage to escape from them. |
| 400 | * WondrousLadiesRoom: Hermione tries to give Moaning Myrtle this excuse for bringing Harry and Ron into the girls' bathroom Myrtle haunts. As the bathroom is filthy and largely abandoned, Myrtle doesn't really buy it. |
| 401 | * WontTakeYesForAnAnswer: After the attack on Nick and Justin, Hagrid bursts into Dumbledore's office to explain that he was talking to Harry only seconds beforehand and he'll swear to Harry's innocence in front of the Ministry if necessary. Dumbledore repeatedly tries to interrupt before half-shouting that he completely agrees with Hagrid. |
| 402 | * TheWoobie: InUniverse: Harry feels sorry for Tom Riddle upon learning that Riddle grew up in a Muggle orphanage and returned there every summer. His sympathy vanishes when [[spoiler:Riddle reveals that he is Voldemort]]. |
| 403 | * WreckedWeapon: Ron's wand winds up being broken in chapter five and causes him trouble for most of the book. When [[spoiler:Lockhart tries to use it to Obliviate Harry and Ron]], the wand explodes. |
| 404 | * WroteTheBook: Inverted; even though Lockhart literally wrote the book on dealing with magical pests, that doesn't mean he has a clue about it. |
| 405 | * XanatosGambit: Lucius Malfoy's plan has two possible outcomes: either [[spoiler:Ginny is caught, thus 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 ''Half-Blood Prince'' and ''Deathly Hallows''.]] |
| 406 | * YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Harry feels unworthy of his fame as well as his house, Gryffindor. Dumbledore manages to assure him that he does belong in Gryffindor, showing Harry the sword as proof. |
| 407 | [[/folder]] |
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FollowingContext Literature / HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets
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