#I've been haunted by the inclusion of this question. what does it MEAN.

[gendzl]

I was recently asked to name 3 of the Great Lakes during a mental eval and now I'm curious about just how standard it actually is for people to know them, so

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

I loved this chapter so much. I still hate her, that’ll never change, but this is one of my fave chapters of year 7. Actually it’s one of my fave chapters overall.

Thank you, anon. Thank you for saying this. Because it's exactly what I've been trying to say, and you summarized it so concisely and succinctly. Yes, she's a monster, but her inclusion almost always signals a #WhamEpisode. A hugely significant chapter of the story. The Forbidden Forest. The Infiltration. The Sunken Vault. And now this. I know exactly what you mean. This chapter was a lot of things but it sure wasn't boring. We learned a great deal, not just about Rakepick, and the stakes were pretty high. I always used to say that, by law of canon, Rakepick couldn't break out of Azkaban, but that's not technically true. She could, so long as no one realized she was missing. I mean, Sirius wasn't even the first to escape, he was just the first that anyone knew about.

So like, the question of "Will MC do the unthinkable and help Rakepick escape" was like...the answer wasn't an immediate and obvious "no." It was genuinely fascinating to see what had become of Rakepick since we saw her last (especially if you trapped her in the Vault, my god) and it was chilling to wonder just how far MC was willing to go. Would they really help HER escape just to learn the name of R's leader? Or, alternatively, (for MCs like Sarahi Silvers) does MC still have a shred of compassion for Rakepick despite...well, everything? Will their mercy come back to haunt them? In the end, it didn't happen, but the idea was spooky.