Potter thoughts

[alexxkay]

So I finally let myself be assimilated by the Harry Potter thing. I bounced off the first few books several years ago, but they read rather differently when you realize that you are married to one of the leads :-) My old opinion still mostly holds ("I've read this before, and better done"), but they're enjoyable enough to keep up with, if only to know what everybody else is talking about. So now I'm all caught up... for a few weeks :-)

I wonder if Dumbledore dies in Book 6 or early in Book 7? Mythologically speaking, he can't be around for the Big Fight At The End. Earlier in the series, I was happy in the belief that he was probably clever enough to realize this himself and make plans. But then he spent all of Book 5 acting like an idiot, so maybe not.

Actually saw the movie of Azkaban shortly before reading the book. Thought that the movie was a much better-told version of the story. Goblet of Fire's going to be a trickier compression problem, but I look forward to seeing how they manage it.

I'm still upset that the american editions of Book 1 don't include an illustration for the potion logic problem at the end.

I agree with rickthefightguy that mystics with uselessly vague prophecies (I'm looking at you, Trelawney) should really be shot in the face.

I read these in scanned editions, on my PDA. I'm used to glossing over mis-scanned words, but every once in a while, they achieve a kind of accidental poetry. At one point a cauldron is described as having, beneath it, "crackling names".

Comments

"crackling names"

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Heck, if words have power, why can't you cook with them?

HP

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, I was going to make a useful comment, and forgot.

Dumbledore: I've read advice on writing books for kids. One of the things always mentioned is that the kids have to be the ones to solve the problems, no deus-ex-machina adults. This may be why Dumbledore, who is reputed to be so wise and knowledgeable, consistently acts like an idiot, unless he's giving exposition, or handing Harry something useful off-screen. It bothers me that this is handled badly, but maybe lots of people haven't noticed.

As for Goblet of Fire, I wonder how they're going to film something with such an unsympathetic main character. Harry whines for pretty much the entire book. Now maybe that's common for teenagers, but it's damned annoying.

"mystics with uselessly vague prophecies should really be shot in the face." No argument. However, this does follow common real-world examples. The vagueness, that is. It's got to be vague enough that the "mystic" has half a chance of finding some lunk who will say "I have a cousin named Jack!" when the mystic says "It's someone whose name begins with J... or maybe K..."

[jducoeur]

Dumbledore: I was actually pretty surprised that he survived Book 5. Given the big publicity windup of Someone Important Will Die, I was just *sure* it would be Dumbledore, for precisely the mythological reasons you cite...