Okay, so I've been dreaming of going to Disney World all my life and haven't made it yet, so just add this one to the list, but... this sounds extremely cool. And since it's in Orlando, I can hit up Disney and Hogwarts at the same time! You know, when I win the lottery...
LONDON -- Universal Studios is opening up a Harry Potter theme park in Florida — complete with the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade village.
"The Wizarding World of Harry Potter," will open in late 2009 in Orlando, officials said Thursday.
"The plans I've seen look incredibly exciting, and I don't think fans of the books or films will be disappointed," said author J.K. Rowling, who has been working with a creative team to make sure the park resembles the books and films.
More than a dozen artists and designers lead by Stuart Craig, the production designer of the movies, have set up house in the studio where the movies are being filmed to make sure every detail is considered, according to Scott Trowbridge of Universal.
"We're really going to the people who know this world best to ensure that level of authenticity," he said.
The Potter park will allow visitors to view the iconic locations in Rowling's magical world, like Dumbledore's office in Hogwarts and the shops in Hogsmeade. Some locations may be in upcoming books, Trowbridge said.
Trowbridge said while there would not be any character lookalikes at the park, fans wanting to see Harry Potter and his magical friends wouldn't leave disappointed.
"This is Harry's world," said Trowbridge. "Most every fan wants to have an encounter with the star of the show."
This sounds soooo nifty. To say nothing of the perfect venue for which to develop official butterbeer...
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Flitting Past Professor Flitwick
It occurs to me, while re-reading these books, that one of the most omnipresent yet overlooked characters in the series is Professor Flitwick. We see Harry and his friends in many of his classes, and we often catch a glimpse of him in the corridors or chatting with other professors in the Great Hall or some other public place. But because Harry doesn't seem to have many private encounters with him, he is somewhat relegated to a background role.
Harry certainly doesn't harbor any antagonistic feelings toward him, as he does toward Snape, Umbridge and to a lesser extent Trelawney and Lockhart. But neither does there appear to be any particularly strong bond between them, as he has with Hagrid, Lupin and, more distantly, Dumbledore and McGonagall. If we were looking over Hermione's shoulder throughout the books, I think Flitwick might emerge as a more prominent character. She seems especially skilled at charms, and he is effusive with his praises of her abilities.
Of course, I think part of that is just his personality. He strikes me as the sort of teacher who values positive reinforcement above punishment. If his lessons aren't sinking in, he assigns extra homework, but I can't see him slapping detentions on students very often or deducting House Points left and right. He seems to be a very easy-going sort of fellow, cheerfully resigned to the fact that his short stature renders him an easy target for wayward spells being practiced in his class.
Despite his unintimidating teaching style, he is very effective; his hands-on demonstrations allow the lessons to really sink in. He challenges students to a high degree, and when Fred and George comment on his inspection by Umbridge (311), it drives home his unflappable demeanor and his unimpeachable reputation as a solid professor. Flitwick, in turn, seems to have considerable admiration for the twins' abilities, even if they don't always translate to good test scores. He knows that his methods have been effective for them but that they only apply themselves properly on occasions that suit them. And really, why should grades be of such grave concern to a couple of entrepreneurs anyway, especially when they have the capital to back them up?
Anyway, as Head of Ravenclaw, Flitwick is not only exceedingly clever but also wise, and in some ways his personality mirrors Dumbledore's, particularly in terms of the twinkle so often found in the Headmaster's eyes. Rowling may not turn the spotlight upon him too often, but the Charms professor is quite charming indeed and a definite asset to the school and to the series.
Harry certainly doesn't harbor any antagonistic feelings toward him, as he does toward Snape, Umbridge and to a lesser extent Trelawney and Lockhart. But neither does there appear to be any particularly strong bond between them, as he has with Hagrid, Lupin and, more distantly, Dumbledore and McGonagall. If we were looking over Hermione's shoulder throughout the books, I think Flitwick might emerge as a more prominent character. She seems especially skilled at charms, and he is effusive with his praises of her abilities.
Of course, I think part of that is just his personality. He strikes me as the sort of teacher who values positive reinforcement above punishment. If his lessons aren't sinking in, he assigns extra homework, but I can't see him slapping detentions on students very often or deducting House Points left and right. He seems to be a very easy-going sort of fellow, cheerfully resigned to the fact that his short stature renders him an easy target for wayward spells being practiced in his class.
Despite his unintimidating teaching style, he is very effective; his hands-on demonstrations allow the lessons to really sink in. He challenges students to a high degree, and when Fred and George comment on his inspection by Umbridge (311), it drives home his unflappable demeanor and his unimpeachable reputation as a solid professor. Flitwick, in turn, seems to have considerable admiration for the twins' abilities, even if they don't always translate to good test scores. He knows that his methods have been effective for them but that they only apply themselves properly on occasions that suit them. And really, why should grades be of such grave concern to a couple of entrepreneurs anyway, especially when they have the capital to back them up?
Anyway, as Head of Ravenclaw, Flitwick is not only exceedingly clever but also wise, and in some ways his personality mirrors Dumbledore's, particularly in terms of the twinkle so often found in the Headmaster's eyes. Rowling may not turn the spotlight upon him too often, but the Charms professor is quite charming indeed and a definite asset to the school and to the series.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Fathers and Sons
I finished GoF yesterday. One of the things that really struck me this time through was the cover, which features a still very young and innocent looking Harry, wielding a wand in triumphant excitement while the other Tri-wizard champions lurk in the background. This is the last of the books to feature such a young and almost carefree looking Harry on the cover, and with good reason. It's really in Goblet that the series takes a much more serious turn to the battle against darkness.
I still have Crouch/Mad-Eye on the brain. I couldn't help but feel thoughtful as the story wound up, thinking about the terrible complexities of Crouch and Crouch Jr.'s relationship. Voldemort himself, in the graveyard, draws the parallel for us, just in case we've missed it -- that both he and Crouch had "disappointing fathers" as he puts it so ironically and sickeningly. When you think about it, both Voldemort and Crouch Jr. did indeed receive some real wounding and neglect at the hands of their fathers, though this should not have resulted in the totally demented and horrifying responses they give. One wonders if Crouch Jr. wasn't somehow following in the footsteps of his "father figure" Voldemort by killing his own father in cold blood, just as Voldemort had done.
Father-son relationships are all over the Harry Potter books. While it's true that mother love is the heart and soul, the "wand core" if you will, of the story, Rowling really spends far more energy and ink exploring father/son relationships. It's father-hunger that drives a lot of the male characters, or at least plays a big part. Harry longs for both of his parents, and for a family, but need and desire for a father is especially strong, as we see in PoA when he hopes against hope that the person he sees in the distance, conjuring the patronus that saves them, is his father. (And then there's Prongs...and also the fact that it's his father's shade that advises him and guides him in the graveyard battle. Every time I get to the line when Lily says "Hold on, your father's coming," I cry.)
I think we can say Voldemort longs (or at least used to, back when he was still human) for a family too, though he was already cold and closed off enough even by age eleven to never admit it. But what's he doing really, when he builds his gang of death eaters -- he's trying to manufacture a family ("My true family returns!") although he has no love for any of them which makes you wonder really how deeply bound many of them are to him, bound only as they are by fear and power-lust.
So many other nods to father-son relationships and stories: Harry and Sirius, his godfather; Hagrid feeling a kinship with Harry because they'd both lost their fathers and families at a young age; Draco's warped relationship with his Lucius and his need to prove his mettle to his dad, even at high cost; the terribly bad fathering that Dudley has received from Vernon (which Dumbledore notes in HBP); Neville's courageous father and mother tortured into insanity when he was just a young child, so he essentially grows up an orphan raises by a grandmother; the Weasley boys and Arthur (with lots of complications especially between Arthur and Percy); the Crouch/Crouch Jr. mess; the memory Snape hides of his own abusive father. Am I forgetting anything? I'm sure I am.
At any rate, this has been such a strong thread running through HP that I feel certain there will be more of it in book 7. And I wonder really if the whole question of Snape's loyalties isn't tied up here, in which "father figure" (Voldemort or Dumbledore) he truly feels an allegiance to. One of the biggest reasons I'm betting on Snape's loyalties to the right is that I believe love is strong than hate, blessing stronger than cursing, and forgiveness stronger than revenge. Snape has been mentored for over sixteen years by Albus Dumbledore; he's been in close proximity to the man all this time. I have a hard time not believing that he hasn't been deeply shaped by that forgiveness and love, even if he's struggled over the years with a continued fascination with (addiction to?) the dark arts, and even if that forgiveness and love have not yet worked far enough down into his heart for him to be fully freed and to give that kind of love away to others. I think we're going to see it happen. Harry's healing and Snape's healing -- their abilities to love and forgive -- are inextricably tied up. They've both been "fathered" by Dumbledore, which in an odd way makes them brothers.
I still have Crouch/Mad-Eye on the brain. I couldn't help but feel thoughtful as the story wound up, thinking about the terrible complexities of Crouch and Crouch Jr.'s relationship. Voldemort himself, in the graveyard, draws the parallel for us, just in case we've missed it -- that both he and Crouch had "disappointing fathers" as he puts it so ironically and sickeningly. When you think about it, both Voldemort and Crouch Jr. did indeed receive some real wounding and neglect at the hands of their fathers, though this should not have resulted in the totally demented and horrifying responses they give. One wonders if Crouch Jr. wasn't somehow following in the footsteps of his "father figure" Voldemort by killing his own father in cold blood, just as Voldemort had done.
Father-son relationships are all over the Harry Potter books. While it's true that mother love is the heart and soul, the "wand core" if you will, of the story, Rowling really spends far more energy and ink exploring father/son relationships. It's father-hunger that drives a lot of the male characters, or at least plays a big part. Harry longs for both of his parents, and for a family, but need and desire for a father is especially strong, as we see in PoA when he hopes against hope that the person he sees in the distance, conjuring the patronus that saves them, is his father. (And then there's Prongs...and also the fact that it's his father's shade that advises him and guides him in the graveyard battle. Every time I get to the line when Lily says "Hold on, your father's coming," I cry.)
I think we can say Voldemort longs (or at least used to, back when he was still human) for a family too, though he was already cold and closed off enough even by age eleven to never admit it. But what's he doing really, when he builds his gang of death eaters -- he's trying to manufacture a family ("My true family returns!") although he has no love for any of them which makes you wonder really how deeply bound many of them are to him, bound only as they are by fear and power-lust.
So many other nods to father-son relationships and stories: Harry and Sirius, his godfather; Hagrid feeling a kinship with Harry because they'd both lost their fathers and families at a young age; Draco's warped relationship with his Lucius and his need to prove his mettle to his dad, even at high cost; the terribly bad fathering that Dudley has received from Vernon (which Dumbledore notes in HBP); Neville's courageous father and mother tortured into insanity when he was just a young child, so he essentially grows up an orphan raises by a grandmother; the Weasley boys and Arthur (with lots of complications especially between Arthur and Percy); the Crouch/Crouch Jr. mess; the memory Snape hides of his own abusive father. Am I forgetting anything? I'm sure I am.
At any rate, this has been such a strong thread running through HP that I feel certain there will be more of it in book 7. And I wonder really if the whole question of Snape's loyalties isn't tied up here, in which "father figure" (Voldemort or Dumbledore) he truly feels an allegiance to. One of the biggest reasons I'm betting on Snape's loyalties to the right is that I believe love is strong than hate, blessing stronger than cursing, and forgiveness stronger than revenge. Snape has been mentored for over sixteen years by Albus Dumbledore; he's been in close proximity to the man all this time. I have a hard time not believing that he hasn't been deeply shaped by that forgiveness and love, even if he's struggled over the years with a continued fascination with (addiction to?) the dark arts, and even if that forgiveness and love have not yet worked far enough down into his heart for him to be fully freed and to give that kind of love away to others. I think we're going to see it happen. Harry's healing and Snape's healing -- their abilities to love and forgive -- are inextricably tied up. They've both been "fathered" by Dumbledore, which in an odd way makes them brothers.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Constant Vigilance!
I'm always intrigued by Mad-Eye Moody's character in Goblet of Fire, especially since we know (upon re-reading) that he's not really Mad-Eye Moody.
I think this character twist is one of the biggest that Jo Rowling's thrown down in the whole series. I for one was completely buffaloed my first time through. I had NO CLUE that Moody wasn't Moody. I certainly hadn't figured out the Barty Crouch Jr. connection.
I confess when I finished the book the first time, much as I loved it and enjoyed it, there was a tiny part of me that felt a bit deflated by the fact that one of the most complex and layered characters in the whole story turned out to be a bad guy only masquerading as that person. I never had that feeling with, say, Professor Quirrel, whom we hardly got to know. Plus it was different with Quirrel. He was weak and cowardly and Voldemort moved into the vaccum and possessed him. It was easy to feel sorry for Quirrel, who was really just a pawn in Voldemort's game.
But Crouch/Moody is different. Throughout GoF, I liked Moody -- well, liked isn't the right word perhaps -- but I respected him for the most part. I still do, whenever I read it, though I keep telling myself that it's really Crouch acting out of evil motivations every step of the way, no matter what it looks like on the surface. That's still easy to forget. Moody seems to be on the side of the right: not only because he has a reputation as an auror, but because of his actions throughout the story. He seems concerned to teach his students how to fight against the dark arts; he seems compassionate (he really does!) toward Neville; he seems impressed by Harry's ability to throw off the imperius curse and works him hard so that he'll be able to do it better; he has Draco's number as a manipulative back-stabber right from the start. All of these things are designed to gain Harry's trust, our trust. And it worked, at least with me.
Of course once you know Moody is Crouch, you can easily come up with a cauldron full of reasons for why he acts the way he acts in each case. You can argue that he's a fine actor, able to hoodwink Dumbledore into believing he's the real Mad-Eye, and that he does that by presenting an impeccable cover as a dedicated teacher. You can argue that all of his "compassion" toward Neville is really just a cover so that he can manipulate events -- make sure Neville has the book that mentions gillyweed, so that Harry will be able to find out how to breathe underwater, thus survive one more task on the road to the graveyard meeting with Voldemort. It makes my blood run cold to realize that Moody/Crouch, as he stood in front of those 4th year students teaching them about the cruciatus curse (and actually performing it on that poor spider...perhaps that should have been our first tip-off) knew what had happened to Neville's parents. "Longbottom, isn't it?" he asks so casually.
His encouragement of Harry is harder to figure...not that it doesn't make sense for him to gain Harry's trust and to keep him moving one step closer to the confrontation with Voldemort, but does he have to be so thorough? There's a real irony here that some of the best training Harry has ever had in defending himself against the unforgiveable curses, particularly the imperious curse, comes from a death eater working for his arch-enemy. I'd wager that Moody/Crouch's seeming admiration for Harry's skills (despite his sneering speech to Harry at the end, when his identity is revealed) is real though grudging. I think he recognizes skills in Harry, real abilities, abilities and skills perhaps they share in common. Because it turns out that Crouch Jr. has learned the hard way himself, through many long years, how to throw off that imperious curse. No wonder he has a fascination with the one student who manages to begin to throw it off right in the very first lesson. It appears to take tremendous will-power, a tremendous will to live.
I struggled for a long time with the whole "bouncing ferret" scene -- would Crouch/Moody, I wondered, actually do this to a fellow-death-eater's kid, just to gain Harry's trust? Wouldn't he actually be sympathetic to Draco and his ilk in Slytherin, even though he has to hide the fact while pretending to be Moody (I almost said while pretending to be "Dumbledore's man" -- you begin to realize after a while how many of these themes and questions of loyalties repeat across books and characters...). This time around it finally occurs to me how much Crouch/Moody must hate death eaters that got off scott-free -- he even says as much later, that there's nothing he hates more. He himself suffered for so many years, first in Azkaban, then by his father's attempts to "hide him" and keep him alive, though imprisoned. So perhaps it makes perfect sense that he'd terrorize Draco if given the chance. "...I know your father of old, boy..." he says, and while we think he means that he once went after Lucius Malfoy as an auror, the subtext (given his real identity) is that they were once death eaters together, and Crouch is hopping mad that Malfoy's been free all this time while he's been paying the price.
So many of these thoughts make me think of Snape, of course. We could ask so many of the same questions about Snape. Has he too been wearing a kind of "disguise" (though not a polyjuice one)? Has he too been playing fast and loose with loyalties? One thing that gives me hope about Snape's ultimate allegiances is that he appears in Crouch/Moody's foe glass along with McGonagall and Dumbledore at the ultimate moment. Snape's discomfort around Moody all year doesn't have to come from secret knowledge of Moody's real identity; it can be legitimate based on the fact that the real Moody chased him down and went after him when he was a death eater, and thus knows his secrets and his dark past.
One of JKR's talents is to help humanize even the "bad guys," even the people we know are Harry's (and Dumbledore's) enemies. Crouch is so culpable here. He's more responsible than almost anyone for getting Harry to that graveyard. And yet I think there are moments in the Crouch/Moody portrayal that come back to us later, not just as clever covers of identity, but of sad glimmers of possibilities that Crouch Jr. could have made different choices along the way and turned out to be a very different sort of person. Would it be awful to consider that he might have had a moment of real admiration for Harry, or even possibly real compassion for Neville? Could his suffering not have given him buried qualities that Voldemort hadn't yet had a chance to quite fully bend and corrupt?
I think this character twist is one of the biggest that Jo Rowling's thrown down in the whole series. I for one was completely buffaloed my first time through. I had NO CLUE that Moody wasn't Moody. I certainly hadn't figured out the Barty Crouch Jr. connection.
I confess when I finished the book the first time, much as I loved it and enjoyed it, there was a tiny part of me that felt a bit deflated by the fact that one of the most complex and layered characters in the whole story turned out to be a bad guy only masquerading as that person. I never had that feeling with, say, Professor Quirrel, whom we hardly got to know. Plus it was different with Quirrel. He was weak and cowardly and Voldemort moved into the vaccum and possessed him. It was easy to feel sorry for Quirrel, who was really just a pawn in Voldemort's game.
But Crouch/Moody is different. Throughout GoF, I liked Moody -- well, liked isn't the right word perhaps -- but I respected him for the most part. I still do, whenever I read it, though I keep telling myself that it's really Crouch acting out of evil motivations every step of the way, no matter what it looks like on the surface. That's still easy to forget. Moody seems to be on the side of the right: not only because he has a reputation as an auror, but because of his actions throughout the story. He seems concerned to teach his students how to fight against the dark arts; he seems compassionate (he really does!) toward Neville; he seems impressed by Harry's ability to throw off the imperius curse and works him hard so that he'll be able to do it better; he has Draco's number as a manipulative back-stabber right from the start. All of these things are designed to gain Harry's trust, our trust. And it worked, at least with me.
Of course once you know Moody is Crouch, you can easily come up with a cauldron full of reasons for why he acts the way he acts in each case. You can argue that he's a fine actor, able to hoodwink Dumbledore into believing he's the real Mad-Eye, and that he does that by presenting an impeccable cover as a dedicated teacher. You can argue that all of his "compassion" toward Neville is really just a cover so that he can manipulate events -- make sure Neville has the book that mentions gillyweed, so that Harry will be able to find out how to breathe underwater, thus survive one more task on the road to the graveyard meeting with Voldemort. It makes my blood run cold to realize that Moody/Crouch, as he stood in front of those 4th year students teaching them about the cruciatus curse (and actually performing it on that poor spider...perhaps that should have been our first tip-off) knew what had happened to Neville's parents. "Longbottom, isn't it?" he asks so casually.
His encouragement of Harry is harder to figure...not that it doesn't make sense for him to gain Harry's trust and to keep him moving one step closer to the confrontation with Voldemort, but does he have to be so thorough? There's a real irony here that some of the best training Harry has ever had in defending himself against the unforgiveable curses, particularly the imperious curse, comes from a death eater working for his arch-enemy. I'd wager that Moody/Crouch's seeming admiration for Harry's skills (despite his sneering speech to Harry at the end, when his identity is revealed) is real though grudging. I think he recognizes skills in Harry, real abilities, abilities and skills perhaps they share in common. Because it turns out that Crouch Jr. has learned the hard way himself, through many long years, how to throw off that imperious curse. No wonder he has a fascination with the one student who manages to begin to throw it off right in the very first lesson. It appears to take tremendous will-power, a tremendous will to live.
I struggled for a long time with the whole "bouncing ferret" scene -- would Crouch/Moody, I wondered, actually do this to a fellow-death-eater's kid, just to gain Harry's trust? Wouldn't he actually be sympathetic to Draco and his ilk in Slytherin, even though he has to hide the fact while pretending to be Moody (I almost said while pretending to be "Dumbledore's man" -- you begin to realize after a while how many of these themes and questions of loyalties repeat across books and characters...). This time around it finally occurs to me how much Crouch/Moody must hate death eaters that got off scott-free -- he even says as much later, that there's nothing he hates more. He himself suffered for so many years, first in Azkaban, then by his father's attempts to "hide him" and keep him alive, though imprisoned. So perhaps it makes perfect sense that he'd terrorize Draco if given the chance. "...I know your father of old, boy..." he says, and while we think he means that he once went after Lucius Malfoy as an auror, the subtext (given his real identity) is that they were once death eaters together, and Crouch is hopping mad that Malfoy's been free all this time while he's been paying the price.
So many of these thoughts make me think of Snape, of course. We could ask so many of the same questions about Snape. Has he too been wearing a kind of "disguise" (though not a polyjuice one)? Has he too been playing fast and loose with loyalties? One thing that gives me hope about Snape's ultimate allegiances is that he appears in Crouch/Moody's foe glass along with McGonagall and Dumbledore at the ultimate moment. Snape's discomfort around Moody all year doesn't have to come from secret knowledge of Moody's real identity; it can be legitimate based on the fact that the real Moody chased him down and went after him when he was a death eater, and thus knows his secrets and his dark past.
One of JKR's talents is to help humanize even the "bad guys," even the people we know are Harry's (and Dumbledore's) enemies. Crouch is so culpable here. He's more responsible than almost anyone for getting Harry to that graveyard. And yet I think there are moments in the Crouch/Moody portrayal that come back to us later, not just as clever covers of identity, but of sad glimmers of possibilities that Crouch Jr. could have made different choices along the way and turned out to be a very different sort of person. Would it be awful to consider that he might have had a moment of real admiration for Harry, or even possibly real compassion for Neville? Could his suffering not have given him buried qualities that Voldemort hadn't yet had a chance to quite fully bend and corrupt?
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Scene I Most Missed in the GoF Film
May has been very busy; despite my best attempts, I'm still only about a dozen chapters into my re-read of Goblet of Fire. It's such a fun book, always one of my favorites to read. It usually feels like it goes much faster, but I think this time around I've just had so much going on that I'm not able to string together much time to really lose myself in it, so I'm having to read in bits and pieces.
I'd also forgotten just how long the pre-Hogwarts-intro is in GoF. We didn't get to the opening feast and the sorting hat's song until page 176! We have the Riddle House opening, spend a bit longer than usual at Privet Drive, and then there's the very long section at the Quidditch World Cup. All of which feels important.
When I reviewed the GoF film, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I remember saying how impressed I was at how the filmmakers were able to condense such a hefty, complex book into a coherent two-hour film. I'm still impressed, but that doesn't mean I don't have my favorite moments that didn't make it to the screen. My favorite of all favorites that went missing was the scene where Arthur and the Weasley boys burst through the wall into the Dursley's living room. I love the whole cross-cultural exchange, right down to Arthur trying to be his usual kind, polite self and expressing his delight and interest in how muggle-stuff works while the Dursleys are turning various shades of pale or purple just to be in his presence. By the time you get to Uncle Vernon flinging china figurines while Arthur blasts them with his wand, I'm usually laughing helplessly.
So I missed the Dursleys in the film version of GoF, and hope they're back in OotP. I'm pretty sure they will be, as it seems rather important to see the mingling of Harry's two worlds when he and Dudley run across the dementors. Plus I am really interested in seeing how they might play the scene where Aunt Petunia lets it drop that she actually knows what dementors are. I still remember my absolute astonishment when I first read that scene...I think I took a literal double-take and went back and read the paragraph again to make sure I'd heard what I thought I'd heard. Apparently, according to Rowling, there's still more to be revealed about Petunia. Wonder what it could be?
I'd also forgotten just how long the pre-Hogwarts-intro is in GoF. We didn't get to the opening feast and the sorting hat's song until page 176! We have the Riddle House opening, spend a bit longer than usual at Privet Drive, and then there's the very long section at the Quidditch World Cup. All of which feels important.
When I reviewed the GoF film, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I remember saying how impressed I was at how the filmmakers were able to condense such a hefty, complex book into a coherent two-hour film. I'm still impressed, but that doesn't mean I don't have my favorite moments that didn't make it to the screen. My favorite of all favorites that went missing was the scene where Arthur and the Weasley boys burst through the wall into the Dursley's living room. I love the whole cross-cultural exchange, right down to Arthur trying to be his usual kind, polite self and expressing his delight and interest in how muggle-stuff works while the Dursleys are turning various shades of pale or purple just to be in his presence. By the time you get to Uncle Vernon flinging china figurines while Arthur blasts them with his wand, I'm usually laughing helplessly.
So I missed the Dursleys in the film version of GoF, and hope they're back in OotP. I'm pretty sure they will be, as it seems rather important to see the mingling of Harry's two worlds when he and Dudley run across the dementors. Plus I am really interested in seeing how they might play the scene where Aunt Petunia lets it drop that she actually knows what dementors are. I still remember my absolute astonishment when I first read that scene...I think I took a literal double-take and went back and read the paragraph again to make sure I'd heard what I thought I'd heard. Apparently, according to Rowling, there's still more to be revealed about Petunia. Wonder what it could be?
Spoilers
Saw the following note that J. K. Rowling posted on her diary yesterday, and I most heartily agree. I hate spoilers, and I've really never understood the urge some people feel to ferret them out and to spread them around. To me, it's like sneaking into your parents' closet and finding all your Christmas presents, and then when Christmas comes most of the excitement and magic is gone because you already know what's coming. Some readers have been following Harry's adventures for ten years now. That's a long time to put into the arc of a series, and it really would be infuriating to find out what happens before being transported into that world by Rowling herself one last time. I'm a little worried because of the timing of the seventh book; I really don't want to start reading it until I get back from the reunion, since I know I won't be able to put it down if I do, and we usually only manage one camping trip per year and I don't want to spend the whole time reading. So I'm nervous that by the time I start reading it on Monday, the secrets of its contents will be spilling out on television, in newspapers and especially on the Internet. I may have to eschew contact with the outside world for a few days...
"A couple of weeks ago (April 28th, if you want to go and search the archive) the Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron posted an editorial on potential spoilers for "Deathly Hallows". It made me laugh, but I was also incredibly moved and grateful.
We're a little under three months away, now, and the first distant rumblings of the weirdness that usually precedes a Harry Potter publication can be heard on the horizon. The Leaky Cauldron's early mission statement on spoilers (ie, don't, and we're not putting them up if you do) is deeply appreciated by yours truly.
I add my own plea to Melissa's for one reason, and one only: I want the readers who have, in many instances, grown up with Harry, to embark on the last adventure they will share with him without knowing where they are they going.
Some, perhaps, will read this and take the view that all publicity is good publicity, that spoilers are part of hype, and that I am trying to protect sales rather than my readership. However, spoilers won't stop people buying the book, they never have - all it will do is diminish their pleasure in the book.
There will always be sad individuals who get their kicks from ruining other people's fun, but while sites like Leaky take such an active stance against them, we may yet win. Even if the biggest secret gets out - even if somebody discovers the Giant Squid is actually the world's largest Animagus, which rises from the lake at the eleventh hour, transforms into Godric Gryffindor and... well, I wouldn't like to spoil it."
"A couple of weeks ago (April 28th, if you want to go and search the archive) the Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron posted an editorial on potential spoilers for "Deathly Hallows". It made me laugh, but I was also incredibly moved and grateful.
We're a little under three months away, now, and the first distant rumblings of the weirdness that usually precedes a Harry Potter publication can be heard on the horizon. The Leaky Cauldron's early mission statement on spoilers (ie, don't, and we're not putting them up if you do) is deeply appreciated by yours truly.
I add my own plea to Melissa's for one reason, and one only: I want the readers who have, in many instances, grown up with Harry, to embark on the last adventure they will share with him without knowing where they are they going.
Some, perhaps, will read this and take the view that all publicity is good publicity, that spoilers are part of hype, and that I am trying to protect sales rather than my readership. However, spoilers won't stop people buying the book, they never have - all it will do is diminish their pleasure in the book.
There will always be sad individuals who get their kicks from ruining other people's fun, but while sites like Leaky take such an active stance against them, we may yet win. Even if the biggest secret gets out - even if somebody discovers the Giant Squid is actually the world's largest Animagus, which rises from the lake at the eleventh hour, transforms into Godric Gryffindor and... well, I wouldn't like to spoil it."
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Getting Us To Appreciate the Grass in our Own Lawns...
J. K. Rowling has created an incredible engaging, enchanting fictional world with Harry Potter. Certainly it is on the list of those I would most like to inhabit, and I'm sure that is true for many people. It's easy to read her fantastic descriptions and get swept away in wishing I lived in a land of flying broomsticks, magical transformations and hippogriffs. It all makes the real world seem a little drab in comparison.
Except that Rowling gives us Arthur Weasley. Affable Arthur, doting father and husband, just can't get enough of Muggles. He has spent his whole career investigating their inventions and trying to protect them. His enthusiasm for them is such that it can't help but rub off on readers a little bit. When he gushes about the ingenuity of the devices Muggles create for themselves, suddenly we see ordinary objects in a new light and appreciate how useful and clever they are. We see the beauty of regular people struggling through day-to-day life with no magical assistance, just hard work and determination. It's a helpful way of getting us to see that our own world isn't so bad after all, that it's just as beautiful in its way as any fantastical realm created by a brilliant novelist. Good for Rowling, having Arthur hold a mirror up to us so we can see the worth of our way of life so clearly.
Except that Rowling gives us Arthur Weasley. Affable Arthur, doting father and husband, just can't get enough of Muggles. He has spent his whole career investigating their inventions and trying to protect them. His enthusiasm for them is such that it can't help but rub off on readers a little bit. When he gushes about the ingenuity of the devices Muggles create for themselves, suddenly we see ordinary objects in a new light and appreciate how useful and clever they are. We see the beauty of regular people struggling through day-to-day life with no magical assistance, just hard work and determination. It's a helpful way of getting us to see that our own world isn't so bad after all, that it's just as beautiful in its way as any fantastical realm created by a brilliant novelist. Good for Rowling, having Arthur hold a mirror up to us so we can see the worth of our way of life so clearly.
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