A Month of Fundays: Day 7 – Movie in the Park

Text message to Amy: You don’t want a peanut. Boo!
Response message: I suck! Were there rocks ahead?

At the time I sent today’s text (Last night’s message, OK. Now you all know I write about the fun thing the day after I do it. Magic spoiled!), Chris and I were sitting on blankets in the middle of Victory Memorial Drive Park (which is just some green space in the boulevard of said Drive) waiting for The Princess Bride to appear on screen. Amy was supposed to be there. Matt & Mara and Stacy & Elliott were trying to find babysitters so they could join us, but in the end it was just the two of us - Date Night. Chris was a good sport about the whole thing. He doesn’t much go in for sitting on the ground for that length of time and I swear one of the reasons I married him is because the mosquitoes don’t attack me when he’s around. But, The Princess Bride! I can’t quantify my favorite movie (or book, or song), but this one ranks in the top 10. About 15 minuets before the movie was due to start, the man inflating the portable movie screen walked up to the crowd – including 20 girls between the ages of 6 and 10 celebrating a birthday – and told us the movie was canceled for the night due to a storm front coming through. I had to feel sorry for the poor man because 20 girls at a birthday party, hyped up on sugar and the possibility of staying up late, can be a feral, angry mob. Luckily he was met with mostly shouts of, “NO!” and angry foot stomping…from me, at least. The girls attacked like wild dogs. And that was my fun day!

Or, disappointment abounded – except from my husband – whose legs were cramping up already) but we all managed to leave the park without incident or injury. The birthday party was wrangled with hopes of Red Box and pizza dancing in their heads, Chris had everything packed and in the car before I could stand up, and we returned home without my funday activity for the day.

Rolling with the punches, we made it home and laid our blankets out again on the living room floor, grabbed the kettle corn and m&ms and popped The Princess Bride into the blu-ray. It wasn’t quite the same as a movie in the park or on a rooftop, but we still managed to have fun and enjoy a favorite movie. As a side note: Chris told me it was a good thing we didn’t see the movie in the park because I’m pretty sure I can recite it verbatim and apparently, I was speak/whispering along during most of it. Oops.

I would like to point out that had Amy and Stacy joined us in the park and the movie was a go, then I would not be alone in the speak/whispering. In fact, I’m guessing we would have been quite obnoxious. This is the problem with having the same two friends since the first grade – you’ve sat around many a sleepover watching The Princess Bride whilst reciting all of the lines. Or, even better: Your first year of college – when you’re all discombobulated and the new-fangled internets are actually both new and fangled – you receive an email with an attachment from one of your best friends. The attachment is a transcript of the screenplay to The Princess Bride. It becomes lame when you sit in the computer room at your college wasting valuable computer time by reading the entire transcript; but somewhere inside you know this growing up thing isn’t all about change. You do get to keep some friends and some habits from before.

Movie in the park or movie in your living room, as long as the movie and the company are good, I’d say it’s a fun day!

I think it’s quite possible to do one of those everything-I-need-to-know-about-life-I-learned-from things – Princess Bride-style. It would look something like this:

Good, then pour the wine – I do not envy the headache you’ll have when you wake, but in the meantime: dream of large women – I do not think it means what you think it means – If there are rocks ahead, we really will all be dead – Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato are all morons – My way is not very civilized – Life is pain; anyone who tells you different is selling something – We have already succeeded – Get some rest. If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything – Clearly, you have a dizzying intellect – Now, was that so terrible? – Lies do not become us – There's not a lot of money in revenge - Always count the wheelbarrow and the holocaust cloak amongst your list of assets – Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line – The Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners – Stand your ground – You mocked me once, never do it again – When I say you're a coward, that is only because you are the slimiest weakling to ever crawl the earth - Have fun storming the castle – I am never wrong – You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles - Marriage is a blessed arrangement; a dream within a dream – Death cannot stop true love; all it can do is delay it a while – Someday you may not mind the kissing parts so much – As you wish

Picture: Um. You’re picnic spread, the people watching whatever movie you see outside (free movies bring out all types and kinds), your favorite childhood birthday party. Or, just tell me about your favorite birthday party. What movie did you go see?

Song: The Foundation’s “Build Me Up, Buttercup”

Apparently Morgan Burke, McFly and Busted do covers of the song in this clip.

Tomorrow: Origami – Learning to Make Something Out of Paper

HP Tuesday - The Eyes Have It

Last time I left you all in the midst of book 7, a rather large, dense novel. I could continue on with mothers because they appear more and more as time passes in the book, their importance becoming stronger and more fleshed out. But I have other things to discuss, so I’m moving on. Eyes. Yep, I’m going to focus on one body part today; an important part – the windows to the soul and all. Other eye imagery? I keep thinking of writers like Fitzgerald and Orwell – using eyes to watch and see; Big Brother/billboard-esque type imagery. Bespectacled eyes – like Harry’s, James’, and Dumbeledore’s – usually mean wisdom. They also mean God, but I don’t think Harry or James or even Dumbledore is supposed to represent God in this series. Harry is an everyman character, to the extent that we champion him BECAUSE of his lack of knowledge, pig-headedness and general teen-angsty self. Sure, he figures it out in the end; but because of his entire supporting cast (do I sound like Voldemort there?). His sacrifice is only his own, which is why he succeeds, but the figuring out comes from a lot of different people. I think the only God-because-of-his-disembodied-eyes character in the novel is Aberforth Dumbledore – what the heck does that mean? (PS – That link back there is one of my very favorite vlogbrothers – yes, them again – videos ever!) I haven’t figured out what it means. But Aberfoth’s piercing blue eyes – the same eyes as Dumbledore – look at Harry at the beginning of this last quest, they continue to look out of the mirror each time Harry needs egging on – forward motion. I love that this disembodied eye is in a mirror and always turns back into Harry’s own, green eye – the same eyes as Lily. There are so many eye-like parallels here.

Some Thoughts on Imagery
Thinking about imagery, I started thinking about Shakespeare. Truth be told, I think about Shakespeare a lot – rat bastard. It’s because of him I care so much about symbolism and imagery in the first place. Shakespeare finally made me stop asking, “Does every writer mean to add these things to their works or are we just critiquing to sound smart?” and start asking, “What is this author saying about the human condition when she adds symbolism and imagery?” So Shakespeare and eyes; he does it a lot but HP 7 makes me think of King Lear the most. King Lear could not see what was right in front of him and literally lost his eyes. (Side note: This also makes me think of season 7 of Buffy; add Joss Whedon to my growing list of rat bastards who make me think too much…and for making me use the phrase rat bastard come to think of it.) Who’s the sightless character in HP 7? It is Voldemort, who can not possibly win because he doesn’t see what is right in front of him; so many things that are right in front of him. And where are his human, Tom Riddle eyes – his windows to the soul? They’re literally a piece of his soul. One he cut off and discarded in an attempt to seek eternal life. His eyes are a bit of soul, shielded by a window in a locket that belonged to his greatest descendent; it’s become a horcrux. Voldemort gave up his sight and soul and replaced them with snake-like slit-pupil, red eyes. And in the end, the last thing we read of Voldemort are his scarlet pupils rolling upwards as he dies. In the next sentence, Rowling gives the lifeless body lying on the floor Tom Riddle’s name once again. Neither Tom nor Voldemort can cheat death.

Some Thoughts on Symbolism
Thinking about symbolism, I started thinking about the symbol on the spine of my book (British edition) and also the name of this book, the deathly hallows symbol. When first mentioned, at the wedding, as worn by Xenophilius Lovegood, it is rather like a triangular eye. Actually, the exact sentences – just in case you didn’t get that eyes were important in this novel – read, “Slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, he wore a cap whose tassel dangled in front of his nose and robes of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow. An odd symbol, rather like a triangular eye, glistened from a golden chain around his neck.” (Huh, apparently color is also important in this book – maybe we can discuss yellow, gold, red, green and blue next week?!) This symbol, much like the swastika – which once stood for life, sun, power and good luck – changes over centuries from something good to something inherently evil. The mark of the hallows is a clue that must be followed throughout its history, understood but not conquered; the hallows must not be wielded for power or for eternal life. In other words, the only way to truly understand and use the hallows is to know; wisdom and strength, but also a healthy dose of humility. Harry has the strength to break-up and scatter the hallows; only keeping the invisibility cloak passed down to him.

Lily’s Eyes
Throughout all seven books we’ve been bombarded constantly with the knowledge that Harry has his mother’s eyes. Her soul and his are intertwined. Not just because they are son and mother, but because she sacrificed herself for him; that great, mother-protecting magic coursing through the very soul of these novels. Whether we mean to read into this or not, every ounce of good Harry does seems to generate from this connection with his mum. Lily’s eyes, reappearing in her son’s visage, are what ultimately makes Snape turn toward the light and what keeps him from straying back into the dark. Even at his end, Snape asks Harry to look at him – not because he’s the boy who lived – but because dying is easier when looking into Lily’s eyes. Nineteen years later, who is the only child of Harry’s to inherit Lily’s eyes? Albus Severus Potter – eyes really are the windows to the soul.

HP 7 Part 1 Movie Trailer

Because sometimes a link/clip is so much easier than writing a blog post...

Harry Potter 7 MTV Trailer

I Keep Getting Side Tracked

I think an HP blog is just not in the cards for me this week. So in the meantime, I'd like to leave Mara's facebook note as my guest HP blogger for the week. Because she's brilliant and most of you were copied into that note in the first place and most importantly the wonderful comments filling the page are what I hope for this blog. Apparently she was right and I should have dedicated a blog post to a Feminist Critique of Harry Potter long before now. Feel free to comment more.

If you don't have facebook and really want to read this then comment below and I will copy and paste.

I'll return on Monday with my original post for this week all fleshed out and almost as brilliant.

HP Monday – Book 6 That Flighty Temptress, Adventure

So, what did you think of book 6? We have an entire month to discuss it. In the last post, I told everyone I had 16 ideas to discuss. I guess I should be picking one of those to talk about…Sorry if I ramble around and flit from topic to topic.

I remember liking book 6 more than book 5 on the first read – probably because there is less angst – more angst in the girls this year/book, but less angst all together. This week I’d like to discuss the balancing act Rowling accomplishes in the entire series, but especially in this book. The balancing act in which each book gets darker yet still manages to be light-hearted and fun at times. The highs and lows balance out, taking turns throughout the novel. Book 6 is where Felix Felicis meets Sectumsempra; where in turn many major characters discover they are made up of shades of grey – neither completely bad nor good. We are SO coming back to this topic in another post this month.

Question to discuss: Is this series mid-grade, YA or does it transcend and change? Do we all put too much emphasis on classifying our literature, should we just enjoy it and forget about who it was originally intended for? And this is why I feel classifications are important, because I never used to think they were; but doesn’t a writer have to be writing to someone (or a group of people) to really get their message out there? I don’t know. Maybe I’ve spent too much time in the adult world again thinking about publishing as a business and all. At the heart of a good book is a story and a storyteller – the rest is just semantics.

Sorry, I took a turn somewhere and got way off topic. If you have a strong opinion I’d like to hear it, so feel free to follow this tangent. For everyone else…

Returning to the Adventure of Book 6
The beginning of this book feels like a big call to adventure in the hero quest sort of way – or possibly the prophecy at the end of the last book is the call to adventure and book 6 is Harry accepting that call? Either way, things get darker. But can a call to adventure/action happen this far along in a quest? Yes, each HP book has its own beginning and end and I believe each has its own quest within – that’s the nice thing about Harry and his wizarding crew! But at times I feel like the overall arch doesn’t really get started until this novel.
- Dumbledore collects Harry from the Dursleys’; making him promise to go back there again next summer.
- Dumbledore than tells Harry it is time to chase “that flighty temptress, adventure”.
- Dumbledore sets a series of tasks for Harry (wow, Dumbledore is quite the puppet master in this book) including getting Slughorn to Hogwarts, befriending him and ultimately taking a true memory from him.
- Dumbledore tells Harry he must choose his own fate – Yes, Voldemort marked Harry as his equal, but it is up to Harry to decide if he will seek Voldemort out (of course, the alternative is the greatest Dark Wizard of all time will hunt Harry down if he doesn’t seek him out first, but it is still a choice).
- There’s a whole underworld type scene with fire and the walking dead once the call to adventure is accepted.
- And to boot, Harry’s captain of his house Quidditch team?!

See what I mean?! So much going on in and a Half Blood Prince thrown in for good measure. I’m not sure if the appearance of the potions book tells us more about the prince (I won’t spill yet if you haven’t finished 6 yet), aligns Harry and Ginny, Harry and the Prince, Harry and Voldemort, The Prince and the Weasley twins, or The Price and Voldemort – maybe all of these!

What do you think? Jabber away! I know I haven’t been on top of things lately, but please don’t punish me by remaining silent. We are nearing the end and I have all sorts of crazy notions. I want to know what you all think too.

And although there is no mention of fire in this title please notice the UK version in the picture!

Oh, and before I forget. The results of my Weasley Poll: Your favorite Weasley is [insert drum roll here]

A three way tie between Fred, Arthur and Ron! Also, none of you likes Bill or Percy at all. I know he’s engaged to Phlegm in this book, but I’m not sure Bill deserves the same derision as Percy people.

HP Monday – Movie notes and other ponderings about goblets, glasses, and cauldrons

I’m a little sad no one disagreed with me on the happy, fun roller-coaster ride of book 4. I’m willing to fight for my point, which I do think is accurate, but I see the other side too. I mean this book begins and ends with death – one muggle at the beginning and one wizard at the end. That’s dark no matter how you look at it. And there are bad things and weird omens throughout. Ah, well. Maybe you all agree with me whole-heartedly and there is no need to argue the point.

Movie Notes
I sat through movie 4 twice in a matter of days and I still don’t know how I feel. I have to say, watching it after reading book 4 – also twice, once in October and then again in December - I think I don’t like the movie. But I still get caught up in it each time. I like the music, the imagery, most of the scenes they do show, and the Yule ball especially, but I can’t get over all the stuff that’s missing. Does that even make sense?

I get why the Dursley’s aren’t there, although I do miss them because I think they act as bookends of a sort to each school year. I get why the house elves and S.P.E.W. aren’t in it, and I may even understand why we don’t see Rita as an animagus; but that doesn’t mean I understand why all of the context and plot-braiding that these scenes contain just seems to go puff and makes the movie fall flat.

What do you think? Did you still enjoy it? Hogwarts doesn’t have the same feel as in book 3, but I’m glad this director kept that beautiful clock and the long bridge – I’m a sucker for bridges, they are liminal too. From a Weasley standpoint, I’m still sad Bill and Charlie aren’t in this one. I do like the darker shadings in this film – because things ARE becoming more menacing. Moody and Barty Crouch Jr. are both great – I do heart David Tennant, so I might be slightly biased, but the facial tick thing is brilliant – and both actors mastered when and how to look like each other. There’s no Ludo Bagman, no sub-plot with Fred and George, and Ron just isn’t as annoying as he is in the book – again lending some flatness I just don’t like. The tasks are all enjoyable and fun to watch – the dragon sequence may be a little long, but that’s what they poured their money into, so I can excuse it. I like Hermione a good deal in the movie. Emma Watson uses what they’ve given her to work with and makes the most of it. I’m sad the missing Rita Skeeter scenes are gone, because this is the scary, gray area, line walking Hermione, who makes you wonder what side she will ultimately end up on. Although, the movie Hermione is a kinder, stricter version and they’ve kept movie Hermione true to form by removing those scenes. Boo.

The movie just didn’t find the humor in book 4 – and the humor is what makes book 4 the fun roller-coaster ride it is. I am not amused when viewing movie 4. Luckily I remember being highly amused in movies 5 and 6 – so I’m keeping my hopes up for those two.

The thing I’m most surprised at – because it took me two viewings to realize it – is my perception of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. The movie has completely skewed my original view of these two wizarding schools. I know full well that boys and girls attend both schools, there are a few references to this in the book, and I know full well the all boys and all girls version in the movie exists; what I didn’t realize until the second viewing of the movie is that even when I read the book, I think of Beauxbatons as an all girl school and Durmstrang as an all boys school. And even worse, I think of Ravenclaw full of mostly girls and Slytherin full of mostly boys now. REALLY! I mean I really have to think about it to get these stereotypes out of my head while reading book 5 now. I think that is a greatest disservice to both JK Rowling and her books, I blame this movie for creating it.

Book Wrap Up
Before moving onto book 5 next week, I have a few last minute musings over book 4; because gosh, a lot happened in this book. I could write about it for another month at least. However, I will stick to a few main themes we’ve already discussed, which popped up on my second read.

Mother-love¬
Always an important sub-plot in Harry Potter, mother-love made some interesting appearances in book 4. The first task with the dragons comes to mind. All of the dragons were nesting mothers protecting their eggs. This makes the task of retrieving the eggs more difficult but also poses some morality questions about the care and consideration of magical creatures. One of the mother dragons inadvertently smashes some of her eggs during this task – which is truly horrible when you think about it. Basically I’m saying this one scene hits on mother-love, morality issues, and death. At some point I’ll be able to construct a scene like this…right? Wow, again Rowling.

Many of the other mother-love scenes include Molly Weasley. She’s playing many sides of the mother role in this book – upset when her children do stupid things – Fred & George come to mind; disappointment – Bill her oldest is a success, he was head-boy and has a good job, if only he would cut his hair, put on a suit and get rid of that earring; nurturing – from cooking, to buying books and dress robes, to attending Harry’s last task when his own self-sacrificing mother can not; and even some remorse/foreboding when she feels she’s gone to far – when the entire gang gets back from the Quidditch World Cup and ensuing Dark Mark terrors, Molly only has eyes for Fred and George whom she last had mean words with.

Did anyone else get chills when Molly said, “I shouted at you before you left! It’s all I’ve been thinking about! What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I ever said to you was that you didn’t get enough O.W.L.s? Oh Fred…George…”?

In book 4 we see Lily – or a shade of Lily – helping Harry in his fight with Voldermort. We also know mother-love is a thing Volermort is trying to get around; by using Harry’s blood he feels he’s conquered the strong magic Lily imbued in Harry when she sacrificed herself. (Oh, and for those of you who have spent too many days in an English classroom and need to find the JC figure in every story because some English or Language Arts teacher told you there had to be one for certain forms of literary criticism…it’s Lily Potter. There. Now you can stop looking and just let the story unfold.) Finally, Barty Crouch Jr. had a mother who gave her life to help Barty escape from Azkaban. And Winky acts more like Barty’s mother than his house-elf.

As a side note, I think it is interesting that father-love appears all over these books too, but AGAIN just like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer father-love – or lack there of – seems to be corrupting and harmful. Father-love brings chips on the shoulder and very large, soul-torturing grudges. Why is that?

Friendship and Love
Ron, Hermione and Harry are put through their paces in book 4. There’s squabbling, flirtation, envy, jealousy, loyalty and true friendship involved with just these three. Add in Krum, Cedric, Seamus, Cho, Ginny, Neville, Fleur, Fred, George, and Bill and you’ve got a book at least half-devoted to the pursuit of friendship and the beginnings of romantic love. Task two finds Neville stealing from Snape to help Harry – friendly gesture but also – I think – dragging Neville FINALLY back into the game. He is a loyal friend who belongs in Gryffindor house with the rest of them. Uncovering his past and placing him in the classroom with Harry when the unforgivable curses are revealed and displayed, draws the parallel between these two characters just a little bit closer.

The Yule Ball – or The Unexpected Task as Rowling’s chapter title suggests – is a Petri dish of culturing love. Cedric and Cho, Harry and Cho, Hermione and Krum, Ron and Hermione, Ginny and Neville, Ginny and Harry, Hagrid and Madame Maxime, it’s a growing love-fest where almost everyone is miserable (accept maybe Neville and his happy feet) by the end of the evening because love makes you do the whacky. (Yeah, that’s from Buffy too – I promise to stop the parallels soon…really!) And Hermione is walking in the gray again – she lets Madam Pomfrey reduce her buck-teeth to a normal size (not in the movie, because again it doesn’t fit Hermione’s straight-laced movie persona). It gives her a beautiful moment at the ball, and although Krum’s not a looker, he could have gotten any girl – and maybe some boys – to go to the ball with him. But he genuinely likes Hermione, so there was no need for the buck-teeth reduction. Hermione does it because she is vain and she can.

Moving on – or back – to task 2, I find it interesting that everyone trapped under the water with the mer-people are friends and loved-ones of Harry except Gabrielle, the girl he ends up saving along with Ron. I mean, Krum is only going to care about Hermione, Fleur is only going to care about Gabrielle, and although it may give Cedric a couple more seconds of pause, he’s really only going to care about Cho. But Harry?! Harry’s two best friends and his first love interest are down there – the cards are stacked against him. Would he care if it was Ron and three people he’d never seen before? I honestly don’t know – and that alone makes the friendship/love theme important in book 4.

Finally, forging friendships may actually be the main theme of this book. Between schools, between muggles and wizards, between magical creatures and wizards, between old enemies; friends are the things Voldermort does not have and therefore must eventually lead to his undoing.

Moody vs. Crouch
Raise your hand if you think learning from a dark wizard was actually beneficial to the fourth years? I do. I mean everything underhanded Barty Jr. does in this book is fun to read. And a lot of it was really quite helpful to the students taking his Defense Against the Dark Arts class. On the re-read, many of the things are a little iffy. Turning Malfoy into a ferret may not be something a teacher should actually do, but aren’t you glad he did?! It’s almost as good as Hermione going off and hitting Malfoy. And the unforgivable curses, too. Not just showing what they can do, but trying to get students to block them. Pure dead brilliant. What would the class have been like if the real Moody was teaching? Was Crouch trying to be so much like Moody in disguise, that there really wasn’t a big difference? Does Defense Against the Dark Arts need to be taught by a dark wizard to truly be effective? Morality comes into question again. Mainly when asking the question: Is there really that big a difference between these two characters? What makes one good and the other bad?

And I’m stopping there before I bore you all to death. We will start book 5 next week and I will try to keep it to a month – I’m not sure that’s possible with the longest book in the series, but we will see what happens.

In the meantime, post your final thoughts on book 4 and movie 4. What a ride!
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HP Monday – In which I combine my geeky passions into one blog post and loose all readership potential

As I’ve mentioned before, I hang out at my local Barnes & Noble a lot. I know. Friends and readers who are small publishing and book store owners or employees; I know it is the Death Star. And yet, I use it like my own personal library – grabbing books for reference or lunch time reading and carrying my mini Eee PC (best Christmas present EVER) with me to type and type and type. They have free wi fi, I’m sorry!

Right now I’m in the café, typing away with my grande English Breakfast hot tea – it comes in a coffee cup with a lid so I have issues calling this a cuppa – it’s like the coffee house, Americanized version. There are two things that amuse me about the B&N café: One – no matter what day or time I’m here, there are always a group of real housewives of Edina playing a game of gin while discussing their rough lives in these tough economical times; and two – there is one outlet in the café which in the past has always been a hot spot for people with lap tops and plugs. Then one day they moved a giant trash bin in front of it – which is on wheels and therefore fairly easy to shove to one side and still get at the outlet. A few weeks after the bin shoving began I walked into the café, sat down at the empty table near the outlet, pulled out my plug and computer and realized the entire outlet had been covered in duct tape. Apparently the B&N people would like their cozy, office-type-work-all-day-and-don’t-buy-anything feel to go away. Well, I’ve one up-ed you Death Star: With my trusty Eee PC I have 9 hours of battery life without a plug! Yeah, if you can’t keep up with technology you might as well get out of the fight.

I thought my B&N story had a point, but I’m not sure what it was anymore. Let’s just go with…Wherever you choose to write – make sure there’s some distracting atmosphere to kick start those creative juices but not too much distraction.

Onto Harry Potter and his goblet of fire we go. I’m looking at a paperback Scholastic copy I took off the YA shelf at B&N before I sat down in the café (See what I mean by library – why would I lug my copy around if there’s plenty of copies waiting for me here?). I really like book 4. In fact if not for book 3, book 4 may be my favorite. This realization makes me think of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is one of – if not my actual – favorite TV series. It’s probably hard to pinpoint my favorite episode of the series – there’s seven seasons to choose from – but I can definitely tell you season 3 is my favorite season (Are we seeing the parallels yet everyone); although, many of my favorite episodes are in season 4…hmmm. It’s a really good season with a lot of change and growing – first year of college change and growing – not everything is as perfect (a little irony here since the high school actually blew up, the principal was eaten by the commencement speech giver who’d turned into an apocalyptic snake, and Buffy’s first love walked away from her at the end of season 3) as it was in high school. But things aren’t full-on horrible either. In hindsight year 4 (in both Buffy and Harry’s chronicles –um, can we take a moment to check out the double-letter-then-y ending of both our MC’s names. Wow I’m a geek!) might be the best year after all. If anyone out there likes book 4 the best please comment and tell us why. For those of you who don’t – a lot of us still think 3 is our favorite – then think about why not number four?

I’ve thought about that question off and on all week, and I think the answer comes somewhere in the ending. Don’t get me wrong, the ending is great – not so much for the wizarding world, but for the reader – it doesn’t get much better than the bad guy coming back and the adventure really starting to go somewhere (spoiler alert – I like the ending of six the best…which is why I might have some unresolved issues with the movie ending of six. And no, I don’t know why that is either – in a couple of months I hope to figure it out though). There is always a reason to kill off a decent character, and if you are invested in the character or the impact of his death than the reader can be affected more than the characters in the story. Please remind me to go back to this concept when we discuss the last book because I have some questions.

But here in book 4 we reach the end of the tasks, we’ve been hearing that they are life and death tasks, but we don’t (at least I didn’t – at all) really think it would go that far. I mean Cedric is dead at the end. His life has been cut short and thrown away for no good reason (well except the whole furthering the plot thing). If we as the reader at anytime thought these books were all happy-go-lucky, the bad guys been vanquished now everything is just peachy keen and hunky dory, the end of book 4 slaps us in the face. Hard. And who likes to be blind-sided like that?

Here’s my other parallel to Buffy. Yep, I’ve got another one. There’s an episode in season 6 called “Tabula Rasa”. The episode is hysterical. Everyone looses their memory and ends up using circumstantial evidence to try and decipher who they are and how they relate to each other. The episode highlights the best & worst qualities of each character working totally outside the context box. Oh, and there’s an actual loan shark (like literally) and kittens are used as currency (stupid currency, but still).

I firmly believe there is a Buffy episode for everyone. And this episode was made for my friend Beth; so I made her sit down and watch it. At the time she was earning her psychology doctorate – a degree she now has – I knew she’d get a kick out of each character’s inner mind workings. While we were watching the episode – because really the most fun part of picking episodes for people is watching them watch said episode – she turned to me with this huge smile on her face and said, “This is great and funny. I’ll have to watch this every time I need a pick me up.”

And I said, “Well maybe you want to wait until the end. There’s a great big DOWN to every UP on this show.”

If you’ve seen the episode you know exactly what I mean. Hello, roller coaster of emotions. It’s not so nice to see you again. Yeah everything really sucks at the end of this episode. All of the relationships are broken – some beyond repair. And because you’ve been happily tooling along, watching some really great, light-hearted fun stuff, the downward drop is fantastically, shockingly heinous.

And that is why I think book 4 can never be my favorite. You’ve tricked me into a false sense of security JK Rowling and then the Dark Lord rises again, the death eaters return to full strength and a young wizard dies because he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. And even though our hero did the right thing in the maze – these things still happen. In fact doing the right thing caused these things to happen. And that too is fantastically, shockingly heinous.

I’m holding off the movie discussion until next week. Then we will wrap up book 4 and move onto book 5 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Because I just wouldn’t be me if I didn’t mention it, Phoenix is SO fire imagery!

Comment. Discuss. Write already! Also, remind me to talk about Mad Eye Moody next week too…both of him.

HP Monday - Themes and Characters

Well I read ahead and am now about 100 pages into book #2, but I still want to give everyone a month for each book, so I’m trying to figure out how to approach this post. I think I’m going to be a little scholarly here and briefly touch on themes and motifs in Harry Potter. Yep, if you’re in high school or college you have to start thinking about this stuff again; summer is almost over.

OK, now that I’ve just alienated a large chunk of my audience (I’m really just trying to pressure you into commenting so we can talk about whatever you all want to talk about…hint…hint) I’m returning briefly to some major themes I see developing. Love is a huge one, and I love that it is the multi-faceted love that includes family, friends, school work, wizardry, sports, magical creatures, evil AND romantic love – it’s all in there right from the beginning. Although the first book delves into each of these a little, I really like what they say about the love of a mother for her child. There’s Harry’s mom who pretty much gave her life to save her son AND left that mark of love on him as a super-strong protection which foreshadows nicely for the last book (both Mrs. Malfoy and Mrs. Weasly are mothers after all) and it’s not something Voldermort (Do I have to type in here he-who-must-not-be-named? That’s really long) can’t see coming, doesn’t comprehend and will never learn from (again foreshadowing for future books).

Why is Harry’s mother’s love a good thing for Harry but Mrs. Dursley’s love for Dudley is extreme enough to make him a fat, bully and quite literally a pig (well, at least the tail)?

Does anyone else find themselves wondering what kind of school Rowling went to? Hogwarts is so very well thought out; as a writer I wonder if this is because she had a good experience in school or a really bad one. You know, one where she needed to use her imagination to make it better, more magical to survive. The school and learning is a theme, but since this series at its base is a tale about a boy’s journey from childhood to manhood, that’s not really a surprise – but the details are impressive. Hogwarts is definitely a character all its own – which is impressive since it has no lines or thoughts of its own.

Other themes that would be fun to discuss: friendship (we’ve touched on this in previous posts and comments a little), Quidditch, fate, mythology, prophesy, free will, faith and of course the line between good and evil. Or, feel free to bring up your own (plants or the color yellow possibly?!) or talk about anything else. If you know me, you may also know that my undergrad thesis was on the Hero Quest – so be warned that subject may come up in a post later on.

As we move into book #2 we can continue to think about these themes and move on to other fun stuff like house-elves and flying cars; Floo powder and the opposite of Diagon Alley – Knockturn Alley.

Questions for all: Did you like the first book? Do you think it is all overrated? Are there any other movie thoughts?

My last thoughts on book 1: All of the ideas floating around in a writer’s head like stars in an inky black sky, swirling around till they form images, shadows and then concrete structures, breathing characters and a million different textures. Writing a book is a magical process – writing seven while developing your own world with laws and games and words all its own must be one of the most amazing experiences…well, on to book two everyone!