Eeyore's Reflections

Errol finally arrived!

2011-08-26T03:18:00.000-07:00

Poor Errol must be exhausted delivering all those owls for Pottermore. It took him over four hours this morning to bring mine, but he finally made it. I gave him some owl treats and sent him on his way. I haven't quite figured out if the system is that slow or if Pottermore is staggering entry even after they announce that owls have been sent out.

At any rate, I had a great time exploring everything. I have a cat, a wand and I'm in Hufflepuff, which is just where I want to be.

My cat is a fluffy white one with blue eyes. It reminds me of the cat that my favorite aunt had. My mother was terrorized by that cat - was her name Mitzi? Can't remember, really. But she was beautiful. I think I was fortunate not to know that particular cat, but Aunt Neva later had a ceramic full size version of her white cat and I loved it. So that's the one I chose. I'm sure that Mitzi's descendant is nicer than she was. And mine will be named for my aunt - Neva, or maybe I'll spell it Neava, or Kneava, or Kneavah. Well, I'll think about that one for a while. At the moment, there isn't a place to include our pet's name anyway.

My wand is Ash, Phoenix Feather core, and is ten and three-quarters inches long. I think it will suit me well.

As I expected, I'm pathetic at Potions. I never did manage to get the practice one done. I haven't had the courage to try any of the others. I'll save that for another day.

I didn't spend much time in the Hufflepuff common room, but I love all the detail in the message that talks about where it is, how to get in, what it looks like, what Hufflepuffs are like - and it's all much more positive than what was said about us by the Gryffindors in the books. The questions that put me there were interesting. And some just seemed odd. I don't know if all the questions figure in equally of if some are really throw-aways to cover for the ones that point to your house.

I've noticed in the comments throughout that some people really were expecting a game site - they keep saying there needs to be more chances for games. They have forgotten that Rowling said it was to be an on-line reading experience. And that's what appeals to me. Of course, I'm lousy at gaming, so there you go. So far the best is all the back story on Minerva McGonagall. It's so complete and so like Rowling to know just what makes that character so unique and wonderful. I hope over time she will add some more information about the other teachers and minor characters.

Why am I here? Because while I was poking around looking for some galleons I might have missed early on or some Chocolate Frog cards, Pottermore closed for the evening to do routine maintenance.

And with that, I'm going to call it a night - or a morning. But whatever, I need some sleep.

FeatherPixie80, aka Pat

Pottermore!

2011-08-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

You have been selected for early entry into Pottermore!

And now we wait. . . and check e-mail whenever I walk passed the computer. o_O

FeatherPixie80 (my Pottermore name)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2: Always

2011-07-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Always. That word is on my cell phone wallpaper with the Silver Doe. My older cell phone flips open and doesn’t have a keyboard for texting. So all the while I am tapping out a text, I look at the picture and the word that I found the most poignant in the whole book.

It’s not just a word that applies to Snape, though it is his. Always, Dobby was loyal to Harry, willing to do anything to save him, even when it meant giving his life. Always, Kreacher was faithful to his master Regulus, even at the torturous hands of Lord Voldemort. Always, Harry could count on Ron and Hermione. Disagreements over broomsticks and tournaments were but minor separations for the three of them. Ron left them both in a fit of anger and jealousy, and yet, he regretted leaving as soon as he had done it. And it was Dumbledore who knew that Ron would always want to return to them and gave him the deluminator as the means for him to come back, always. Always, help will be given to those at Hogwarts if they desire it, or as Dumbledore amends it in the movie, if they deserve it. Lily, James, Remus and Sirius are with Harry, always. And that word was added to the movie when Lily says, “Always”.

There were so many things that were spot on in this last movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Harry’s meetings with Griphook and Ollivander give us all the information we need before Harry, Ron and Hermione set off to find the remaining Horcruxes. Yes, with changes. Ollivander in the movie does know about the Deathly Hallows, where, in the book, he clearly does not. It’s one of the few reminders the movie goers get as to the story they might have forgotten from the last movie. Gringotts gave us a wild ride to the vaults that reminded me of our recent visit to "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" at Universal in Orlando. Only wilder. Visually, it was amazing – Gringotts with all the goblins, the Lestrange vault, the treasure locked there, the multiplying treasure, and the escape on the dragon. Minor changes there as it is Hermione who sees the dragon as a means of escape. I don’t think that is one of those changes that matters.

The Battle for Hogwarts had all the right elements, though not in the same way as the book. Some of the characters were there but didn’t have their moment to really shine. It would have detracted from the pacing of the movie, even I admit that. It’s enough that we saw them all fighting for the school, doing their duty as McGonagall ordered the armor that marched forth in a Bed Knobs and Broomsticks manner. Was it the same spell? In seeing the movie the second time, I do think that Voldemort and Harry did the same spells as in the book, but we don’t hear them say them aloud. The result is the same – Voldemort is disarmed and Harry catches the Elder wand.

Thankfully, Yates took the time for all the other things going on during the battle. The Grey Lady (though I missed the back story connection between Helena Ravenclaw and the Bloody Baron) and the Room of Requirement. Ron and Hermione in the Chamber of Secrets and a moment we’ve been waiting for since that first hand touch in Prisoner of Azkaban, the one that started in Chamber of Secrets when Hermione and Ron awkwardly avoided hugging after she was un-petrified. Snape. The Prince’s Tale. Harry’s walk into the forest and his talk with his parents and their best friends. Harry’s talk with Dumbledore at King’s Cross Station, which looks more like a cathedral in the first images when Harry opens his eyes, just as I imagined it when I read the book the first time.

David Yates is able to do more with unspoken scenes than most directors. His use of flash backs is better than any director I know of. They are quick, but enough to remind the viewer of past events or choices made. There is a moment with Fred and George that reminds us of their closeness and their transformation from jokesters to serious fighters, one which foreshadows what is to come, be it ever so subtle. What was missing in Fred's quick death, which I didn't see the first time I watched the movie, was the reconcilliation with Percy. That moment of his asking for and being granted forgiveness is important and should have been included. There is a look between eleven year olds, Lily and Severus, that tells us all we need to know about the change in their close friendship and Snape’s regret, even though we don’t have the conversation between the two that Lily can’t be Severus’s friend any longer because of his choice to be with the future Death Eaters. It was in the moment of their sorting that their friendship was changed forever and that point is made in that one look of regret on Severus's face.

I’ve been an Alan Rickman fan since he was first cast as Severus Snape. I’ve watched every one of his many movies that I could find – even if I didn’t like the movie, I loved his performances. So it’s no surprise to me that he gave Snape the richness of character that we all saw by the time we finished the seventh book. I wasn’t the only one in the theater crying over his death and Harry’s last excursion into the Pensieve, this time with Severus's help and permission. One of the best added lines in the movie is Snape telling Harry that he has his mother's eyes just after he said "Look at me."

Was this movie perfect? No. None of the movies are, in my opinion. But that, I’m afraid, is the problem with trying to translate a complex book to a movie. As with all of the Harry Potter books, so much of what is important to the story is seen internally through Harry’s eyes. That’s very difficult as we are reminded with the release of every movie.

I do have some complaints about this movie, for all that I liked about it. The Battle for Hogwarts gave us the visual of the scope of the war and what that would look like. But the final battle between Harry and Voldemort is done out of sight of everyone else. The rest of them are apparently still fighting in the Great Hall and unaware that the battle for their way of life is happening without their knowledge. Consequently, when Harry tells Voldemort a few of the things that he does in the book, no one else hears it. Harry doesn’t elaborate on how he knows that Snape was loyal to Dumbledore and intent on betraying Voldemort. We don’t have the satisfaction of Voldemort being given one last chance at remorse and failing to see that what Dumbledore said all along was what would save his soul.

In reading comments from a few people I’ve talked with for almost ten years, the split on whether the battle in the movie is well done or not hinges on whether they choose to acknowledge the Christian elements in the books, especially in the last book. Those who didn’t like that part of the last book are much happier that it was all left out of the movie and those of us who appreciated the fullness of Rowling’s story are disappointed that this was the part that was changed and omitted from the movie. We’ve been told that Ms. Rowling herself was one of the producers on this last film and that changes made were by her approval. She was so forthcoming about the point of the books, especially the last one, having Christian themes, I have to wonder why she is now backing away from it. What did it take to convince her to give her OK to the changes in the battle?

Yes, I like the dialogue in the book better. I missed hearing Harry once more remind Voldemort that his mother’s love protected him and that his mother’s love bound the two of them together when he mingled their blood at his rebirthing. Those who don’t understand the power of love place their trust in things that aren’t real, that aren’t lasting. It’s the part that ties the last book to the first book and completes the story beautifully. I wish that had been included in the movie.

At the end, we see that Harry explains the Elder wand to Ron and Hermione, rather than to all the people in the Great Hall. He doesn’t have that last conversation with Dumbledore’s portrait, nor does he use the Elder Wand to try to repair his own Holly and Phoenix Feather one. Someone pointed out that in the previous movie, one of the snatchers throws away Harry’s wand in the woods. But wouldn’t that have been the wand he had that Ron brought him after he returned and not his own? I’ll have to re-watch that part of Deathly Hallows, Part 1, I guess.

However, I think that Harry breaking the Elder Wand puts even more of an end to its power than putting it back in the tomb with Dumbledore. Breaking wands isn’t something that is done very often in the wizarding world – it’s only Hagrid’s wand that we are told is broken when he is expelled, Ron’s wand that is accidentally broken beyond repair when they crash the car into the Whomping Willow and Harry’s wand that is accidentally broken when he and Hermione escape from Godric’s Hollow. Breaking another's wand seems to be an act that just isn’t justified in fighting another wizard. Otherwise, when one wizard disarms another, why wouldn’t they just snap the wand in two? So to see the wand broken and discarded at the end leaves us with the reality that the Elder Wand won’t be used by another wizard ever again.

We saw Harry drop the Resurrection Stone in the forest and he makes no mention of wanting to go back to find it. Anyone who has ever dropped anything in the woods would know that it’s extremely difficult to find it again. And of course, he still has the Cloak of Invisibility, though we don’t see him use it as much as in the book. I've always thought that was a technical choice they made for the movies - too much time under the Invisibility Cloak doesn't work as wel in a movie as it does in a book.

Some of the other things that happen during the Battle are implied rather than said. Voldemort silences them all, but then Ginny is able to scream and Neville talks, so his spell isn’t working like it did – they just don’t comment on it like they do in the book. The hug is odd from Voldemort, but Draco’s reaction is really the point. He looks like he is being struck rather than hugged – like he finds the attention from Voldemort repulsive. Gone is all his bravado and Draco's only goal at that point is to get to his parents. They are a family that has suffered more than they ever imagined possible. In the book, they remain in the Great Hall, ignored by the others as they grieve, marginalized as they have done to those who aren’t pure bloods. In the movie, they walk away and I found their exit very effective. It makes the point stronger that the Malfoys, for all their faults, have in the end chosen their family over the ideology of Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

There is one more detail that I thought I saw the first time I watched the movie and definitely saw the second time. When Voldemort is in the boat house, he has his back turned to Lucius (I think it’s him and not Snape, but it doesn’t matter). Voldemort pulls up his sleeve and his arm looks scarred where the Dark Mark was. When he turns back around he hears a muffled sounding Lucius’s voice. That is the pointer to Voldemort’s diminished power over others. He knows it, but still tries to bluster his way through, thinking that by killing Snape he has once again mastered the Elder Wand.

The Epilogue was well done as far as it went. But because there was hardly any mention of Teddy Lupin he’s not there and that leaves out a completion of the alchemical story. The two children with alchemical names, Hugo and Rose, are listed in the credits but no one says their names aloud, so we miss that as well. But we do get to hear Harry tell his youngest son that he was named for two Headmasters of Hogwarts and that Severus was the bravest man he ever knew. It is the verbal affirmation that Harry knew and acknowledges all the sacrifices that Snape made for Lily's memory. And Harry does tell Albus Severus that, if it matters to him, he can choose which house he is in – even the Sorting Hat will take his choice into account.

Love and choice, two themes that come through loud and clear, in the books and in the movies. Always.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

2011-06-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

In May we got out of cold and rainy Seattle and spent 11 days where it was really too hot and humid, but it was fantastic. Whenever I felt too hot I just had to remind myself that back home it still looked and felt like winter. Most of our trip was all about Disney. We spent four days at each of the Disney parks, one day at Downtown Disney and three glorious days on the new Disney Dream. Fantastic! However, there was no way I could go to Orlando and not spend a day at Universal's "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter".

It's a theme park that was designed with the help of the set designer for the Harry Potter movies and the author, J.K. Rowling herself. I've heard nothing but good things about it and have waited a year to go. It was worth the wait. It's awesome. I felt like I had walked into the books and the movies. The music from the movies plays everywhere in Hogsmeade (the village) and Hogwarts (the school), even in the restroom. All of a sudden I heard the mournful voice of Moaning Myrtle when I was in the restroom. It made me giggle.

We looked in all the shops, rode the rides (not the Dueling Dragon coaster). We both liked the Forbidden Journey ride so much that we did it twice. As Terry said, it's an intense ride as you "fly" through the castle, over the castle grounds, almost get attacked by the Whomping Willow, a dragon, and Dementors, after flying along with Harry in a Quidditch game. The last part lets us fly along with Harry over the lake and back to the castle. The entrance to the ride is through Hogwarts. All the things from the books and the movies are there. And it's great to see Dumbledore's office, the Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom with Harry, Ron and Hermione talking.

Pat at the Three Broomsticks drinking Butterbeer

For lunch we ate at The Three Broomsticks. We both decided on the Cornish Pasties (that's pasty, not pastry). I felt very British, knowing what it was and how to pronounce it. Terry had a Hogshead beer and said it was very good. I had a Butterbeer. It's hard to describe what it tastes like, but it's yummy and I wish I could have them more often. Frothy and foamy on the top, not too sweet, kind of fruity tasting, not carbonated. Oh, and the Cornish Pasties were very good as well.

We stood in a very long line to get in to Ollivander's Wand Shop. The owner of the shop selects one person to be chosen by a wand. Many of his lines are right out of the first book. The girl that was chosen seemed a bit overwhelmed, but she went along with it and when the wand "chose" her and he explained it's meaning, she just kind of glowed. We saw her later with her dad and Terry asked if she got her wand - of course, she did! After the wand show, we were all shuttled into the shop next door. I would love to have bought a lot of things, but honestly, I can get them on-line, meaning I didn't have to carry things around with me.

Later in the day, I bought a bottle of Pumpkin Juice. They drink it all the time in the books, and I always thought it sounded a bit . . . unappetizing. However, now it's my other new favorite drink. This one has apple juice, pumpkin puree and apricot puree, sugar and a few other flavorings. It's kind of the tast of a good spiced cider, like the one from Trader Joe's.

At one point, I asked Terry if he thought most of the other people in Hogsmeade and at Hogwarts were as nerdy as I am about Harry Potter or if they just like the rides. The more we walked around, I think I had found a lot of kindred spirits, all of them referencing the books/movies and taking photos of the shop windows that only appeal to those of us who have loved the books for a long time. So, if that is not you, most of what I really enjoyed about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter probably made little or no sense. But just imagine your own favorite book or movie and then being surrounded by that world. It was great!

Pat and Terry at Hogsmeade

The other part of the day, we wandered through the rest of the Islands of Adventure. That's a not so subtle way of saying there are a lot of roller coasters. I was willing to wait while Terry rode them, including the Dueling Dragons, but he seems to have lost his death wish - which is the way I look at coasters that dangle your feet, twist all around and upside down while going very fast. The rest of our time at Universal was short - I knew he'd like the Jurassic Park River Adventure. We're not sure why it worked, but after we put our things in a locker, knowing that we would likely get wet, we got in the Express line. She scanned Terry's ticket and in we went with hardly any wait at all. It was so much fun that we went right back around and did it again. At that point, we realized there was another line that people were standing in - with a 50 minute wait. We sat in the back both times and only got a little wet, just enough to cool off in the hottest part of the day. The people in the front row, however, were drenched. So glad we put our stuff in lockers - who wants to take a chance on ruining cameras? I think the only other "ride" we did was Poseidon - it was a special effects show.

We headed back to the bus and ate dinner here at the hotel. Homewood Suites offers a breakfast and a meal in the evening. We were both exhausted so the idea of going out for dinner just wasn't appealing. I tried to do some reading while Terry was downloading his photos after dinner and kept drifting off to sleep.

From then on our trip was all Disney. But it was fun to go to a theme park where we'd never been. Everything was new and different and we actually had to look at the park maps to figure out where we were and how to get where we wanted to go.

I don't know that we will ever go back to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It's really the only part of Universal that appeals to me and that makes it expensive since Hogsmeade and Hogwarts are a very small part of Islands of Adventure. But I am so glad that I did get to see it for myself. It was worth it at least once.

Pat

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Chapter 2: "Spinner's End"

2011-04-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

Note: I started writing this a long time ago on one of my many re-reads through the 6th Harry Potter book. I found this chapter fascinating. It was one of the few that was not through Harry's eye and mind. And even better, it was all about Snape and his relationship with Voldemort, Dumbledore, Bellatrix and Narcissa. I didn't really finish it, only getting so far as the two sisters showing up to talk to Snape. But it's been sitting as a draft long enough. So here are my beginning thoughts about Snape and what it tells us about who he is based on where he lives. It's something that some of us suspected, that Snape was from a poor muggle part of town and isolated as an adult just as he was as a child.

Once Bella and Cissy talk with Snape, we see that the spinner is not the street but Snape himself who tells Cissy and Bella what they need to hear so he can continue to do whatever it is he is doing. At this point we don't really know. But Cissy needs to hear that Snape will protect Draco and Bella needs to hear that he is loyal to Voldemort.

A bit of a time lag, there. But not because I haven't been reading or thinking about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. So I'll tackle two chapters in the next few day in an effort to do some catching up.

Chapter 2: "Spinner's End"

Ah, after the first chapter that had important information to fill in some gaps and bring the reader up to date, but still a little fluffy, in my opinion, we get our first whole chapter about Severus Snape. I'm not one of those who liked reading about Snape in the first two books. I've said before that I found him irritating and two-dimensional. It was in the third book and the fifth book that I started to see there was much more to his character. Nothing nice, but more.

So, in this second chapter we are still not at Hogwarts and we haven't seen Harry. To go so long in the story without Harry is quite a big signal that these events are important for the overall story.

Some of my margin notes have to do with the description of the place. I had finished reading Oliver Twist not too long before this so the similarity to Dickens jumped out at me. The other thing that I noticed was Rowling's choice of words to describe the old "disused mill" as a relic. When I think of relics I tend to think in terms of finding some artifact in an archaeological dig, or something that is a reference to the Catholic Church.

I liked the exchange between Bellatrix and Narcissa, two sisters who are as different in their personalities and purposes as they are in looks. It's not the last time we will see just how different they are, and this was a nice set-up, since we haven't seen them together.

Side by side they stood looking across the road at the rows and rows of dilapidated brick houses, their windows dull and blind in the darkness.

"He lives here?" asked Bella in a voice of contempt. "Here? In this Muggle dunghill? We must be the first of our kind ever to set foot --" [HBP, US version, p. 20]

Thinking of the windows that are dull and blind made me think of eyes being called the windows to the soul. And here we have "eyes" that give no clue to the residents of the houses, or if there are even people still living there. What a perfect place for Severus Snape to hide out for the summer, away from Hogwarts, other wizards, and unnoticed more than likely by any neighbors. It's never clear whether it's his idea to be there or Voldemort's, or whether Voldemort was coaxed into telling Snape to be there. Does Snape always go home for the summer? I wouldn't have thought so; it seems he would have been safer at Hogwarts under Dumbledore's continued protection.

Bella clearly will do anything to please Voldemort, while Narcissa - Cissy - puts her own safety aside in an effort to protect her son, Draco. That takes a kind of courage that parents understand but that is totally lost on Bellatrix, who says later that she would be proud to have her son do a task for Voldemort. She might be so derranged that she would give up her only child to a cause, but most parents would side with Cissy.

The description of Snape's street as a labyrinth is an apt metaphor for the situation that Cissy is entering: she has been told not to speak to anyone of Voldemort's plan. She has to "walk" carefully so that she doesn't lose her way. When they find Spinner's End, the "towering mill chimney seemed to hover like a giant admonitory finger". [HBP, US, p. 21] Even the buildings on the street are warning Cissy to be careful, to perhaps reconsider what she is about to do.

Harry Potter sighting!

2011-04-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how a Harry Potter book can catch my eye. I've looked at the covers so often that I notice them even when they are in the background.

I was watching the news story about a police officer in Anchorage, Alaska, who is an illegal immigrant. The man they were interviewing about the story was sitting in front of a book shelf that had the Harry Potter books, in order, on the top shelf. It was the spine of Goblet of Fire that I saw first. And then I noticed that all the books were there with Deathly Hallows clearly on the end.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I

2011-04-22T02:22:00.000-07:00

I started to write this last December, but with Christmas and personal issues in the first part of the year, I never finished it. Now the DVD is out, so here it is, a combination of my thoughts about the movie when I saw it in the theater and my thoughts about the content on the BluRay - and I haven't even had a chance to watch all of it yet.

I've been meaning to write something ever since I saw the movie on the first day, and then after I saw it a week later. But Thanksgiving, which was at our house this year so getting to take time out for the movie was all the extra time I had. I did manage to go again the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and then we were busy with decorating for Christmas. Now that the outside lights are up and the tree is decorated, I'm taking a break before I lose the magical feelings I had after watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I.

This was the first Harry Potter movie that I didn't see at midnight since the first two. Sarah and I went on Friday at noon. The advantage was that we didn't have to stand outside in the cold and rain for hours and the theater wasn't full. When I went a week later, the theater was almost full, so maybe we just picked the slow time. No matter - there were enough there to share in the laughter, the tears and the gasps.

I knew going in that there was an added scene with Hermione's parents, but I had no idea that I would start the movie with tears. The other added scene I'd heard about was the dancing in the tent. I'll get to that later.

There were so many things I liked about this movie, so many things they did right, from the Dursleys leaving (abreviated but with the same sense of urgency and lack of caring from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia towards Harry) to Snape at Malfoy Manor and Dobby, that it's easier to talk about the very few nitpicks I have.

I was curious why they changed the colors of the wedding. I was looking forward to seeing gold and white. However, the dark purple and red and the black phoenixes on Fleur's wedding gown and the black and white of Ginny's bride's maid dress (with her red hair) gave it all the right feel. I always get a little lost with the alchemical images, unless they are obvious. So I think I'm probably missing some of the finer points here. However, Luna and Xenophilius were in yellow and gold, so maybe that is enough. The other thing I noticed when I watched it the second time was how much gold, red and orange there was in the Weasley house when the trio talked to Scrimgeour. I hadn't particularly noticed those colors in previous movies. When Harry, Ron and Hermione are sitting on the sofa, there is a picture on the wall that looks like a sun rising just above her head. The color was striking, and that it was a sun was striking. A sign of hope? I'm not sure, but I liked it. The sun and the colors seemed to be a contrast to the tone of the interview by Scrimgeour.

We didn't get to see the wedding, just the reception dinner. It was lovely. The arrival of the warning by Kingsley was well done. The chaos was vivid and scary and all the things it should be. The scenes that followed with the trio in London were well done. Some changes, but nothing jarring.

I thought the wandering camping trip was appropriate in length and tone. But I didn't mind it in the book like some did. We needed to see (in the book and the movie) that Harry knows what needs to be done but has no clue how to do it.

Ron's leaving and return were fairly in line with the book. I'm glad they took the time to let him explain some of his following the light when he wanted to come back. And before that, rather than having long scenes of Harry and Hermione not talking or exchanging only a few words, we had the dancing in the tent. I didn't think I would like it. There was an awkwardness to it, but that's what made it work. Two girls would have sat and talked about why Hermione was so sad and upset, or why Harry was so frustrated by not being able to find the other Horcruxes. But Harry isn't a girl, and he's never been chatty about his feelings. We've always known what he was thinking in the books, because that is the point of view - we know his thoughts and we also know he doesn't usually share them very well.

Instead, Harry noticed how unhappy Hermione was and took action by leading her into a dance in an effort to comfort her. And the best part is the look on Hermione's face when she puts her head on Harry's shoulder. It's not a look of attraction to Harry, but one that clearly says she was cheered for a few minutes but is still sad and missing Ron. And nothing will change how she feels about Ron. Perfect - and without any words. It's not a romantic dance, but a dance between close friends.

I missed Kreacher's Tale ending in his redemption and devotion to the trio. But I did like the reintroduction of Dobby, since he was missing from the last movies. It needed to be done that way, and for me, it worked. It was enough. The only thing that was missing there was the extent of terror that Kreacher went through in finding the locket Horcrux. In the book, that is one way we see just how cruel and inhuman Voldemort is.

Now that I have the movie, I have watched all the deleted scenes and I do wish they had included the one with Petunia and Dudley saying good-bye. They weren't that long and they were perfect. I don't think the chasing rabbits was necessary, even though it also shows the increasing tension between Harry and Ron.

I have always loved watching the movie with the audio commentary. But this movie is even better. I just haven't had the chance to watch all of it yet. As the movie plays, instead of talking (sometimes babbling to fill time) over the movie, they actually stop and insert commentary by Jason Isaacs, and other actors, the director and others, about the scene. They talk about how it relates to the earlier movies, with reminders of who the characters are, what the situation was, and so forth. They even have Tom Felton (Draco) reading excerpts from the books. I love it. It's the best kind of commentary and it makes me glad I spent the extra money for the BluRay (and glad that we have one).

So that's where I am at the moment. I hope to watch the rest in the next few days, but I quickly realized that it's going to take a while since all these things are added in.

And after seeing a sneak peek at the opening scene for Deathly Hallows, Part II, I can't wait to see the whole movie. They do seem to be doing the thing properly this time. What a great way to end this movie series, that has at times been spot on and at other times has missed. As much as I look forward to the next and last movie, i will miss having a new Harry Potter movie every other year. It's like saying good-bye to a dear friend, knowing that they aren't coming back.

Harry Potter: The Exhibition

2010-11-06T02:33:00.000-07:00

My daughters and I have been sharing our love of Harry Potter since I started reading the books in 1999. We've discussed them endlessly, waited at book stores for the latest book since they started having midnight sales, gone to the movies (some at midnight), we've dressed up for some of the 1st movies; they admit to their friends that their mother is a bit of a dork when it comes to Harry Potter - well, so do I, for that matter.

When I learned that the Harry Potter Exhibition was coming to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, I knew that I just had to figure out which day I was going, because, of course, I WOULD be going. I sent the girls a message on facebook and asked if anyone wanted to join me. They both said yes, no husbands were interested. So it was a girls' day.

We had perfect autumn weather. It was in the upper 60s, warm enough to go without a jacket. And it was sunny, with that deep blue sky you only see this time of year. The leaves are all shades of yellow, orange and red, with enough still on the trees to make lovely pictures of the Space Needle and enough on the ground to make it really look like fall.

I loved being able to see all the clothing, props and some of the sets up close. The fabric in Dumbledore's robes (the red one worn by Richard Harris) was rich and beautiful, just as it was in the movie. The details on the books, the Yule Ball feast tables and food, the candy from Honeydukes, Hagrid's hut, Ron and Harry's dorm room were fantastic. It was so hard not to touch - it's a good thing there are signs everywhere reminding people to keep their hands off and staff watching to make sure they do. But we did get to throw a quaffle through the rings and pull a mandrake out of a pot and hear it scream (none of us fainted, however).

It was amazing to see just how small Dan Radcliffe was in the first movie when we stood in front of his "casual clothing". It's easy to forget all these years later that they really were just little kids when the first movie was made. And then there was a point where Dan and Emma were about the same height but Rupert was obviously taller.

Seeing the costume for Hagrid makes you realize how big he is. But the most chilling, creepy and yet totally awesome effect is the display showing Voldemort's rebirthing robes. The lighting is eerie and there is a gentle breeze blowing. But if you stand in just the right spot, you hear his voice, a clip from Deathly Hallows, that sounds like it is inside your head. I can't wait to see that in the movie.

We enjoyed all of it, even wandering around the gift shop at the end. I wish we could have taken pictures while we were inside, but it wasn't allowed, even without a flash. So, I bought the guide book for the Exhibition istead. What can I say - I have quite a collection of Harry Potter things and thought I might as well add a few more - my dorky side was showing.

Once we finished, we had a bite to eat and then spent another hour or so in the butterfly house at the Science Center. It has always been one of our favorite places to go, especially when the girls were younger. We went there as a family, but our best memories are of the sleep-overs with Camp Fire when the girls were junior high age. Now that we have found our way back, we vowed to come back another time, even after the Harry Potter Exhibit is gone.

Pat, who is now sooooo ready for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I"

Getting ready for Deathly Hallows, Part I, the movie

2010-10-30T02:52:00.000-07:00

I'm trying not to count down the days to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I", but I really am. I've been rereading some of the books - well, relistening to them. I'm now listening to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Every time I listen to it, or read it, I find that I like it much better than the first time through. There was so much in it when I first read it that I did really like it. However, now that we know the end, it's even better. It really is the first half of the last part of the story.

We're in the middle of redoing our family room - new carpeting, new furniture. updated entertainment center. So thinking about the Harry Potter books and the upcoming movie is quite a nice distraction from picking out furniture and spending money.

I've looked at the movie clips and have managed to see the trailer twice in a theater in the last few weeks. It's even better on the big screen - can't wait to see the movie, actually. Today I bought two of the Harry Potter calendars for 2011. I was going to buy one but couldn't decide which one - so I bought both. One has pictures from the new movie, while the other has a mixture of old and new. I think it's likely I'll switch them back and forth - so I won't have to look at Bellatrix for a whole month - I've never been fond of the way she looks in the movies as it's not at all the way I picture her.

I love the people who work at my local Barnes and Noble. When I bought the calendars today, the woman checking me out went into full flow about how excited she is for the movie to come out and asked if I had seen the trailers (she knew the answer, I'm sure). Of course, I've been going there for years and spend every Friday sipping a mocha while I read for a few hours, so they all know me. We talked briefly about the movie and the exhibit (below) and how much we will miss all of it when the last movie is finally over. But for the moment, I don't have to think about that.

The most immediate Harry Potter thing for me is that my daughters and I are going to the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle this coming week. I was excited about it before it opened here, but now it sounds even better. It covers 10,000 sqare feet and has some never-seen-before things from the Deathly Hallows movie that have recently been added. I guess we are the last stop on that tour. The day I picked is after Halloween, to avoid that crowd, but several weeks before the movie. My hope is that it won't be so crowded since we are going on a week day. The three of us want time to just enjoy all of it. That day is probably going to be right in the middle of trying to schedule the carpet installation and the furniture delivery. Well, the carpet can wait a few days.

November is turning out to be a very busy month for us, with the downstairs improvements, all things Harry Potter and Thanksgiving at our house. It'll be great!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I

2010-10-20T03:15:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at all the pictures and reading the updates on the first half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It looks fantastic to me. I see that there are some changes. They always seem to change the colors that are in the book and, if one follows the alchemical theme, those colors are intentional on Rowling's part and important.

Instead of the wedding being golden, it is a lovely lavender - pretty but not the same. I was glad to see that Luna is dressed in yellow however. And then there is Hermione is a red dress rather than whatever it was in the book. I know it wasn't red. I suppose it makes it easier to follow the trio when they land in London.

But those things aside, the rest looks great.

I suppose also that it was decided that Harry and Hagrid escaping on Sirius's motorbike through the London streets would be more exciting than keeping them in the air. Another change I can live with.

Godric's Hollow looks amazing, though it's odd to think that Harry and Hermione could walk into the town looking like themselves.

I can't wait to see more of Snape. Since it looks like the locket Horcrux and pool in the forest and the Sword of Gryffindor are in this movie, that would mean we should see Snape's patronus and I really hope they get it right. The Silver Doe is by far my favorite chapter from the Deathly Hallows book and that image of Snape leading and watching over Harry is one of the most poignant.

In the meantime, I finished listening to Order of the Phoenix again. There are so many details in the books that I notice whenever I reread or relisten to one of them. Order is still one that I like the best - it gives Harry the chance he need to grow up. All the books before Order, Harry is fairly accepting of his place in the wizarding world even if he doesn't understand it. In Order, he finally expresses just how unfair it is to him or anyone else to be in his position as would-be savior of their world. That's quite a burden for anyone, especially a teenager and I always felt it was high time for Harry to deal with the frustration and unfairness of all of it. And yet, he willingly takes on the role and accepts the responsibility rather than hiding from it. I'm always struck by the contrast of the beginning and ending of the book. In the beginning, Harry hides from the Dursleys as he tries to hear information on the news; he is still pushed around by Vernon. But at the end, after their return to London and the talk Vernone receives from Lupin, Mad-eye and Arthur, it is Harry who is in charge, leading the Dursleys out of the station and back to Privet Drive. His problems aren't over, but he is ready to take charge of his life, and whatever lies ahead.

I'd like to listen to Half-Blood Prince, but it's now so close to the movie that I almost want to listen to Deathly Hallows again. Of course, there's always the point that I'll enjoy the movie more if I am not so tied to the book when I first see it.

Catching up with Harry, with Stephen Fry's help

2010-01-13T21:55:00.000-08:00

I hadn't realized it has been so long since I've updated this blog. In with getting ready for Christmas, I spent time listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Goblet of Fire, while it is the middle book, is just not my favorite. There are some important things that we learn and clues that are the set-up for the rest of the books. But I'm just not that fond of all the action stuff. And that's a good portion of the book.

The parts that did interest me, especially in the way that Rowling presents it, have to do with all the information about Tom Riddle as Lord Voldemort. I remember when we waited at the midnight release to get Goblet of Fire - it's hard to believe it was really over nine years ago. Laura started reading it on the way home. But we couldn't remember who Tom Riddle was. We had to start back through all the books to refresh our memories to make that crucial connection.

The Yule Ball was a nice distraction from all the action. (And I love the dance lessons added into the movie - some of my favorite scenes.) Moaning Myrtle is priceless as well.

The part that I did like about the three tasks was that Harry showed that he cared more about others than about winning. He was competitive, but not when it came to the safety of others, even those he didn't know. And while being fair to Cedric didn't work the way he thought it would, Harry still made the right choice by recognizing that he couldn't have gotten to the goal without help. It was his sense of fairness that I admired.

This was the only book that gave me nightmares after I read it. I remember dreaming once aobut the scene with Voldemort's rebirth in the graveyard, and was sure that I'd been reading way too much Potter. But more than that, it was that scene that showed that Rowling was really telling a story that was more on young adult or adult level than the children's story that was being marketed.

It was a powerful book, and it still is whether I'm reading it or listening to Stephen Fry read it. The images are intense and lasting. It's this book that tells the reader to prepare for anything to happen. And that might mean the ending of the series won't be as happy as we all thought when we read the first couple of books.

It was nice to be able to go right from book 4 to book 5. Three years was a long time to wait when the books were new. I think that was part of the problem with the reception of Order of the Phoenix when it was released. Readers had waited so long and they had found plenty of forums to discuss any and all theories, not to mention that three years was plenty of time for all the would-be writers to try their hand at adding to the story or writing their own version.

By the time the book came out, readers had a pretty clear idea of where they thought the story was going. And Rowling didn't go there. One aspect of Order of the Phoenix that I particularly like is all the time we spent in Harry's mind. What did he think about Voldemort's return? Why hadn't anyone (Dumbledore) told him what was going on? Why could he see and feel the things that were in Voldemort's mind? Why wouldn't Dumbledore look at him?

Did I like a yelling Harry? No, not really. But I kept feeling that it was the right time for him to finally ask all those questions about his parents and his past. Not getting answers after so many years would make anyone angry - especially a fifteen year old. Stephen Fry's reading of this book brings out all the emotion that is in it - the anger, frustation, infatuation with Cho, tenuous trust with Harry's friends, his grief over Sirius.

And then there is Snape. There is always Snape. But it is this book that gives us more than a two-dimensional look at the man who will be so much a part of Harry at the end. It was rereading and discussing all the bits about Snape that gave so many their first clue that he wasn't the rotten git we were told he was. I wonder if we could have gone from this book to the next, without a break, if we would have figured any of it out. Maybe it was the time lag that allowed us to see through Rowling's clever portrayal of Snape, to see that there was some truth in what he told Harry about his father, and that Dumbledore did have a reason to trust him with his own life and Harry's life.

This book was the longest, and the criticism is always that it needed tighter editing. But what would I want left out? Perhaps the details of "Grawp's Tale", but nothing more. I love all the rest of it.

Now, time to start listening to Half-Blood Prince, if I can get my mp3 player to work. It's been a frustrating day, with one of them dying completely, and the other one just being weird. It shows that there are files taking up space but says everythign is empty. Last time I checked, it would show the files on the external card. I hope that still works, or I'm going to be very unhappy.

Pat

Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban (Audio by Fry)

2009-11-18T02:39:00.000-08:00

(I love the art work for the Harry Potter books by Mary GrandPre, especially this one of Harry Potter and the Prison of Azkaban.)

After listening to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I breezed right through Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I have always counted this as one of my favorites of the Harry Potter books, whether I'm reading it or listening to it. I particularly like the new characters and the unfolding of Harry's backstory. By the time I first read this book, which I was able to read immediately after the first two, Harry's story is familiar. Having Rowling go through it again seemed a bit unnecessary, to be honest. Yes, he has no parents because they were killed by Voldemort; he was raised by his unloving uncle and aunt and tormented by his cousin. And Voldemort, for some inexplicable reason, had tried to kill Harry when he killed his parents, Lily and James.

The thing that Rowling does each year, though, is to find a new and different way for Harry to leave the Dursleys and Privet Drive. We, by now, assume that he will return to Hogwarts where he is learning to be a wizard and has friends, something he didn't have before his eleventh birthday. As with many things, it's the little details that make the story interesting and fresh, when so many things will be the same. Rowling seemed to have a lot of fun with Harry's departure on this one. Blowing up one's aunt sounds serious, but there is an amount of humor in the way Harry's Aunt Marge is described as she floats up to the ceiling, looking like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon. The reason he blows her up and the situation he finds himself in as a result of his uncontrolled anger is anything but funny. In fact, it's Harry's reaction to Aunt Marge saying cruel things about the parents he never knew that send him over the edge.

After realizing just how alone he is when he leaves the Dursleys, certain that he will be a fugitive from the wizarding world as well as the muggle one, Harry sees something mysterious lurking in the shadows just before he is rescued by the Knight Bus. After a wild ride, which lightens the mood just a bit, Harry finds himself safely deposited at the Leaky Cauldron and welcomed by Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic. And here was Harry thinking that he'd not only be expelled but was likely to be arrested.

After spending the next two weeks in Diagon Alley and the Leaky Cauldron, Harry meets up with Ron and Hermione and they head back to Hogwarts. The train ride brings a new clue to Harry's past in the form of his reaction to the Dementors that board the train looking for the escaped convict, Sirius Black - the one that Harry has learned is out to kill him, like he killed Harry's parents. Rowling manages to write this in a way that conveys just how sinister and scary these creatures are, even before we get the explanation for what they are and what they do, taking away every happy thought and having the ability to suck out a person's soul. Just seeing how all of them are affected lets the reader know that the story has gone to a darker level than the first two books. I think it was at this point that I really started to wonder just how many young children could read this book without having nightmares. I know I couldn't have done.

All the usual characters are there - the other students and the professors. Hagrid, the game keeper and Harry's friend, has now been promoted to teaching Care of Magical Creatures. And there is a new professor, Remus Lupin. The only thing we know about Lupin at this point is that he was able to make the Dementor on the train leave, he recognizes the cheering and healing properties of chocolate (maybe that's why I immediately liked him, and probably reached for some chocolate of my own). Professor Lupin, tired-looking and not well-dressed, is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and Severus Snape doesn't seem to like him very much. No surprise there - Snape doesn't like many people, especially anyone who has the job that he really wants.

I think that I've posted about Prisoner of Azkaban before, so the only thing I really want to add is why I particularly like this book. Harry is introduced to Sirius Black in a way that tests his ability to think for himself. Everything he knows up to that point tells him that this is someone he should fear, someone who is feared by everyone else. At this same moment, Harry learns more about his parents than he ever knew before. It turns out that Sirius was their good friend. And Professor Lupin, whom Harry has trusted, was also a friend of Harry's parents, as was Peter Pettigrew. In this moment of seeming danger, Harry listens to Lupin's story and decides to trust his instincts that Lupin and Black are telling the truth. I'm not sure how many people would do that. Upon hearing the details of the night of his parents' deaths and his own survival, he chooses to spare the life of the betrayer, knowing that James wouldn't want Remus and Sirius to become murderers. This quality of trusting his own instincts is one that serves Harry well most of the time. That it worked out in this instance is probably the reason we are so willing to trust Harry to make the right choices in later books - it's only later that we learn that Harry's instincts are not always right.

Prisoner of Azkaban is the book where Harry learns who really betrayed his parents and led Voldemort to them the night they were killed. There is a little of how fragile his safety was in his first two and a half years at Hogwarts when Ron realizes that his pet rat, Scabbers, is really the traitor, Peter Pettigrew. But Harry doesn't seem to dwell on the danger he was in having Scabbers watching his every move when they were at school. Instead, he now has the anger to deal with, knowing that a friend betrayed his parents.

Just when Harry finds his parents' friend, Sirius Black, who is also his godfather, he almost loses him forever to the Dementors. The way out of that is the Time Turner that Hermione has been using all year to get to extra classes. I have to say that time travel always makes my head hurt. I just have to read it or listen to it, and nod and smile and move on. If I try to figure out how that would actually work, I feel like Hermione when Harry tells her "I knew I could do it [produce the Patronus] this time," said Harry, "because I'd already done it . . . . Does that make sense?" [POA, p. 412]

Hermione's response? "I don't know." Yep, that's my reaction as well. And like Hermione, I just decide to trust Harry on this one. There are more important problems, like rescuing Sirius and Buckbeak, than figuring out how this bit of fiction could work in real life.

By the end of this book, it's clear that Harry has a better understanding of the evil with which he is confronted each year. It's worse than he knew, but he now has two more adults in his life who care for him and who are loyal to him and to the memory of his parents. Harry has learned something else valuable, to not take things or people at face value. He's learned to look carefully at each situation before taking action. And he now has something else that's as useful as his Invisibility Cloak - the Maurader's Map, courtesy of Fred and George, and returned to him by Remus Lupin, one of the four map makers.

Here, I won't go into my usual rant that the critical information about the Maurader's Map and its creators (Lupin, Black, James Potter and Pettigrew) was completely marginalized in the movie and that Harry never asks Lupin how he knows that the bit of parchment IS a map. However, . . . 'nough said.

There is something that always bothered me about the book, however. It was corrected in the movie (my favorite scene in the POA movie, actually) when Lupin and Harry talk on the bridge. In the book, they have a conversation over tea in Lupin's office. It's not important where they are, but what was missing in the book, in my opinion. Lupin has the perfect opportunity to tell Harry that he knew James. I understand that it would have spoiled the twist that Rowling had coming when Lupin joins up with Sirius Black in the Shrieking Shack. But it just would have made more sense for him to say to Harry, in that moment when they were alone - "I knew your dad and mum at school." He needn't have said they were best friends or any more than that. But it seemed odd that he never mentioned it at all. I think any adult who sees the child of a deceased friend would say something.

The other thing that has always seemed off to me is that Harry doesn't ask about his parents. I know he wouldn't ask the Dursleys, but once he is at school and has the chance to talk to people who might have known James and Lily, why didn't he ever say to Dumbledore, Hagrid, or any of the professors "Did you know my mum and dad? Did you have them in class? What were they like? Were they good students? Who were their friends?" It is normal for children to want to know about their parents when they were younger, and it's out of character for Harry, as an adopted child (or a foster child or whatever the arrangement was), to not ask those questions. Especially, since thre was nothing hapy about his situation.

I speak as an adopted child on this issue. I had a happy childhood with loving parents and a good home. But I remember wondering who my birth parents were, what they were like, what happened to them. As I got older, I no longer felt the need to find answers to those questions, but it was because I was happy. I came to understand that my "real parents" were the mom and dad who raised me, the ones who were there for me when I was sick, who shared in my joys and sorrows. Not every adopted child gets to that point. But if I'd had a family like the Dursleys, I definitely would have wanted all the information I could find about my [birth] parents. We find out later, in Goblet of Fire, that Tom Riddle searched for his birth parents because he hoped that would answer questions about who he was. I think Rowling missed in handling how Harry would act after learning that he'd had loving parents. He would have been more curious than she allowed him to be. In everything else, Harry isn't content to accept what he's told, so why are we to expect that he would be so incurious about his parents until he finally meets Sirius and Remus?

As I said when I started this post, I went right through books two and three by listening to Stephen Fry. The books are best, I think, when read aloud. There is a richness that comes off the page when the story is told rather than just read. Reading a book aloud means that the reader an the listener have the time to reflect on the story, enjoy the funny bits, agonize over moments of sorrow or apprehension, in a way that just can't be properly done as one rushes through when reading silently.

Now that I've caught up, I'm off to listen to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

. . . if I just had a Time Turner, I could get some more sleep. Someday I'll learn to not start writing things so late at night. But, I probably couldn't figure out how to work it anyway.

Pat

Chamber of Secrets

2009-09-28T00:34:00.000-07:00

(Cover art by Mary GrandPre)

We were ready to travel to Tennessee, and I updated the music and the audio books on my two mp3 players - two because one isn't enough when I want to take more than one Harry Potter book with me. So I had the end of Half-Blood Prince and all of Chamber of Secrets, which I haven't listened to for quite some time.

For one thing, I love listening to Stephen Fry reading it. One of the most interesting things about the first four Harry Potter books is that he recorded them before the first movie came out, and before any of the characters were cast. Fry's Hagrid sounds just like Robbie Coltrane; Dumbledore sounds different than Richard Harris but somehow has the same lightness to his voice that came through in Harris's performances. Book Dobby and movie Dobby are very similar. Fry's McGonagall, of course, doesn't sound like Maggie Smith's voice, except in tone and the crispness of diction, if that makes sense.

Stephen Fry doesn't try to sound like a woman, except his voice is a little higher, but not too exagerated. It's very hard for a man to sound like a twelve year old girl, but he portrays Hermione in a very believable voice, getting the impatience and prissiness. Well, Hermione's not prissy, but it's that know-it-all tone of voice. (It was actually hearing Jim Dale read Hermione and Molly in Goblet of Fire that decided me against wanting to hear any more from him - too high pitched to the point that it was grating and so over-done.)

Stephen Fry nails the haughtiness of Lucius Malfoy and of Draco. And the oiliness of Borgin. But the one that amazes me is his reading of Gilderoy Lockhart. It sounds just like Kenneth Brannagh. I sometimes have to remind myself that it isn't. The accent, the inflection, the pacing. It's perfect. So I was thinking that all of that is due to the writing. Rowling apparently wrote all of those characters (including all the Weasleys, parents as well as the children) in such a way that whoever is reading will have such a vivid image of the characters that the voice will just be natural. Oh, and I didn't mention Tom Riddle, but that's perfect as well. Especially the high pitched laugh that Rowling describes - which I've always had trouble hearing, until I heard Stephen Fry do it.

The only one that isn't the same is Severus Snape. Fry does read him with a thin, waspish sounding voice, which is what is described. But it sounds nothing like Alan Rickman. By the time he read Order of the Phoenix, Fry had changed the voice of Snape so it is very like Rickman's. And so much the better. Snape is much more sinister and threatening and terrifying when he sounds like Rickman. (I'll add that is one of the few changes from book to movie that I really thought worked well. While Rickman doesn't look the way I saw or heard Snape when I read the first four books, his version works better on screen. Rather than Snape screaming at Harry, Snape speaking in a lower more deliberate manner better conveys that he is barely controlling his anger and hatred for Harry.)

And so now that I'm almost to the end, I think I'll continue on through and listen to Prisoner of Azkaban next. Thankfully now, I have all of my music and four audio books on one mp3 player. Terry gave me a new one with 6 times as much memory. Nice.

Pat

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - the movie

2009-08-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

Since the time I saw the movie at midnight with Sarah till now, I've had the chance to see it two more times. I haven't posted anything here about it because, quite honestly, I just forgot to do it. I've discussed it in other places and I've read other people's thoughts about it. What I have been doing is paging back through the book and making notes of the changes in the movie. But I'm not quite finished and probably won't post the whole thing. It's just been an interesting exercise for me.

SPOILERS ABOUND! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE, YOU SHOULD GO READ SOMETHING ELSE NOW.

For the most part, I really liked this movie - the first time and more each time I saw it. More than in any of the other movies, I found myself silently cheering when I recognized passages that were nearly the same as the book. Some were in the same part of the book, others were in different scenes, but they were there nonetheless.

The things that make me curious are how they are going to include all those important elements of Deathly Hallows in the next two movies, when they have left out so many things in all the first six movies. The house elves, for instance. We saw a lot of Dobby in Chamber of Secrets, and only a little of Kreacher in Order of the Phoenix. In the books we saw Dobby enough to either find him annoying or sometimes cute, but we still saw him. He was familiar and recognizable when we saw him in Deathly Hallows. We didn't need any explanation about who he was, how he was connected to Harry or why Harry would care about him so much, or why we would care so much about him at Shell Cottage. The big surprise with Kreacher in Deathly Hallows is that we DO care about him, when all we had seen before was a disgusting and irritating character who was definitely on the side of evil. Yes, he was in the Order of the Phoenix movie, but only barely, and not at all in Half-Blood Prince. Will people who haven't read the books, or haven't read them recently, remember why Kreacher is important?

But I'm jumping ahead. The opening scene in the movie took me by surprise until I realized they were showing the aftermath of the battle in the Ministry when Fudge finally has to acknowledge the return of Voldemort. Nicely done, even though that wasn't by the book. It worked well. So did the scene with the people in a meeting watching something they don't understand and then the bridge attack and collapse. In the book we are told that a bridge collapsed but it was off-screen, so this worked well in the movie. It also works to show that the Death Eaters have crossed that rule for wizards remaining out of sight of muggles. It's apparent that they aren't playing by the rules any longer, now that everyone in the wizard world knows Voldemort is back.

I really liked the scene at Spinner's End. Yes, it's in the daytime, but that doesn't really matter. Snape, brilliantly played by Alan Rickman, is perfect in every aspect of this scene. He conveys so much of what is in the book but not in the movie by a mere glance, hand gesture or tone of voice. I would like to have seen the listing by Snape of how he has remained faithful to Voldemort while seeming to be remorseful and loyal to Dumbledore. That was a nice set-up in the book that could have made the ending of the movie have more of an impact. The Unbreakable Vow was very well done, but I really wish that the questions had been asked by Narcissa rather than Bellatrix. (Mostly Helena Bonham Carter irritates me in this role, so less of her is better, IMO.) But the reason I found the scene so powerful in the book was that it was the distraught, anxious, loving mother who was pleading for help for her son. In the movie, it's clearly Bella who is trying to trap Snape by asking the questions. It still works, especially the way Snape so clearly hesitates and gives the slightest blanch at the last question. Again, that's Rickman at his best.

Another brilliant performance comes from Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn. He isn't at all like the Slughorn I pictured physically. In my mind, Sluggy looked like the little man on the Monopoly game. But Broadbent is marvelous in the role and adds, with just the right facial expressions, that sense that Slughorn isn't evil, just not strong enough to resist Voldemort, even though he clearly wants to. When we first meet him, it's very much like the book and I laughed when Dumbledore came back from the loo with his knitting pattern book.

Harry's arrival at the Burrow is a bit different, but it works well. Instead of finding out later at Hogwarts that some parents didn't want their children to return, it's discussed by the trio at the Burrow. And at some point we see the Death Eaters swoop into Diagon Alley and kidnap Ollivander, though his shop is trashed in the movie rather than neatly cleaned out, which, in the book, leaves people wondering about Ollivander's loyalties. But all that works in the movie. It shows the terror and the boldness of the Death Eaters without a lot of dialogue, making the sense of fear and urgency very obvious.

I loved all the scenes with Luna, but missed Neville. He wasn't in the book that much either, so I guess that's OK. The scenes with the Weasleys were great throughout the movie - just not always enough.

There were little details about the Potions book and the Half-Blood Prince that were in the movie, but not really enough of the mystery was explored as to who the Half-Blood Prince was. I was intrigued to see something about alchemy on one of the pages when Harry is reading the notes written in by the HBP. But I think they cut the ending way too short. Parts of it were OK. The Potions class scenes were a treat, but I really missed the scene in DADA with Snape. That would have been such a nice bookend to the first movie in his Potions class. I hope that is one of the deleted scenes that will be on the DVD.

The Cave scene was good, as far as it went, but the third time through the movie I counted the number of shells (not crystal goblets) that Dumbledore drank and came up with 5 to 7. It was hard to tell, as the last time that Harry dips in shows liquid left and then it is empty the next time we see it when he sees the locket. But it definitely wasn't twelve. And Dumbledore's distress is good, but doesn't include the line about it's his fault that they were hurt. Overall, Michael Gambon was much better in this movie than in the previous ones. His scenes with the young Tom Riddle were outstanding and the ones with Harry were better. I would have liked his hand to look more withered than it did, though.

Harry's not under the invisibility cloak when he and Dumbledore get back to the Tower after the Cave, and Dumbledore doesn't freeze him, but tells him to remain hidden and still. That works well with Harry's earlier promise,thankfully included in the movie, before they leave for the Cave. And as I thought about it later, it is a way to show that Harry, at that point, completely trusts Dumbledore and has faith in him. The silent caution from Snape is well done and I do like it. Most of what happens on the Tower, except that some of the DEs are different, is like the book. But it stops short of Dumbledore telling Draco that he can hide him from Voldemort. And the light when Dumbledore is hit by Avada Kedavra should have been defintely green rather than sort of green - same with the skull in the clouds.

Now, there is that moment when Harry arrives at the still body of Dumbledore with Ginny near him. Very well done. While I missed the funeral, and the mournful phoenix song and Harry pointing out how disloyal Snape was, I did like the wands raised in tribute to Dumbledore. What made it work for me was that when the light is directed upwards, the skull in the cloud dissapates. Light overcomes darkness. Good overcomes evil. Love overcomes hate. That theme is played out in a very visual way without someone having to explain it.

And what I really liked about the ending was that they were on the same Tower discussing Harry's plans and his need to have Ron and Hermione go with him. And then there was Fawkes, flying against the almost golden sky. Definitely not like the book, but it really worked well, as far as I was concerned.

The teen romance scenes were great. I thought it was all cast and played extremely well. Parts were funny and parts were poignant, just as all of us remember those years being. My favorite moments were the ones with Ron and Lavender. Jessie Cave doesn't look like the way I imagined Lavender, but she played the part so well. And the scene in Slughorn's office after Ron eats the love potion-laced candy was great. Just goes to show that Rupert Grint has a great sense of comedica talent and timing.

I loved all the regulars, especially Maggie Smith. She is like Rickman; she does so much with so little screen time. I loved her in the scene where she sends Harry and Ron off to their first potions class when she sees them loitering in the corridor. And the scene with the opal necklace is great with McGonagall and Snape and their reaction to Harry's wild thoughts about Draco. Back to Lupin and Tonks and the Weasley parents - I love all those characters in the book and love the way the actors portray them. It's too bad we don't see more of them, and I hope that with Deathly Hallows split into two movies, we will.

Then there is Tom Felton as Draco who had a much bigger role in the book and in the movie. They show it quite differently than the book. It was nice that they showed what was on his arm, so those of us who were convinced he'd become a werewolf had that mystery solved once and for all. And instead of Harry doing all the speculating about where Malfoy was going and what he was doing, we got to see it. If we'd had to just listen to Harry going on about Malfoy as he did in the book, I think it would have been irritating in the movie.

Just about the only scene I really didn't like was the burning of the Burrow. I loved the Christmas scene with Harry and Ginny and Ron. I loved Lupin and Tonks obviously being together and talking to Harry about Snape. I was even OK with the Death Eater attack and all of them being outside to fight them off. But what was the point of burning down the Burrow, a place that they're going to need in the next book. And then it was never mentioned again in the movie, so it really seemed like something added just for more action. What a waste when they could have made any of the other important scenes more complete.

I'm not sure I liked the kiss between Ginny and Harry. It was sweet, but I liked the suddeness of it in the book, and that it was a very public show that they were now a couple. And I suppose they can have Ginny show or tell Harry where she hid the Potions book, but the whole point of the scene in the book was to show the diadem, which we didn't see or hear of in the movie.

That is one thing the movie didn't do. It reminded us of the book and the ring and the locket as Horcruxes, and did a really good job of the memory with Slughorn, but we didn't get any hints about what the other Horcruxes might be. Something they did however, is to give a very visual hint that Harry is a Horcrux. That tic that he did throughout Order of the Phoenix and in Half-Blood Prince should prove useful in Deathly Hallows. Especially since he did it in this one and then Dumbledore makes some comment about magic leaving traces - or however he said it.

The scene at the end with Snape and Harry was good as far as it went. It just didn't go far enough. We saw Snape react to Bellatrix calling him a coward by saying he would make the Unbreakable Vow, but we don't see him react much to Harry when Harry calls him a coward. I really wanted to see Snape unhinged or at least the very controlled kind of reaction that Rickman gave in OP, but we didn't get it. We also didn't get his (Snape's) outrage over James's use of Snape's spells against Snape before Snape tells Harry that he is the Half-Blood Prince. Maybe they will include something about that in the next movie? I hope so.

In Prisoner of Azkaban, one of my favorite movie moments was the added scene on the bridge when Lupin is talking to Harry. And I have a favorite not-in-the-book moment in this movie as well. It's when Slughorn is telling Harry about the gift of a fish that he received from Lily and how it disappeared when she was killed. It made that whole scene of Harry telling Slughorn to be brave even better. I wonder if it is something that Kloves came up with or if it is something that Rowling had written and not included.

And just one more thing. I love the soundtrack for this movie. I listened to it when it was on-line the week before the movie opened and bought it the day it was released. I've listened a number of times and like all of it. I am sorry that Nicholas Hooper will not be back to score the final two movies, and unlike many, I hope that John Williams is not back to finish up. I like some of what he has done, but his soundtracks all sound so much alike that I'm often not sure which movie it is. I had to look the other day to see that it was E.T. on the radio and not one of the other movies he has done. Maybe with Yates the editing will be better if Williams returns. I like it much better when the music is a subtle part of a scene and doesn't overpower the action or the dialogue, which Williams's scores tend to do.

So, I look forward to seeing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at least one more time in the theater and then to buying it when it's released on DVD in the fall. And that will put us even closer to the first part of Deathly Hallows, which I hope will be the best of the Harry Potter movies yet.

Pat

Taking time out for the Harry Potter movies

2009-06-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm having a hard time staying focused on posting about the book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, because I'm so caught up in just reading it. And now it's less than a month before the movie comes out. So over at The Leaky Cauldron they have posted some interesting links to interviews and video clips and this one - a list of the twelve things that were in the books that should have been in the movies.

I agree with some of the things on the list, but not all. Personally, I had enough quidditch with the first films, and seeing it in all the others would have taken valuable time and would have gotten boring, imo.

But I completely agree that the Marauder's Map, Dobby, Kreacher, Percy and Marietta should have been in the movies with their more complete story lines. I thought it was a mistake to leave out Bagman, but it turns out he really wasn't that important later, so I guess that decision makes sense.

I missed Peeves, especially when the twins were leaving, and again in Deathly Hallows, but I guess it was OK to not have him. And I missed Harry talking to Nick about Sirius's death.

What I would add to the list is a better depiction of Barty Jr in the courtroom scene and a better death scene for Barty Sr. And then there is the missing Winky who plays a big role in that part of the story. The other thing that was left out was that Fluer is part veela. I guess it's not terribly important but it explains why the boys, Ron in particular, get all goofy whenever she's near them. The Pensieve scene with Snape and James and Sirius should have been longer, and should have included Lily. That's another bit they will have trouble explaining later.

The other thing the movies have all missed is the end of the books. They get part of it right and then stop before the full denouement from Dumbledore. So people who only watch the movies and haven't read the books really never fully get the meaning of what has happened in that particular story.

The problem with leaving things out concerning the minor characters is that then we don't really care what happens to them or we don't understand why it's important to Harry. Paring all that down is something that movies have to do to fit in a certain time frame, but by doing so, they really lose the richness that has made us all love the books.

Enough ranting, though. I'll stop for today. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this particular subject after July 15 when I see "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince".

Time to Revisit Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009-05-14T23:39:00.000-07:00

Whenever a new Harry Potter movie is about to come out, many of us like to prepare by re-reading the book. I'm not sure that's a particularly good idea, but I always do it anyway, which brings me to the point of this post.

Over at The Hog's Head, Travis Prinzi is leading a discussion of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, three chapters a week. That's a nice pace, easy to keep up with, but slow enough to pay attention to the details. I've been reading and following the discussion-starting posts, but haven't had the time to join in the discussion. Instead, I've decided to just post here as I read the book again. And I'll finally make use of all those margin notes I made. I've never been one for writing in books; even highlighting in a text book always felt wrong, but after reading Half-Blood Prince where Harry poured over the notes made in his potions book so many years before, I decided that the best place to write my own notes was in the book itself. After that, as I re-read each of the Harry Potter books, I made notes in the margins, at the end of chapters, and even at the end of each book. No more trying to keep track of all the journals I started and didn't finish.

Before writing this time, I thought it best to look back to see what I had already written. No need to repeat the same thing. So I found that I had posted about HBP in 2007 after my second reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

So, here goes.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Chapter One: The Other Minister

"While this chapter is a nice tie in with the book, and covers things such as a change in the Minister for Magic, the Ministry of Magic's realization that Voldemort is back and that Sirius was innocent, it doesn't do much more. Rowling apparently intended this chapter for several previous books and finally felt that it belonged here.

I'm still not sure why she seems to feel it was such an important chapter, unless it is a huge foreshadowing of the eventual merging of the two worlds."

Those were my notes on the first page. I'm still not certain why the chapter meant so much to her that she tried it in several different books before using it here. It does end up being a unique way to catch the reader up on what has been happening and to remind the reader of past events. We usually get all that from Harry's point of view, and Harry is not in this chapter at all. So perhaps the important point is that we are about to start getting some information beyond Harry's limited perspective.

The two worlds - the Wizarding world and the Muggle world - never really merge, but the lines separating them are blurred. We learn that the Muggle Prime Minister is always introduced to the current Minister for Magic upon entering office, and this one picks up with Fudge being sent to pave the way for Rufus Scrimgeour, the new Minister for Magic.

One of the brilliant things that Rowling has done throughout the books is to use humor even when the story is dealing with serious or scary things. The image of the Muggle PM learning about wizards, hearing a portait talk to him, seeing people stepping out of his fire and then telling him about dragons, dementors, and all sorts of magical happenings paints a funny picture. After all, when the PM asked why his predecessor hadn't warned him, Fudge asked [HBP, p. 6, Scholastic]:

"My dear Prime Minister, are you ever going to tell anybody?"

By the time Scrimgeour arrives, the PM is up to date on the severity of Voldemort's return. Fudge points out to him that they all have the same concerns: the collapse of the Brockdale Bridge, the murders of Emmeline Vance and Amelia Bones, and Herbert Chorley, a Junior Minister gone wacky, now residing at St. Mungo's are events that are part of both worlds.

It's somewhat of a relief to hear that Fudge was finally sacked. It took them long enough. Our first meeting with Scrimgeour is his first meeting with the Prime Minister. He seems stronger and more capable than Fudge, and at least more business-like. "There was an immediate impression of shrewdness and toughness; the Prime Minister thought he understood why the Wizarding community preferred Scrimgeour to Fudge as a leader in these dangerous times." [HBP, p. 16, Scholastic]

Amidst all that disturbing news, we learn that Kingsley Shacklebolt is now ensconced in the PM's office as his most able new assistant, put there without his knowledge to protect him.

The PM still doesn't quite get the importance of all this information, especially that his Junior Minister won't be around for awhile:

"He's only quacking!" said the Prime Minister weakly. "Surely a bit of rest. . . Maybe go easy on the drink. . ." [HBP, p. 18, Scholastic]

Hmmm, it seems an apt description of what we see with some public officials, who are seemingly slightly mad.

But his real frustration is that they are wizards and should be able to do something about it because they can do magic. That is the problem after all, which Scrimgeour and Fudge both understand [HBP, p. 18, Scholastic]:

"The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister."

This sixth book ends up being quite different in style than the first five Harry Potter books. So perhaps having this first chapter be quite different was a good choice after all. It's Rowling's way of letting us know that we are in for many changes.

With that, I'll call it a night and save the second chapter for a separate post, as it's one of my favorite chapters.

Pat

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, audio by Stephen Fry

2009-03-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

I recently finished listening to Stephen Fry read Deathly Hallows. It was a book, that even on re-reading, I couldn't get through many chapters without a lot of tears. Listening to it, I found my self once again in tears over Dobby's death, the death of Fred, and all the others. The chapter when Kreacher tells his story was even more poignant when read aloud. As was Harry's meeting with his parents and Sirius and Remus in the forest and his final meeting with Dumbledore at King's Cross.

And then there was "The Prince's Tale", the chapter about Snape, the one that answered so many questions about the enigmatic potions master who finally achieved his heart's desire of being the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Thinking back to the beginning of that year, when he started the class, he knew what was coming and yet went ahead with the plan that Dumbledore had laid out for them all, just as Harry chose to follow Dumbledore in the end.

It's a powerful book, and my favorite of the series. It's even more powerful when spoken. My only disappointment is that it is the one that I won't be able to listen to when I travel - it's a bit too hard to explain why you are suddenly crying when everything seems normal around you.

So, my thanks to Stephen Fry for reading all the seven Harry Potter books so well, and my thanks to my husband for buying them all for me.

Pat

A Moment of Panic

2009-02-12T00:41:00.001-08:00

I was looking at my blog and trying to figure out if I wanted to make any changes. I added the Harry Potter quotes at the bottom but didn't change anything else. And then I looked at my blog and all my posts were gone. I've no idea what that was all about. It seems to be back, but I think I'll definitely start copying all my posts and putting them somewhere in a file. Not that there's anything earth shattering that would be a tragedy if it disappeared. . . well, for me, it would be.

So, even though I'd like to make some changes, I like I'll just leave it alone. That was too scary.

I'm about two thirds of the way through Harry Potter and Imagination by Travis Prinzi. It's the kind of book that I will need to read more than once, and next time I'll be taking notes. He has made some observations that have clarified things for me, and he's brought up things I hadn't given much thought. I plan to sit down in the next few days and comment on some of the ones that I have found to be the most thought provoking.

For now, I'm going back to a calming cup of tea, a snack with some chocolate in it, and more of Travis's book.

Pat

Slightly obsessed? Well, I guess I am. . .

2009-01-24T14:55:00.000-08:00

Travis over at The Hog's Head posted a list of books that he owns that are Harry Potter related and asked us to share our own. I'm glad that I copied mine before I posted, because it doesn't seem to have made it past the spam catcher.

I admit that I am a collector of things, not just Harry Potter things. But for what it's worth, here is my list, or as complete a list as I am likely to compile.

It's a little disturbing when I stop to take inventory on my Harry Potter bookshelf, which has spilled onto a place on my desk because they won't all fit on just one shelf.

I have the 7 HP books, hardback and paperback (well, not DH yet as it hasn't been released in the US - I'll get it when it comes out). I have an extra copy of COS because Laura lost the dust cover and I wanted that one. I have an extra copy of POA, GOF and OP because my first ones fell apart. And I have the UK version of PS, brought to me by my sister-in-law who saw it in a book shop in Germany. (I'm glad she realized I'd want the UK one and not a translated German version, which I couldn't have read.)

And I now have all seven of the audio books, read by Stephen Fry.

And here's the rest of the list:
Sorcerer's Stone (10th Anniversary edition)
Order of the Phoenix, deluxe edition (from ebay)
Half-Blood Prince, deluxe edition (from ebay)
Deathly Hallows, deluxe edition (bought when I bought the regular one at midnight)

Fantastic Beasts
Quidditch Through the Ages
Tales of Beedle the Bard (bought three and gave one to each daughter)

by John Granger:
Looking for God in Harry Potter, 2004
Looking for God in Harry Potter, 2006? (found it in paperback at Amazon or somewhere - John was surprised I'd found a copy)
Hidden Keys
How Harry Cast His Spell
The Deathly Hallows Lectures (two copies, one was apparently mistakenly released early, and they are different)
Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys. . .

Harry Potter and Imagination, by Travis, which I'm quite enjoying and wish I'd been jotting down notes.

The Gospel According to Harry Potter, Connie Neal
The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter, David Colbert
Harry Potter and Philosophy, ed. Baggett and Klein (never finished it)
The Wisdom of Harry Potter, Edmund Kern
A Charmed Life, Francis Bridger
What Will Harry Do?, Janet Batchler
Harry, a History, Melissa Anelli

Traditional Symbols, J. C. Cooper (not HP, and written in the 1970s, but I bought it specifically because of HP and because I wanted something that wasn't influenced by HP)
. . . as well as some basic books on mythology, since my knowledge was definitely lacking

And then there is the shelf that has "stuff" that I have collected or been given by family members who shake their heads at my HP obsession. Included there are:
-the tiny water globes that came out with the first film
-Christmas ornaments
-the goofy HP glasses
-a wand, hand carved and painted by my talented son-in-law and daughter - when we went to Lumos 2006
-the collector's stones (I finally bought the golden snitch one since I couldn't get it by buying them at the store)
- the stones are in a cauldron-like goblet that my daughter etched with "Harry Potter"
-stamps my hubby ordered from the UK
-a small Hedwig
-a wand from Allivans given to me by my Day Camp co-site director when we had a Harry Potter themed week
-framed picture with the first 4 movie posters and cells from the films (not huge, and it was a gift from daughter, son-in-law and their friend - we had all gone to all of the midnight movies)
- a throw with a scene from HP and SS movie - crossing the water to Hogwarts (not on the shelf)

Oh, and a LOT of HP book marks, some of which say Bloomsbury on them instead of Scholastic - I'm not sure how those found their way to my B&N in Washington state, but there they are.

I also have HP mugs, one for each of the houses and one (gift) of Hagrid with Norbert.

I have a couple of movie posters from the first movie that were free at Sears and a poster from B&N for the HBP release.

Then there is the potions poster that was given to Laura that she stuck on her bedroom door (now my computer room) with what must have been a permanent sticking charm, as it's still there after 8 years. I particularly like Snape scowling over Harry's shoulder as Harry works on a potion.

And one of my favorites - a small badger sent to me by my friend from the Netherlands, Antoinette, since we are both Hufflepuffs. I knitted a small Hufflepuff scarf for it.

And last, but not least, the HP watch that Laura gave me that I still sometimes wear - with potions bottles on the face (just looks pretty and most people don't know it's HP), but not with the blue band. I switched that to a silver one a long time ago so it isn't so obviously a kid's watch.

There's more (little stuff), but that's definitely enough to list.

Like I said, I find myself "a bit scary" sometimes, as Ron told Hermione. I try not to scare everyone else quite so much by keeping it all (most of it anyway) contained in my computer room where they don't have to see it every day.

Now, everyone who is a packrat should feel better knowing that they are not alone. Actually, a packrat is never alone - or at least not alone in an empty or uninteresting room.

Pat

Finally, the mail was delivered!

2008-12-27T01:00:00.000-08:00

And in with the Christmas cards, a few bills and ads that are now out of date, I received my copy of Harry Potter and Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds, by Travis Prinzi. The delay was due to our nasty weather. The Postal Service decided that they would not put anyone at risk delivering mail - for all of this week, as it turned out - by eliminating anyone who lives on a hill. Well, their concern is laudable, but they really should have sent someone out after the first day or so to see if the hills were still too dangerous. Ours had been sanded and was perfectly easy for everyone to negotiate, even some of the drivers who, just days before, constantly proved to the world that they had no idea how to drive on snow and ice. So if they could do it, then certainly the mail carriers could have managed. It was a bit irritating to know that there should be mail in the box, but there was none, and no announcement that they weren't delivering any. It just didn't show up. At least Metro got the word out to the press that the bus schedules were changed, and the waste disposal companies did the same. The Post Office, however, just let us all make daily trips across the street to the empty mail box.

I suppose the reason it was so annoying to me was really because I know that my book had actually made it to the bulk station in town and was just waiting to be delivered. It was that close. So now I have it, and have started reading.

And with that, I'll have the last cup of tea and another piece of pumpkin pie while I read just a little more before going to bed.

Pat

Harry Potter and Imagination, by Travis Prinzi

2008-12-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

I've been looking forward to reading Travis's book for a while now. Travis Prinzi is from The Hog's Head. Just as with Hogwart's Professor.com (John Granger's site), the Hog's Head is always a place with interesting discussions. I ordered my book over a month ago, and just last week received an email that it will ship soon, or has been shipped. With all the snow we've had, I'm afraid it might be delayed, but I'm looking forward to reading it when it does finally arrive on my doorstep.

Even before I've read it, this is a book that will be well worth adding to your Harry Potter book shelf, or shelves, in my case.

Give yourself or a friend a great Christmas gift, and buy Harry Potter and Imagination, by Travis Prinzi.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J.K. Rowling

2008-12-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

I rushed to my local Barnes and Noble when the release date was first announced. As has happened before, I was seemingly the first person to ask about reserving copies - they had to find someone to find out about the book. So, last Thursday, I picked up my copies. I've since been reading each fairy tale with its Dumbledore commentary, one at a time, much as I would if reading any book of fairy tales. And I'm quite enjoying it.

They are like the old familiar fairy tales, but different. There is a point to them all - a moral, which Rowling now seems more comfortable admitting. But they also have her quirky sense of humor that is evident - well, not so much in "The Hairy Heart". That is the one that just doesn't have much joy in it - but a moral nonetheless.

And as usual, I love her use of the English language. That was one of the first things I enjoyed when I read my very first Harry Potter book back in 1999. Even in these fairy tales, I don't feel that Rowling dumbs down language. She seems to assume that the reader, no matter what age, is intelligent enough to know the words she uses, or will ask or look in the dictionary for a definition. That's something that has been missing from children's literature far too long, and I was so happy to find someone who respects her own intellect and that of her readers.

So, I may come back to say more later, but right now I need to put the Christmas lights on the bushes in the front yard. Terry did his part by getting the ones on the eaves up yesterday, so it's now my turn. And I'd better get busy or I'll be doing it in the rain and the dark like I did last year.

Pat

Almost November, thank goodness for that!

2008-10-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

It seems that politics and the current election have taken over my life. I watch it and read blogs, when I'm not watching it. I am now much more familiar with all the political pundits than I ever hoped to be. I don't like politics. I found it interesting when I was younger and there were people like John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to listen to. And we all know how that ended. What has followed were too many years with the Republicans in power telling us that we should only be concerned about ourselves, shouldn't trust anyone else in the world because they are evil. . .

Hmmm, so much of that has a familiar ring to it. Where have I heard all that recently? Oh, now I remember - from the books that inspired this blog in the first place, Harry Potter. The dire warnings about "us" and "them" that the divisive campaign run by the Republicans are the same sort of thing that came from Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour (though he did turn out to have some honor), and Dolores Umbridge.

One of the things that Rowling did when she wrote Harry Potter (all the books), was to raise the awareness in people of all ages, but especially the young, that it is dangerous to blindly follow leaders without thinking for yourself. Study the issues, listen to both sides, read whatever you can to be informed. The fictional characters that did that in Harry Potter realized that the current Ministry of Magic was corrupt, had their own narrow agenda, and didn't have a clue how to fight the evil that threatened them all. They weren't willing to look beyond the end of their own wands, so to speak. It doesn't take much to see that the same applies to the current US administration. Rather than looking for real solutions to problems, the ones currently in power resort to fear mongering and flat out lying about anyone who is not "with us".

What we are now seeing is the last desperate effort of the Republicans to sway those undecided voters by playing on people's fears for the economy, especially. Don't be fooled by anything they say at this point. McCain and Palin haven't had anything consistent to say on their own behalf. Obama and Biden have the clear vision of what it will take to pull our country out of the mess that we are in.

If you are a US citizen, please VOTE on November 4. Terry and I already have voted, by absentee ballot. Now it's just a matter of waiting for November 5 to see if Americans have the common sense that I give them credit for having.

Pat

Banned Books Week

2008-09-30T18:14:00.000-07:00

I always love this week out of the year. It is the ALA's Banned Books Week. It's not that I love the fact that so many books have been challenged or banned, it's just that I love the focus on so many books, books that should be available to everyone, that happens because of Banned Books Week.

I actually bought one of the American Library Assn. READ posters a few years ago, when Alan Rickman posed with a banned/challenged book. As it turned out, the book he is holding is Catcher in the Rye, which I have read. I didn't like it - at all. I read it in high school because so many people were talking about it. It's not one that I will read again, but I'm glad I read it for myself. And more than that, I'm thankful that I had a mom who encouraged me to read all the time. I'm also thankful that I was able to check out that particular book from my high school library. I didn't have to buy it or search for it. It was there, on the shelf, waiting.

I understand the point of having some guidelines for elementary schools, but mostly because there are books that just aren't age appropriate for six to eleven year olds. There are plenty of books they could be reading that would be a better choice than something like Catcher in the Rye. But the important thing is that books are available for those who want to read them, without someone or some group deciding for the students, young or older, or for adults, that a book shouldn't even be available.

I started reading Harry Potter in 1999, when I read a news article that talked about the growing group of parents who wanted to ban the books. So, of course, I went to the book store that day and bought the first book. Before I even finished reading it, I had returned to buy the second and third books. I was hooked. But more than that, I could honestly say to someone who didn't like Harry Potter that they should read the books for themselves before deciding they weren't good for children to read. I never talked to anyone who disliked the books and wanted them banned or even restricted who had actually read any of them.

And that is what people lose sight of when they start talking of banning books. They fail to see that a book they don't like (usually haven't read), might have something that will make it just the right book for someone else. If they don't want to read a book, or don't want their children to read a book, that's a family issue and choice. But their choice shouldn't influence whether or not other families chose something different.

It's not just about Harry Potter though. I always enjoy looking at the list of banned or challenged books and seeing just how many I have read, or that at least I've heard about them and thought I would pick them up some day.

If you are looking for a list of books to read, the Banned Books list is an interesting place to start.

Pat

Have I forgotten Harry?

2008-09-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hardly. I've finished reading Deathly Hallows again, and find that I like it better each time through. I've rewatched "Order of the Phoenix" several times as it was on HBO a lot in August. I liked that as a movie, but I kept waiting for Fawkes to swoop in and swallow up the snake attacking in the Ministry battle. Of course, Hollywood can't seem to bring themselves to include the very Christian elements of any of the books, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it was left out.

I was unhappy, like many fans, that Warner Brothers pushed the release of "Half-Blood Prince: movie to next summer. But having recently read some of the reviews of the early screenings, maybe that's not such a disappointment after all. It seems that it would allow them to fix the things that are wrong or decide to include the things omitted, such as Dumbledore's funeral. But since they are starting to shoot the next installment in February, I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.

And I've been reading. I started reading John Granger's book, How Harry Cast His Spell, which is great. But then I got his other book (that apparently is being redone for release later), The Deathly Hallows Lectures. Also great. I've decided to finish that first. One of the books that John has mentioned more than once is Dante's Divine Comedy, which I might have read a portion of in high school, but certainly not the whole thing. I was in Barnes and Noble and saw one of their copies of it and decided it was time to add that to my library. The one that I have is a translation by Longfellow with the illustrations by Gustave Dore. It's a slow read, but I don't think it's the sort of book to race through, so I'm reading it in smaller sections, one canto per read at the most.

I'm looking forward to, and have already reserved, the 10 Anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in September and The Tales of Beedle the Bard in December. Sometimes this fall, Travis Prinzi's book will be out, and I'll probably buy the one by Melissa Anelli from The Leaky Cauldron, a look at how the fandom of Harry Potter happened.

And in the meantime, we are preparing for a trip to the east coast this fall to Virginia. I'll finally get to see many of those historical sites that used to consume all my interest. So in addition to reading all about Harry, I'm trying to brush up on American history, which I've ignored for a number of years.

And we have choir starting again - really starting with a rehearsal every week and singing at least three Sundays a month. I'm quite happy about that but it does fill up my schedule. The adult Bible study classes begin this evening. I'll be continuing the one that I've been in for the last several years. It's a precepts study that started with Genesis and we've been working out way through the Old Testament. Having finished 2 Samuel last spring, we are ready for Kings and Chronicles.

Fall has turned out to be very busy at our house, so I haven't been blogging here much, though I've added some things to my other one, Eeyore's Ramblings, about the fan reactions to the HBP movie delay and about church. I have some photo work to do, a short "movie" from our church's last Guatemala trip, actually printing the photos from our April trip to Walt Disney World, the photos we will take in Virginia, Thanksgiving at our house. . .

Can we just skip to December? Things might be a little calmer by then. Oh, wait, no they won't. What am I thinking?

My point is, that it isn't likely that I will update here any more frequently than I have been. But I do check other Harry Potter blogs, and other friend's blogs every day, sometimes with a comment, but sometimes not.

Pat

Happy Birthday, Neville, Harry and Jo

2008-07-31T18:59:00.000-07:00

I'm a day late for wishing Neville a Happy Birthday and almost too late to wish one for Harry and Jo, but here it is, better late than never.

I saw the Happy Birthday posted yesterday on Rowling's official site for Neville and was reminded that he is one of my favorite Harry Potter characters. He was the one who was bumbling in the first book and seemed to be only there for comic relief, perhaps to make the real heroes look even better. Much to Harry's credit, he didn't belittle Neville, even when others laughed at his misfortunes; Neville was constantly losing his toad, Trevor, falling from his broomstick, receiving a remembrall from his formidable Gran because of his unfortunate tendency to forget just about everything, and was more intimidated by Severus Snape than any other student even when Snape wasn't singling him out for ineptitude.

But even when Neville seemed to be slowing down the trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione, he was a true and faithful friend, always supportive and always trying to do the right thing. We had no idea just how much of a friend he would be until the last book when Neville, as many of us had hoped, finally showed, in the strongest way, that he was indeed a true Gryffindor, properly placed in the house for those who are brave and courageous. To stand up to your friends takes a special kind of courage, as we saw in the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Over time we saw Neville continue to stand up to his friends, but more often, he was standing up for them, especially for Harry. We began to see that Neville was willing to stand up against the evil that threatened Harry in Order of the Phoenix, encouraging Harry to resist giving in to Lucius Malfoy at the Department of Mysteries. That was a courage that none would have suspected from the meek Neville we first met when he was frantically searching the Hogwarts Express for Trevor, with Hermione's help. By the end of Half-Blood Prince, we could see that Neville was loyal, not only willing to help, but also willing to fight, when he and Luna joined in the battle at the end.

The best, however, was learning what Neville had been doing all during their seventh year at Hogwarts, while Harry, Ron and Hermione were on the run and Horcrux hunting, and it was a fantastic surprise. There was Neville, fighting against the evil that pervaded Hogwarts and the wizarding world, spilling over into the Muggle one, in Deathly Hallows, with a courage beyond what any of us might have imagined for him. And at last, he faced the greatest evil of all, Lord Voldemort, and proved once and for all that he had what was needed to survive and to win the battle.

So, in many ways, Neville is my favorite character. He went far beyond what I expected. After all, I had no doubt that Harry, the hero, would survive--well, at least until he defeated Voldemort. And I suspected that if Harry made it through, that Ron and Hermione would as well. At least, that was what I hoped. So in making a list of who might not live, the trio wasn't really on the list, but Neville was. And I was so happy that he not only lived but lived well and heroically. Best surprise of the final book, actually. (There were certainly some sad ones, but this isn't the place for them.)

And then, of course, Happy Birthday to Harry Potter and his creator, Jo Rowling. I'm so glad that we can still wish Harry a Happy Birthday, and that he finally found a happy family life, something that he so clearly wanted and needed for most of his young life.

I remember reading this post last year after my first reading of Deathly Hallows, and I was pleased to see that Beth has posted it in honor of Harry's and Jo's birthdays. So go here, read and enjoy her insightful reflections. Having recently finished reading all seven books in a row, with only a few sidetracks for other books, I really did appreciate remembering how I felt last summer about this time after devouring and then re-reading the last Harry Potter book.

This kind of answers the question that many were discussing earlier--how did I celebrate the one year anniversary of the last book of my favorite book series. I celebrated by doing what I've been doing for the last nine years, by reading and listening to Harry Potter. Again and again, and probably something that I will continue to do, even as I read and listen to all kinds of other books. The Harry Potter books, and especially the last one, will always hold a special place on my book shelf--and a special place in my heart.

So, thanks, Jo Rowling, and Happy Birthday to you and to Harry.

Pat

Seven Books, One Story

2008-07-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

I have been re-reading all the Harry Potter books in order and had hoped to post some of my thoughts as I read through them. My books all look like the Half-Blood Princes's copy of Advanced Potions, with notes in the margins and in the end pages of each book. However, just as I did when I first read each book, I was too engrossed in the story (and too undisciplined) to take the time to write it all out.

I'm now about half-way through the seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm still jotting more notes to add to the ones I made the first two or three times I read the book. And I have yet to post anything about my observations.

The thing that I have noticed the most is that the planning for all the important (and even some of the not terribly important) details was all in the books from the first all the way through. Deathly Hallows is filled, as was Half-Blood Prince, with echos of all the preceding books and foreshadowing of the end of the tale.

Sometimes a story loses its impact on re-reading. But, for me, Harry Potter just takes on more richness and meaning each time I read it. Even though I know how everything turns out, I still find that I'm drawn into the story and can't wait to find out how they will solve the next problem or get out of their current sticky mess. And with each reading, I find little details that I didn't see before.

For example, when Harry, Ron and Hermione finally are able to listen to Potterwatch and hear the twins' friend Lee Jordan talking, his code name is River, as in the Jordan River? Nice touch, that one, as it lets those who see it make that analogy of the ones doing Potterwatch (Lee, Remus, Kingsley, Fred) wandering in the wilderness and waiting for the right time to cross the river--to return to the place where they should be, while the trio also wanders in the wilderness. Yes, it's a stretch, but it's that sort of subtlety that I enjoy so much when I read the Harry Potter books.

I'll add more later, but not for a few days. I'll have to wait till the trio escapes from Malfoy Manner, and I know what comes after that one.

Pat

Death as a theme in Harry Potter

2008-04-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

I'm most of the way through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I've been meaning to post a few thoughts as I read, but that hasn't happened.

But I do want to post some of my thoughts about one of Rowling's most recent comments that the series has the main theme of death. In many ways, I understand what she is saying, but it seems to me that it's so much more than just death. In having Harry deal with death from the very beginning, we see that he understands it differently as he gets older. He also comes to understand death differently each time he is confronted with the death of someone else.

There was the senseless and cruel killing of his parents when he was a baby. But he didn't really know his parents, so the loss is one of possibilities never realized. It's the sort of thing that we experience as we try to imagine what life would have been like had our grandparents, aunts or uncles, or in some cases, a parent, lived. We long for, as did Harry, something that we should have had but cannot recapture, no matter how hard we try.

For me, it was the realization that my father, who died when I was not quite eleven years old, would not be there for my first date, first dance, high school graduation, college, marriage, children. . . all those things that a child takes for granted. It was also the realization, at some point, that even though I was old enough to remember my dad, I was not old enough to really know who he was as a person. So the loss of a parent in childhood is very different than the loss of a parent when we are adults. I very keenly feel the loss of my mother, who was part of my life until I was in my 40s. My image of her changed from being just my mom to being a delightful, sometimes frustrating, always complex woman, one whom I admired deeply even when we disagreed on rare occasions.

But back to Harry. In each of the books, he does deal with death. In the first one, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, he sees the unicorn that has been killed for evil purposes. It's not the death of a person, but the death of something described as pure and innocent. In a sense, that is the beginning of the death of Harry's own innocence. It's his realization that there is someone intent on killing him--not easy for anyone, but especially not an easy concept for an 11 year old. By books end, he has already decided that he is willing to sacrifice himself to prevent Voldemort from regaining power. The result is the death (though Harry does not see it), of Quirrell after Voldemort had no further use for him.

The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry and the rest of the school are threatened with death throughout, with Harry hearing a disembodied voice saying it wants to kill, and in a vicious way. Saying it wants to "rip, tear, and kill" wouldn't exactly make for sweet peaceful dreams. It's a wonder Harry got any sleep that year.

The threatened death (of Ginny) doesn't happen, but only because Harry and Ron figured out where to go to try to rescue her. The help they received in learning of her whereabouts was from Myrtle, who had been killed by the Basilisk fifty years before. Harry comes very near losing his own life once he finds Ginny and the memory of Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets. But he is saved from death when he shows his loyalty to Dumbledore and asks for help, a prayer, uttered in desperation:

Help me--help me--Harry thought, his eyes screwed tight under the hat. Please help me--[COS, p. 319]

Harry's plea is answered, though not in any way he might have expected. (Just as our own prayers are sometimes answered in unexpected ways, I might add.) Inside the Sorting Hat, the Sword of Gryffindor appears. He is still not safe from death. It's only after the Basilisk has been blinded by Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, that Harry manages to kill the Basilisk. In the process, Harry's arm is pierced by a Basilisk fang, and Riddle tells him that it was all for naught; Harry will soon be dead, his mother's sacrifice having bought him only a little time. After pulling the fang from his injured arm, Harry sees Fawkes once again, Fawkes with his healing tears. Fawkes once again guides Harry by dropping the diary in his lap, and Harry stabs the "heart of the book" with the basilisk fang, ending the threat of the memory of Tom Riddle. If we had not realized before just how special Harry is, we should see it now. At age twelve Harry chose to act to prevent the death of his friends by risking his own life--not the ordinary choice for a twelve year old or for many adults either.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book has Harry facing death in almost a more theoretical way. He is haunted throughout the book by the voices of his parents as they are killed whenever a dementor comes near him. Harry, Ron and Hermione are horrified as they hear the executioner kill Buckbeak, the hippogriff.

But in the process, Harry comes face to face with the person he believes is responsible for betraying his parents to Voldemort. In learning the truth, he spares Pettigrew's life, the real betrayer, not for the sake of Pettigrew himself, but to prevent his father's best friends from committing murder. It's in this book that Rowling begins to have Harry learn the meaning of the soul, the purity of the soul and the importance of that purity and innocence. What happens to a person who is "soul-less". It's an existence, according to Remus Lupin, that is worse than death. Without the soul, a person's body continues on, but the very essence of the person is gone.

Dumbledore told Harry in his first year that there were things worse than death, but for an eleven, twelve, or thirteen year old that's hard to imagine, as he looks forward to the rest of his life. So for the first time, Harry has to grapple with what that means. He's in a position at the end of this book to save the lives of two--Buckbeak, who has been killed, and Sirius Black, wrongly accused of Lily's and James's betrayal, who faces the rest of his life without his soul, the sentence imposed on him by the Ministry of Magic.

Not only does Harry manage, with Hermione's great help, to save Buckbeak and Sirius, but he also begins to see that he is not as alone in life as he thought. His father is with him always, found within himself. Death robbed Harry of his father and mother's physical presence, but not of their love. Their love lives on in him, and in their friends, Sirius and Remus. Not a bad message, that. And it's one that will be repeated to Harry at the end of the fifth book, by Luna Lovegood, who is the most accepting of the characters concerning death.

In the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, we see Harry dealing with death as it happens. It's the sudden and senseless death of Cedric. They have become friends, though not as close as Ron or Hermione, but friends, nonetheless. Harry is powerless to prevent Cedric's death; he sees it, is horrified and devastated, but then he must now face Voldemort. Any previous threats to Harry's life pale by comparison with the ominous intentions of Voldemort and his assembled Death Eaters.

It's in this book that Rowling has Harry deal with the death of a fellow student, someone who had done nothing wrong, someone who had unknowingly crossed the path of evil. Real life is like that. People die who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is no way to make any sense of it. Dumbledore shows Harry and the school that it is fitting to honor the memory of such a person, but that we must also remember the circumstances of his death. This is the sort of death that teens must sometimes deal with, when a classmate is killed in a car accident or a drive-by shooting, or a shooting at school. They are senseless, random, unjustified in any way, but so very real, leaving friends and family with unanswered questions and heart ache that can take years to heal.

We see the aftermath of Harry's reaction to Cedric's death in the beginning of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. He is filled with anger that spills over into all his relationships, even with his closest friends. It is the anger of having seen something so horrible, yet not having any resolution. Voldemort was not caught and punished, and worse yet, was that Harry was disbelieved by many and purposely discredited, along with the only other public figure who did believe him--Albus Dumbledore. His close friends believe in Harry still, but for much of Order of the Phoenix, Harry endures feelings of isolation, even ridicule, all because of a death that he witnessed. In all of that, the worst part, which is not mentioned in the book, is that Harry seems to receive no counseling at all. He is left to work through his emotions, his understanding of what happened, on his own.

The end of the fifth book finds Harry once again confronted with the sudden death of someone for whom he cares, Sirius Black, his godfather. It happens in an instant, unexpected, just as was Cedric's death. But this time, Harry feels even more responsibility; it is because he allowed himself to be manipulated by Voldemort that Sirius was even there. The death of someone close to us is hard enough to bear; it is worse still, almost unbearable, if we feel that we are responsible in any way. While Harry acknowledges his part in Sirius's death, as does Dumbledore, it is too much for Harry to accept. It doesn't take him long to place the blame on someone else, someone he doesn't like, and is certain that he hates. Severus Snape is very often the scapegoat for anything wrong in Harry's life.

How often do we do the same thing? When something goes wrong, it's much easier to blame someone that has made our life difficult or unpleasant than to accept our own part in it. Rowling gives Harry hard deaths to handle, and thereby gives the readers the opportunity to examine our own views, our own experiences, our own emotions. There are no easy answers to how to cope with the death of loved ones. But as I mentioned before, it is Nick who was afraid of death, tells Harry that Sirius would have gone on, he would not have wanted the life chosen by Nick of being "neither here nor there" [OP, p. 861]. More importantly, it is Luna Lovegood who tells him that death is not the end, those we love who have died are there, lurking just beyond the veil [OP, p. 861].

In looking at our views of death, Rowling also allows us to explore our views of life. What truly makes a life valuable or worth living? What happens to a life that is lived selfishly, or to one that is lived with love for others? What happens to a person who is consumed by anger or bitterness, compared to one who is full of compassion and love and acceptance of everything in life, the good and the bad. At the end of Phoenix, Rowling throws in one more thing with which Harry must come to terms, and that is his hatred for Snape, and the necessity of forgiveness and redemption.

Death is a very strong theme throughout the books, especially in the last two, which I will save for another post. But it's not the only theme. The theme of love, forgiveness, redemption, friendship and loyalty, are equally as present and as strong. Perhaps she sees death as the main theme because it is the one that is dealt with throughout. It is through all the other themes that Harry is finally able to come to some resolution of the deaths of his parents, which were at the very beginning, the very heart of the story.

Pat

Snape and. . . no, it's mostly Snape

2008-04-05T01:26:00.000-07:00

Over at the Leaky Cauldron, there is a post about a recent interview by J.K. Rowling in which she says that Dumbledore and Snape are the most important characters, aside from the trio. It was nice to hear her say that, as so many of us have thought just the same thing. The ensuing "conversation" however has turned into the silliness that prompted me to stop posting on several forums where I had once been very active. So I won't provide a link. If you want to wade through all of it, you'll have to find it on your own.

However, it did get me started on posting some of my thoughts about the series. My current reading is in Order of the Phoenix, a little more than half-way on. (Harry has just seen the initial response to his interview published in the Quibbler.) So, the following is what I wrote, which intentionally doesn't respond to the poster who is only interested in irritating people and in arguing.

***

Rhiannon said: "Eeyore It is good to see you again. I thought you had left us."

Thank you and no, I haven't left. I actually check for news here every day. I don't comment much anymore, but sometimes read through the comments. In reading through the comments on this one, I'm reminded of the reason that I am not active on the forum any longer. After I finished Deathly Hallows, it was so complete for me, and I found the ending so satisfying, that I had to stop reading all the criticisms from others. Yes, I had my little nitpicks, but they weren't important enough for me to ruin the feelings I had at the end of my favorite series of books. And I read all the time, and have all my life.

I think that one of the things that bothered me the most was Harry's use of the Unforgivables toward the end of DH. But when I started thinking about it, it was a vivid picture of the horror of war. They were fighting for their lives and watched others being tortured or senselessly killed, and they reacted in whatever way they could think of. War has a way of dehumanizing even the best of people. Was the use of Unforgivables right? No. But that does happen in war; good, moral people make bad choices that they would ordinarily never consider. At the very end, though, in facing Voldemort, Harry did not use an Unforgivable Curse. Instead he didn't even use a curse that was intended to harm, but used a defensive spell. A spell that would protect him, and interestingly enough, it was a spell that he had first learned from Snape. Nice touch, that one.

I found Snape to be one of the most fascinating of Rowling's characters, because he was the most complex and his story unfolded so slowly for us. But the clues were there from the beginning. If there wasn't something hidden in Snape's past concerning Harry, why would Snape hate him from the first book. It was in rereading POA, though, and especially in OP that I started to see that people who saw that Snape loved Lily were right. Snape always raged against James and Sirius, sometimes against Lupin by association, but never once said a word against Lily. Harry was the one who made those jumps, assuming that Snape also hated his mother.

Snape very much resembles the character of Sydney Carton in "A Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens (another literary character who is rather nasty to others and not very likeable), and once I saw that, I knew that Snape was on some sort of sacrificial path because of his love for Lily, just as Carton willingly sacrificed himself to save Lucy and her family. That book has the best redemptive ending of any book I've ever read.

Lily befriended Snape when he was younger and looked a bit odd, when Petunia saw him as "that awful boy" (the other thing that convinced me that Snape loved Lily). I was glad to see that Lily returned his friendship, and that it wasn't completely one-sided. She tried to stand up for him, and was called a horrific name (the wizarding version of a racial slur), and she did listen to him later. But in the end, she chose her own path in life just as Snape did. She saw her childhood friend getting in deeper and deeper with dark wizards that she saw as being on an evil path, and even after she talked to Snape and tried to warn him , he refused to veer from his own chosen path.

It was one of the saddest things in the books for me. Snape, with his unhappy childhood, ended up being influenced by those in his house who were happy to use his considerable talent to their own purposes. I can't imagine that they really liked him as a person, given that he was from a poor family and was not a pure-blood. But people who have been bullied for so long and pushed out sometimes will follow anyone who gives them the promise of power. And those who are bullied sometimes become the bully, which is just what we saw with Snape. Like Dumbledore, I have to wonder, would Snape have turned out differently had he been sorted into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw? (yeah, I can't see him in Hufflepuff at all. LOL) I think it could have made the difference because he might have been more influenced by Lily and wouldn't have had the opportunity to spend so much time with the Lestranges and future Death Eaters.

Once he knew that he was the one responsible for Lily's death, he did repent (just as Sydney Carton did), and then Snape spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his part in the death of the only person he ever loved or respected. But he was still the solitary soul he had been as a child and he'd never learned how to reach out to others. He still saw any emotional vulnerability as a weakness because he knew how Voldemort would use it.

And what does Snape have every day of the term for seven years (well, six really)? He sees the face of the student who bullied him just because he could, and the eyes of the one person he loved. Instead of seeing that Harry was much more like Lily than like James, Snape is stuck in that adolescent hatred. Sirius was no better, as he was never able to let go of his hatred against Snape. Neither of them had the chance to "grow up" because of the circumstances surrounding the death of Lily and James. Because of that one tragedy, Sirius ends up in Azkaban for twelve years and then in hiding for two more; Snape ends up truly regretting the part he played and repents and does what is right in trying to protect Harry. But Snape was never really able to forgive himself.

Are there any perfect characters in Harry Potter? No. That is the brilliance of the books. Jo gave us heroes and villains who are all flawed and so very human. Just as we are all flawed and very human. Jo gave us something much better than cardboard cut-outs of good guys and bad guys. In giving us realistic characters, she has also given us the opportunity to explore how people in real life interact. And she has pointed the way for seeing the wrongs in our own world through not resolving all the issues in hers.

Sorry to run on so long. I promise I won't do it again. Well, I'll try to refrain from it anyway. ;-)

Pat

More from Jo

2008-03-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

One of the latest bits of information about Jo Rowling is that she went through a time of depression and even thought of suicide. I didn't find it particularly surprising, to be honest. I think it's really all there in the books, that feeling of utter despair and hopelessness is so clearly written whenever Harry is around a dementor in Prisoner of Azkaban, or later, in Order of the Phoenix when he feels so alone. Even for people who haven't experienced the depth of that sort of depression, Jo gives a good picture of what it must be like.

Saying that I wasn't surprised by her comments in no way diminishes the importance of it. By sharing that very personal information, something she didn't need to tell anyone, she has opened the door for her readers who might be suffering from depression to seek help. She has taken away any stigma that might have prevented someone from acknowledging their own need for help.

And she, as John Granger points out at Hogwarts Professor, has made us all think of what would have happened had she acted on those thoughts of suicide. Any action we take can have an affect on so many others, even in small ways, such as the enjoyment we've had in reading her wonderful books and coming to love her characters. She is an amazing woman, our Jo. Amazing in her creativity, and in her compassion and humanity.

Pat

"Deathly Hallows" as two movies

2008-03-13T22:40:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've posted anything here, but it's not due to lack of interest in Harry Potter. Quite the contrary. I've been rereading all the books, with the intention of stopping after each one for a few comments (or more) relevant to how my understanding of the story has changed since we now have all seven of the books. However, I have found that, mixed with real life and actually reading some books that were not Harry Potter, I've been just as compelled to jump into the next book as soon as I've finished whichever one I was reading. So at the moment, I'm about half-way through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

And now comes the news from Warner Brothers that they are doing what I thought they should have done with Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince. Well, at least with the last two, and they should have made Prisoner of Azkaban about 10 minutes longer to include more of the back story for the Marauders and the talk at the end that Dumbledore and Sirius have with Harry.

The word from WB is that the splitting of Deathly Hallows into two movies is for artistic reasons and not monetary. Yes, well, I don't think many people are buying that, but whatever. I'm just very pleased that they will have the opportunity to really include all the richness of the story in this last view we'll have of Harry Potter on the big screen. Very pleased indeed.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T23:20:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a long time since I've posted anything, but that doesn't mean that I've lost interest in Harry Potter. That can't be farther from the truth. The truth is that it's been a hectic end of the year for me, for our family. November was the moving month for both our daughters, and I helped with the packing and some unpacking for both. That was November, which meant that when I was wrapping all that china and other breakables in newspapers that I hadn't time to read, I also wasn't on my lap top more than checking my email.

The little time that I did have (before I finally had to do my least favorite task and go shopping for Christmas gifts), I spent reading. Somewhere in the fall I managed to finish books that weren't Harry Potter, while I also reread the first two Potter books. I was going to post some things as I read, but that just didn't happen. I'm now about half-way through Prisoner of Azkaban. It's rather nice to read the books at a more leisurely pace, all the while making notes in the margins or at the end of the books.

The question has been put out on several sites about how our lives were affected by reading Harry Potter. I haven't responded to any of them, but it is something I've been thinking about.

And I'm still thinking about it. I think for now I'll just say that it has changed my life in ways I'd never have guessed--for the better, I think. Maybe tomorrow after all the Christmas ornaments are back in their boxes and the lights are off the tree I'll allow myself to go down that long memory lane of Harry Potter.

But not tonight--I do need to get some sleep.

Pat

Dumbledore is what?

2007-10-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

I thought I didn't have anything further to clarify about how I view Deathly Hallows, but that was before the two big revelations from Rowling in her Open Book tour in the middle of October. Like many others, I had entered to try to win two tickets to Carnegie Hall. And I knew which of my daughters would be going with me. It would have been Sarah, as October 19 was her birthday. Laura wasn't happy about that announcement, but thankfully, I was spared that bit of sibling rivalry when I did not win the tickets. Not to mention that I saved a lot of money in air fare from Seattle to New York and in hotel costs which looked outrageous when I chanced to look just in case I won.

On October 17, Rowling talked about the Christian themes and imagery and said that she had always intended that they were part of the story, particularly the 7th book. It was quite a vindication for all of us who have been saying that we saw those things early on. So many things fall into place with that knowledge. She was confirming rather than revealing something that was not already in the books. It was there all along and the only reason some didn't see it was that they refused to do so, preferring some other purpose for the characters choices and for the outcome of the story. There are some excellent discussions about this at Hogwarts Professor (John Granger) and at Sword of Gryffindor (Travis Prinzi) so Unless I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands, I won't repost everything here. Well, never say never--I may do it later, but not for a while anyway.

Then we had the question and answer period at Carnegie Hall and of course, the reporters jumped on the only question/answer that was sure to make headlines--in some cities it was on the front page no less. Surely there must be more important things going on in the world than Rowling saying she always thought of Dumbledore (a fictional character in a fantasy series) as gay.

I found myself going from being elated about the religious confirmation to be sorely disappointed about the gay revelation. It only took me about a day to realize that my disappointment wasn't so much that Dumbledore was gay but that there was no clue of it in any of the seven books. Rowling may think of Dumbledore as gay but by not making that clear (especially to people who have read the books over and over and by that time, I'd even read Deathly Hallows three times), it just didn't matter.

I know that some people have said that they thought certain characters were gay--Lupin being the prime example. And that turned out not to be the case when we learned that he and Tonks were in love and then married and had a child. We see Lupin at his happiest when he comes to announce that he and Tonks have a son, Teddy.

I think many of us thought of Dumbledore as just being too consumed with saving the world to even think about any sex life he had, even one in his youth. He sort of fit that image that I, and many students had, that their teachers have no life outside of school. When I taught school, my 2nd grade students were fascinated that I was getting married, and then they met my husband later. The fascination was, I think, because until then they really thought that I lived at the school. Children just have no reason to think of teachers as having a sex life--and I apparently read the books with that mind-set.

It had no bearing on my reading of Dumbledore's friendship with Grindelwald. That is the way Rowling chose to speak of their relationship--a friendship of two highly talented youth who were busy with their political amibitions to save the wizarding world. There didn't have to be more of an explanation of why Dumbledore was so enthralled with his new friend. He'd finally found someone who was his equal and it was a way for him to escape the responsiblities of his family that must have felt like a huge unfair burden to someone so bright and gifted.

My other disappointment was that Rowling shared this bit of back story at all. As a Christian, I've spent the last eight years defending the books and pointing out to parents that they are stories written with Christian themes--they have nothing to fear from letting their children read the Harry Potter books. But many of those Christians who are Harry-haters are also very intolerant of gays. And one of my first thoughts was that by telling us that Dumbledore was gay, Rowling had undone everything that would reassure those fearful doubting parents who might rethink their decision and let their children experience a wonderful story. *sigh*

Well, it is what it is. Rowling thinks of Dumbledore as gay, so as the author, she must be right. However, I think that she missed her chance to have all the readers see him the same way by not putting that particular detail in the books themselves. If it was important to understanding the story, then it should have been there in the first place. (Personally, I'm glad it wasn't as I don't think it would have been appropriate in a book read by so many young children.)

I came to see after a few days and reading a lot of other people's thoughts, that my biggest disappointment was not that Dumbledore was gay, but that Rowling hadn't included it in the story and saying it after the books were done just seemed pointless and rendered the information useless to the understanding of the story. I've also realized that for all the times I said I wanted all that back story, all the details about all the characters, I don't. If it's not there already, it does not change the way I read it; if it's not there already, it just doesn't matter.

John Granger included links to articles written by Prof. John Mark Reynolds:

Dumbledore Is Not Gay: Taking Stories More Seriously Than the Author

Dumbledore Is Not Hetero: Taking Stories More Seriously Than the Author II

Author's Intent: Taking the Story More Seriously Than the Author Part III

They are well worth reading. I feel that I can now move past this particular bit of information that will not change how I read the Harry Potter stories--and I'm glad that I have come to that place.

Pat

More thoughts on the end. . .or perhaps it should be, "the close"

2007-10-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

I re-read Deathly Hallows again this month, even going so far as to take it with me in my carry-on when we flew down to Disneyland in the middle of the month for a long weekend with friends. No wonder my bag was so heavy. But it was nice to have it on the plane and in the evenings.

I've come to realize that with the ending of the last book, there are other things to which I'm saying good-bye. One of them is a forum where I've been chatting for a long time, through many iterations, as the original one crashed so many times that we finally gave up and started our own. So, I'm sad to find that the people I found on line back in 2001 are the ones who are most unhappy with Deathly Hallows, which puts me so much at odds with them, that I just can't join in the discussions any longer.

I think most of their problem stems from their convictions that the books should have ended differently, partly due to the second fan fic written by one of the women. I thoroughly enjoyed her first one, but the second one ended up feeling very contrived at the end as she managed to actually make Harry and Snape reconcile and work together in the post-Voldermort era. They all really liked it, but for me, that was the point where she strayed too far from the characters that Rowling created, and I couldn't go there. And then once I read Deathly Hallows, the idea that Snape would have survived and actually change that much was just way too out of character. Frankly, I find it a bit arrogant when said author speaks with such authority on what is wrong with Rowling's writing of the last book. This person's credentials as a writer are extemely limited, in my opinion. She wrote fan fiction, after all--jumping off into a story with established characters and story arc, basing her story on what was created by Rowling. While she did a very good job of keeping the characters "in character" (in the first book and part of the second one), and did some creative things with the plot, it still wasn't her original ideas. And then to criticize Rowling for writing the story the way she wanted is just the height of silliness. I hope that she will get out of fan fiction and actually write her own stories some day, and then her opinion might carry more weight. But I think at this point she is focused on just writing more fan fiction, continuing to hang on to JKR's coattails. But---I don't dare say that to her or to anyone from that forum.

I've tried telling them that I found Rowling's story with Snape compelling and so true to the character she had created, as well as why I really like all the Christian imagery--which they don't. That's surprising as well; some of them are Christians, including the author, some are nothing in particular and some are avowed atheists (which was the reason I left that forum for a while after Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince, come to think of it). So, I'm saying good-bye, without really saying it. I've decided to just disappear rather than post some angsty sort of thing that people often post when they say farewell. Whether or not I stay in contact with any of them remains to be seen. The one who created the site with the help of her husband is the only one I've met when they have come to the Puget Sound area to visit her parents. So we'll see. It's always been up to her to give me a call when she's in town. But since I haven't posted there since my birthday, and then only to explain (once again) why I liked DH so much, I think any meeting we have might be a bit awkward and stained.

I've made notes throughout my Deathly Hallows book, with some at the end in the blank pages. I think later I'll go through and just post those comments here. There are still some things I'm sorting through, but one of the things I found most interesting is how much of Deathly Hallows ties back to all the other books, with a little comment here or there. Brilliant. One of the things that I liked best was that none of the characters were perfect. So often in a hero tale, the hero and some of his closest friends are without fault by the end of the story. It makes them much less human, much less real; as a reader, it's very difficult to relate to characters who are perfect and unlike anyone we've ever met or like ourselves.

Well, now that I've got that off my chest, it's time for some tea--blackberry sage, I think.

Pat

What determines who is a hero?

2007-09-02T00:24:00.000-07:00

If you haven't found the interesting discussions over at Sword of Gryffindor, you've really been missing out. Travis's latest pubcast is concerning whether Severus Snape can be considered a hero.

Now for Snape--please forgive the extreme length, but I'm one of those who find him to be the most enigmatic of all the characters. (A shape shifter, as Travis defines in his PubCast #34, might be the most appropriate explanation for who Snape is--ever changing, always a problem for the hero, etc.)

No, I don't want to be like him, and I certainly hope I never even meet anyone like him, nor would I have wanted him as a teacher. I am as appalled as Rowling when young girls or women talk of wanting to marry Snape--makes me shudder to think of it. He is not a nice man, no matter how you view him, and he wasn't about to change for anyone, especially since we learn that he wouldn't change (his choice of thuggish friends), even for Lily.

As an adult, Snape doesn't even seem to have friends among his colleagues. They show him respect, but friendship? Hardly. Other than his unique friendship with Dumbledore, and as we found out in Deathly Hallows, his childhood friendship with Lily, Snape led a very solilary life--and probably would have done even if he hadn't turned spy.

I expected to learn more about Snape's life with his parents, but I was absolutely OK with not getting that in this story. Rowling had given us the hints that Snape was from an abusive home, that he was bullied by his peers and that he was a loner. The piece that was missing was that he did have one friend, and apparently it was a real friendship, marred as friendships sometimes are, by the choices that he made.

A side note here--Travis at SoG, quoted from MacDonald. I don't have the quote, but it is something to the effect that, as readers we get out of a story different things, because we bring our own individual experiences to the story and the characters; we may even find something in a story or a particular character that the author did not intend. As individual readers, we sometimes get something completely different out of a story because of our own experiences. And perhaps that's the reason I feel some empathy for Snape. (No, I don't have greasy hair, a sallow skin and a hooked nose and Death Eaters for former friends.) I did, however, have a friend who was, to put it plainly, just odd. Not abused in any way, rather she probably had too many advantages, most of which she did not appreciate. But she was always like a square peg trying to fit into a smaller round hole. We were very different, but for some reason we were best friends for three or four years, and then she made a choice that ended the friendship. The situation was different for Snape, of course, as he loved Lily; whether or not Lily felt the same was never quite clear, but implied. But she at least seemed to love him as a friend. When she told him she couldn't abide his choice of friends, I knew how that felt (even though for Snape it was love, and for me it was a friendship) because I had felt that same disappointment of feeling betrayed by my friend's choice. (She stole my boyfriend, actually--not a good thing for a best friend to do. Turning Death Eater might have been easier for me to accept-- er, well, maybe not.)

My point is that I think we do find ourselves identifying more with some characters than with others. In the beginning of the books, I identified very much with Harry; (again, there was no abuse in my life, only love and a caring family) but I was adopted and didn't know anything about my birth parents. That's where that character identification stopped for me, except that my adoptive dad died when I was ten--so I did somewhat understand how Harry felt about not having parents.

However, the time that Harry spent in front of the Mirror of Erised brought tears to my eyes, as I thought of what I would see. It would be my mother, who had died in 1996, three years before I started reading Harry Potter. And then hearing later that it was Jo's favorite chapter, for much the same reason as mine, resonates incredibly with my own feelings and understanding of what it feels like to be without parents. I miss my mother still, and like Jo, would like just five more minutes with her, or a bit of time looking into the Mirror of Erised.

There are other things in all the books that are particularly poignant to me and that I seem to understand differently than some readers who are younger who have not experienced the death of parents or grand parents. Especially the thestrals--that was another moment when I felt so close to Luna and Neville and Harry, having seen someone die when I was a child. It was my grandfather. Apart from my parents, he was my favorite person in the world, and I was the one who found him when he was dying. So whenever I think of thestrals, I think of that late afternoon fifty years ago.

I know that many readers had problems with the manner in which Snape died, even those who expected that he would. Part of the problem IMO, is that some are too tied to their own theories, especially those who read or write a lot of fan fiction. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with fanfic--I've enjoyed some of it. But when it changes the way a reader understands the author's story and characters, then the fanfic has been damaging. I think that's where some of the dissatisfaction arises, with the cruel way Snape was killed, and that it needn't have happened at all. There was no glory, no heroic sort of scene, and after Harry and Snape looked into each others' eyes--a scene which I found so very powerful, Harry and Ron and Hermione rushed off, leaving this fallen hero alone, in a place that held the unpleasant memories of his childhood enemies.

While I get their point, I think they have missed the bigger point with Snape's death, as well as with the deaths of Sirius in OP, and of Remus and Tonks, and even Fred. In the middle of a war, particularly a civil war being fought on the grounds of their school (the stand-in for their homes), not every death is going to have the honor and significance of Dumbledore's or Dobby's deaths. War is ugly; it is not fair; it is not a respector of the worth of a person's life. And war does not stop and wait while we properly mourn for our beloved and fallen friends and families.

Snape had spent the rest of his life, after Lily was killed, full of remorse, and trying to atone for his unintentional betrayal of the only person he ever loved, or who ever loved him. Sirius had found his friends and his god son and should have had some happiness after twelve years of misery and two years in hiding. Remus and Tonks had finally found each other, and had a son to raise (though, looking at the alchemical imagery of the story, I knew they were toast as soon as they had Teddy). And Fred. Fred, at the moment of reconcilliation with his brother Percy, having a laugh, was killed as well.

Senseless deaths? Some think so, from what I've read on a few forums. All of those characters deserved to live and grow old, or they all deserved to have some sort of glorious death--isn't that what happens in the movies? The good guys all come out on the other side, perhaps injured or scarred, but OK, and the bad guys either die or get what's coming to them. Neat and tidy, and totally unrealisitc.

The best thing about Rowling's books is that she's not writing unbelievable stories with glorious deaths, or allowing characters to live because just because we like them; it wouldn't be at all realistic in the middle of a war if there were no deaths of nice people. And for her readers to feel what that means, if they haven't expereinced the loss of a family member or friend to the tragedy of war, Rowling had to kill off some of the characters we loved, or at the very least, that we respected or for whom we felt empathy.

Of course, I wasn't happy that Snape died--I wasn't happy that any of my favorite characters died either. Those deaths, however, make the point of the senselessness of deaths during war time, the randomness, the unfairness, the injustice of it all. The Epilogue shows us the model (young readers especially), that survivors must go on with their lives; they cannot live in a state of mourning forever. But we also must remember those who died and honor them in significant ways, meaningful ways that remind the next and future generations that honorable people died to preserve their freedoms. Harry naming his son after Albus and Severus, and his comments about Severus being the bravest man he ever knew, was better than any elaborate funeral or monument. By that one act and that one comment, Rowling filled in the missing pieces of Snape's death. Harry venerated him during his final battle with Voldemort, in front of all assembled in the Great Hall, and then he let his son (and all of us) know that he had forgiven Snape and understood just how brave he had been.

I think one of the other things that I took away from Deathly Hallows, was that not every hero has to be acting for the noble reasons we expect from heroes. Harry, who was the hero of the story, did act selflessly to save others, throughout the books. Ron and Hermione had their moments, though they were sometimes heroic because of their loyalty to their friend, rather than acting for the greater good.

Neville turned out to be very much like Harry in his actions, and I loved it. It showed that he very well could have been the "Chosen One", another pointer to our choices being more important in defining who we are.

Fred and George were heroic in their own way; Percy came through in the end. Ginny and Luna were heroes as well. Many of the adults were heroes, but some fought for noble reasons and others fought to save their families or their way of life.

Dumbledore, who had always seemed to have the most pure motives of all, turned out to not be our perfect hero, and often told Harry so. Outwardly, he seemed to be doing everything for the good of all, while in reality, it was much more personal, and so very private, for Dumbledore. He fought, not out of the purity of his heart, but because of the choices he'd made because of the darkness of his heart.

That leads us full circle back to Severus Snape. Snape did many heroic things in fighting against the Death Eaters and Voldemort. In some ways, his sacrifices and deeds far surpassed those of any of the other heroes. He fought his battle without ever receiving the recognition that was his due, except from Dumbledore, and posthumously from Harry.

I wish I could remember who said that heroes are ordinary men who do extraordinary things. It's not the obviously brave and strong who are the real heroes, but those who aren't, those who are flawed human beings, who do something in their life that earns them the distinction of being called a hero. And that's how I see Severus Snape--a loner, a man in need of redemption (as we all are), but a man who in the end, made the right choices to fight against evil. Did he do it for the noble reasons that we saw with Harry or with Neville? No. Severus Snape felt the pain of his own guilt, felt true remorse, and he sought forgiveness from the one person he had loved--Lily. He literally gave his life because he loved Lily, and in doing so he found his redemption. The more I think of it, his death was very much like that of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. Carton, a character who reminded me of Snape even before I read Half-Blood Prince, acted to save someone he didn't care only because he loved Lucy. And no one knew what he had done at the time of his death. All his imaginings were just that. He could only envision that his name and heroism would be known later. As readers we were left hoping and believing that Carton got the honor and recognition he deserved for his sacrificial death; in Deathly Hallows" we learned that Snape was honored as a hero, in the best possible way.

Let's all raise our glasses to all the heroes of Deathly Hallows, as well as those of the first six Harry Potter books, be they noble and pure of heart like Harry, or the flawed and remorseful heroes--those who are much more like most of us, if we are to be entirely honest.

Pat

Albus Dumbledore--not who we thought he was

2007-08-09T23:29:00.000-07:00

Until the end of Order of the Phoenix, and until we learn of his family history, I thought it was fairly easy to see Dumbledore as a Christ figure/God figure, or at least something similar, even if he was meant instead to be a metaphorical one.

In the few comments I've read since Deathly Hallows, I think some people are stuggling with the less than perfect, somewhat manipulative image that we now have of our beloved Headmaster of Hogwarts, the one who was so mourned after his death in Half-Blood Prince that people refused to believe he was really dead until J.K. Rowling said that he definitely was, and he was not going to do a
Gandalf.

I don't have the same problem with Dumbledore that many seem to have though. And I've been trying to figure out why I don't. Ordinarily, I don't like people who manipulate or use others for their own purpose, and that does seem to be what Dumbledore did with Harry and with Severus. Dumbledore told Harry that he had a "grand plan" when he told him about the prophecy in Order of the Phoenix, though he didn't tell Harry just what that grand plan was. Of course, Harry being the least curious bloke we've ever read didn't ask Dumbledore to spell out the details of that plan. One would think that since the plan seemed to involve Harry pretty heavily that it would have been a reasonable question for him to ask, but no, he didn't.

So in Order of the Phoenix, we see a side of Dumbledore that shows Harry and the reader that this is a very flawed and human man. He admits he has made mistakes, and rather large ones, and he has regrets, and for the first time, Harry realizes that Dumbledore seems old and tired. We just don't know what those regrets are. Then in Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore seems to be back to his former self--all-knowing, wise, mannerly, humorous. Even with his withered black hand, that is mentioned frequently througout so we don't forget it's there, Dumbledore seems stronger again, stronger than after the battle with Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic. But then he drinks that nasty green potion in the Cave, and nearly dies then. We see him barely able to return to Hogsmeade without Harry's help, and only revived because his beloved school so obviously needs him. Certainly nothing in any of those actions to tarnish our hero. We don't know what he relived when he drank the poison, but most of us went down the path that it had something to do with wanting to protect the students, etc--a view that put his suffering on a very altruistic plane, rather than any particular personal failing of Dumbledore's. Instead he is reliving his part in the deaths of his family, a horrible thing for anyone to have to live with.

I actually really liked what we learned about Dumbledore in Deathly Hallows. Let me explain--it's not his actions I liked, but that Rowling has created a very real person, rather than the perfect hero. Here we have a man, brilliant and talented, but a very flawed man, who learned early in life what it meant to make the easy choices rather than the right choices, a man who lost his family because he made poor choices, and who lived the rest of his life with the regret that he couldn't go back and make any of it better. Because of the two months he spent with Grindelwald, planning their take-over of the wizarding world, Albus learned what his greatest weakness was--the desire for power.

When he defeated Grindelwald and ended up with the Elder Wand, Albus didn't ever use it to attain the kind of power that he had so desired in his youth. McGonagall alludes to that in the very first book, when she says that Dumbledore is too noble to use the kind of magic that Voldemort used. In reality, it's not because he is noble, rather, it's because he understood that he would have been lured by that kind of power.

At one point Dumbledore had the Elder Wand and the Invisibility Cloak (after James's death), and could have kept both--all he needed was the Resurrection Ring to complete the Deathly Hallows. He gave the cloak to Harry, who had rightfully inherited it from his father, and only told him "Use it well". Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of the first book, Philosopher's Stone, that there are very few wizards who could look in the Mirror of Erised to get the Stone from it; it was because Harry only wanted to keep it from Voldemort, not because he had any desire to use it. It's then that we first see that Harry is "pure of heart", something which Dumbledore repeats, throughout. But it's not until the end of Deathly Hallows that we realize that Dumbledore would have seen something quite different at that point.

When Dumbledore and Harry talk at King's Cross, Dumbledore admits that he was tempted by power all his life. It was a failing that he never conquered. When he found the Ring Horcrux in the Gaunt house ruins, Dumbledore, unlike Marvolo or Tom Riddle, realized that it was the Resurrection Stone, the one Hallow he had long sought. He destroyed the Horcrux, but having that third one of the Deathly Hallows in his hand was a temptation that led to his blackened and withered hand that we saw all through his last year.

In Deathly Hallows, in one of the memories that Snape gave Harry, we find out part of the "thrilling tale" that Dumbledore never was able to tell Harry:

It was nighttime, and Dumbledore sagged sideways in the thronelike chair behind the desk, apparently semiconscious. His right hand dangled over the side, blackened and burned. Snape was muttering incantations, pointing his wand at the wrist of the hand, while with his left hand he tipped a goblet full of thick golden potion down Dumbledore's throat. After a moment or two, Dumbledore's eyelids fluttered and opened.

"Why," said Snape, without preamble, "why did you put on that ring? It carries a curse, surely you realized that. Why even touch it?"

Marvolo Gaunt's ring lay on the desk before Dumbledore. It was cracked; the sword of Gryffindor lay beside it.

Dumbledore grimaced.

"I. . . was a fool. Sorely tempted. . ."

"Tempted by what?"

Dumbledore did not answer.

"It is a miracle you managed to return here!" Snape sounded furious. "That ring carried a curse of extraordinary power, to contain it is all we can hope for; I have trapped the curse in one hand for the time being--" (DH, US version, p. 680-1)

It's at that point that we learn the sudden change in Dumbledore's strategy, which up to that point was to let Harry get on with the business of resisting Voldemort in whatever way he could, with Dumbledore giving him bits and pieces of information as he felt Harry needed them. Snape tells Dumbledore that he likely only has about a year before the spell spreads and kills him, that if Dumbledore had called him earlier, he might have been able to buy him more time.

He looked down at the broken ring and the sword. "Did you think that breaking the ring would break the curse?"

"Something like that. . . I was delirious, no doubt. . ." said Dumbledore. (DH, US p. 681)

Even then, Dumbledore doesn't explain to Severus Snape, the only man he seemed to confide in at all, what really had led him to put on the ring. It's when he is talking to Harry at King's Cross that we see the full and complete picture of who Dumbledore was and why he acted as he did:

After another short pause Harry said, "You tried to use the Resurrection Stone."

Dumbledore nodded.

"When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts--the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons--I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry I was. . .

"I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof."

"Why?" said Harry. "It was natural! You wanted to see them again. What's wrong with that?"

"Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.

"But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiosity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owner. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than to enable my self-sacrifice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows." (DH, US p. 719-20)

So once again, we have the reason that Dumbledore told Harry on several occasions that Harry was the better man, that his blood was more valuable, that it was Harry who had to defeat Voldemort, and not Dumbledore who was a much more powerful and talented wizard.

What we learn about Dumbledore is that he wasn't perfect and he was tempted by power until the end of his life. Everything that he did, every decision he made, was colored by that knowledge of his own flaws, his own very real guilt. Because he himself couldn't be trusted with power (hence, the reason he never agreed to be the Minister for Magic), he couldn't be sure that anyone else wouldn't fall into the same trap. He didn't confide fully in Harry or in Snape, knowing that each had his own flaws with which to cope. Snape had been lured by the Dark Arts, so how could Dumbledore trust him with a teaching position that might tempt him to return to his Death Eater life, when Dumbledore knew that he himself couldn't be trusted with the thing that tempted him most? Harry had a blind spot where Snape and Draco were concerned, always letting his anger and hatred get in the way of what he knew he should be doing.

What Dumbledore never understood about either of them was that they were very different than he was; Snape's remorse about Lily's death would never have let him return to his Death Eater ways, no matter how much he hated James's memory, and Harry never wanted the power or fame that Dumbledore had sought as a youth. We see Harry trusting his friends, sharing the information he has learned or has figured out on his own, something that Dumbledore was never able to do.

We all have flaws, things in our past or in our personalities that prevent us from being the wonderful beings God intends us to be. Dumbledore showed his remorse and tried to atone for his failings by teaching and guiding young people, by being an exemplary role model for them as Headmaster of Hogwarts. He gave people second chances because he, himself, had been in need of a second chance. He insisted on showing respect for others, no matter what their birth status or whether they were non-human creatures.

Whether he was right or wrong to pursue his "grand plan", we can't really say. Dumbledore did what all of us must do; he recognized his weakness, he felt remorse for his failings, and he tried to atone for his sins and live his life in a way that helped others. That his understanding of what was best for others might not be the same as anyone else's is what we all have to face.

We can't know how best to guide others so that they make the right decisions, without at times, seeming manipulative and controlling. If we have information that will influence another in a direction they take or in their actions, some might see that as being manipulative. The alternative is that we stand back and hope they can figure it out for themselves. Hands off, all round. In Dumbledore's case, he had more information than anyone else about how Voldemort might be defeated. It seems to me that it would have been wrong if he had just stood back and let Harry wander through his years at Hogwarts, hoping that he'd stumble on the secrets by himself.

When we see a child about to do something that we know is dangerous, we don't hesitate to stop them. Is that manipulative? When we see a child who is talented, and we encourage him to pursue that talent, is that being manipulative? Perhaps, but maybe it's just using the wisdom that we've gained through our own experiences and just by living. What Dumbledore did with Harry isn't so very much different than the parent or the teacher who has some knowledge about a child's talent or his limitations and tries to guide him in a direction that will afford him the greatest chance of success.

The stakes for Harry figuring out how to defeat Dumbledore were a bit higher than whether or not our musically talented child continues with those violin lessons, much higher, and in Dumbledore's view, the outcome wasn't something that he could just leave to chance. He had lived all his life with the regret that he hadn't done the proper things for his family and it had ended in a disaster which he could not ever rectify; and here he was, faced with knowledge that no one else had about why Voldemort had chosen Harry and how Voldemort might be defeated once and for all. Should he have told Harry what the grand plan was? Maybe, but what eleven, twelve or thirteen year old--or even a sixteen year old, for that matter-- would have been able to handle that overwhelming information and responsibility?

Instead of Dumbledore as an allegory for God or Christ, we have Dumbledore as a flawed human being, one who lived his life, with regrets and triumphs, just as we all do; a person who, because of his regrets sometimes failed to trust that others, who were not as gifted intellectually as he, would fall victim to the same temptations that had haunted him most of his life--the desire for power. Rather than being disappointed in who Dumbledore turned out to be, I found it encouraging. Here is a hero who is not so different than any of us--one who has made choices, one choice which was devastating, but which set his feet and heart on a life-long path of redemption, as he tried to live the rest of his life as he now knew he should have done. The past could not be undone, as Dumbledore learned when he was once again tempted to try to use the Resurrection Stone, but except for that one last stumble, his choices for the future showed that he had learned from his mistakes, had taken responsibility for them, as he spent his life teaching students, being an example of mercy to all, and in the end, tried to help Severus and Harry accomplish what he, the greatest wizard of all, could not do--defeat the evil that terrorized the world in the form of Lord Voldemort. So even though Albus turned out not to be the perfect person many of us built him up to be, I think what Rowling gave us in Albus Dumbledore was much better.

Pat

Philosopher's Stone Echoes, a question posed by John Granger

2007-08-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

I've been reading some things at HogPro, Sword of Gryffindor, and a few other blogs, but really haven't been jumping into the discussions.

I've now finished reading ,Deathly Hallows all the way through the second time, and liked it even better when I was wide-awake and had time to think it through. For some reason, as much as I enjoyed a discussion the other night with my daughter, I just don't feel the need to do a lot of on-line analyzing--perhaps it's just that I'm that satisfied with the book and ultimately, with the whole series.

Anyway, John has had a growing list of things to discuss, so I did post my thoughts on the one about "Philosopher's Stone Echoes". Interestingly enough, as I started to re-read, I made notes in the margins and something that I kept jotting down was all the ties between DH and all the other books, and especially things that recalled the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Philosopher’s Stone Echoes
Posted August 1, 2007 (with a few edits and corrections)
HogwartsProfessor.com

I've been re-reading Deathly Hallows and am nearing the end--they are searching for the lost diadem (which I'm quite pleased to say was something that I actually got right, though not with the back story or the way they find it, of course).

On my second read-through, I've been jotting notes in the margins. Often they are about echoes of previous books--odd that I had referred to it with the same phrase that John used. I see them more as an echo than a direct retelling of something. Take a look at Sirius's motorbike, for instance. Hagrid arrives at Privet Drive in PS/SS, riding/flying it, bringing Harry from the wizarding world to the Muggle one. And in DH Hagrid takes Harry from the Muggle world back to the wizarding world on the same bike. Yes, it is somewhat of a disaster, to put it mildly, but that's because there are other things going on. The reason Hagrid brought baby Harry to Privet Drive was also because of a disaster, so it does certainly come full circle on that note.

So while it's an echo--a reminder--we also see how much more complicated and dangerous Harry's life is now that Voldemort has truly returned. But with that motorbike, we are also reminded of Sirius, and that's without any particular exposition; Sirius, though gone, is still in Harry's heart.

The rescue group itself is an echo of Harry's Advance Guard in Order of the Phoenix. This one, unlike the first rescue, is seemingly better planned, even though things go horribly awry. But that's all tied to Dumbledore's advice to Snape that he leak the date--but not the information that there would be multiple Harrys. It's one of those uncomfortable reminders that Dumbledore did have a grand plan and that he did put his plan ahead of everyone, including Snape and Harry, the two who had been most loyal to him.

But anyway, back to Philosopher's Stone. Someone (at HogPro) already mentioned the Stone in both the first and last books and that Harry doesn't want to find either the Philosohper's Stone or the Resurrection Stone so that he can use them but instead wants to prevent them from falling into Voldemort's hands, or someone else's who is as evil. The Stones are similar in their purpose. The Philosopher's Stone will enable the user to have eternal life, while the Resurrection Stone will enable the owner to bring someone back, though not in entirely human form. They will return in ghostly form, much as Nearly Headless Nick, who (in OP) told Harry that he had not been brave enough to "go on", that most people would not prefer an existence that is neither here nor there. So both Stones have a sort of commentary about what happens when a person tries to cheat Death, and Harry would not have done either.

Then there are the seven trials in PS. There may be an echo of each one, though I don't think it's all in book 7. And I don't think that some are particularly more than a nod to the trials. The one that stood out to me was the chess reference. When they arrived at Xeno Lovegood's house, it looked like a giant rook (which Hermione thinks of the bird *snort*). And Ron, the chess player, tells her that's a castle. But likely, it is the shape that makes Ron think of a rook. (It also made me think of a book JKR said she liked--"I Capture the Castle".) And when Ron sees it as a rook, we are taken back to all the times he played wizard chess in book 1, and throughout the books, and especially to the chess game when he sacrificed himself to save Harry. It doesn't so much foreshadow Ron sacrificing himself at that moment, but that he has been willing to do so in the past, and will be again.

Then there are the rather humorous references to the seven trials: when they are trapped by Devil's Snare, Hermione is the only one who is free or who knows what it is in PS. She knows that it doesn't like the light or heat, but can't think what to do, and Ron says, "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT!" (PS/SS, US version, p. 278) In Deathly Hallows, the trio are trying to get into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, and Ron wishes they had Crookshanks, recalling that the half-kneazle prodded the knot at the base of the tree to make it stop thrashing about. Hermione is the one who this time says, "Are you a wizard, or what?" (DH, p. 651)

It's then that Ron uses the same spell he used to save Hermione from the troll in PS, the very one that gave him so much trouble when he and Hermione were partners in Charms: Wingardium Leviosa.

Throughout Deathly Hallows, Hermione also uses the spell that produces the very same blue flame that she used to distract Snape, when they wrongly thought he was jinxing Harry's broom, and it's the same one that made the Devil's Snare release Ron and Harry.

The potions in PS, which were Snape's protection in the seven trials, are an echo of the green potion in the Cave in HBP, with the explanation coming in Deathly Hallows. The reason I see it as an echo is that in both one and six/seven it was necessary to work out the puzzle of how to get round a potion that is intended to poison the drinker--Hermione works out the puzzle in book one and enables Harry to go on while she can go safely back to get help, while in book seven we learn what the potion made Dumbledore see (not at all what I thought), but also how Regulus solved the puzzle and outsmarted Voldemort. Both puzzle solutions lead to the same thing--a way for Harry to have the opportunity to defeat Voldemort as well as a resolution to some of the hatred between the races--the understanding between the trio and Kreacher (something I never in a million years expected to happen--and one of the nicest surprises in DH).

Another big echo was the return to Gringotts in book seven. We may have been back inside the bank in the books in between, but I don't remember them as anything significant (and without looking, I'd say we weren't there--only references to Harry's money being taken out, once by Bill). But in book one we spent a lot of time there, learning about goblins, about the bank itself, about the rumor that there was a dragon (and there was some fire coming from one of the side tunnels), about what happens to people who try to rob Gringotts. All of that, while being rather exciting and interesting, was as Janet Batchler would say, the set-up for Harry's return to Gringotts in search of the cup, and possibly other Horcruxes.

The goblins, it turns out, are every bit as cruel to other creatures as they complain the wizards are to them. Imagine forcing a creature like a dragon, something huge that lives alone in the wild, to live its life underground and chained, fearing the sound of clankers because its been tortured, never allowed to smell fresh air or see the hills and lakes. They've also devised some pretty awful methods for trapping would-be thieves--the duplicating, burning treasure. (A warning of what happens when one is too focused on acquiring earthly treasures?) Of course, as Ron points out to Griphook, the bank has been broken into--when Quirrell tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone and failed. But Quirrell did come out of that unscathed--at least unscathed by any of the goblin protections. So, the goblins show themselves, just as Voldemort does, to be arrogant in a way that leads to their defeat--defeat, because Harry is able to "steal" the cup from the Lestranges high-security vault, and he, Ron and Hermione escape.

In book one, Gringotts almost seems to hold a place of reverence when Hagrid talks about it. Yet in book seven, we watch the destruction of the only wizarding bank. The protections, the ones set by the goblins, were effective when the goblins were true to their purpose of protecting the treasure of its depositors, but once the bank itself was corrupted by wizards, Death Eaters, not even the goblin protection was enough to stop Harry from doing what was right. So in that way, we came full circle on the bank, with the realization that an institution is only as good as its true purpose and its security is only as good as those who are in charge.

Harry first hears of and sees Hogwarts in book one, of course, when he learns he's a wizard. But in that first book and in HBP as well, we spend over a third of the time NOT at Hogwarts. In fact, in HBP, there is little time spent in the normal everyday activities that we saw in the middle books, except in Slughorn's Potions class which are nearly a complete opposite to Snape's first classes. We, and Harry, spend a lot of time learning things from Snape in HPB, though Harry has no idea that his beloved Prince is the one person he is the most determined to hate.

That's one of the things I really liked in the Epilogue and especially in the chapter, "The Prince's Tale"--finding out that Snape, disagreeable and nasty as he was, was true to his promise to Dumbledore in ways that Harry had never imagined. The character of Snape in the first book was so flat to me--the mean teacher who went out of his way to assert his authority over all the students, not just Harry (but especially Harry), turns out to be a hero, with so much depth to his character. And I couldn't have been more pleased with the way Rowling wrote Snape's story--she didn't turn him into some cuddly warm-hearted character but left him as the flawed, but finally understood and appreciated hero that he always yearned to be.

Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallowsfocused on things in the past and in the future, things that have nothing to do with regular classes and Quidditch (I'm one of the few who didn't miss Quidditch, btw). But the point was that Harry needed to prepare for what he would eventually face, and sitting in the Great Hall for a cozy meal, or having Quidditch practice and games, or sitting around the Gryffindor common room studying and chatting, were the things of his childhood, things to be left behind.

The simplest way to make the point was to deprive Harry of all of those things by not having him return to Hogwarts. By sending the trio on the run, with all the camping and moving and near misses at being caught, Rowling gave us a real picture of the kind of war they are fighting. It's not a neat and tidy one, but one that means the freedom fighters have to go underground, into hiding, very often working in small groups rather than as a large organized (and well cared for) army. I thought of the people all over Europe who hid Jewish families during World War II or helped them to freedom, much to their peril, when the trio was rescued and hid at the Tonks's house before going to Auntie Muriel's or later at Shell Cottage; there were echoes of the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman, smuggling the slaves to safe houses, with Aberforth smuggling them in and out of Hogwarts and providing the refugees in residence with food and information.

Quite honestly, who would have wanted to spend more time at Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows, given what it's become. When we see Neville and Seamus and all the others, and hear how the place that Harry (and all of us) loved has been desecrated, I was glad we didn't have to see the daily details of that horror. Just imagining them was bad enough.

And of course, we have Neville, who in book one was brave enough to stand up against his friends, showing in book seven that he is brave enough to stand up FOR his friends against all enemies, in ways we never dreamed possible for Neville. Fantastic complete circle, that one. It was especially poignant that it was Neville, standing in front of Voldemort, taunted and humiliated, who was able to pull Gryffindor's Sword out of the Sorting Hat and then, with a courage he hadn't fully realized in the first book, had the courage to do what had to be done, to behead Nagini.

In the Philosopher's Stone, we see Harry being left at the Dursleys, a place where he will wait until he is old enough to take his place in the Wizarding world; in Deathly Hallows, we see Harry forced once again into the Muggle world, apart from the world where he belongs, once again waiting until the right time for him to return, but this time it is with a terror hanging over the heads of all of them, where in the first book it was with a feeling that the terror had gone. The difference between the two books is that we don't know what we are missing of the wizarding world in book one and in book seven, we do. But both are frustrating times for Harry, both show his helplessness, with it being even more frustrating in book seven when he knows what is at stake, what the consequences will be if he fails.

I thought Rowling did an excellent job of tying up all the lose ends. No, she didn't answer every question, but it turns out that was because we, as avid readers, had way too much time and too many questions to answer. There has to be something of mystery left in a book or it reads like an encyclopedia--boring. There has to be something where the reader fills in the missing information. She wrote the story that she wanted to write, and it does seem to come full circle--or more like a spiral, I suppose. Each book comes back around to Harry returning to his Muggle existence, but with more knowledge and understanding of what his life is to be.

With the last book, we see Harry and Ron and Hermione putting all those puzzle pieces from their previous six years together, we see that they have all overcome their short-comings from the first books, and that they have remained the true friends they were meant to be, true to their original goals of doing the right thing, making the right choices, and of making the world a better place to be.

Pat

Disappointed? Not in the least: SPOILERS!!!!!!!

2007-07-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Over at Sword of Gryffindor, Travis has a post that addresses the disappointment that some people have expressed. It's excellent, as usual, and the discussion that follows is as well. I decided to just copy my post, as is, because I've put down some of my reactions that I wanted to capture.

Travis, thanks so much for all your insight on the reactions of some who are disappointed. (I actually read a comment somewhere that someone thought this was the worst of the series, which truly baffles me. I can only think that the person didn’t get the book that they themselves would have written–as you pointed out, too tied to their own theories.)

Like most of you I’m still struggling with Crucio. Don’t know if I’ll ever get past that one, but maybe someday. The language? While I didn’t like it, I didn’t let it bother me coming from the kids, but I wish Rowling had given Molly something a different word to express her outrage and grief at what Bellatrix had done and was trying to do to her children. Though, now that I put it that way, I’m not sure what would come out of my mouth were I in a similar position–so maybe I’ll get over that one sooner than I thought.

I’ve said elsewhere that I loved this book. When I finished, bleary eyed from lack of sleep and a lot of crying, I walked around the room just holding the closed finished book close to me. I still couldn’t put it down.

Many of the things that I thought would happen did, though not at all in the way I thought. And I was surprised that I was OK with Harry having that fragment of Voldemort’s soul in him. But the image of a piece of Riddle’s soul, clinging to life, and finding only Harry worked well. I think what I had always objected to was that so many of the theories were too complicated, and I just didn’t think she would get that complicated for Harry’s connection to Voldemort.

One of my favorite ideas was that Harry had unintentionally been using Legilimency all along, and at the end, that’s exactly what he was doing, even though it was never named as such.

I enjoyed all the discussions about Draco-Wolfboy, and still wonder what’s on Draco’s arm (must be the Dark Mark, though, which is what I first thought anyway), and the idea that Madam Pince was Snape’s mother being protected and hidden with a new identity. But what we got for the person he had loved was so much better.

As I kept reading far into Saturday night (I read slowly, savoring every moment), I was so afraid that Snape was going to turn out to be on Voldemort’s side. So having Harry see him die, at Voldemort’s hand, and then Harry going to him, and Snape looking into Lily’s eyes one more time as he gave Harry all the information he’d withheld–that was perfect. I think my favorite chapter will be the one with all those memories compressed into one chapter. It was like Harry stumbling upon Snape’s diary, and suddenly being able to put all the pieces together–the reason that Snape had always always protected him, the reason that Snape had never said anything bad about his mother, the reason that Snape was so unfailingly loyal to Dumbledore. No wonder, years later, after he’d had time to think it all through, he named one of his sons after Dumbledore and Snape, and said Severus was the bravest of them all.

In the winter before HBP, I read “A Tale of Two Cities” and saw Snape written all over Sydney Carton. Carton’s reason for his sacrifice at the end was the same as Snape’s–he did all for the woman that he loved, and in giving his life sacrificially was redeemed. Perfect.

Someone said that Harry accepted Snape too easily. But that was another indication that for all of Harry’s bitterness and hatred that he had directed towards Snape, he did, after all, have a pure heart; he saw how merciless Voldemort was towards Snape, and there was that same part of Harry’s heart that was touched, just as when he felt sorry for the young Tom Riddle and for Draco when he saw him crying in the bathroom. Harry had already experienced feelings of compassion for Snape when he saw his Worst Memory, so that wasn’t at all a shock to me. He had much the same sort of acceptance with Sirius in the Shrieking Shack. And might there not have been a moment as Harry looked into Snape’s black eyes that he was able to see what was really behind them, what Snape had hidden from him all those years? I think so.

Pat

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--Part I, of many, I'm sure: SPOILERS!!!!

2007-07-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

Note, before you read further: I'm writing this after finishing the whole book, and my assumption is that anyone reading any blog about Harry Potter has read the entire book. If you haven't and you don't want spoilers, you really should stop now and come back later.

Update: I've bolded some comments, simply because I just recently added them.

On Friday, July 20, I spent the soggiest day ever at day camp, (those showers that were predicted were constant rain, sometimes very heavy rain) most of the time just trying to help the campers and couselors get through the day so we could all go home at 3:30 and get into some dry, clean clothes and get warm. No Extended Day with dinner and an evening program, and certainly, no Overnight. We almost made it to 3:30, but by 3 pm, all the campers had called parents and had been picked up, and we left a very muddy, rain-soaked camp by 3:10 pm. Not exactly as I had imagined my last day of being a co-site director after my twenty-one years at day camp. But it is what it is, and it's done. The early end afforded me the opportunity to take a nice hot shower, eat dinner with Terry and have a nap before starting my marathon reading of Deathly Hallows.

I had toyed with the idea of not picking up my copies (one regular and one deluxe version) of the final Harry Potter book at Barnes and Noble where I'd reserved them as soon as they were announced. I had my name on a list at the QFC close to home as an after-thought, thinking it might be the best way to avoid anyone shouting out something that would ruin the experience for me. But while I was at day camp, I talked to one mother and daughter who were going to B&N to get a table so they could be close to the front of the line to get their book. She said I was welcome to join them, and after standing all day at camp, the thought of sitting, at least for a while, was quite appealing. Around 8 pm, I went to the store and picked up my wrist band, talked to Penny and Crystal, who indeed did have a table, and went home to take an hour and a half nap. They were #10 in line, while I was #171. I drank my mocha while I waited, then wandered through the store, with my earphones in, while I listened to Stephen Fry reading Half-Blood Prince. They had activities, but I never even checked them out. By nearly midnight, after a soggy week at day camp, I was feeling pretty anti-social, if truth be told-- and I just wanted to get my books and go home.

My receipt says that I had my books by 12:35; not bad considering where I was in line. One of the clerks told me that they had about twice that number who were there with reservations and about the same number who had shown up without. So there were around 700 people there to buy a midnight copy of Deathly Hallows. When I got out to the car (thank goodness it had quit raining hard), as they weren't taking the time to put the books into bags. Once there, I opened to the first page (skipped the Table of Contents, so I missed the dedication and the page with quotes till much later), and read just the first couple of paragraphs. I had decided that I had so far avoided any spoilers about the story, and I wasn't going to spoil it for myself by looking at chapter titles before starting the book. I drove home in silence. Once I was in my comfy sweats, had my pot of tea and a fire (it's a gas fire-place, so that was easy and quick), I settled in on the sofa with Deathly Hallows.

I never read novels fast, and didn't hurry through this one. I find that, for me, that takes away the enjoyment of the language the author uses, the way the story unfolds, and with Rowling, all the richness of the details. Whenever I hear someone say they finished the book in less than six hours, I'm certain they will be the ones who missed all the finer details and are confused about what happened. They have cheated themselves of fully experiencing the book.

I hadn't got too far till I realized I wanted to make a few notes, so I found one of the HP journals I'd recently purchased. No lengthy notes, just things I wanted to come back to later. I realize now that one of the things I should have been jotting down were the deaths. I tried to make a list at the end, but I am sure I've missed some. She said it was a blood-bath, then she said not really, but there were a lot of deaths, and deaths of some of my favorite minor characters. She definitely didn't mislead us on that one.

And now to the final book:

I'll be sorting out my thoughts for some time, but my first reaction was that I really, really liked this book. I know, you're thinking that it took me a long time to get to that point. Many of the things that I had hoped would happen did, though not in the way I had imagined. I was surprised by the deaths of some. And I was surprised by my reaction to some. I didn't know how much I liked Dobby--that one had me sobbing. Well, I shed a lot of tears over much of this book. I laughed in parts of it, and had some jaw dropping moments as well. I saw specific Christian moments and references, direct quotes from Matthew 6:21, and the other, from I Corinthians 15:26, with Hermione's explanation that it means "living beyond death. Living after death" (DH, US p. 328)

There are more King Arthur ties, and nods to books that Rowling has said she liked--in particular, the scene where Harry follows the Silver Doe, with no clue who it was, reminded me of The Little White Horse, by Goudge, and the look of Luna's house put me in mind of the house in I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. My one concern as I came nearer and nearer the end was that Snape was going to turn out to be exactly as he was presented, and as some were convinced he was when we last saw him in Half-Blood Prince, as a man who had betrayed Dumbledore and fooled him, who had betrayed Harry and all the Order, and as a character who had no remorse or redemption.

For this reason, I think one of my favorite chapters will always be Chapter 33, "The Prince's Tale". It was perfect that Harry learned all of Snape's history and his continual interactions and closeness with Lily and with Dumbledore in one chapter. To have it meted out in small doses throughout the book would have lessened the impact on Harry as well as the reader. Not only did Harry find out that Snape had been his mother's good friend, whom he always loved, but he also learned how and why they separated, and how Snape came to feel that deep remorse that turned him from Voldemort to Dumbledore, a remorse which was life-long and never forgotten. It required no Unbreakable Vow between Snape and Dumbledore, but something more profound-- honesty, compassion, redemption, forgiveness and acceptance. What could be better. Over and over, Harry and we the readers, learned of the trust between the two of them. We learned why Dumbledore never told anyone why he was convinced of Snape's loyalty, but Harry finally learned the answer to the question he had so often put to Dumbledore. Promises made, promises kept. Undying loyalty and respect.

"You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily's son."

"He does not need protection. The Dark Lord has gone---"

"The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does."

There was a long pause, and slowly Snape regained control of himself, mastered his own breathing. At last he said, "Very well. Very well. But never -- never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear. . . especially Potter's son. . . I want your word!

"My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?" Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape's ferocious, anguished face. "If you insist. . ." (DH, US version, p. 679)

In that short scene, Harry learns that Snape really did feel remorse, and the reason was his love of Lily Potter, bourne of a childhood friendship that was damaged by circumstance and choices, but was never forgotten. Harry learns that Snape never did forgive James and hated the connection between James and the baby he promised to protect.

But most of all, we have one of the best examples of what it means to give your word to someone and to never waiver, never go back on it, to never betray a promise. Snape and Dumbledore were both true to their promises to one another, and that's one of the best examples of how we should all live. It should never take an Unbreakable Vow to bind us to fulfilling our promises and obligations. There is an evil to that sort of oath, and I'm glad that Rowling didn't have an Unbreakable Vow between Severus and Dumbledore.

"Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes', and your 'No', 'No'; anything beyond that comes from the evil one." --Matthew 5: 37, NIV

Snape's acceptance by members of the Order and by Harry and even by the Hogwarts' staff would have been so much easier had Snape not been so insistant that Dumbledore never tell anyone what he had told Dumbledore and what he asked Dumbledore to promise. That scene explains all the times that Dumbledore gave that cryptic answer to everyone about why he trusted Severus Snape. And it explains why Snape was always so angry at Harry, the boy who lived, looking like his father whom he hated, but with a constant reminder with those green, almond-shaped eyes of the only person Snape ever loved.

Am I disappointed that Severus and Harry didn't have that conversation that I always said I wanted? The one where Snape tells Harry his reasons, and on some level, Harry says he understands and forgives? I thought I would be, but I'm not. It happened, and the name of Harry's son tells us that Harry forgave Dumbledore for the way he used him (Harry) in his grand plan and forgave Snape for the way he treated him while he was a student. The redemption and the forgiveness were there, and that's all the counts for me. And there was that last moment, when Snape looked into Harry's eyes--Lily's eyes--that they may have said all to each other that needed saying. Somehow, that last look from Severus, even though Harry didn't understand what he was feeling, was enough to compel Harry to take all those thoughts and find out what message they held for him. With all the hatred and bitterness Harry had always had towards Snape, I'm not sure that he would have done, had there not been some understanding that passed between them in Snape's last living moments.

I'll revisit this in a few days as well as other parts of the book, particularly Luna and Neville, and very surprisingly, Kreacher and Dobby. The only one I missed was Fawkes--I really thought we would see him again, but perhaps his absence was one more definite marker that Dumbledore was dead and was not coming back.

Pat

Some last minute thoughts

2007-07-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

I really had hoped to get the chance to put down my thoughts on the rest of Order of the Phoenix and on Half-Blood Prince, but clearly, it's not going to happen. I'm at day camp this week, and the only thing that would allow me to do that is if we get rained out on Friday--which we did today. OK for me, but not for the kids.

So, I've been listening to a borrowed audio book of Stephen Fry reading HBP, even though I just finished re-reading it last week. It's great as an audio book--I actually like it much better when I listen to it than when I just read it. I don't really know why either. So, I'm doing that when I could be writing. Well, no, I couldn't. I've been listening while I paid the bills, ironed shirts for my husband, sorted day camp pictures--so no, I wouldn't be writing anyway. Listening to HBP has also allowed me to NOT hear anything on TV that might be a spoiler (the rumoured leak/hoax/whatever), though when I was waiting for the weather on the noon news, I heard the start of a news story on the leak and promptly stuffed my fingers in my ears like a seven-year-old, rushed into the room and turned off the TV. I certainly hope the world doesn't fall apart in the next two days when I'm not watching it--like my seeing it would make a difference anyway.

What I have been doing when I'm not listening is reading over at HogwartsProfessor and Sword of Gryffindor. There are a lot of interesting discussions there. There's plenty there to keep all of us busy, with links to other sites as well.

Well, time for another few chapters of HBP before I turn in for the night--and maybe a nice cup of tea, sugar and milk, please.

Pat

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2007-07-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Even though it says this was posted on July 12, I didn't write this until August 15, which is the reason I talk about having already read Deathly Hallows. I was not one of those people who read what was posted before the book was released--far from it. That last week I didn't go near the internet, except for a few trusted sites that were not posting any spoilers, whether they were real or not; I barely checked my email, and didn't listen to the news or read the newspapers. The date here just shows that my intention was to post something before the last book--something that obviously didn't happen.

I had hoped to finish or at least post some thoughts on Half-Blood Prince before I read Deathly Hallows, but that didn't happen. Since I've now read DH twice, I feel the need to revisit HBP. My reading of it now, however, will always be different than my original feelings about HBP. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, though. It was a book that I found, at once, fascinating and frustrating, making it ultimately one of my least favorites of the series. Now, however, I find that Rowling was very right in saying that HBP was really the first part of the last book, and viewing it in that way changes a lot. I've also found that listening to Stephen Fry reading HBP is even better than reading it--his interpretation of what the characters were feeling is excellent, and gave me new insight into the depth of Dumbledore's pain in the Cave as well as the grief of all the Order after Dumbledore's death.

In Half-Blood Prince, not only do we see a very different Dumbledore, but we see a different Harry. Dumbledore is suddenly talking to Harry, all the time, and on a much more collaborative level than we have ever seen. First it's Dumbledore who comes to collect/rescue Harry from the Dursleys, and Dumbledore who gives the Dursleys a needed lesson in manners as well as child rearing. It's then Dumbledore who takes Harry along on a mission to secure a new Hogwarts teacher, when it seems the most unnecessary thing for him to do. It's Dumbledore, then, who says that Harry will be having private lessons with him throughout the year, and no, it won't be to repair the failed attempt at Harry learning Occlumency. And it's Dumbledore, who leads Harry through the Pensieve memories in an attempt to learn more about what Voldemort has done and might be planning to do, as well as Dumbledore who further reiterates that he completely trusts Severus Snape, even after Harry learns that it was on Snape's word that Voldemort sought out Harry's parents and himself to kill.

(One side note, here, though, about Occlumency--and a spoiler if you haven't read DH, which I assume people now have. Even though Harry was abysmal at it with Snape, and could never keep Snape from probing his own thoughts, I always thought that Harry had had enough Occlumency lessons to understand how it was supposed to work and what he needed to do. I was glad to see that all that time spent with Snape wasn't wasted when Harry was able to use Occlumency, but more important, Legilimency in DH. Occlumency always seemed to be the negative of the two old forms of magic--one, closing your mind, while the other opened the mind and gave one the ability to move forward, using information and intuition.)

So much of HBP is Harry's time with Dumbledore, distracted by Harry's time with the Prince--who, it turns out, is the very person he has decided he hates the most--Snape. He spends a lot of time with the Prince, when he pours over the Advanced Potions book, with Snape's notes written everywhere. (Hermione occasionally points out that he could have got that information from Snape in their Potions classes if he had paid better attention.) Harry is convinced that the Prince was the most brilliant student ever, to come up with all these wonderful hints at potion brewing, which work better than the book's intstructions, not to mention all the useful spells, which Harry often tries without having a clue about the consequences. Some are funny--Ron being lifted upside down as a wake up call one morning, and the idea of Filch not being able to talk, or Crabbe (or was it Goyle) having toenails too long, making it hard for him to walk.

It's funny, until Hermione points out that hanging someone upside down for sport is not that different than what they saw the Death Eaters doing at the World Cup. And then it's not funny at all. Nor is the memory that Harry saw his dad doing the same thing to Snape in Snape's Pensieve memory. Or Snape's constant taunting of Harry that his dad and Sirius were known for hexing people in the halls just because they could.

Suddenly we see a side of Harry that made me--and others, some of whom still haven't got past it--very uncomfortable. I'm not sure that I'm really 'past it' either, but I have come to see it differently than when I first read the book. I found it much easier to be sympathetic to a yelling, angry, depressed Harry in Order of the Phoenix than to embrace this new adventurous Harry, who had become somewhat of a bully. And truth be told, I still don't like it that Harry "went there". In one way, it seems so inconsistent with Dumbledore always saying that Harry was so pure of heart. None of that seemed very pure of heart to me, and still doesn't.

Perhaps, though, that's where the definition of pure of heart becomes more important. I read it, especially after Harry was so distraught over seeing James and Sirius being bullies, and Harry clearly understanding Snape's point of view, that it meant Harry was above any of the sort of things that teens often try out--and then come to realize they were wrong, and they grow up and wouldn't think of doing those kinds of things once they are adults.

It doesn't excuse James and Sirius (who apparently were bullies for most of the time they were at Hogwarts, starting apparently with Snape on their first train ride to Hogwarts), but it does show that Harry was not perfect. He was not above temptation--the temptation to reap the public praise from Slughorn of being a brilliant Potions student--especially after all the humiliation he suffered at Snape's hands in the class. He found a way to "pay back" some of those who had bullied him for the previous five years, by using some of the Prince's spells on them. Right behavior? Good choices, on Harry's part? Absolutely not. Understandable, maybe.

The most disturbing use Harry makes of the unexpected windfall of spells from the Prince is when he uses Sectumsempra on Malfoy. It was one of those moments that happens to people, a moment when our common sense is driven to the back of our minds and we make the mistake of lashing out at someone because of fear and anger, without considering the consequences; Harry experienced a moment of sudden fear and anger (Malfoy was trying to Crucio Harry, and he knew what that felt like already), and having the Sectumsempra spell lurking in the back of his mind, having wished he could try it out to see what it did, it's not surprising that Harry used it on Draco, who had taunted Harry and his friends from their first year. It does not excuse Harry in any way. But what happens afterwards is more important, I think.

Harry is horrified to see what the spell does, he immediately regrets his use of it, and only wants to help Draco (which, lost in the moment, was Harry's instinct in the first place when he saw Draco crying), though of course, there is nothing that he could have done. As Snape tells him, that was powerful Dark Magic, and Harry would have no way of knowing the counter-curse. Snape arrives, and is able to partially heal Draco, then turns on Harry. Harry offers no excuses for his exceedingly poor choice; he obeys Snape's order to stay there. He does hide the Prince's Potions book, and tries to get Snape to give him some other punishment, other than missing the last Quidditch game. But mostly what we see is that, even though Harry resents Snape and the detention Snape came up with, Harry does know and accept that what he did was so very wrong, and he regrets his foolishness in trying out that spell on anyone, even on Draco.

When Dumbledore talked about the purity of Harry's heart, then, he didn't mean that Harry was always going to be a perfect little boy, always doing the right and proper things, leading a goody-two-shoes kind of life. What he meant was that Harry, who is human (an everyman), will make mistakes, but that he will make the right moral choices in the end because he is filled with love. Dumbledore understood, that even when Harry was angry with him in his fifth year, there were reasons for Harry's anger; we all have to deal with all of our emotions, not just the positve ones. To deny that we have a full range of emotions, is to deny that we are human, and as human beings, none of us are perfect. Not even Harry. Just as Harry has a pure heart that leads him to accept people and other creatures for who they are and not for their status in the wizarding world, he also had to work through his own faults and short-comings. In Half-Blood Prince, we see Harry coming to terms with who he is, his strengths as well as his weaknesses. That's a step on his journey that is crucial to his fight against the evil of Voldemort.

Dumbledore, early in his adult life, we learn in Deathly Hallows had to understand his own weakness, his desire for power. Harry doesn't have that same desire for power, but he has to learn in HBP that he must stay focused on his true quest and that wanting and seeking revenge will not help him. When he cast the Sectumsempra against Draco, there must have been a moment as he cast that spell, very brief, when Harry felt that he was paying back Draco for the ways Draco had mistreated and humiliated him. But even though he doesn't like Draco later, nor forgive Draco his fascination with the Dark Arts, Harry does see Draco in a new light after that, a light that has the glimmer of forgiveness, and at least of compassion for what became of Draco, who was trapped more by the choices of his family before being trapped by his own choices.

Half-Blood Prince is very much the first half of the end of the story. When viewed in that way, it's much easier to see that Harry had to work through his own imperfections, just as Dumbledore did. One of the tragedies of not coming to terms with our own faults is that we live a life of regret, bitterness and hopelessness, which is what we later learn happened to Severus Snape, the "Prince" to whom Harry owed so much. Just how much, and why, Harry doesn't learn until much later.

Pat

Note: I may come back to edit this later, but I wanted to get some of this down before I completely move away from the sixth book.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Part III

2007-07-07T02:11:00.000-07:00

As I've said before, Occlumency and Legilimency are the two ideas that I find most intriguing. It may well be that Rowling is done with them, but even so, the idea that one wizard can have access to another's mind, see what memories of thoughts and past actions lurk there, and also have the ability to plant false visions is such an incredible notion. It goes way beyond the idea of mind control, of the usual sort. As Snape tells Harry, Occlumency is very subtle, and not easily learned or understood.

Up to this point, Snape has given Harry a lot of information about the lessons he is about to teach him, but as they are ready to begin, Snape starts by first removing three memories from his mind and placing them in Dumbledore's Pensieve (which, just as an aside, because I've been re-reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis, is a neat anagram for Pevensie--the name of the children who venture to Narnia).

Harry has no idea what memories Snape has placed there, but that really is the least of his worries, as Snape faces Harry with his own wand, and tells Harry to stand and take out his wand. Snape tells Harry that he may use his wand to disarm him or to defend himself in any way he can think of. When Harry asks what Snape is going to do, Snape tells him:

"I am about to attempt to break into your mind," said Snape softly. "We are going to see how well you resist. I have been told that you have already shown aptitude at resisting the Imperius Curse. . . . You will find that similar powers are needed for this. . . . Brace yourself, now. . . . Legilimens!" (US, Chapter 24, p. 534)

Fascinating, but just who told Snape all of that about Harry being able to resist the Imperius Curse? Did that information come from Barty Crouch, Jr, when he was the fake Moody? Doesn't seem likely, as the two of them were barely civil to one another. Did Dumbledore know that? Maybe. Or did one of the Death Eaters who were in the graveyard mention it to Snape--possibly Lucius Malfoy or Peter Pettigrew? That seems more likely than the information coming from Barty Jr, who had no use for Snape, and no reason to share classroom antecdotes as they sat around the staff room. Of course, the other explanation is that Dumbledore who seems to somehow know about a lot of things that are happening around Hogwarts learned that information from one of the students who saw Harry resist the Imperius Curse in fake Moody's class, and I rather hope that is the explanation for Snape's knowledge of Harry's abilities.

Harry didn't feel ready for the mental attack, even though Snape did give him warning. He was plunged into his own memories--humiliations at the hands of Dudley and the Dursleys and Aunt Marge's stupid dog, Ripper, his memory of the Sorting Hat telling him he would do well in Slytherin (I wonder if Snape knew that before), Hermione in hospital with evidence of Polyjuice gone bad, a hundred dementors closing in by the lake. Finally, Cho floats into his mind under the mistletoe, and Harry fights back, feeling that that particular memory is private and he won't allow Snape to see it.

He finds himself on the floor, after he stopped Snape with a Stinging Hex, unknowingly. These lessons, while they could have been so useful to Harry, seem doomed from the beginning. Rather than encouraging Harry, Snape criticizes with "You let me get in too far. You lost control." (US, p. 535)

Harry, as would anyone, wants to know just what Snape saw of those memories. Snape saw flashes of them and asks about the dog, a subtle way to focus on something he knew was humiliating for Harry.

But then Snape gives Harry an almost-compliment:

"Well, for a first attempt that was not as poor as it might have been," said Snape, raising his wand once more. "You managed to stop me eventually, though you wasted time and energy shouting. You must remain focused. Repel me with your brain and you will not need to resort to your wand." (US., p. 535)

This is probably the most instruction Snape gives about how to do Occlumency. But Harry isn't listening, he's frustrated by the process, and that it's Snape who is breaking into his mind. This really is the first time that Harry is presented with the idea of non-verbal and wandless magic, which are crucial in Half-Blood Prince. It's a new concept for Harry, and it might have helped had Snape taken the time to explain it in a calmer, friendlier manner. Yes, well, not likely, considering that it's Snape and Harry, eh?

These lessons are so different than the Patronus ones that Harry had with Lupin, who was kind, encouraging, and supportive. But then, we often see that teaching styles reflect the teacher; Lupin is kind and supportive, and his gentleness shows in his teaching style, making the students want to learn. Snape, on the other hand, has never been nice to anyone, except his favored Slytherins. I've always wondered whether he is as nice to them when no one else is around. My guess is that he can turn on them, just as easily, if they step out of line or fail to meet his high expectations.

It's just hard to know whether this really indicates that Snape is an all round nasty git, going out of his way to torment Harry, or whether he doesn't have the ability to impart his considerable knowledge to students, which isn't likely, in that most of the 5th years do fairly well on their Potions O.W.L.s, so they must have learned something from him, as Slughorn says later. I don't think we can even consider that the problem at the beginning of the Occlumency lessons is due to Snape's hatred of James and Sirius, not yet anyway--Snape is just as nasty to other students as well, and had the reputation for being so before Harry and company arrived at Hogwarts. There are teachers who seem to think that by being harsh they will force the students to toughen up, to learn the subject matter, and for some I suppose that does work. For most people, however, a little kindness goes a long way towards a student working harder in order to please a teacher. Hermione is probably the only one who works hard at Potions in spite of Snape being mean to her. The main problem at the beginning of the Occlumency lessons is really Harry's attitude.

Snape tells him to clear his mind, and he can see that Harry is not doing it. Harry's anger is front and center, blocking any chance of his understanding how rare magic works. Snape has another go, and this time memories of the dragon, his father and mother waving at him from the Mirror of Erised, and Cedric lying dead flash through his mind. It's at that point that he yells NO! and stops the process.

The use of Legilimency is really disturbing, when I think about it. It is forcing Harry to relive the worst memories of his life, or the saddest ones, the ones that cause him sorrow and regret. Yet instead of giving him a break, as Lupin might have done, Snape allows his own frustration to enter in:

"Get up!" said Snape sharply. "Get up! You are not trying, you are making no effort, you are allowing me access to memories you fear, handing me weapons!"

Harry stood up again, his heart thumping wildly as though he had really just seen Cedric dead in the graveyard. Snape looked paler than usual, and angrier, though not nearly as angry as Harry was.

"I --am --making --an --effort," he said through clenched teeth.

"I told you to empty yourself of emotion.!"

"Yeah? Well, I'm finding that hard at the moment," Harry snarled.

"Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!" said Snape savagely. "Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily--weak people, in other words-- they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!"

"I am not weak," said Harry in a low voice, fury now pumping through him so that he thought he might attack Snape in a moment.

"Then prove it! Master yourself!" spat Snape, "Control your anger, discipline your mind! We shall try again! Get ready, now! Legilimens!" (US, p. 536)

Snape was paler than usual. Why? Because he is reliving these memories, right along with Harry. If Harry weren't so blinded by his anger, it might occur to him to wonder just how Snape knows all that about Voldemort using a person's saddest memories against them. It doesn't seem likely that Snape would be so passionate about this particular reason for learning Occlumency if it were only an academic lesson he himself had learned. It seems entirely possible that he was the victim of Voldemort penetrating his mind, seeing sad memories and his emotions, regrets over past choices and mistakes. When Snape talks about weak people who allow themselves to be easily provoked, I'm reminded that that's a very appropriate description of Snape at the end of Harry's third year when he learns that Black had escaped and he wouldn't have his revenge after all. It turns out Snape isn't as good at hiding his own emotions either. But in this particular instruction, he is giving Harry the reason to learn Occlumency, just not the proper incentive.

The third attempt proves even more interesting. Harry still isn't able to block Snape at the beginning, and they both see Uncle Vernon hammering the letter box shut, the dementors approaching across the lake (should have been quite a revelation to Snape, as he was still knocked out at the time and missed all that), and then Harry is back in the passageway with Arthur, who leads him down a flight of stone steps before Harry can go through the plain black door. Snape has actually, it turns out, stopped the memory. But now Harry's scar is prickling.

So what was going on there? Harry now knows where that door is--but is it because Harry found his way into Voldemort's mind, or did Voldemort find his way into Harry's at that moment. The fact that Harry is with Arthur and they detour down the steps seems more likely that Harry is making the connection be intruding into Voldemort's memories.

Rather than answering Snape's question about what happened in that memory, Harry asks one of his own--"What's in the Department of Mysteries?" Not at all what Snape expected.

"And why," said Snape slowly, "would you ask such a thing?"

"Because," said Harry, watching Snape's face closely, "that corridor I've just seen --I've been dreaming about it for months --I've just recognized it --it leads to the Department of Mysteries. . . and I think Voldemort wants something from --"

"I have told you not to say the Dark Lord's name!" (US, p. 537)

Does Snape suspect that the "Dark Lord" might be watching the exchange betweent the two of them or that he might see this scene later in Harry's mind? By stopping Harry, Snape ensures that Voldemort will only see that Snape stopped Potter from saying his name, and that he, Snape, showed the proper reverence.

Harry's scar "seared again", and Snape composes himself before continuing. If Voldemort is indeed able to see any of these lessons, then Snape, as a spy, must be extremely cautious; it's all right for him to appear to teach Harry per the instructions from Dumbledore and Voldemort would understand that, but it's never all right for a loyal follower to show any sign of irrevernce or to allow it from anyone else.

If Snape actually tells Harry what is there, then Voldemort would have access to that revelation as well, more likely through Harry's mind than Snape's. So Snape tells him nothing. Rather than being seen as secretive, this might well be meant to protect Harry.

"There are many things in the Department of Mysteries, Potter, few of which you would understand and none of which concern you, do I make myself plain?" (US, p. 538)

Harry's scar is still prickling as Snape tells him to return on Wednesday, and to rid his mind of emotion every night--empty it, make it blank and calm. . . And be warned, Potter. . . I shall know if you have not practiced. . ."(US, p. 538)

Harry rushes off to find Ron and Hermione in the library. (As an aside, we once again have mention of Madam Pince in close proximity in the book to Snape--is that a connection that we are to make? Another subject, entirely.)

With this new information about where that corridor and door are located, Hermione figures out that was the reason Podmore was there, though they don't yet know that he was trying to prevent Voldemort's entrance.

Typical of Hermione she asks again if he is all right, and he admits that he doesn't much like Occlumency. Well, who would really. It's an invasion of one's private thoughts, memories that might be so painful a person hasn't thought of them for years, or of memories that are so private one would not even write them in a journal for fear that someone else might find them. And here Harry has to stand, in front of the one man he resents and hates the most, letting him have access to those very thoughts. Hermione describes it as having one's mind attacked over and over again. A mental attack is presented as being much more invading and cruel than a physical attack would be.

After going back to the common room and seeing Fred and George with their headless hats, Harry decides he's had enough and goes to his dormitory for some much needed sleep. But he immediately is plunged into a waking vision, with his scar feeling like it is splitting. This one however, isn't something frightening, but one in which Voldemort is jubilant. Now, has Voldemort planted this in Harry's mind? I don't think so. I think in Harry's heightened state of mind after the session with Snape, Harry has once again entered Voldemort's mind by using Legilimency, something he doesn't even know that he can do.

Ron has come to check on him because Hermione was worried about him. "She says your defenses will be low at the moment, after Snape's been fiddling around with your mind. . ." (US, p. 542)

Evidently, in usual Hermione fashion, she has reserched Occlumency, and this isn't a result of Snape doing something that he shouldn't, but a normal, and even, expected result of learning the process.

Harry, however, feels that his mind has been weakened rather than strengthened, as he wonders what it is that has made Voldemort happier than he has been in fourteen years.

It's a good question, but I wonder if Harry would have the same concern if he were being taught by Dumbledore, whom he trusts, rather than by Snape. The connection that Harry has to Voldemort's mind has been opened even more, as this happened while he was awake. It never occurs to Harry, because it was Snape doing the teaching, that the lessons were Dumbledore's in the first place and that Dumbledore must think the benefits of learning Occlumency outweigh the risks.

One very good thing did come out of that first lesson, well several, actually. Harry was able to block Snape part of the time; Snape now knows that Harry is gaining access to Voldemort's thoughts and knows where those thoughts are focused. We learn later that he had passed that information along to Dumbledore. If Snape weren't loyal to Dumbledore, wouldn't he just keep that information to himself? Knowing that Voldemort is intent on gaining access to the Department of Mysteries confirms what Dumbledore suspects--Snape could easily have left that out, or could have changed it to some other place, had he wanted to misdirect Dumbledore.

If it really is Legilimency on Harry's part that is opening the mental door between him and Voldemort, then Dumbledore and Snape are approaching it from the wrong direction, it would seem. Yes, Harry should learn to block Voldemort from entering his mind, but they should also be teaching Harry how to stop himself from entering Voldemort's mind, or how to recognize what he is doing.

* * * * * * *

As the Occlumency lesson continue--at least two times a week, it seems, Harry thinks they are getting worse rather than better. His scar prickles all the time, he senses Voldemort's emotions of annoyance or cheerfulness. Harry traces this increased connection back to the first Occlumency lesson. That could be the reason, but we have so much experience with Harry jumping to the wrong conclusion, that I always think there must be something going on that is just under our radar. The first lesson Harry had with Snape was shortly after the time that Harry saw Arthur being attacked--it could be that's the reason the mental connection is stronger and more evident. Hermione encourages Harry to work harder. Ron, however, thinks that Snape isn't really trying to help Harry.

One thing here--with all that Snape saw in that first lesson, think how much more of Harry's private thoughts he has now seen after at least several weeks of lessons. Hermione reminds Ron of his track record on assessing Snape's loyalty, which is zero, and Ron brings up Snape's Death Eater past.

Several months after the start of his Occlumency lessons, Harry, once again letting his hatred of Snape and Umbridge prevent him from clearing his mind, falls into his odd dreams, ordinary at first, but then turning towards that corridor with the black door at the end. Rather than wanting to stop the vision, Harry was keen to get through that door, and was interrupted this time by Ron's loud snores.

He knew he should not have seen the door, but at the same time, felt so consumed with curiosity about what was behind it that he could not help feeling annoyed with Ron. . . . If he could have save his snore for just another minute. . . (US, p. 577)

After the interview in The Quibbler, and Umbridge's ban on it, which results, as bans often do, in everyone in the school reading it, Harry heads off for a night's sleep, wishing that his headache would subside.

He is at once plunged into Voldemort's mind, as though he is Voldemort. It's Rookwood who is kneeling at his feet. Voldemort now knows he was given faulty information from Avery that Bode would be able to remove it. Rookwood, having worked at the Ministry, knew that was not possible.

"You have done well to tell me this," said Harry (who is really Voldemort). "Very well . . . I have wasted months on fruitless schemes, it seems. . . But no matter. . . We begin again, from now. You have Lord Voldemort's gratitude, Rookwood. . ." (US, p. 585)

So, this is another time that Harry seems to have initiated the connection, rather than the other way round. Voldemort wouldn't want Harry or the Order to know that he hadn't been making proper progress on whatever his scheme is. Rookwood promises to help Voldemort, presumably with more information about how to "remove it", and Avery, the one with the faulty information, is summoned. As Harry/Voldemort waits, he turns towards a cracked mirror (there are a lot of those throughout the books), and sees "A face whiter than a skull. . . red eyes with slits for pupils. . ."

That's enough for Harry to be horrified and break the connection. Harry tells Ron "I was You-Know-Who," After explaining the rest of the vision to Ron, it's Ron who says that Harry should tell someone. Harry, though, is now completely annoyed with Dumbledore for ignoring him, and doesn't feel there is anyone else he can tell. And as he tries to go back to sleep, he know that Avery is being punished, so the vision apparently continued.

A few weeks later, Harry is once again in an Occlumency lesson with Snape, and things are not going well. By now, he should have made some progress; Harry knows that, but having Snape point it out is even more aggravating.

Harry has had to yet again relive a memory of being bullied by Dudley and his gang, when Snape asks what that last memory was. But it's not the memory of Dudley that has caught Snape's attention.

"No," said Snape softly. "I mean the one concerning a man kneeling in the middle of a darkened room. . . ."

Harry tries to avoid Snape's eyes but Snape persists:

"How do that man and that room come to be inside your head, Potter?" said Snape.

"It --" said Harry, looking everwhere but at Snape, "it was --just a dream I had."

"A dream," repeated Snape.

(Harry once again tries to avoid making eye contact with Snape.)

"You do know why we are here, don't you, Potter?" said Snape in a low, dangerous voice. "You do know why I am giving up my evenings to do this tedious job?"

"Yes," said Harry stiffly.

"Remind me why we are here, Potter."

"So I can learn Occlumency," said Harry, now glaring at a dead eel.

"Correct, Potter. And dim though you may be" --Harry looked back at Snape, hating him --"I would have thought that after over two months' worth of lessons you might have made some progress. How many other dreams about the Dark Lord have you had?"

"Just that one," lied Harry. (US, p. 590-591)

Of course Snape know that Harry is lying. And he doesn't need Occlumency for that one. But this confrontation goes from bad to worse. At this point, it's important to note that if the two of them had a better relationship, one based on trust and cooperation, Harry would probably be doing better, or might have gone to Snape earlier after the dream of Rookwood and Avery. It's also evident later that Snape did tell Dumbledore about this particular vision of Harry's.

And then Snape makes it worse. He's not yelling at Harry, but he does lose control in that he allows himself to taunt Harry in a way that he knows will result in less effort on Harry's part. This is one of those points where Snape really needs to be the mature adult, but reverts to using school boy tactics to attack his opponent where he is most vulnerable.

"Perhaps," said Snape, his dark, cold eyes narrowing slightly, "perhaps you actually enjoy having these visions and dreams, Potter. Maybe they make you feel special --important?"

"No, they don't," said Harry, his jaw set and his fingers clenched tightly around the handle of his wand.

"That is just as well, Potter," said Snape coldly, "because you are neither special nor important, and it is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters."

"No --that's your job, isn't it?" Harry shot at him.

He had not meant to say it; it had burst out of him in temper. for a long moment they stared at each other, Harry convinced he had gone too far. But there was a curious, almost satisfied expresion on Snape's face when he answered.

"Yes, Potter," he said, his eyes glinting. "That is my job. Now, if your are ready, we will start again. . . ." (US, p. 591)

This time, the memories are of dementors coming towards him, but Harry, concentrating hard, can still see Snape's face, and manages a shield charm--"Protego!" Harry's mind is now filled with memories that are not his:

-- a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner. . . A greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies. . . . A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick--

"ENOUGH!" (US, p. 592)

Snape's reaction here is amazing to Harry. Snape has repelled him, but rather than further lashing out at Harry, he says:

"Well, Potter. . . that was certainly an improvement. . . " Panting slightly, Snape straightened the Pensieve in which he had again stored some of his thoughts before starting the lesson, almost as though checking that they were still there. "I don't remember telling you to use a Shield Charm. . . but there is no doubt that it was effective. . ."

Not at all what Harry expected, since he's fairly certain that those memories were Snape's childhood memories.

it was unnerving to think that the cring little boy who had watched his parents shouting was actually standing in front of him with such loathing in his eyes. . . (US, p. 592)

Is the loathing because Harry saw the memory or because of the memory itself? Or is it a combination of both? The last thing Snape, who admonished Harry about controlling his emotions, would want is to be reminded of a time when his own emotions might have been out of control. In one way, he's likely pleased to see that Harry has made progress--it had to be frustrating to keep working with him, knowing that nothing was happening. But now Snape, whether he controls his emotions or not, must feel that he has handed weapons to Harry--his own humiliating childhood memories that Harry could use against him. James certainly would have done; Snape thinks that Harry is just like James so he must expect him to be delighted with something he can spread to the other students.

Harry knows that he's in for retaliation, and Snape doesn't disappoint. This time Harry is immediately in the corridor, but the door opens and he's in the circular room, looking for the door he needs to take.

Snape is now irate and demands that Harry explain. Harry, finding himself unceremoniously thrown to the floor, honestly tells Snape that he has no idea what just happened. That's a vision that he has never seen before.

"You are not working hard enough!"

For some reason, Snape seemed even angrier than he had done two minutes before, when Harry had seen into his own memories.

"You are lazy and sloppy, Potter, it is small wonder that the Dark Lord --"

"Can you tell me something, sir?" said Harry, firing up again. "Why do you call Voldemort the Dark Lord, I've only ever heard Death Eaters call him that --" (US, p. 593)

Oh, how we'd like the answer to that question, but that's the unfortunate moment that Umbridge is in the process of sacking Trelawney, and Snape rushes off to see what's going on, followed by Harry.

So, why is Snape so angry over this vision? If Harry hasn't seen it before, then it means that he is sharing that mental connection with Voldemort right at that moment. It's still not clear whether it's because Voldemort is using Legilimency on Harry or whether it's Harry who is invading a mind. Snape most likely thinks that it's Voldemort's doing, and is understandabley angry with Harry. Not only is Harry's mind at risk, but so is Snape's. If it's Harry making the connection, then it's still undesirable. The point of the Occlumency lessons is for the mental connections to be blocked, so that Harry's mind is not so connected to Voldemort, and Harry is clearly not working hard enough. He wanted the door to open, and he wanted to go further, and now Snape has seen that desire first hand.

Near the dead in Deathly Hallows

2007-07-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

I love it that people are picking through all the interviews that Rowling has given over the last ten years. It seems to me that she gave some very telling answers in the beginning. They didn't seem so at the time, but as we've read more books, going back to those old interviews sometimes gives us clues that we missed first time round--or at least we all think so. In 19 days we'll know.

So the quote is from an interview, posted at Accio Quote! , that Rowling gave on July 8, 2000, with Anne Johnstone, The Herald (Glasgow):

"For me one of the big challenges was to make sure I knew the laws, both physical laws and the legal system within the wizarding world because until you know the boundaries, there's no tension."

One of her fundamentals is that you can't reverse death: "That's a given. Without it the plot would fall apart, though in Book Seven you'll see just how close you can get to the dead. You can be brought back from being petrified and from injuries that in the real world are mortal, depending on the degree of skill that a particular wizard possesses. You can't go to any wizard and say 'Will you cure my terminally ill relative?' It's a mirror image of the real world in that sense."

We saw petrified people brought back, and Harry has suffered enough injuries, if not to kill him, to certainly leave him permanently disabled; because of the rules she has set for magic in the books, Harry has come through some harrowing experiences. Dumbledore alludes to having sustained a life-threatening injury when he destroyed the ring Horcrux, and Harry foolishly used a curse he didn't understand, which resulted in serious injury to Draco--possibly it could have caused his death, but we weren't ever told that. Had it not been for Severus Snape's high "degree of skill", who seems to be the "particular wizard" to which she refers, Dumbledore, Draco and Katie Bell would likely have died.

But that is all different than "how close you can get to the dead". There are some great discussions going on at HogwartsProfessor (John Granger) and Sword of Gryffindor (Travis Prinzi), so I won't repeat all of that here. Much of the talk has turned to the Veil, and I certainly think that's a possibility. One other thing that keeps lurking at the back of my mind is that when they were filming POA, Cuaron wanted to throw in a graveyard, and Rowling told him, no, you can't put it there, because the graveyard is in some other location. So far, we still haven't seen a graveyard at Hogwarts, unless it's where Dumbledore's tomb is now. So coming near the dead could be in some graveyard as well.

Anyway, just go there and enjoy the discussions. We only have 19 more days for all the speculation; after that we'll be discussing canon and not our wild theories, which always seem to be the wildest just before we get the book in our hands.

Pat

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Part II

2007-06-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

I intended to do this all as one post, but the first was so long, I thought it best to break it into two parts.

After Molly's run-in with the boggart, the trio headed back to Hogwarts, with Ron and Hermione, newly appointed prefects, riding in a separate car from Harry, for the first time since Harry and Ron first met. Harry ends up with Neville and Ginny in a car with Luna Lovegood. Luna, sometimes called Loony by other students, is a bit, well, odd. It's obvious, and Luna seems to know and accept that she is different.

Luna seems like nothing more than comic relief, and she does make us laugh, and Harry as well. But Luna is so much more. She is sometimes the one person who is able to calm Harry's fears and sooth his grief. When they arrive at Hogwarts, Harry sees the thestrals that have always pulled the "horseless" carriages--something he could not see before because he had not seen death.

Chapter Twenty-Four: "Occlumency"

This chapter begins with a note that it turns out that Kreacher had been lurking in the attic, where Sirius had found him:

no doubt looking for more relics of the Black family to hide in his cupboard. Though Sirius seemed satisfied with this story, it made Harry uneasy. Kreacher seemed to be in a better mood on his reappearance, his bitter muttering had subsided somewhat, and he submitted to orders more docilely than usual, though once or twice Harry caught the house-elf staring avidly at him, always looking quickly away when he saw that Harry had noticed. (US, Chap. 24, p. 516)

This is one of those brilliant misdirections from Rowling. We are, by this time, fairly used to Harry not being right about what he sees, but he's dead on with this one. Kreacher may have been found in the attic, but he certainly, it turns out, wasn't there the whole time. Instead, he'd been off to visit another Black family member--one that he respected, which may be why he was able to disobey Sirius--or at least not to stick to the strict letter of the law regarding house-elves and their masters.

After Harry's foray into Voldemort's mind, when he sees the snake attacking Arthur at the Ministy, and feels that he WAS the snake, some of Harry's fears are calmed by talks with Sirius and with Ron, Hermione and Ginny. And then comes the big blow, shortly before they return to school--Snape arrives at twelve, Grimmauld Place and tells Harry that he will be taking Occlumency lessons when he returns to Hogwarts--and his teacher for these private lessons will be none other than himself, Professor Snape.

We haven't heard about Occlumency before this, but I think we have seen it used. Snape makes a lot of eye contact with Harry, and Harry usually stares right back, feeling that it's like making and maintaining eye contact with a hippogryff. Harry has the feeling several times with Snape and with Dumbledore that they know what he is thinking. Just how much they are getting by using Occlumency and how much they get because Harry isn't good at masking his emotions, isn't clear, even by the end of the sixth book.

Here's what we learn from Snape as he tells Harry about his upcoming Occlumency lessons, all the while observed by a glowering Sirius:

1. Dumbledore has ordered that Harry study Occlumency this term.

2. It is "the magical defense of the mind against external penetration. An obscure branch of magic, but a highly useful one." (Snape, US, p. 519)

3. Why? Because Dumbledore thinks it's a good idea.

4. Snape: "You will receive private lessons once a week, but you will not tell anybody what you are doing, least of all Dolores Umbridge." (US, p. 519)

5. Sirius voices what Harry is thinking--why can't Dumbledore teach him? Snape replies:

"I suppose because it is a headmaster's privilege to delegate less enjoyable tasks," said Snape silkily. "I assure you I did not bet for the job." (US, p. 519)

This scene then disintigrates into Snape goading Sirius, and the two of them squaring off, ready to end their feud, and only prevented from doing so by Harry's intevention and the entrance of the Weasley family.

We learn later that Dumbledore does have a different reason for not giving Harry the lessons, but Snape just couldn't pass up the chance to take more pot shots at Sirius. I have to wonder if the explanation might have been delivered and received better had Sirius left the two of them alone.

Harry, of course, does tell Ron and Hermione about the lessons, even though Snape told him to tell no one. Once back at school, though, Harry does obey and tells the rest of the students that he has to take extra potions lessons--Remedial Potions, as Zacharias Smith points out, adding:

"Good Lord, you must be terrible, Snape doesn't usually give extra lessons, does he?" (US, p. 527)

And Harry realizes that that's what everyone is going to think, that he's really stupid.

Cho, the great distraction in Harry's life in Order of the Phoenix, shows up, and after a bit of stammering, Harry manages to ask her out--Hogsmeade on Valentine's Day.

Harry goes to Snape's office at 6 o'clock. It's the same except for Dumbledore's Pensieve on the desk. Now, it seems to me that a Pensieve would be a very personal item, and I think seeing it there for Snape to use, is one more clue that Dumbledore trusts him. And does this mean that Dumbledore takes all his thoughts out of the Pensieve so that Snape doesn't have access to any of Dumbledore's memories?

There are a number of things I thought about with this particular Occlumency lesson. I think it's simpler to just go through them. Snape indicates that Harry should sit down in a chair across from his desk, and when he does so:

so did Snape, his cold black eyes fixed unblinkingly upon Harry, dislike etched in every line of his face. (US, p. 529)

This is the first opportunity that Snape has to harm Harry. They are alone, and the lessons, it turns out, are quite disturbing and invasive, yet Harry does come out of them, albeit not without being mentally shaken. Harry sees dislike on Snape's face, but is it dislike for Harry or for the task that Dumbledore has set him? Is Snape even able to see Harry as anyone other than James? I think so much of the time that Snape automatically sees James that Harry just gets lost to him. It's also possible, that if Snape and Lily were friends, that every time he looks into those eyes that everyone says are Lily's, that Snape is once again painfully reminded that she is dead and Harry survived, all at the hands of Voldemort, and all because of some involvement on Snape's part. I think we still only know a portion of this, even after Half-Blood Prince.

The lesson begins with Snape telling Harry what Occlumency involves, but only because Harry keeps asking questions, after Snape establishes that Harry is still to afford him the respect that is his due as Harry's teacher.

"And why does Professor Dumbledore think I need it, sir?" said Harry, looking directly into Snape's dark, cold eyes and wondering whether he would answer.

Snape looked back at him for a moment and then said contemptuously, "Surely even you could have worked that out by now, Potter? The Dark Lord is highly skilled at Legilimency-"

"What's that? Sir?"

"It is the ability to extract feelings and memories from another person's mind--" (US, p. 530)

Dark Lord? Hmmm, why does it take Harry so long before he finally asks Snape about the use of this term? Distracted, I suppose, by all the new information he's finally getting. So it turns out that the "Dark Lord" is adept at Legilimency, but what's easy to miss is that Harry is also. He has been unintentionally doing Legilimency for a very long time--every time, in fact, that his scar hurt. He just hasn't known what was happening.

Harry likens it to mind reading, and Snape says it's not the same at all. Even with all his barbs aimed at Harry, Snape does give him a lot of information. But it's often hard to hear information when it's delivered with sarcasm and insults, which is exactly what Snape does.

There might be something else going on, but this is definitely a guess. I can't quite get to the Scar-Horcrux idea, but tend to think that Harry has a distinctly unique mental connection to Voldemort as a result of the rebounded curse--that it is a mental connection and not a soul connection. Part of the reason for my thinking that is that Rowling, as I said before, makes a clear distinction between the soul and the mind; they are not the same and interchangeable. She makes that differentiation with what happens to a person on the receiving end of a Dementor's Kiss, and in HBP with what has happened to Voldemort--even though he has mutilated his soul beyond repair, and even if Harry destroys all the Horcruxes, Voldemort's body and magical abilities will live on. That, to me, points to Harry's scar not needing to be a Horcrux for there to be a connection forged between Voldemort and Harry at the time of the rebounded Avada Kedavra curse. (This may very well be one of those ideas that will need adjustment once we read Deathly Hallows, but until then, I'm following the line that it's all mental and not some sort of joining of Harry's and Voldemort's souls.)

Whatever Dumbledore and Snape think is going on, it's clear that this mental connection isn't behaving normally. Legilimency usually requires eye contact, but with Harry and Voldemort, it happens over great distances. They are in uncharted waters with this one, but they can no longer ignore it after Harry's incursion into Voldemort's mind before Christmas; now Voldemort is aware that Harry has access to his thoughts, which means that Voldemort might chose to intrude into Harry's mind.

Caution is required to ensure that what Harry sees and thinks does not give away any secrets of the Order of the Phoenix. Much later, Harry learns that was precisely the reason that Dumbledore didn't teach Harry Occlumency, or spend much time with him, or even make eye contact with him most of the year--it would have given Voldemort too much possible access to Dumbledore's mind.

So Snape is tapped for the job instead. As a spy, however, he is now walking a tight rope. One misstep, one show of any friendship to Harry would destroy his credibility with Voldemort. That may also be the reason for the look of dislike, and certainly for the rather cryptic answers, that Snape gives about what Occlumency is. It seems that this puts Snape at great risk of having his own thoughts, thoughts he may have previously hidden from Voldemort, layed bare for the "Dark Lord" to see. Hence, the reason for the Pensieve--Snape needs a safe place for any thoughts that might show he is not as loyal to Voldemort as he'd like Voldemort to think. Nor does he want to give Voldemort any memories of his own that could be used against him later.

Snape tells Harry:

"It is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain circumstances, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly. The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and so utter falsehoods in his presence without detection." (US, p. 531)

Harry thinks it still sounds like mind-reading, and it does, except that it's not just seeing what a person is thinking right now; rather, it gives an accomplished Legilimens access to past actions and thoughts and emotions, in some cases things the person may have forgotten on a conscious level. But more importantly, what Snape is actually telling Harry is that he, Snape, has mastered Occlumency to the point that he is able to lie to Voldemort undetected. As a spy, that is probably the only thing that has kept Snape alive so long.

Harry wonders if Voldemort knows what they are thinking at the moment. Not under the normal rules of Legilimency, according to Snape. Hogwarts is guarded by ancient spells and charms to protect those within the school (possibly another reason for Snape to stay at Hogwarts--it's likely one of the very few places where he is safe from Voldemort).

We finally get to some of the reason Harry needs these lessons, when Snape tells Harry that "Time and space matter in magic, Potter. Eye contact is often essential to Legilimency." (This seems to foreshadow Harry's visit to the Department of Mysteries where one of the rooms is "Time" and one is "Space", but how and why those are important are some of those loose ends that still need tying.)

Snape looks at Harry, seeming to be intent on not giving him information, but it's possible that he needed to think of a way to word the information so Harry doesn't know so much that he inadvertantly tips off Voldemort to what they are doing.

"The usual rules do not seem to apply with you, Potter. The curse that failed to kill you seems to have forged some kind of connection between you and the Dark Lord. The evidence suggests that at times, when your mind is most relaxed and vulnerable--when you are asleep, for instance--you are sharing the Dark Lord's thoughts and emotions. The headmaster thinks it inadvisable for this to continue. He wishes me to teach you how to close your mind to the Dark Lord." (US, p. 531)

In case we missed it the first time, Snape has now used that particular name for Voldemort four times in just two pages.

This is where I wrote several thoughts in the margin of my book. Snape who is apparently quite accomplished at hiding his thoughts and memories from Voldemort might just be better at it than even Dumbledore. If Snape is able to close his mind to Voldemort, then why doesn't Dumbledore just do the same and teach Harry himself? Because he isn't as accomplished as Severus, or perhaps it is an issue of Dumbledore not having the time for the lessons.

Most of Snape's explanation works well, except that Harry has had visions or experienced Voldemort's emotions while awake, specifically when he was in detention with Umbridge and he had that jolt when she touched his hand. Harry didn't recognize what it was until later, but he clearly wasn't asleep, nor was he relaxed. Apparently Snape and Dumbledore don't know the full extent of Harry's mental incursions into Voldemort's mind.

And for the moment, as Snape explains to Harry, Voldemort isn't aware of the connection either--until recently. Now that he is, Dumbledore understands the risk, but chooses not to explain it to Harry. Here is the real possibility of Voldemort using this connection to his advantage, just as it was to Harry's advantage when he was able to save Arthur's life by seeing the attack and alerting Dumbledore and the Order.

Harry once again asks a question about "Voldemort", and is severely reprimanded by Snape for using the name. When Harry points out that Dumbledore says his name, Snape's response is quite interesting, given that Dumbledore isn't the only one who uses Voldemort instead of one of the common euphemisms, though it is only other members of the Order of the Phoenix--and not all of them at that.

"Dumbledore is an extremely powerful wizard," Snape muttered. "While he may feel secure enough to use the name. . . the rest of us. . ." He rubbed his left forearm, apparently unconsciously, on the spot where Harry knew the Dark Mark was burned into his skin. (US, p. 532)

Every word that Snape utters is now in Harry's memory, and potentially available to Voldemort. Snape has to be doubly cautious about what he says, how he refers to Voldemort, which is just what he is doing here. There's no sign of disrespect towards Voldemort in what Snape says. And the gesture of rubbing his arm where the Dark Mark is could be a direct clue to just how that works. We have learned that Voldemort can touch the Dark Mark on any Death Eater's arm and it will summon the rest of them, but what happens if one of the Death Eaters dares to speak Voldemort's name? Does that somehow alert Voldemort to their actions or thoughts? It seems it is the sort of thing he would build into this system of total control that he has once someone becomes a Death Eater.

Harry still wants more definite answers, but when he persists, Snape only tells him that "we know".

"The important point is that the Dark Lord is now aware that you are gaining access to his thoughts and feelings. He has also deduced that the process is likely to work in reverse; that is to say, he has realized that he might be able to access your thoughts and feelings in return--" (US, p. 533)

Is Snape guessing? It sounds like he and Dumbledore are fairly certain of what Voldemort now knows. After Voldemort's return at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, Dumbledore sent Snape on a mission, one that was never clearly spelled out, but which Harry and we, the readers, assumed meant that he went to Voldemort to resume his status as a loyal Death Eater, at the instructions of Dumbledore. During that time, he must be having contact with Voldemort and the other Death Eaters, otherwise he would have nothing useful to report to the Order.

All of this revolves around what we believe of Snape's actions and loyalties. If Snape is a spy, working for Dumbledore, then Harry is not at risk. Snape seems intent on not giving Harry too much information, or at least not more than Harry might work out on his own. If Snape is actually loyal to Voldemort, then he could be setting him up so that his mind would be more open.

Is Dumbledore that bad at judging the character and the loyalty of someone he has known since the age of eleven? We tend to think of their relationship as teacher and headmaster, but Dumbledore first met Severus Snape when Snape came to Hogwarts as an eleven year old. He seems to know everything that goes on in the castle, but prefers not to interfer, giving the students the opportunity to work out their own problems.

It seems to me that if Dumbledore weren't 100% convinced of Snape's loyalty and trustworthiness, he would be putting Harry at great risk by having Snape teach Harry something so potentially dangerous, alone and unsupervised. I can't believe that Dumbledore would make that kind of error in judgement. It's one thing to say, and Dumbledore himself says it, that he has made mistakes, but this kind of error would make Dumbledore foolish beyond belief. That's just not something that I believe Rowling intends with the wise mentor figure.

It's now time for the actual Occlumency lessons, but I'll come back to that at a later time.

Pat

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Part I

2007-06-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

With only eighteen days left until my favorite (at least by a slight margin) Harry Potter book becomes the fifth Harry Potter movie (and it looks like it might be my favorite as well), I've been re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and making notes as I read. As I'm also re-reading Half-Blood Prince, which is only 28 days and a few hours from being in my hot little hands, I'm trying to keep things straight. I've found with both that there are certain chapters that just seem to hold the most information, the crucial information, that we need before we begin the last and final book of this amazing series.

With the other books, I've made some attempts to do a chapter by chapter entry, guided by the Reading Groups at The Leaky Lounge, but I've fallen behind, and I've decided that it's more feasible to just go by my notes that I've made while reading these last two books. Notes, mind you, in the margins, and on the blank pages at the end of the books, making these last two books look like something that would make the Prince proud. Of course, the Prince would likely find my notes boring and tedious or not worthy of his time. But they are my way of trying to sort out some of the details of the books.

So.....

One of the things that I like best about Order of the Phoenix is the thing that many Harry Potter readers liked least. Finally, I thought, as I got past the first few disturbing episodes of Harry yelling at everyone and being grumpy and feeling misunderstood, unappreciated, ignored and sometimes even bullying (or thinking of it) his awful cousin Dudley, we have Harry who has at last realized that life has dealt him a rotten hand and he isn't happy about it. To me, even if he had not seen Cedric killed in the graveyard and had not seen the rebirth of Voldemort and been betrayed by Moody (fake one, it turns out), Harry still should have been saying "Why has all this happened to me? Why hasn't anyone told me about my parents? Professor Lupin, please tell me what my parents did for a job; what they were like; were they funny, talented, serious, nice?" But no, for four years we had a Harry who was patient, who didn't keep questioning Dumbledore about why this insane maniac tried to kill him as a baby, and who didn't really ask the other adults many questions about his parents either, not even their best friends.

Yes, of course, after all the years of the Dursleys making his life miserable and telling Harry not to ask questions, that has become a way to survive at their home, where he is stuck, nearly imprisoned, every summer. But not at school; there are people who like him there and who knew his parents. Like Harry, I was adopted, which was one of the things that appealed to me early in the books. Unlike Harry, my birth parents, whom I never knew, weren't murdered by a lunatic wizard, and my adoptive parents were wonderful and loving--and no Dudley or nasty Aunt Marge. But still, even I, who was happy living where I did with parents who loved and cared for me, asked questions, and wondered who was a part of my past. So Harry's lack of curiosity and willingness to accept such unhelpful answers from Dumbledore, and even Lupin, always struck me as being highly unrealistic. After all, look at all the times you hear stories about people who have searched for their birth families--it's something that naturally comes into the mind of any child who is raised by people who are not their birth family. It's normal to ask "What would my life have been like if. . . " (As an adult, I no longer felt the need to search or ask a lot of questions, but as a teenager, it was still something that I occasionally thought about. If I'd been unhappy, I'm sure it would have turned into a quest to find those answers.)

And, old as I am (57 until September), I still remember being fifteen. It's not an easy age, even if your life is comfortable, safe, happy, loving, as mine was. At times I was irritable, for no particular reason; was snappish with my mom; moody and isolated; silly and thoughtless; selfish and self-absorbed. It goes with the age. Throw in all the things that Harry has dealt with as well, and I thought it was refreshing, if sometimes difficult to read, to see him behave in such a normal way. Refreshing, not because I would have wanted to be in the same room while he was yelling, but because it shows the depth of the character that Rowling has created. She's done a marvelous job showing the kids growing up. With each book, we get teens that are less of the children that we met in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and more of the adults they will become. Well, we hope that they all make it to adulthood.

It's in Order of the Phoenix that we learn more about Sirius and his family, but I'll come back to that later. While it's important and I loved learning about it and about the Order itself, there were other things that seem more important at the moment.

Harry gets through the hearing at the Ministry, which, truth be told, would have been a huge surprise had he not. The surprises there were Percy being such a git, and Fudge still being so unbelievably dense, and of course, we get our first glimpse of Dolores Umbridge, whose own brand of evil is sometimes even more chilling than Voldemort's.

While Harry and Ron and Hermione are still at twelve, Grimmauld Place, with others of the Order, we see Harry head off to bed early, still disturbed by the photo that Moody, the real one, showed Harry of the original Order, including his parents. Harry finds it horrible to see all those people, many of whom are now dead, or in Saint Mungo's (Neville's parents), who had not a clue that horrible things were just waiting to happen. And of course, there was Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed his parents to Voldemort, a betrayal that resulted in their deaths, and the attempted killing of Harry. Like Harry says, why would Moody think it's a treat for Harry to see those photos? And so at the first opportunity, he heads off to bed, side-tracked by the sound of someone crying.

It's in Chapter Nine, "The Woes of Mrs. Weasley", that we see what terrifies Molly. She has gone to take care of the boggart hiding in a desk. It, as boggarts do, turns into her worst fear, which is seeing all of her family dead, including Harry. As a mother, I fully understood her feelings and her fears. It doesn't take the threat of an evil wizard for those thoughts to go through the mind of every mother. Harry, who knows how to get rid of a boggart, is unable to cope either, once the boggart turns into "dead Harry". He tells Mrs. Weasley to get out of the room, to let someone else take care of it. The commotion gets the attention of Remus Lupin, followed by Sirius and Moody. Lupin dispatches the boggart and then comforts Molly, assuring her that it was only a boggart, not anything real.

"I see them d-d-dead all the time!" Mrs. Weasley moaned into his shoulder. "All the t-t-time! I d-d-dream about it. . ."

Sirius was staring at the patch of carpet where the boggart, pretending to be Harry's body, had lain. Moody was looking at Harry, who avoided his gaze. (U.S. OotP, p. 176)

Harry, and we, the readers, know that this book is going to have some very serious things for all of us to handle. It's not easy for Harry, nor will it be easy for us. For any parent reading about Molly's fears, this scene strikes way too close to home. For any teen or adult who doesn't yet have children, it's a glimpse of what their parents fear--a huge dose of reality in Rowling's fantasy world. If we hadn't figured out that these books aren't just for children after the scene in the graveyard in Goblet of Fire, we should know it now.

Molly doesn't want them to tell Arthur--he has enough on his plate already without dealing with his wife's fears. She's worried that Harry will think she's silly and foolish, not even able to get rid of a boggart. But her fear is real and it's based on her family's involvement in the Order, which puts all of them at greater risk, so she's not being foolish at all, really. And of course, there's Percy, who has chosen Fudge's and the Ministry's side of pretending that Voldemort hasn't returned, or at least of trying to cover up what they do know is real. What if they don't reconcile with Percy, and something awful happens to the Weasley family? Again, a normal fear of any parent. As if that's not enough, Molly still has two children, not adults, who need her watchful care and guidance. What happens to Ron and Ginny if she and Arthur are killed? And here is one of the reasons that Lupin is one of my favorite adults in the whole series:

"Molly, that's enough," said Lupin firmly. "This isn't like last time. The Order are better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemort's up to--"

Mrs. Weasley gave a little squeak of fright at the sound of the name.

"Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing it-- look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time. . ." {OP, US version, p. 177)

No sugar coating from Lupin, but honesty, at a time when it's an honest look at the situation will be much more reassuring than what Fudge is trying to put over on everyone. Lupin's acknowledgement that they are dealing with real danger gives Molly the assurance that he takes her fears seriously, and in that, he gives her the courage to find that strength within herself. Ignorance, in the case of Voldemort's return, is not going to be bliss, and Lupin understands that as well as anyone.

Sirius tells Molly not to worry about Percy:

"He'll come round. It's a matter of time before Voldemort moves into the open; once he does, the whole Ministry's going to be begging us to forgive them. And I'm not sure I'll be accepting their apology," he added bitterly.

"And as for who's going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died," said Lupin, smiling slightly, "what do you think we'd do, let them starve?" (OP, US version, p. 177)

Well, nothing like tackling the hard issues, is there? Yet, that's exactly one of the reasons I really liked Order of the Phoenix. There is a real threat that Rowling has created with the return of Voldemort and the resurgence of the Death Eaters. These are issues the characters would be thinking about and dealing with; to not have it in the book would minimize the threats she has created. By the same token, to have the characters never doubt or fear would lessen their humanity, so vividly portrayed by Rowling.

Molly, calmed down for the time being, by Lupin's reassurance and honest appraisal of what they face, says she was being silly. Harry heads off to bed, but doesn't think she was at all silly. He keeps thinking about the image of the boggart turning into each of the Weasley family before Mrs. Weasley's eyes.

Without warning, the scar on his forehead seared with pain again and his stomach churned horribly.

"Cut it out," he said firmly, rubbing the scar as the pain receded again.

"First sign of madness, talking to your own head," said a sly voice from the empty picture on the wall.

Harry ignored it. He felt older than he had ever felt in his life, and it seemed extraordinary to him that barely an hour ago he had been worried about a joke shop and who had gotten a prefect's badge. (OP, US version, p. 178)

We'll learn later that the sly voice is Phineas Nigelus, who seems to be sharing information about Harry with Dumbledore, even though Dumbledore spends little time with Harry for most of this year, and almost always refuses to look at him, something that is understandably irritating and frustrating for Harry. With just a phrase, Rowling has told us that Harry is no longer a child--feeling "older than he had ever felt in his life". By the end of the book, even Dumbledore no longer refers to Harry as a child, but as a man. This is the book that takes Harry from the child to a man, fully aware by the end of what he faces and what his responsibilities are.

At this point, however, Harry is still in the early stages of shock over what he saw at the end of his fourth year (Goblet of Fire) and of grief over having seen a fellow classmate, and friend, killed. Now the one person on whom Harry has come to depend won't talk to him. Of course he is angry with Dumbledore. Harry needs some serious grief counseling, and the person to whom he wants to turn, refuses to spend time with him or even to look at him.

But this last scene is a huge set up for what's coming for Harry when he sees the vision of Arthur being attacked in what turns out to be the Ministry of Magic. It's that connection that Harry seems to have, and has had for a while, to Voldemort's thoughts and emotions. For whatever reason, Voldemort wasn't aware of the access Harry had to his mind until Harry saw the attack on Arthur.

It's this connection that I find most interesting. Many think this is the proof that Harry or his scar is a Horcrux. And they might be right. I'm just not fond of the idea. If that's where Rowling goes, then I'll go along, but I will always think there is a better alternative. I guess I want their connection to be more subtle, more along the lines of something that could occur without the magic of a Horcrux. Something that we, as real people, have to fight against.

I'll digress for a moment. When I was in junior high, I had a friend who, for whatever reason, was always interested in just this sort of thing--seeing into the mind of others. We would spend time concentrating on a particular card, trying to get the other person to chose the one we had picked. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. But our favorite, and quite successful, endeavor was at the movie theater. While we waited for a movie to begin, we would choose one person, at least four or five rows in front of us. Then we would both stare at the back of that person's head, while thinking "turn around". It's very eerie, and still seems odd to me, but it almost always worked. The person, someone we didn't know, would turn and look right at us, not just randomly looking around the theater, but AT us in particular. The more we did it, the quicker the response time of our intended, erm, victim, for lack of a better word.

So, no magic needed, I think there are ways that one mind can connect with another. How? I've not a clue. I don't really even care. My husband and I often come up with the same idea for dinner, without having discussed it; the other day, we each picked the same movie (I, during the day, and he, in the evening while I went to a meeting), to watch On Demand. Truly weird, as neither of us had ever heard of that particular movie before and it was in a long list. Of course, we've been married for thirty-three years, but still, it is an odd connection that happens between two minds.

But I think that when Voldemort "put some of himself" in Harry when he tried to kill him and the curse rebounded, it wasn't a part of Voldemort's soul, but a part of his mind. The mind and the soul are not the same thing, the way Rowling tells it, in Half-Blood Prince, to jump ahead a bit, when Dumbledore explains about the Horcruxes. He tells Harry that even if all of Voldemort's Horcruxes are destroyed, Voldemort will still exist, because his body and mind can live on without his soul. It's Voldemort's body and mind that are doing all the evil things that Harry sees and feels, not Voldemort's soul, of which only a fragment remains in Voldemort's body.

And that leads me to one of my favorite chapters: Chapter Twenty Four, "Occlumency". As it's well after midnight, I'm going to take a break before continuing with the chapter that really explores how Harry's mind and Voldemort's are connected.

Harry Potter Cover Art--All the books

2007-06-11T23:18:00.000-07:00

I've always thought it silly to "recreate the wheel", so to speak. Diricawl, over at St. Mungo's Hospital: HP Gallery Wing, started and is still updating a post that has images of all the cover art--US, UK, international--along with as much information as he could find about the various artists involved. I don't always agree with his commentary or the comments of some of the others, but seeing all the covers in one place, it's much easier to compare and follow their evolution through the series. So if you are inclined, here is the link to All Cover Art.

Note about St. Mungo's: You can view the cover art topic, but if you want to post, you'll need to register--fairly painless, and you might find some interesting topics. We are an outgrowth of the original, but now non-existent, HP Galleries. Some of us have been talking about Harry Potter since 2001--and during that long wait between GOF and OP, we found that we wandered off onto other subjects, some more personal, some not, but definitely random--which was how the "Inherently Random" thread began. When people talk as long as some of us have, it's very usual to really talk as friends do, even though we are from all over the world. However, there's always room for more in the circle--it's a very friendly group of people. That being said, it is not the site where I go when I want to discuss my distinctly Christian points of view about Harry Potter. But for general, non-religious discussions, it's a good one.

Pat

Deathly Hallows Deluxe Cover Art

2007-06-09T04:22:00.000-07:00

Wow, more cover art from Mary GrandPre--and it's fantastic, and baffling. Travis at Sword of Gryffindor posted something and there are quite a few comments there. I wanted to put my comments here as well, and will edit them as I have time to think more about the dragon, the trio and where they might be.

Absolutely amazing! It's beautiful, and curious, and I can't wait for the book. Apparently Arthur Levine (Scholastic) asked for this particular scene on the deluxe cover because he liked the scene so much. Levine said that this scene is at sunset, but I don't think that particularly tells us anything.

I was looking in Fantastic Beasts, which is where the quote about the Opaleye comes from. This seems to be the only dragon that wouldn't readily devour humans.

And I agree with others--could be Ottery St. Catchpole (and they are fleeing from a disastrous wedding at the Burrow), Godric's Hollow, Little Hangleton, or just the countryside as they leave the castle.

That last could have something that ties back to the school motto, which was never in the books, beyond a stray comment or two (that Harry would rather poke a dragon in the eye than to get caught stealing supplies from Snape's stores). The general translation, since I can't remember the Latin, is "Never tickle a sleeping dragon". And then I thought of the title of the second book--Chamber of Secrets". As others have pointed out on numerous forums, we only saw one secret, and if the basilisk was the only secret, then why was it plural? I've always wondered if one of the other secrets was a dragon.

And why are Ron and Hermione wearing robes, as they would at school, but Harry is not? Harry also seems to be looking straight ahead, with a determined, concentrated expression, while Hermione is looking up and is fearful. Of course, that could be because she doesn't like flying, as well as whatever they are fleeing. At first, I thought that Ron also was looking up, but then I couldn't tell.

Or instead of fleeing, they could be going towards something--though the tattered robes look more like leaving a bad situation.

I know that Rowling has recently tried to distance herself from C.S. Lewis, but I'm also reminded of the part of "Voyage of the Dawntreader", where Eustace turns into a dragon and then sheds the scales in his transformation into a new person, getting rid of the things that made him so horrid to others.

And there is something about the face of the dragon, with the little beard that also makes me think of the movie my girls loved when they were younger--"The Neverending Story--the one where they ride on a large dog-like creature (apparently just a movie thing), but whose face reminded me very much of this dragon, minus the horns.

Rowling has done such a good job of always setting up characters and beasts and events, so I imagine that the clue for this one has been right in front of us, and we've apparently all missed, or dismissed it, as one of those charming details that makes the story more interesting but isn't something we need to think about much.

Johnny, over at Sword of Gryffindor, beat me to this reference. I thought of the 12 uses of dragon’s blood last night as I was going to bed–which was very late. Also, there was the dragon’s blood that Slughorn spattered on his walls when he was hiding at the beginning of HBP. Clearly, Rowling hasn’t wanted us to forget about dragons, but all the comments have been so random and seemingly unimportant.

Was there also dragon’s blood in one of the crystal vials in the cabinet they were cleaning at twelve, Grimmauld Place? And they wear dragon-hide gloves in Herbology, and Fred and George have dragon skin boots or jackets once they have their joke shop going and are making money at it.

I think dragon references are everywhere. I can’t see how this fits in though, from a Christian pov, as dragons are usually associated with serpents. Not a particularly positive rescuer, if that’s what the dragon is doing. So maybe it’s not, and the dragon is strictly from the mythic themes of the books.

Oh, one more thing–Draco means dragon. Hmmm–a transformed Draco, helping the trio to get somewhere? Not likely, but…..

Pat

Deathly Hallows UK cover art

2007-06-03T02:45:00.000-07:00

I'm not terribly fond of the UK cover art. It's very busy, and the front looks too..... cartoonish to me. The whole thing just feels like, instead of trying to convey something about an important or crucial part of the story, the artist was trying to tell the whole story on the cover.

However, I like have the Bloomsbury Harry Potter screen saver on my lap top. My desktop is something from the Order of the Phoenix movie, or it's the Mary GrandPre cover for Deathly Hallows, depending on my mood for the day. So the children's UK screen saver gives me a chance to look at all the UK covers and think about all the books. Well, it did, until I saw the new one. Instead of having the art work from all the previous six books, then adding the art work from the seventh, this one just has art work from Deathly Hallows. And actually, it has extended art work for the back cover.

My original thoughts about the UK cover art was that the trio was going into a vault, which might have belonged to any number of people--Dumbledore, Godric Gryffindor, another vault that Harry's parents had--hard to say really. However, as I said, the new Bloomsbury children's screen saver has changed my thinking entirely. I'm still not sure what to make of some of the images, like the bisected circle inside the triangle or the snake inside what could be a prophecy orb or it could be one of Trelawney's crystal balls.

So, if you haven't seen the children's screen saver--and you'd have to download it to see it, I'll try to give a quick description. One of the things that makes this really odd is that the art work in the screen saver shows only the images on the back and the end flaps, but not from the front, as I said above.

It starts with a black screen and glowing stars. Then it has a circular stone something or other that floats in from one corner and stops in the center. It is red inside, first showing a glimmer of the circle/triangle that's on the spine, then it opens to a view of the moon, the turrets of the castle, with light coming from every window; it pans down across the tree and grounds, back across the lake (that's the part that isn't on the book cover). It shows a look at the open door of the castle (also with light spilling out), and back up to the turrets. The sky is a dark blue (as if it's night) with some clouds in the sky. Then the scene quickly goes to the Forbidden Forest, or some forest--which has trees with no leaves, but an image of a stag hiding there appears. From there it goes up to the full moon again, but passes something (from the forest up to the moon) that looks more like smoke rising from the denuded forest than clouds. It finishes with the moon and the image of the snake. Once all that is done, the stone circle, again red inside, floats off in another direction and it shows the covers of all the books.

The screen saver art work for the seventh book ends witht he words "Seven Books, One Story", and then all seven covers are shown together, except that Deathly Hallows is in the fore front and in the center. It just occurred to me that this may be some sort of tie in with all the alchemical references--that all the books complete the alchemical work, and that's the reason for showing images of the castle and grounds that possibly covers all the books, not just the last one.

So, I thought--what's with that departure? What's with not focusing on the front cover--all the other UK screen savers showed mainly the front cover art. Well, possibly because the front cover isn't the most important thing in the book, or at least, not the only important thing. The front cover, it seems to me could very well depict the trio, not entering a vault, but falling into the Pensieve--the stone circle on the screen saver--of which we only see a part on the book cover. And so I'm still left wondering why those particular images are shown on the book, as well as on the screen saver. I'm not the only person to notice that they seem to be falling into whatever it is. And falling into the Pensieve makes more sense than falling into a vault. In fact, now that I've looked at the screen saver quite a few times, that arch on the front cover is too curved to be just an arch of a door way--it is part of a circle, if you look carefully.

Is all of this view of the castle, with the night sky and the lights all shining, intended to remind us of all that has happened in the castle? Dumbledore's fall? The whomping willow? The lake? What's significant about the lake, apart from Goblet of Fire and the second task? Or is that to remind us that Sirius and Harry nearly died by the lake?

Hagrid's cabin was burned in Half-Blood Prince, but was part of the Forbidden Forest burned as well? It didn't seem like it when they had Dumbledore's funeral, but perhaps this is another part. And why is Harry's Patronus there in the ruins of the Forest? To protect him from dementors--or is it something to do with his father always being with him? And then there are the spine symbols and the snake in the orb that's shown on the back cover flap.

Anyway, as art work, I still prefer the US one, but I'm finding the UK one so enigmatic that I'll be taking a much harder look at it before the book comes out, I'm sure.

Pat

Random thoughts with 61 days till Deathly Hallows

2007-05-20T01:33:00.000-07:00

I'm in a reading group for Order of the Phoenix at the Leaky Lounge. I really have enjoyed that process of re-reading all the books slowly and discussing them. The guided discussion has brought up things in all the books that I've not thought of, even though I have read each book so many times I really have lost count. For a while, I was re-reading them because I enjoyed them so much, then I read all of them again in preparation for whichever book was coming out. And that's where I am now.

Even though we haven't finished OotP--and won't till just before DH--I've decided to start re-reading Half-Blood Prince. It was kind of a shock when I realized that we've had that one now for almost two years. During the last two years, I've kept reading Harry Potter but I've also rediscovered English literature and have read quite a lot of Austen, Trollope, Hardy and some Dickens. I've managed to also read a lot of C.S. Lewis and three books by Charles Williams. His were the hardest to read, but the imagery was sometimes so strikingly similar to things that Rowling has used in Harry Potter.

I won't do it tonight, but I want to put down my thoughts on Half-Blood Prince as I do this last re-reading before July 21. I've taken to reading with a pencil in hand so I can make notes in the margins. The second chapter, "Spinner's End", looks like Harry's Advanced Potions book with all the notes from the Prince. Mine however, are just notes, and nothing sinister like Sectumsempra. The other thing that I have started doing is highlighting in green all the things that Severus Snape says or the times that he is mentioned--which I underline instead. Clearly, if I want a nice looking book, I will have to buy another one. Whether Snape turns out to be on the good side, which I think he is, or on the bad side, it seems clear that his character is important to the culmination of the Harry Potter series. The underlining that I'm doing is my effort to not miss something crucial. We'll see whether that works or whether it's going to just result in my having a book that would send Madam Pince into a tirade about defacing books.

It will probably be Monday before I post anything again. It's almost 2 am now, and I have church later this morning. We usually spend Sunday afternoons with our kids, and I'm just not on the computer as much. So------till Monday, then.

TTFN
Pat

Cover art for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2007-04-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

I'ts been a long time since I've posted--and a lot has been going on with Harry Potter since February. I've mainly been keeping up with discussions on other sites, but haven't had the opportunity to weigh in here.

The biggest thing is the release of the cover art for both the US (Scholastic) and UK (Bloomsbury) Deathly Hallows book. They, unlike the cover art for HBP, seem to be of very different scenes from the book. While the UK children's cover has a lot of detail, it doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as the US one. I like Mary GrandPre's artwork in general, and the more I look at the covers for books 5 and 6, and now for book 7, I like it even better. It doesn't give away too much, but once we've read the book, I'm sure it will be such a significant image from the story.

One thing that the two very different covers do have in common, is that no one has a wand on either cover. So wherever the trio and the house-elf (Dobby, more than likely, Kreacher, possibly) are, they aren't using their wands, but we do see something that is like the sword of Gryffindor. The US cover, with Harry is a Christ-like position, shows that both Harry and Voldemort are wandless.

When you look at the faces and posture of Harry and Voldemort, it shows that Harry is open, with his hand facing upwards, reaching towards something or someone. His expression seems to be expectant, as though whatever he sees is welcome. Voldemort also has his hand extended, but as though he is trying to repel something or someone, and the look on his face is one of fear. He also seems to be trying to back away from whatever it is that the two of them see. There is also a marked contrast between the humanity shown on Harry's face and the lack of human-ness on Voldemort's.

Where are they? Many of us think that it is somewhere in the Ministry of Magic, the Department of Mysteries. There are similarities to the Death Room that Harry was in when they were there in Order of the Phoenix. But there are differences as well. The ceiling is the biggest one. Either we are looking at the real sky, which is full of sunshine, perhaps at sunset or sunrise (the sky isn't normally so vivid in the middle of the day), or an enchanted ceiling like we see at Hogwarts. If it's the real sky, then the upper floors of the Ministry of Magic would have to have been destroyed. If it's enchanted, why would it appear this way in a place that seemed so gloomy, especially since Dumbledore had called it the Death Room?

The other possiblitity that I can see is that there is fire surrounding the chamber, wherever they are, though one would expect Harry to look a little more fearful if they were surrounded by fire.

With the arches behind them, and something that looks like spectators in the background, the picture calls to mind a place like the coliseum--and that reminds me of this passage from "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", after Dumbledore explained to Harry that the Prophecy was only important because he and Voldemort chose to act upon it:

But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him.
It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged
into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena
with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there
was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew--
and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride,
and so did my parents--that there was all the difference
in the world. (HBP, US version, p. 512)

When I first read that passage, I focused more on Harry's attitude and understanding that what he was doing by choice, but the image of Harry walking into an arena to face Voldemort may have been the more important point.

There are so many other possiblities that have been discussed at John Granger's blog, HogwartsProfessor.com, and on Travis Prinzi's Sword of Gryffindor. I won't list them all here, but as you read through the comments, there are links to other posts that are well worth exploring.

Mostly, we are all delighted to have new things to talk about, and to agree and disagree about, as we wait for the 7th and last Harry Potter book. It will be sad, and rather strange, to get Deathly Hallows in my hands on July 21, and read it (straight through, as much as my schedule will allow), but the cover art makes me very hopeful that what we are seeing is a book that shows that love is the way to conquer evil and that there is an underlying Christian theme throughout the books, as many of us have seen and discussed since at least the release of Goblet of Fire back in 2000.

And now I'm going back to my latest re-reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I'm trying very hard to keep up with the discussion in the Reading Group at the Leaky Lounge, but it is hard when there are so many exciting things to think about with that artwork staring at me everytime I walk by my computer. Yes, I have the US cover as my wallpaper, and I'll change the screensaver to the UK book art as soon as they update the current one.

Pat

HP & the Deathly Hallows--July 21, 2007

2007-02-02T23:53:00.000-08:00

Well, under normal circumstances, I'd be thrilled with that as a release date--and really, I am. Much better to get DH during the summer than during the school year or the Christmas holidays, as some had suggested.

But I knew, I just knew, that there was something really familiar about it. One look at my calendar, and my worst fears were confirmed. I'll be at the overnight for day camp, sitting out in the meadow around the campfire, with the 70+ kids who stay.

I really wanted to go to the midnight release for the last HP book--Laura and I have gone to the other three, and it's so much fun, hanging around the book store, getting my copy at midnight and heading home, settling in front of the fire with some tea and a snack, and starting to read.

It's not likely that the overnight will get rained out like it did two years ago. But that would work. As it is, I'll have to convince my daughter to go to the store and pick up my copy and then bring it to me at day camp--I can start reading sitting around the campfire just as easily as I can, sitting at home. Home would be a bit more comfortable, but I'll take what I can get.

If Laura can't pick it up, then I'll just have to figure out a way to leave for an hour--I suggested that we could take a midnight field trip to the book store; I'm sure I won't be the only one who will want to leave to get the book.

Well, at least I have time to work out the details--in the meantime, I have reserved my copy at Barnes and Noble--actually I did that when the title was announced, but I checked today to make sure they got it entered in the system.

So......now we wait.

Severus Snape--just who is he, anyway?

2007-01-17T12:45:00.000-08:00

All Harry Potter conversations seem to eventually get round to Severus Snape. Who is he? Whose side is he really on? Is he still a Death Eater? Was he ever really a Death Eater? Is he loyal to Dumbledore and the Order or only to Dumbledore, and where will his loyalties lie, now that Dumbldore is dead?

I'm not going to tackle all of those questions, but we have been having an interesting discussion on the comments section of the Lexicon, ever since they posted a Happy Birthday to Severus Snape. Go to the HP Lexicon, and scroll down to the January 8 posting about Severus Snape's birthday wishes on JKR's site, and read the discussion going on in the comments section--long and lengthy, but very interesting.

Following are some of the things that I've posted, in response to some of the other comments. But mostly, I'm trying to sort through my own thoughts about Severus Snape and really want them all in one place--this seemed to be the best place to sort things out.

***********
(Even though it was posted on January 8, Snape's birthday on J.K. Rowling's official site is listed as January 9.)

I’m on the side that thinks that Snape will ultimately turn out to be Dumbledore’s man–whether he has always been or not, is still not at all clear. But that being said, I could be totally wrong.
I have noticed that we now know Tom Riddle’s birthday, but he didn’t show up on the birthday calendar, did he? So maybe that exclusion tells us more about Snape than Snape’s inclusion.
I also think it’s interesting to note that those two birthdays are in “mid-winter”, and the description that Trelawney gives of a dark young man (in GOF?) (well, Voldemort wouldn’t be considered young any more, I wouldn’t think) and later in HBP of the one who dislikes her could apply to Snape as well as to Harry. It could be a very clever misdirection on Rowling’s part that we assume that both times Trelawney is making some sort of prediction about Harry, when it may refer to Snape instead.
Eeyore
— January 8, 2007 @ 8:32 pm

***
There is an explanation that shows that Dumbledore’s death was inevitable–actually had already happened–and that Snape wasn’t killing him on the Tower, but releasing him from the “Stoppered Death” that had happened when Dumbledore destroyed the ring Horcrux.

Here’s a link that explains it more fully:
http://quoththemaven.blogspot.com/2005/08/stoppered-death.html

It was also discussed at the Leaky Lounge, though I don’t think quite as in depth as the Barnes and Noble class that I was part of the July and August after Half-Blood Prince came out. Basically, Cathy Liesner’s idea was that Snape was able to do something to prevent Dumbledore’s death when he destroyed the ring Horcrux, but that it didn’t heal him–it only delayed his imminent death. All of that goes back to the first Potions lesson where Snape tells the class that he can teach them to “bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death–if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.” (PS/SS, US version p. 137)

We’ve seen other things from that lesson become very important–that bezoar keeps showing up–but we haven’t seen or heard any more about stoppering death.

One of the things that makes this theory so plausible is the drastic change in Dumbledore’s approach to Harry. He spends most of Harry’s 6th year teaching him and showing him all that he knows, as if his time is limited. He can’t seem to wait for Harry to figure all this out on his own–likely, because he won’t have unlimited time. That withered hand is prominent throughout the book–I think it’s there to remind us that Dumbledore is mortal and there are some injuries even beyond Dumbledore’s power to heal or change.

When Harry and Dumbledore returned from the Cave, Dumbledore insisted that Harry find Severus–no one else. Why? Because Dumbledore knew that he was near death and wanted Severus to try to prolong his life a little bit. However, he hadn’t counted on Draco mucking things up by actually letting Death Eaters into the castle. And the agreement that Dumbledore had with Severus (not the formal Professor Snape), was that if the time came that Snape had to fulfill the Unbreakable Vow that he would do it–Dumbledore wanted very much to protect his students, even one as disloyal as Draco. If Snape merely released Dumbledore from a spell that was buying him some more time, then Snape didn’t murder him either. and by preventing Draco from doing the killing, Draco’s soul is not damaged.

Yes, Dumbledore is important to Harry, but if you remember, there were other times when Dumbledore was not at Hogwarts and Harry muddled through. He is now much better prepared, thanks to Dumbledore having had nearly a year to teach him a lot about Tom Riddle, the Horcruxes, how to trust his own abilities and instincts.

Torrill, you are right–Dumbledore doesn’t fear death as the worst thing out there, but he did what he could to buy some time to give Harry the information that he is going to need. I don’t think that Dumbledore really expected that whatever Snape did when that hand was damaged and he nearly died was going to last a long time. I agree that Snape and Dumbledore didn’t want things to unfold the way they did on the Tower, but that the look of revulsion was because Snape had promised that if it became necessary, Snape would release the spell that would then allow Dumbledore to die.
Dumbledore was dying from the potion he drank in the Cave, and he knew that. What would have been the point of having both Dumbledore AND Snape end up dead, which would have happened had Snape refused to kill (or appear to kill) Dumbledore with the Death Eaters right there, willing to do the killing themselves. Draco had the chance and couldn’t do it (much to his credit, and possibly his ultimate redemption), but Greyback would have relished the opportunity to kill Dumbledore.
So rather than Dumbledore pleading for his life, that “Severus please” was a plea for Severus to let him go–something that must have been so painful as Dumbledore was the only one who really trusted Snape, and the only one who knew why Snape left Voldemort in the first place.

As for the Unbreakable Vow, I don’t think that Snape did have any other choice. Perhaps if he had had a day or two to think about it, he could have come up with some reason not to take it, but Bellatrix was just waiting for him to show that he wasn’t trustworthy after all. She would have run straight to Voldemort with news of that one–any opportunity to show LV that she was his most loyal follower and not Snape would have given her the greatest satisfaction. I don’t think that Narcissa really had any idea of the trap that the UV set for Snape, though–only Bella could see that one. But once the Vow was made, Snape didn’t have any other choice.

Someone else mentioned that it would take something very powerful for any of the Order, and especially Harry, to ever trust Snape again. I know I’m not the only one to come up with this, but isn’t it possible that if Harry sees Fawkes, who was so loyal to Dumbledore, show loyalty to Snape that Harry would finally get it? I actually don’t think it can be anything less than that. Fawkes may very well spend his time with the two people who showed Dumbledore the strongest loyalty–Harry and Severus Snape.
— January 13, 2007 @ 1:00 pm

****
It could be that Lily was Snape’s only friend–and for a kid who was such a loner and so picked on by the brightest stars in the school, that could have been enough. Yes, he hung around with Bella and her crowd, but whether they were really friends of Snape’s or whether they just found him useful because of his extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts is questionable–my guess is that they didn’t really consider him a friend either.

I’ve thought for a while that Petunia was referring to Snape as “that awful boy”. Snape, after all, is a half-blood, and would have had no trouble figuring out how to visit a fellow classmate who was muggle born–and if Lily had been nice to him in Potions class, or they had become friends, it’s possible he might have wanted to talk to her over the summer. Whether it was a romantic attachment or just a friendship, it doesn’t much matter; finding out that he (Snape) had betrayed the one friend he had might have been enough to make him go to Dumbledore.

When Snape first looked at Harry, the pain was from the back of Quirrell’s head facing him where Voldemort was residing. The reason that Harry felt Snape looked at him with hatred probably had a lot more to do with Harry looking just like his father–a topic which always seems to send Snape off the deep end. Harry would be a constant reminder of the student who made his life miserable and the one who made his life tolerable.

Friendship or love of Lily must make Snape’s feelings very conflicted every time he sees Harry, who seems to Snape to act more like his father. Too bad the two of them can’t ever seem to talk about what they are really thinking, as we’re guessing that Harry is really more like his mother–especially after Harry’s foolish entry into Snape’s memories in OP–if Snape had only let him apologize, as he seemed about to do, a lot might have been cleared up between the two of them. At some point, I really hope that they are both able to forgive one another, and that Snape is able to forgive the marauders. There’s a lot of need for redemption before Harry can use that power of love to defeat Voldemort–and most of it involves Harry coming to terms with his feelings for Snape–whenever Harry is blinded by his hatred, he makes some very poor choices. He needs to come to terms with Snape, who he now hates more than Voldemort, before he can face the task of defeating Voldemort.

Well, that’s water under the bridge now. We can only wait to see what happens with all of them in Deathly Hallows. But I still think there is much more to Snape’s tortured response when Harry called him a coward out on the grounds. Imagine being called a coward for doing the thing that Dumbledore wanted him to do, made him promise to do.
— January 13, 2007 @ 4:26 pm

****
Have you ever done a search on the Lexicon for “Snape”? It’s clear, when there are so many links to him, that we all find him to be the one character that is the most interesting–and the one that we cannot figure out.

I think, Nannette, that your assessment of Snape at Spinner’s End is just what we see on the surface, and it is what Snape wants Narcissa and Bellatrix to see (and where Rowling tries to mislead us into mistrusting him after she brilliantly made most of us trust him after OP).
But he is a spy, after all–I tend to think he is loyal to Dumbledore and to the Order. But it is the job of a spy to get the enemy to trust him and to give him information that he can’t get any other way. That comment that Snape made that he already knew the plan was a way of getting the sisters to go ahead and say more than they might have otherwise–and it worked on Narcissa. She didn’t give him all the information (as to who Draco was supposed to kill), but enough. However, Snape is good enough at reading other people to know that he still had not won Bella’s trust. He had no way of knowing that Narcissa would come up with the Unbreakable Vow or what conditions she would impose. So when he agreed to it, I don’t think he ever intended it to go that far. But once they had started and he had agreed to the first two, he was trapped into the third one of completely the task if Draco could not–saying yes was his only way of ensuring that Bellatrix would not run to Voldemort with evidence that Severus Snape wasn’t loyal after all–which is exactly what she wanted to do. After all, Snape seems to have replaced her in being the “Dark Lord’s” favorite–at least, that’s what Snape led her to believe.

When he looked out of the window after the sisters arrived, I think he was likely looking to make sure there weren’t a whole host of Death Eaters out there waiting–or could there have been some members of the Order, keeping watch, and that was a signal?

The point is, that everything the man does and says can be taken either way, and that’s the job of a spy, to appear loyal to whatever side he is dealing with at the time. One other odd thing about that scene at Spinner’s End, is that at one point Snape refers to himself in the third person, something about the Dark Lord knowing that he could trust Severus Snape. I heard once that when politicians do that, it’s a sign that they shouldn’t be trusted–it’s a way of detaching oneself from the persona that they put forth. And I wondered when I first read HBP if Snape said it that way intentionally, to call attention to who Voldemort thinks he is, rather than who he really is.

I do think that our best clues are in the things that Snape hasn’t done–he didn’t provide Umbridge with real Veritaserum when she tried to get information out of him and he did get the clue from Harry about Sirius and the Ministry, cryptic as it was. All he had to do in that instance was absolutely nothing. How easy would it have been to let Harry and the others trundle off to the Ministry to the waiting arms of Lord Voldemort, with no one the wiser. All he would have had to do later was to say that he had no idea what Potter was talking about.

He did try to protect the trio from Lupin, the werewolf–by going to the Shrieking Shack. But that image of him standing in front of them once they were back out and Lupin transformed was from the movie, not the book. However, he had another opportunity to get rid of Harry, while Harry was still unconscious (and so was everyone else) after all the dementors showed up. It was Snape who came to and transported them all back to the castle–were he truly evil, he could have got rid of Harry and Sirius at that point.

And of course, as Ellha David points out, Snape is still trying to teach Harry what he needs to do to protect himself–and there was another opportunity when he could have either harmed Harry or kidnapped him for the “Dark Lord”. Yet he didn’t–by fleeing, he got the Death Eaters away from the castle and all the rest of the students, he will be able to protect Draco (maybe), and Harry is still alive and out of the clutches of Voldemort.
****
The whole question of bullying is one that I think Jo has included intentionally. We are set up to admire and like James and Sirius–the stars of the school. Why do other people ignore their awful behaviour? Well, that’s what happens with bullies very often. As long as someone isn’t their target, they don’t try to stand up to them, feeling that if they don’t make them mad, then they won’t be on the receiving end of the bullying–and there’s Snape, the loner, getting picked on. Most teens don’t want to risk their own popularity or acceptance by standing up for the person who is the target of the school heroes. It’s to Lily’s credit that she at least tried. But I agree with Lisa Marie, that Lily probably did have a crush on James even then. Once he seemed to be better behaved, then she wouldn’t have found him so irritating. Many people who are bullies do finally grow up and turn out to be fairly decent people.

The question, really, is what happens to the victims of the bullies. Some of them are able to put it in their past and move on, and others are so deeply scarred that it affects everything they do for the rest of their lives. And I think that is what we see with Severus. There is also some indication in the memories that Harry saw of his childhood that Snape may have been abused as a child. Perhaps that’s the reason he knew so much about the Dark Arts before he came to Hogwarts–either he was taught by his mother or he learned it on his own to defend himself against his father. I remember when I was teaching there was a little 7 year old boy who would fight anyone over anything. He did come from an abusive home, and it was his way of protecting himself–strike first, at the slightest provocation, before the other kids had a chance to get the upper hand. That’s very much what I see in Severus Snape.

I can’t quite get to the point of saying that he loved Lily romantically. Though, if she did befriend him–perhaps in 6th year Advanced Potions–Snape might have felt the love of friendship for her or even had a crush on her. There was so much mention of Lily being so good at Potions, and being Slughorn’s favorite, that I just think that Snape, who we know is also very good at Potions, may have been thrown together with Lily, and they became friends. That could have been the reason he went to Dumbledore–finding out that his best friend, perhaps the only true friend he had at school, had been betrayed on his information.

There is a bitterness and cynicism in Snape’s admonitions to Harry during Occlumency about fools wearing their hearts on their sleeves being prey to the Dark Lord that have always made me think that it is just that sort of thing that trapped him into joining the Death Eaters in the first place. And as others have mentioned, in all the times that Snape lashes out at or against any of the marauders, and especially against James and Sirius, there is not one time that he includes Lily. Harry is the one who makes the assumption that Snape hated his mother as well–Snape never says that. Lupin was so distraught at the end of HBP that he let that comment go by, but I’d guess that when he really thinks about it, he knows that Snape didn’t hate Lily either.

Sorry for the length, but you all brought up such interesting things about our enigmatic Severus Snape.
— January 17, 2007 @ 3:35 pm

What is Severus Snape's Patronus?

2007-01-09T01:05:00.000-08:00

I touched on this the other day when I posted something about the title for the 7th book--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I like saying the name--somehow it feels right, even though we haven't a clue--well, no certain clues--what it's meaning holds. And as many thoughts about the Harry Potter books does, I'm led once again to thinking about Severus Snape--who is he, what is his role in the book, what was his real relationship with Dumbledore--the list of unanswered questions is long.

One of the unanswered questions is just what would Severus have for a Patronus. In answering a question about Patronuses, Rowling told us that each person's Patronus is unique, just as each of us is unique, and that the person doesn't choose which Patronus he or she has.

The subject of what Patronus Snape would have is a long one over at the Leaky Lounge. The following is my post in the discussion.

*****

In re-reading part of Order of the Phoenix, I was struck by the description of thestrals. Even though we saw thestrals, along with Harry, when they returned to Hogwarts, we first learn what they are in Chapter 21, "The Eye of the Snake", when Hagrid takes the COMC into the forest for a lesson.
But I found it useful to look at the different times we saw thestrals, and their description. Harry first saw them pulling the carriages when they returned to Hogwarts, but didn't know what they were. He's quite surprised to learn that he could see something that Ron and apparently most of the others, couldn't--except Luna.

OP, p. 196-7, US version:

There were creatures standing between the carriage shafts; if he had to give them a name, he supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too. They were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and satring. Wings sprouted from each wither--vast, black leathery wings that looked as though they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gathering gloom, the creatures looked eerie and sinsiter.

And on page 199, when Luna says she can see them too, and that Harry is not going mad, he says:

"Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide, silvery eyes."

We've heard Snape described as bat-like often enough in the books that quite a few people thought he must be a vampire bat, until Jo shot down that theory. But with all the swooping about that he does, and the sinister manner he has, he is very much like the thestrals--giving the first impression of something mysterious and eerie.

The next time Harry sees a thestral, it is flying over the Forbidden Forest--he has gone to the Owlery to send Sirius a letter, and as he looks out towards the Forest he sees it(OP, p. 282):

A great, reptilian winged horse, just like the ones pulling the Hogwarts carriages, with leathery black wings spread wide like a pterodactyl's, rose up out of the trees like a grotesque, giant bird. It soard in a great circle and then plunged once more into the trees."

But as Cho then enters, that's as much attention as Harry pays to the strange winged horse that he just saw.

(OP, p. 444, US)
When Hagrid takes them into the forest for a lesson, Harry sees them again:

A pair of blank, white, shining eyes were growing larger through the gloom and a moment later the dragonish face, neck, and then skeletal body of a great, black-winged horse emerged from the darkness. It surveyed the class for a few seconds, swishing its long black tail, then bowed its head . . .

Snape has black eyes, rather than white, but his eyes are closed and expressionless and unreadable to Harry, just as the thestral's eyes give no clue to its thoughts or intentions. Snape very often observes what Harry and the others are doing--sometimes commenting, sometimes not.

(OP, p. 446, US):
Hagrid tells the class that Hogwarts has a whole herd of them.Parvati says they are "really, really unlucky! --They're supposed to bring all sorts of horrible misfortune on people who see them."

Hagrid assures the class that that's just superstition--

"they aren' unlucky, they're dead clever an' useful! 'Course, this lot don' get lot o' work, it's mainly jus' pullin' the school carriages unless Dumbledore's takin' a long journey an' don' want ter Apparate--"

Hagrid tells them that the thestrals won't hurt them, and then talks about who can see them and who can't. (Only people who have seen death can see them, which explains why Harry, Neville, and Luna can see them, and most of the rest of the class cannot.)

After a frustrating interruption from Umbridge, Hagrid tells the class more about thestrals.

(OP, p. 448-9, US)

"Well, once they're tamed, like this lot, yeh'll never be lost again. 'Mazin' senses o' direction, jus' tell 'em where yeh want ter go--"

While all this is a great set-up for Harry's later need of quick reliable transportation to London, the description kept making me think that it was also a great metaphor for Snape.

Snape has always seemed sinister to Harry and to the other students. Yet, he has not (until the end of HBP) done anything to harm anyone (as Quirrell told Harry in Philosopher's Stone--Snape hated him (Harry), but he never wanted to kill him), only to save them; he tries very hard to teach them things that will be useful. His talents are likely under-used; he'd prefer teaching DADA because he is an expert and has been since childhood. But he's also quite good at Potion making, and Dumbledore has chosen to have him remain in that position--just as the thestrals are used for transportation and mundane things, rather than being used for their full potential.

Dumbledore sometimes uses a thestral for a trip to London when he doesn't want to Apparate--that makes me wonder what he has Professor Snape doing other than teaching Potions. Oh, wait--we know that one. He's turned spy for the Order of the Phoenix, often at great personal risk.

If the Patronus gives us clues about what the person's true character and nature are, then a thestral seems a strong possibility for Snape, who remains an enigma to the students and to the rest of the teachers. His appearance isn't warm and cuddly and never will be; he has an air of danger about him, just as the thestrals seem menacing, even though they make no move to attack any of the students. The thestrals can be relied on to take a person where they need to go, with very little or no direction needed. Severus Snape, as a spy, has been in much the same postion--he more than likely would need to rely only on himself in spying on Voldemort and the Death Eaters, all the while needing to have a clear idea of his destination.

Even the very last time we see Severus, he is continuing to do the task Dumbledore set for him--protect Harry (and the other students), and guide and teach Harry so that he is prepared to face Voldemort. On Dumbledore's word we accepted, as they did, that Snape was highly useful--guiding the Order in the fight against Voldemort--never losing his way, as it were.

I do like the idea of Snape's Patronus being a gryffin (see the comments for the post on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--the title for book 7), because of the Christ symbol, but I think it's possible that Rowling is using Snape's Patronus to give us a clearer picture of his character--and we may find those Christ-like connections in his actions rather than his Patronus.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--book 7 title

2006-12-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

I've been posting my thoughts on various forums and have yet to really post much here or on my live journal. So I'm posting both here and my live journal, in an attempt to organize my thoughts on the latest Christmas gift from Rowling--the title for book 7--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I'm glad to see that John Granger now has a blog (I'll add the link later)--it's a bit easier than a forum to keep up with and accessible to more people.Several things have already been brought up--I think it was Rob (rapierpen) who said that Snape is the Keeper of the Keys for Harry, just as Hagrid was the Keeper of the Keys for Dumbledore. I like that as it brings the relationship between Harry and Snape into sharper focus and importance.The other is that hallows--which can be a verb or a noun, but sounds more like it's a noun in the title of book 7 (DH)--could also refer to things being hallowed in a deadly place--that from Sandra.

A lot of us, including me, have been jumping from graveyard to graveyard with that idea. There's the one that Harry has already visited in GOF where Riddle's family are buried. There's the graveyard--or the one we think he will find--when he visits Godric's Hollow, seeking more infomation about his parents. Then there is the one that Rowling has said is at Hogwarts--the one that Cuaron couldn't put somewhere in the 3rd movie, because that wasn't where it was located. We did see Dumbledore's tomb, but it didn't seem to be part of a graveyard, so there must be one somewhere else. Who is buried there is still unknown. Most likely, the three founders who were still at Hogwarts after Slytherin left. We do know that no other headmasters or headmistresses are buried there, however--Dumbledore was the first. But I've wondered if James and Lily might be buried there--if James did have some family connection to Gryffindor, that might be reason enough, especially given the heroic nature of their short fight against Voldemort.

But the other place that might be a possible place is the Death room at the Ministry of Magic. That veil just begs to be reintroduced. It's one of those things that people discussed for months on forums, but no one ever really asked Rowling about it, except in reference to Sirius's death--was he really dead and could he come back? But never--just what is the veil, how is it used and what does it do and will we see it again?

I think it's likely that Harry will learn something important about his parents when he visits Godric's Hollow. I wonder if that will lead him back to the Ministry. The other room waiting for his discovery is the one that was locked--the one Dumbledore told him was filled with a great and terrible power, reminiscent of part of the story by Charles Williams, Descent into Hell, which I recently finished reading.

Those rooms both were so prominent in OotP, but then have not been mentioned again, or explained. The Death room, with the veil, seems that it could be something connected to Deathly Hallows--either a place where people are hallowed (as a saintly connection), or that the veil is a way to connect with saints of the past. I know, that's all too religious for many people. But it's very hard to go any place with that title without making religious connections. To ignore the meanings of the word, whether it is a verb or a noun, says that Rowling didn't do her research into the word properly. And the one thing we all should have learned by now, is that she is one woman who chooses and uses words very carefully, with the intent that her words will give us all the clues we need--but we will only see the full connection after we've finished the book.

Back to Snape--I always seem to get back to Snape. It's just doesn't seem to fit that he will turn back into the cardboard cutout of a baddie, after all the little hints we've had that there is much more to his story than Harry knows. Rob suggested that Snape is Harry's Keeper of the Keys, and that fits very well with my view that it will be Snape who works along side Harry to defeat Voldemort. But for any sort of cooperation between them--and I'm not looking for friendship, as that would seem out of character for Snape in particular--there has to be a resolution of their anger and hatred. They have to forgive one another; Harry has to forgive Snape for whatever part Snape played in James and Lily's deaths, and Snape has to forgive Harry for being his father's son. As for Snape's role in Dumbledore's death, there has to be more to it than what Harry (and we) thinks he saw on the Tower. Harry can't use the power of the love that Dumbledore kept saying he had with all that anger and bitterness getting in the way. And Snape can't be useful to Harry while he still is filled with hatred for Harry based on Harry's father and godfather.

The other thing that crossed my mind the other day--nothing to do with DH (Deathly Hallows), at least not directly--is that we still don't know what Snape's patronus is. But when I was reading a portion of Order of the Phoenix, there was a brief description of a thestral, as having bat-like wings. Rowling has described Snape as bat-like so many times that many have thought it means he is a vampire (sorry John), but couldn't it mean that his patronus is actually a thestral?

Hagrid describes thestral in OotP (US), on page 446:

". . . they aren' unlucky, they're dead clever an' useful! 'Course, this lot don' get a lot of work, it's mainly jus' pullin' the school carriages unless Dumbledore's takin' a long jouney an' don' want ter Apparate--"

And later, Hagrid gives more information about thestrals, p. 448-9:

". . . good stuff abou' thestrals. Well, once they're tamed, like this lot, yeh'll never be lost again. 'Mazin' senses o' direction, jus' tell 'em where yeh want ter go--"

And there is Snape, who hasn't been used to his full potential in teaching the students, as we saw from the abundent information in his old Potions text; Snape is just out there, waiting to guide Harry along the way in the final stage of his journey/quest. Snape, whose patronus if it is a thestral, is somewhat frightening and sinister, yet not at all evil or frightening when one understands him. It only take knowing the proper way to look at him.

Pat

(I've written a bit more on the idea of Snape's Patronus being a thestral in it's own topic, but I've left this part here, because of the thoughtful comments--and I didn't want to lose that part.)

GOBLET OF FIRE--Chapter One through Six

2006-10-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER ONE: "The Riddle House"
The changes from the UK versions are the most annoying thing to me, but that's a different rant, and I've gone down that path before.

One of the things I noticed when I was reading along in my US book while listening to Stephen Fry, was the changes in the text. I found it very interesting that the US version consistently uses "murder", while the UK version uses "curse", and also refers to "removing one more obstacle", rather than using the word "death". I'm not sure why they would change that--it seems to me that it changes the tone of the conversation between LV and Wormtail. But in the UK version, it is still clear to Frank that Voldemort had committed murder and intended to commit more. I do find it interesting to compare the differences--I think it can help us in trying to clarify some of the story.

Someone in the Leaky Lounge Reading Group discussion asked about "milking" Nagini, making the point that snakes dont have milk. When they talk about milking a snake they are talking about getting the venom from the snake. No, they don't have milk, but that's the meaning. So here we have Voldemort who killed unicorns and drank their blood in Philosopher's Stone, and now he is surviving and regaining his strength from drinking snake venom. It's one more image that Jo gives us of just how evil Voldemort is--killing the innocent for his own survival, drinking the poison from a snake, and willing to murder anyone who gets in his way. It's a picture of a being who has no humanity, even though he will have human form once again. I find this first chapter chilling.

I also remember when my daughter and I picked up our copy of GOF at midnight back in 2000. She started reading the first chapter out loud as we drove home. And when we got home we both realized that we felt lost. Who was Tom Riddle? We had forgotten the name (hard to imagine now). But we ended up looking back through POA for a reference to TR, and then through COS, where we found it. Until we got there, though, we were feeling very lost in this first chapter. I think it was partly due to the change in the point of view. We had gotten so used to seeing things through Harry's eyes and mind, that to see things from the narrator's point of view felt really odd.

I've read it so many times now, that I tend to forget how jarring that first chapter was. Not only the POV, but the tone of the events. It was a clear shift in the story. Any deaths in the first three books were references to the past; here we see the cold calculating way that Voldemort kills Frank Bryce--no moral struggle on his part, it's actually done in a very casual way, with no more thought given to taking another person's life than most of us would give to turning on a light in a dark room.

GOF is not my favorite book, but it does have some fascinating things in it--and when I am reading it, I always seem to get completely caught up in it all over again.

CHAPTER TWO: "The Scar"
I'd never given much thought to this chapter starting during the night and ending with Harry's room being filled with light. Jo makes it clear that this is a dream that Harry has while he is asleep, not a day dream, where he has just let his mind wander. It also shows Harry's isolation--he alone sees the events in the dream, yet he has no one with whom to share his visions. That's a stark contrast to most 14 year olds who could either wake someone else in the house or tell someone else about a scary dream in the morning. Harry doesn't have those options--and never really has had the option of sharing any of his thoughts with the Dursleys. Imagine how scary it must have been for Harry when he was little, sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs, if he had a nightmare with no comforting adult to turn to. So, it's no wonder now that he doesn't consider sharing this latest dream with the Dursleys. I think the only reason it's brought up, though, is that it's Jo's way of reminding (or telling, if someone is jumping into the HP books with this one) us that the Dursleys are not fulfilling the role of parental figures for Harry.

It is odd that there is a mention of no cats on the street--but that's one of those things that we don't really see as significant until book 5 when we learn that Mrs. Figg's cats help her watch out for Harry. So why aren't there any cats out when he looks out the window? Voldemort is miles away, and apparently no one perceives that there is any imminent threat to Harry--so the cats aren't needed on the street on that night.

I'm really surprised with all the times that Harry has dreams and can't remember the details at all, that he recalls as much of this one as he does. So, the fact that he can't remember Frank's name is not at all surprising. Harry seems to have one of the worst memories of dreams of anyone--something that I find hard to believe sometimes (as I remember many dreams in vivid detail), and also very annoying. It's likely that he remembers this one because it is such a clear vision of events, rather than the jumble that many of his dreams are. I think we see later that when it is a vision of what is really going on rather than just a random dream, Harry does recall most of it pretty clearly.

Mirrors in HP are always interesting, from the Mirror of Erised to the mirrors that talk at the Burrow and at the Leaky Cauldron, etc. But I think mirrors do something else--they serve as a way for us to see Harry in a different way. He looks at himself in his mirror and sees a skinny boy with unruly hair and his scar--it's a reflection of how he appears to the rest of the world. Usually, even though the story is not told in first person, we are seeing things as though we are sitting on Harry's shoulder and hearing his unspoken thoughts--third person limited omniscience. The point of the mirror here is to give us a more objective view of what Harry looks like. At the end of the chapter, he doesn't look in the mirror before going down to breakfast. He walks by the mirror without looking, more concerned about his inner thoughts that his outward appearance. Harry has more important things to deal with in his life than how the world sees him. That, in a way, might foreshadow much of what happens in this book--at first he is very concerned about what others think of him, but by the end of the book, he is no longer making decisions based on the opinions of those around him.

*****
(These are some additional thoughts I had on the chapter during the discussion at the Leaky Lounge.)
Posted Oct. 25, 2006
It's possible that Harry does have some sort of regard for Aunt Petunia, but I think that really, Jo includes a lot of things to remind the reader of Harry's relationship with the Dursleys--she does that sort of thing a lot in the beginning of all the books. Since Chapter One didn't begin in the usual way, all of those past references were put in Chapter Two.

HealerOne, I completely agree that to understand Harry's relationship with the Dursleys, we have to realize that he is an abused child. It's amazing that he is able to reach out to anyone, after the treatment he has endured in the Dursley's home.

Posted Oct. 26, 2006
I found this definition on an English class site--looks like it's taught at Purdue:

In THIRD-PERSON LIMITED OMNISCIENCE, the narrator frequently limits the revelation of thoughts to those of one character, presenting the other characters only externally. As a result, the reader's experience is conditioned by the mental state, the qualities of perception, ignorance, or bias of the filtering or reflecting mind.

For a more complete comparison of this POV, here's a link.

Where this becomes important in all the Harry Potter books, is that we are constantly seeing just what Jo wants us to see, through Harry's eyes, or as some have said, through the Harry filter. We get that in this particular chapter. We saw what happened at the Riddle House with Frank Bryce in Chapter One, but in Chapter Two, we only see Harry's memory of what he saw in the dream, his interpretation of it, and Harry's thoughts of who will react in what way if he tells them about the dream and his scar hurting. When Harry is ready to move on, then we must go with him. Harry has opinions that are sometimes right and sometimes not, but we keep accepting his POV as fact, when it is sometimes not a complete or accurate picture.

Posted Oct. 27, 2006:
(Someone brought up the issue of Christmas and Easter and christenings, and how that realtes to Sirius being Harry's godfather. As religion in general, is not to be discussed, I posted this, while trying to be politically correct--something I don't necessarily do well.)
Ok, I'll try tiptoeing around this one. I think that by having Harry christened and his having a godfather, it is more of an indication of tradition than anything else. No matter what Jo's religious beliefs are or aren't (and she's stated that in quite a few interviews), it is a tradtional thing to do.

No, I'm not British, but I'm basing this on what I've read and heard from people who are. In one of the sessions at Lumos that was about religion, there was a lady in the audience who was British. She addressed the whole religion issue, and explained that while Americans see Christmas and Easter as an indication of Jo's Christian beliefs, it is much more a social tradition to do certain things--the recognition has become very secularized. And aside from celebrating those two holidays, most people (in the UK) claim membership in the Church of England, are baptized (christened), get married there, and have their funerals there. Whether or not they attend on a regular basis is a different issue entirely.

That puts the whole point of Harry having a godfather in a different light, as far as I'm concerned. It says a lot more that James and Lily wanted someone designated to care for Harry if something happened to them, which is the point of a godfather. And that's really the only indication that Jo has given with that particular reference. I have some personal opinions about the whole thing, but they really belong in a different thread. It just seems like whenever this comes up, we need to keep in mind that we don't know her intent, but what we are reading is well within the guidelines of just following British tradition.

Posted Oct. 29, 2006:
(by madamros at Leaky Lounge)
Well, I am British, and yes, Christmas and Easter are traditionally-celebrated - religious or not. Weddings - if you want the big white wedding, then church it is. But Christenings - well, some people view them as one of the traditional things you do (and it sure helps if you want to send your child to a Cof E /Roman Catholic school - which tend to have better results than non-religious schools - slap my wrists for my cynicism!), but I wasn't christened, neither was my partner, and neither are our children. I went to a christening a couple of weeks ago - it was the first one I'd ever been to - I hardly know anyone who has had their children christened (and did I feel like a hypocrite!) - I can't easily imagine anyone having their child christened if they didn't mean it - but maybe that's me - making promises like that would make me feel extremely uneasy.
I agree that mentions of Christmas and Easter cannot be taken to indicate anything religious.

(And she added this about godparents:)
I'm going to disaree with you slightly there. A godfather is supposed to provide religious guidance, according to the traditional christening ceremony. They help to keep the child on the right religious path, and it has very little to do with taking care of them in any other sense. I agree that Lily and James would have wanted to designate someone to care for Harry if anything happened to them, but you don't need a christening ceremony for that. . . . In those troubled times, with James and Lily being high up on Voldemort's most wanted list, you'd expect them to have designated someone to look after Harry. Then again, Sirius was probably fairly high up in Voldemort's 'pack of cards' too - so did the Potters make Dumbledore the ultimate arbiter in who got to look after Harry? Certainly Dumbledore is the one who decided to place him at the Dursleys - Harry could have had a home with the Weasleys, or with any other wizarding family, but Dumbledore placed him with his only direct blood relative, Petunia (and Dudley is also a blood relative!).

Posted Oct. 28, 2006
--even in cases of proven child abuse, the abused child is sometimes horrified to find they are being taken away from the parent. Harry jumps at the chance to go live with Sirius after a very short time. However, children can also be very good judges of character when they follow their instincts. Harry is more used to relying on his own assessments of people and situations than most kids his age. The Dursleys never nurtured his trust in them, and they seem to have prevented much interaction with any other adults that might have become mentors or confidants for Harry while he was on Privet Drive. They seem to even hide him from the neighbors, with only Mrs. Figg being mentioned as an occasional baby-sitter. And her hands seem to have been tied by Dumbledore's wish for her to watch him, but not to interfere--as she said, had she been too friendly, the Dursleys would have cut off the connection.

I think Harry's willingness to move to a home with a relative stranger (who must have still looked a bit scary), is another indication of his strong desire for a family and a home life where he could feel safe and welcome, as he knows Ron and Hermione do when they go to their homes. Very sad, indeed.

It is possible that having Sirius as the godfather does have some sort of magical contract associated with it, but I don't think we have enough information from the books to really know--there's another question for Jo to answer--just how many binding magical contracts are there in the wizarding world?

Why does Harry think what it would be like if he were to tell the Dursleys about his scar hurting. I understand that, to Harry, that's an indication that Voldemort is nearby--which is what he has experienced in the past. So perhaps that's the reason that he focuses on the scar and not on the disturbing images and message from the dream. He realizes that his scar is hurting after he is awake, and the dream has already started to fade away, as dreams often do. Disturbing as that dream was, once once he realizes it's a dream, it seems to lose some of its threat and terror, and the very real pain in his scar becomes more important.

CHAPTER THREE: "The Invitation"
(Questions from Leaky Lounge, with my responses.)

1. We see a different side of Dudley this year. His parents are actually trying to do the right thing by him … or are they? What do you think of the diet and the whole family’s attitude towards it?
Well, they are only doing it because they are forced to put him on a diet. I don't think either Vernon or Petunia have any idea of what they really should be doing in raising Dudley. I'm not surprised that Petunia makes everyone eat the same thing--she knows from experience that if she allows any non-Dudley-appropriate food in the house, that Dudley will do whatever he wants and that will be to not stick to the diet. Petunia is now having to deal with the monster she created--she was like the parents you see in the store, with the child who throws a tantrum to get whatever they want and the parent buys it just to get the child to be quiet--and thus stop the embarassment. That tactic has been working for Dudley for all his life, and this summer, being denied his favorite foods must be a horrible blow to him.

2. The letter sent by Mrs. Weasley appeared most innocuous, the envelope amusing. Why was Uncle Vernon so offended by it?
But there's nothing normal about it--all those stamps? And then to have the mailman hand deliver it because he thought it was funny, was probably more than Vernon could stand. For someone who wants to be normal in every way, and to appear to be better than everyone else, having something odd single him out, was just too much.

3. For the second year in a row, Harry has played “Let’s make a Deal” with Uncle Vernon. Compare the “Aunt Marge deal” with The World Cup deal”. How do you feel Harry came out this time? What made the difference?
Harry's getting better. He's learned to be more tactful with Vernon, and certainly understands how Vernon thinks--better than he did at the beginning of POA. Then, he was very sarcastic with Vernon, now he makes it seem that he really doesn't care. If Vernon had realized how much it did matter to Harry (pleading and begging), Vernon might have said no, just as another way to punish Harry for existing.

4. It appears the Weasleys are planning on rescuing Harry whether or not he has permission. Why? What else might be going on here?
It's likely that they have cleared this rescue with Dumbledore. If so, Dumbledore has probably decided that Harry has been at the Dursleys long enough for the protection to continue (as we find out in the 6th book). And I think the Weasleys, who love their children and think of Harry as part of the family, have started to realize that Harry is not living in a place that is filled with happy family moments.

Some of the funniest moments in this chapter were unfortunately left out of the movie. And when you look at it, this chapter is full of set-ups surrounding Fred and George and their inventions and desire for a joke shop. Too bad. I'm sure it seemed like a frivolous chapter for the movie, but there really is a lot of insight into the characters in this chapter. It's one of my favorites--especially since it makes me laugh in a book that has so much darkness in it.

CHAPTER FOUR: "Back to the Burrow"
I've always loved this chapter because it makes me laugh--and it was such a shame it was left out of the movie, as it gives us more insights into Harry's relationship with the Dursleys, and with the Weasleys.

Questions posted at Leaky Lounge Reading Group:

1. The Weasleys, who said they would pick Harry up at 5:00, didn’t arrive until 5:30. What kept them? What might they have been doing during those thirty minutes?

As to why the Weasleys are late, I just assumed that it was one of their typical days where they seem to be running behind. Think how long it would have taken if all the Weasleys had come to collect Harry. I suppose the reason that the twins came along was to help with whatever luggage Harry had, and Ron would come because he's Harry's best friend. However, I'm sure the real reason the twins came was to get a good look at Dudley and to do just exactly what they did. The other reason they might have been delayed is that, since it's not normally allowed for connections between wizard and muggle fire places on the Floo Network, perhaps it took longer to make the connection. And just who was the contact that Arthur had that would do that for him? Isn't there a mention in book 5 about a specific person who works on the Floo Network who answers to Umbridge? Could it be the same person?

2. The Dursleys treat Mr. Weasley with a cold shoulder. Usually, such treatment is very rude, but were they justified this time, given that Mr. Weasley had just blown up half of their living room? Should Mr. Weasly of attempted to teach the Dursleys manners, or was he out of line with this action?

I would not be at all happy to have someone come bursting out of my fireplace, not to mention that it would be quite scary. So I can understand the Dursleys being less than thrilled. However, Vernon was always going to be rude to Mr. Weasley, no matter when or how he arrived, or how he was dressed. We get that indication from the questions he asks Harry when he wants to know what kind of car they drive and if they will put on normal clothing. From everything we have seen, Vernon lives his life to impress others by showing that he is superior. So dressing up in his best suit and waiting for them in the spotless living room is just one more way that he can show he's better than any wizards.

Whether or not we try to teach another adult proper manners is always a touchy subject. It's very difficult to do that in a way that isn't offensive. But I think that Arthur, who wouldn't think of not saying good-bye to his children or to anyone else, is so shocked by Vernon's behaviour that he just couldn't help saying something. And good for Arthur--it's one of my favorite moments when he sticks up for Harry. That is something that Harry hasn't had in his home life--a parent who takes his side when he is treated badly. It not only sends the message to Harry that he does not have to tolerate such shabby treatment, but it also sends the message to Vernon (and to Petunia as well) that said shabby treatment has been noticed. The scene in HBP when Dumbledore talks to the Dursleys is an echo of this one; Arthur is teaching the Dursleys manners regarding their treatment of Harry, while Dumbledore later instructs them on manners in general (inviting a guest in, drinking what's offered, treatment of Harry and of Dudley). Too bad the Dursleys didn't seem to get the point of Arthur's lesson.

3. Harry mentions that he doesn't really mind when he gets no goodbye from the Dursleys... Do you think this is true?

I'm sure on some level that Harry does mind that Vernon and Petunia don't even bother to say good-bye. But by now he is used to it, so it can't be a surprise. As others have said, I think he's more embarrassed that Arthur now sees how badly he is treated.

4. Aunt Petunia throws herself on top of Dudley to 'protect' him. It's the first time we see Petunia be anything like her sister. Compare this act of protection to Lily's act of protection for Harry.

Petunia does show how much she cares for Dudley--but then she thinks she is doing that all the time when she caters to his every whim. I wonder if Dudley had really been in mortal danger if Petunia's protection would have had the same kind of effect that Lily's protection did for Harry? I think mainly it's an example of what most mothers would do if they really felt that their child was in danger, and nothing more.

5. Ah, yes, the Ton-Tongue Toffees…did Dudley get his “just desserts”? (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. :wink: )

This scene is so funny in the book, but probably would have looked too fake in the movie. I still missed it, though. Mainly because we get one more example of the twins being just out-of-bounds with their behaviour. Not so much that it crosses the line of being cruel--or at least, not in this case, since it's Dudley, and by now, we don't like him at all. However, when I think about his tongue swelling and his parents trying to rip it out and crushing him, it is rather an awful thought that he could have suffocated before Arthur was able to reverse the spell. So it could have been a real disaster. But then, once that thought passes, I go back to laughing and feeling like greedy, piggy Dudley did get his "just desserts" (I love that, btw, Islwyn. :thumbup: )

CHAPTER FIVE: "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes"

Posted Oct. 29, 2006:
Questions

~ Bill and Charlie, even though older than the others, still seem to have the same sense of fun that the other Weasleys do, while Percy seems even more fussy than last year. What do we learn about these characters from this introduction to them?

Bill and Charlie are great. We finally get the whole Weasley family. Bill and Charlie, though now out of the house and working, are clearly love their family and have that special bond of the oldest brothers. And what we find is that Percy is the middle child--the one who doesn't feel that he has a proper place in the family, so he tries to carve out his spot as the one who did everything right at school and is now efficient in his job. With Bill and Charlie having been successful at school, and now having jobs that make then happy and make their parents proud, Percy has a lot to live up to. Of course, there are the twins who are a constant reminder of everything that Percy doesn't want to be. At school, people have talked about Bill and Charlie and when they were at Hogwarts, and everyone knows the twins because they are constantly getting into trouble. But in the Weasley family, because they are twins, they hold a special place--and they have each other, further isolating Percy. Ron, as the youngest boy, feels some of the same pressure that Percy feels--he has older brothers who have set a high standard in their family--Bill, Charlie and Percy because of their successes, and the twins because they are just cool. Ginny has a unique place in the family--the baby and the only girl. So that leaves Percy as odd man out--and this chapter points it out vividly, for the first time. (We've had hints of it before, but not nearly as strongly as this one.)

Percy reminds me of people who want so much to be respected that they will go to any lengths to garner that respect, and we see this in his obsession with getting things done for his boss. I feel sorry for Percy, but to be honest, it doesn't make me like him any better--probably because I know how horrid he's going to be about Harry later on.

~ What do you think was “the Point” Mr. Weasley was trying to get across to the boys about Muggle-baiting?

Arthur is constantly reminding his family--and everyone else, including us--that we shouldn't take advantage of others. In the case of wizards being able to do magic and Muggles not having a clue about it, the Muggles are easy prey for wizards who want to belittle or victimize others. So the whole speech about Muggle-baiting is a lesson for the boys (and us) that it's wrong to do that sort of thing. However, Arthur misses the point that his sons already have learned that particular lesson; they tell him that they didn't leave the toffees for Dudley because he was a Muggle but because he's such a git in the way he has always treated Harry. They're judging Dudley be his actions, not by what he is.

~ Mrs. Weasley is very worried about the twins' lack of seriousness, their poor performance on their O.W.L.s, and their constant antics. What do you think about her concern?

Like any mother, Molly wants to make sure that her children grow up to be responsible adults. And wanting to open a joke shop sounds like something that won't last as an occupation or won't be sufficient to provide them with an income. After all, there are already joke shops in Diagon Alley as well as in Hogsmeade, so the twins have some built in established competition. Given that we later learn of the emphasis that the teachers place on their OWLS and NEWTS, it's no wonder that Molly is concerned that the twins didn't do well. Sometimes it is hard for a parent to accept that a child has a talent that isn't easily measured by standardized tests, and I think that's part of Molly's problem. Living with a creative child who doesn't do things in the conventional way can be very frustrating, and poor Molly has two of them to contend with.

Arthur, with his own fascination for unconventional wizard things, is sometimes like another one of the children. Molly gets stuck being the parent who tries to keep everyone headed down the proper path of getting their education and being successful. It's just that the twins have a different view of what success is--and they see that it doesn't have to be boring and serious all the time, as Percy seems to think.

~ Harry, at last, is in a place and time that he feels ‘at peace’. Why? What are the components of the situation that brings him this peace of mind? Any foreshadowing here?

Yes, when we were talking about Harry having a home, I had forgotten that Molly does treat him like one of the kids, but I wonder if it's because she is so distracted with all the things the twins are doing at the time. Getting Harry to the Burrow was a rather chaotic affair.

I hope that Harry's sense of peace is foreshadowing that someday he will be at home, either at the Burrow, or some place equally safe and loving. I also noticed that the smells of grass and honeysuckle are mentioned. In HBP, when they are smelling the Amortentia potion, I Hermione smells freshly mown grass, which is one of the smells mentioned in this scene--foreshadowing that smells of the Burrow will be important to her, at least, later on.

*****
This chapter is full of set-ups for the rest of this book and for some things in future books. There is talk of the World Quidditch Cup, and of things that will be going on at Hogwarts, although there's not much of it in this chapter. We get Bagman as the sports hero who has got tickets for them. And Bertha Jorkins is tied to being in Albania. Dumbledore mentioned back in COS that he'd had reports that Voldemort was in the forests of Albania--we should get a clue there, but we didn't, and neither did Harry. With all of Percy's fussing about Mr. Crouch, we're given a beginning picture of what kind of person Crouch is. And at least, he would care that one of his employees had gone missing, unlike Bagman, who seems to readily dismiss it.

For me, this was just the beginning of my not trusting Bagman, though I always thought he'd turn out to be more sinister than just a cheating gambler who'd made foolish risky bets. I think in this one it was the easy way that he just seemed so uncaring about the welfare of Bertha Jorkins. Even though she doesn't have a stellar reputation in the MoM, it still seems that Bagman should be paying more attention to the whereabouts of people who work for him.

'MomofMoo' post='993248' date='Oct 30 2006, 10:53 AM']
Bill and Charlie, even though older than the others, still seem to have the same sense of fun that the other Weasleys do, while Percy seems even more fussy than last year. What do we learn about these characters from this introduction to them?

I wonder if Percy feels lost in his own family. Maybe he doesn't feel as physically able to compete with his older brothers or the twins (2 against 1) and competing against Ron wouldn't be a competition in an older brother's mind. So he decided to be book smart and a stickler for the rules. And when that still didn't get him the place he felt he deserved in the family, he began to look for it outside the family. I think maybe he is the middle child personified - desperate to be different in order to be recognized as such.

My point, in an earlier post, exactly. All the other children have their distinctive position in the family, but Percy is the one in the middle, who can easily get lost in the shuffle of all those Weasley children. He's not apparently good enough at Quidditch to make a name for himself there--do we ever even see him play? So Percy studies hard, which earns him a lot of praise from his parents, and then he is the only one who wants to follow in his dad's steps by working at the Ministry, which is another way of being recognized by his father. Percy's downfall is that he lets his ambition rule his actions rather than his common sense.

Ophus, I see what you are saying, but the big difference between Percy and all the rest of the Weasleys is that his sense of what is important and proper is completely out of balance. What happens at work has become much more important than what happens to his family. It's not healthy when a person places position at work and money ahead of all concerns for people, and that's where Percy is headed.

'madamros' post='992852' date='Oct 30 2006, 03:44 AM']
Yes, but was Crouch [i]really[/i] concerned about Bertha? Or did his concern stem from his knowledge that she knew his secret? Because when we finally meet Crouch, he doesn't seem the 'caring deeply about his employees' type, does he?

madamros, I see your point about Crouch's real intentions. Even though in this case, his concern is, as you said, more likely to be about what Bertha can tell if she is found, everyone seems to think it's in character for Crouch to be worried about a missing person. What I was trying to get at is the contrast between Crouch and Bagman that we get from this scene. And no matter what Crouch's motives are, he and Bagman do approach problems in a very different way; Crouch actually tries to do something, where Bagman is laid back and content to let the situation work itself out.

CHAPTER SIX: "The Portkey"

Posted Oct. 30, 2006:
'Islwyn13' date='Oct 29 2006, 10:30 AM' post='992194'
At Oh-dark-thirty the next morning, Harry, Ron, Fred and George are awakened by Mrs. Weasley.
I love it--I thought my husband was the only one who used the phrase O-dark-thirty. :lol:
Possible Questions for Discussion:
1. We have another confrontation between Mrs. Weasley and the twins. Why is she really so upset? Is it the Ton-Tongue toffees themselves or is it the disrespect they’re showing for her and Mr. Weasley by disobeying them? Or both? Or something else?

I think it is the disrespect. She has repeatedly told the twins how she feels about their inventions, and has already done things to stop them from selling them, and now she finds out that they are once again disobeying their parents. It might also be that, given what happened to Dudley, they might not want the twins selling those to anyone in the wizarding world--think of the repercussions if some wizard's child got hold of one. But mainly, I think she's just really angry at their flagrant disobedience.

2. The Ministry of Magic officials have to do a lot to help thousands of wizards arrive at the QWC site without Muggles noticing. Even if such huge gatherings of wizards don’t regularly get together, why does the wizarding community of Britain not have a magical place in which to hold such gatherings? They’ve had hundreds of years to come up with a place.

Interesting question. I had not thought of wizards having any sort of permanent place for things like the QWC. I guess I just assumed that they would move things around as a way of evading the prying muggle eyes--though Hogwarts is pretty stationary, now that I think of it. Or it could be that they had a place, but it was sold or taken over by Muggle developers and they've had to move to a new location.

3. We meet Cedric Diggory again here on this hill, and his father, Amos, for the first time. What were your impressions of them? What were your impressions of how Harry was greeted by Mr. Diggory?

It wasn't until the second or third reading that I really liked Cedric. I think it's mostly from the cool reaction of the twins. But Cedric is quite polite and modest here. Amos comes across as a father who is very proud of his son's accomplishments, but in a way that suggests he is probably enjoying Cedric's reflected glory. (I have a nephew who brags about his son in much the same way, and it's so annoying--makes it hard sometimes to be happy about my great-nephew's accomplishments.)

Amos is just so...... pompous when he talks to Harry. He clearly isn't considering Harry's feelings when he makes those thoughtless remarks about Cedric being the better flier. And something I just realized, is that Amos is very like Uncle Vernon in the way he talks about how wonderful his son is. The difference is that Amos does really have a nice son to be proud of, while Vernon just has Dudley. But this is another set-up for what happens later in the book--here we get a glimpse of what a nice person Cedric really is, how much his father puts him on a pedestal, and that, despite Amos being somewhat of a git to Harry, he seems to have a loving relationship with his son.

4. We also learn that the Lovegoods (i.e. Luna) live near the Weasleys. Any significance to that?

It is interesting that we get the Lovegoods in this chapter, but no mention of Luna's first name, and the Fawcetts, who have yet to appear in the books. I keep waiting for a Fawcett to at least get sorted. From the conversation that Arthur and Amos have when they meet and are looking for the Portkey, it doesn't seem to me that they live that close together--at least not close enough to do much socializing. They are just in the same part of the country, much as I'm near enough to Seattle, Olympia and Portland, but that doesn't mean that I routinely run into people from any of those cities.