The Big Harry Potter chat thread (spoilers *will* ensue!)
POSTED BY: PhoenixRose
UPDATED: Monday, August 7, 2006 06:16
VIEWED: 8605
PAGE 4 of 5
Ok i don't get it. Why do adults like Harry Potter? I always see grown people reading Harry Potter Novels on the train to work and I think 'Grow up'. You may ask 'where is the child in you?' mmmmmm ok if 10 year old kids can go nuts over Harry Potter, in their masses, its obvious JK Rowling aims her novels at kids. You don't see 10 year old kids going nuts over Lord of the rings or even Discworld novels. At the end of the day I am a grown up. I have never read a word of Rowling or watched a movie. SHe is a childrens writer, a good childrens writer. So why do I want to read children's books or watch childrens films(Ok Star wars, Shrek and Toy Story are kids films but that's different ). So Listen 'Harry potter and the stick of doom', your voice is broken now broke. SO go and tell all these annoying little brats to go and get into Star Wars. LOL
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Snape iws NOT bad...I will be proved right. If you want I can expound tirelessly on this, supported charmingly enough by a friend of a friend who actually reads them with a note book to jot down info...anyway, I won't unless asked, but he's good.
Why adults love Harry Potter...same reason we love Firefly... great, well written fiction with endearing, flawed, characters who make us believe in something better than ourselves.
I choose to rise instead of fall- U2
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The thing that bothers me about the line in the prophecy "neither can live while the other survives" is that, right now, both Harry and Voldemort ARE living at the same time and surviving. I understand that the general notion is that one of them has to die eventually, but just the wording of it tugs at my curiosity. The prophecy sounds pretty straightforward, but in my experiences in reading books prophecies end up meaning more than they seem.
To anyone who has a lot of time on their hands, I highly suggest reading the transcript at mugglenet.com of Rowling and the two webmasters discussing the sixth book. They held this interview immediately after reading the sixth book the night it was released. In my opinion, Rowling all but admits to RAB being Regulus Black in the interview, and they also talk about Snape and his allegiances ... anyway, here's the URL:
http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrinterview.shtml
(It goes on for three pages.)
Zee 
Mal: If he calls back, you keep him occupied.
Wash: What do I do, shadow puppets?
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I think what the prophesy means by "neither can live while the other survives" is that neither can be comfortable, neither can just go about their business, neither can stop looking over their shoulder until the other is dead.
I think there was plenty of build-up to the Harry/Ginny relationship. She was obviously infatuated with him, but too nervous (and young) to really come out of her shell. Then she got older, more direct, more charming, and probably prettier, and he fell for her. We see him being jealous and freaking out a little bit. I thought it was very well-written.
As for adults loving Harry Potter... Here's the thing, is that the early books are about younger kids and younger kids are really into them. But the later books are about older kids, since they get a year older in every book. It starts dealing with adult issues. Also, you can't know this if you haven't read them, but there is a lot of darkness. People die and things suck.
I do agree that 4 and 5 both seemed very rushed and I didn't enjoy them much, but I loved #6. I think that she put her foot down and took more time to write it, and also wasn't having crazy mood swings from being pregnant.
The movies suck. I stopped even going after the second one because they were butchering the story so badly. To tell the whole story in some of the later books especially, you would almost literally need an entire TV season (and how shiny would that be?). It just doesn't fit into a couple hours that well. And they changed things around and... BLAH!
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The second movie was a clip-show! And the werewolf in PoA sucked. And I still think Peter O'Toole should be Dumbledore...
Ooh, I can rant for hours.
The Snape thing is way too interesting to let alone. Conflicted, messed-up and bitter - he's been living a double (triple?) life for nearly half his own life.
What gets me with the books is the sense of a much bigger, darker world struggling to break free of a kid's book. The scenes we start to get that Harry isn't involved in (the Prime Minister, for instance) show a really complex society, with political issues. She's bringing her readers into that world, consistent with their ages. But there is some very dark stuff in there - the child abuse implicit in book 1 is lightly drawn, very Roald Dahl (did it remind anyone else of 'James and the Giant Peach'?) but by about bk 3 or 4, that kind of scene would be very much edgier.
And is anyone else squicked out about the thought of the fact that the Weasley house and all the secrets therein are now in Wormtail's head, and by implication, open to the Big V?
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Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Peter O'Toole should be Dumbledore!!! Seriously, why isn't he?
Rowling was, I think, unfortunate to get pigeonholed into the "children's book" genre after she wrote the first book. It is very, very difficult to break free of something like that once it's pinned on you. Particularly successful authors tend to be pressured to write the same type of book, which is why I think a lot of things are glossed over in the series; there's no real swearing written out and basically no mention whatsoever of anything sexual until book six, and even that is pretty minor. No pun intended...
So even though it really should be even more in-depth than it is, exploring more and more adult themes, she's doubtless being told from all sides to keep "writing for children". I know she was widely critized for putting death in the books, even though it wasn't until the fourth book, which is longer than most novels aimed at adults.
I'd almost like to see her re-do the entire series as a grittier story for adults.
"James and the Giant Peach"... I hadn't thought of that before, but it was pretty similar, wasn't it?
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can someone please tell me where the R.A.B thing came from?
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php
-try it out, I dare you
98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature
I'm so into Firefly, my butt glows in the dark.
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Um, Half-Blood Prince, maybe? You've read all the books, right? You didn't come onto a spoilerific thread without having read all the books, surely!
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The horocrux Dumbledore and Harry went for was a fake, and inside of it there was a note swearing the destruction of Voldemort from someone with the initials R. A. B.
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Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
Um, Half-Blood Prince, maybe? You've read all the books, right? You didn't come onto a spoilerific thread without having read all the books, surely!
of course I have. not reading all the books and then coming here would be F** exec level stupidity.
but, I haven't read it since it came out, and as you know I forget things.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php
-try it out, I dare you
98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature
I'm so into Firefly, my butt glows in the dark.
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