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Jun. 26th, 2003 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia30 degrees Celsius out. Iced latte, what a lifesaver.
Anyhow I thought I wouldn't talk about HP5, not because of lack of desire per se but, well, adding waterdrops to a deluge. But there are bits I haven't seen anyone mention, so.
Noticeable effort put toward bringing setting into line with the movies and videogames, this time around: the spiral staircase, the house-point hourglasses, the common-room corkboards. Not sure whether these are details the designers dragged out of JKR during the consultation process, or if she just cribbed the bits she thought were nifty.
Major, major points for the way Harry/Cho was handled. Not so much because I like the way Cho was depicted, but of all the pleasantly John Hughesian slash TokiMemo teen-soap clichés I expected the Ginny-Harry-Cho triangle to devolve into, the realism of relational fumbling --> deciding not to give a shit --> dating other people was not one of them. Meanwhile, Hermione Granger narrowly refrains from laughing her head off at the poor saps and points out repeatedly that this is why she and Ron are skipping the whole "dating" step and moving straight to "bickering marrieds", only Harry's too dim to see it. Brilliant.
(Cho BTW is a highly typical, not unlikeable teenage girl of the "popular" subtype. Just that by this point Harry is as emotionally beyond her as he's beyond rivalising with Malfoy.)
Speaking of Harry being too dim to see (in ten years he'll be thinking back and will suddenly stop in the middle of the sidewalk and slap his forehead), all that BLATANTLY CANON Sirius/Remus? I suspect she's doing it on purpose to see if any wacky Bible Belters will burn her book for corrupting little children with crypto-gay. I know, call me crazy, but OotP as a whole exudes an aura of "I'm richer than the Queen of England, go ahead and ask me if I care. No, really, ask" anyway.
(And they won't. They haven't. Equating werewolf-prejudice with HIV-prejudice takes too much lateral thinking for fundamentalists.)
Speaking of which, out of all British celebrities who get their rubbish bins sorted by the tabloids, JKR has it good: she gets to skewer the media mercilessly right back.
Luna Lovegood. Ten bucks say she and her father sit around the house smoking maryjane all day, because no one volunteers for an Evil Lord bossfight that calmly without being stoned.
"Beyond the veil". *groans* Rip my heart out if you like, but have the basic decency not to make screamingly bad puns while you're doing it, kthx.
Always loved the wankcore analysts' theory that Neville was the "shadow hero" of HP, all the while filing it under "nifty but will never find its way into the canon ever". Now it turns out that It Coulda Been Neville, at that (500,000-word AU, baby, here we come). If this goes on I may even start believing in the Redemption of Draco Malfoy.
Phineas Nigellus: the man has style to burn.
Severus Snape: love you dearly. Seek therapy.
Umbridge: hateful but *not* annoying (vid. Lockhart, Skeeter), which for me at least will greatly increase the re-readability of the book.
All of you people saying The Death was unexpected and/or rushed? You're insane. It was more set-up than a Sophocles play. Also, Romeo and Juliet died because of delayed mail, and I have yet to hear anyone complain that the story was pointless. Consistency, j0.
Anyhow I thought I wouldn't talk about HP5, not because of lack of desire per se but, well, adding waterdrops to a deluge. But there are bits I haven't seen anyone mention, so.
Noticeable effort put toward bringing setting into line with the movies and videogames, this time around: the spiral staircase, the house-point hourglasses, the common-room corkboards. Not sure whether these are details the designers dragged out of JKR during the consultation process, or if she just cribbed the bits she thought were nifty.
Major, major points for the way Harry/Cho was handled. Not so much because I like the way Cho was depicted, but of all the pleasantly John Hughesian slash TokiMemo teen-soap clichés I expected the Ginny-Harry-Cho triangle to devolve into, the realism of relational fumbling --> deciding not to give a shit --> dating other people was not one of them. Meanwhile, Hermione Granger narrowly refrains from laughing her head off at the poor saps and points out repeatedly that this is why she and Ron are skipping the whole "dating" step and moving straight to "bickering marrieds", only Harry's too dim to see it. Brilliant.
(Cho BTW is a highly typical, not unlikeable teenage girl of the "popular" subtype. Just that by this point Harry is as emotionally beyond her as he's beyond rivalising with Malfoy.)
Speaking of Harry being too dim to see (in ten years he'll be thinking back and will suddenly stop in the middle of the sidewalk and slap his forehead), all that BLATANTLY CANON Sirius/Remus? I suspect she's doing it on purpose to see if any wacky Bible Belters will burn her book for corrupting little children with crypto-gay. I know, call me crazy, but OotP as a whole exudes an aura of "I'm richer than the Queen of England, go ahead and ask me if I care. No, really, ask" anyway.
(And they won't. They haven't. Equating werewolf-prejudice with HIV-prejudice takes too much lateral thinking for fundamentalists.)
Speaking of which, out of all British celebrities who get their rubbish bins sorted by the tabloids, JKR has it good: she gets to skewer the media mercilessly right back.
Luna Lovegood. Ten bucks say she and her father sit around the house smoking maryjane all day, because no one volunteers for an Evil Lord bossfight that calmly without being stoned.
"Beyond the veil". *groans* Rip my heart out if you like, but have the basic decency not to make screamingly bad puns while you're doing it, kthx.
Always loved the wankcore analysts' theory that Neville was the "shadow hero" of HP, all the while filing it under "nifty but will never find its way into the canon ever". Now it turns out that It Coulda Been Neville, at that (500,000-word AU, baby, here we come). If this goes on I may even start believing in the Redemption of Draco Malfoy.
Phineas Nigellus: the man has style to burn.
Severus Snape: love you dearly. Seek therapy.
Umbridge: hateful but *not* annoying (vid. Lockhart, Skeeter), which for me at least will greatly increase the re-readability of the book.
All of you people saying The Death was unexpected and/or rushed? You're insane. It was more set-up than a Sophocles play. Also, Romeo and Juliet died because of delayed mail, and I have yet to hear anyone complain that the story was pointless. Consistency, j0.
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 09:04 am (UTC)Amazing, wasn't it? I still can't get over just how many references there were to it. You'd think Rowling had been reading fanfic. ^_^;
Always loved the wankcore analysts' theory that Neville was the "shadow hero" of HP, all the while filing it under "nifty but will never find its way into the canon ever". Now it turns out that It Coulda Been Neville, at that (500,000-word AU, baby, here we come). If this goes on I may even start believing in the Redemption of Draco Malfoy.
Neville is my hero. Hopefully there's a fanclub out there for him, since he certainly deserves it. Draco still annoys me - that "Remedial Potions?" quote is worrisome.
And I know that we're supposed to be rooting for Snape's redemption or the eventual Harry - Snape bonding moment that the series seems to be leading up to, but I'm going to be contrary here and say that I hope Snape turns out to be evil. It'd be nice to see Dumbledore be really wrong about someone. At the very least, Snape better have had a really good reason for turning against Voldemort - if it turns out to be a crush on Harry's mother, I'm going to be annoyed.
Also, Romeo and Juliet died because of delayed mail, and I have yet to hear anyone complain that the story was pointless. Consistency, j0.
::laughs::
My favorite scene is still the Snape torture one. Nothing like that first moment when you realize your parents aren't perfect.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 10:48 am (UTC)so i did, and she'd only been 50 pages in, and she was like, "what?!? i could've guessed THAT would happen!"
wonder if i'll feel the same way. she's sending me her copy when she's done with it, thus meaning i get it for free. XD i mean, i would've gladly paid, but hey...free isn't so bad. XDXD
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 01:38 pm (UTC)Oh, yes. Let's hear it for emotional realism, eh? And Hermione just rocked me all over the place, really.
all that BLATANTLY CANON Sirius/Remus
Ahaha! Yeah. I mean... they gave a co-gift, c'mon. Now, JKR might still go there, in a lovely Harry-gets-snippy-with-Remus-who-snaps-and-tells-him-what's-what sort of way. Might. We shall see.
Equating werewolf-prejudice with HIV-prejudice takes too much lateral thinking for fundamentalists.
It's pretty amazing to me, too. Perhaps they're more threatened by "witchcraft" than by homosexuality? Or perhaps they care more about their religious trappings than their sex lives. *ahem* Who knows, really.
Always loved the wankcore analysts' theory that Neville was the "shadow hero" of HP
Oh, ditto. That and the "Percy will turn" debates from... er... how long ago was I in HP fandom, anyway? Shortly after my son was born. 2001, at best guess. But. Yes. Folks foresaw an imminent split with his family, but at the time speculations centered around the circumstances in which he might become a Death Eater. Close, but not quite there :)
Phineas Nigellus: the man has style to burn.
Yes. And... him running out of the painting in Dumbledore's office touched me in a strange sort of place. Because even in life I imagine he was an unpleasant, prickly sort of fellow, but that right there brought all his arch comments and vague haughtiness right down to ground level. *sniffs*
All of you people saying The Death was unexpected and/or rushed? You're insane.
Yes. In fact, it was so set up that I wondered for a while if it was all misdirection, only then I remembered I was reading a supposed children's book, and not watching a Joss Whedon production :D
Not cheapened at all by the foreshadowing, though, not to me. It was... just about perfect. Hit all the right notes. *sniffles and wanders off*
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 08:27 pm (UTC)*laughs* All to true, although that's probably one of the reasons why Romeo and Juliet always annoyed me.
But yes, 100% aggreement on the set up of Sirius death. I have been waiting for him to kick the bucket since book four. Of course that doesn't mean I have to like it, and having been reading comics/manga and watching anime since I was knee high tall, I'm going to go with the main rule 'If there's no body. He isn't dead'.
Yes, denial is indeed not just a river in Egypt. ^__^
hmmm
Date: 2003-06-27 01:18 pm (UTC)