Release, Record: 11/9 (Page 23 of 41)

Dammit
i have a wedding to go to that day

im in for these.  gonna have hangover but it'll be worth it.

Anyone seen this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_people_dear_readers

I set up a screening in college then couldn't make it - been meaning to revisit it since.

You'll enjoy this last one, then, the entire movie is gonna be errbody blowing the school to shit.

This is why we can't have nice words.

Zarban: You should check out the books. One of the central themes, which isn't really covered in the films, is that destiny is kind of bullshit, and the only thing that makes Harry "special" is that everyone has decided he is, beginning with Voldemort. It's actually mentioned that the prophecy in Order of the Phoenix could have applied to Harry or, of all people, Neville Longbottom. It's almost completely arbitrary that he decided it meant Harry and tried to kill him, and a TOTAL fluke that he failed. Everyone is talking about Harry like he's the Messiah -- but they've completely misread the situation.

Point is, it's a "greatness thrust upon him" type situation, with everyone just kind of expecting him to show up and save them and not realizing they should probably explain how. Harry spends the series becoming the hero everyone believes he is, which I think is far more interesting than if he just started that way.

Just because she's read more books than Harry doesn't make her better at magic. She says as much in Movie 1. She may be a quick thinker, which is fine, but I don't see her completing the mission without Harry.

I'm going to stop now because the idea that Michael is engaged in a Harry Potter debate via his phone makes me sad.

Again, I LIKE the movies. I just wish Harry weren't constantly having things explained to him by Hermione and used magic more that wasn't just knocking people down.

Last edited by Zarban (2011-07-08 22:11:29)

Sometimes I wish I could ReTweet forum posts.

Thirded.

And slightly more on topic. love the books, loathe most of the movies.

**Possible (semantic) Spoiler warning for the movies and books, just in case**

HP has loads of depth present within the books, so much that encyclopedic ones have been written by many just to explain parts of said depth. The books, in those cases (both the canon and...extracurricular ones) have the ability to flesh that out with no real worry as to length. *eyes Book 5/OotP somewhat fondly* This:

is a near direct result of Kloves having the task of compacting most of those layers of depth into an incredibly limited space while ALSO having the responsibility of communicating them to people who have not read/listened to the books and all of the backstory in detail. Hermione's (and several others') explaining has plenty of wiggle room in JKR's arena, but much less so in the movies. If I recall correctly, Emma is given other characters' lines/perspectives sometimes to serve that purpose.

The "knocking-down magic" stems from the book series being (at least at first) geared toward children (Now, that's most likely just one aspect of it, but.). Harry doesn't use anything stronger than Expelliarmus and Stupefy as his signatures because, as far as we see in the majority of the books, that's the most he was taught. Expelliarmus in Lockhart's Dueling Club - courtesy of Snape, where it blasted Lockhart pretty far off - and Stupefy because it was a submissive maneuver used (and the first one he's seen and heard the incantation to) in the Quidditch World Cup aftermath. Since those were the first offensive spells he was exposed to, they become his bread-and-butter for offense pretty much until he splits off from Hogwarts in DH. Then the more...complicated spells he learns after that are either from battle observation, or field necessity and Hermione/Ron/Other Significant Person using them with the incantations audible or shown to him (after which point, he is able to put them to use himself).

As for the rest of it, Harry's been put on a pedestal by the rest of the Wizarding World, who idolize him for something he has no idea how he accomplished or how to give a repeat performance, as it were. This gives him gigantic expectations to fulfill. Dumbles' reluctance to train him due to the man's (understandable) emotional attachment to preserving Harry's innocence provides severe setbacks to this. As a result, Harry needs a complex support system to fill in the gaps. Yet, the wider World sees nothing of that, they only get that "Ooh, he defeated the evil dictator before, so he MUST know how to do it again!" - with the cocktail of yellow journalism and a press monopoly thrown in to skew public opinion. As the series moves forward, he gleans the knowledge from his support system to finally do his task in the end like Mike said, but he would never have gotten that far without his friends and haphazard experiences each year filling in the gap left by Dumbledore's too-little-too-late training.

Trufax. *nods*

No Twitter account needed, Fido.