In unrelated news, by which I mean on-topic news, a few days ago Mike and I spent ten and a half hours talking to MuggleNet podcast hosts, and I spent another six hours doing that today, and I have about six hours to go. All of this in the service of creating little video interview bits to go between commentaries and be all cool.

Also, I'm moving right now.

...

That's all I got. I'm tired.

Yeah, I had a friend who i had known for almost 16 years quit being my friend after I got married. He didn't like my wife and despite all the discussions and fights we had, it never resolved. So, no matter how long you have been friends, there can be something that can set off such fracture.

Sorry for the personal drama interruption, and since I am unfamiliar with the books, but the idea of friends falling away has been a part of fantasy epics for, well, forever. Even "The Dresden Files" series, which takes a bit more of a realistic tone towards magic (i.e. magic power is not infinite, users fatigue, magical beings operate under different rules, etc.) has a character break with his mentor after 7 books.

Teague Chrystie...never doing anything half-way.

Also, you should get some sleep.

I hardly think it's contrived. For 6 years they have all been under the protective eye of some of the most powerful wizards in Britain (and arguably the world.) Then all of that gets pulled out from under them. 3 17 year olds trying to defeat Voldemort with no outside help, no definitive plan, and no hope.

Scene: Some generic factory.

Dorkman enters from the right, a light saber on his hip. Ryan enters from the left. Dorkman draws his saber, ready to fight his old nemesis. Ryan reaches, and pulls out... a wand.

Dorkman looks at it, surprised. Holstering his saber, he reaches down to his other hip, unseen by the view, and draws his own wand.

They fight.

I don't think there's a single duel in the entire series that even came close to a glimmer of what they should have been. And the ENTIRE battle for Hogwarts was such a massive let down, both on a character level and a magic level.

The thing that really kills me is that it could have been so amazing. The entire sequence of Harry choosing to leave the castle under the invisibility cloak is written to be filmed. Just absolutely silence, harry's breath as he watches the battle raging around him knowing this is what he has to do, and knowing that if he were to take off the cloak they would only try to talk him out of it, but this is the way it has to be and he can't do that to them. But instead what does the movie do... he walks out and they try to talk him out of it...great job guys, way to suck all of the subtext out of it.

For some reason I saw DH Pt 2 in theaters, and I was just sitting there the entire time...going w...t...f...

The scene of the bridge where Neville is yelling at the army 100 yards away like some preteen wannabe gangster still sends chills of horror down my spine.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-11-21 21:25:15)

First I will say, you ought to read the books before you see the movies. The movies cut out a lot of the personality of the books, but give you just enough of the plot to completely ruin all the surprises.

The mythology and world building are really fun and interesting, but the thing that really knocks people's socks off is the fact that it's not a series about "some misadventures" and "periodic throwdowns" with the villain. The first couple of books feel that way. It seems like the books are just going to be mystery-of-the-week where Harry and the Scooby gang thwart the villain once again, until the next installment, and that it could go indefinitely.

In the third book that all changes. It becomes apparent that these aren't episodic stories. They're all part of a single story, a seven-volume epic mystery, with clues for book seven laid as early as book one.

Just read them. The first two books you could do in a couple of days. They're okay, amusing but not astounding, but you have to read them because they're important to the overall story. Power through to the third. Most people are hooked by the third.

Alright... how the hell do I do this. This is going to be just the basic bullet point version...cause god...this could get involved.

Set-up: Lifelong HP reader, they literally changed my life at some very key moments. The movies are abominations that should cast into the fiery molten depths of mordor from wence they were forged.

The thing about HP for me is that it manages to simultaneous weave multiples threads together absolutely seamlessly that as a whole create something infinitely engaging and with a life of it's own. It's a story of this grounded, entirely believable in it's own rules, magical universe that exists parallel to our own and yet we never see. It's a story of these characters who we get to see grow up and mature and go from being idiot kids to fully fledged mature adults who have to deal with all of this shit that keeps getting thrown at them. It's a story about friendship, and love (in all it's forms) and what that really means. And all of that being spread on top of this deeply developed, living universe, that is fascinating in it's absurdity, cruelty, humour, and wonder. And it does ALL of this without ever feeling like it's doing it. In the moment it's fun, horrifying, laugh your ass off funny, but it never feels /DEEP/ or /IMPORTANT/ or full of itself.

That's my short short version pitch for people who didn't get to grow up with the characters.

And no... watching all 8 movies, if anything, will devaluate your HP experience (< might be biased)

And then yes, everything Trey and Mike said while I was typing.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-11-21 21:55:15)

I guess you could say I have a weird relationship with Harry Potter. I loved it at the start, hated it around the middle and found myself falling back in love with it near the end. But because I 'abandoned Harry' partway through, I don't really think I have the same level attachment that a lot of other people in my generation do.

I started reading the books around the time Goblet of Fire was published. I loved the first three (and still do), but the fourth not so much. When Order of the Phoenix came out, I was really excited to pick it up, but after reading it I pretty much gave up on the Harry Potter series.

Some years later when Deathly Hallows was released, I went along to a midnight launch with some of my friends who were big fans. I was not really too fussed when I got there but by the end I bought in to the hype. I ended up reading and loving the shit out of the book, so I went back and read the sixth for the first time and bloody well loved that too.

I'm not sure exactly why the middle of the series didn't do it for me, I've never went back for a second go. Maybe I should?

Last edited by Owen_Ward (2013-11-21 23:32:47)

You have to realize that a lot of people like myself were growing up just as the books were coming out, so they end up connecting pretty deeply to your own life experiences as you read them. I don't think they're the greatest thing ever or anything, but as someone born in 91, the books lined up pretty much perfectly for me, where I would age just as the characters aged (each book takes place over a single year, for the uninitiated).
Thus, the books end up being a pretty powerful story about adolescence and growing up, and get progressively darker and more complex just as my own sensibilities and outlook did.

It's pretty great that they start as very fun, lighthearted scooby doo mysteries, which is what you're super into when you're 8, and then by the time you're 15 they're about epic battles to the death. This means that you really feel it when the stakes get raised above the more innocent earlier adventures. I remember Order of the Phoenix being the turning point for me, where suddenly our kid protagonists are in these life or death duels with expert mass-murdering sorcerors, and there is an immense sense of "This shit just got real".

So ya, generally speaking, they're really good books, with good positive messages for kids (unlike garbage like Twilight) that I think end up resonating especially strongly with an entire generation of readers who grew up with them. I don't know how well it'd hold up if I went back to read them now as an adult, but I think it's the perfect series to start someone out on when they're 8 or 9.

I hope you mention some of this long-term stuff during the podcast, because I completely do not remember any of these "hidden seeds" that you're talking about from the early books. I'd imagine it's the kind of thing you'd only pick up on in a re-read as an adult, so I'm real curious what kind of stuff was set up early.

Many of them will have to be remarked upon in their absence, since the filmmakers didn't know they were important either and left many of them out.