I have never seen more than parts of the first movie of the Harry Potter franchise, and I was bored and decided I would start to watch them. I’m about halfway through the first one, and I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but that Hermione is kind of obnoxious at times.
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Mart
Mysogynist.
Not Cole, Harry.
SFBayAreaGal
She gets better.
eclare
Never saw any of them or read the books. Just not interested.
HumboldtBlue
Despite having a gang of nieces and nephews and now grand nieces and nephews, I’ve never read the series or watch the movies.
West of the Rockies
@Mart:
How so?
craigie
She definitely gets better. Also, her being annoying is meant to be funny – chill out.
Craig
That shit gets way better and way more grim after Chris Columbus gets out if the way. The Deatheaters are our our contemporary Republican folks.
guachi
If you think Hermione is obnoxious then the actor is doing a good job and Emma Watson does a fantastic job portraying her as the series goes along. Hermione is supposed to be obnoxious and a know-it-all (and she does know it all).
Chetan Murthy
@Craig: I’ve never seen the movies, but I’ve read the books 3 times during TFG’s Reign of Error. B/c it was sort of comfort food in fascist times, to read about people persevering and winning even when their government was completely suborned.
Which makes it all the more painful, that Rowling is a TERF. Sigh.
Poe Larity
Harry’s father is Lord Vader. And Hermione is his sister.
Belafon
Imagine finding out your a witch born to parents who knew nothing about it, and being female on top of that. Now wait until you find out what a whole lot of wizards and witches think of people like her.
JimV
I heard that Hermione is J.K.R’s alter-ego.
I remain grateful to JKR for getting one of my nephews, who would have otherwise not been a reader, to enjoy reading. One of my best days as an uncle was when they were planning to visit me around 9AM on their way somewhere the day “HP and the Goblet of Fire” came out, and on a hunch I got to the mall at 8AM and found that Walden’s had opened early and had a stack of that hardcover book.
When they entered my apartment the book was on my coffee table facing out and my nephew exclaimed “What’s that!” and I replied, “That’s yours.”
I tried the first page of the first HP book with the talking snake and quickly determined I was well beyond its age range. If you want a good read, try R.A.Macavoy’s “The Book of Kells”. Or Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels, or Richard Russo’s “Nobody’s Fool”, or …
quakerinabasement
Yep. She’s a pistol.
Benw
@Poe Larity: guess that makes Ron the cocky smuggler
Lacuna Synecdoche
John Cole @ Top:
Yeah, um, about that … that first two films in the series are kinda chock full of suck. The second is much better than the first – mostly because of the scenes with the Weasley family, and flashbacks to the school’s earlier years.
They’re both directed by Chris Columbus, responsible for the Home Alone movies, Mrs. Doubtfire, and other kiddie dreck.
The third film is excellent, however. That one is directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who also directed Gravity, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children of Men, Roma, et al, and who is just an all around great filmmaker.
And the rest of the franchise after Cuaron is mostly pretty good too. So if you start to feel like giving up during the first two Potter movies, hang on until at least the third one. Or just skip straight to it. Either/Or.
Mary G
I was a diehard HP fan until JKR bust out as a TERF. People are funny.
The movies mostly suck except for #3 directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who declined to do any more. Chris Columbus directed the one you’re watching, which says it all.
The characters and issues get darker as the series goes along. I read the first one at the library and said meh, for kids. A couple of years later I had to go in for an 8-hour IV, forgot the books I planned to take and didn’t yet own a Kindle or smartphone so I was kinda SOL. I ran into a supermarket and amongst the ghost written James Patterson novels and bodice rippers were HP 2 & 3. After that I was hooked.
LeftCoastYankee
I saw the first few movies when my nephew was young and a big fan, then I’d seen bits and pieces of the later movies throughout the years following.
A while back during the time-killing part of the pandemic I watched the movies in succession. A lot different than my memory — much darker as most folks have pointed out.
I have a great amount of ambivalence for magic or superhero stories because they give the writer(s) a huge “get out of jail” card. Aside from the “chosen one” horseshit (I hate the English fascination with bloodlines and class), it was a pretty good ride.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benw:
He’s the Wookiee.
Kristine
Another issue is that the kids were very young when they started the series and needed to learn how to act.
Azkaban is my favorite because it ends on a note of hope. I’ll stop there.
frosty
Hang in there. I read all of them; although my kids didn’t. I thought the world JKR invented was brilliant. The movies? We went to the premiers at the Senator in Baltimore for every one of them. All the actors were excellent, especially Alan Rickman as Snape. And all the Defense of the Dark Arts teachers, although I’m really partial to Kenneth Branagh. He was a hoot.
As far as Rowling’s subsequent interviews etc.? Two thoughts – sometimes you have to separate the art from the artist; Clapton comes to mind. The other is my late father-in-law’s take on allowing anything political in his furniture store: “Why would I want to alienate half of my potential customers?”
frosty
@LeftCoastYankee: “Chosen one” bullshit. I give you Luke Skywalker and Miles Vorkosigan, to start with. I’m sure it goes back to the Greeks if not further
RinaX
The only one I actually enjoyed was the fourth one. The rest were kind of a slog. Haven’t rewatched them in years, though.
Tehanu
@frosty:
  Hear, hear. There’s a reason human beings want to hear or read stories like this. Also, I like your examples.
MisterForkbeard
@guachi:
So what you’re saying is that if anything, she’s over-prepared.
MisterForkbeard
@guachi:
So what you’re saying is that if anything, she’s over-prepared.
Villago Delenda Est
Hermione to Harry and Ron after they encountered the troll in the hallway: “I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed – or worse, expelled. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”
Yes, Hermione can be annoying.
Cole, you should read the books, first, then you can moan about the good stuff they left out of the movies.
Villago Delenda Est
@MisterForkbeard: Yes, Chuckles the Toddler would not approve.
piratedan
@frosty: tbh, I think that “class” and “messiah” thing runs thru every culture, we’re simply more intimately familiar with our English language examples.
I thought that Rowling did a very good job of maturing the narrative tenor to match the ages of the protagonists, which would parallel those of the young audience she was aiming at. I found the books to be richer than the films, as various threads and events were omitted for the sake of a more coherent movie experience, which I understood.
Still kudos to the casting director in finding kids who developed and grew into their roles (and sooooo many of them).
Villago Delenda Est
@piratedan: The growth of Neville Longbottom (and the always improving acting chops of Matthew Lewis) in particular is very noticeable from the first film through the last.
Walker
I tried several times to get into HP and couldn’t . And I have read fantasy for 40+ years. I think I have just drifted away from that writing style.
frosty
@Villago Delenda Est: True. Neville’s arc was impressive and the actor pulled it off wonderfully.
Sstarr
You should watch Arcane instead.
Noskilz
I enjoyed the films – pity the author turned out to be such a wanker.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@frosty: Miles Vorkosigan is an interesting variation on the “Chosen One” theme. The author describes his situation as “great man’s son” syndrome, and does some deconstruction. I like the in-book analysis of the character: “a sane government wouldn’t let him have a pocket knife, let alone a fleet command.” (Note that this analysis comes from his own mother.)
(I’d love to see a film/TV production of the Vorkosigan Saga, except that it’s difficult to find an actor with both the stature and the chops to portray Mad Miles. I suspect Peter Dinklage would be perfect for the role except he’s already aged out.)
As for Harry Potter: the books are one of those examples of the author learning their craft as they go. Happens a lot: see The Dresden Files, or even more famously, the Discworld series. Terry Pratchett once was asked if the Patrician in the first couple of Discworld books was the same as Lord Vetinari from the core of the series; his response was “Yes, it was the same character, but written by a much less talented author.”
I only saw the movies as far as book three, and never got to reading the seventh book, but I could see the first two movies as too-faithful adaptations of books by an author whose craft still had a lot of rough edges.
opiejeanne
@JimV: I thought the first book was poorly written, and she stole a lot of her ideas from other writers. Writers do do that,I know. The subsequent books were a lot better, she improved as a writer. I think the first couple of movies are better than the books.
MazeDancer
@Mary G:
It was sad to lose what had been a fun world to visit. But can’t support hate.
Amir Khalid
The Elder Wand reminded me of the legend of the Taming Sari keris.
The books do reflect JK Rowling’s evolution as a writer, along with the maturing viewpoint of Harry, Hermione, and Ron as they go from age 10 to age 17. So I’m fine with Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets not being as sophisticated as the later works.
I’m also mostly fine with the movies, with a couple of caveats: one, I wish Goblet of Fire had included at least some of Hermione’s well-intended but misguided venture into political activism. Two, I’d have liked to see some more of Voldemort’s very dark family history in Half-blood Ptince. As it is, you have to read the book to know that he was a Gaunt on his mother’s side, or that he murdered his Muggle father.
Frankensteinbeck
I haven’t seen the movies, and now that Rowling has gone full-on bigot I never will. Alas, I can’t death-of-an-author here. Rowling has a big, big megaphone, and she is a big part of mainstreaming anti-trans views in Britain. She doesn’t just have unpleasant views, she goes out of her way to paint trans women as predatory men in the public eye.
As I have mentioned a couple of times, in hindsight it shouldn’t be that weird. All that Voldemort/Death Eater shit isn’t about racism. It’s about British class politics. Muggles are all British lower class stereotypes. Pure bloods are British upper class stereotypes. Oh, and the big British racism is anti-Eastern Europe, right? Look at how they’re depicted. Rowling was never the equality warrior the books implied to American readers.
Then, too, look at the background assumptions of her world and writing. Look at what she takes for granted is funny. Rowling has a big, big mean streak.
Frankensteinbeck
Rowling is a real Greenwald-style bad faith arguer on the topic as well, damn near a stereotype Karen. She threw a public fit about how trans women harass her, doxxed and threatened her in her own home. What ACTUALLY happened was three people protested on the street in front of her mansion estate that is a historic landmark featured in tours and guidebooks.
Rusty
With 4 kids growing up during the run of books and movies have read and seen them all. We lived in the UK during 4 years of that time so we have a mix of the US and British editions. With our youngest, I read the entire series to him, that took a while!
ThresherK
@JimV:
Contrast: My wife is in her 60s and has read all the books. Then again, she has read Secret of the Kells, and a lot of what would be on the older edge of “YA”.
I never read the books (my reading runs to 98% non-fiction) but enjoy the movies, as immersive experiences, and also watching the three leads grow up, and the fleshing out of the worldbuilding. Aesthetically I prefer the look of the ones shot in New Zealand.
Oh, and if I see one more Ninny Left post that pic of Hillary as Umbrage, I may not be held responsible for my actions. Bernie is not fecking Dumbledore.
lurker
@Tehanu: with a nym like that, should we call you Tenar?
enjoyed the series and the movies with one child, another read some upon reaching an appropriate age. It gets harder to get into them now, with where JKR went, and she is not someone I pay attention to, so I am getting a surface patina of what she does publicly.
That being said, when my kids ask me what series I liked best, expecting me to say Lord of the Rings, I point to A Wizard of Earthsea and Ursula LeGuin. Not the easiest going, you have to handle dense prose, but she wrote amazing stuff on so many levels.
Tony Jay
That’s a really weird way of looking at it. The Weasleys are about as pure blood as you can get, but they’re dirt poor, and there’s tons of pureblood magical characters who are a million miles from upper class stereotypes. The Graingers are well-to do professionals, but it doesn’t stop the Death Eaters targeting Hermione for racist reasons. The whole Voldemort ‘thing’ is a Take That to Hitler (another charismatic gobshite who didn’t exactly epitomise the racial group he claimed leadership of) with the Pure Blood magical families who followed him into disaster standing in for the German elites (and upper class British types) who thought he was a useful tool for maintaining their status. It doesn’t exactly tack in all particulars because the British Magical Community are a hidden kingdom existing alongside but separate from the muggle world, but that’s what Rowling was going for.
The books were written in the late 90’s/early 2000s, waaaaaaay before the Murdoch Press managed to turn millions of people into Europhobic bigots. Sure, the Eastern/Central European characters in the books are stereotypical Ruritanian/Carpathian types, but they’re hardly presented as ‘bad guys’, just from a magical culture that’s different from that of the British characters. They also fought an open war against their version of Hitler, rather than meekly surrendering to him, and are mostly scandalised by even the suggestion that someone might hold Pureblood Supremacy opinions.
And it’s worth pointing out that Britain’s South Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities would be very surprised to find out that they’re not the main targets of British racism.
YMMV, but I think you’re working back from a conclusion here and have wandered off into the moors.
Scamp Dog
I read all the books, and enjoyed all but the last. I read it through, but it was a slog. Rowling had gotten too famous to edit, I guess, and it was just too long. But I loved the characters and the setting too much, so I had to find out what happened.
lurker
@Tony Jay: wasn’t me, but in other situations, wandering off into the moors sounds like an apt description for me…
thanks for the insight – helpful to understand a different perspective on this.
Tony Jay
@lurker:
No worries. I love the books (for all their flaws) and have read them to my boy twice. As a child-friendly f#%k y#u to bigotry, racism, self-righteousness and many of the other persistent evils of human nature they’re hard to beat.
@ThresherK:
Hilary as Umbridge. Feck, that’s lazy. The delightful Dolores is a wonderfully realised pen-portrait of the kind of preening, self-righteous, intellectually deficient, down-punching bully that is all too familiar on the British Right. A Hilary she ain’t.
And Bernie was no Dumbledore. He was more of a Xenophilius Lovegood, only with more houses.
lurker
@Tony Jay: Bernie has reminded me of Lovegood a few times – the tilting at windmills type. Knew a few older women and men who reminded me of Umbridge – religious clergy types (nuns and priests), school administrators of both sexes. There are plenty of American examples of these pretty universal types.
ThresherK
@Tony Jay: Okay, I’ll ask my wife who Xenophilius Lovegood is, but I’ll take in on faith that you’ve hit that nail on the head.
M31
yeah, Rowling got better as an author up to book 3, but after that she was so famous she was able to start ignoring her editors
Central Planning
I’ve read the books and seen the movies. There are plenty of characters that I don’t like, but I could really do without Ron. He’s just a moron, and I can’t believe who he ends up with.
Betty Cracker
Our kiddo loved the books and movies (and theme park), and we have a Potter marathon every Christmas, so I’ve seen the movies multiple times. They’re entertaining overall, but my favorite thing about them is watching the kids grow up.
It’s notable that none of the main trio of actors and very few ancillary actors were recast. Watching Longbottom transform from a homely boy into a handsome young man is amazing.
@Tony Jay: FWIW, I agree with you.
Amir Khalid
@ThresherK:
He’s Luna Lovegood’s dad.
Downpuppy
When the LP was small, and the books were coming out, I used to torment her by reading them out loud. She liked the books, just couldn’t take my Hagrid voice – a deep incomprehensible slurry of not quite words. Turned out she preferred Lemony Snicket, and read it by herself. (The Series of Unfortunate Events movie is garbage, alas)
Ken
Which makes authors who manage to pull it off more impressive. I really enjoy Randall Garrett’s “Lord Darcy” stories because he manages to make the detective genre work in a magical context, largely by never playing that “get out of jail” card.
There is one case that is a literal locked room mystery, and Darcy asks his partner, a magician, if someone could have teleported the key into the room. The response is, “No one has developed a spell that allows that, and if they did they would be using it to make a great deal of money, not to move one door key ten feet.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
I used to have a 90 minute commute to work, and the HP audio books were just right for that. Enough happened to keep me interested but I could still pay attention to driving. The only one I read was the last one and I was surprised by how some of the words were spelled. I had no idea Diagon Alley was a pun.
Tony Jay
@Downpuppy:
Ha! One of my favourite bits about reading them to Jay Junior was doing all the different voices, though when it gets to the later books and there’s eleventy billion characters finding a different voice for each one became trying. I’m particularly proud of my Dumbledore (Harris version), my Snape, my Luna and my Dobby, while my Hagrid waxed and waned between proper Mummerset and Lovegoodian Oirish.
It’s Christmas soon, maybe we’ll start the books again.
Tony Jay
@ThresherK:
Jeebus God, No! That way lies disaster!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@LeftCoastYankee: Much of science fiction has the same issue, that you could just basically have a “magical” solution to any problem.
That’s why all well-written stories involving magic or sci-fi (as Arthur C Clarke said, any sufficiently-advanced science is indistinguishable from magic) put in rules that severely limit the hero’s ability to use it to get out of difficulty.
I read and enjoyed 96% of the HP books. That’s 6.5/7, for some reason I bogged down in the last one. I enjoyed all the movies, and have a soft spot for all four young actors (I’m including Tom Felton) to the point that I have geeked out on more than a few YouTube interviews.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Tony Jay:
wandered off into the moors.
Note to self: book a trip sometime to wander off into the moors.
A few years ago, we did an overland trip across the UK that included a stop in the Lake District, largely because I’d read references to it so often and was curious what exactly the fuss was about.
You remind me that I’ve read equally as many references to “the moors” and I still have no idea what they are. Probably less touristy than the lakes though, I gather they run more to giant killer Hounds of Baskervilles and ghosts named Heathcliff.
Brantl
Read the books, they are freaking terrific. Especially the last 4. Ender’s Game was a great book, too, despite Orson Scott Card being a xenophobic nitwit, later.
Tony Jay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
When I think of ‘the moors’, I’m envisaging the scene from An American Werewolf in London when the unfortunate boys are too busy discussing the weirdness they encountered in The Slaughtered Lamb pub to follow the clear warning they received to stay on the path and off the moors.
Misty, low-lying, tough scrubby grass and isolated trees, rolling rather than hilly where it’s not flat, with lots of concealed dips and little brooks you can snap an ankle in. Mostly found in Yorkshire and the South-West, great empty spaces split by lonely roads and often knee-deep in sheep.
Great werewolf country.
Leto
@Betty Cracker:
Funny bit of trivia: the beds the boys had in the Gryffindor dorm were constructed during the first film, when they were all about 9-10 and maybe 5’ nothing. They never made new beds, so as the kids grew, they still had to film in the little beds. In the latter films the boys had to tuck their knees almost up to their chins to film some scenes.
Tony Jay
@Leto:
I’ve been to ‘The Harry Potter Experience’ outside Watford where they have tons of sets, props and costumes from the films, including the whole dorm bedroom, and I can confirm that they are bloody tiny.
JML
The movies are interesting: the first two have aged poorly (mediocre special effects, kid actors who are clearly still learning how to actually act and aren’t all that good, and a director who is competent and safe rather than interesting or brilliant), but get better as they move forward. The recast of Dumbledore from Richard Harris to Michael Gambon is unfortunate (RIP, Richard Harris); Gambon is far too angry most of the time and misses the kindness. I actually liked the movie significantly more than the book for #5, which had far too much all-caps SHOUTING.
But generally, the movies are pretty good and I still enjoy the books despite JKR being a shit.
SFAW
@Tony Jay:
And that paragraph is why Cole pays you so well. Or should.
SFAW
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Venetians with jealous/treacherous “friends”?
SFAW
@Tony Jay:
When I was a lad, having a moor nearby would have been pure luxury! We had to dig/plant our own, and carry in the fog from London!
Oh, sorry, wrong riff. Never mind.
Booger
@SFAW: You’re thinking of the moops. It’s an easy mistake to make.
SFAW
@Booger:
Never a Seinfeld fan, so had to look that one up. Thanks, I think.
Citizen Alan
To me, the most interesting thing about Harry Potter is how it abruptly, almost jarringly, switched from being a children’s fantasy series to being a YA fantasy series with just three words: “Kill the spare.” And what’s interesting about that (and I’m sure something JKR never contemplated) is that the assumptions of Children’s adventures and YA adventures are very different. In the former, the young protagonists have to do everything because all the adults are incompetent and silly. In a YA story, the young protagonists have to do everything because all the adults are evil. Case in point: I’m certain JKR never once anticipated furious arguments among fans over whether or not Dumbledore was, in fact, evil the whole time (frex, deliberately leaving an infant with an abusive family so that he could later be molded into the perfect (and perfectly loyal) child soldier).
Emma from Miami
@Tony Jay: I find fascinating how people read stuff into Harry Potter that just isn’t there — especially after Rowling showed that she was basically a carrier of political and social opinions that are becoming less acceptable in society.
Me, I have always been able to separate the artist from the work — a friend insists that I am in “some level of some spectrum” (actual quote). The books were aimed at kids and after the success of the first two, Rowlings found her groove of “growing” the characters with her audience. She does a damn good job of it.
ray
i find it a real treat to listen to Jim Dale read the Harry Potter series on Audible. He does over 200 different voices. As an actor he knows how to read in an exciting way. I listen to these stories over and over.
Leto
@Tony Jay: same! We went to HP World shortly after we arrived in the UK. Lots of fun, butter beer was good, and yes, those beds are tiny!
Chris
@Chetan Murthy:
It remains one of the best depictions I’ve ever seen of a society sliding into fascism (Carnival Row is the only piece of genre fiction I can think of that might edge it out – but one season as opposed to seven books means a lot less material there).
The ease with which the Death Eaters move through society because it’s really not that different from them; the authorities’ complete denial of the threat even as it’s rising; the paranoid invention of an increasingly outlandish threat from the antifascists (Dumbledore’s Army) that they feel more comfortable blaming and pursuing… all aged really tragically well in the Trump years, and sadly they’re still relevant as hell right now.
TheFlipPsyD
@ray: I love Jim Dale’s audio books and the HP series is on my lineup most nights to fall asleep to — I may be 50, but I still listen to bedtime stories every night to go to sleep :-)
Chris
@Tony Jay:
Yeah. The series does a pretty good job of showing variation across social and racial (or the book’s equivalent, wizarding blood) status. The Death Eaters span the entire class spectrum from the obscenely upper-class to the wizard equivalent of trailer park dwellers, and similarly recruits people of varying blood purity – because blood purity, like racial purity in real life, isn’t actually a thing.
Chris
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
I’d argue Harry Potter is also a deconstruction of the “Chosen One” thing; as it turns out, the only reason he’s “chosen” is that Voldemort believed the prophecy and tried to kill him, therefore turning him into the kind of person the Chosen One was “prophesied” to be. As Dumbledore tells him, do you really think every prophecy on record has actually been fulfilled?
Just Chuck
@Brantl: Ender’s Game was great, Speaker for the Dead was ok, Xenocide and beyond … nope.
Just Chuck
@Chris: Potter was also able to wield the twin of Voldemort’s wand, but I suppose that just meant he was a natural. Possibly imbued with extra power as an infant after making his saving throw against death.
Just Chuck
@Citizen Alan:
Whah? Pretty sure it was “Kill the boy”.
Just Chuck
@Citizen Alan: Doesn’t Dumbledore more or less admit to Snape in one of the later movies that he more or less manipulated Harry from the start and was willing to sacrifice him? Though I may be remembering more to the dialogue than was there.
Miss Bianca
@JimV: Somehow I have managed to read both Harry Potter *and* O’Brian’s Aubreyad with roughly similar levels of enjoyment. Huh.
Chris
@Just Chuck:
IIRC, because Voldemort’s wand left a strong mark on him when he tried to kill him as a child. So, another thing that only happened because Voldy made it happen.
Chris
@Just Chuck:
Yes, he does. I don’t remember the movie dialogue, but in the books, it’s admitted straight-up.
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
I really need to go through the Aubreyad at some point. But, so many books and book series already…
RA
@JimV: The first book is definitely geared to younger readers but the books “grow up” fast.
After reading the whole set many times, I thought the movies showed the scenes in the books well but I was disappointed that so much was omitted. It was necessary, I know, but each book could have been made into more than one movie.
dm
Umbrage as Hillary? In 2016 I remember the comparison being Hillary and Hermione, which seem spot on to me.
Hermione is more than a know-it-all. She worked damned hard for that knowledge (including (mild spoiler) taking one year twice so she could fit all the elective classes in). I have to respect that.
The second-worst part of the books, though, is that wretched epilogue to the last book, in which all the cast are seen to have risen to comfortable bourgeois lives in middle-management.
The worst part is what the author has come to represent.
J R in WV
@frosty:
Luke is why I haven’t watched any more of that series, terrible character, poorly acted.
Miles V on the other hand was well designed to develop from nearly murdered as an infant, seriously disabled yet evolves into a heroic character based upon strength of character.
When Miles rescued the gene-slave character who was designed to be a super-soldier and looked like she was part alligator, and worked hard to convince her that she was a fine specimen of feminine pulchritude — Very hard — that did it for me, a great human, a hero of manliness, a genius, all rolled up together, also a great series of novels.
Brantl
@lurker: Yep, that was fantastic.
dervy scram
lol Sounds like somebody wants to start dipping pig tails into inkwells
dearmaizie
Jeezus and Harry’s not?
And oh yeah, Obnoxious saves their bacon on several occasions.
Tony Jay
@dm:
Spoilers…..
Actually, the stage-play sequel reveals that Harry becomes Head Auror (though not a very good one) while Hermione gets the Minister of Magic post (and is unsurprisingly good at it). Ron ends up part manager of the family joke shop which is about all he could hope for, with him being such a useless gonk.
Connor
@Mary G:
Great observation. In fact, the series is incredibly dark from the beginning (after all, it starts with the offstage slaughter of a couple of families, plus attempted infanticide). So it isn’t so much that the series gets darker, as that the characters grow up and learn the realities that have always surrounded them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Just Chuck: It was “kill the spare” in the book. Referring of course to Cedric Diggory.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tony Jay: So right on about Ron. “Useless gonk” indeed!
Villago Delenda Est
While I still have the thread up, the final battle in Deathly Hollows the book was much more enjoyable than the flying around nonsense of the movie. Very importantly, though, Molly Weasley’s reaction to Bellatrix Lestrange’s taunt was the same in both the book and the movie. That was such a satisfying moment.
Kayla Rudbek
I’ve read both Harry Potter and Diane Duane’s Young Wizards (and the Feline Wizard spin-off) series , and I really wish that there was a miniseries for both the Young Wizards and the Feline Wizards series. But you might need to do the Feline Wizards trilogy in anime/animation in order to handle all of the special effects.
And I really loved listening to Mark Reads’ version of the books: http://markreads.net/reviews/category/feline-wizards/?order=asc