Harry Potter discussion--SPOILERS likely

Parent Cafe
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<p>From an interview with JKR… all the bits that were in the first draft of the epilogue but were cut out:
See: <a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>19 years later:</p>

<p>Harrry & Ron work Department at the Ministry of Magic, where Harry is now the department head. They have revolutionized it and the ministry evolved into a “really good place to be.”</p>

<p>Hermione is “pretty high up” in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, despite laughing at the idea of becoming a lawyer in “Deathly Hallows.”</p>

<p>Luna Lovegood is a wizarding-equivalent of a naturist, traveling the world looking for various mad creatures.</p>

<p>There is no hope for Neville Longbottom’s parents: “The damage that is done, in some cases with very dark magic, is done permanently.”</p>

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<p>I don’t understand why Hermione isn’t on the faculty at Hogwarts, or even the Head. I suspect it’s a carryover from the tradition (nee rule) of celibacy for Oxbridge dons.</p>

<p>And, Luna is a “naturalist”, not a “naturist”. If she were a naturist, Rowling might have to deal with the Parts That Must Not Be Named (otherwise consistently referred to in the HP books as “stomach”).</p>

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<p>Sorry for my typo… but if you recall, there was a bit of nudity in the last book…</p>

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<p>TheDad: Your humor about comment about Snape’s age exactly parallels Marianne’s mother in SENSE AND SENSIBILITY when Marianne dismissed Colonel Brandon as being old at 35. Are you a Jane Austen horcrux or just dreaming of being Alan Rickman? I think it’s the voice.</p>

<p>I join the troup disappointed by the epilogue, though again, must agree with TheDad that this is usually the case with epilogues. The only moment of real connection for me was the one already noted between Harry and Albus about house assignment. Wouldn’t it have been interesting if Rowling had explored Harry’s Slytherinish characterisitcs? </p>

<p>Yes, and Slytherins should be integrated into the fabric of “the good”, which I think Rowling is attempting to do with Harry’s comment to Albus indicating that it’s okay if he is assigned to Slytherin.</p>

<p>Obvious to us all, the series functions as allegory which often leaves characters one-dimensional. Rowling has created several axes here, but I think the central one is Voldemort–Snape–Harry as unloved boys who are presented with moral challenges. V chooses evil, Snape is both good and “evil” and Harry is good, which I think makes him a flat character at times. Or is that just Daniel Radcliffe’s acting?</p>

<p>The epilogue is rushed and doesn’t really deal with the problem of evil, which will certainly reappear. Rowling also misses the boat for me in the epilogue by not telling us who becomes head of Hogwarts. Without DD where will the guiding wisdom come from for this new generation?</p>

<p>About their careers – I think this is omission is most grievous in Hermione’s case. As the “greatest witch of her generation” her destiny seems quite important. But I don’t think we can call Rowling a feminist, and on that subject I do wish Ginny had been given more to do in DH’s.</p>

<p>I did, however, greatly enjoy the book and will introduce a dissenting voice here. I found the sections when the three were milling around very fulfilling and psychologically true. The dreariness is punctuated by the very magical appearance of the doe patronis, my favorite part of the book. (Maybe I just like patroni.) I knew this had been sent by Snape, signalling his goodness and demonstrating his true love for Lily. Since James was a stag, Lily would be a doe. </p>

<p>For me, the most effecting parts of the book were Snape’s story and Harry’s return to his birthplace. His march into V’s power, accompanied by his parents and a sharp appreciation of life itself, was also quite moving. However, at times the Christian elements of the story overwhelmed me.</p>

<p>I will miss Harry, but not as much as I will miss my DS as he goes off. He led the entire family into Harryland, even his older sister who resisted at first. He played Harry in a tiny play included in a Scholastic Weekly Reader (I wonder why, ha ha), and he sent us out for the book, and the rest, as they say, is history. Our children will be the only generation to read this series as the books are written, the only children to truly not know the end of the story, and I think they have quite fortunate in this. For me, my youth was marked by the release of each news Beatles album. That DS goes off, seventeen, just as Harry is in DHs, finished with childhood and the HP series at exactly the same time also seems fortuitous.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Nonsense.</p>

<p>Harry, Hermione and Ron all go back to Hogwarts, where they are given credit for “life experiences” and graduate with their peers. They all pass their exams, with Hermione earning the best results seen at Hogwarts in the past 10 years.</p>

<p>Harry takes the money from his Gringott’s account and invests it in George Weasley’s magic trinket company. Harry marries Ginny at the height of the company’s fortune, when he is a millionaire on paper. Unfortunately, clones of Weasley’s products start flooding in from Albania, where patents are not respected, nearly bankrupting the firm. Harry ends up selling his shares for just Knuts on the Galleon to a group of American Muggles who plan to roll the firm into Mattel. Harry takes a job as a teacher with a company that promises “we guarantee admission to Hogwarts upon completion of our prep class.” Having to work with young witches, wizards, and squibs leads him into a terrible butterbeer habit, and he hangs around “witch bars” talking about his defeat of Voldemort to anyone that will listen.</p>

<p>Hermione and Ron get hitched in a quickie wedding several years after the defeat of Voldemort. Hermione had gone on the Kent College of Amazing Studies where she had, of course, graduated summa cum magi. She had been off studying new world magic (in Hollywood, of course) and hadn’t seen Ron in four years. Ron had dropped by California on a sales call on behalf of the Firebolt Broom Company, where he was one of their top reps, and looked up his old friend. Hermione invited him to a party with “some of the most interesting people in the industry” and they got involved with some serious pixie dust. One thing led to another and they found themselves sobering up in Las Vegas with two wedding rings, an empty money pouch, and a new copy of “What Witches and Wizards Do.” The old magic was still there, though, and they decided that their marriage was the real thing. Ron moved to LA where they lived until their first child was born, when they moved back to England. “Los Angeles is no place to raise a magician” they said.</p>

<p>Luna became a writer for the Daily Prophet where her rising star drove Rita Skeeter into a desperately jealous downwards spiral of potions, false stories, and, ultimately, a job with the “eW” cable television network where she reported exclusively on the activities of famous young witches. Luna went on to win several writing awards, and authored a smashingly successful series of books for children of all ages, about the life and times of a young muggle named “Mary Taylor” and her adventures at the Calfshins Preparatory Academy.</p>

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<p>MM: I’ve this hypothetical dramatic streak, you see. I could do something approximating Rickman as Col. Brandon, could not do Rickman’s Snape any more than I could pull of Colin Firth’s Darcy. A man has got to understand his limitations. </p>

<p>I’ve not immersed myself as deeply in Austen as TheMom, but Austen is one of her gifts to me. We had a great sight gag on a flight once, if anybody caught it: I was reading P&P, she was reading LONESOME DOVE.</p>

<p>Your axes of V-Snape-Harry is accurate, I think, and Snape’s position is why I think he is the most interesting of the characters from a dramatic standpoint. Similarly, Dumbledore became much more interesting than the wise man archetype in the last two books.</p>

<p>I don’t know that JKR isn’t a feminist so much as the template for much of HP is the British boarding school novel, which I understand are pretty male centered. Just add magic and stir.</p>

<p>The HP books bracketed my D’s adolescence almost perfectly, ages 12 to 20.</p>

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<p>Brilliant, Washdad! Simply divining!</p>

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<p>OMG TheDad. I hope we’re not duelling again. I didn’t mean ONLY those kids graduating this exact year were lucky. How foolish that would be! my D is exactly your D’s age, and she has grown to love Harry too. He started out the girls’ age, but due to lags in writing process, ended up son’s age (t time of issue of books). Certainly, Harry can be just as meaningful to anyone, but S’s finish just with Harry’s just seem to add an extra smidgeon of poignance. They don’t call me mythmom fer nothin!</p>

<p>Have gotten both H & S to read P&P. Colin Firth sent nice English ladies to emergencies rooms. We prefer to call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.</p>

<p>P.S. I like Snape best, too.</p>

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<p>Washdad,
very well done…thanks for making me grin…</p>

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<p>In regards to no more DD. Won’t he still be giving out his great wisdom via his portrait?</p>

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<p>Loved the book - loved the series - missed the fun and exciting Hogwarts hijinks, but the gothic finale of the series was probably the right way to go.</p>

<p>But here’s what I don’t understand and have never understood about the world of witches and wizards. Exactly what is, and what isn’t death? All of the magical folk die, but except for Harry’s parents they sure don’t seem to stay dead for long. Dead people are active ghosts, they’re full-time faculty members, they show up as dynamic, intelligent, functioning beings in photographs and portraits, they can be summoned with magic objects, they loiter in toilet bowls, they get together and hold parties, they drink unicorn blood and grow new bodies and keep on living. Even when Harry gets killed, he stops at Heaven’s foyer to talk with Dumbledore (just like Bruce Almighty getting to chat with Morgan Freeman / God and going back down to Earth) and is offered the choice of becoming dead or staying alive. So why is everyone so concerned about dying when it’s apparently so readily reversible?</p>

<p>I found many things in the book touching but none made me tear up. What makes me tear up is JKR. Here’s a young woman and single mother who was living out of her car and wondering how to keep a roof over her child’s head, with nothing to fall back on but her own education and talent. Most of us would do whatever’s expedient to grasp at a modicum of stability. Instead she goes out and indelibly alters the next generation of young people throughout the world. Her story’s no less heroic than Harry’s.</p>

<p>WashDad - you’re awesome. I vote for you to get the contract to write the “HP - The Next Generation” sequel!</p>

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<p>MM: no, we’re not dueling.</p>

<p>Anent Colin Firth: we had reserved seat tix to see the latest film P&P, the ghastly Keira Knightly thing. We got there early but quirkily enough our seats were right next to the only other two people who had already arrived…earlier to order, early to get to the theater, I guess.</p>

<p>TheMom and I started our debates about the two BBC P&P adaptions…she prefers the Colin Firth as Darcy version, I prefer the David Rintoul. It’s an old argument between us, kinda like some of those standard openings where the first six to ten moves on each side are well known and “booked” accordingly.</p>

<p>When I got to the “Colin Firth standing up out of a bathtub is not the mark of a superior performance,” the gay guy to my right said, “I don’t know about that, I agree with her.” I offered to trade places so that they could sit together.</p>

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<p>I still like Dumbledore after that book though we now know that he has a human nature and a flaw. I think everyone (including myself) made him out to be a perfect example of wisdom and love. However, that is not how the world works, and I think that the author wanted to make that clear.</p>

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<p>TheDad: You’re a funny, funny man. Glad you’re a writer.</p>

<p>My mom said to me yesterday, “I saw the original P&P yesterday. Lawrence Olivier was gorgeous.” Don’t you just love it when feminist ideologues (I’m a feminist, even teach Women’s Studies among many other things, not an ideologue) insist that women don’t turn men into sex objects! My mom is 83!
Go mom. My dad looked like Robert Mitchum and she looked like Barbara Stanwick.</p>

<p>Hi Potterites. I am teaching a course on Psychoanalysis and Literature in the Fall at the community college level. I am thinking of assigning HP & TDH’s. Do you think it would make sense without previous books if I provided a synopsis?
Obviously, some will have read the books, and some will have seen the movies, but some not. The last time I taught the course everyone was a psyche major and quite bright. We read Caleb Carr (The Alienist) and the White Hotel as well as Freud’s case studies, but it was veery heavy, even for me.</p>

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<p>I’m still puzzling out all the death stuff, too, Gadad. I didn’t understand why DD cried when recounting his sister’s death. She’s dead; He’s dead, too. Aren’t they together now? I expected him to say something about seeing her again. I also kept waiting for Snape to appear with the other dead folks escorting Harry. Or Fred. Or any of the other recently dead.</p>

<p>I liked DD’s line about just because it’s in your head doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Will have to think about that some more.</p>

<p>I’m not sure I understand the pathetic baby. If it’s V, then why is he in a different form whereas Harry is regular? There is an allusion to V needing to “be a man” about death later on. I’m thinking it’s that part of V’s soul that has been blasted out of Harry (put there when Harry was a baby, so it’s still little), and it’s there because V isn’t dead yet (like Harry isn’t). </p>

<p>But if it’s a place for “non-dead” - what is DD doing there? I expected DD to come to the rescue via the stone - kinda foggy and on the other side of a barrier (like a prison visit!) But Harry touched him and was with him.</p>

<p>I’m also still a bit confused about the elder wand. When Harry disarmed Malfoy, Malfoy had a different wand. It apparently came to Harry because of his act of besting him. Does that mean that is the very first time in Malfoy’s life that he has ever been disarmed or overpowered? Or did I miss something?</p>

<p>[You see now why I need to know a fair amount before I even begin, or I would get hopelessly lost.]</p>

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<p>Concerning the baby… In the deuling chapter (Harry vs. V), Harry states that he knows what will become of V is he does not show remorse. My guess is that he will become the baby. The baby is in pain and dying and cannot be helped.</p>

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<p>I wouldnt assign HP & TDH without the previous ones…mainly because I hate reading series out of order, and it would ruin it for anyone who hadn’t yet read the first 6. :(</p>

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<p>Concerning the wand… The Elder Wand (like all wands) switch ownership after their previous owner has been defeated (either through death or disarming). Malfoy defeated Dumbledore by disarming him, thus the Elder Wand recognized Malfoy as his new owner. At this point, Malfoy has two wands (his own blackthorn wand and the Elder Wand). Although he has never physically touched the Elder Wand, it recognized him as the owner because its previous owner was defeated. Fast forward a year and Harry defeats Malfoy by disarming him. Therefore, Harry physically gains control of Malfoy’s blackthorn wand. Meanwhile, because its previous owner has been defeated, the Elder Wand has also switched possession. It now belongs to Harry.</p>

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<p>One of the things I found endearing about the epilogue was the part when the school kids are all staring at Harry, and he assures his kids who are too young to go to school, that the students are staring at him because he’s famous. And his kids laugh at him. I was thinking it was because he has, in his usual way, not full of himself and has shielded his kids from his fame.</p>

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<p>Wait, I thought Ron was the one who said something along the lines of “They’re staring at me because I’m famous”</p>