Harry Potter

Cool. It would be interesting to get someone elses perspective on it.And, yeah, I think with these big fantasy series there's something about the medium that requiers something special for a work to stand out and be generally worthwhile reading. Like Stephen Erikson and Brandon Sanderson writes more than decent fantasy, it just doesnn't really grab my imagination. There's something generic about it. The thing with The Wheel of Time is that I feel it gets a lot of things right, and it's certainly not generic, but I don't think it really reaches the level of Tolkien or A Song of Ice and Fire, so far. But it's definitely the one of the others I've read that gets closest.

Well, I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone while I was camping. I knew it was short but I forgot just how quickly it's paced. Like I remember most of the big "set piece" moments, but you get two or three of them every chapter. Not saying this is a bad thing, but it's so different from my memories of HP. I guess I must have read the later books more times than I remembered. I kinda wouldn't have minded a slower pace here, but I'm curious what I'll think of the pacing in the later books when I get to them.

The Americanizations are annoying but I wouldn't have understood a lot of stuff without them, and I doubt many other sub-10-year-olds would have either. Even when the fifth book was out, I had no idea what "hosepipes" were. Though changing "sorcerer's stone" to "philosopher's stone" still bugs me. The only other specific Americanization that jumped out at me was the reference to the "West Ham soccer team". Like, obviously they went through and changed all instances of "football" to "soccer" or "soccer ball" depending on context, but I'm actually really curious whether the original referred to a "West Ham football team" or whether JKR assumed even kids would know what West Ham is. I don't really know how popular they are.

Even in the first volume, there were all sorts of little hints at where the series was going. There's this one bit where Harry has an ominious feeling that Snape could read minds and I was like "aw yiss occlumency". The first book wasn't yet in full blown epic fantasy mode, obviously, but re-reading it drove home just how much the characters grew up (alongside many readers) over the course of the series. I really wonder what it'd be like to read the HP books all at once as a kid today, or even as an adult back when they were coming out.

I haven't seen the movie in four years, and watching it as part of a marathon leading up to DH2 was my first time watching in probably at least that much time. I do know recall in 2011 enjoying the film more than I thought I would based on discussions of it I'd had. Re-reading the book, various lines of dialogue kept bringing to mind scenes from the movie and specific actors' deliveries (especially Hagrid and Dumbledore lines, as well as the main trio). I don't consider this a bad thing since I feel most of those deliveries were spot-on. This definitely sealed my interest in doing a rewatch of the films after finishing the books, which I previously hadn't been sure about.

I'm gonna try and go through the Pottermore levels for book one before starting Chamber of Secrets since I had revisited it recently as a result of a discussion on here, but I dunno how much fun it will be going through the whole thing linearly, so I might stop or just skip around to particular parts.

Part of me hopes that I won't ramble so much after finishing each book but I like talking about HP, as I'm sure you guys can tell.

Well, the talking about it is certainly piquing my interest in reading the series. Mm, jumping into these long book series does have it's implications though. But I'm getting closer to wanting to do it.

Speaking of Americanizations, talking about this is reminding me of another one from OOTP.  In the first meeting of the DA, Neville accidentally calls the a "sorcerous stone".  But what was his slip of the tongue in the UK version?  "Phosphorous stone"?

Edit: Philological stone, apparently. Tolkien would be happy. http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Philosopher's_Stone

Bluebottle wrote:Well, the talking about it is certainly piquing my interest in reading the series. Mm, jumping into these long book series does have it's implications though. But I'm getting closer to wanting to do it.

Tell me about it, man. I'm still wrapping up my ATLA rewatch (it's going slower than it would otherwise because I'm watching on a schedule with people from another forum, though I haven't stuck 100% to said schedule myself). And I re-read "Cirion and Eorl" from UT over the weekend too, which kinda makes me want to take another crack at a LOTR re-read.

Noooo, don't start with that. You've only got me thinking I should reread LotRs now too.

God, I'm terrible at making choices.

It sucks because I don't want all my reading/watching time to be taken up with stuff I've already seen, but since it's been so long for all of these I feel able to justify revisiting them all now cause it'll likely be a couple of years before I do so again. I kinda like the idea of that; coming back on a semi-regular basis and seeing how the experience changes each time. Stuff like HP and even Avatar, which I was introduced to several years later, is already associated with memories from very different periods of my life and different things stand out to me each time.

It is odd how you keep coming back to the same things. Obviously nostalgia plays a role, but I guess there is a reason in the works themselves too. Because this kind of attention does require an, at least perceived, quality in what you spend time on. You wouldn't if it wasn't special to you, and if something is special it is per definition out of the ordinary. And as such there's not that many things like that. Like, we talked about this elsewhere, I have the feeling these big fantasy series quite easily can become generic, and it requires something out of the ordinary to.. make them out of the ordinary..

I guess what I'm getting at is that there is a reason you go back.

I think you're right about that.  There have been plenty of books and movies I've liked over the years that I haven't gone back to.  But of the ones I have, most of them are big fantasy series.  One of the exceptions to this is Pirates of the Caribbean, but when I go back to that one, it's really just for the fun and to some extent the characters.  I don't spend all that extra time mentally exploring the setting once I'm done reading/watching. But at the same time, it's by no means true of all fantasy that it captures my imagination in this way.

It does seem to require something special for one to go back to something. And while which quality makes you go back probably is quite subjective, it does seem that these works share something. A world you can loose yourself in perhaps? With Tolkien LotRs is like the tip of the iceberg, you can dig and dig into the backstory at the world which the book only hints at if you want.

Been browsing through Pottermore this morning. The format is still really annoying so I quickly switched to Googling for lists of JKR's exclusive essays, which are really the main draw for me, besides the Sorting Hat. I wasn't limiting myself to just the first book either. Of the ones I've found links to, some are pretty interesting, especially ones about characters, but others just sort of highlight the wacky worldbuilding and IMO are better left out of the spotlight. All in all an interesting look but I don't think I'm going to continue to consult it throughout my re-read.

Honestly though, Dumbledore's "I've written them a letter." might just be the most insufficient thing ever.

Yeah.. I started reading.. kinda..

Do keep us posted! I've taken a short break from HP at the moment to watch other stuff but am going to keep reading throughout the summer.

I'll certainly try. I'll probably be reading it over summer too. (Unless A Song of Ice and Fire distracts me. )

These are quite fun.

Umm...

Source: http://rogerregorroger.deviantart.com/art/Dumbledore-s-final-strategy-70458759

https://i.imgur.com/gAzusoX.png

malickfan wrote:

Umm...

Oh wow. Now I'm curious about that, though.  I recognize the scene as the pre-Yule Ball dancing lesson but I just rewatched it and there are no shots from quite that angle so I assume that's from outtakes/behind the scenes stuff?  And possibly shooped.

Why am I not surprised you went and checked?

If that was an 'outake' I'm not entirely sure I wan to know the context...

Oh the feels! That was truly lovely.