Harry Potter and Quoth the Raven…

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harry potter, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling, Poe references I should be ashamed of, Pottermore, Rowling

Pottermore. (I should note, this is vaguely about my reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.)

Yes, I could hardly leave out my exploration of JK’s epic series without considering the full media juggernaut (don’t worry, I intend to discuss the movies).

Right now, I’m focusing on the website. Holy integrated marketing Batman! I think the people who thought this up use flash buzz words, wear whatever the modern day Don Draper would rock, and carry on the tradition of shit-faced by noon on Friday (at least that’s the way it used to go down at my dad’s job). It is very well done.

Let’s start with what it is: smash together Facebook (because there’s a social aspect plus some FarmVille qualities) and those old-school “point and click” adventures plus a few of those “Find your inner animal/mythical creature/sex goddess” quizzes, and you’ve got an idea of what it is. You can either interact with illustrations of the story, or play some mini-games.

The illustrations are very interesting to me. They include a brief quote from the book (and lots of links where you can jump over to buying the book) plus additional information Rowling wrote about the books. Sometimes the information is pretty interesting (like what she wrote about the Pureblood movement), but more often than not I’m amazed at how detailed this universe is in her head. One thing you realize reading her talking about the books is that she really did write what she knew, in a way. She drew a lot of inspiration from real life.

I also suspect the people involved in directing the design of the illustrations knew their psychology. All the faces are very vague, something which I imagine was done on purpose. When you read a book, you picture the characters a certain way (although in Prisoners of Azkaban there’s a very kabuki-ish illustration of Snape). These illustrations don’t interfere with your mental picture. The include things to find and places of interaction (generally a small animation triggered by a mouse-over). On the bottom there’s a progress bar, telling you if you’ve missed any objects or animation. And yes, like the goddamn mammal I am I want to make sure that bar is full! Thank goodness for the comments, as the often note where things are tucked away.

As far as the other aspects of the game, I’ve done the two quizzes (wand and sorting, Ravenclaw in case you were curious, although you can shape your answers to get sorted into a desired house, like Slytherin). I haven’t done many of mini-games. I made a potion once, and it was annoying, requiring you to do tasks in a specific time range and incorporating an incubation period (three minutes of nothing). The duels seem likewise annoying and are based tapping letters on the keyboard at specified times. It’s kind of “meh” for me.

I do have one overwhelming impression of Pottermore, gleaned form the videos where J. K. Rowling takes a minute to speak to us about sorting to her houses. I’m listening to her words and thinking to myself, “Goddamn is this woman tired of these books, and she still has four more to go for Pottermore.” It in fact reminds me of what the raven actually said: Nevermore. Hanging out with my sister’s kids, they were fantasizing about Rowling revisiting the universe, and I told them it’s not going to happen. She wrote seven books and helped make eight movies. She adopted a new pen name. She’s moved on.

Part of me wonders what will end up happening with Pottermore. It seems to me that people may become impatient, given the time it’s been out and the fact that only the first three books are done. I don’t know how much it supplements or enhances the reading experience. I like it because I like playing stupid games. Will I finish the series and then come back for the other four books? Probably, because it’s a free game in ways, and I do find some of Rowling’s exclusive material to be interesting. Or I’ll forget about it.

As far as finishing the series, I liked the third book more than the second, and the fourth movie (The Goblet of Fire) is my favorite movie, so it might be my favorite book too. I’m looking forward to it. Rowling’s comedic violence reminds me a lot of Dickens.

Harry Potter and I don’t know if I’m gonna make it man…

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harry potter, harry potter and the chamber of secrets, pop culture, pottermania

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett is shaping up to be one of those books–the kind where I read the occasional line to my husband, either because I want to, or he wants to know why I’m laughing. I greatly enjoyed this bit:

Human beings mostly aren’t [particularly evil]. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people.

The last bit was particularly amusing to me, because unless it’s an actual musician playing a guitar, I generally want nothing to do with that scene.

What does this have to do with Harry Potter? I felt the first book was halfway there to something that could elicit emotions from me, enough to make my husband ask what I was reading, but Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was just flat for me. It’s neither long nor difficult, but it wasn’t with any enthusiasm that I picked it up. Some of that probably has to do with the fact that the BIG REVEAL (Yer a wizard ‘Arry!) happened in the first book. It’s like those books you read, wondering when the characters are going to do it, and after they do you’re like, “Welp, done with that.” (This pretty much describes my relationship with the Anita Blake books.)

If I’ve reached the moment of satiety, why then, am I rereading them? It’s the rational question to ask at this point, if I’m already starting to feel lukewarm and I haven’t gotten near the long ones. It’s like after the third book they said, “All right, this is a gold mine, fire the editor that’s always red-lining long unnecessary passages of details.” Developmental editor maybe? Someone who loves Hemingway? The thing is, I’ve just started on this task, the task I gave up with one book to go, one that I happen to have gathering dust on a shelf. Chances of success are looking murky, especially given that I don’t do long series. So again, why am I doing this?

Lomonaaeren on fanfiction.net has written 270 Harry Potter stories, and she’s still at it. I downloaded Barbie Jeep by Kitty (produced by Hot Sugar!) for free off Adult Swim and found the word “muggle” in it and the charm “wingardium leviosa.” It’s like references to black poodles in literature. Pop culture is saturated with Harry Potter. People post pictures of lolita skirts to the group on Facebook and a discussion ensues about what everyone’s custom HP skirt would look like.

Pottermania isn’t something I quite understand, but goddamnit, I’m going to try. After all, I read both Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey out of morbid curiosity. HP can’t be any more difficult to read than Stephanie Meyers (I think seven books by Rowling works out to be about one book by Meyers). A Google image search with the keyword “yaoi” added is always enjoyable. It’s just everywhere, and I feel like maybe there’s something I’m missing, and I want to look harder. It’s not that I need it to mean the same thing to me that it does to other people, I just don’t want to leave any stone unturned. Not that any scientific study of HP will yield results that you can copy to make yourself into a successful author. If Rowling’s experiences with writing under a new pen name (a mystery that was reviewed well but sold little) shows us anything, it’s just how fickle fame is. Good thing I’m more interested in taking the HP experience apart like a clock as opposed to attempting to duplicate it.

Harry Potter and the Yes I know I’m behind the times (Part One of Seven)

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behind the times, harry potter, harry potter and the philosopher's stone, Potter Mania, religion and harry potter

Warning: A collection of idle thoughts, not a review.

Since the last movie was released about two years ago, Potter Mania has finally died down. There are a just a few terminal cases malingering. Even my niece has finally given up on asking me if I’d finally picked up the last book (the answer is still no).

The first book was released in 1997, so let’s say it was over ten years of madness.

This is the part where some people would get stuffy, claim to be immune to such things as peer pressure. I’m not one of those people. I’ll have another beer, and occasionally read books I wouldn’t otherwise (why hello there Millennium trilogy) because flipping everyone is bugging me about it.

The first six Harry Potter books fall into that category. It’s not that I didn’t like them, it’s just I probably wouldn’t have picked them up otherwise. What finally changed that “well, this is nice” to “no, just no” was largely the people in the throes of Potter Mania. It wasn’t enough to like the books, you had to love them. Never mind the deus ex machina feel I got from the endings or the fact that the characters had little gray in them, that the writing wasn’t really the type of thing that made me go SPLOOSH! Anything besides ejaculations of adulation got you one of those, “What’s wrong with you,” type of looks.

Now with no one examining me, and I’ll admit, a healthy dose of curiosity about why people love these books so much, I’ve reread the first one, thanks to Amazon Prime lending (because I don’t think I’d pay to read these).

First, I’d like to complain that the e-book is in American English and not English English. “Gray” should be “grey” and “soccer” spelled f-o-o-t-b-a-l-l. I’d been looking forward to the appearance of “boogies” (or however it was spelled, I would know if they’d not changed it) too. Oh well.

I am happy that prior to my rereading of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone I’d also given Dickens another chance. One thing that Rowling did very well pretty much leaped out of the page at me–her archetypes are fabulous. I wish I hadn’t returned the book, otherwise I’d cite some instances here.

We know Dumbledore’s delightfully dotty, the Dursleys are a load of prigs, Hermione (no, spellchecker, I don’t mean “heroin”) is an huge flipping nerd, and Ron the best friend. We know Draco is a rich bitch. She lays it on thick just like Dickens did with his characters, and much like Dickens, she’s good at it too. Of course, for me this strength was also a weakness, because in creating characters who were clearly good, or evil, or annoying, I became bored.

You could even talk about houses in terms of sitcom characters. Let’s go for The Simpsons. Milhouse would be in Hufflepuff, Lisa in Ravenclaw, Bart in Slytherin. I’m not sure to elect as the Gryffindor…maybe Maggie? She did shoot Burns. Possibly the dog, Santa’s Little Helper. Bravery is not a trait you see in sitcoms really.

The writing was better than I remembered, although I wonder if that’s just because this is an earlier novel, which was more tightly edited than the later ones. To me, it seemed as time went on, the book grew fatter and fatter, with more bits of plot and trivia I couldn’t be bothered to keep track of. In fact, were they all not out now, I wouldn’t be attempting a full reread of this series, because I’d never make it. Everything would get muddled, I’d be frustrated, and I’d be lured away by something nice and cynical.

While I don’t think I’ll ever fall in love with Potter (although I don’t mind some slash as light reading now and then) it’s easy to see why people did. For those who grew up with these books, I can see why the infatuation for them is so all-consuming that they might consider purchasing a $275 Slytherin corset.

Me? I want someone to explain why they celebrate Christmas. After all, they don’t even say, “Dear god!” It’s: “Dear Merlin!” One would have thought they’d stick with the original pagan holiday, Beltane, that Christmas replaced. They don’t even strike one as being Easter/Xmas type Christians, but somehow they go all out for Jesus’s birthday.

The only hint I can find is to look at the the pen name: J. K. Rowling. Very coy, it doesn’t reveal her sex, and probably reflects marketing data that boys are less likely to pick up a book written by a woman. Ditto I suspect for keeping this trapping of Christianity. As is, I know some people take issue with the books on religious grounds. I can imagine making them straight up pagans, instead of the garden-variety lapsed Catholics they could be, would have brought even more of this type of attention to the books.

Who knows though? I bet J. K. does…