Let's Read Tales of Beedle The Bard, part one: The Wizard And The Hopping Pot.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Thought of starting a Let's Read of ToBtB. Let's say I have mixed feelings about it so far... :/



General Plot of the Story: Muggle-loving father dies and leaves his Muggle-hating son a slipper (presumably because the guy was...weird. :P). Guy's a jerk to other people because they can't use magic. The titular pot starts to go ballistic. Guy can't take it any more and changes his ways. Muggles get well again. Guy fits slipper on hopping pot (I shit you not), and the pot hops away...honestly, it's kind of like an acid trip. Bizarrely sweet, though.

Dumbledore's commentary (call it All There In The Manual): Dumbledore says, and I quote, "A simple and heartwarming fable, one might think -- in which case, one would reveal oneself to be an innocent nincompoop." (11) Well, good to know that Dumbledore's crankiness/bitterness has survived from beyond the grave. :P (Speaking of which, what's the commentary doing there? Is Dumbledore -- ghost-collaborating with Hermione? Is Hermione relaying his instructions? Is Harry? I'm so confused. XD) Nothing really of interest here (well, other than the bit about Beatrix Bloxam and the "ARGH KILL IT WITH FIRE!" reaction that a lot of the kids had to her...interpretation of "The Wizard And The Hopping Pot").

Thoughts: I will admit -- risking my own life -- that this is actually sort of sweet. Or would be, if the wizard had done the deeds he did out of the goodness of his heart (or if he wanted to change). *Cough* A Christmas Carol. *Cough* Mostly, he had a change of heart if only to shut the pot up. That said...it's mostly okay, so far. Not bringing out the nerd rage yet. (Well, other than Dumbledore's commentary, but...um, yeah)

Dumbles Rage-O-Meter: 5. It's bad, but it's within tolerable range. Continue. :)

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, why didn't Hermione just use THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD to find out about the goddamn Hollows? Seriously.

Wow, yes, that's another DH error, isn't it?

The plot of that book was so fantastically jumbled, but ... Hermione was given the Bard's book so she'd see the Hallows symbol that Harry had seen by huge coincidence at the wedding, thus knowing to go to the Lovegood's. But, yes ... all Lovegood told them was what was in the book anyway.

THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

Dungeons and Dragons

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Deathly Hallows read like a transcript of a game of Dungeons and Dragons with an inept games master. Nothing made sense and nothing happened except by impossible coincidences.

Re: Dungeons and Dragons

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Nothing made sense and nothing happened except by impossible coincidences.

Yes. It's ... embarrassing ... how Rowling's final books were so amateurish. It's funny ... had someone asked "Brad, could you write an ending to the HP series?" back in 2005 or 2007 I would have responded "no, I wouldn't be able to think up a good ending". No-one would have contemplated, not for a split second, of just inventing a heap of deus ex machina gimmicks and tossing them in, connecting things with "impossible coincidences". It's a practice that we all just automatically eschew as way too amateurish to even consider.

And then Rowling went ahead and did just that. It's ... incredible.

I have to retract, though, much of my ire of my earlier comment. Hermione knew all about the story of the Three Brothers, she even reads it out loud at Lovegood's. The only thing she didn't know was the connection between the Hallows symbol and the story; they went to Lovegood because of the symbol.

And because of the "impossible coincidences" that led to them knowing of his use of the symbol.

Re: Dungeons and Dragons

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

The games master pointed the symbol out when the Potteroids were at the wedding. Hermione goes *to paraphrase* "the games master wouldn't have drawn attention to the symbol unless it were important, we had better investigate this Xenophilius Lovegood purely on that basis."

[oryx_leucoryx]

The way I think we were supposed to understand it is that the only significant bit of information Xeno provided was that some people (he among them) believed the Hallows were real and the supporting evidence were stories about the Deathstick cropping up once in a while. She definitely read the book already before visiting him, connected the sign of the Hallows to the sign on Ignotus' tombstone, Albus' letter to Gellert and the sign Xeno wore. So the question is whether that was enough to start suspecting the Hallows were real artifacts, and how do Albus' comments fit in.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Yes, as I said in a later comment I'd forgotten that Hermione *did* know all about the story. She just didn't know about the connection between the symbol and the tale.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Ah. I see. Just checking. :)