Dumbledore Advice!!!? (Vote at bloomsburg)

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I happened to look at mugglenet today and see this. I knew you'd all love to read this little blurb about dumbledore dinner advice.

J.K. Rowling talks about her favorite characters to promote new Bloomsbury campaign
The UK publisher of the Harry Potter books is looking to find out which character is most popular worldwide, and author J.K. Rowling has chimed in to help get the campaign going.

She briefly spoke about her favorite characters in the series:

‘[My favorite character is] Harry, although I believe I am unusual in this, Ron is generally more popular (I love him too, though). Now that I have finished writing the books, the character I would most like to meet for dinner is Dumbledore. We would have a lot to discuss, and I would love his advice; I think that everyone would like a Dumbledore in their lives.’


Somehow to me it seems kinda creepy at this point to be wanting Dumbledore's advice doesn't it. After she showed us that he was a bit of a manipulative bastard, or I thought that was supposed to be her big reveal in the last book that he was a big of a jerk.

But I guess I'm not the right kind of fan. Wouldn't it be great if we all had a manipulative master wizard in our lives to give us advice!!

Screw that. I'm calling out the vote for Snape, he's on the list. They best they can come up with is list him as: Snape, Professor Severus
Potions master at Hogwarts. Head of Slytherin house. He hates Harry Potter.

Okay, they list him as a 'harry hater!' REALLY GUYS! Thats the best blurb you could give Snape, that he hated Harry! OMG! The guy that tried to save Harry's life is a hater! What a bunch of assholes.

So yea, I vote for Snape, what a stupid explaination for the character. I haven't taken the time to read every characters blurb, I'm sure there are more offensive ones on that list, goes to copy paste.

http://harrypotter.bloomsbury.com/funstuff/vote

List of who you can vote for; You can also write in someone who isn't listed:
Black, Sirius
Harry's godfather. Imprisoned for mass murder, but subsequently escaped from Azkaban.

Crabbe, Vincent
One of Draco Malfoy's henchmen. Has a pudding-basin haircut and a very thick neck.

Dementors
Creatures who feed on the happy emotions of humans. Employed as guards at Azkaban.

Diggory, Cedric
Student two years ahead of Harry. The Goblet of Fire selects Cedric and Harry to be the Hogwarts’ Triwizard champions.

Dobby
House-elf. Idolises Harry but gets him into lots of trouble.

Dumbledore, Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian
Headmaster of Hogwarts. Also Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

Dursley, Dudley
Harry's non-magical and slightly older cousin. Muggle son of Harry’s Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.

Filch, Argus
Caretaker at Hogwarts. A Squib with no magical powers. His cat, Mrs Norris, spies for him.

Flitwick, Professor Filius
Charms teacher at Hogwarts. Head of Ravenclaw house. Tiny wizard who has to stand on piles of books to see over his desk.

Fudge, Cornelius Oswald
Minister for Magic. Short, portly wizard with grey hair, who refuses to believe that Lord Voldemort could return.

Goyle, Gregory
One of Draco Malfoy's henchmen. Has short, bristly hair and long, gorilla-like arms.

Granger, Hermione
Clever Gryffindor student at Hogwarts. Harry's next-best friend after Ron Weasley. Her parents are Muggle dentists.

Hagrid, Rubeus
Keeper of Keys and Grounds and teacher of Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts. Son of a giantess and a wizard. Has a liking for strange and dangerous creatures, especially dragons.

Hedwig
Harry's owl and mail courier. Hagrid bought Hedwig from Eeylops Owl Emporium for Harry's eleventh birthday.

Kreacher
Very old house-elf to the Black family, loyal to the memory of Mrs Black. Resides at number twelve Grimmauld Place.

Lestrange [née Black], Bellatrix
Sirius Black's cousin. Married to Rodolphus Lestrange, a pure-blood wizard and Death Eater.

Lockhart, Gilderoy
Teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts in Harry's second year. Author of numerous autobiographical travel books.


Longbottom, Neville
Forgetful and accident-prone friend of Harry's. He comes from a magical family but thinks he is not very good at magic.

Lovegood, Luna
A Ravenclaw student with a dreamy voice and large misty eyes. In the year below Harry at Hogwarts. Her father, Xenophilius, is the editor of The Quibbler.


Lupin, Remus J.
Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in Harry's third year at Hogwarts. Member of the Order of the Phoenix.


Malfoy, Draco
Harry's arch-enemy at Hogwarts. Malfoy believes himself to be superior to Harry and hates Harry and all his friends.


Malfoy, Lucius
Draco Malfoy's father. A Death Eater and supporter of You-Know-Who.


McGonagall, Professor Minerva
Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall is Head of Gryffindor house and is the Transfiguration teacher.


Moaning Myrtle
Ghost girl at Hogwarts who hides in an S-bend in the first-floor girls' toilets.

Moody, Alastor
Retired Auror employed to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts in Harry's fourth year. Known as Mad-Eye Moody since he lost an eye in the fight against Lord Voldemort and his supporters.

Potter [née Evans], Lily
Harry's mother. She was killed by Lord Voldemort, but her dying to save Harry gave him magical protection.

Potter, Harry
Student at Hogwarts. Famous for having survived an attack by Lord Voldemort in infancy.

Potter, James
Harry's father. Killed by Lord Voldemort. In the same year as Snape at Hogwarts and became Head Boy.

Skeeter, Rita
Journalist who writes for the Daily Prophet.

Snape, Professor Severus
Potions master at Hogwarts. Head of Slytherin house. He hates Harry Potter.

Tonks, Nymphadora
A young and clumsy witch who is a Metamorphmagus, an Auror, and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Prefers to be called by her surname.

Trelawney, Professor Sybill Phyllis
Divination teacher at Hogwarts. Speaks in an ethereal voice and is given to (wrongly) predicting student deaths.

Umbridge, Professor Dolores Jane
Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. Also Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in Harry's fifth year, during which she also becomes Hogwarts’ High Inquisitor and Headmistress.

Voldemort, Lord
Son of a witch and a Muggle. Feared by the wizarding community, most of whom only dare to refer to him as 'He Who Must Not Be Named' or 'You-Know-Who'.

Weasley, Ron
Harry's best friend at Hogwarts. In Gryffindor house. Ron has flaming red hair and freckles, like all his brothers.

Weasley, Fred
One of Ron Weasley's older brothers. Twin to George. In Gryffindor house.

Weasley, George
One of Ron Weasley's older brothers. Twin to Fred. In Gryffindor house.

Weasley, Ginny
Ron's younger sister. One year below Ron and Harry at Hogwarts. She plays for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

Weasley, Molly
Ron Weasley's mother. Member of the Order of the Phoenix. She is very fond of Harry.

Weasley, Arthur
Ron Weasley's father. Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry of Magic.

Comments

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I don't known if it's just me but there seems to be a glitch where you can only vote for Lockhart. Which, IMO, is hilarious if deliberate.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

LOL!

I voted for Severus and didn't seem to have a problem, or at least I suppose I did as the next page thanks you for voting.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Nope, my cursor automatically jumps to Lockhart as well. I'm using Firefox.. Might this be the problem?

This just in, Lockhart is the REAL creator of internet browser Firefox...he says he named it after himself, because he's such a fox.


=p

[sigune.livejournal.com]

I'm also using Firefox, and I had no problem voting for Snape :).

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I managed with Internet explorer

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Yay Sev! Ruler of IE and Firefox.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I noticed that too when I tried to vote for Neville.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

My vote for Severus was successful using IE9.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Haha, come over to the dark side of IE9. You can vote for Snape here! (hehe)

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

Sorry, should have been clearer. IE9 = latest version of Windows Internet Explorer.

[sunnyskywalker]

What, no Percy on the list? I'm probably tied between him and Neville, but just had to use the write-in option to let them know that some people would rather meet Percy than, say, the Twins.

They couldn't add "Spy for Dumbledore" to Snape's job description either, I see. Potions Master, Head of House, Spy Who Helped Defeat Voldemort. How hard is that?

[sunnyskywalker]

Just had a thought - maybe you'd want Dumbledore's advice if you needed advice on things like "how to conceal vital information," "how to ignore the suffering of a troubled orphan you're responsible for," "how to convince someone to kill themselves for the greater good," "how to speculate wildly and pass it off as fact," and "how to claim humility while actually being really powerful and thinking you're smarter than everyone else." And in Dumbledore-ish fashion, JKR didn't say that and left us to conclude that she'd like his advice on benign topics.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

lol!

I just don't see Dumbledore as a great person to get advice from, #1 is, he never really gives advice does he? I mean, not really. Half the time he always seems to speak in elaborate riddlie-kinda-lingo that you go back and wonder, WTF was he actually talking about.

Wouldn't you want advice from someone like say...Hermione, who seemed to have the answers most of the time. Or on domestic issues...maybe someone like Molly.

I don't know if DD = the doctor Phill of the wizarding world.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I still haven't had a chance to read everyones info blurb on there but the fact that they list Snape as 'hating harry' seems kind of offensive.

Potion master and hater; thanks crapsburg for narrowing down our favorite characters into stupid infomercials.

I mean, they don't even call Voldemort murderer on his blurb and fricking Dementors are on the list of favorite characters people can choose from for goodness sake! WTH, they hate everyone and want to suck out your soul!

[sunnyskywalker]

I can't imagine why anyone would want to meet a Dementor. If it were just about favorite characters, I suppose someone could find them most interesting - but meet them? No way! As far as we know, they don't talk, so it's not like you'd get to do anything other than let them suck out your soul.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I don't know if choosing them favorite character means you want to meet them...but seems like a general idea of liking something means you think it's cool/great/yippie-full, they're not officially 'people' are they?

I could see maybe Dobbie, okay and...okay Hedwig the owl, yea fine thats kinda cute.

But Dementors as favorite characters? WTH?

[sunnyskywalker]

I was thinking of JKR, I guess, wanting to meet Dumbledore. It seems like there's actually different kinds of readers: those who "like" characters in the sense that they would actually enjoy hanging out, and those who can do that and think of "interesting to read about" as "liking." Because plenty of people will, say, react to "I don't like Character X" as a personal affront, equivalent to "You approve of someone I don't, ergo I don't like you" - even if you haven't specified why you don't like the character and it could be something as harmless as "It's a quirky personal reaction which I agree isn't rational for everyone else to hold, and I'm not even saying it's objectively right" or "I just didn't feel particularly attached to that one, but I don't care either way if you are."

Even with the thematic interest of Dementors representing everything wrong with the wizarding world (as Jodel posits), I can't imagine wanting to spend a lot of page time with them. They're the kind of monsters that work better when seen very little. But I suppose they could still be someone's "favorite" for thematic reasons?

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Well, JKR taking dumbledore out to dinner and having a advice chat seems a little weird. Looking at it for the humor that technically qualify as eating alone and talking to yourself.

On a similar dinner theme I seem to remember a comment about Snape was a character she wouldn't want to have dinner with. I guess Dumbles is somehow better meal company? I wonder what makes Severus such a bad dinner friend and DD a good one?

[sunnyskywalker]

I guess he'd be a bad dinner friend for Harry, but (up until the end of HBP) the other teachers, at least, seem to get along okay with him. (Maybe they enjoy most of his snarky comments about the students in the staff room.) If you aren't on his bad side, he might have a lot of interesting things to talk about.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of JKR, I guess, wanting to meet Dumbledore.

(Two Dementors meet in an alleyway)

Dementor #1: Hey! Long time no see!

Dementor #2: Wazzup?

D1: Hey, did you hear about how that bitch Rowling invited most of the characters from her books to a dinner...so that she could get advice from them?

D2: Yeah, she didn't invite the Dark Lord or Bellatrix Lestrange, but she invited that Dumbledore, for Merlin's sake! Hell's Bells, he turned out to be even darker than Voldemort, and the bastard's dead!

D1: Half the dinner party were dead, from what I heard -- James and Lily Potter, Sirius Black, Remus and Tonks Lupin, Severus Snape, Alastar Moody...even Hedwig the Owl and Nagini the Snake!

D2: And not one dementor! Like what? We wouldn't have any interesting or worthwhile advice to offer? Hell, nothing seemingly can kill us, wouldn't she want advice on that?

D1: She probably was afraid we'd suck out her soul and those of her guests...

D2: Shit, she doesn't have a soul! And as you pointed out, half of the dinner party were already dead, and those who weren't have pretty tough, lean souls, from what I've heard. We're probably better off we weren't invited.

D1: Yeah, you're probably right...but it's the principle of the thing...

D2: Don't sweat it...hey, there's a rave club around the corner, care to join me?

D1: Sure...

(They head out of the alley)

D1: Hey, did you hear about Leon?

D2: Leon?

D1: You remember Leon...worked at Azkaban with us for awhile, then became Bellatrix's Lieutenant Commander of Dementors in the Last War...

D2: Oh, him! I wondered what had happened to him...

D1: He's got a real cushy job over in The States...his employer is this really rich business man, Leon says he's invited to all of the meetings, and a good number of dinners...look at this picture Leon sent me, look how fat he's getting!

D2(looking at snapshot): Wow! He's obviously eating well! Wish we could get gigs like that!

D1: Leon says his employer has said he'd like more employees like Leon...

D2: So what's stopping us? What's this guy's name?

(as they turn the corner out of the alley, Dementor #1 produces a letter and pauses to read it under a streetlamp)

D1: Looks like...Donald...his name's Donald Trump...

D2: Hmmmm...let's see what snacks we can find in this club, then we'll get a message off to Leon telling him we'd love to come work for this Trump guy...

[sunnyskywalker]

OMG brilliant! I wonder who else has Dementors on staff? I hope they haven't been part of the Secret Service for the last century and a half, but it would explain some things...

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Given that both the Ministry and Voldemort were able to make deals with them, presumably they can communicate in some way. (Though now you've given me the image of Dementors communicating via charades).

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe they just give their magical PowerPoint presentation, and the Dementors nod for "we agree" and suck out their souls for "nah, we'll pass"?

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Well, Harry's description is one Snape would approve of, I think:

Student at Hogwarts. Famous for having survived an attack by Lord Voldemort in infancy.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I also wrote in for Percy. Poor man is apparently hated by everyone, including his creator.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

OMG, these explanations are - incredible. Couldn't resist to comment on a few. Voilà:
Crabbe, Vincent
One of Draco Malfoy's henchmen. Has a pudding-basin haircut and a very thick neck.
Not sure how they make that out. ASFAIK he was never described in such detail – just big und brawny. And isn’t it lovely that all you seemingly have to do to be qualified as a “henchman” is to be physically unattractive?

Dementors
Creatures who feed on the happy emotions of humans. Employed as guards at Azkaban.
On happy emotions. In a prison. Guess dementors like being on diet?

Dumbledore, Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian
Headmaster of Hogwarts. Also Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.
Um – apart from his headmastership all these titles never mean anything but balderdash. How about chief Macchiavellian character of the series?

Dursley, Dudley
Harry's non-magical and slightly older cousin. Muggle son of Harry’s Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.
On behalf of Vince and Greg, I call foul on this one. Where’s the fact that he’s fat?!

Goyle, Gregory
One of Draco Malfoy's henchmen. Has short, bristly hair and long, gorilla-like arms.
See Crabbe.

Lestrange [née Black], Bellatrix
Sirius Black's cousin. Married to Rodolphus Lestrange, a pure-blood wizard and Death Eater.
Ow! And again ow!!! So her being the wife of Rodolphus Lestrange (AFAIR a character with no speaking part) is her chief characteristic in the series? Really???

[sunnyskywalker]

But Dudley changed a lot over the summer! He worked out and got a big but fit boxer's physique! I find it hilarious that of all the characters, Dudley was the one who really did do that fanfic staple, the magic summer makeover.

It's baffling how they could think being married to Rodolphus - a complete non-entity we barely ever see - is more significant for Bellatrix than torturing Neville's parents. And being an Azkaban escapee. The things that actually matter in the books.

[detritius.livejournal.com]

A disturbing number of female characters appear to be defined by who they're married or related to. Maybe I'm being oversensitive here, but combined with the fact that the profiles of many of the female characters seem to have a lot fewer personal details than those of equivalent male characters, it paints an unsettling picture.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

I find it hilarious that of all the characters, Dudley was the one who really did do that fanfic staple, the magic summer makeover.

In fairness, it was more like a 10-month makeover, after a summer of dieting. I can imagine him training all year just so he could beat Harry to a pulp one more time.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Granger, Hermione

Clever Gryffindor student at Hogwarts. Harry's next-best friend after Ron Weasley. Her parents are Muggle dentists.

I'm seriously a bit shocked; I thought the official canon position was that Hermione and Ron were equal 'best friends' to Harry. And that's why one often comes across debates IN THE FANDOM where the fans try and rank them.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Yea, why is Hermione getting demoted to second best? Shouldn't she get extra points for saving their asses multiple times in every book?

Well madderbrad, you can join me in the outrage group of: 'They gave my favorite character a stupid description blurb'

I mean, it almost looks like whoever wrote these descriptions never actually read the book or maybe only read the first book.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Also cute how Umbridge and Trelawney get their middle names mentioned but Hermione (and Harry, and Ron) don't.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Well, remember, Rowling wasn't sure of Hermione's middle name, she equivocated between 'Jane' and 'Jean'. So maybe Bloomsbury just played it safe.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

I voted for Hedwig. :D

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

'I think that everyone would like a Dumbledore in their lives.’

Yes, because everyone likes it when important information is withheld from them, being manipulated and used with no consideration for their feelings.

The last thing I would ever want is a Dumbledore in my life. I'm not sure I could even wish one on my worst enemy.

[fishinginthemud.livejournal.com]

I think I've finally reached the point where I'm equally indifferent to every last one of them.