death to capslock

HPCOS: The Tally

2019-08-17T17:29:00Z

Posted by: chantaldormand

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Feeling guilty about being disinterested in or disliking Rowling's female characters

2019-01-27T15:48:00Z

Posted by: torchedsong.livejournal.com

The title is self-explanatory. After rereading HP, I realized how let down I was about the dearth of interesting and/or likable female characters. As someone who has a long list of favorite female characters from various books, movies, TV shows, and video games, the women in the Harry Potter books leave me cold or bored.

Now, granted, the male characters aren’t spectacular either. Harry is passive, Ron is average, Draco is a waste, Snape is a mess, Dumbledore is also a mess, Voldemort is a standard villain, and plenty of other male characters are either boring or obnoxious.

And yet, as disappointing as some of the guys are, I can still find something about them interesting or engaging. I can see their potential or humanity, no matter how static, simplistic, or irritating their characterization is (well, maybe with the exception of James; I can’t stand him no matter how hard I try - and I’ve tried.)

Maybe I’m being sexist and judging the women too harshly. Maybe I’m not giving Rowling enough acclaim for trying to write a variety of female characters in a story revolving around a young boy. Maybe I’m excusing the poor characterization and lack of depth in the male characters when they’re far from complex either.

Whatever the reason is - it is what it is. Even as a young girl who enjoyed the books, I only gravitated towards Hermione and Luna. McGonagall was the sole female authority figure I found respectable. The rest?
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HPPS: the Tally

2018-08-12T12:44:00Z

Posted by: chantaldormand

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'Dumbledore, A Personal Favourite White Boy?'

2016-08-27T15:24:00Z

Posted by: borg-princess.livejournal.com

Thought some of you may enjoy the read - I just came across this essay on Dumbledore that pleased me greatly. The facts are nothing new to us, of course, but they're outlined in a lovely cohesive discussion of his many flaws that fans tend to excuse or overlook.

And even though the author's not a Snape fan, I like that they acknowledged how Dumbledore screwed him over as well. I was of course furious with Dumbledore coming up with the plan to commit suicide via Snape (which unwittingly placed him in Voldemort's firing line over the Elder Wand), but I haven't thought of using the fact that this was done without informing the Order and thus squandering the possibility of any intel from Snape during DH. That could've been useful!

***The title refers to a term explained in a previous article, basically: "Personal Favorite White Boy (n.): A (usually white) male character who can commit acts ranging from “pretty damn douchey” to “outright atrocities”, but is constantly defended by or stanned for by a furious fan base who will go to any lengths to excuse their actions and vilify critics. A male fave who is portrayed as a precious cinnamon roll who are only ever victims and heroes, and anyone who says differently is evil or illiterate."

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Determinism and wish-fulfillment

2016-08-23T17:06:00Z

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

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Harry Potter & the Cursed Child

2016-06-09T20:58:00Z

Posted by: borg-princess.livejournal.com

For anyone who's curious, the plot of the play has been discussed in spoilery comments at the following links:

Source 1

Source 2

~~Source 3~~ UPDATE: Snitchseeker took down their spoilers as JKR called out another website for doing the same and TPTB have been contacting people to request they don't post any details. *eyeroll*

But never fear, Andrew Sims of Hypable (whom JKR called 'Wormtaily' for betraying the secret, lmao) linked to a cohesive recap of the entire two-part play.

When I first read about this, I thought it was someone trolling, but there's multiple sources? Either there's a conspiracy afoot or it's legit, IDK what to believe!

What kind of crappy fanfic, lmao! A Time-Turner plot, seriously? To save CEDRIC DIGGORY, of all people, wtf?

How shitty that anti-Slytherin prejudice is still going strong to the point that Albus is ostracized for being sorted into Slytherin. :/

Cackling at Ron & Hermione never getting together as a result of the temporal shenanigans, hehe. But I'm pissed that her being single results in her becoming a bitter Hogwarts teacher as opposed to happily married Hermione being the Minister of Magic, the implications there are pretty gross.

I can't even process everything I just read. Wow. JKR should be fired from her own world, just what even.

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Harry Potter vs. Iron Maiden

2014-12-22T17:44:00Z

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

So since I've been traveling in England I've taken a liking to the English heavy-metal band Iron Maiden. Actually it's probably more accurate to say I've fallen head-over-heels in love with Iron Maiden and everything they stand for. If you've been paying attention, this is why I've begun to stick references to Iron Maiden in some of my Abridged entries. But the thing is, Iron Maiden's music, if you look closely, actually covers much of the same subject matter as the later Harry Potter books do. I think the difference is that Iron Maiden have always promoted themselves as a dark, dismal band, whereas Harry Potter started out as a fairly light-hearted children's series that could get dark and scary when it needed to, so while it makes sense for Iron Maiden to write a depressing song about life and death and choices, when Harry Potter brings up death it just feels...wrong.

( This got long. And a bit disjointed. )
So yeah. But above all I think it's interesting that so many artistic similarities between these two seemingly unrelated artists exist (even if they're not always used for the same purposes). I wonder if it's a cultural thing? I don't know how old JKR is but I do know that the band members of Iron Maiden were born in the mid-late 1950's, shortly after World War II. So...is it a British thing? Or a Brits-born-in-the-wake-of-world-wars thing? Or is it just coincidence?

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Albus and the Birdbath

2014-11-20T09:06:00Z

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

Thank you, oryx_leucoryx, for this one.

We don’t need to posit mysterious antidotes. We don’t need to posit anything. To understand what was going on in that cave, we just need to read more closely—and to remember Kreacher’s experience.

Kreacher is the key to understanding Albus’s unsuccessful encounter with the Birdbath of Doom.

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A plea for tolerance?

2014-04-18T11:52:00Z

Posted by: mary-j-59.livejournal.com

Not sure quite what to call this - it's a comment I made on an earlier thread, where it was pretty deeply buried. I'm posting it as a separate comment because it's something I feel pretty strongly about.

Yes, I know - this is a sporking community. We are making fun of the Harry Potter books, and, at times, some of us can get quite irate in our discussions. But - please, please, can we refrain from getting irate towards J.K. Rowling?

Here's what I mean: I'm really not comfortable discussing the character of an actual human being just because I find her books frustrating. I'm a bit of a structuralist. The author is dead once a book has been published, and that cuts two ways. The author is no more privileged in his/her interpretation than any other reader, because the work belongs to the readers now. And there are limits to what we can extrapolate about an author's belief, personality, etc, based on the work s/he has written.

As angry as I get at the awful, mixed messages in these books, I think we must never forget that a real, vulnerable human being wrote them. It isn't right or fair to trash her while trashing the books. (Though I like to think we're not trashing them, but subjecting them to rigorous criticism!) And I'm really not comfortable with speculating about her family life and personality based on the words she's written. Though I do believe all real art is "true" in a deep sense, and reveals the heart of its creator, I still think the art has, and must have, its own validity. You see what I mean?

I hope to be a published author one day. Though I neither want nor expect Rowling's level of fame, I wouldn't like it if anyone psycho-analyzed me on the basis of my stories. I don't think any of us would - and many of us do some type of creative work. Would we like to be called "stupid cows" because a reader found our work stupid? The person is not the work.

So I think it's fine to discuss the image of God in Rowling's stories. I think it's fine to question the heavy use of Christian symbolism given the non-Christian content of the stories. Heck, I've done this myself, repeatedly! It's fine to discuss the mixed messages about race, bullying, authority figures, and so much more. But I'd rather not discuss the psychology and personal life of the woman who wrote the stories. J.K. Rowling is a woman trying to write, and raise a family, and live, in this real world. We shouldn't forget that, no matter how angry her books make us.

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