End of an Era, Part 3

Note: This is the third entry in my "End of an Era" essay. If you have not yet read part 1, or part 2, I suggest you do that first. Be warned: Thar be spoilers ahead AND behind!

Ah, now we're getting to the really good stuff. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is probably the most important book in the series, not only because of what we learn about Voldemort's most closely guarded secret, but what we learn about his past and the quest that Harry and his friends must undertake. Up till now, we never really knew how Voldemort had survived the curse that gave Harry his scar. We did find out about the charm left by his mother when she tried to sacrifice herself to save Harry in the previous books, but there was never any real clues as to how Voldemort managed to live.

The concept of the Horcrux is one of the most fascinating and sinister ideas to appear in the Harry Potter books. Even the Unforgivable Curses, while horrible in their own right, pale in comparison to what a Horcrux represents. The description that Slughorn gives to the young Tom Riddle about how Horcruxes are made sent chills up my spine. To take one's soul and rip it in two, and store a piece of your soul inside another object? Terrifying to think that anyone could be so careless with one's soul. What makes it even worse is that the only way to tear one's soul apart, is by killing another person. And the fact that Voldemort made not one, but six Horcruxes brings into sharp relief just what Dumbledore meant when he tells Harry that "the transformation [Lord Voldemort] has undergone seemed to me to be only explicable if his soul was mutilated beyond the realms of what we might call 'usual evil'..." As if being one of the most powerful dark wizards in history weren't enough, now we find out that there are six unknown and most likely extremely well protected objects carrying around a bit of his soul? Now that's just plain evil, in every sense of the word.

Fortunately for Harry, we learn, he already has a bit of experience destroying Horcruxes already. I remember thinking that the diary that nearly kills Ginny in Chamber of Secrets seemed oddly powerful to just have been a spell or enchantment of some sort; it had to be something far more sinister. I never thought much of it, but when I learned about Voldemort's creation of the Horcruxes, it hit me that there really was more to that diary than was revealed in book two. And in Half-Blood Prince, we find out that this is indeed the case. Not only that, but Voldemort had intended it as a weapon, not just as a safeguard for his soul. He wanted it to be found by an unsuspecting person so that he could use them to return to human form if he ever needed it. I knew Voldemort was arrogant, but that seemed unbelievably brash.

The revelation of the Horcruxes is certainly a crucial aspect of book six and the rest of the series, but it was not the only important event. This is the book where we finally see Harry start to fall, and fall hard, for Ginny Weasley. I think that of all the potential matches Harry could have had, Ginny is definitely who had my vote. As I've said before, Ginny became a favorite character of mine in book five and her growth as a character in book six really solidified my opinion of her. And I will admit that I cheered when they (Harry and Ginny) kissed after the Quidditch match because it was what I was hoping for all along. While the Harry and Ginny romance was full of some pretty funny jealousy scenes, I have to say that the way Rowling played Ron and Hermione's jealousy against each other was brilliant.

So now it seems we come to the main event, so to speak, of Half-Blood Prince. Rowling had said that a major character was going to die in book six and while I knew it wouldn't be Harry I was very worried for Ron and Hermione, not to mention the major-minor characters of Ginny, Neville, and Luna. But never in a million years did I expect that the person that would be killed would be Dumbledore, and that it would be Snape that did it. I remember reading that passage and then stopping for a second, not sure if I had read that right. I was shocked and saddened by Dumbledore's death. He was always so powerful and so knowledgeable about everything that it seemed that if he was going to die, it would have been at the hands of someone like Voldemort himself. I think it was at this point, more than any other, that I really felt that no one was safe anymore and it was only a matter of time before Voldemort began to take control. The end of this book was probably the most bleak and desperate of any of the books up to this point. With Dumbledore gone, left with only a fake Horcrux and a enigmatic note with no inkling of where to look next, Harry's decision to break up with Ginny for her protection, and his realization that he will not be returning to school the next year, makes for a dark and harrowing future indeed.

And yet, in the midst of the grief and pain at the loss of someone so important, as Harry prepares to take the final road that will lead either to his death, or to the death of Voldemort, there is still happiness to be found. On the very last page of the book, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are making plans for where they will start looking for the Horcruxes. Harry is, as usual, trying to convince his friends that he needs to do this alone, but of course they are having none of it. You'd think he would have learned after six books that the trio is an all or nothing package. I think I just need to quote the passage here, as I can't do it justice otherwise:

"No-," said Harry quickly; he had not counted on this, he had meant them to understand that he was undertaking this most dangerous journey alone.
"You said to us once before," Hermione said quietly, "that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?"
"We're with you whatever happens," said Ron. "But mate, you're going to have to come round my mum and dad's house before we do anything else, even Godric's Hollow."
"Why?"
"Bill and Fleur's wedding, remember?"
Harry looked at him, startled; the idea that anything as normal as a wedding could still exist seemed incredible and yet wonderful.
"Yeah, we shouldn't miss that," he said finally.
His hand closed automatically around the fake Horcux, but in spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead of himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come, whether in a month, in a year, or in ten, he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione.

Part 4 will be posted soon.

End of an Era, Part 2

Note: This is the second entry in my "End of an Era" essay. If you have not yet read part 1, I suggest you do that first. Be warned: Thar be spoilers ahead AND behind!

The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was the longest book yet. Maybe even longer than 1-3 put together, though that may be an exaggeration. This is probably the most "action movie friendly" book of the series as there's not one but three major events during the Triwizard Tournament that Harry and the other participants have to overcome, not to mention the final confrontation with Voldemort in the graveyard. Between fighting dragons, battling with merfolk, and navigating a deadly maze filled with traps and fantastic creatures, it's a damn exciting story. Even though the tasks are dangerous, the book still maintains the light-hearted feeling of the previous three. Regardless of the harrowing adventures in which Harry, Ron, and Hermione find themselves in in the other books, no one is killed or seriously wounded despite being attacked by dementors, chased by a basilisk, coming face to face with a fragment of Voldemort himself (not once but twice!), and even being "helped" by Dobby. But then, that all comes crashing down at the this book, after Harry and Cedric Diggory reach the end of the maze together, and and transported face to face with none other than Voldemort himself. No longer the mere shadow or fragment he was before; this is Voldemort at full strength. A new body, with his faithful Death Eaters at his side once more. This is the first time we see how evil Voldemort really is as he orders Cedric killed simply because he was "the spare" and was of no use to him. And since it wouldn't be Harry Potter without someone being revealed as not quite what they seem, the revelation that Mad-Eye Moody is in fact the Death Eater Barty Crouch Jr. was just the icing on the cake. Or, to use a different, more fitting analogy, a knife in the back. From this point on, the books become darker, the threat of Voldemort more pressing, and the fight more desperate than ever.

I think if I had to pick a least favorite book of the series, Chamber of Secrets would be my choice, however Goblet of Fire is a close second. Of course picking a least favorite Harry Potter book is a bit like asking someone "So which of your sports cars is your least favorite: the F430 or the 911 Turbo?" My reasons for disliking this book are difficult to explain, even to myself. It might just be that, whenever I start a Harry Potter binge where I read them from beginning to end, I inevitably get bogged down by Goblet of Fire. I can't really say for sure why this is. Quite possibly it is that coming off the shorter first three books, Goblet of Fire is a bit like starting a marathon right after the 200m dash. Don't get me wrong, I love this book and I love Chamber of Secrets too, but while I thought that Chamber of Secrets was too similar to Sorcerer's Stone and didn't have enough new material, I felt that Goblet of First just had too much. First there was the Quidditch World Cup, then of course the Triwizard Tournament and it's three tasks, the mystery with Barty Crouch, the return of Voldemort, and finally the death of Cedric and the revelation that Mad-Eye Moody was an impostor. It's a bit of a sensory overload and by the time they get to the maze, you're just glad you've reached the home stretch. But one aspect of the book I really enjoyed was seeing for the first time, that Ron is developing feelings for Hermione and even though he's a bit of a twit, you can tell Hermione feels the same way. This is where the Harry Potter books (and our three heroes) leave their more childish pasts behind them, and begin the painful road to adulthood. Like Harry's journey through school on his way to becoming a full-fledged wizard, so too do the books themselves begin to grow up and change. If books one, two, and three were the childhood years, then book four is where the teenage years begin, which are the main focus of book five: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

One of the best things about Order of the Phoenix is you begin to see the romantic relationships blossom between the students at Hogwarts. When I finished this for the first time, I was convinced, more than ever before, that the relationship between Ron and Hermione was going to be more than just the friendship they had forged in the past books. I had inklings that Ron and Hermione would end up together in the end for quite some time, ever since the whole thing with Hermione and Viktor Krum in Goblet of Fire. I mean if anything, the twists in book three and the unexpected death of Cedric in book four demonstrated that Rowling was not going to take the obvious route and have Hermione end up with Harry. That was too formulaic and it would essentially leave Ron out in the cold. Despite his prominence as a character, he was often shunted to the side in favor of Harry and having Harry and Hermione end up together would have essentially place Ron as nothing more than a secondary character like Neville or Luna. This, in fact, plays a pivotal role in books four and seven as Ron's resentment at Harry's attention thoroughly tests their friendship and threatens to unravel everything they've worked for.

I actually had a theory for a while that Harry might end up with Luna Lovegood. Crazy, right? Well it seemed like it might be an interesting match. Luna as a very lonely person and I thought that her friendship with Harry might become something more. But despite the fact that she and Harry grew quite close in this book, this did not happen and Ginny Weasley's arrival as the object of Harry's affection in Half-Blood Prince was much more fitting. Ginny quickly become one of my favorite characters and not because of her involvement with Harry. Harry, while the focus of the books, is not actually my favorite character (I won't say who it is just yet. In due time). In fact in book five, his irritating teen angst made me want to smack him across the face. Since he was not actually a real person, I had to content myself with screaming at SOMEBODY to give him a good kick. And Ginny fit the bill nicely. Ginny came into her own as a wonderful mix of Fred and George's sense of mischief, Hermione's talent, and Harry's sense of bravery and loyalty. She also has a great sense of humor, and a sharp wit that more than once was able to put Harry in his place when his Breakfast Club-style tendencies threatened to boil over. Of course Harry's attention is focused on Cho Chang in Order of the Phoenix, which goes about as well as most first romances go. Akward, painful, and in the end a miserable failure. But the disasterous Valentine's day scene in Hogsmeade was a bit like watching someone slowly sawing through the limb they are standing on: Painful, yet hilarious.

Order of the Phoenix is definitely the longest book of the series, weighing in at over 800 pages. Yet it's also one of the most fascinating, not only because of the uprising you know is coming with the arrival of Dolores Umbridge as the Hogwarts High Inquisitor (who, by the way, you come to hate almost as much as Voldemort), but also because you can feel the tension building the entire time as Voldemort gets stronger and the Ministry of Magic puts more and more pressure on Harry and the Order to stop their attempts to alert people to the danger they know is coming. I remember silently fuming at the stubborn insistence by Cornelius Fudge that Dumbledore's constant warnings that Voldemort was back was nothing more than an attempt to seize power. Add to that Harry's foray's into Voldemort's mind, the secret kept in the Department of Mysteries, the hilarious grand exit of Fred and George from Hogwarts, and the forming of "Dumbledore's Army", and you have one hell of barn-burner. As if that weren't enough, you get to see why Dumbledore is considered the most powerful wizard of all time and even though you got a taste if it at the end of book four, it's nothing compared to the scene when Dumbledore and Voldemort finally meet face to face. I remember when Dumbledore arrived on the scene at the Ministry, when the Order and Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville, and Ginny are all desperately fighting the Death Eaters, I got a chill. I still do. And when I read the title of the next chapter, "The Only One He Ever Feared", I was ecstatic! Finally we get to see Dumbledore and Voldemort fight face to face! My only qualm with the entire scene, which rivals the showdown between Yoda and Count Dooku in "Attack of the Clones", is that it was far too short. But it was thrilling to finally see the one person that could go toe to toe with Voldemort, and live, cross wands him. Very "High Noon".

Of course Order of the Phoenix is not without sadness. Sirius had become another favorite of mine and his death was very disheartening. It was even more upsetting due to the fact that it was none other than Bellatrix Lestrange that killed him. I already hated her since I learned what she did to Neville's parents. Torturing someone is bad enough, but to do it until their minds broke, until they went mad with the pain, so much so that they no longer recognize their own son? That is absolutely disgusting and horrifying to think about. Her escape makes Sirius' death all the more tragic. Harry loses the only member of his family that he has left. If there was any doubt at this point that the Harry Potter were getting seriously dark, this would have neatly squashed that notion. The fact that the last chapter is called "The Second War Begins" could not be more ominous. This book was tremendously important because we learn a great deal more about Harry's past, his connection to Voldemort, and why Voldemort tried to kill him so long ago. The prophecy of "neither can live while the other survives" made me very uneasy. By this time I had learned that no one was safe in the world of Harry Potter and while I was confident that all the major players would make it to the final book, I was not so sure they would all make it out in the end. And so I waited with bated breath, for the sixth, and quite possibly the most important, book in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

End of an Era, Part 1

Note: What started as a short entry on how much I like Harry Potter, turned into a friggin' essay, so I split it into 4 parts. Be warned: Thar be spoilers ahead!

So Harry Potter has finally come to an end. It's be a long and incredible journey since that first book found it's way to our shores. I don't think any series in the history of literature has had such a following, had so many admirers, or so many enemies. Like all great stories, this one can be told again and again, and sometimes the second or third reading can be even more moving and meaningful than the first. I just finished a straight through, non-stop Harry Potter binge starting from book one all the way to book seven, which I just finished last night. This was probably the third or fouth reading of the first four books, and at least the second for the rest. It was a strange mix of emotions as I closed book seven, and thus closed the story of Harry Potter and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Never again will I journey down the magical corridors of Hogwarts for the first time. Never will I feel that original tension and fear as Harry and his friends are forced to battle the Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries. Never will I feel the shock and sadness I felt as I sat,dumbfounded, having just read the pages where Sirius and Dumbledore meet their untimely deaths. And never again will I feel the burning joy and aching sadness I felt when first I read the final chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as Ron and Hermione finally fall for each other, Neville Longbottom finally revealing himself as the bad ass he truly is by cutting off the head of Voldemort's snake, or Harry dueling Voldemort for the last time. I think that, as I sat there in the dark, contemplating the story and what it has meant to me over nearly the last decade of my life, I decided I needed to write something about how I felt about the story. About how I grew to love the story, it's characters, and their world as it unfolded on the pages before my eyes.

It was books like Harry Potter that etched into my soul this obsession, this passion, that I have for books and literature. Ever since I was a child I've loved to read and as an adult, that has not changed. I take immense pride in my love of the written word. And in today's society where "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars" takes precedence over letting one's imagination run wild in the hills of Middle Earth, amongst the stars with Rama, or even just trying to remember that "the enemy's gate is down" I have found that this is an all to rare gift indeed. I recently read that only 40-50% of adult Americans plan to read at least one novel this year, and about half of those will not read anything. It is a sad thing to witness, yet the one glimmer that has given me hope is that despite this dismal out look on the American populace's reading habits, at least Harry Potter has remained as popular and enchanting as ever.

It is a rare thing indeed to witness any book take hold of the public's imagination the way Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone did when it was first published in 1997. It did not make it to the United States until 1998, but by that time you could tell something extraordinary was happening. I don't think anyone at the time realized that they were making literary history, but the success of Harry Potter was nothing short of phenomenal. The book was simply flying off the shelves. I know that is a tired cliche and it's tossed about by marketing departments for anything that sells more than 2 copies in an hour, but this is one of the rare cases where I think the term can accurately be applied. Everyone I knew at the time was reading Harry Potter. And Rowling did not sit idly back and watch the money roll in, but she came out with a rapid-fire barrage of sequels, each one more popular and better than the previous. That last statement might offend a few purists who say the first book is their favorite and I admit, I still have a soft spot for the original. But as she wrote more, her voice got stronger, her language more mature, and her magical world richer, and deeper.

There was something magical (no pun intended) about the first book. It filled me with a sense of wonder and amazement that I had not felt reading a book in a long time. In fact, I think no other book has caught my imagination in quite the same way as Harry Potter did. Harry's discovering that he is a wizard, his arrival at Hogwarts, his forging of his lifelong friendship with Ron and Hermione after the fight with the troll, his battle for the Sorcerer's stone, and the mystery surrounding his past and his nemesis, Voldemort, were all so mesmerizing that I had to read it though several times to catch all the details of the rich world that J.K.R had created. Despite the fact that the book was very much a children's tale, I could see tremendous potential in the work Rowling had created.

One of the best facets of the Harry Potter approach to magic was to separate the different types of magic in the same way we separate different studies at school. She was able to create an entire curriculum of magical studies, each as different and distinct as the fascinating characters that each each discipline. Mix in a normal set of school-kid complaints, homework, exams, detention, study, and the one thought that every child has had at least once in their school careers: "When am I ever going to use this in real life", and you get such an amazing world that it would be a crime to limit it to only one book! Then, of course, came the second: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Many people have said the second book is much like the first, to it's detriment. And I would agree with this statement, up to a point. The story lines are very similar, the same basic formula is followed, and even the twist at the end revealing the true culprit is done in an almost identical fashion. But this book was when I first started to see that there was something a bit more to this series than the standard "take set of characters X and put in situation Y" formula that so many books of this type tended to follow. Maybe it was finding out about Voldemort's past, his real name, and connection to both Harry and the school. Maybe it was the fact that each book did not tie up the story in a neat little package. Whatever it was, there was something that told me that the story of Harry Potter was far from over, and it would be far different from anything you might imagine. This book also introduced the delightful character of Dobby the house-elf, who attempts to save Harry Potter by repeatedly trying to get him injured or expelled. Dobby could have easily tread into Jar-Jar Bink territory, but the brilliant way he was portrayed as this small but extremely powerful character who desired to do good yet was bound by the laws of his kind so that he had to constantly punish himself for the things he did was just awesome. It seemed that there was more to this than simply good guys vs. bad guys. And I was even more intrigued by this one than the first. But it was not until the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, that I truly became a hardcore Harry Potter fan.

This book had the same tone of all the others: mystery, shadowy figures from the past, fights against overwhelming odds, yet this time it was different. While in the other books events were a bit predictable and sometimes seemed contrived, in this book we begin to see the deeper underlying themes of the Harry Potter series. Death, as always, plays a major role. It is fitting that we meet the dementors for the first time in this book as they are almost Death incarnate. They go unseen (except by wizards), wear hooded cloaks and have a skeletal, dead-like appearance. Yet despite the obvious allusions to the classic image of death the dementors do not actually kill their victims. The "dementor's kiss", we learn, is quite possibly the most horrible fate that can befall anyone as the act does not kill the person, but rather "sucks out their soul" leaving behind nothing but a shell. The book also continues with the idea that nothing is as it seems and the truth is always more fantastic than you think, but this is the first book to take that idea in such an original way. One of the most interesting things about this story us that Voldemort, while always a looming shadow in the background, never actually appears in the book. This is part of why it is so different: It is the only book in which the primary antagonist never makes a personal appearance. The entire time, you are focused on Sirius Black, whom everyone thinks is trying to kill Harry. But when I found out that not only is he innocent, but Harry's godfather, my whole view of the Harry Potter universe changed right then and there. Of course, that was until we learned that Scabbers, Ron's useless, sickly, and slightly used pet rat is none other than Peter Pettigrew (whom staged his death and framed Sirius in the process). That sent my head spinning.

This was also where I realized something: I had actually begun to care about the characters. I cared about what happened to Harry, Ron, Hermione, the other Weasley's, even Voldemort (though for him I was simply trying to think of the best way for him to get his comeuppance). This does not happen often for me, and I think this is one of the things that makes Harry Potter such a meaningful series. Most of the time, I read a story with a sort of detached interest. It is amusing to see the adventures of someone unfold and sometimes I'm surprised by where the author takes me, but it is almost never the case that in the process I find myself caring about people who do not exists anywhere but in my and the author's imagination. And it was at this point I was hooked. I would be one of those people who stand around at midnight, waiting for the next book to be released. Which is exactly what I did, though not for the next book. You see, when I started Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was already out, so I wasted no time continuing the journey with my imaginary friends from Hogwarts. And no one could see what was coming next.


Note: Part 2 will be posted shortly.

I finally fucking found it!

I have been looking for this video on and off for probably 6 years now. And here it is: One of the greatest music videos ever!

Oribital - Much Ado About Nothing Left

Optimus f*cking Prime

That's right, 3/4 pure Prime.

I AM
76%
OPTIMUS PRIMETake the Transformers Quiz

Star stuff

I recently saw two excellent movies. One is a serious sci-fi flick, and one is pretty much pure fantasy. The first is Sunshine, which is set in the near future and is about the crew of a massive space ship (rather ironically named the Icarus) sent to restart the sun. (This is the sci-fi film, BTW) It seems our sun has dimmed and plunged Earth into a new ice age. No real explanation why this has happened or how they actually plan to fix it is given, but I think that was a wise move. It allows the story to focus the characters and their struggles, without getting too lost in the whole "we're basically flying a giant bomb into the sun" bit. Yet it maintains a distinct sci-fi feel as there is plenty of science, and no desperate, last-minute WTF solutions to the "zOMG we're fux0r3d! Let's fly teh ship into the sun to save the humaz0rz!" Armageddon, this ain't. All in all, a very cool little indie film. Absolutely gorgeous imagery. Not a bad story either and very atmospheric. Think the visuals of The Fountain with the tone of Solaris, with a little Event Horizon deep-space horror and 2001: A Space Odyssey computer creepiness mixed in. Though neither Solaris or Event Horizon were all that good (though I did like Solaris), I think that they have certain qualities that make them noteworthy sci-fi films and if you have seen them, you'll definitely see what I mean when you see Sunshine. And if you can make it though The Fountain without your brain melting, I salute you soldier. Now it's not getting a lot of press, but I highly recommend it. It's playing at the Arizona Mills Harkins at least, maybe elsewhere. So go see it.

On Saturday I saw Stardust. This was the fantasy film, if you hadn't deduced that. And it was much better than I anticipated. I was really looking forward to it when I saw the previews, but I was a little skeptical about the quality since I've been let down many times by this same pattern. *cough* Spiderman 3/Aeon Flux/Ultraviolet/Fantastic Four/The Hulk *cough* It's almost a kid's movie, but it has some rather intense scenes involving animal disemboweling by some rather nasty witches (not graphic, just violent), and people seem to die a lot. But to give it some perspective, and since this post seems to be all about comparisions, I would say tt's somewhere in between Lewis and Tolkien: not quite as childish as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but less mature than The Lord of the Rings. I'd put it in the same league as the latest Harry Potter, but with a distinctively more fairy-tale feel to it. It would be hard to summarize, but it involves a magic kingdom, evil witches, a power-hungry prince, a lost princess, flying pirates, and a falling star (in this case, played by Claire Danes, who makes one sexy fallen star I might add). Now if you go into this expecting something as deep and rich as Middle Earth, you'll be quite disappointed. In fact, I'd say the closest thing would probably be The Princess Bride. It has a rich and detailed world, yet it maintains the fairy-tale aspect of wonder because what you see is not always explained or even given any real back story; it simply is.

So go see Sunshine and Stardust. I mean really, what else do you have to do?

Sound Advice

Important life lessons courtesy of About:Blank.

I predict a riot: Apple 4G iPhone for 99¢

99¢ Only Stores will sell Apple 4GB iPhones to the first nine in line for 99¢ on Thursday, August 9th, 2007. Is there any way this won't end badly?

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