Long one

Days ago, I said something about following up with my thoughts on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I have finally found the motivation to do it. Spoilers abound, because there was a lot of shit from the book left out.

First, let's talk about how I like it when they leave shit from the book out. For example, that whole thing with Tonks and Lupin is so gross, and Tonks spends the book being so pathetic, and ugh. They're still in the movie; they're together in the movie--I imagine because they're two of the three big deaths at the end--but it's not gross. And it's not a bleeding waste of time.

The only important bit of information we pick up from this whole werewolf romance shit is that a person's Patronus can change its shape. This becomes important in relation to Snape some hundreds of pages into the last book. I don't know if they'll, like, make that explicit in the movie, but the shape of Snape's Patronus is the reason Dumbledore trusted him.

As much as I lament the lack of older Weasley brothers in the movies, it is a relief that the whole weirdness with adding Fleur to the family is dropped completely. So is Percy's feud with the family--he was in the last movie, with the Minister, but no one ever talks about it. That's fine by me.

The Ministry of Magic is completely absent from the movie, which I found to be odd, if only because it becomes very important in the next book who is controlling the Ministry. I guess we don't really need to worry about that until the Ministry is in the hands of the Death Eaters, but still, there's this whole back and forth with the Ministry and Harry--now that they believe him, they want him to be their poster boy, and Harry's like, "Fuck you, dillweeds."

The trouble with making these books into movies is that there is so much information packed into the books, readers expect to see at least most of it presented in the movie. We learn so much about Tom Riddle in the book that is nowhere in the movie. What infuriated me most about the movie was its treatment of horcruxes. We get the explanation of what they are from Slughorn's memory, finally, and then Harry's like, "Ack! They could be anything!"

And Dumbledore actually says, "They could be common household objects," or something close to that, and I was like, "No! That was the whole point of your 'lessons' with Harry! To understand the way Voldemort thinks--to know that he would use trophies as horcruxes! Something from each of the Hogwarts founders, for example!" Blarg.

The way the movie ends, Harry has no idea where to find another horcrux. The way the book ends, he knows he is after Voldemort's snake, Helga Hufflepuff's goblet, and something owned by Rowena Ravenclaw or possibly Godric Gryffindor. The diary and the Peverell family crest ring have been destroyed, and Salazar Slytherin's locket is missing, possibly destroyed already. Three known horcruxes/three guessed horcruxes.

One thing I noticed in re-reading the book (spoiler!) is that Harry actually runs into Ravenclaw's diadem when he's hiding the Prince's book in the Room of Requirement. He puts a tiara on a bust of someone near his hiding spot so he can find it again. If only he'd known what it was, eh?

Anyway. One of the things I never really understand is why, when a movie leaves so much of a book out, it finds time to add things in. There is this truly bizarre scene in the middle of the movie where Bellatrix Lestrange just apparates right up to the Burrow, with two other Death Eaters, and sets it on fire. Like, what? The best I can come up with is that it was the movie's way of showing us how deep we are in the shit at this point. Throughout the book, we get news of Hogwarts students' family members being killed, and all the Ministry stuff and the emptiness of Diagon Alley and all that are a pretty good indication, but the movie uses the destruction of the Burrow, I think, to show us that no one is safe anymore. Nothing will ever be the same now.

Something else I find weird is how Lavender and Parvati have only shown up in the movies in relation to the boys. Parvati and Padma have to be in the fourth movie, because they're Ron and Harry's dates to the Yule Ball, and Parvati gets to face the boggart in the third movie, and Neville tell the boys he heard Parvati saying Hermione was bawling in the ladies' in the first movie, but we never even hear of Lavender until this movie, where she must appear because Ron starts going with her and making Hermione jealous. But now Parvati's missing. The books treat them as a pair, basically, so it feels lacking to have one without the other. At one point in the book, Harry and Parvati even briefly--and mostly non-verbally--commiserate over the madness their best friends are entangled in, which I thought was a nice touch.

Now I'm just over-nit-picking, so I guess I'll call it a day. On the whole, I enjoyed this movie a lot, but there's always so much trouble when you try to squash a giant book into 2 and a half hours. That's why I feel like the Narnia movies are such successful adapations--they took something small and expanded it into something wondrous. Anyway. When's the first part of the final installment come out, again?

Don't make me get the hose!

There is a man at work who looks like Bob Hoskins! Or as I like to refer to him, Mr. Smee! I am well aware that Bob Hoskins has been in many a film, but for me, he will always be Mr. Smee, in the best Peter Pan movie ever: Hook.

"I've just had an apostrophe."
"I think you mean an epiphany."
"No. ... Lightning has just struck my brain."

If anyone had cared to ask my opinion, I would have suggested him for the role of Professor Slughorn in Half-Blood Prince, but no one did, so Jim Broadbent got the job. He does have experience playing a professor, anyway.

I don't know if you noticed, but I have rather unrefined taste in films. The last Oscar-nominated movie I saw, I think, was Chicago. I don't want films that make me, like, think. I don't want films that scare me or make me sad. I want films to entertain me. If I wanted to be, like, moved or to feel any kind of emotion, I would read a book. And I do. I read books frequently. Although, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire may have made me cry--shut up, it's awful when Harry drags Cedric's body back to Hogwarts, and his dad starts freaking out. More moving, though, is when Dumbledore says, "Cedric Diggory's death will not have been in vain." I think that's the part that made actual tears come. I am such a wuss. Okay, no wait, Brokeback won some Oscars, didn't it? And that made me sad and made me think and moved me. But guess what! It was based on a short story. Which I totally read first. So that was definitely the last serious film I saw, and I totally only saw it because I love the gays. (And I totally only read the story in preparation for seeing the movie. Whatever.)

The last movie I watched was Shrek 3. There was nothing intelligent about that film, but it entertained the crap out of me. Not as good as Shrek 2, but better than Shrek. I still have not read the story that served as the basis for these films (by William Steig), but I plan to. Some day. For now, I just bought myself a whole mess of books with my jar of change money (as an early Christmas present), and I've already plowed through two of them. Only three left! Okay, so I guess five isn't really "a whole mess," but it's more than I usually buy at once. And I imagine some family member or other (who I shall love forever) will be bestowing a Barnes & Noble gift card upon me this holiday season, and so I will be able to really buy a whole mess of books. I still haven't finished with Flannery or Homer, but they are slow going, y'all. Speaking of Homer, The Simpsons Movie comes out on DVD tomorrow! Another early Christmas present to myself? Or shall I ask someone to buy it for me? Decisions, decisions.

"He's not Spider Pig anymore. He's Harry Plopper."

I have bought Christmas gifts for my brothers and for Mike. Really, that just leaves my parents, since my other friends and I don't do Christmas presents (thank god, because I am the worst at picking out things for other people). My parents are impossible to shop for, so I usually just make my dad a batch of his favorite cookies and take them to his place on Christmas morning, but my mom doesn't like cookies--or baked goods of any kind--so I'm stuck. She said she wanted a yoga mat and a yoga video, and that means I actually have to go and look for these things, because I don't know where yoga paraphernalia hang out. (Is paraphernalia plural? It looks plural, but it sounds like one of those collective nouns--information, family, data--that we treat as singular in American English. Oh, whatever. I just bored myself.) The stores I frequent do not seem to carry yoga-related things--but the stores I frequent are Bath & Body Works (because they entice me there with the promise of a whopping $8 per hour of my time!) and Barnes & Noble. And Petsmart. Which reminds me! I am out of dry kitten food. And apparently, the cat needs to eat, like, every day. So needy.

Oh! "The Heartache Can Wait" is officially released on iTunes tomorrow, and even though I already ganked the mp3, I'll buy it. I am merely borrowing this unauthorized mp3 until I can get my hands on the legit copy, because, um, it's been, like, three weeks since they recorded it, and I could not have waited that long. But I will happily fork over my dollar, because this song--and supporting the band in any way I can--is totally worth it. I really wish I were going on one of those cruises in February. Jess would have come with me if we could have swung it. But she's spending her money on a trip to Texas, and I want to buy a new computer. Or a new car. Or maybe just a new iPod. (I don't need a new iPod, but I have such an issue resisting new and shiny things.)

Jess loves it when people talk about her, so I don't think she'll mind my reposting a facebook comment she left me here:

"I just watched that Turpentine vid, and I have several comments:
1) Brandi's eyes look incredible in that vid. The way they did the lighting or something.... but yeah, good job!
2) Ewwww! Why is she with a BOY! For some reason this vid disturbs me a bit.... I mean, a BOY!? WTF!? It would have been better if it were a girl.
3) Despite the fact that it's a boy (ahhhhh, a boy! I don't verk vit da males, 'cause I usedta BE one!), I found the ending incredibly adorable."

Other than the absence of a vest comment, it's pretty much exactly what I thought when I first watched it. And instead of a Mean Girls quote, she serves up a Mrs. Doubtfire quote, which is almost as good. You should hear Jess do that line, too--she's almost as good as Robin Williams. She's a comedic genius. Anyway, then I told her the song was about Brandi's brother, and she decided it was okay that there was a boy in the video. You should also hear her sing "Follow"--amazing. Heh. Although, if you were in the Orpheum lobby before the show, you probably did hear her, because she would not stop.

I hope that when I go home, I find that At World's End and Order of the Phoenix are waiting for me, because I don't have to work tonight, and a night of movies and kitten-cuddling sounds like bliss.

The Chippendales dancers are gay. They're gaaaaaaaaay.

Okay, I know by now this is old news, but I don't blog on the weekends, bitches. Anyway, Dumbledore is gay. Gay! He fell in love with Grindelwald! And while it's, like, really nice to know that Jo is aware of the existence of the gays, it's kind of crappy that this is an after-the-fact revelation. Like, "Now that the books are over I can tell you that one of my characters was gay--and you had no idea!" What is the point of that, exactly? To have a secretly gay character? Though I have no idea how Dumbledore's preference for dudes would have even come up--and it would have needlessly added to an already overstuffed story. I don't know. What am I trying to say? I like that Dumbledore is gay; I just wish it was something known about him that just didn't matter, you know? But I can just see Ron freaking out about it, can't you? He would be all, "Harry, Dumbledore likes blokes. What if that's why he wants to do private lessons with you?" Because, as much as I love him, Ron is kind of an asshole. And Hermione would freak out about how Dumbledore would never do something so inappropriate, and Harry would be kind of uncomfortable for a while, but he would soon see that Dumbledore's sexuality has absolutely nothing to do with his capacity to be a teacher/mentor/fighter of evil--or with his obvious fondness for young Mr. Potter. And then perhaps all the tiny children who read Harry Potter could see that gay people are just as awesome and normal as (or more awesome and normal than--or maybe I'm just biased) straight people.

But it totally wouldn't have fit into the narrative, because those books are already jam-packed with a million other mostly useless bits of trivia. Anyway, hurrah for the existence of gay wizards. That's what I'm trying to say.

In other news: the Red Sox are awesome. Josh Beckett and I may have to become Mormons so I can marry my other imaginary straight boyfriend, Dustin Pedroia. If I ever write a love song, Dustin, I think I'll write it about you. Also, Kevin Youkilis is amazing, and even if Coco Crisp can't hit, he can make some sweet catches out there in center field. I'm still sad, though, that my imaginary straight ex-boyfriend Trot Nixon was on the wrong team this time. (We had to break up when he moved to Cleveland--the distance was too much. So was the fact that he was no longer on the Red Sox.) His replacement, J.D. Drew, finally earned his keep, though, with that grand slam Saturday night. That was pretty sweet. Not sweet enough for me to like him more than Trot, though. Oh no.

I never said I was cool. Did I?

Here is the dorkiest thing I've said at least all week (if not in my entire life):

Earlier today, one of the girls at work was talking about how it's been impossible to keep one person in this certain job for any significant length of time, and someone was like, "It's cursed," but I felt the need to actually utter this out loud, in front of grown women, "It's like the Defense Against the Dark Arts job." Seriously. I said this. I did say it in front of people who are all into Harry Potter, and one of them was even like, "Exactly," but still. I said that out loud.

It always comes back to cute girls, doesn't it?

Last night, Jess and I saw Order of the Phoenix at the IMAX theater at the Jordan's Furniture in Reading. And before I talk about that, let me just say that Jordan's Furniture is insane. We have one in Nashua, and it's...just furniture. This one has restaurants and waterfall fireworks and a trapeze area and a JellyBelly store (!) and, of course, the IMAX theater. It's like a tiny Disneyland. I couldn't even handle it. Anyway, oh god. The IMAX version was so worth the extra three dollars. The picture is better, and the sound is way better, and the whole part where they bust into the Ministry at the end is in 3D. 3D! It was awesome. In that it actually inspired awe in me. I want to see it again immediately.

Also, here's something I forgot to say in my first rave review of the film: Tonks? Hot.

Would you people just finish Deathly Hallows already so I can write about it without issuing spoiler warnings?

Even though no one reads this thing, I was so thoroughly berated by one friend I'll call...Michelle Balls that I am taking precautions.

Deathly Hallows info follows.

Okay, so I totally forgot to talk about my favorite thing about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: we finally get some information on Ravenclaw! I self-identify as a Ravenclaw, because as far as I can tell, it is the house of nerds. Why Hermione is not in it, no one will ever be able to explain to me satisfactorily. Anyway, I was going crazy, because I am total Ravenclaw material, and I knew nothing about the house except that its dorms were in a tower. And it had a lady founder. And Ravenclaws are all smart. I wanted more! And by golly, I got a bit more, even info on the real identity of the Grey Lady. Oh, that was the other thing I knew: their house ghost was the Grey Lady. And Flitwick was their Head.

My fave part was the security system in place at the tower--you have to answer a question or wait for someone who could answer the question to come along to gain admittance, and that way, as Luna says, you learn something. This means, I suppose, that a non-Ravenclaw who happened to be brilliant (such as Ms. Granger) could get into their tower, which is disconcerting, so I mostly just loved the complete nerdiness of it.

Now, here is how fast I read the end of Deathly Hallows: I forget what the diadem even is. Seriously. I am very disappointed in myself.

Why I haven't reread Deathly Hallows yet

And I do want to, people. That one summer when I read all five Harry Potter books for the first time, I read them over and over again. I think, though, that was because I couldn't get a job that summer, so I was broke, and I was only twenty, and I had no other form of entertainment. When Half-Blood Prince came out, I was smack dab in the middle of the GNS of '05, so I read it, loaned it to Jess, and forgot about it. I think I re-read it at one point, and I kind of meant to re-read it this summer before Deathly Hallows, but I only got as far as Hermione sending canaries to attack Ron before I was, like, "Whatever, this book was not the greatest, I remember the important stuff, let me finish The Golden Compass." Which was better. And I didn't finish it until after I'd read Deathly Hallows, despite its being half the size (or less) than that behemoth. But anyway!

SPOILERS FOLLOW, beasts. You have been warned.

I haven't reread Deathly Hallows because it totally destroyed me. I resisted this stupid Harry Potter thing for so long (okay, five years), and then after I saw Prisoner of Azkaban, the book nerd inside was, like, "Um, if you enjoy these movies, you must read the books." So I did. And I couldn't stop. I couldn't! And I got so attached--to everyone but Harry. Even though I was weeping when he was talking to his dead parents and parent-figures, I still didn't really care what happened to him, specifically, just what would happen to his friends. I love his friends, and when Fred died, that was the end of me. End! Of! Me! I'd already teared up a few times before the Battle of Hogwarts, but once we lost Fred, I really just couldn't stop crying. So I can't read it again. I can't, even though there are plenty of things I missed in my haste to find out what the hell was going to happen.

Here's something I haven't said yet: I'm kind of disturbed that Harry just left the rest of the hallows where they fell. Like, what if someone finds the Resurrection Stone in the forest? It's not like no one goes in there. He could at least hide it.

Oh, and something Melissa had to point out to me: Harry and Voldemort are related, since they are allegedly both descended from a Peverell brother. Although, all those pure-blood wizard families are related to each other, blargh. Inbreeding. This is why you need the Muggle-borns, to infuse some variety into the magic gene pool.

Here's something I've never understood: Muggle-borns must be sports, right--and squibs too--so you probably wouldn't have more than one witch or wizard born to a Muggle family for several generations, right? You'd think? I'd think. But Colin Creevey's little brother was also a wizard. And Teddy Lupin was a Metamorphmagus, so obviously Jo's not really thinking about genetics. But I am! These are the kinds of things I think about, because I am queen of the nerds. Sigh.

So I also haven't re-read Deathly Hallows because I have so many other books to read that I have no time for re-reading. Except I'm totally making my way through the Little House books again, reading a few chapters before I go to sleep. Whatever, they're really good "before bed" reading. I need to finish His Dark Materials, because I love it so much it's making me insane. And it started a fight with me and Mike, because he saw the trailer for The Golden Compass, and he wants to see it, and I was, like, "Did you read the book?" which was stupid, because the answer to that question from most people is always no. Who reads anymore? Sigh. So I was teasing him about how he's illiterate or whatever, and I asked him what the last book he read was, and he couldn't remember. And I felt sad, and he got all defensive, and I was like, "Forget it! Get out of my car! Loveyabye!" I wonder if I gave him The Golden Compass if he would read it. The movie doesn't come out till December--he'd have four months.

Spoiler alert! (Stay back)

Seriously, beasts, if you haven't finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yet, don't read this. Don't do it.

Oh, I could say a million things about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows probably, but trouble is, it’s all murked over by this: Fred Weasley is dead. I was not so naïve as to expect that all nine Weasleys would survive the war, but seriously? Killing Fred was a low blow, Jo. (Sorry, can’t resist rhyming.) Once that happened, I had to read the book through a mist of tears. And then there was snot. Killing Fred was only half a step away from killing Ron or Ginny. How is poor George going to carry on? That’s like splitting his soul in two, killing his twin. She could have killed either of the Weasley parents or Bill or Percy—or Charlie, who only came home to get a haircut, apparently. What the fuck? I imagine J.K. was kind of sorry she’d invented another Weasley brother, because she couldn’t figure out anything for him to do, but still. He could have at least shown up somewhere before everyone came pouring into Hogwarts from the Hog’s Head.

Okay, so I bawled like a baby, too, when Percy showed up and finally admitted he’d been wrong. What? I was already emotional. I was so scared she was going to kill McGonagall. Or Neville.

Also! I just forgot about this till this moment, but Oliver Wood came back! To fight evil! And he’s been gone for three books! Yay, Oliver.

How cruel, the killing of Hedwig. Was that really necessary? WAS IT?

What was Dumbledore’s last? I kind of feel bad for Petunia now. She wanted to be special like her younger sister, and the fact that she wasn’t turned her sour. BUT WHAT DID DUMBLEDORE SAY TO HER? Grrr.

I spent a lot of the book figuring out things before Harry and Hermione even came close. For instance, as soon as they found out Grindelwald had stolen the Elder Wand, I knew that Dumbledore had to have it, since he dueled and defeated Grindelwald most famously. It took Harry eight years to figure that out. I can’t remember what else I figured out first (dead Fred), but I mean. It was kind of easy.

Who raised Teddy Lupin? And thanks, fifth movie, for making me like Tonks again, just in time for her to die stupidly. Well, I imagine Andromeda raised him.

The epilogue was adorable, and when I saw that Harry had named his younger son after Snape, whom he had so strongly hated, but who had done everything to protect him, I cried again.

Also, I knew the whole entire time the exact scenario of Dumbledore’s death. Obviously, the curse that had killed his hand was killing him, and he asked Snape to kill him to prevent Draco Malfoy from doing so, because he was going to die anyway—he’d had his time to make peace with that. I told Melissa this last week. I never believed Snape was evil. Never. But I did think he was petty and childish. Still, he was pretty much the bravest character in the series, wasn’t he? Do you think Harry could have killed Dumbledore? I don’t. Also, the part that clinched the “Snape is not evil” thing is when he punished Ginny, Luna, and Neville for trying to steal Gryffindor’s sword by giving them detention with Hagrid. Evil Snape would have strung them up in the dungeons, like the Carrows were doing.

And. Once I knew that Harry would go willingly to his death, it became obvious that he was not going to die. I was pretty sure she’d never kill him, but I mean, really. When you sacrifice yourself for the good of the entire world, you always get to come back. Right, Jesus?

I hate that Harry became an accidental horcrux or whatever, but I guess that’s why he got to die but then come back to life. Because Voldemort only killed a part of his own soul when Harry gave himself up.

Interesting that Draco didn’t give up Harry and Hermione when they got taken to the Malfoys’. And then Harry saved his life. Harry’s so good and pure and true. Barf.

Ron’s desertion made me really nervous. Thank god Dumbledore knew what he was doing.

Seriously, y’all. I was so scared McGonagall was gonna bite it. Trelawney throwing crystal balls at the Death Eaters was awesome.

Percy has some job at Hogwarts, I guess? Broomstick regulations. I love that Neville took over for Professor Sprout. Oh! I also love Neville’s badass grandma.

Good on Molly for dueling (and killing) Bellatrix Lestrange.

Think there’s a little something developing between Dean and Luna? Cute.

Good guys who died:
Hedwig
Mad-Eye
Dobby
Ted Tonks (and that other guy he was with)
Fred
Lupin
Tonks
COLIN CREEVEY

What the fuck? That was cruel, too, killing poor little Colin Creevey.

So Melissa told me that when J.K. was writing the book, she wept while she killed one of the characters. It had to be Dobby, right? Or Fred. Did other people die and I just wasn’t paying attention? Because that’s a really low death count. Oh, fuck. Snape. Remember Snape? Yeah. He died. Sheesh. Do you think she wept when she killed Snape? He doesn’t engender that much sympathy. Although, she knew what he’d done the whole time, while the rest of us had to learn of it after he died. I was convinced it was Hagrid, and I was really sad about that.

Oh, and when the centaurs and the House Elves joined the fight, renewed tears. I don’t know why! It was just all very emotional—that these creatures who’d been debased by wizards, but whom Harry had always treated well—were willing to fight and die for him, for his wizards.

I had some nits to pick, but I can’t fucking remember what they are. Something dumb, no doubt.

I liked the return of Hermione’s blue flames that can be kept in a jar. Good throwback.

Obviously, I was bawling when Harry used the Resurrection Stone to talk to the adults who loved him. That's the part that got me going in Goblet of Fire, when James and Lily tell him to be brave and fight off Voldemort for him, and oh, god. Dead parents! Never not sad! Poor Teddy.

Is Teddy a werewolf? Well...we could look at lycanthropy as a disease and not a genetic mutation, so it wouldn't get passed down to successive generations. And also, according to Tonks, "metamorphmagi are really rare," so how come her son is one? You apparently don't have entire families of metamorphmagi. I got the impression they were sports. You know? Whatever. It's cute, Teddy with his blue hair. There! That was a nit, and now I have picked it.

Here's my fave bit from a review so far: "I have NO idea how they are going to turn this book into a movie that is less than 3 hours long and in my head I could almost imagine whoever ends up being the director of this movie yelling at Rowling, 'You're throwing a chapter of flashbacks into the middle of the final battle sequence?! How in the hell are we supposed to handle THAT?!' I don't know dude or dudette - may the force be with you on that one." --from the Caffeinated Librarian

The woman does have some serious pacing problems; I've been getting bogged down in the middle of these bad boys since Goblet of Fire, but eventually, it all turns out to be worth it. Thanks for writing, Jo. Thanks for getting people excited about books. It was amazing to see how many people were standing in the parking lot of Barnes and Noble on Friday night, waiting for a book. For getting people excited to read, even if they don't go on to other books after this, Rowling deserves all the accolades and all the millions. Yes, I believe there are better books, but I love these desperately, and I'm glad half the planet does, as well.

Now! A special edition of what you should read next to fill the Potter void:
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
A Wrinkle in Time and its four companions by Madeleine L'Engle
Redwall and its millions of sequels/prequels/etc. by Brian Jacques
The Eyre Affair and its sequels by Jasper Fforde
Mary Poppins and its sequels by P.L. Travers
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie--trust me. This is classic British literature for children. Just try not to think of Michael Jackson.

I hear Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising is good, but I didn't like whichever one of those I read (The Grey King, I think), but it was in the middle of the series, so maybe I should hold off judgment. And Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Pyrdain keep getting recommended, and since I only read the last one, I can't judge those either. Ursula K. Leguin has apparently written a pretty compelling fantasy series, but I haven't read those either. That list up there, those are my go-tos. And I haven't even finished His Dark Materials, but the first book (The Golden Compass) was so good.

Okay, so maybe I did have a million things to say, but there are probably a million more. Let me just end with this: RIP, Fred.

Possible spoiler--be warned, adventurous stranger!

Okay, I know most people have only had this book in their hot little hands for about 24 hours, so I'm not giving away anything specific, but I needed to get this out there. This single line of dialogue is the first thing in the book that really made me cry:

"He must've known you'd always want to come back."

It made me cry again, just reading it so I could type it out properly.

Anyway, the book was great; I have to add another to the "books that have made me sob" list, and I had some nitpicks as I always do, and I can't quite look at it as literature yet and pick it apart, because I got overly emotionally attached. I was a wreck till the end, y'all, and I'm exhausted. Goodnight.

Double obsessions

Yesterday, I was complaining to Melissa that I couldn't stand waiting for Harry Potter, and she was like, "Yes you can. You're an adult." And I was like, "I am not an adult." And she said, "You said that like it was a swear!" And it is.

Okay, bitches, there are less than thirteen hours left, and I can't stand it.

After Ryan Assman tells Kelly she's safe from elimination in the Top Four episode, she looks so surprised. And she gives Tamyra most of her surprised face. Did Kelly and Tamyra decide that one of them had to be in the bottom two that week? And Kelly apparently thought it was her? I don't get it. Also, it's still bullshit that Tamyra got booted, and why did she ever fade into obscurity? I kind of miss you, Tamyra Gray.

I have two obsessions right now. Guess what they are.

So today, at lunch, I decided to go to Barnes and Noble for two purposes. One, to buy the issue of Blender with my number one imaginary girlfriend on the cover (hotness). Two, to reserve Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I know; I was, like, six months late or whatever. And! I was just in time, because the pleasant customer service lady at my neighborhood B&N told me they were only taking reservations for the next twenty minutes. And then I would be fucked. Thank god I went at lunch instead of after work, like I had originally planned. I wonder if Mike would go with me tomorrow night, just so I don't have to stand in line by myself like a loser. Anyway, I went at lunch because I started reading Blender's article about Kelly online, got giddy, and decided I needed to read the hard copy in private. Not for dirty reasons, bitches. Just so I didn't squee out like a twelve-year-old girl at an 'N Sync concert in front of people. Okay? So I had to get it at lunch. There is no waiting for Kelly Clarkson. And now I am most definitely going to get a copy of Harry Potter and the [mother-fucking] Deathly Hallows tomorrow night. Melissa read a review of it in the New York Times today, which she said gave away what the deathly hallows were, and she was, like, no way anyone's figured that out. Now, way back in ancient days (aka January or December), I looked hallows up in the trusty...um, not the OED. Well, I looked it up somewhere, and a hallow, as I thought, is a saint or otherwise holy person, as in All Hallows' Eve, a-to-the-k-to-the-a, Halloween, the night before All Saints' Day (which must have originally been called All Hallows' Day). Some other dictionary also said a hallow could be a relic from a holy person/saint, I think, so I was, like, um maybe the hallows are the horcruxes? You know, the horcruxes the big bad LV made from Hogwarts Founder relics? But I was not impressed with that theory. That's a rather dumb thing to put in the title the book. However, so was this Half-Blood Prince. Although, I guess big bad Snape played quite the role in the book in which he was a titular character. (How do you like that, Potter? The only other character referenced in a title is the one person you hate!) So then I was, like, well...deathly--that could mean causing death. Or it could mean...like death. The hallows are like death? What! Dementors? Inferi? What the fuck? The hallows cause death? So...a relic that causes death? God dammit. A holy person that causes death? THERE ARE NO HOLY PEOPLE IN HARRY POTTER! Unless she's co-opted hallow to mean "powerful wizard" or something else without any connotation of holy by adding "deathly" in front of it. I have no idea! This has been bugging me for a long time, because of the specific meaning of the word hallow, but I let it go until Melissa started talking about that stupid book review.

Okay, so. A hallow is a saint or a saint's relic. Deathly saint. There is nothing in Harry Potter that could be a deathly saint. Unless it's dementors--where do they even come from? Or a deathly holy relic. Or she's just introducing something entirely new. How about that? In her land, hallowed means deeply magical, and these deeply magical things cause death. How about that?

Why Order of the Phoenix is my favorite Harry Potter film

Seriously, you guys. It is. it's totally my least favorite Harry Potter book, but it somehow produced the best movie. Somehow, David Yates managed to cram in almost all the important parts of the book without making it feel crammed. He left out some stuff and changed some stuff that upset me, but, well, duh. Still, it was the best adaptation of a book I've seen in a long while. I can't really explain better than that, but I did want to list some specific things that made me love the movie.

That girl they found to play Luna Lovegood is spot-on perfect. As perfect as Emma Watson is for Hermione and Rupert Grint is for Ron. Maybe even more perfect.

The Weasley twins' W in fireworks is the Ministry's M upside down---exactly. I love that subtle image of rebellion. I LOVE IT.

Even though she serves no purpose to the plot of the film, Tonks is there, being awesome. And in the five minutes (or less) we have of screen time, we get several of her characterizations: she's astonished by the cleanliness of the Dursleys', because her Muggle pop's a slob (okay, the Muggle pop's thing not in there--and perhaps her father was Muggle-born, I can't effing remember); we see her change her hair color and her noses to make Ginny laugh; we discover that she hates her given name of Nymphadora, and we also see that, while she's good at disguises, she's a fuckin' klutz. It's all so well done! I forgot I even liked Tonks, because she bloody sucks in Half-Blood Prince, all inexplicably in love with Lupin, who has to be, like, fifteen years older than her. I would have hooked her up with Charlie, since Bill is so taken with Mademoiselle Delacour.

While I was watching the movie, I figured out what truly and utterly bugs me about J.K. Rowling's writing. She creates these fab stories and these fab characters, but she writes about her characters in a way that, like, prevents me from actually caring about them. Like, I was totally put off by Luna in the books, and even Hermione kind of sucks sometimes, but in the movies, they're both awesome. That's why I was nAHt impressed with the first book--because I couldn't get invested in the characters. But in the movies, you totally can. And I blame that on Rowling's writing. I know that's totally snobbish or whatever, and it's not like I could do better, but you know. I'm not trying to.

This movie handled the Harry/Cho thing way better than the book. Because it was barely there. That gets a thumbs up from me. Also, I liked the subtle reminders that Ginny's still pretty stuck on Harry. Those were good.

Barely any OWL nonsense.

So much less exposition. So much less.