Harry Potter

[Popples]

I saw it trending and was like, "Noooooo, it can't have been that long ago!"

[Spartan Girl]

Seriously. These books came out when I was 10 but I didn't start reading them til I was 13. I'm now 30!

I actually went to HP Universal for my birthday three months ago. Walking up to the castle...I have no words. It was literally a dream come true.

Man, I miss getting a new book every couple of years. Those midnight parties were the best. And then I'd spend the next day reading the whole thing. I finished the last one in a day because I couldn't put it down. I was an emotional mess because of the Forbidden Forest scene. ????

Edited June 26, 2017 by Spartan Girl

[Browncoat]

45 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

I actually went to HP Universal for my birthday three months ago. Walking up to the castle...I have no words. It was literally a dream come true.

SO JEALOUS!!!!!!!

[SophieDelago]

I can't believe Harry Potter is 20 years old today. That's insane. I feel ancient!

[Minneapple]

23 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I actually went to HP Universal for my birthday three months ago. Walking up to the castle...I have no words. It was literally a dream come true.

We went in March. We had been to the older park a couple years ago but this year saw Diagon Alley for the first time. It's amazing. I made my 9-year-old son read the books before we went. Now he loves them and keeps rereading them, lol. And when we were at the park he kept pointing out details from the books. "There's Quality Quidditch Supplies! There's the Leaky Cauldron!"

[raven]

On 6/26/2017 at 7:17 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Seriously. These books came out when I was 10 but I didn't start reading them til I was 13. I'm now 30!

I actually went to HP Universal for my birthday three months ago. Walking up to the castle...I have no words. It was literally a dream come true.

LOL, the books came out when I was 30 and I'm now 50!  

I turning a very unattractive shade of green - I'm very envious of those of you who've gone to HP Universal - it sounds awesome!

[Spartan Girl]

It was. I already want to go back, but it might be a while.

I loved going inside the castle and the Hogwarts Express. The butterbeer is AMAZING, but the pumpkin juice was gross. They play the soundtrack on the speakers all the time, which gets a little redundant but hey, all in good fun.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Spartan Girl

[Browncoat]

I think I'd have to skip the pumpkin juice (I don't even like pumpkin pie!), but the rest sounds like SO MUCH FUN! 

[blueray]

I went to the park the summer it opened while attending a con. It was surreal to walk up to the castle and have a butterbeer at the three broomsticks. Plus since it was the same time as the HP con, a lot of people were in costume :). I have been back to Orlando since but it was before they added on to the park. I really want to go back and see Diagon Ally and the train (which wasn't up and running yet).

[Spartan Girl]

The train is awesome. You get a projection screen in front of the "window" so you get to feel like you're really going through the countryside. Several characters make appearances :)

[omgsowicked]

I haven't been to the Wizarding World since they expanded, sounds like I need to head back over there! If you're looking to have some butterbeer without going to Universal, I've found that Reed's "Flying Cauldron" Butterscotch Beer is pretty close. You can get it at Whole Foods (and probably elsewhere but I haven't noticed it anywhere else).

[Haleth]

My cousin is one of the conductors on the Hogwarts Express.  Fun job!

Edited June 29, 2017 by Haleth

[benteen]

Today is the date the 19 years later epilogue takes place.  Despite some of the criticism it gets, I liked it.  I liked seeing a happy ending after Rowling spent so many book reveling in Harry's misery. 

Then she did The Cursed Child...

[Spartan Girl]

Well, even Cursed Child had a happy ending.  

[benteen]

On ‎9‎/‎1‎/‎2017 at 0:20 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Well, even Cursed Child had a happy ending.  

After reveling in Harry and his son's misery once more.

[Hanahope]

I know Fantastic Beasts was sortof based off the book, or at least the main character and his work, though the movie clearly expanded out into a whole story that from what I understand is the start of a new series of "pre-quel" movies.  Are there going to be books written that are connected to the movies, or is it just movies?  I enjoyed the Harry Potter movies, but the books have so much more detail and other story lines that didn't make it into the movies.  

[starri]

I'd like to invite you all to read a sample chapter of the bot-authored bestseller Harry Potter and the Portrait of what Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash.

My favorite thing about it is that it reveals that Harry is apparently a cannibal who's secretly in love with Ron.  I'd pull out the best sentence, but really, they're ALL the best sentence.

The password is "BEEF WOMEN."

[Popples]

Reading that made me laugh so much, I have hiccups now!

"He (Ron) saw Harry and immediately began to eat Hermione's family."

"The tall Death Eater was wearing a shirt that said, 'Hermione Has Forgotten How To Dance', so Hermione dipped his face in mud."

*SNORT*

[Sharpie66]

FYI, there are two great,  if completely different, HP book podcasts I can recommend. First, Dear Mr. Potter by Alastair Stevens of what used to be Story Wonk but is now Point North Media. He does deep dives into themes and character arcs, etc., and he also does wonderful excerpt reads using great accents. He was only doing one book per year, but decided to keep it going year long after he finished PoA a month ago. (Although he is now doing a brief side trip into Wizard of Earthsea right now before starting with GoF.)

The other one I simply love is Unspoiled! Harry Potter. Natasha guides completely unspoiled newbie Roshawn through all of the books, and they are hilarious (and really profane—they earn the explicit tag!). Roshawn actually is very skeptical in the beginning, but gets into it pretty quickly, especially with the first visit to Diagon Alley. Natasha chooses to read a few chapters out loud in later books to Roshawn, and her gasps of astonishment and delight are fantastic.

They finished the series earlier this year and are now doing a reread including lots of stuff from Pottermore and other sources. They also just got back from a trip to Universal where they had the best time. 

[starri]

No wonder Fred and George had to invent U-No-Poo.

And:  Wha-WHAT?

[GaT]

1 hour ago, starri said:

No wonder Fred and George had to invent U-No-Poo.

And:  Wha-WHAT?

One of the tweets included in that article:

Quote

 

John Ficklen@hexedboy

omg but they don’t learn vanishing charms till like 5th year so what did they do from ages 11-15??? find an upperclassmen to vanish their shit for them???? girl

 

Really good point.

[Snow Apple]

The poor squib janitor. I guess that's why he's so bitter.

[Zuleikha]

Ha, I love how everyone's so apalled by that tweet. But really, I think it's one of those things that's less gross than it seems. Indoor plumbing and sanitation are recent. A lot of real-life places didn't have actual bathrooms prior to indoor plumbing and sanitation... heck, a lot of real-life places still don't. At least in the Wizarding world, people could vanish their excrement! What sounds gross is she makes it sound like wizards and witches were just relieving themselves mid-conversation, but hopefully what she meant was more like people went to corners or stairwalls or other hidden places.

I would fanwank that in pre-indoor plumbing days, students learned vanishing spells much earlier or the house elves took care of it (poor house elves!).

[Spartan Girl]

3 hours ago, Zuleikha said:

Ha, I love how everyone's so apalled by that tweet. But really, I think it's one of those things that's less gross than it seems. Indoor plumbing and sanitation are recent. A lot of real-life places didn't have actual bathrooms prior to indoor plumbing and sanitation... heck, a lot of real-life places still don't. At least in the Wizarding world, people could vanish their excrement! What sounds gross is she makes it sound like wizards and witches were just relieving themselves mid-conversation, but hopefully what she meant was more like people went to corners or stairwalls or other hidden places.

I would fanwank that in pre-indoor plumbing days, students learned vanishing spells much earlier or the house elves took care of it (poor house elves!).

Seriously, this was Middle Ages through the 18th century, what do they expect?

[Snow Apple]

42 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Seriously, this was Middle Ages through the 18th century, what do they expect?

At least chamber pots. Not just doing it "wherever they stood."  LOL

[Zuleikha]

I am not convinced chamber pots for that many students is an improvement over vanishing spells.

[Snow Apple]

7 hours ago, Zuleikha said:

I am not convinced chamber pots for that many students is an improvement over vanishing spells.

I meant go in the pots in some discreet location and then vanish the contents. It's weird to think of all these people squatting whenever and wherever. At least a pot will contain it when, um, the mess is worse than usual before vanishing.

[Zuleikha]

I love this discussion. It's so nice to talk about something light and silly for once. Especially since I just re-read Deathly Hallows for the first time in years. I had forgotten how dark and sad it is! I also had forgotten how directly Rowling addresses some of the issues she'd seemed a bit blithe about like how poorly the Wizards treat a lot of magical creatures. I will never love the house elf subplot, but I did really like the discussion between Hermione and Harry about Kreacher's POV. 

Back to bathroom habits of the Wizarding world, assuming that Rowling meant the wizards/witches went in discreet corners and not really publicly in the middle of conversations, going whenever/wherever is really what a lot of people do even now in places without a sanitation infrastructure. I wouldn't be surprised if Rowling eventually clarified that individual family homes, and people like the Headmaster, House Heads, prefects, Ministries of Magic, etc. had chamber pots.

Also, if anyone had thought to create a multi-stall chamber pot room, they would essentially be creating a bathroom. And then why would the Wizarding world ever change from bathrooms/Vanishing Spells to Muggle-style plumbing? But indoor plumbing is canon, so she's pretty locked into the history being that no one ever thought of it until seeing the Muggles do it. If I understand correctly, the tweet is viral again but not new. It came from a parenthetical aside in Pottermore's article about the Chamber of Secrets, which says that the establishment of indoor plumbing at Hogwarts almost caused the early discovery of the Chamber of Secrets.

[Snow Apple]

Maybe muggle-borns insisted on muggle style flushing toilets once they were invented? Especially if they don't learn the vanishing spell until the 5th year. Vanishing is better for the environment though.

I love how seriously we're taking this. LOL 

[GaT]

23 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

Vanishing is better for the environment though.

But we don't actually know that, "vanishing" could mean "move it to somewhere else" instead of "erase its existence from the universe". There could be giant piles of wizard poo somewhere.

[Snow Apple]

18 minutes ago, GaT said:

But we don't actually know that, "vanishing" could mean "move it to somewhere else" instead of "erase its existence from the universe". There could be giant piles of wizard poo somewhere.

True. If they can vanish something out of existence, what's to stop them from vanishing people? Not just in war but in the heat of the moment during a silly fight. Shudder.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Snow Apple

[HazelEyes4325]

As a parent, I have reached the situation (not a problem) of my almost 10-year-old re-reading the HP series over and over again.  As I said, I wouldn't call this a problem as I'm glad she's reading and that she's reading something that isn't way below her level, but she does have piles and piles of books that she owns but has not yet read.  Okay, so do I...she comes by it naturally. 

So, I'm trying to make the idea of reading 1 HP book and then 1 new book before going back to the next HP attractive to her.  I have a lot of conflicting emotions around this--happy that she's reading this amazing series, worry that she's not reading a wider variety of books, but mostly jealousy that I didn't have a series like this when I was her age.

Edited January 9, 2019 by HazelEyes4325

[Black Knight]

I think you should let her read what she wants. All you're going to accomplish is turning non-HP books into "homework" and turning her off them, possibly for good. She's already got forced reading for school - textbooks, whatever. You don't want to kill her passion and I don't think that at 9 years old you need to be concerned yet about how widely read she is.

She will eventually want a break from HP and will turn on her own to some of the many unread books she has in her pile. And I'm assuming that as a 9-year-old her to-read pile doesn't consist of nothing but thick door-stoppers, so once she does switch to reading other things she'll get through a good number of those books in no time.

[HazelEyes4325]

6 hours ago, Black Knight said:

I think you should let her read what she wants. All you're going to accomplish is turning non-HP books into "homework" and turning her off them, possibly for good. She's already got forced reading for school - textbooks, whatever. You don't want to kill her passion and I don't think that at 9 years old you need to be concerned yet about how widely read she is.

She will eventually want a break from HP and will turn on her own to some of the many unread books she has in her pile. And I'm assuming that as a 9-year-old her to-read pile doesn't consist of nothing but thick door-stoppers, so once she does switch to reading other things she'll get through a good number of those books in no time.

I am 90% in the "read what she wants" camp.  What kind of pulls me out of it is that, for her reading assignments for school, she has pretty broad requirements.  Basically, they are things like "read a mystery" or "read a biography" and she's already tried to fit HP books into categories where they don't quite fit.  She tried to use one as a mystery and one as a historical novel.  She came close to winning the mystery argument with her teacher, but the historical novel was a no-go.  I love that she can read things she enjoys for her book reports, but she does actually have to do the assignment and that is where the HP books become more of an obstacle to her.

The one book she hasn't read yet is The Cursed Child.  I gave it to her once but the play format threw her off.  My guess is that she just isn't quite ready for it yet, but it is on the shelf waiting for her.

[Black Knight]

On 1/9/2019 at 9:45 PM, HazelEyes4325 said:

I am 90% in the "read what she wants" camp.  What kind of pulls me out of it is that, for her reading assignments for school, she has pretty broad requirements.  Basically, they are things like "read a mystery" or "read a biography" and she's already tried to fit HP books into categories where they don't quite fit.  She tried to use one as a mystery and one as a historical novel.  She came close to winning the mystery argument with her teacher, but the historical novel was a no-go.  I love that she can read things she enjoys for her book reports, but she does actually have to do the assignment and that is where the HP books become more of an obstacle to her.

Heh. You may have a future lawyer on your hands. I do think Chamber of Secrets qualifies as a mystery. Is that the one she tried to use?

But yes, I agree she has to follow the rules of her assignments. My "let her read what she wants" only applies to her free reading, not her reading for school. It's nice that the reading assignments have pretty broad requirements, but still, she's got to follow them. I thought from what you wrote before that you were talking about her free reading.

[HazelEyes4325]

16 hours ago, Black Knight said:

Heh. You may have a future lawyer on your hands. I do think Chamber of Secrets qualifies as a mystery. Is that the one she tried to use?

But yes, I agree she has to follow the rules of her assignments. My "let her read what she wants" only applies to her free reading, not her reading for school. It's nice that the reading assignments have pretty broad requirements, but still, she's got to follow them. I thought from what you wrote before that you were talking about her free reading.

She actually tried to use The Sorcerer's Stone for her mystery, which I also think she could argue qualifies, but her teacher wanted to her to read a more "traditional" one.  Her current assignment is to read a biography and she really wants one of J.K. Rowling, but we've been unable to find a suitable book.  There is a "Who is J.K. Rowling" book, but it is written at a much lower level and she needs to find one at least at the 4th-grade level, so that's out (if anyone knows of a middle-grade J.K. Rowling biography, please let me know!)

As for her free reading, it's not a big deal for me.  In fact, I'm glad she's found something that has several books for her to re-read.  This past summer, she found another (non-HP) book that she liked and read it about 12 times in a row...the same book.  I was glad she was reading, but I was a little mystified why she was reading the same thing over and over again.  But, hey, whatever!  I'd rather she was doing that than playing video games or watching TV!

[Zuleikha]

My almost-8 year old is on her 5th or 6th time through the series. She does read other books at school, but I think this is something kids do at this age. I've heard other parents be mystified.

It is fun seeing Harry Potter through a kid's eyes. It seems so trendy now for people to snark on J.K. Rowling's tweets that it's a good reminder of how powerful the world really is for the target audience. When I re-read them so I remembered the details to talk about them with my daughter, I also re-appreciated what a strong writer Rowling is. There are some beautiful passages and sentences in the books.

[wingster55]

Hermione wasn’t nearly criticized enough for the awful things she did. 

[Ambrosefolly]

One thing I always disagreed with Rowling on was not having one Dudley Dursley's be magical on account of Vernon. Sure Vernon was a huge bigot, and while it took Harry to save Dudley's life to have him come around, Dudley was grateful so he was capable of change (and considering that Harry was Voldermort's Horcrux, maybe a small amount of Dudley's nastiness was due to that). 

I think it would be really funny if Dudley discovered that one of his kids was magically and while Vernon would be horrified, Petunia would be openly pleased because she wanted to go to Hogwarts when she was a child.

[peacheslatour]

On 7/20/2020 at 11:10 AM, wingster55 said:

Hermione wasn’t nearly criticized enough for the awful things she did. 

I'll admit it's been a long time since I read the books but what horrible things did Hermione do?

[GreekGeek]

On 3/16/2021 at 3:57 PM, peacheslatour said:

I'll admit it's been a long time since I read the books but what horrible things did Hermione do?

It's been awhile since I read the books too, but the following come to mind: She branded Marietta's forehead with "SNEAK", she trapped Rita Skeeter in a jar. she let Snape be set on fire, and she helped lure Umbridge to the Forbidden Forest to be terrorized by centaurs. You could argue that her victims deserved it, but it wasn't up to her to decide who should be punished and how. She also has a self-righteous and narrow-minded streak that leads her to dismiss things she doesn't understand, such as divination; or to act as if everyone must share her values, as with SPEW. I also thought it was sad that she messed with her own parents' heads to erase their memories of her existence, even if she was putting them into a magic form of witness protection.

[DearEvette]

7 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

It's been awhile since I read the books too, but the following come to mind: She branded Marietta's forehead with "SNEAK", she trapped Rita Skeeter in a jar. she let Snape be set on fire, and she helped lure Umbridge to the Forbidden Forest to be terrorized by centaurs. You could argue that her victims deserved it, but it wasn't up to her to decide who should be punished and how.

I disagree.  Hermione was definitely self righteous and self important and her SPEW campaign was a bonehead thing.  And my memory is her actions re: SPEW were called out by fandom.  But the examples cited here just don't rise to the level of horrible, imo, especially given the context.  None of these things resulted in any harm. And most of them were defensive measures against a bigger perceived threat. 

Marietta signed a magical contract vowing not to betray her fellow students to Umbridge.  She betrayed her fellow students.  What idiot who goes to a magical school and grew up in a magical family signs a magical contract that she then breaks and does not expect some consequences?  Snitches get stitches!

Rita Skeeter, meanwhile, used her (illegally) unregistered ability as an animagus to spy in people and publish  their private business in a newspaper.  She slut shamed Hermione in the Daily Prophet causing Hermione to receive massive amounts of hate mail and bullying.  In fact Hermione did Rita a solid.  If she had reported Rita to the Ministry of Magic instead of trapping her, Rita would have gone to Azkahban for not registering as an animagus.

The fire she used to set Snape's cloak on fire wasn't harmful, just a distraction since she could touch it with her own hands and scoop it into a jar.

And finally, she didn't lure Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest to be terrorized by the Centaurs.  She did not expect the Centarus to be there.  Umbridge was about to unleash the cruciatus curse on Harry (also illegal) after already spending most of the school year literally physically torturing Harry.  Hermione lured her into the Forbidden Forest in the hopes of see Grawp.  Magic didn't work around Grawp so she hoped that'd delay Umbridge enough.  But they ran into the Centaurs instead.  Umbridge herself insulted and attacked the Centaurs first.  They retaliated. 

All of these fall under what I would call the 'Don't start none.  Won't be none" statute.  So yeah, totally Team Hermione on all of these.

[truthaboutluv]

2 hours ago, DearEvette said:

All of these fall under what I would call the 'Don't start none.  Won't be none" statute.  So yeah, totally Team Hermione on all of these.

This. For me, once I re-read many of the books (not Half Blood Prince. Will never re-read that crap) when I was older and her other novels, I think it's fair to say that one of the biggest flaws of J.K.'s writing is that her heroes tend to have a certain arrogance and obnoxious quality to them. And let's just say, seeing what's unfolded with her in recent years, I'm guessing that's likely a symptom of her own personality seeping into her writing. 

All that to say that sure, one can make an argument that all of these characters were obnoxious in their own way. But for me, with time, age and perspective, I am whole heartedly Team Hermione and believe she was the best one out of the trio. Hermione was ride or die to the bitter end. How many times did Ron let his petty jealousies get in the way of being a good friend to Harry? Not Hermione. She promised she'd stick with him in Book 1 and never wavered on that. 

But even with her loyalty, she was not afraid to call him out on his shit multiple times when Harry was being a dickwad himself. Interesting the things listed above as criticisms of Hermione. Because I remember when she called Harry out for using a spell he didn't even really understand, against Malfoy. And Harry and his "pick me Queen" Ginny were upset at her and so defensive. But she was right to call him out on playing around with spells he didn't understand that could have resulted in the murder of someone. 

Hermione was the brains of that whole operation and the only reason Harry wasn't wiped out by the first book. Yes, she could be stubborn and a know it all but again, considering J.K. writes all her main characters as thinking they're better than others, I'd hardly call Hermione the worse. 

Edited March 21, 2021 by truthaboutluv

[DearEvette]

14 minutes ago, truthaboutluv said:

For me, once I re-read many of the books (not Half Blood Prince. Will never re-read that crap)

Ha.  When I did my re-reads -- I admit I have not re-read them in years -- I tend to skip The Order of The Phoenix.  It was so depressing and I hated Delores Umbridge so much.  She was just a flat out a child abuser.  Straight up!  And they were stuck in the Sirius black house in the summer.  And the house was depressing.  LOL.

[peacheslatour]

10 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Ha.  When I did my re-reads -- I admit I have not re-read them in years -- I tend to skip The Order of The Phoenix.  It was so depressing and I hated Delores Umbridge so much.  She was just a flat out a child abuser.  Straight up!  And they were stuck in the Sirius black house in the summer.  And the house was depressing.  LOL.

Really? I loved the house. I wish thy had shown more of it in the movie.

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, truthaboutluv said:

All that to say that sure, one can make an argument that all of these characters were obnoxious in their own way. But for me, with time, age and perspective, I am whole heartedly Team Hermione and believe she was the best one out of the trio. Hermione was ride or die to the bitter end. How many times did Ron let his petty jealousies get in the way of being a good friend to Harry? Not Hermione. She promised she'd stick with him in Book 1 and never wavered on that.

All this. There were plenty of times Hermione got on my nerves but everything GreekGeek listed were actually Hermione’s more awesome moments.

[peacheslatour]

18 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

All this. There were plenty of times Hermione got on my nerves but everything GreekGeek listed were actually Hermione’s more awesome moments.

Yep. They were at war FFS.

[benteen]

On 3/21/2021 at 3:40 PM, DearEvette said:

I disagree.  Hermione was definitely self righteous and self important and her SPEW campaign was a bonehead thing.  And my memory is her actions re: SPEW were called out by fandom.  But the examples cited here just don't rise to the level of horrible, imo, especially given the context.  None of these things resulted in any harm. And most of them were defensive measures against a bigger perceived threat. 

Marietta signed a magical contract vowing not to betray her fellow students to Umbridge.  She betrayed her fellow students.  What idiot who goes to a magical school and grew up in a magical family signs a magical contract that she then breaks and does not expect some consequences?  Snitches get stitches!

Rita Skeeter, meanwhile, used her (illegally) unregistered ability as an animagus to spy in people and publish  their private business in a newspaper.  She slut shamed Hermione in the Daily Prophet causing Hermione to receive massive amounts of hate mail and bullying.  In fact Hermione did Rita a solid.  If she had reported Rita to the Ministry of Magic instead of trapping her, Rita would have gone to Azkahban for not registering as an animagus.

The fire she used to set Snape's cloak on fire wasn't harmful, just a distraction since she could touch it with her own hands and scoop it into a jar.

And finally, she didn't lure Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest to be terrorized by the Centaurs.  She did not expect the Centarus to be there.  Umbridge was about to unleash the cruciatus curse on Harry (also illegal) after already spending most of the school year literally physically torturing Harry.  Hermione lured her into the Forbidden Forest in the hopes of see Grawp.  Magic didn't work around Grawp so she hoped that'd delay Umbridge enough.  But they ran into the Centaurs instead.  Umbridge herself insulted and attacked the Centaurs first.  They retaliated. 

All of these fall under what I would call the 'Don't start none.  Won't be none" statute.  So yeah, totally Team Hermione on all of these.

Agreed.  I'd also add that Rita got off very lightly considering all the stuff that she did.  Umbridge was evil.

Edited March 26, 2021 by benteen

[Spartan Girl]

Also I’d like to add that there’s nothing wrong with blackmailing Rita Skeeter into writing a legitimately true story for once in her life.

[peacheslatour]

Quote

Umbridge was evil.

My most hated book villain up until I read her character was William Hamleigh from The Pillars Of The Earth. She was worse somehow.