Book Club: Harry Potter

[everythingshiny]

CHALLENGE #016

Description This month because i'm not very organized we're going to talk Harry Potter :)
Next Month we'll talk about The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared By Jonas Jonasson :) Let me know if you have trouble finding this and i'll try to find a pdf.

Have you read any/all the HP books?Read more... )

Comments

[mravenwood]

Have you read any/all the HP books? I've read them all
Do you have a favourite book? Prisoner of Azkaban
Who are your favourite characters? Luna, Sirius, Remus, Narcissa, Neville
Which Characters do you not enjoy, but think are interesting anyway? Bellatrix, Lucius, Voldemort
Do you have a favourite scene? I have a bunch of scenes that I really enjoy. I remember more of my experience reading the books than the actual books though. I remember my sister and I taking turns reading. I fondly remember scenes just because of how I felt in that moment when we were reading the books together. I really love scenes involving the Malfoy family. I found that dynamic very interesting. I wanted more about the 'evil' characters. I wish it was less 'good vs evil' and explored ambiguity more and how people who are 'evil' are still dynamic characters with families and lives. I wish the houses were not seen as being lesser than others too.
Anything else you wanna ramble about? Hmpf, I thought it was weird how J.K. Rowling wants to change things after

[cardboardcornea]

"I wish it was less 'good vs evil' and explored ambiguity more and how people who are 'evil' are still dynamic characters with families and lives. I wish the houses were not seen as being lesser than others too."

This is kind of one of my biggest issues with the series. Rowling makes a point of saying things like "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters" but never really showed that.

How the Slytherin's were portrayed always bothers me. You get the most about Draco, who is just a confused kid who makes some bad decisions. You get a little of what when down with Regulus. Then there's that whole Snape mess to muddle through. Nowhere do you get any mention of a Slytherin that didn't first make bad decisions. But there was such a nice set up to do something like that with Theo Nott, son of a Death Eater but who never seemed to run with that crowd in school.

[mravenwood]

Yeah, it always jelled wrong with me how she said the world wasn't 'black/white, good/evil' but that's exactly how she represented it. Like, she said that's not what she wanted, but she went right ahead and created something like that.

I never understood why we never once saw a Slytherin who was ambitious in ways that didn't lead to bad decisions, and not just simple kid bad decisions, but major ones, ones that would not have happened to everyone. I feel like business owners or anyone who wants to make a big change in the world would be Slytherin, but that doesn't mean 'evil' or 'always going to make every single bad choice they could make'

[cardboardcornea]

Yes. There's always that adage in writing to show not tell and here Rowling is telling one thing but showing another.

The books represent Gryffindor as this epitome of everything good (okay, that may not be what it was meant to be showing but that's what I think a lot of people took out of it) despite the facts that their traits could just as easily lead them down a bad path. Why was there no brave, courageous Gryffindor who just happened to think that Voldemort had things right? They could have honorably fought for what they believed to be right, just as easily as an ambitious Slytherin could realize that Voldemort was full of shit and aim for something that wasn't mass murder.

[mravenwood]

Yes, we've been talking about that in my writing classes. She really does show something opposite of what she wants to tell.

That's how I took it. She didn't try very hard to make it not be taken that way. I felt like people took Gryffindor as 'good' when someone brave and courageous could very easily be a bad person. Life isn't so cut and dry, everyone with these traits must act a certain way. Harry Potter books sort of made it out that being ambitious makes you evil, which is kind of terrible. It makes it seem like the people who stand up for what they believe in and want to make a difference would be evil?

[burningchaos]

I love and agree with this whole conversation.