Media Consumption: Book/Movie - Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows and Me Rambling
Originally published at Curious Zoology. You can comment here or there.
Finally saw the new Harry Potter movie and it’s been long enough since I read the book that I really didn’t remember specifics of anything so it actually made some things surprising and didn’t end up getting bogged down in comparisons. Over all I’m left with a favorable impression and am suitably excited about seeing the next and final installment next year.
The animation sequence done for the story of the three bothers was gorgeous and I could watch a whole movie done that way. It was a nice thing to see CGI used to create something that wasn’t trying to simulate “real life.”
I’m not really going to discuss the movie from here on out. Just want to get some thoughts down about the Potterverse as a whole and where does JK Rowling go from here since she’s said she wants to write more books. Whether those books will have anything to do with Potter, only she knows.
First off, what is up with the way she wrote Slytherins? Fine, Slytherins are self preserving and always pure bloods, but ambition, cunning, determination, and resourcefulness are not bad things and are actually quite useful in real life. MacGyver was all those things and self preserving and most folks would not consider him a bad dude. Everyone that you run into from Slytherin is always portrayed so badly and except for Snape, behave badly. It seems incredibly off that a whole quarter of the school would just be that off. Come on! There had to be some decent minded Slytherins out there somewhere. Also there have to be some douches in the other houses too. There can not be 3/4 of the school that is just super awesome and special people.
Now we get to Hufflepuff. Poor poor students sorted into Hufflepuff. Being a Hufflepuff means loyalty, dedication and hard work, which by themselves are not bad traits, but knowing that you basically put there because you didn’t measure up to be in the other houses. There were a few standouts to come from the ranks (Tonks and Diggory), but it really seems like there should have been more thought into making Hufflepuff as awesome sounding as the rest of the Houses.
And here is my unsolicited advice if Rowling wants to write more in this particular universe: don’t write about Harry Potter. There is a whole world to play in and Harry’s story is done. We have the epilogue, which paints his life as entirely unremarkable since the end of the seventh book and we don’t need to see how he got from there to raising kids. I want to hear about the past, like far past with the founders of the school or more of Dumbledore’s story. I want to hear about other parts of the world. The readers only got a small glimpse of what magic is outside of the UK with the Tri Wizard Cup and the Quidditch Cup, so let’s explore that. Honestly, I have no desire to read about their kids, but that is another route to go. Basically, if she’s not ready to leave the wizarding world, there are a lot of places for her to explore. If she wants to leave, then good luck to what ever new world she creates.
