Of Painting and Potter

[ganimede]

As I had planned, I managed to get out and give the fence a second coat of paint yesterday, and as I suspected, it took me nearly all day. Then again, I did do the entire right-hand side. Yes, all 8 panels of it. No wonder I am absolutely knackered today. Still, it looks good, although there's still an awful lot of blue showing through yet.

Comments

[hobbitblue]

I think the plot, foreshadowing and research is great, and the brilliance of her world and how inventive it can be is great.. i just wish that having mapped out thecourse of all 7 books she'd stopped to look and see if things should maybe have deviated from that outline once she'd filled it out - after all, after years of fanfic authors objecting to the Harry & Ginny pairing and even more to the utterly unsuited Hermione & Ron, she finally admitted it shold have been Harry with Hermione, makes you wonder what other elements were set in stone so early she didn't even think to reassess how things might better have gone. Mind, that's what fanfic is there to explore, I just get grumpy over the epiloge and ron with hermione.. heck, grumpy with the whole of Deathly Hallows to be honest. I'm glad you're enjoying revisiting them, not actually heard the audiobooks but I imagine Stephen Fry does na excellent job. And definitle good to have something like that to focus on while doing a repetitive task like fence painting!

[ganimede]

I think with some of the later books, there was definite influence from the films which is unfortunate. So as well as just thinking about Ron and Hermione pairing up, there's also the thought of it being Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. Plus, the amount of attention and everything that the books were getting, all of that is bound to have made a difference. There was a lot of pressure on her because people were really scrutinising every little word - she'd obviously hoped people would do that or she wouldn't have put in that level of detail - but I think the amount of fanaticism was unexpected

[hobbitblue]

Yes, having the film versions in existance must have had some influence for sure, even though the films had ot leave out huge chunks (and in the case of the first film some of my favourite bits!)

I think charachters having a life of their own and dictating the way a book develops despite an outline makes for a better book in the end, more challenging with a 7 book arc though, with so many things to keep track of

Oh that sounds lovely, very cosy :) don't worry about trying to share them with me (tho burning a cd would be most logical for any audio stuffs) cos I don't really get on with audiobooks, never get round to them as they tend to put me to sleep very quickly these days which is quite annoying as I have some plays to listen to and I've not made it very far in them as yet cos of snoozing away past the first 20 mins or so, oops!

[ganimede]

I think there were certainly places where she was writing for a particular actor, rather than for the character. I wasn't so bothered about stuff that was left out of the films, I was more bothered about stuff that was added in!

Heh, there was a series I used to read years ago which got to be well-known by its fans for having a complete lack of consistency. That was a school series as well, there were various characters that changed ages and jumped from the fifth year to the third year, or names that got changed. There was also one amusing incident where a student's father says something like, "Or my name's not (whatever it was)" and a few books later on, it wasn't, his first name was something entirely different. But that series had over 60 books ;) And the author hadn't planned on there being so many so she'd not kept a record of who was what and when.

I don't think I could fit the files on a CD! There's one file per chapter, so that's almost 200 files and they're not exactly small. It's easily a couple of gig in total.

[hobbitblue]

Hard not to do that once the media ball got rolling.. a lot of the actors didn't match with my mental images from teh books (nor really from the description, Hermione especially) What was added in that shouldn't have been there? Bearing in mind I've not watched past Goblet of Fire..

Hee, oh dear, that's seriously inconsistent, 60 books is a lot, you'd think once it got past 10 or so that the author might have started trying to keep track a bit... :)

Heh, lucky i don't want it then :P hang on tho, if it takes up that much space how many cds do they sell it on? I know my hitchhikers cassette box set was about 10 of them. Er, my friends box set but he never got back in touch to get it back...

[ganimede]

I think the worst films for having things added were after Goblet of Fire. The bits I mostly remember are in Order of the Phoenix where Hogwarts suddenly produces a school choir; in Half-Blood Price, Draco reveals that he has a Dark Mark and the Burrow is destroyed by Death Eaters, and in the second Deathly Hallows film, Hogwarts has a boat shed, which sole use seems to be for Snape to die in.

I don't think the author was expecting the series would get past a dozen books, never mind up to 60! It would have required a lot of paper to keep notes on them all though.

The unabridged audio CD set of all seven books is 103 CDs, running time just a smidgen under 125 hours.

[hobbitblue]

Was that the weird thing with the toads? Definitely not happy with the Burrow going splat - wait, Snape dies in the shrieking shack, its one of those author things where the place he nearly snuffed it to a werewolf is finally the place another monster gets him except this time hes' redeemed or whatever. No boats required. thats a big grr, I agree!

Heh, the joy of modern databases I guess.. 60 is a hell of a lot tho, i think Agatha Christie's written about that but its pretty rare.

wow. ok, that's a lot of fence painting *g*

[ganimede]

Yes, that was the weird thing with the toads. It was totally random, as was the destruction of the Burrow. And yes, the link with the Shrieking Shack was important, but apparently the boat house was closer or something.

I'd be able to do less fence painting if I had the American versions. From what I've heard, Jim Dale speaks a lot faster on those and so each book doesn't last as long. Apparently, the Half-Blood Prince book lasts 18½ hours by Jim Dale but 20½ by Stephen Fry, while Order of the Phoenix (the thickest book) takes 26½ hours for Jim Dale to read but 29¼ for Stephen Fry. Talk about getting your money's worth ;)

[hobbitblue]

Ah the famouis boat house.. which, er, doesn't get mentioned at all in the books, i don't think?

Heh, can't imagine Jim Dale doing as good a job as dear Stephen especially if he's gabbling.. well, by comparison to Fry's measured mellifluous tones :)

[ganimede]

Nope, not at all. The only boats that are mentioned are in the first book as that's how the first years arrive at the castle.

I can't imagine him doing them at all, I just keep seeing him as the doctor from the Carry On films... The Americans seem to like him though, and we all know what discerning masters of taste they are ;)

[hobbitblue]

Bit of a waste of an entire lake to only use ti for that, a squid and the rare Triwizards, come to think..

Heh, yes, very discerning. Though it could be worse if you were going for a Carry On actor, imagine Sid James doing it? I imagine Kenneth Williams would have been rather talented mind you, he could do all the voices ala Round the Horne or, ooh, what was that kids cartoon...WillO the Wisp, yes! like that :)

[ganimede]

Sid James would be terrible! Kenneth Williams was definitely talented for voiceovers but I'm not sure he'd work well for Harry Potter. His voice is just a little too... suggestive.

[hobbitblue]

Yes, it could be a little unnerving. Highly amusing tho, maybe he could read out the HP slash fanfic instead :)