A silent excommunication; fandom observations both personal and at large
A long-time LJ friend de-friended me a few days ago. The act was done in silence; no warning, no notice, no message ... no courtesy. Just a silent disconnection. The event that apparently caused this reaction has aided me in making an observation about the HP fandom as it is at present, which I'll discuss a little further below.
( The post-mortem and how the event is symptomatic of a larger fandom trend. )
( The post-mortem and how the event is symptomatic of a larger fandom trend. )
That's okay, I tend to ignore HBP/DH anyhow myself. As csi-tokyo can attest, I typically include HBP in cracky ideas just for the "Dumbledore is dead at this point" part, rather than actually liking that part of canon.
Yeah! I mean, I don't even remember the battle, so it must have been underwhelming, right?
In the book, we have this multi-room battle. Time turners getting destroyed, brains with tentacles getting released, the room with the spinning doors, Hermione getting a gut wound, Neville breaking his nose, Ron getting tentacled (... and that just sounds wrong). It's pretty much the personal eye-opener for Harry's friends that this is real and could get you killed.
Instead, we get a brief chase through the prophecy room, toppled shelves, and then everyone gets captured in the Veil room just in time for the Order to show up to save the day. The Atrium fight though, that was pretty good in the movie.
I may be mistaken, but the 'black smoke' Apparation first appeared in GoF movie, but OotP was the first to go "dur hur hur let's just show smoke trails all over the place instead of bothering with actual spell fire and rehearsing sequences". HBP just took that to be lazy. I mean, why bother figuring out how to have DEs destroy a bridge, just have smoke trails go spinning along its length and have it get torn apart!
One of my issues with HBP is that all the spells... look the same. It's bland white being thrown around (except with the AK). Where are all the colors of spells? Oh, and WHERE WAS THE BATTLE? Like with OotP, they decided to skip the epic battling going on near the end in favor of the bad guys strolling out of the school with only a spell or two fired and a 'meh' Snape/Potter showdown.
Where's the Bill-getting-clawed-by-Fenrir for the nice Fleur/Bill scene, that DE getting killed by friendly fire, or Tonks guilting Remus into dating her (though that scene kinda sank that ship for me)? Movie 7's gonna have Remus complaining about dating/married/impregnating Tonks (unless they cut all that out too), and people'll be wondering when those two got together because there were no indicators. And the two's death at the end might not seem major if the subplot about them and their baby gets chopped out because OMG surprise orphan reveal so sad.
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To be honest, if I hadn't read fanfiction (I frequently enter a fandom via fanfiction and pick up a lot of canon that way before I ever see/read the actual series) and just saw the movies (started reading the books at GoF after seeing PoA in theaters, never actually went back to read books 1-3), I might expect a H/Hr pairing. A picture tells a thousand words, as the saying goes. I figure the actors and director portrayed them in a way that points a lot more towards the pairing in the subtleties that show up through body language and positioning that might be harder to slip into a story.
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I think you'll be getting half a movie's worth with DH 7.5, so that should slake your lust for magical mayhem.
If I ... just saw the movies ... I might expect a H/Hr pairing.
Yeah. With the additional focus on those two in this movie I'm really wondering if they're going to be able to pull off the required canon OBHWF switch around in the last. Maybe it'll be as lifeless as the H/G of movie #6. Although there's more hope for the R/Hr I think, at least half of that equation has some movie spark to it. :-)
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That implies that a) I'd actually be watching HP7.5, and b) they don't find a way to make that horribly craptastic too. Maybe the Battle of Hogwarts is actually smoke shrouded due to all the smoke trails going everywhere instead of actual fighting, interspersed with a few explosions destroying bits of the castle? ;)
With the additional focus on those two in this movie I'm really wondering if they're going to be able to pull off the required canon OBHWF switch around in the last.
OotP was supposed to be the point where we start seeing H/G interaction and getting the groundwork going, right? Except the movie didn't really show any of those scenes other than some DA related stuff. Then HBP movie's... romance subplot.
Watch Ginny switch back in HP7.0/7.5 to being a strong, independent female like she was sorta displayed in canon, and she'll be the one to kill Nagini instead of Neville taking a level in badass. At which point Harry wants to have her babies and ta-dah! Pairing achieved! :D
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Look folks! MORE AMAZING BLACK SMOKE!!!
"And the winner of the Oscar for best special effects goes to ..."
Nah, *surely* they're going to go all out with the flashing lights and epic magic battles. I mean, the more wizz-bang lights and sounds, the less focus on the actual plot, right? ;-)
Watch Ginny switch back in HP7.0/7.5 to being a strong, independent female like she was sorta displayed in canon, and she'll be the one to kill Nagini instead of Neville taking a level in badass. At which point Harry wants to have her babies and ta-dah! Pairing achieved! :D
ARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
I was honestly expecting something like that to happen in this movie, and was surprised to be told that Ginny is, like in the book, a non-entity. At least that's what I'm told. So they're leaving their run until pretty late. But yeah, if the battle takes up half of 7.5, and Ginny's there, maybe they'll do a Rowling and have her suddenly turn into a fierce warrior woman overnight.
But, you know, if they didn't do it with this movie ... I think the film people are going to let Ginny and H/G just sit there in the background, even more than it was in the book - which will be pretty far back, a couple of light-years - and maybe concentrate on the R/Hr half of OBHWF.
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At least it's not an Inner Circle Death Eater getting demolished by a housewife... oh wait! That was definitely a "lol wut?" moment.
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What? You mean you missed all those times in the canon where Molly's duelling prowess was noted? All the Order missions she went on because of her utility as a fighter? How she showed up at the Ministry battle, and then the HBP fight at Hogwarts, when the Order assembled to defend her children who needed protecting from Death Eaters?
:-)
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No! We need an alternative ending!
I've been joking that they're doing exactly that with the films. Both Radcliffe and Watson have told reporters that they've been recalled to re-shoot the epilogue ... but it's only those two actors who have announced this.
So it's obvious - the movie people have decided to shoot a H/Hr ending/epilogue. No Weasley actors necessary.
Uh huh. I will brook no denial on this! :-)
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But if they leave Ginny as the background character that she currently is ... how in blazes are they going to leave the audience happy with the end of the series? An epilogue of dumpy middle-aged Ginny with cute kids, is that going to cut it? Yoiks. That will satisfy the hard-core fans who walk into the theatres already brainwashed into thinking Ginny is wonderful, but for everyone else?
I really thought the movie folk would continue bucking the canon and paint Ginny as awesome in this first movie, rather than stash her out of sight like Rowling. But they didn't. I'm really unsure what they're going to do in the last.
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