moments of otp

[wisdomeagle]

By the end of the lesson, only Hermione Granger had made any difference to her match; Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile. - HPSS/PS page something or other.

++++

Not really unrelatedly, in Matilda the movie, I really think Miss Honey/Matilda reads more as, well, Miss Honey

Comments

[hermionesviolin]

[[ But looking at everything in light of the love-at-first-sight Dickens moment, I'm more inclined to view Matilda as a love story, in which they triumph over terrible odds in order to be together and to live happily ever after. The montage at the end - they play with hula hoops, they sew, they roll around on the lawn, they read together - to me reinforces the image of them as peers. ]]

Interesting. Reading that montage litany I thought, "That sounds like peers like whoa, and that bothers me" -- because Miss Honey is an adult acting like a child, and I like adult adults, even though thinking back to the book she is far more child than adult. And I rather suspect that the ideal in Dahl's children's books is eternal childness (the only positive real adult I can think of is the grandmother in The Witches). But it has been years since I read any of the Dahl books

[wisdomeagle]

There's also Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, setting aside the troublesomeness of Willy Wonka himself (it's been far too long since I've read the book and so can't really remember). But yeah, adults suck is a not-exactly-subtle theme in Dahl.

OTOH, the children are very... adultlike. I mean, part of who Matilda is is a little girl who thinks like an adult - I haven't read the book recently, but I don't think there's anything really equivalent to that ending montage with its reclaiming-of-childhood ideal. Huh.

I love Matilda's Ravenclawness (if we must use HP metaphors) and the idea that they make her into more of a Gryffindor in the film adds to my reasons not to see the film -- because I am way more comfortable with her bookishness than with her tricksiness.It's not just tricksiness, it's stupid-frelling-pointless-bravery, which is how I define Gryffindor and which makes me want to slap her. Her intelligence isn't really downplayed so much as her bravery is played up, but there is a shift from Matilda as generally

[hermionesviolin]

There is Grandpa Joe, yes. I feel like he acts primarily as an agent to move storyaction along than anything else, however. Though thinking back now (I reread the book after the Johnny Depp movie came out so I could at least chime in re: source text in the discussions) he consistently acts as a counter to Wonka -- pressing him with questions about his logic, etc. The text itself problematizes the character of Wonka through Grandpa Joe.

Definitely agreed re: adultlike children. I think that inversion is a major part of Dahl's critique.

I am now home and can pull out my copy of the book. The end scene is your icon, with the Wormwoods running away, all too happy to have someone take Matilda, but what I always think of as the end scene is her loss of her powers, her having finally found her niche.

Skimming, I come across:

"I'm glad it's happened," Matilda said. "I wouldn't want to go through life as a miracle-worker."

Oh the wonderfully adult child.

Sidenote: From the facing page, after the heartbeats conversation:

This

[wisdomeagle]

Really don't remember Charlie well enough to comment.

I really ought to reread Matilda the book, and probably will, so I can discuss more (and try to avoid just posting book vs movie, since I think both are interesting in their own right and not just in the ways the movie desecrates changes the book.

*wins!

Yeah. I'm not a fan of Gryffindors or Gryffindor-type heroes in most 'verses and associate them with blind idealism and the Gene Roddenberry heroes - the Kirks of the world. And yeah. Not a fan. (Though in the HP-verse itself, I do like the Gryffindors more than the Slytherins. In the larger 'verse, characters who'd be sorted Slytherin are interesting, but Rowling's villains, not so much [except for Snape]).

And that's a bizarre unrealism the movie is working if she's supposed to have all her knowledge from books and superpowers she retains even after finding her intellectual niche.Yup. It's wicked annoying. I think there's something to be said about the shift in values from Dahl's book to the American cinema... I think there's

[hermionesviolin]

Somewhere in this conversation I was thinking of suggesting that we both reread the book so we could discuss :)

I never watched TOS and don't have any particular fondness for Kirk. I do love Picard, though I am also constantly critiquing the Trekverse (from a meta outsider perspective as mentioned in a previous comment).

And I'm one the few who is not utterly fascinated by Snape, huh?

I think there's a far more striking theme of independence from authority in the movie (though still with the needing to reread the book!).

Interesting, since my dominant memory of the book (well past the initial image of tiny Matilda in the huge chair with the stacks of books) is of all the tricks Matilda plays, of the ways in which she is able to attack the established figures of authority (her parents and the Trunchbull).