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[green_queen]

I just finished another reread of Deathly Hallows, and I know we all hate 'Nineteen Year Later' and blah, blah, blah (although I secretly don't), but Ron is kind of kick-ass awesome in the last chapter. Actually, Ron is pretty much consistently kick-ass awesome from the moment The Silver Doe happens. The Silver Doe and The Forest Again are pretty much my favourite chapters ever, or at least since book 3.

And no, I'm not crying. It's just been raining...on my face.

Oh, one more teeny tiny thing that really bugs me about Deathly Hallows: how is it that Voldemort thinks he alone found the place where EVERY HOGWARTS STUDENT IN HISTORY HAS HIDDEN STUFF? There's MOUNTAINS of stuff that Hogwarts kids have hidden in there. I know old Mouldy Voldy isn't the brightest villain ever, but really. MOUNTAINS OF STUFF.

Green Queen

Comments

[subtle--sarcasm.livejournal.com]

And no, I'm not crying. It's just been raining...on my face.

It's so pathetic, but every time I try to re-read the book, I cry before anything even happens. Namely during The Seven Potters, when Fred and George arrive. I just lose it because I think of everything that happens. This book has broken some part of my brain.

That said, I really need to reread it again soon. And I agree that Ron is consistently kick-ass awesome in it. Even more so than usual.

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

I was like that for a while with Return of the King. I actually cried once watching Fellowship of the Ring just KNOWING what would happen in Return of the King. And I'm usually just NOT a crying person, at all. Only two movies have even made me cry (FotR doesn't count.)

Yeah, as soon as he gets back in The Silver Doe he just...he fulfills all the potential Ron had, I think. As do Neville, and Luna, and Harry. Hermione stays the same.

[hobbitofkobol.livejournal.com]

I secretly don't hate the epilogue too. I mean, come ON! These guys deserved their fluffy ending! :p

I've been rereading the book since this weekend! What a crazy random happenstance!

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

I know, right? And it's a little simplistic, but it's kind of sweet, and I love that Harry is completely uncreative about naming his kids (I mean, he got Hedwig's name out of a book) and that naming your kids Albus Severus and Scorpius could be considered child abuse. It kind of amuses me.

[stufsocker.livejournal.com]

No one ever said that the Harry Potter books had consistent internal logic. You could turn around and ask why Mr. Weasely kept mispronouncing words with GReek and Latin bases, like telephone (fellytone), when ALL of the spells used are based on Greek and Latin. And why have moving staircases that make it harder to get around when the point of magic is to make things easier?

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

Okay, I would never have put together the Latin thing though. Loads of the kids mispronounce Latin spells when they're first learning them, and Mr. Weasley is only just learning about Muggle things, so he's bound to get them wrong occasionally. Clearly he's prone to those sorts of problems. Hell, my sister is constantly getting words wrong like that and she's 17.

Hogwarts is full of quirks like that though! Hogwarts makes it difficult in numerous ways for students to get around, but that's part of the fun of it.

[stufsocker.livejournal.com]

Oh I know. But I'm just saying that there really isn't a whole lot of consistent logic, so the Voldemort in the Room of Requirement thing is just another example of something that needs to be read and dismissed. It's that whole suspension of disbelief thing.

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

I (respectfully) disagree, though. The point of magic isn't to make things easier, it's just that magic exists. It makes things harder almost as often as it makes things easier, and it leaves the magical community sort of suspended in time. And I just don't see anything illogical about a personality quirk.

[stufsocker.livejournal.com]

But if magic doesn't make things easier then why wouldn't the wizarding community start to use the things that technology proved workable? Making things easier was what I figured magic was for; you don't have to pack your luggage neatly one thing at a time because you can wave a wand and it's all done for you. When a new technology makes life easier we adapt it because it speeds our development as a whole and we leave the things that make life harder behind. Stagnation doesn't seem like an instinctually correct choice. Throughout the books there's talk of new inventions to move the wizarding world forward (with the exception of the cauldrons made out of cheese), so why not acculturate muggle items if they really do work well? I guess I'm making an assumption that the wizrding world corresponds philosophically with the muggle world where that might not be the case.

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

That's not ALL it's for, is what I meant. They don't need that technology because they have perfectly good methods for doing all those things without it, and also because technology doesn't actually work when there's magical interference anyway. But magic existed before that kind of technology showed up, for good and for bad. I suppose evolution of magic is inevitable and continues, so they're only suspended in time by our standards.

Still, if you're going to have magic you need to take the good with the bad - including magically moving staircases, which yes, make things a little inconvenient, but are part of the wonderful history of that school, a tradition that's important to people. Perhaps they were useful in the beginning and now they're tradition.

Also, there's a deep-seated prejudice against the Muggle world among the wizarding community - Muggle-borns have to prove their worth in wizarding terms, and people like Mr. Weasley who ARE interested in the Muggle world are considered idiots and outcasts.

[stufsocker.livejournal.com]

Hehe, this could be a religious conversation. Tradition is a big factor in the continuation of religious practices also.

Yea, I was thinking of the Muggle prejudice when I was writing the last comment. That's one of those things that i was thinking would be cool to address in that HP encyclopedia that JK was talking about. Like, whether or not wizards were more accepting of muggles after Voldy and teh Death Eaters were taken down. Well, that and who the two missing Gryffindor girls might be. And a few other things.

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

Or just a cultural conversation, really. I keep having flashbacks to Umbridge's speech about tradition for the sake of tradition and pruning practices that ought to be prohibited etc. It's kind of disturbing.

She said she forgot the names of the Gryffindor girls the one time she was asked. I'm always forgetting the one thing I really want to know *facepalm* I think she hinted that Harry, Ron and Hermione and the Order were quite instrumental at the Ministry immediately following the war, changing certain laws, so I think it might've gotten better.

[stufsocker.livejournal.com]

Yea, she said Hermione ended up the head of the magical law enforcement unit and Harry and Ron headed the Aurors. I remember new things I'd want answered every time I read the books.

[rabidglow.livejournal.com]

I really need to re-read this one... I just wish it'd come out in paperback already. I hate reading my hardbacks, it's annoying.

Ron is awesome.

[agnes-perdita.livejournal.com]

I always thought the Room of Requirement would appear like just an empty room for when you want to hide something, because that's what you require - a secluded space, but then chucks all the stuff students put in there into like a magical lost-property warehouse and all you had to do was to walk past asking for the warehouse instead of a specific hiding place. Of course, I am pulling all this out of my arse.

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

That's obviously not the case, though, because when Harry wants to hide his book he gets the cathedral-room with all the stuff in it and he hides it under the bust and puts a tiara on the bust. So clearly any kid who wants to hide something gets the room full of stuff.