Friday, July 20, 2007

Note

I will be live-blogging the last Harry Potter novel. I plan to do it about the same way I did novel six.

I'm going to a party the night before and my housemates are picking up my copy of the book. I will likely start reading/blogging it at noon Saturday and post a comment on every chapter until I get to the end. This will be spoiler-free but I will allow myself speculation on minor points. (Last year I realized from the first few chapters that Fleur wasn't as bad as people thought and that Ginny Weasely would probably make a good wife for Harry and wrote those things. At the time I took them as opinions of my own and I didn't realize I had just picked up on the foreshadowing.)

OK, before I read the last novel, I want to get two predictions/thoughts out on the series:

1. Neville isn't stupid in the least. Whatever Valdemort did to his parents rubbed off on him a bit and affected his memory and this has been a point since the very first book (when Neville's memory charm was stolen by Draco during the flying lessons.) Most of his academic problems have relatedto memory as well. I would think a point that has been there since book one would be an important point.

2. Readers will recall that the time Draco saw a dementor, it didn't mean much to him. A dementor takes the most horrifying thing you've ever seen and plays it back to you. So if you haven't seen anything particularly horrifying, it doesn't affect you much.
Harry's cousin Dudley in many ways reminds my of how my brother Jason was at that age. He's a spoiled suburban punk in baggy pants. Jason's had every blow softened for him and I don't know what his worst memory would be, but I doubt it would be anything particularly traumatic.
But when Dudley saw a dementor in book five, it damn near put him in the psych ward.
I'd like to know what Dudley has seen.


CC

5 comments:

epilonious said...

But when Dudley saw a dementor in book five, it damn near put him in the psych ward.
I'd like to know what Dudley has seen.


His parents having sex.

Imagine that moment playing over and over and over again in what used to be a perfectly innocuous alleyway.

kinsi said...

I'm planning on live blogging it too overnight - I just got back from getting my place-holder-wristband from Borders.

Happy Harry Potter Day!!

fausto said...

Dementor, or boggart?

fausto said...

BTW, my son is convinced the last book will reveal that the prophecy really applies to Neville, not Harry, and that Neville will be the one who (unexpectedly!) slays Voldemort.

Me, I'm on the lookout for a death-and-resurrection, Christus Victor allegorical denouement like the one C. S. Lewis used in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I figure Rowling took so much guff from the anti-pagan fundamentalists who denounced her early books as satanic that she'll put Harry up on a pedestal next to the magical Aslan as a children's Messiah figure for the ages, just to stick it in their eye -- because, hey, she can.

kinsi said...

The book is freakin' amazing. Can't wait to see what you think of it.