Cancel ALL year-end exams? Not likely

The Chamber -- film and novel

At the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts administration announces that "the exams had been cancelled as a school treat" to celebrate the resolution of the Chamber problem and the saving of the school from the Basilisk that lurked within.

It's a nice moment... but, in the context of the entire series of novels, it makes no sense.

As we learn in later novels, Hogwarts puts students through two sets of incredibly important examinations (OWLs and NEWTs) at specific points in their academic journeys (after fifth and seventh years). Each has a distinct impact on the student's academic and professional careers and we see the hero trio agonize over their OWLs in The Order of the Phoenix. In fact, Harry, Hermione and Ron's experience in book five suggests that students begin preparing for their major exams very early in the academic year (and often the year before). The exams are important enough, and tough enough, that students need to work long and hard to prepare for them.

So there is virtually no chance that year-end exams for all students would be cancelled for any reason. Sure, it might be possible for the school to cancel exams for students in their first, second, third, fourth and sixth years but it is inconceivable that OWL and NEWT examinations would be cancelled in any year. From what we learn in later novels, the students would have to sit these exams at some point. So I think it is clear that the students who have been working so hard and so long to prepare for them would revolt against the thought that they would be postponed for any period of time.

I first noticed this issue when I recently re-watched the film version of the story. And I immediately blamed screen writer Stephen Kloves. In having Dumbledore announce the cancellation at the year-end speech, I thought Kloves was, of his own volition, taking things a step too far.

Then I checked Rowling's original novel and found this: "or Professor McGonagall standing up to tell them all that exams had been cancelled as a school treat". 

So I was wrong to blame Kloves (Sorry, Stephen).

But it does raise questions about how detailed J.K. Rowling's planning was when she wrote the second novel around 1998, a subject that, as a wannabe writer who finds Rowling's accomplishment in creating the Wizarding World absolutely amazing, is of significant interest to me.

It seems clear to me that, at the point that she was writing The Chamber of Secrets, Rowling had not yet developed in detail the academic journey students go on when they attend Hogwarts. The inclusion of the cancellation of year-end exams for all students in the second book is evidence that, in 1998, the concept of the OWLs and NEWTs was still to be created.

I am not saying this is a big deal. The seven novels are remarkably consistent and it is clear that, even if Rowling in 1998 had not yet developed details to the level of year-end exams, the author accomplished something remarkable in inventing such an incredibly detailed world as she went through the process of writing the seven novels.

But it is interesting to me and indicative of how difficult it can be to do what Rowling did so well -- plan a complex world and then write it over the course of a decade. I don't think it's possible to get every detail right in the early novels when the process of writing the later novels requires thousands of decisions, thousands of details, thousands of considerations as to what will make each book dramatic and effective.

That being said, I am going to read into ending of The Chamber of Secrets that only some exams were cancelled and that students facing their OWLs and their NEWTs were still required to sit their examinations.

A clever opening scene

The first chapter of The Half-Blood Prince is, for me, more evidence of the kind of clever, thoughtful writer J.K. Rowling really is.

Coming off what turned out to be the longest novel in the series, she sat down to write THBP facing the challenge of getting across a great deal of information to her reader while not falling into the trap of providing a long, drawn out expository passage with little action to open the novel.

So she created something entirely new, something that very cleverly incorporates small pieces of plot that she had dropped into earlier novels and that her readers probably didn't even notice the first time around.

Rowling created the relationship between the Muggle Prime Minister and the "Other Minister", the Minister of Magic. Drawing most directly from the mention in The Prisoner of Azkaban that the Muggle Prime Minister had been alerted of Sirius Black's escape from the wizard prison, she introduced the sixth book with a fun and funny, but also informative, scene wherein Fudge visits the Prime Minister to explain what has been going on and to introduce, at the end of it, Rufus Scrimgeour, Fudge's replacement as Minister of Magic.


The scene is expressed as a combination of flashback (a clever way for Rowling to recap some of the most significant events of the earlier novels) and conversation, in which a bewildered Muggle Minister tries to figure out his bizarre new guests. It is significant to note that this chapter is told entirely from the point of view of the Muggle -- this gives Rowling the chance to show us clearly how the non-magical world understands (or fails to understand or even acknowledge) the magical world.


Earlier, we encountered Voldemort, Wormtail and Nagini from the point of view of Muggle Frank Bryce in The Goblet of Fire; this scene at the start of THBP is, to my recollection at least, only the second time in which Rowling writes for an extended period from the Muggle point of view.

In 17 short, lively pages, Rowling manages to provide her reader with a great deal of information about all that has taken place since the end of The Order of the Phoenix, including the escape and subsequent recapture of the Death Eaters, the re-emergence of Voldemort, the murder of Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance, the possible presence of one or more giants in England, the revolt of the Dementors and the attempts by Voldemort to take over the Ministry.

She also makes it clear that the relationship between Dumbledore and Scrimgeour is not particularly comfortable.

It's an awesomely creative scene. It explains both what has happened since the last book ended and how the relationship works between the two governments: muggle and magical. It introduces us to Scrimgeour and tells us that the levels of violence and murder in the books are to rise once again.

And it delivers all of that in a very fast-paced, interesting fashion.

It's a great piece of writing.

And it's followed very quickly by a second great piece of writing: chapter two of THBP, "Spinner's End". More on that in my next entry.

Dumbledore's a crack apparator

Dumbledore's Study at the Harry Potter Studio Tour

When Dumbledore apparates to Privet Drive in the first chapter of The Philosopher's Stone, he does so "so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground".

When Mundungus Fletcher apparates away from Privet Drive at the beginning of The Order of the Phoenix (leaving Harry unprotected in the face of the Dementors), his disapparition is marked by a "loud, echoing crack [that] broke the sleepy silence like a gunshot". Later, J.K. writes that "Harry was sure the cracking noise had been made by someone Apparating or Disapparating."

In fact, the loud noise becomes closely associated with the act of Apparition throughout the remainder of the books.

So how can Dumbledore do it silently?

I would guess that, as the long-time Hogwarts Headmaster is a wizard of exceptional skill and talent, he likely solved the problem on his own to allow himself to appear and disappear silently. This would be a definite advantage to him when dealing with an enemy.

What do you think?

The Taboo should have been taboo for J.K.

Let's talk about the "Taboo" for a moment.

We're introduced to the Taboo mid-way through The Deathly Hallows. Ron explains that Voldemort's name has "been jinxed, Harry, that's how they track people! Using his name breaks protective enchantments, it causes some kind of magical disturbance... Anyone who says it is trackable!"

First of all, I agree with Ron. Voldemort and the Death Eaters make very clever use of the Taboo since they know that only people who are members of the Order of the Phoenix or might otherwise prove a threat to the Dark Lord still use the name "Voldemort". The Death Eaters refer to him as "the Dark Lord", for the most part, while the good guys and innocents all prefer to use "You Know Who" or "He Who Will Not be Named".

So placing the Taboo on the word "Voldemort" will provide excellent results for the Death Eaters: they will be able to track really problematic people with few false alarms.

Clever. Very clever.

But let's look at the Taboo itself. As explained in the book, the Taboo allows me to place a jinx on a word so that if you use that word you lose all magical protection that you have sought to place on yourself and I can track where you are.

Wow. That's a pretty powerful tool. And we see it work very powerfully later in The Deathly Hallows when, despite all of their tried and true protective enchantments, the Taboo exposes Harry and the crew to the clutches of the Snatchers.

So why isn't it used more often? For example, if the Death Eaters were so interested in finding Horace Slughorn prior to the events of Book Six, why didn't they just put a Taboo on his name (or on "candied pineapple") in order to find him? Sure, there might be some false alarms but they'd probably be worth the trouble.

Why would they not put the Taboo on the names of all of the Order members in order to find them and break down the enchantments protecting them.

And remember, at the start of The Deathly Hallows, Snape tells Voldemort that, Harry will be taken to a safe house that has been prepared for him and has been "given every protection that the Order and Ministry together can provide". Snape concludes: "there is little chance of taking him once he is there."

Wait a minute? If capturing Harry is job one and they have a weapon as powerful as the Taboo available to them, why wouldn't they try jinxing a whole bunch of names or words associated with Harry and the Order, accepting that the large number of false alarms they might face would be well worth the possibility that the Taboo would eventually beak all of the protective enchantments the Ministry and the Order have put in place and allow them to track and capture Harry?

Let's just say they Tabooed the word "Hagrid"? Wouldn't that be enough? I mean, not that many people would say Hagrid's name about then but members of the Order are sure to do so. Why not use it to track Harry and strip away his protections?

Again, I think the Taboo is a very interesting idea. And I agree that the Death Eaters were very clever to have used it to expose members of the Order.

But, like the Time Turner and Felix Felicis, I wonder if it wasn't a dramatic mistake for Rowling to introduce the Taboo into her world. Once she establishes that this powerful tool exists, she has to consider when and how it might otherwise be used to effect in the story.

Then she has to account for why it was not used (it is an extremely difficult jinx and a person can only cast one Taboo at a time, for example).

If she doesn't, in my opinion, she undermines the drama of her narrative.

Time travel drives me crazy, dramatically

I hate time travel in stories.

Why?

Because, if the characters in the story can travel through time, it means that nothing matters. That any major plot development can be undone. That any death can be circumvented.

Simply by having a character travel back in time and avoid the development, stop the death from happening.

The movie Star Trek: Generations is a case in point. In that film, the writers establish that any character who enters a particular zone (called the "Nexus") can choose to leave the Nexus again at any point in time and space.

Great.

When Captain Picard enters the Nexus, therefore, he has the ability to go as far back in time as he wants and change history. Nothing that has happened in the past is therefore set in stone. He can go as far back as he wants and CHANGE EVERYTHING bad that's happened.

Once that fact is established, the plot loses all sense of suspense. There is nothing at stake anymore.

And then Picard chooses to emerge from the Nexus just in time to stop the bad guy from destroying an innocent planet -- chooses that moment rather some earlier moment where he could, for example, stop his beloved brother and nephew from dying in a fire (a major plot point earlier in the movie), then block the Klingons from interfering and then find the bad guy and arrest him before he can do any harm.

Picard's decision makes no sense. In the context of the reality established by the movie, Picard (the film's hero) is, in fact, a fool.

So when J.K. Rowling introduced the possibility of time travel in book three of the Harry Potter collection, I cringed. Really and truly I did. She had fallen into the trap. Nothing else could possibly matter if characters can travel back in time. Nothing bad that happens is ever permanent.

To her credit, Rowling makes excellent use of the time-travel trap in The Prisoner of Azkaban by having her characters travel back in time to save Sirius and Buckbeak.

She actually does it really well. It's a surprisingly exciting read and one of my favourites of the seven novels.

But it begs the Picard question. If they can control how far back in time she travels simply by spinning the Time Turner more or less times, why does Dumbledore not send them back far enough to allow Ron to capture Scabbers, lock him in a box and then use him to help clear Sirius' name without all the drama?

Or send them back 14 or more years to stop Voldemort before he really got started? If Voldemort is stopped before he kills Harry's parents, none of the terrible things that followed upon those murders would have happened. No one would have suffered.

In fact, why didn't Dumbledore himself go back in time right after he realized Tom Riddle was going to be a royal pain in the bottom and put a stop to Riddle's shenanigans?

Sure, we fans can invent all kinds of rules to avoid these questions: Time Turners can only take a person so far back in time and no more, for example. But Rowling doesn't make such rules clear in the book.

Now, in The Order of the Phoenix, Rowling tries to make this right. Or at least to remove time travel as an option that could be used to avoid the final battle of Hogwarts. She has all of the Time Turners destroyed in the Department of Mysteries (and allows us to develop a fan rule that no one alive is capable of making a new Time Turner).

Fine. Great. But I still think the introduction of the possibility of time travel in the magical world of Harry Potter serves to undermine the drama throughout the course of Harry's adventures. Rowling would have been better off not introducing it at all.

Even if it meant having to change the plot of the magnificent third book completely.

In a later blog entry, I'll talk about how I feel that Rowling's introduction of Felix Felicis, of the talking portraits in the Headmaster's office and of the idea of the Taboo also raises significant dramatic problems for these books.

A brutal, brutal experience

I'm in the middle of reading The Order of the Phoenix. I find this one of the most difficult books to read that I have ever encountered.

J.K. had gotten us well-hooked by the time she wrote this, the fifth book in the series, and we have learned to care very deeply for her characters, especially Harry, Hermione and Ron.

So it's really tough to read a book where Harry in particular is so battered and abused, so isolated and alone, as this one. And J.K. pulls no punches. Not only does Harry suffer so badly in The Order of the  Phoenix, she also makes sure he is very well aware of the unfairness of it all.

In North American football, we'd call it "piling on".

First, there are the Dursleys. Not only is Harry stuck in Little Whinging, alone with the a family of the worst kind of Muggles, he is also completely isolated from a wizarding world that he knows must be changing as a result of the return of Lord Voldemort.

And yet, for some reason, no one from that wizarding world is bothering to contact Harry or keep him informed.

Then come the Dementors, the revelation that Dumbledore has arranged to have Harry watched (without telling Harry about it), Harry's expulsion from and later re-instatement to Hogwarts and finally his rescue from Privet Drive. But he's not taken to his beloved second home, The Burrow; he's taken instead to a dingy row house in London that is completely foreign and unwelcoming.

Things don't get any easier. Harry finds out he has been undermined and attacked by the Ministry and the Daily Prophet, that he has been deliberately kept in the dark on what's going on with Voldemort, that his god-father is desperate and lonely and potentially no longer trustworthy to have Harry's best interests in mind, and that his mentor is completely avoiding him.

Things will be better when I get to Hogwarts, Harry tells himself.

Not so fast, young man. At Hogwarts, he comes face to face with the fact that known Death Eaters who are actively supporting Voldemort are still at large, their kids have been put into positions of authority over him at school, and the Ministry itself has installed its own operative into the school, seemingly for the sole purpose of torturing him both physically and psychologically.

Plus school work piles up, Hagrid is nowhere to be found and Snape is even more vile toward him than usual.

Yikes and yikes.

I'm nearly three-hundred pages in and I don't think Harry has gotten a single break yet. Even his Quidditch captain is furious with him for receiving unjust detentions and missing practices and now he has to worry about his friend Ron falling to pieces as Gryffindor's new keeper.

It's like Rowling sat down to write this book and thought: My characters, and my readers, are now old  enough to deal with reality. In fact, they're old enough to deal with a world that is much more rotten than some people's reality.

And she doles misery out in massive proportions, especially to Harry.

It makes for a very, very difficult read. We suffer through every page with Harry and his friends. We experience the injuries and the injustices right along with him and we suffer with and for him.

It's an interesting choice by J.K., to be sure, to make us and her character suffer so. But, once the choice had been made, she certainly committed herself completely to it and wrote this book with an intensity that one rarely experiences in literature.

I find that I read The Order of the Phoenix very quickly, whenever I return to it, simply because I want to help Harry find a way out of all of this suffering as soon as possible.

It's a testament to Rowling's effectiveness as a writer, I think, and to her uncompromising dedication to making these books memorable.

Who's right for Hermione? Don't ask Rowling

If we ever needed proof that author J.K. Rowling has lost track of her own Harry Potter books and gotten caught up, instead, in the often mediocre movies that have been made of them, her recent interview with actress Emma Watson provides it.

Rowling told Watson that, upon further reflection, she now realises that Hermione should have married Harry, not Ron. The announcement has sent the entire Potter fandom into a collective tizzy.

To state it bluntly, Rowling appears to be losing her mind. Or at least her grip on the books she wrote and that we all love.

That is not to say that I ever really liked the idea that Hermione ended up married to Ron. As far as I'm concerned, Hermione, brilliant, hard-working and moral, was too good for any of the young male characters she met at Hogwarts.

Ron, intellectually limited, lacking in simple courage and morally questionable, certainly didn't deserve her.

In fact, I still believe that Hermione's destiny was either to become a renowned magical researcher, developing new spells and potions, exploring the limits of magic, or to teach at Hogwarts (probably while conducting the research I mention above). If she eventually settled down into a relationship, it would be with a person we have never yet met in the books, someone as smart and moral as she is.

Marrying and settling down into a traditional family unit just doesn't seem right for her.

That being said, if Hermione were to marry and have children, I don't buy Harry as a better choice than Ron. Harry is not particularly bright and, as he explains in The Order of the Phoenix, most of his successes were based on luck, timing and the help of others.

All of that aside, however, I am more troubled by the fact that Rowling seems to be so caught up in the Harry Potter movies that she has lost track of her own books.

Her suggestion that Hermione should have ended up with Harry ignores so much textual evidence from the books that I can't even start to explain it here. It appears to be based almost entirely on the belief that Harry and Hermione, as they are portrayed in the films, look well together.

Daniel Ratcliffe and Emma Watson were wonderful choices to play the roles of Harry and Hermione but, as Rowling herself has already admitted, they turned out to be much more attractive than the characters they were chosen to portray. So, if they look well together on screen, that has no meaning when it comes to their fitness as potential life partners.

It is also true that the movies expunged most of the back-story for the Harry-Hermione friendship, making it possible to read much more into their relationship than is actually there in the stories.

Anyway, my simple point is that the suggestion that Hermione should have married Harry instead of Ron holds a lot more water if you are thinking about the movies alone than if you consider the books themselves.

It amazes me that J.K. Rowling, of all people, lost sight of that fact

The voice of the Dark Duke

What a strange feeling!

The other day, I found myself flipping through the television channels and I came across a film called The Duchess, starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes.

Yes, that Ralph Fiennes. The Voldemort Ralph Fiennes.

I think it's the first time I've seen a film with Fiennes in it since The Deathly Hallows Part 2 came out. And how strange it was to hear that voice again! Scary.

Fiennes plays the Duke, controlling and emotionally inaccessible husband to Knightley's title character. In some ways, his character here is almost as evil as the Dark Lord, using and abusing the people around him for his own purposes, never caring what they might want out of their lives.

But it was the voice that got me. That was Voldemort's voice Fiennes was using in the worst of the scenes and it sent a shiver through me. No, not the ridiculous voice of the cavorting Dark Lord in Part 2; the evil whisper of the earlier Voldemort, from The Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix.

As strange as it was, however, it was a lot more welcome than seeing Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe doing a soft shoe on last night's Oscar telecast. Ugh.

Harry wouldn't be Harry without the Dark Lord

How do you think Harry would have turned out if there had been no Voldemort to tear his life apart? if he had been raised by his parents rather than by the Dursleys?

I'm not sure he would have turned out all that well.

Harry spends a lot of time across the seven novels wondering about what his life would have been like if his parents had lived, if he had grown up in a happy home with his mother and father, without a scar, perhaps even with a brother or sister or two as part of his life.

On the other hand, Albus Dumbledore spends a lot of time throughout the seven books telling Harry that it is precisely the fact that he is who he is, that he has a great capacity for love and little or no inclination to focus on himself, to be selfish and self-centred, that makes him so uniquely qualified to overcome the challenges that he faces.

Even as early as book one, The Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore gambles on Harry's innate goodness and selflessness in making sure that the Stone can be acquired from the Mirror only by one who wishes to possess it but not use it.

When Voldemort attempts to inhabit Harry's mind and body in book five, The Order of the Phoenix, it is Harry's great capacity to love that makes his possession intolerable to the Dark Lord.

And, as Dumbledore so carefully explains in King's Cross at the end of The Deathly Hallows, Harry's goodness makes him worthy of uniting the Hallows in a manner that Dumbledore himself failed.

My point is, Harry becomes this unusually selfless and caring person, this person with such an enormous capacity to love others and put their needs above his own, as a product of his childhood spent in the cold, harsh household of the Dursleys. Had he not gone through the trauma of that experience, would he really be the person so worthy of taking Voldemort down time and again?

I'm not so sure. After all, look at the people who would have been around to influence him in that alternative, early life. James Potter was no saint as a child and young man. In fact, we learn in Book Six that Harry's father was a somewhat foppish, arrogant bully while at Hogwarts and that his godfather, Sirius, was a vain, idle young man who looked upon the world with a boredom verging on complete dismissal of those around him, but for his chosen few.

Would Lily, Harry's mother, whose virtue is never really questioned, have been able to exert sufficient influence on Harry to stop him from becoming as aggressive and self-centred a young man as his father once was?

I doubt it.

So we end up with J.K.'s ultimate irony: Voldemort did more than mark Harry as his equal when he murdered James and Lily and left the lightning scar on baby Harry's forehead; the Dark Lord created the circumstances that would ensure Harry gained the very qualities (selflessness and a great capacity for love and self-sacrifice) that would make Harry worthy of overcoming the challenges that his difficult life would present him and ultimately defeating the Dark Lord.

Coming home to Hogwarts in The Half-Blood Prince

Now I know that I’ve probably been horribly inconsistent in this blog, especially on the subject of which Harry Potter novels I like and which I don’t, which are my favourites and which I detest.

I’ve always been that way. I find that I can hate something one moment and then, when I come back to it some time later, absolutely love it. And the other way around. I’m simply an inconsistent person.

I raise this now because I am half-way through a re-reading of The Half-Blood Prince and, much to my surprise, I’m really thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve always considered THBP to be the weakest of the seven novels and my least favourite. For some reason, however, this time around I’m completely enamoured with it.

It must have something to do with my own current situation. I’m tired, I’m not feeling well and I’m a little bored with all the snow and cold weather. So THBP is suiting my mood perfectly. It’s a quiet, introspective, character-driven book which lacks the same high-speed plotting that is featured in all of the others.

I’m enjoying spending time in the Gryffindor Common Room with Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny. I’m interested in the development of each of their characters but also of their relationships with each other. Ginny is bubbling forth as a feisty young woman and I’m enjoying Harry’s battles with his own feelings for her.

I am also quite interested in the trips into the Penseive Harry has been making with Dumbledore, exploring Voldemort’s past. I think Rowling is doing a great job of presenting this biographical information in an interesting, well-thought-out way. It’s great writing.

I wonder as well if I’m enjoying the book so much because I started reading it almost immediately after closing the cover on The Order of the Phoenix, a much more claustrophobic novel with a galloping plot. In THBP, we find ourselves returning to Dumbledore’s Hogwarts, with Hagrid and Buckbeak back on the scene and classes returning to their normal pattern.

It’s something of a comfort book, I guess. A brief, introspective pause before we launch into the fast-paced drama of the final novel.

So, if I have stated in earlier posts that I don’t like Rowling’s sixth novel, I apologise. It seems the perfect complement to my mood right now and I’m really enjoying reading it again.

Sirius should look at himself before judging Crouch

Quick "Spotting Test". Read the following quotation from a Harry Potter novel and tell me who said it and in what context.

"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

What do you think? What book? Who said it?

As you probably already know from reading this blog, I've been enjoying The Goblet of Fire again so it's no surprise that the quote is from that novel. But you might be surprised, based on what we learn of this character in later books, who actually says it.

It's Sirus Black. He's talking to Harry, Hermione and Ron in a cave outside Hogsmeade and the subject is Barty Crouch, Sr. Sirius is advising the hero trio to recognise that the manner in which Crouch treated his house elf, Winky, earlier in the novel is indicative of the evil within him.

Surprised? I was. Sirius' comments in this novel will come back to haunt him in The Order of the Phoenix when we see how poorly Black treats his family's own house elf, Kreacher.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it, if J.K. actually had a clear plan of what would happen in The Order of the Phoenix at the time she was writing this passage in The Goblet of Fire.

After all, Sirius is absolutely right when he tells the trio that Crouch's treatment of Winky is, in fact, a measure of him as a man. But would Rowling be putting these words into Sirius' mouth in the fourth book if she knew how she was going to portray his treatment of Kreacher in the fifth book?

Either Rowling had not planned her books to that level of detail or she really wanted to show us how lacking in self-awareness Sirius is.

What do you think?

Subtlety and elegance as Bellatrix meets her end

There's a wonderful moment near the end of The Deathly Hallows where Harry, caught midway between two duels in the Great Hall, hears a laugh, sees a look of surprise and disbelief on the face of Bellatrix Lestrange and knows she's about to die.

Harry knows because the laugh and the look echo Sirius Black's behaviour just before he was killed by Bellatrix's curse in The Order of the Phoenix.

It's a wonderful moment and beautifully written. I remember having shivers the first time I read the passage and realised that Molly Weasley was about to strike a deathblow to Voldemort's support. And, in doing so, would force the final confrontation between Harry and the Dark Lord.

Harry recognises that Bellatrix is about to die in time to cast a protective charm over Molly before Voldemort has a chance to curse her. Harry then emerges from beneath his Invisibility Cloak to the surprise and delight of the Hogwarts fighters and to the dismay of the Dark Lord.

I mention this now because I have been thinking a lot about the way the filmmakers chose to rewrite Rowling's ending and all the wonderful moments that have been lost as a result. This is, indeed, one of them, as is the moment that Voldemort finally dies, a moment of ultimate mundanity (is that a word?) that serves as the perfect end of the Dark Lord.

I've struggled to understand why the film's drawn out duel scenes and its commitment to making the battle a singular event between Harry and Voldemort bothers me so much.

The term I've used so often in the past to describe what is lost in the movie version is "subtlety" and I just can't seem to find a better one. Rowling wrote a subtle, elegant final battle, filled with nuance and depth.

The film's climax is more of a steamroller: big, slow and, in the end, unexciting. Lacking in depth or subtlety. Empty of meaning, devoid of soul.

I am coming to recognise that there exists in the world of Harry Potter fandom a significant group that has only watched (and loved) the films but has never read all of the books. Most, in fact, have read the first two or three novels but, once the books got longer, more complex, more adult, these people gave up the reading.

I urge members of this group of fans to try again. Start at the beginning but commit yourself to reading all seven novels from start to finish. Immerse yourself in Rowling's world in its pure, unadulterated form. Get to know the characters to a level you simply cannot know them through the movies.

But, most of all, enjoy the many wonderful moments of subtlety and elegance that the films simply do not, cannot capture.

Why I think The Prisoner is the best book of the bunch

I haven't posted anything in a while (probably my longest break this year, though I may be wrong on that) due to the simple fact that I am struggling with what I want to say about Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

I just finished re-reading this the third novel in J.K. Rowling's series last week and thought immediately, "I have to blog about this book". But when I sat down at the keyboard, time and again, words failed me. Why? Because I was struggling to convey just how much I like this book.

For me, The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of the seven novels. I've read them all enough times to be able to say this with some conviction. Expressing the "why" is by far the tougher challenge.

And, instead of attempting to write paragraph after paragraph extolling the virtues of this novel, its plot and characters, the writing style, etc., I think it might be simpler if I reduced it all down to a list.

So here are the ten reasons I think The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of Rowling's seven excellent novels:

1. It is the last of the shorter books, which means you can read the whole thing in a brief period of time, in one sitting almost, and get the absolute most intense reading experience from it;

2. It is the first of the more "adult" books in the series; whereas The Philosopher's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets are clearly childrens' books, with simple plots and a great deal of time spent (deliciously) wondering at the magical world into which Harry is suddenly thrust, The Prisoner of Azkaban sets a terrifically complex, subtle and often terrifying adult story in a magical world we already know, with which we are already comfortable;

3. It tells an exceptionally exciting tale of its own but also starts to set the stage for later novels. From first page to last, a shadow (of the Grim, really) looms over Harry and, with her characteristic flair for misdirection, Rowling makes us feel the tension build as Sirius Black slinks closer and closer to our hero. On the flip side, however, Rowling lays down important building blocks for the return of Voldemort, with Trelawney's eerie prediction and Peter Pettigrew's final escape.

4. The novel introduces two extremely important characters who will play significant roles in Harry's life from now to the end of the series: Remus Lupin and Sirius Black;

5. The book stakes philosophical ground in the discussion of good and evil, of perception and truth, that will have reverberations throughout the rest of the novels;

6. The Prisoner of Azkaban gives Hermione her first real chance to shine, to prove herself a worthy heroine to stand beside Harry and Ron, while still not losing that part of her that made her interesting in the first place: her commitment to education, intellect and rationality, even in the face of the scorn of her friends;

7. The book gives us our first real glimpse of the lives of Harry's parents, both through the characters who knew them (Black, Lupin, Snape, Rosemerta, McGonagall, Hagrid, et al) and through Harry's horrific recollection of his parents' last moments alive, a recollection that Rowling carefully builds in each successive encounter with the Dementors;

8. The novel gives us our first real indication that Harry could be a truly great wizard. His perfection of the Patronus Charm, a piece of truly advanced magic, shows us that he does, in fact, have it within him to take on the challenges we are starting to realise lie in wait for him;

9. The book deals with the issue of time in an interesting way, creating a truly memorable set of climactic scenes; and

10. The Prisoner of Azkaban gives us our first warning that Rowling doesn't intend to make Harry's life, nor ours as readers of the series, easy. There are some gruesome scenes in this book and some very violent passages: I find Harry's recollections of his parents' murders incredibly effective, serving notice that we're not reading simple childrens' books any more.

I know. I will probably now read The Goblet of Fire, The Order of the Phoenix and the other books again and declare that each one, in turn, is the best. But right now I have to say that The Prisoner of Azkaban is the standard bearer in the Harry Potter series.

Do you agree? What's your favourite Harry Potter novel and why? Use the Comments function to tell me your thoughts.

Two vexing questions: the Weasley twins and Sirius' mirror

I've run myself aground on two questions and they're paralysing me. They're stopping me from my usual free-flow of thinking around the Harry Potter books and films and, therefore, blocking me from posting to this blog.

The two questions are:

1. Did J.K. write the characters of Fred and George Weasley in such a way that she's made them clearly different individuals or was she content simply to present them as one person in two bodies?

2. Why didn't Harry use Sirius' mirror to contact him at the end of The Order of the Phoenix, rather than allowing himself to be lured into the trap at the Ministry?

I've talked a little bit about the first question in earlier posts and it still vexes me. I will have to find the time to review all seven books, chart the descriptions and dialogue for each of the twins and see what I come up with. I can't think of any other way to answer the question. The problem is finding the time.

With regard to the second question, my colleague who is currently reading the books for the first time raised it recently as we were talking about how different the fifth book is from the fifth film. She said it really bothered her that Harry didn't just use the mirror to check on Sirius -- after all, Sirius must have had it with him when he was caring for Buckbeak and not available to Harry through the fireplace.

I have to admit: that issue never bothered me because, in the numerous times I read the novel, I never really registered the mirror and its importance when Sirius first gave it to Harry. It wasn't in my mind as I read the remainder of the book.

But my colleague saw all the films several times before reading the novels so the mirror, which is so vividly depicted in the film versions of the seventh novel, remains strongly in her memory as she reads.

I write all this here for two reasons: in hopes that, by writing about these two questions that have been othering me, I'll clear them from my mind and allow myself to think of other Potter-related things and in order to spur myself into action to pursue both questions on the coming long weekend.

What are your thoughts? Do you think of Fred and George as seperate entities or just two names for a single character? Does it bother you that Harry failed to use the mirror to check on Sirius?

Wondering if the early films influenced the later novels

I was watching the special features on some of my Blu Ray editions of the Harry Potter movies today and was surprised to find that there are some that I had not yet watched (including deleted scenes from the first two movies. Wow!).

In an interview on the Prisoner of Azkaban disc, one of the producers mentioned that the shrunken head character they added to the Knight Bus was enough to convince J.K. to introduce shrunken heads in a later novel. I hate to admit it but I can't recall which later novel shrunken heads appear in but I'll have to check.

The comment got me wondering, however, about something that I have thought about from time to time in the past: since the movies started being released while she was still writing the later novels, how much (if at all) did the film versions of her world impact how Rowling wrote the final three books.

The first film was released in 2001, just after the publication of the fourth novel, The Goblet of Fire, but while Rowling was probably still writing the fifth book in the series (The Order of the Phoenix). That means that the final three books were written after Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint had started to inhabit her main characters, after Hogwarts had been made real for the films, and after her early plots had been tinkered with to make them more filmic.

In fact, four films had been released by November of 2005, about the time when one expects Rowling was working diligently on the final novel.

So did the films have any impact on her writing? It's an interesting question. I wonder what J.K. would say about it. She's probably been asked so I might do a little on-line research to see if she's given an answer.

But we have to remember: even the author's thoughts on a question like this are not definitive. A writer can be influenced without even recognising it is happening.

I'll have to think about this one and get back to you. Meanwhile, any thoughts?

What's Mrs. Figg doing in a raincoat?

I think there's a continuity error at the start of the film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Think about the opening sequences of that movie. It's a brutally hot, sunny day and Harry encounters Dudley and his gang in a local playground. A terrible storm suddenly develops, bringing howling winds, pouring rain and finally Dementors, which attack Harry and his cousin in the underpass leading from the playground back to their neighbourhood. It's a sudden, freak storm that no one could anticipate. So sudden and so freaky that Dudley automatically thinks Harry has created it.

Harry fights off the Dementors and, in a key plot point, old Mrs. Figg appears at the end of the tunnel in a rain coat, umbrella in hand, to help Harry home.

Are you with me?

We've got a sudden, freak storm on a broiling hot, sunny day. Yet somehow Mrs. Figg is dressed for rain when she arrives. Strange, isn't it? And I don't think you could argue she saw the storm brewing, put on her raincoat, then walked all the way to the underpass in the time available. She's too old and slow and the storm and attack both happened too quickly.

I think the filmmakers blew it.

Please note, in the book, Mrs. Figg arrives panting and in her slippers. One of her cats warned her that Harry was out and that Mundungus Fletcher had abandoned his guard duty. She immediately set off to find him and was as caught off guard by the storm and Dementor attack as Harry was.

Kingsley Shacklebolt impresses in my second viewing

I'm just back from my second viewing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. This time, I caught the 2D version and, frankly, I think it was a big improvement.

I'm still not entirely sold on the revisions to the ending but I came away feeling better about the film. I just loved Helena Bonham Carter channeling Emma Watson in the Gringott's scene and I thought the more emotional passages (especially Snape's memory montage and the Resurrection Stone scene just as Harry enters the Forbidden Forest on his way to his own death) were exceptionally well done.

I have to admit, I was also impressed with Daniel Radcliffe's performance in this film. I have often been critical of his acting in the earlier movies but I think he does a pretty good job here.

Kingsley Shacklebolt is rapidly rising in my estimation as a character in the films and I think George Harris brings him vividly to life every time he gets a chance. I just love the way he emerges from the white swirl in the battle scene of The Order of the Phoenix (a tough, proud man at the top of his form) and I think he provides that same sense of strength in the final film. Too bad Harris wasn't given more to do.

I also noticed this time through (something I missed the first time around) that, when Pansy Parkinson screams for people to grab Harry and turn him over to Voldemort at the beginning of the Battle of Hogwarts, the first four characters to step in front of Harry to protect him are female: Ginny, Hermione, Luna and I think Cho Chang. I am not often impressed with the roles given to female characters in the novels or the movies so this was a really nice moment for me.

I have to think more about this film, both its really great points and the stuff that still bothers me. And, I have to admit, midway through the movie when a guy near me decided he just had to rattle his popcorn bag for about five straight minutes, I found myself thinking: boy, I can't wait to get this on Blu Ray!

So Harry can now sense the presence of a Horcrux, can he?

I had planned for my first real commentary on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, to focus on the positives, things I liked, things that worked well in the film.

And there were many. But I can't get my mind away from some little things that are really bothering me. So I'll get to them first, in hopes that with them out of the way I can get back to all the good things.

First, when Neville leads Harry, Hermione and Ron from the Hog's Head to Hogwarts' Room of Requirement, we find a number of familiar faces waiting for them, including Seamus and Cho. Just as in the book, the Room is decked out like the cabin of a ship, with hammocks and banners for the students who had been driven out of the school. Yet, shortly thereafter when Snape calls together the entire school body to interrogate them about Harry's whereabouts, Cho, Seamus and many of the others we've just seen in the safety of the Room are there again.

That makes no sense: if they were forced to flee the school and take refuge in the Room, why would they return to the school now? And it they were still safe in the school, why would they be bunking out in the Room, rather than their much more comfortable House common rooms?

Second, how is that, after Harry captures maybe two drops of Snape's tears/memories as Snape dies, Harry pours about a hundred drops of tears into the Pensieve shortly thereafter?

Third, if Harry can sense the presence of a Horcrux, even in a large, crowded room like the Lestrange's vault of Gringott's or the Room of Requirement (Room of Hidden Things version), why didn't he sense at least something in the diary when he handled it way back in The Chamber of Secrets or in the locket at Grimmauld Place when they were cleaning out the place in The Order of the Phoenix? In neither of those instances did he sense anything about these items, even though he was in close proximity to both.

These quibbles are minor, I admit, but they bother me and, in my opinion, they detract from the effectiveness of this film.

The enigma of Mad-Eye Moody

The role of Mad-Eye Moody interests me. We all got to know Mad-Eye pretty well in The Goblet of Fire, only to find out that it wasn't Mad-Eye at all that we were getting to know but, instead, that it was Barty Crouch Jr in disguise.

This created an interesting situation at the beginning of the fifth novel. Harry, Hermione and Ron spent the entire previous year at Hogwarts with a man they believed was the famed ex-Auror. They grew to know "him" fairly well and even to develop something of a relationship with him.

The real Mad-Eye, meanwhile, was stuck in a box for that entire year. He doesn't know these kids. He barely even meets them at the end of the book.

Then begins The Order of the Phoenix. Mad-Eye is a part of the Order and so interacts with the many characters at Grimmauld Place, including Harry, Hermione and Ron. I would have expected there to be some kind of strangeness, some awkwardness between the real Auror and our dynamic trio when they meet up again in this fifth book.

After all, the young people must feel they know Mad-Eye pretty well; he, on the other hand, has never really met them. It would be a very strange situation for all of them.

Yet J.K. doesn't address the strangeness at all. In fact, she continues to write the real Mad-Eye exactly as she wrote the fake Mad-Eye, and she appears to let the relationship between Harry and the Auror pick up exactly where it left off the year before.

I think J.K. slipped a bit here. I think she worked so hard to develop both the character of Mad-Eye and his relationship with Harry in The Goblet of Fire that, in writing the following novels, she forgot that it wasn't the real Mad-Eye at all in the fourth book. It never occurred to her that she should have them "start over" as strangers in The Order of the Phoenix.

She wrote their relationship so well in the fourth novel that she fooled herself into thinking that they actually knew each other.

Evanna Lynch brings Luna to life

I think Luna Lovegood is the only character in Rowling's world who actually is more interesting in the movie versions than in the original books. Evanna Lynch does a wonderful job of bringing her to life, especially in her first appearance (The Order of the Phoenix) in the films.

While the Lovegood of the books has something of a hard edge, and not a really attractive one, Lynch's Luna is softer, sweeter and just slightly stranger. I just adore the scene where she first appears, sitting in the wagon, telling Harry that he's just as sane as she is.

Hilarious and wonderful. And the scene in the Forbidden Forest, where Harry stumbles across Luna feeding the Thestrals is another gem. Lynch does such a nice job of delivering her deeply meaningful and powerful lines with a distracted air about her, making the scene special.

Lynch succeeds in portraying Luna as a slightly melancholy but mostly content outcast, a flake with worthwhile contributions to make.

That being said, another of my favourite moments involving Luna was not presented in the films. This one takes place on the Hogwarts Express in The Half-Blood Prince when several younger girls invite Harry to sit with them, rather than with Neville and Luna.

Luna says, "People expect you to have cooler friends than us". Harry retorts: "You are cool. None of them was at the Ministry. They didn't fight with me."

Luna is delighted. But not too much so. Soon, true to her character, she's immersed herself back into The Quibbler.

It's a really nice moment. A moment that cements the friendship and makes both characters even more likeable.