Malfoy's murderous intent

Harry frees Dobby with a dirty sock

Lucius Malfoy attempts to murder Harry Potter at the end of the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

In what could be considered a significant departure from the original novel, script writer Stephen Kloves chose to expose Malfoy's deepest evil much earlier than Rowling did.

The passage from the novel, which follows Harry's clever way of tricking Malfoy into freeing Dobby, reads as follows:

Lucius Malfoy stood frozen, staring at the elf. Then he lunged at Harry.

"You've lost me my servant, boy!"

But Dobby shouted, "You shall not harm Harry Potter!"

There was a loud bang, and Mr Malfoy was thrown backwards.

"Avada" shouts Lucius Malfoy, wand in motion

Malfoy lunges at Harry, perhaps in an attempt to beat him, or even throttle him, but there is no evidence in the book that Malfoy intended to use the Avada Kedavera nor to kill him at all.

In the film, on the other hand, Malfoy draws his wand and very clearly utters the word "Avada" before Dobby intervenes. Malfoy's intention is clear: to kill Harry. In front of a witness.

Why the change?

I think it is important to note that, when Rowling published the second novel in 1998, she had not yet invented (or at least had not yet introduced) the concept of the "Unforgivable Curses" and, if my memory serves, the killing curse (the Avada Kedavra) had not yet been uttered in the books. Rowling does not mention the specific curse in The Philosopher's Stone when the murder of Lily and James and Voldemort's failed attempt to kill Harry are discussed.

Rowling introduced the Unforgivable Curses by name and incantation in the fourth novel (2000), The Goblet of Fire, when Moody/Crouch Jr. showed them to the students.

So it is possible that it was Rowling's intention that we read that scene at the end of The Chamber of Secrets as involving Malfoy attempting to murder Harry before she had invented the killing curse. And, as a result, Kloves isn't really changing anything when he added the Avada Kedavara to the scene when he wrote the script for the second movie around 2007.

But I am not sure that's true. I am not sure Rowling's scene depicted a possible attempted murder -- killing someone with one's bare hands is an incredibly difficult, violent act, not one that belongs in a book written specifically for children and young adults. I think it is much more likely that Rowling either had no clear idea of what Malfoy's intentions were -- she knew she would have Dobby intervene so she didn't have to make that decision -- or she saw him as indulging in a fit of rage, with the intention of hurting Harry but not killing him.

If I am correct in this, we have to wonder why Kloves added the intent to murder into the film. By the time he was working on the script, the fourth book had already been published so that Unforgivable Curses had been introduced into the novels so the Avada Kedvara was available... but it's the intent that is important. In the film, Malfoy is willing to commit murder (or the Wizarding World's favourite son, no less) in front of a witness, within a stone's throw of Dumbledore's office.

And, to be frank, that makes no sense to me.

Nobody graduates from Hogwarts; they just leave

Have you ever noticed that there is almost no mention made of students actually graduating from Hogwarts in in any of the seven Harry Potter novels?

I mean, sure, some of the students we know (like Oliver Wood, Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater) clearly complete their studies and move on into the post-Hogwarts lives, and many adults in the books recall their days at Hogwarts fondly, but we never actually see, or even hear of, a graduation ceremony.

I went back and read the final sections of all seven books and, even at the "end-of-year" or "leaving" feast (the final celebration in the spring is called the former in the first three years and the latter after year four), there is absolutely no mention made of graduation, no congratulations offered to students who had completed their studies, no celebration of the class of students that is leaving Hogwarts to begin their careers.

In year one, Harry attends the end-of-year feast and Dumbledore's reported comments focus only on the House Cup and awarding additional points to Harry and crew.

In year two, Harry also attends and we only read about Hermione's return, Gryffindor winning the House Cup for a second year in a row, exams being cancelled and Gilderoy Lockhart not returning in the upcoming year.

The report on the end-of-year feast after year three is even shorter, with confirmation that Gryffindor won the House Cup yet again.

In year four, perhaps not surprisingly, the much longer scene focuses on the death of Cedric Diggory and the return of Lord Voldemort. No mention of the winner of the House Cup at all.

At the end of year five, we are not even sure if Harry made it to the feast since, devastated at having lost Sirius Black, Harry is first distracted by Nearly-Headless Nick and then by Luna on his way to the Great Hall.

There is apparently no final feast in year six since the focus is on the death of Dumbledore.

And, of course, there isn't even really a school year for Harry, Ron and Hermione in year seven since they are on the run for the entire book, returning only for the Battle of Hogwarts at the very end.

It's interesting that Rowling paid so little attention to the fact that seventh-year students were actually graduating from her beloved school.

And perhaps even more interesting that each of the last four books ends with a significant death: Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore and finally Voldemort.

I don't have any brilliant thoughts or insights into why this may be but I do find it interesting.

Who wrote the Goblet of Fire?

Who wrote Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?

Sounds like a silly question, doesn't it? Of course J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Her name is right there on the cover, she has publicly claimed it and accepted credit for it.

But I am not sure that the J.K. Rowling who wrote the four Harry Potter book was the same person as the J.K. Rowling who wrote books one, two, three and five.

The Rowling who wrote most of the Potter books is a master story teller, a clear and technically perfect writer, a person who cares about the details as much as she cares about the grand themes of her work.

The Rowling who wrote The Goblet of Fire, on the other hand, seems to me at least to have been a different person: a person in a rush, under pressure to take advantage of the building success of her first three books and publish book four as soon as she could. 

The first three Harry Potter books were published in consecutive years -- 1997, 1998 and 1999 -- and each came in at between 200 and 300 pages. That's a remarkable creative pace but, considering the relatively brevity of the books and the simplicity of their plots, eminently reasonable. And these books are masterpieces, technically perfect in the details and creatively impressive in their overall achievement.

Goblet comes in at a whopping 636 pages but was still published only a year after The Prisoner of Azkaban. And, if you read it carefully, it is a sloppy sloppy book.

At a macro level, the plot is hyper-convoluted and nonsensical: once Voldemort manages to place Barty Crouch Jr. at Hogwarts with access to Harry, the entire Triwizard Tournament is rendered unnecessary. Crouch could simply port-key Harry to the graveyard on any one of the many occasions he had access to our young hero and, in the process, Crouch himself would not have had to be sacrificed.

Further, as I have pointed out elsewhere, there are significant problems with key points in this book, problems that should have been caught by Rowling in the writing:

1. Wormtail killed Cedric Diggory with his own wand and yet, when Harry's wand forces Voldemort's wand to regurgitate its most recent spells ("priori incantatem") in reverse order, Cedric emerges as if Voldemort's wand had killed him;

2. In the same "priori incantatem" scene, Harry's parents emerge from Voldemort's wand in the wrong order: it is made clear throughout the books that Voldemort murdered James Potter first, then was forced to murder Lily Potter in order to get to infant Harry, and so Lily should have emerged from Voldemort's wand first -- but James does; and

3. Rita Skeeter must have overheard the entire scene involving Harry, Dumbledore, Fudge, Snape, McGonagall, Sirius Black and the others in the Hospital Wing at the end of the book, including the confrontation between Fudge and Dumbledore -- once Hermione catches her at the very end of that scene, Skeeter could have been forced to write and publish the entire true story immediately so as to force Fudge to admit the truth. And render much of the plot of Book Five unnecessary.

Even so, it is in the details of the writing that the sloppiness becomes unhappily apparent.

I have chronicled in previous posts how skilled Rowling is at providing the reader background information from previous books in interesting ways while still moving the plot of the current book forward effectively. In Chapter 2 of the Goblet, however, she simply slaps it all into the story in long expository paragraphs. This continues in Chapter 3 and, despite a promising opening chapter, we are almost 40 pages in before the main plot even begins.

The book is also rife with the kind of small grammatical errors (for example, subject-verb disagreements, especially when she uses collective noun such as "group of students" but then uses the verb in its plural form "group of students were") that Rowling usually avoids, with run-on sentences (... and ... and ... and ... but) and with examples where she tells us something rather letting us discover it through action and dialogue.

For example, I opened the book at random and came up with this quote as an example of a run-on sentence:

'Lovely,' said Rita Skeeter, and in a second, her scarlet-taloned finger's had Harry's upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and she was steering him out of the room again and opening a nearby door.

 It is possible, of course, that the failure is on the part of Rowling's editors -- perhaps all of her draft manuscripts arrived at the publisher's office replete with errors and the editors whipped them into shape.

Whoever it was, the fourth Harry Potter book fails to live up to the exceptional quality of writing of the other six. And I think it's because Book Four was a significant rush job. Even though it is a mammoth tome, neither Rowling nor her publishers saw fit to take the time necessary to make sure it was of the same quality as her earlier novels in their rush to publish it for their adoring and lucrative public.

And the women shall lead

So Space Channel in Canada is showing the Harry Potter films all through the Victoria Day holiday weekend. I have them on blu-ray, of course, but I always find watching movies on television much more interesting than watching my own copies of them.

As anyone who has read this blog will know, I am not a fan of the movies that were made, loosely based as they were, out of J.K. Rowling's books. That being said, I have also tried to be fair and honest in identifying those areas where I feel the films have enhanced or, by necessity of the medium, adapted the books in a meaningful, interesting way.

I've just sat down in front of the television to watch the last hour of the second part of The Deathly Hallows. The first scene I saw takes place in the Great Hall where Snape demands that the students and staff of Hogwarts turn in Harry Potter and he, instead, emerges from the crowd of students to challenge Snape and, by doing so, set up the final battle of Hogwarts.

I don't love it, overall. But I love Snape in this scene ("ee - qual - lee") and I love the feeling of, I don't know how to describe it, triumph of having Harry emerge to challenge him and McGonagall step forward to defend Harry.

And it is not lost on me that McGonagall and Molly Weasley, two strong adult female characters, step forward to duel with Snape. And, even further, I love the fact the first people to step forward to protect Harry after Pansy Parkinson tries to convince the student mob to turn him over to Voldemort are women: first Ginny, then Hermione, then Cho Chang, then Katie Bell and Parvati Patil, and, as several males start to join Harry's defenders, Lavender Brown.

Add one more detail: Luna Lovegood is the one, in the film, who tells Harry not to bother to go to the Ravenclaw common room but to find, instead, the ghost of the Helena Ravenclaw to help him track down the diadem.

These are pretty strong feminist moments. While two men stand at the centre of the final conflict, it is women who provide the primary, immediate and on-going support to Harry in winning that battle. It's really quite wonderful... and unexpected, considering the fact that Rowling, for all the opportunities she had to fill the Harry Potter books with strong, dominating female characters, too often failed miserably in that regard.

While I love the books and tolerate the movies, I have to admit that, at times, the films are better than the books when it comes to their depiction of women.

Not So Trivial Flaws

Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition.

Very excited to get this as a gift from a sibling and her family for Christmas this year. To be honest, I had never even heard of it but was delighted when it showed up under the tree.

"Please please please," I pleaded as I opened the box for the first time. "Let this game focus on pure Harry Potter..."

Trivial Pursuit, for those of you who don't know, was created in Canada I believe way back in the 1980s and was an instant hit, first in its home country and then around the world. After the original edition, with its six original categories of questions (if I remember correctly, Geography, Science and Nature, Arts and Literature, History, Sports and Leisure and finally Entertainment), there followed the Silver Screen edition (which focused on movies exclusively), the All-Star Sports Edition (which is self-explanatory) and then the Genus II edition, which returned to the original six categories. At some point in there, the original creator of Trivial Pursuit sold the game to a major American producer.

From there, a series of special Trivial Pursuit games were released, one for every major fad that came down the pipe. Despite this serious dilution of its core base, Trivial Pursuit continued to thrive.

It's a story that sounds kind of familiar to Harry Potter fans, isn't it? Humble beginnings, surprising success, a sell-out to a U.S. conglomerate and a rapid proliferation of spin-offs that move the "franchise" into a deeper and deeper dive for profit and further away from its roots.

Although the Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition, has many merits -- it focuses on the original seven, true Potter stories and ignores the inspired mess of Hollywood insipidness and merchandising frenzy that followed -- it also suffers from two flaws:

1. It prefers the American versions of the original stories over the British versions; and
2. It prioritizes the events of the films over the events of the novels.

The first flaw is perhaps understandable -- an American game maker is attempting to appeal to an American audience and so uses "The Sorcerer's Stone" etc., the name familiar to its audience.

The second flaw is inexcusable. The books are Harry Potter -- the films are merely adaptations of Rowling's novels (and significantly problematic adaptations at that).

So when you face a question in the Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition, like, "Who burned down the Weasley's home?", you know the correct answer is "no one" because, well, the Weasley's home was never burnt to the ground in the novels.

In the films, of course, Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback do set fire to the Burrow.

And when you get a question like "What Muggle game appears in the background of Mr. Weasley's workshop?", you know that there is no answer because Rowling never describes the "workshop" in such detail. Sure, in the film, you see that there is a pinball machine back there but that is merely a choice made by a set decorator, not a creative decision of the creator of Harry Potter.

The least the game designers could have done was to introduce each question with a qualifier -- "In the film version" and "In the original novels" -- to point out the difference.

Of course, I would love to have a TP game that focuses on the books alone. Or even one that has a separate category for the films: "Film Facts" or "Film Adaptations" or some such. But to have an HP TP game that actually treats the books like they don't matter?

Not acceptable. Not even remotely acceptable. But typical of the trajectory both TP and HP have followed since their humble but outrageously creative beginnings. TP and HP have both been sold out and are being exploited by soulless US conglomerates who care more about profit than art, generating cash flow than creating magic.

"I haven't read the books but I'm a huge fan" -- AARRGGHH

We've all had this conversation:

"You're a Harry Potter fan?" someone says to us. "So am I! I must have seen each of the movies a dozen times!"

You: "What about the books?"

Someone: "Oh, I haven't read the books. But I'm a HUGE fan!"

Doesn't that make you want to scream? Can we not all agree that, if you have not actually read J.K. Rowling's original Harry Potter novels, then...

YOU'RE NOT A HARRY POTTER FAN!

I don't care how many times you've watched those ridiculous movies. I don't care that you know the film dialogue off by heart and that you can name the actor who played the auror who is standing at the gates of Hogwarts when Harry trudges up, his face bloodied, near the start of the film version of The Half-Blood Prince, or that you think the portrayal of Draco Malfoy is simply dreamy.

If you have not read the books, even once, you are not a real Harry Potter fan.

That's why I can't stand Harry Potter trivia events these days. In North America, at least, the organisers' idea of a show stopper, a stumper, a question that separates the fans from the wannabes, is something ridiculous like: Who was the gaffer on the second movie? I don't know and I don't care. I can barely watch the films at all, not to mention studying their ludicrously long credits to prepare for a trivia contest. Ask me about Rowling's world, her characters, her plots, her details... don't ask me about the movies.

What is happening in American society is that the movies are replacing the original books as the canon of Harry Potter. This is ridiculous. The movies are fine as stand alone projects -- some of them are even mildly entertaining -- but they cannot and must not replace Rowling's works as the foundation of Harry Potter fandom.

Not only are the film versions significantly inferior to the books as stories, as narratives, as world-builders -- they are flawed even as films. They are internally inconsistent and self-contradictory. They have plot and character-development gaps through which you could fly a hippogriff and they undermine many of the most praiseworthy of the themes, of the creative decisions, of the original books.

I have described many of what I perceive to be the films' shortcomings in other blog posts so I won't rehash all of that now. Suffice it to say, in my Harry Potter fandom, if you haven't read the books, you're not a Harry Potter fan. Okay?

What is Harry's crime in the Half-Blood Prince?

There is something that has always bothered my about one of the key scenes in The Half-Blood Prince.

As you will no doubt recall, in the later stages of the novel, Harry sees on the Marauders Map that Malfoy is in a boys bathroom with Moaning Myrtle. Harry enters the bathroom and finds Malfoy leaning over a sink, crying, while Myrtle attempts to soothe him.

Harry takes no action, other than to stand looking at Malfoy. Malfoy pulls himself together and looks up into the mirror. He sees Harry standing behind him, draws his wand and casts a spell at Harry. That spell misses and a duel ensues.

The two are well-matched (surprisingly so, considering Harry's experience and training, but I wrote about that in an earlier post). After several shots back and forth, Malfoy attempts to cast the Cruciatus curse on Harry but Harry is a shade quicker, hitting Malfoy with the mysterious Sectum Sempra spell that he found in his potions text.

Malfoy collapses to the floor, bleeding profusely and dropping his wand. The duel is over. Harry takes no further offensive action but merely stands by as Myrtle screams and Snape thunders into the room to render aid to the bleeding Malfoy.

From what I can tell, Harry did nothing wrong. He walked into a public bathroom. He watched a schoolmate cry. He responded to an attack by that schoolmate. He avoided being tortured by that schoolmate (who was attempting to use an Unforgiveable Curse on him). He took effective action to render his attacker incapable of continuing the attack, without actually killing his attacker. He took no further aggressive steps once his attacker was incapacitated.

Where is the crime? Why is he punished? Why is he subjected to such significant vilification from Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall and even Hermione?

Malfoy cast the first spell and started the duel with no more provocation than that Harry happened to be standing there watching him cry. Malfoy escalated the duel by attempting to cast an Unforgiveable Curse. Harry defended himself once attacked and stopped once he had rendered his attacker incapable of continuing to attack.

Malfoy was forgiven for attacking Harry and forgiven for casting an Unforgiveable Curse.

Harry was found guilty of defending himself effectively from an unprovoked, serious, perhaps deadly attack.

Okay, I can understand that Snape, who hates Harry immensely for a variety of perhaps understandable reasons, might see this an opportunity to get at Harry. Fine.

But McGonagall? Once she heard Harry's story and interviewed Myrtle, wouldn't she intervene in support of Harry? Wouldn't she demand that Malfoy, once recovered, be punished (and likely expelled) for launching an unprovoked attack on a schoolmate and for attempting to hit that schoolmate with an Unforgiveable Curse?

And Hermione? Sure, she doesn't like the Half-Blood Prince's book. And sure, she quite properly chastises Harry for using an untried curse on someone like this. But why does she so thoroughly condemn Harry for his actions?

From a narrative perspective, on the other hand, I can understand this scene and its outcome. It provides action in the middle of a fairly static plot. It permits the duel between Malfoy and Potter that we have been hoping for since book one. It creates a reason for Harry to be forced to miss the final Quidditch match and sets up the climax of the Harry-Ginny romantic build up.

And, of course, if Malfoy were punished or expelled at this point, the climax of the entire novel would be impossible -- with Malfoy kicked out of school, there would be no way for Dumbledore to be trapped by Death Eaters on the top of the tower that fateful night.

So I see the value in the duel and Harry's punishment to Rowling as a writer but... the outcome of the duel still does not make any sense in the world of the novels.

Rowling would likely have been better to have the duel start less decisively -- Malfoy and Harry square off, trade words, then begin to duel together. And she should never have had Malfoy attempt an Unforgiveable Curse. It doesn't have much impact in the course of the action scene, it is unsuccessful and it creates the problem of Malfoy getting away with attempting to cast it.

Then, Harry could legitimately face punishment for using a curse without knowing what it did and, perhaps, for responding to Malfoy's less nasty attack with a ferocious spell that endangered the life of a schoolmate.

These are not major changes I am suggesting but I think they would make the outcome make much more sense and not seem so contrived.