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.

The Burrow burnt; the Burrow rebuilt

So I'm watching the last three Harry Potter films... just because. I don't particularly like them but, once in a while, I feel the need to see them again. Especially when I am re-reading the novels.

As I read The Half-Blood Prince (in French), I thought I'd throw in the Blu Ray of the movie version, which led to where I am now, with The Deathly Hallows, Part I, in the Blu Ray player, watching the opening scenes.

And it occurs to me, as it has several times before, to ask the question: if the film-makers decided to take the creative liberty in the sixth movie of introducing an all new scene in which Bellatrix, Greyback and several other Death Eaters attack and finally burn the Burrow to the ground, why is that particular domicile back at the start of the seventh film, rebuilt exactly as it was?

The Burrow was always, in novels and films, a ramshackle collection of rooms, pieced together over years and years, making no sense, comfortable almost in spite of itself. In the books, it never burned so there was no reason for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley to rebuild it into a more practical, more comfortable structure.

In the film, however, we see the Burrow completely engulfed in flames and we get a close up of Molly Weasley, standing by, helpless, as it burns to ashes.

By the time the seventh film starts, however, the Burrow is back in one piece. Exactly the same ramshackle, ill-designed piece that burned only a few months before. Why not improve it? Why not make it a more sturdy structure, bigger, better designed,with better flow, better light, better everything?

Sure, you can tell me that the Weasley's made the decision to rebuild the Burrow exactly as it was before out of a sense of history, of sentiment, of not wanting to lose their "home". But it makes no sense to me.

Is it possible the film-makers simply forgot that they burned it to the ground????

Brief encounter, Harry Potter style

A  Harry Potter moment:

Due to a broken toe, I've been taking the bus every day this week to work, rather than enjoying my usual half-hour walk into the office.

And, on those occasions when I do take the bus, I try to remember to bring a book to read while I stand at the bus stop and then enjoy the 10-minute ride downtown.

Today, I brought The Half-Blood Prince with me for the trip, complete with my hand-knit Gryffindor bookmark, which mimics the red and gold pattern of the scarves from the later movies.

So I'm sitting there on the bus, enjoying the scene where Rufus Scrimgeour corners Harry at the Burrow over Christmas, the bookmark on my knee, and I look up for a second to find a young woman, maybe 20 years old, gazing avidly at the bookmark and trying to get a clear look at the cover of my open book.

I close the book briefly so that she can see blue, red and green cover. She smiles, nods, then goes back to her iPad.

I go back to my reading and, when the bus comes to a stop downtown, we both head off into our lives. No words exchanged. No other glances.

Just a brief moment on the bus to share our love of Harry Potter.

So that's what happened to Karkaroff

I have often commented on how impressed I am with J.K. Rowling's ability to juggle so many characters, so many locations, so much information about her invented magical world and yet maintain absolute consistency in it over the course of seven novels. The continuity mistakes are few and far between in her seven-book adventure.

She must either have a prodigious memory or an amazing filing system or both.

So I am not at all surprised that, after posing a question in this space some time ago about the fate of Professor Karkaroff (the Durmstrang Head Master who plays such a large role in The Goblet of Fire and then disappears late in the TriWizard Tournament, fleeing in fear when his Dark Mark begins to grow clearer), I find my answer early in The Half-Blood Prince.

Rowling didn't forget Karkaroff. No, she followed up on his story with her usual subtlety and grace.

One hundred pages into book six, she has Remus Lupin drop in for dinner at the Burrow with some updates on how the war is progressing.

"...they've found Igor Karkaroff's body in a shack up north," he says. "The Dark Mark had been set over it -- well, frankly, I'm surprised he stayed alive for even a year after deserting the Death Eaters; Sirius's brother Regulus only managed a few days as far as I can remember."

As is typical for J.K., she manages to connect one small piece of information from the past (tying up the Karkaroff loose end) with a much more important piece of information for the future: confirming that Regulus Black was a Death Eater, then had a change of mind, then died.

This will become very important later in The Half-Blood Prince.

Even more impressive is the fact that this one little comment foreshadows and comments upon the events of book seven. Lupin's point seems to be: unless you are Albus Dumbledore, if Voldemort wants you dead, your time remaining on earth is short.

So, in fact, he's commenting indirectly on how miraculous it is that Harry has survived this long and that Harry, Hermione and Ron manage to stay alive throughout the course of The Deathly Hallows, despite the fact that the Death Eaters, the Snatchers and the Ministry are all hunting for them and anyone who might be sympathetic to the trio is too afraid to help them.

Why don't the Weasleys have a House Elf?

Let's talk about House Elves for a moment. I'm currently re-reading The Goblet of Fire which, of course, has a distinct HE subplot, and it's gotten me thinking.

The main question that keeps popping into my mind is this one: Why don't the Weasleys have a House Elf?

There is a second question, which is also floating around in my mind, but perhaps I'll deal with that another time. The second question? If House Elves are generally solitary creatures (one per household -- both the Malfoys and the Crouches appear to have only one House Elf each, despite their great wealth), how do House Elves have children?

I mean, from what we've learned, House Elves can do nothing without first getting permission from their Masters. Further, House Elves appear to come in two biological sexes (male and female, Dobby and Winky) which would lead one to imagine (perhaps incorrectly) that it takes one House Elf of each sex to create a child.

So, if House Elves are generally allocated one per great house, and you need to have two House Elves (one of each sex) to make a baby House Elf, does a House Elf approach her Master and say, "Master, may I go visit the nearby great house to visit my partner House Elf for the purposes of making a baby House Elf so you have someone to replace me when I die?"

And, if that's the way it works, to which great house is the resulting baby Elf attached?

But more on that another time (perhaps).

My first question is, why don't the Weasleys, with all those children, have a House Elf?

Part of the answer appears to be provided in my consideration of the second question above: on several occasions in the early books, J.K. Rowling suggests that House Elves are attached to great houses, like those owned by the Malfoys and the Crouches, and the families that inhabit them.

We could argue that a House Elf can only live in a manor or other great building (such as Hogwarts). That would certainly help to explain why the Weasleys don't have an Elf -- the Burrow is simply not grand enough to host such a creature.

When you read that, did your mind go where mine went? But but but but... the Black family does not own a glorious manor house and they have enjoyed the services of Kreacher and his family for generations. The Blacks live in a row house in London, not tiny nor inexpensive by any means, but not a manor house.

So perhaps you don't have to own a magnificent home (or building) to have a House Elf.

Could it be that House Elves only serve great wizarding families with long, glorious histories? No matter where they live at the moment?

That's possible, but it doesn't explain why the Weasleys (or the Gaunts for that matter) don't have an Elf. The Weasleys are well-established as a pure-blood wizarding family and the Gaunts, for certain, are pure-blood with a glorious past.

My best explanation is that House Elves formed relationships with wizarding families long ago in the distant past. They naturally gravitated to families with large homes and lots of money. Once the bond was formed, it continued throughout history, no matter what happened to the wizarding family and its fortunes.

It could be broken only by three events:

1. The wizards freed the Elf for whatever reason;
2. The last Elf in its family died, without children, leaving the wizarding family without an Elf; or
3. The wizarding family died out completely, leaving the Elf in search of a new place.

In the case of 1 or 3, the Elf would either try to find a new family or end up at a place (like Hogwarts) where it could find work and a new role in life.

In the case of 2, the family either had to live without an Elf or find a new Elf that is looking for a new place.

Think about Dobby and Winky, who find themselves, by the middle of TGOF, without a place. Dobby has been accidentally freed by the Malfoys while Winky was let go by Barty Crouch Sr. Dobby goes out looking for work at other houses but ends up at Hogwarts while Winky falls into alcoholism as a result of her shame of being a House Elf without a proper place.

If those two stories are typical of what happens when an Elf becomes free, it is surprising to me that the Weasleys were never able to pick up a House Elf at any point in their history.

It can't be their poverty that stopped them: remember, House Elves normally don't want to be paid. So what was the problem? What happened?

Movie Harry wouldn't have been safe at the Burrow(s)

The Blu Ray/DVD is coming out in one week. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, will be available in stores on November 11. So exciting!

Seeing that advertisements for the new discs has gotten me thinking again about the film versions of The Deathly Hallows and the many ways in which they strayed from the original novel.

And here's one difference that has been bothering me, mainly because it creates in my mind a significant inconsistency within the film narrative itself.

In the novel, J.K. takes great pains to establish that the plan to remove Harry from Privet Drive involves the creation of many different Harrys, each of which will be taken by a member of the Order to a different safe house. Each Harry will then travel by port key to the Burrow. Harry and Hagrid, in fact, barely escape Voldemort by entering the safe zone established around the home of Ted Tonks, Dora's father. From there, Harry and Hagrid travel to the Burrow to meet the others.

Even if Voldemort is able to distinguish the real Harry from the fakes, as he does in both the book and the movie, his efforts to find and capture Harry will be frustrated by the fact that he will not know to which of the many possible safe houses Harry has been moved and the fact that each of those safe houses is magically protected. In other words, it will take him a great deal of time and energy to track Harry down.

In a time-saving measure, the film version edits out the extra step. Instead of scattering to different safe houses, all of the Harrys and their escorts are told by Mad-Eye to "head for the Burrows" as they prepare to take off.

Outside of the fact that the name of the Weasley household has changed, this revised plan creates a real problem: since all of the Harrys went to the Burrow, Voldemort therefore knows that the real Harry will be at the Burrow. It will be the first place Voldemort lays seige to in his search for Harry.

Sure, the Burrow is magically defended but, as the Dark Lord proves later in the battle of Hogwarts, even the most powerful of magical protection cannot hold Voldemort off for long. Hogwarts' formidable defenses crumble within minutes once Vodelmort joins the assault. We can't expect the defenses around the Burrow to last any longer.

So how is that Movie Harry is able to spend several peaceful days at the Burrow before its defenses finally fail?

The Weasley Homestead

I'm trying to figure out what screen-writer Steven Kloves and director David Yates have against the Weasley homestead, commonly known as "The Burrow".

First, in a completely invented scene in the film version of The Half-Blood Prince, they have Bellatrix and her pals burn the place down. If that's not bad enough, in the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, they have several characters (like Mad-Eye Moody) call the place "The Burrows", plural.

In an interesting contradiction, some characters call it by its singular name and others by its new plural name, both in the film and in the special features that come with the Blu-Ray version of the movie.

Strange. J.K. refers to it, consistently and without exception, as "The Burrow" across all six books in which it is mentioned (I don't find any mention of the Weasley home, at least not be name, in The Philosopher's Stone). Why change it in the film?

Oh, which reminds me, from what I understand, the first novel in the series is called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in just about every English-speaking country in the world except the United States: so why do the British producers refer to it constantly as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the American title) in the Blu-Ray extras?

By the way, I recently picked up the French version of the first novel and I think the direct translation of the French title is Harry Potter at the School for Magic. Neat.