Harry Potter and The Tauz's Attention

The back-log of The Tauz Blaug Posts continues!

I mentioned in a previous post that one of the Sad Excuses for one of my Inevitable Lapses in Blaugging was The Harry Potter, both Movie 5 and Book 7. Here is the tale of how The Boy Who Lived transmuted me into The Boy Without a Life for nearly three weeks.

(This is a spoiler-free Harry Potter post.)

I was looking forward to the theatrical release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but I was unsure as to who I was going to go see it with. So when the sudden opportunity to go see it on the sneak preview night arose, I jumped at the chance. Paula (from work) and her husband Joe are big Potter fans; both of the movies and of the books, and they kindly invited me to go with them, so I was stoked.

Now, I hadn't read this intallment in the Hogwarts Anthology since it dropped back in the summer of '03. I certainly meant to re-read it before the giant Potter blitzkrieg hit in July, but didn't. It seems someone set a laziness jinx upon me or something.

I totally enjoyed the flick while I was in the theater. I was, however, fully aware of the fact that, as I mentioned above, I hadn't read the source material in roughly three or four years... so I didn't pick the movie apart in my head. I wasn't trying to remember what they'd left out from the book or what they changed, so I was able to be wrapped up in the visual aspect and the excitement of remembering the story as it unfolds. What a novel idea (ironically).

Memorable Highlights*:


The Snog = Hot Teenage Awkwardness


Umbridge = Beautifully Hate-able (Those fucking cat plates just made my HATRED of her character burst forth from my insides.)


Dumbledore's Army. Represent. (Who's the jerk all the way on the left??)

*Not Pictured, but still Memorable:
Smoky-flying effect of wizards = Badass but simultaneously confusing

...so I liked the film version of HP5, even though every time I tell someone this I feel I have to qualify the phrase "I liked it" with "but I hadn't read the book since it came out." Like I have to justify why I could have possibly liked it.

After the movie, Joe, Paula and I were exchanging opinions on the film in the parking lot and my objective self started coming forward. We were saying how we liked it, but then we started coming up with stuff that could have been better or different. We all agreed (I think...it's been a while) with what some critics would point out in the coming weeks. It was too fast-paced and somewhat glib in its dealing with some of the narrative points. Joe made the interesting analogy: these movies should be taken as any re-enactment is on Cops. These flicks are just dramatizations of the real events (which happened in the books.)

When I think about the movie in those terms, my subjective "I really enjoyed this flick" self comes back. I agree with the critics, but I still liked it, but i haven't read the book in 4 years or so.

That being said, I felt somewhat out of touch with my inner potter fan after seeing the movie. It made me feel that I didn't "deserve" to do a review of the movie for the Blaug, so I didn't (right away). So I was stalled for the next week for blaugging b/c that's how my mind works.

The next day at work, however, Paula came to me and said that the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to share with people what she actually thought of the flick. I offered her a chance to write something up and I'd post it on the Blaug, but she never did. The offer still stands...

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On to the book, now!

The night before the release, I got a call at 2:15am or so. It was Jeff and Terry. They were calling from the waiting-for-midnight line outside of the Barnes and Noble in Arizona. They're friggin three hours behind us b/c of the time zone difference, but they figured (correctly) that I would be up to chat about it. They saw people in costume and described some of the more ridiculous ones to me. They hung up before they actually picked it up, but later he told me that they got it quickly, and Terry proceeded to read it in 12 hrs or so.

A week prior to the release, I hastily preordered my copy from Borders, as did Joe, and I planned on picking it up during the day on Saturday. However, I got an IM from him Saturday morning saying that it was cheaper and well-stocked at Target... so he ignored his pre-order and picked it up at Target. He suggested I do the same. So later that evening, after I found myself with nothing to do and nobody to do anything with, I made the arduous 5-minute trek to Target and grabbed a copy.

I dove in to the wizarding world around 9:30pm on Saturday. It probably looked something like this (except not backwards):



I finished less than a week later, at 4am on the following Saturday (after the O's game [another post altogether]). During that week I was engulfed. But it wasn't like it was before, when I was racing to the finish line. Even though I was reading very intently, I was also not rushing. If I got to a point where not much was happening and I knew that I had to get some sleep, I would take the lack of action as an opportunity to put the book down. There were some extreme moments, though, like when I was cooking dinner and in between stirs of the pot I'd look to the book for a few moments, and then back to the stove... but nothing too terrible.

As for the content of said tome, I really enjoyed it. Joe introduced me to a term that became very important in this book. It actually turned out to be Rowling's M.O. in general. The term is retcon. It's when an author adds a piece of "previously unknown history" to something that has already happened. There's a lot of that in the HP series. And even though the retconned facts sometimes seem a bit too coincidental, it just so happens that in these books, it's relatively legit.

There was only one point in the book where I paused my reading to let out a verbal "really?" in disbelief of something...and you'll have to contact me more directly if you want to chat with me about that moment.

There were parts near the end that I found confusing, but once I sifted through it all, it was cool. Jeff had to iron out one detail for me and then I totally got it. I really liked how everything turned out. And that's all I got to say 'bout that.

Now it's all over, but I'm not sad. There will be more stories forthcoming from the wizarding world of Harry Potter, if J.K. Rowling ever gets bored again. She certainly won't be doing it for lack of cash anymore. Ever.

She might try to get away from him at first, but she'll be back...

Even Kevin Smith tried to do that when he made Jersey Girl (which I liked, btw) without Jay & Silent Bob in it. But then he went right back to what REALLY worked for him with Clerks 2 (which was also awesome).

And while Rowling may not immediately return to Hogwarts, that leaves the door open for others to invade and use her source material for their own entertainment. (Not that this Muggle is complaining...) While scowering the Internets for Potter stuff for this entry, I stumbled upon a series of YouTube videos featuring The Potter Puppet Pals. This was my favorite, but the others are worth viewing. Bravo to the guy who thought of doing this instead of a Harry Potter FanFic titled Harry Potter and the Barely-Legal Girls of Hogwarts Gone Wild.