I LOVE SIRIUS BLACK. He rocks, he’s the best, I simply love him. James Potter also owns, and Remus, gosh he’s so adorable!!! =P Maybe has to do with the amount of fanfiction I read. Oh well. Don’t care.

And in an earlier episode, might’ve been the Podcastversary one, I completely agree that David Thewlis was NOT my idea for Remus.

Peace,
Ale

I do wonder how much of that JKR reads. How much do y’all read? I used to really enjoy the theories, still do but the knowing kinda takes the edge off. But honestly, I try fan fiction often but get tired of it pretty fast. I find a whole lot of it is much the same thing over and over. And some of the writing is dreadful. Occasionally you find a decent story, more rarely an outstanding one even but I ask myself if what you wade through to get to the good one is worth it. And if it is really good it can muddle up and I forget which is what and think some fan fiction fact is a book fact.

I pretty much despise the POA movie….probably because in part it remains my favorite book. And really I have heard that Cuaron is artistic and gets to the heart of the story and on and on and on. Bottom line, this is the man who gave us Hitler Filtwick and his frog band.

And Kreacher…..Ah Poor Old Kreacher! How his mistress would cry if she saw him with fluffy whit ear hair!

I really hate how the Kreacher thing resolved. Kreacher from Order and Prince is pretty much my absolute favorite character in all the books. I was not happy when Harry patted him on the head, he then felt all loved, went and took a bath, cleaned the kitchen and baked cookies.

I guess it is larger than just Kreacher because I was really looking forward to how she resolved the whole slavery thing. And she didn’t resolve it. I found it interesting that while Dobby was the one who most actively “won” his freedom (although it was Harry who actually coned Malfoy) yet he remains the most slaveish in his dealings with Wizards. (this is part of why I dislike him—I want to say “Hey ACT like a FREE elf for God’s sake!) Winkie was freed against her will and reacted by going into deep denial and drink. But here is Kreacher, still enslaved but actually the elf with the most free will, the one who is defiant, who mouths off, who refuses to work unless he wants to. Kreacher is the resistance. I thought she had all this set up for some great resolution that would make a statement about slavery. But then Kreacher gets redeemed by love—and as a loved slave makes a better one— Dobby dies a nobel death, Winkie is, we presume. still tossing them back and there is no resolution at all as to the issue of enslavement of house elves. I was disappointed by that.

But here is the real house elf question….those stuffed elf heads on the wall of number twelve….can THEY channel Star Wars characters???

But seriously, Bill- I am in agreement with you on Dobby- I was never a big fan, although his death was emotional- but not a tear jerker moment for me. I will disagree with you on winky though. Not a fan of her. I love how Kreacher’s character and story line turned out though.

As far as Ginny goes, I have an on and off thing with Ginny, but I sort of hear you. Definitely don’t like Jim Dale’s portrayal of her.

And don’t get me started on the shrunken heads…or the Jamaican accents!!

As I said earlier, not a big fan of Hagrid either, but the one I am really having issues with is Dumbledore, I just don’t think of him as that great wizard that everyone else does, now if he hadn’t been such a $%*@ to Snape…..

I didn’t like the shrunken heads.

No matter, muggle 123 made a fine point,”Love thy neighbor as thy self” is a pretty darn good starting point, Old Testament or New

Here is my one line opinion about Christians and the Bible and Harry Potter……SOME (note I say some) Christians are too quick to use the Bible to judge and condemn
and SOME Harry Potter fans are too quick to paint all Christians with the same brush. People need to see above I DO khat was two lines but the second was just a recommendation coming out of the first.

And Penny it’s such fun to challenge you I may never tell you if I actually think you ARE right. In point of fact we do have something strongly in common, that being a dislike of really beloved Potter characters.There are two I strongly dislike and can probably engender more outrage with them than you do with Hagrid.

And just to show you how fair I am, I will stand up and speak the names…..

Like I said I don’t always care for Sirius and Lupin although I find them interesting at times. It is not them, they are kinda okay.

Here goes….

I find Dobby generally to be very annoying! And horrors of horrors, not a tear was jerked when he …er …passed. I do however love Kreacher and Winkie. Especially murderous demented Kreacher before he took a bath and turned into Cup-of-Soup Kreacher. And I adore plastered Winkie. But Dobby…Well “Dobby is being one annoying elf sir.”

And it gets worse. I will say this and duck out quickly because people will throw stuff. I really really REALLY don’t like Ginny Weasley. From Whine at the Train Ginny to Ginnymort to A Fathers’ Worst Nightmare Ginny to Harry Fling Ginny to Freedom Fighter Ginny to Momma Ginny never once liked her. Not a bit.

Anyway, Muggle 123- I apologize if you were offended at our tone of discussion in that episode. I honestly can’t remember the exact discussion but I can only assume that when we referred to Christians being agains homosexuality, we were referring to (and I really hate this word for very specific reasons) more fundamentalist sects of Christianity. I apologize if we were unclear in that but that was our intent. By no means did we mean to infer that all Christians were against homosexuality or intolerant of other lifestyles- nor did we mean to infer that all Christians were of the Laura Mallory pursuasion.

Once we are in the apologizeing mode (and no Aaron, I am not apologizing for my dislike of Hagrid)- we received an e-mail after we put up the poll in the Dumbledore is Gay episode from someone who was offended that one of the options for the poll wasn’t “I think it is great” or something positive like that- the most positive tone we took was “It doesn’t change things for me.” anyway, there was really no hidden meaning behind that poll. Whoever made it (and I believe it was greg) did so in the middle of the night. By the time we get to posting the show on the website it is after the show prep, the recording, the editing- all of the technical stuff, trying to come up with something witty to write in the blurb etc…we are pretty knackered (to borrow a british expression that I love) so the omission of “something positive” was an accident and not malicious in any way.

Sorry bout that I am a stickler for the original movie with Charleston Heston. It is actually refered to as a commandment in the New Testiment.
Butterbeers on me! But I think that some people have to learn to love themselves to make it work the way it should.

And Mizz Andy- What do you mean you don’t always agree with me?!?!?!?! I thought we had that females always stick together thing going on here!!! Just Kidding.

Snapes Widow: A lot of good that song did Cameron.

“What he really wanted (and it felt almost shameful to admit it to himself) was someone like—someone like a parent: an adult wizard who’s advice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who cared about him and and experience with Dark Magic…”

Lupin, Arthur, Dumbledore, Hagrid and yes even Vernon and Snape…are male role models but I think, as I have said over and over if you are talking about how HARRY sees people, he sees James as his father, Sirius as his Godfather, Arthur as his friend’s dad and so on. From Harry’s view things are pretty basic. The character of Harry Potter is many things but not until the very end of the stories is he anything like deep.

But in the PLOT—the what happens part of the story those men are male role models. All to some degree flawed but all to some degree redeemable…well maybe not Vernon,,,, But most have more good than bad to them. And again, contrasting plot to literary symbolism, when you talk about father representations, there are lots with that role taken on interchangeably by many of the male characters.

But maybe I am missing something. I would be interested in seeing where in the plot, the straight out story, Harry sees anyone (with the exception of Sirius in his role of godfather) but James as a father.

Ultimately I think JKR’s free for all policy only contributed to the stature of both her books and the fandom and did not usurp her toal control of the series. She skillfuly took advantage of the unique opportunity provided by the internet explosion to create a Potterverse phenomena of unprecednted porportions.