Hopefully by now, you’ve seen the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. We sat down immediately after watching to record out thoughts. What do you think of the trailer? Does the voice of the woman in the orphanage belong to J.K. Rowling?
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One of the over-arching meta-themes of the Harry Potter books is, without a doubt, choice. From early on the books the theme of choice is empasised, when the Sorting Hat defers to Harry’s wish to be in Gryffindor, or when Dumbledore makes it clear to Harry that it is his choices, far more than abilities that make him the wizard that he is. It’s clear that J.K. Rowling is a proponent of the idea that we make ourselves who we are and are ultimately responsible for who we become.
Putting aside a scientific discussion of free will and determinism, a greater question, from within the stories themselves, comes to light. With the conclusion of Book 7, and the revelation of Dumbledore’s less than altruistic motives, does J.K. Rowling’s position on free will and choice change? Did Harry, in fact, make all those choices of his own free will, or, perhaps, was he influenced by forces beyond his control? Despite Dumbledore’s protestations to the contrary, could Harry ever have avoided the final showdown with the Dark Lord, had he simply chosen to walk away?
In this week’s episode, we examine the nature of free will and choice as presented in the books after Book 7, and what J.K. Rowling might be saying about what it means to be free.
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Check out some of the books we talked about on this week’s episode.
Make sure to check out Penny’s post Deathly Hallows: One Year Later for a rundown on all that’s happened since Book 7 was released.
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As you may have read, we just got back from Portus 2008, a Harry Potter convention that took place July 10-13 in Dallas, Texas. And, guess what? We had a blast! From Jim Dale giving a live performance, to meeting lots of fun and interesting people, it was a great time. We sat right down as soon as we could after we got home to record some of our thoughts on what the Harry Potter fan-world is like one year after the release of Deathly Hallows, along with details on the all the great sessions we went to, movies watched, conversations had, etc. It really was a great time, and special thanks to the HPEF for going all out and putting together an amazing weekend.
If you were there, leave a comment or send us an email. And make sure to check out www.hp2009.org for Azkatraz, in San Francisco! Hope to see you there!
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Don’t forget to check out Harry Potter Prognostications on the new Odeo. Subscribe, why dontcha?
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We’re back for another action-packed episode of Patterns in Potter. This time, we take on the latest contender in the Harry Potter series, The Deathly Hallows. We begin with an analysis of the prologue, of both The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus, and William Penn’s More Fruits of Solitude
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In the news:
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This appeared in a survey I took from Borders Books. It seems that it might be some kind of Half Blood Prince Promotional poster which will grace the cover of the book once the movie comes out. What are your thoughts?
What do you think? Could this be the new Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie poster? (Hat tip to Bill)
This week, we begin our Patterns in Potter coverage for Book 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The theme of this book is quite ambiguous; in fact, it is ambiguous. Sorry if I’m not being too clear here, but you’ll have to listen to the podcast to figure the rest out.
In the news:
We look forward to hearing from you. You can leave comments here on the blog or send in your voicemails to 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. Please make sure to keep the message as close to one minute as possible and try to speak loudly and clearly.
Today is a new month (June, for those of you who have been hiding under a rock), so please vote for us on Podcast Alley and as always rate and review us on iTunes and Odeo.
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This week, we finish up our Patterns in Potter discussion for Book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This time, we focus on Harry’s visions (courtesy of Lord Voldemort) and his driving urge to understand the truth of these visions, and what knowledge they can bring in aiding in the fight against evil. It’s quite an interesting discussion, and we end up talking about Gödel’s Theorem, for those of you who know what that is (for those of you who don’t, that’s why there is Wikipedia), and discuss rationalism, existenialism and religion.
Send us your thoughts, we look forward to hearing from you! You can leave comments here on the blog or send in your voicemails to 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. Please make sure to keep the message as close to one minute as possible and try to speak loudly and clearly.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at http://audiblepodcast.com/hp.
In the news:
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In the week’s episode, we continue our discussion of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the central theme of truth and knowledge, specifically how the book presents the theme in context of Hogwarts, education, careers and experiential vs. learned/taught knowledge. It’s even more exciting that I can describe.
We look forward to hearing from you. You can leave comments here on the blog or send in your voicemails to 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. Please make sure to keep the message as close to one minute as possible and try to speak loudly and clearly.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at http://audiblepodcast.com/hp.
And, the news:
Also, check out Pensieve Memories, a new Harry Potter forum.
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In what will go down in history as being HPProgs’ finest hour *or* our worst episode yet, we bring to you Episode #77. We decided to go a slightly different route for part of this episode and after our very short news discussion we re-enacted part of the J.K. Rowling vs. Steve Vander Ark/RDR Books trial. All we can say is that those of you who called Greg’s accent rubbish are going to wish you had saved your insults. On a side note, when I was editing the episode I realized that we botched the name of SVA’s lawyer. It is David Hammer, not Barry. Apologies to Mr. Hammer.
Speaking of accents, we played a voicemail from Potter’s Number One Fan in which he picked up Greg’s gauntlet and gave us a multi-character Harry Potter narration. Excellent job, in my opinion.
We finished off the episode with the introduction to Patterns In Potter for “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”. You’ll have to trust that we are telling the truth when we say that Book 5 has a good theme.
As promised the links to the court transcripts are here. Thanks to Cris for the tip:
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Finally, HPProgs has a Twitter account so please join in the fun and start following us so you can get all of our updates!
We look forward to hearing from you. You can leave comments here on the blog or send in your voicemails to 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. Please make sure to keep the message as close to one minute as possible and try to speak loudly and clearly.
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Ginny, have you seen my Firebolt?
The trial over Steve Vander Ark and his Harry Potter Lexicon continued today in New York, in what appears to be the final day of testimony. According to the WSJ Law Blog (which may be suing HPProgs for copyright, as we’ve been linking to and excerpting from the quite liberally), the defense (i.e. SVA and RDR) seemed to have the upper hand coming out of today’s session. HPProgs legal analysts (read: hacks) think this might indicate that the judge really favors Rowling, but was testing their side more rigourously to see how they stood up to scrutiny. More likely, though, he’s leaning towards RDR/SVA.
The WSJ also posted an interview with an IP lawyer who gave his opinion on the case (long story short: too close to call). Did we mention that Anthony Falzone, one of the attorneys for the defense, used basically the same argument we did in yesterday’s podcast discussing the trial? He must be a listener (we’ll send you a bill).
In the meantime, more information has come to light. Commentor Bill posted a link to a site that contains most of the information that has been submitted for the case (I think lawyers call these things affidavits). Included in Bill’s comment was an excerpt of an email exchange between SVA and JKR’s representatives; what emerges is a very disturbing picture of a case of an obsessed fan taking things too far. This, of course, has no bearing on the legality of the Lexicon as a published work, but certainly adds a nice amount of drama and context to the entire affair.
Check back tomorrow for more updates on the trial. We here at HPProgs are hoping for a settlement; short of that, we’ve got two galleons on RDR/SVA.
This week, we take a break from the Patterns in Potter series to disucss the court case currently underway in New York between J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. on one side, and RDR Books and Steve Vander Ark on the other. There’s been excellent coverage of the trial (and interesting comments) over on the WSJ Law Blog, make sure to check that out.
In the mean time, if you have a thought or opinion about the case, leave a comment or a message and we’ll play it our next podcast. We look forward to hearing from you. You can leave comments here on the blog or send in your voicemails to 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. Please make sure to keep the message as close to one minute as possible and try to speak loudly and clearly.
No news this week, other than, you know, that court thingee. We will continue the Patterns in Potter series next week, beginning Book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
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Last week, we introduced pride as the theme of Book 4, with a focus on both personal and communal pride, and how nationalism, racism and other -isms can flow from pride. This week, we continue our discussion of Goblet of Fire and the theme of pride, listen to a few comments, and have an all-around good time.
We look forward to hearing from you. You can leave comments here on the blog or send in your voicemails to 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. Please make sure to keep the message as close to one minute as possible and try to speak loudly and clearly.
Shoutout to our listener, Robert Kingett, and his podcast: www.freewebs.com/4yoinformation.
As always, feel free to rate and review us on iTunes and vote for us on Podcast Alley (It is a new month!).
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at http://audiblepodcast.com/hp.
In the news:
You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.
This week, we continue our Patterns in Potter series, beginning our examination of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In this episode, we discuss the main theme for Book 4, pride, and how Harry’s experiences in the beginning of Book 4 relate to this theme. Pride, both personal and external, comes before a fall, and there’s no bigger fall for the wizarding world than what happens at the end of Book 4. So, humble yourself, pull up a chair, and listen in.
As always we look forward to hearing from you. You can leave comments here on the blog or send in your voicemails to 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. Please make sure to keep the message as close to one minute as possible and try to speak loudly and clearly.
As always, feel free to rate and review us on iTunes and vote for us on Podcast Alley (new month next week!!)- remember, WE ARE THE NUMBER 3 HARRY POTTER PODCAST!!!
In the news:
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In this week’s episode, we finished our discussion on the theme of emotion in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We talked about the Dementors and their effect on the soul, as well as their antidote: the Patronus, and the necessary requirements to conjure one. This was actually an off the cuff, un-planned discussion and we really like what we came up with (not to toot our own horns).
We had some voicemails and we urge you to keep sending them, as well as your comments, in!We also discussed the news about the Deathly Hallows Movie being split into two.
Finally, Greg made an exciting work-related (yet not completely HPProgs unrelated) announcement (hint, check out http://beta.odeo.com/) that we look forward to sharing with all of you!
If you want to send in voicemails you can call 206-337-0357 in the US or 07092899490 in the UK. As always, we look forward to hearing your comments, thoughts, and suggestions. Be in touch!
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I stumbled across this video today. Coincidence? You decide.
Warning: there is some explicit language, so don’t watch if that’s a concern.
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