We always get comments about how when they listen to our podcast, people feel like they’re getting a glimpse into our lives. They usually follow up with a statement about how they love the rapport the two of us have. Well, for those of you who like HPProgs for the intimate way we welcome you into our lives then this is the episode for you. After we discussed the new Twilight Book, “Breaking Dawn,” Greg and I proceeded to have a general potpourri episode with some content and a lot of personality (pseudonym for annoyance at each other). We also discussed an exciting new contest that is in the works!
As always we can’t wait to hear your thoughts: on the Breaking Dawn review, the Beedle the Bard News and contest, our short fandom discussion and everything else we talked about. You can leave comments here on the blog or call our voicemail at 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.
Make sure to check out our channel on the new Odeo. Subscribe, rate, review, it’s all good, check it out.
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?
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.
The first official Half Blood Prince Teaser is now being shown at Imax viewings of the Dark Knight movie. BlogHogwarts.com put it up on youtube and you can see it here:
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!
We showed this teaser trailer (which may or may not…ok, may not, be the teaser trailer for the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie) at our panel at the Portus Podcast Palooza (which was awesome, thank you so much for everyone who came to our panel).
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. From there, we discuss the apparent connection to Chapters 2 and 3, and how they relate to what might be the theme of the book: trust, faith or death. We haven’t quite decided yet. Have any thoughts? We’d love to hear from you.
You can leave comments or call our voicemail at 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 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 discuss J.K. Rowling’s commencement address to Harvard University’s graduating class of 2008 (with audio snippets!) and conclude our Patterns in Potter discussion for the theme of Book 6.
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 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.
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.
Hey everyone. Believe it or not, Greg and I are both under the weather right now and if we would sit down to podcast tonight the result would be a raspy, nasal, and moany sounding episode. So we are going to do you all a favor and not subject you to our ailments.
We won’t be able to podcast over the weekend- Saturday won’t work and Sunday is our (10th!!!) anniversary so we are hoping to do something special that involves just us two and not our children or (no offense) any of you! But we hope to podcast sometime early next week.
The good news is that you won’t be totally HPProgs free over this weekend. Actually that isn’t true. You won’t be totally me-free. Earlier this week Aziza from Portus recorded a Portus Preview Podcast with different members of some of the different Harry Potter Podcasts who will be at the Podcast Palooza at Portus and I was one of the podcasters who joined in. I believe that she plans on releasing the episode sometime Saturday and we’ll be sure to link to it when it goes up.
Speaking of Portus, the main page of their website is down but if you go to any of the other pages (such as the one I linked to in the last paragraph), you can access the rest of the site. Also, as we mentioned in the last podcast there is one last discount going on for Portus registrants. Here is the info:
It’s May, and owls are flying all over the country dropping off those much desired tax refunds. To celebrate all the extra galleons and sickles being dropped at our doorsteps, we have decided to present you with one last discount before Portus arrives this July! From today through May 31st, enter the code TAXMAN when registering for Portus, and you will receive a 20% discount on full and day registrations. It’s the perfect time to give your friend or relative a gift registration for Portus! Act soon before the price freezes at $220.00 for a full registration!
Honestly, after recording the Portus Preview Podcast I am more excited than ever to go to Portus (we even made our hotel reservations- that is unprecedented for us, we usually wait till the last minute!!) and we hope you can join us.
In conclusion (yes I feel like I am making a speech), we hope to bring you Episode #80 of Harry Potter Prognostications some time in the beginning-middle of next week. In the meantime, Keep On Prognosticating!
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.
No Moaning Myrtle in Half Blood Prince. The actress who plays her is busy checking out nursing homes (oh snap, that was mean. I know. I apologize to Shirley Henderson, but come on- she is old.)
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.
Through May 11, 2008, Amazon customers are invited to vote for their favorite submission in both age groups. Each winner will receive a $1,000 Amazon Gift Certificate, as well as the opportunity to square off in another round of customer voting–beginning May 13–to determine the Grand Prize winner of the trip for two to London, England and a weekend with The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
In order to vote, you must be signed in to a valid Amazon.com account (account holders for amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, and amazon.de should automatically qualify). Make your choice carefully and vote just once–your first vote is the only one that will count.
So what does this mean? Now that almost a year has passed since “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” was released, is Harry Potter slowly but surely fading into obscurity? I know it isn’t reasonable to assume that Harry Potter would stay on the Best-Seller List forever, or that JK Rowling would continually be honored for her influence on the world of literature, but this seems like a hasty fall from grace in my opinion.
More and more schools are making Harry Potter required reading so children will still pick up the series and hopefully devour it with the same zest that we’ve all done. Unfortunately there won’t be any “between the book excitement” that helped to make the series as exciting as it was; however, we can hope that these children will still eagerly anticipate the beginning of each new book as they finish the last one.
But one has to wonder how many new adults will start reading the books at this point. Have we come to the end of the mature examination of this series? Adult fans of the Harry Potter series were forced to analyze the books prior to the release of each one. In order to get the most out of the series, we spent hours pouring over the books to look for clues and hints to what was going to come. This won’t be the case anymore. Analysis will be all but unnecessary and this saddens me the most.
So now we can only hope that either JK Rowling will somehow decide to continue the Harry Potter Series or hopefully the next JK Rowling will emerge sooner rather than later.
. From there, we discuss the apparent connection to Chapters 2 and 3, and how they relate to what might be the theme of the book: trust, faith or death. We haven’t quite decided yet. Have any thoughts? We’d love to hear from you.
