I love JK and attempts to diversify a very straight, white fictional universe is admirable. But the retroactive shoehorning is cringe worthy. If diversity was a concern, why not make Newt non-white? Or Grindlewald?
She has done plenty for diversity considering how far back she started working on Book 1. The main character's first love interest was Chinese and the wisest/most powerful wizard in the entire world was gay. Rowlings needed to answer to absolutely no one about inclusiveness. Trying to add in dumb stuff like "black Hermione" or "Asian woman snake" is not helping, only hurting the cause.
The diversity stuff is not the issue, imo. It’s the revisionist history and then pretending like you had that gameplan for 20 years that comes off a bit disingenuous.
Putting a horcrux in a person is a bad idea, as is established in book 6. Nagini being a pretty unconvincing "Bathilda Bagshot" (which is what makes that chapter so great and spooky) makes this seem like a retcon too. I like the idea of a maledictus but making it Nagini feels like shoe horning. That being said, its JKR doing the writing so I'll trust she makes it work.
Because Tom Riddle being attached to another human being is about the furthest thing from what he is capable of, his closest thing to "love" being a snake made sense, that snake being a real person invalidates one of Voldermort's most well know and what ultimately ended up being his fatal character flaw.
Maybe Nagini got stuck in snake form before Voldemort met her. Maybe Maledictuses or Maledicti don't retain their human memories. That solves that.
I don’t think that’s the dumb part. The dumb part is Rowling acting like some sort of genius claiming she hid this secret for the past 20 years, when everyone knows damn well this is revisionist history just to create an interesting storyline that connects this to the HP books. And honestly I’m cool with clever references that make interesting connections as long as they’re done well. I’m a whore for this shit. Rowling’s self-importance is a bit wearing at times though.
Voldemort being incapable of loving or even caring about another human being is part of what makes him Voldemort, retconning a snake into a human being invalidates that. What part of that is hard to understand?
You retconning his relationship with a pet he seems abnormally close with almost exclusively because he used her to make his last horcrux into some weird love story
I’m presently at intermission of day two of Cursed Child in NY. Holy fuck this is amazing. I read the script when it came out and I’m still blown away by the set design and everything about this show. If you have a chance to see this, you absolutely must.
We won the lottery somehow. Nearly impossible to get tickets now unless you pay an assload. They were like $140 for the two shows for us.
And the theater it’s in is amazing and was completely renovated just for this show. Highly recommend.
Binge Mode: Harry Potter is approaching the end of book 6, they're only doing a couple chapters at a time because there is just so much rich content at this point. These books are so fucking good. Love reliving them this way.
Once I finish my current podcast, I think I might have to give this a go and see what the fuss is about.
Looks like today's will be live on Twitter. *edit: actually can't tell if Binge Mode just retweeted a live NBA pod or if the HP pod will be live. Times are different so I'm assuming it's a live HP pod
Spoiler: long story Four and a half years ago, I sat in my first born's bedroom to read him a book. He had been having trouble sleeping and seemed to relax best when someone was in there with him just reading away. I don't know how much good I did his insomnia since I insisted he sit up and pay attention. "There are things talked about in this book that won't matter until the last book!" I told him. And then we began: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. We read a chapter a night, sometimes two if it was early enough and he was determined enough. We read three or four nights a week till we were done, then watched the movie. After a few months' break we read book two, then three, four and five. The books got longer, our schedules busier. Months turned to years and suddenly it's 4.5 years later and time to read the sixth book. Time has just evaporated. Knowing the finish line was ahead, we pressed ahead, reading more and more each night that we could until we were burning through hundreds of pages in a week. Tonight we finished the last chapter and the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There is no more Harry Potter to read. Sure he can re-read it. Goodness knows I've read the series myself probably seven times over. But more than anything there's no more "me reading to Jack" the book series we began we he was 7 and a half years old. He's now twelve. Almost a teenager. Too old to have his dad read him a bedtime story. The book has a happy ending. And yet as I read the final pages I couldn't help but choke up (again). He wondered why since it was so happy. He didn't understand the tears weren't for the story. There's a lot of death in this series and we shed a lot of tears along the way. He puckered when Cedric died. He was inconsolable when Sirius fell through the veil. The ending of book six wrecked him for days. There were too many deaths in book seven to process, but not too many that we didn't cry. Hedwig and Mad Eye were horrible omens. Losing Dobby hurt the worst. We held each other and cried over that one, both of us saying how he was our favorite character, so full of happiness and life. The perfect character for a child of eight. Then there was Fred and Lupin and Tonks. He cried because he spent years with those characters. I knew those deaths were coming, however; I cried because I knew the series was almost over. I cried because I knew that when it WAS over, so too would, in a lot of ways, be Jack's childhood. And now it is. We still have the (two-part) movie to watch, and then Fantastic Beasts, but this is the end of an era. We finished something that you just can't get back: a dad reading a bedtime story to his first-born son. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go have something chocolate.
My son is 2 and I've been looking forward to doing this with him since before he was born. Sorry your read through is finished, but glad it was such a great experience.
my friend's daughter is 6. They are going to start HP on her 7th birthday on December 23rd. I am quite excited for them. I bought her the illustrated edition of the first three books for her birthday/Christmas.
Man this brings back memories. Did the exact same thing with both of my daughters. Started reading them to them around age 6. After we finished a book, we watched the movie. It took about 2.5 years to get through them with both of them. Our oldest daughter is 11, and for her tenth birthday, we flew her to LA where her aunt lives. Aunt H picked her up from the airport and drove her to Universal and took her to Harry Potter world. Second one is 8 and will be getting the same present for her tenth birthday. After that, then the whole family is going to Orlando for a week at HP world and Disney. Those nights reading to them in bed are priceless. If you are looking for another series to continue the magic, I recommend the Percy Jackson books.
Thanks for sharing that. I'm really looking forward to reading the series with my kids in a couple years.
RT reviews coming in, and they seem pretty mixed. 60% right now. Spoiler: Just a guess, but putting here just in case Surely we see Voldy being born or as a toddler by the end of this movie right? It is set in 1927, and the year Voldemort was visited by Dumbledore in the orphanage was 1938. Making him 11 at the time. Also, I just recently started thinking, but the similarities between Credence and Voldemort are striking. Is there some connection there?
No spoilers for me. Knowing JKR I'm sure there are some big ones. She loves her twist endings I want to experience them in the moment. Reviews may be mixed but it's hard to keep critics satisfied in a series of movies not 10 films deep. Marvel is the exception, not the rule
The first FBAWTFT was only 74% and the critics were pretty mixed early with that one too. I’m sure some of the critics walked into this one with a preconceived bias toward thinking this movie is just the bridge to the third with the ultimate show down between grindelwald and dumbledore.
God I love the binge mode podcast. Started out hating the theme song because it was so close to hedwigs theme but wasn’t and now I get irrationally happy every time I hear it. Going to be so sad when it ends.
I didn't start listening until HP, now I'm going back through the GOTs ones, 60 episodes, been great so far, much shorter than HP though
Jason’s impressions are my least favorite part of the podcast but him yelling at the end of the entrance Music always makes me irrationally happy
Disagree. It’s so campy that it works for me. Also. The bits are great. McGaleon. My good friend Tom Riddle. Jason saying “not cannon” any time something from cursed child is brought up.