Reading, Watching
1. I finished The Deathly Hallows!
This book is just one emotional gut punch after another for me, and I love every second of it.
Ron, Harry, and Hermione on their own, hungry and wearing a soul-sucking evil around their necks is so well done. Of course, one of them breaks. Poor Ron. "He must have known you'd want to come back." *my heart*
Luna's friends mural is so sweet. I have to admit that I prefer the movie portrayal of Luna to the book portrayal. I like her in book six and in book seven, but I hadn't remembered that in book five, she's not portrayed as charmingly eccentric but more as difficult to interact with and off-putting.
I also prefer the movie portrayal of Harry's confrontation with Umbridge. Him yelling out, "I must not tell lies!" is so much more satisfying from a narrative standpoint.
And I prefer Neville's speech and sword retrieval from the movie as well.
Everyone who dies just breaks my heart: Hedwig, Mad Eye, Fred, Tonks, Remus, Colin Creevey, Dobby!
Percy showing back up to redeem himself is another deeply emotional moment for me.
This read, I thought a lot about Dumbledore and his past. (Aside: IDK what Fantastic Beasts is doing with that backstory; his history is tragic enough without piling on more soap opera elements). I am convinced that Dumbledore would never have become so infatuated with Grindelwald if he hadn't just had his life up-ended. His mother had just died in horrific circumstances, and he'd seen all his shining future reduced to being the caregiver for his sister. I believe he loved his sister very much, but being a caregiver is really hard and full of sacrifice for anyone who does it; contemplating the loss of a future you've worked really hard for at *17* is unthinkably hard. I don't blame him at all for being angry or resentful in that situation. And then Grindelwald swoops in and offers him an escape. I think if Dumbledore hadn't been so emotionally vulnerable at that time, he'd have been able to push back against Grindelwald and call him out on his ideas much sooner than he did in canon. Harry's refrain in this novel is that Dumbledore's the same age he is now and so should have done better, been better; what that refrain just hammers home to me is that Harry doesn't understand the extraordinary levels of maturity to which he's continually been called as a child.
Once again, I think the novel really drops the ball re: magical beings who are not human. So much of the plot of each novel, really, is caught up in how house elves and goblins and other beings are mistreated by humans and how they have valuable contributions to make. Dumbledore says that Harry wins in part because Voldemort is so arrogant that he doesn't think house elves have anything significant to offer. And it would have been so easy to show a house elf with a wand at the train station or mention something about rights for werewolves changing, etc. I also think it drops the ball re: Sorting. The last few books seem to really emphasize the idea of school unity and thinking beyond Houses, and in the epilogue, the characters are right back to the same old binaries. Bit disappointing.
2. Gotham is back!!
I absolutely adore the heroes' walk (Penguin, Bullock, Riddler, Gordon) the show opens with, and I can't wait to see the events that lead to that moment.
I love that Barbara and Tabitha are running a women's only club as a sanctuary for women. Can't believe they killed Tabby. :(
I feel so badly for Selena. The previews for next week show her walking, so clearly her paralysis won't last long, but I hate how full of despair she feels.
Love that Penguin has named his dog Edward.
I bet the Gordon/Penguin shippers are extremely happy. Gordon just can't bring himself to kill Penguin. LOL
3. We watched a great little indie movie called Life after Beth. It's a take on the zombie apocalypse with a great cast; very funny with lots of good pathos. It's not scary at all (or else I couldn't have watched it LOL). It's also an hour and half long which is a huge selling point for me; I lament the loss of the hour and a half movie. You can't watch a three hour movie on a week night after the kids are in bed and still get to sleep at a decent hour.
4.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
executrix send me an awesome batch of books. I am enjoying going through them.
Infra-Apparel by Richard Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Beautiful pictures of clothing in which the underwear or under-layers of clothing are either exposed or come to influence the outerwear or outer-layers.
I think the text is unnecessarily fussy and obfuscating at times, but it's still fascinating if you are interested in fashion.
View all my reviews
This book is just one emotional gut punch after another for me, and I love every second of it.
Ron, Harry, and Hermione on their own, hungry and wearing a soul-sucking evil around their necks is so well done. Of course, one of them breaks. Poor Ron. "He must have known you'd want to come back." *my heart*
Luna's friends mural is so sweet. I have to admit that I prefer the movie portrayal of Luna to the book portrayal. I like her in book six and in book seven, but I hadn't remembered that in book five, she's not portrayed as charmingly eccentric but more as difficult to interact with and off-putting.
I also prefer the movie portrayal of Harry's confrontation with Umbridge. Him yelling out, "I must not tell lies!" is so much more satisfying from a narrative standpoint.
And I prefer Neville's speech and sword retrieval from the movie as well.
Everyone who dies just breaks my heart: Hedwig, Mad Eye, Fred, Tonks, Remus, Colin Creevey, Dobby!
Percy showing back up to redeem himself is another deeply emotional moment for me.
This read, I thought a lot about Dumbledore and his past. (Aside: IDK what Fantastic Beasts is doing with that backstory; his history is tragic enough without piling on more soap opera elements). I am convinced that Dumbledore would never have become so infatuated with Grindelwald if he hadn't just had his life up-ended. His mother had just died in horrific circumstances, and he'd seen all his shining future reduced to being the caregiver for his sister. I believe he loved his sister very much, but being a caregiver is really hard and full of sacrifice for anyone who does it; contemplating the loss of a future you've worked really hard for at *17* is unthinkably hard. I don't blame him at all for being angry or resentful in that situation. And then Grindelwald swoops in and offers him an escape. I think if Dumbledore hadn't been so emotionally vulnerable at that time, he'd have been able to push back against Grindelwald and call him out on his ideas much sooner than he did in canon. Harry's refrain in this novel is that Dumbledore's the same age he is now and so should have done better, been better; what that refrain just hammers home to me is that Harry doesn't understand the extraordinary levels of maturity to which he's continually been called as a child.
Once again, I think the novel really drops the ball re: magical beings who are not human. So much of the plot of each novel, really, is caught up in how house elves and goblins and other beings are mistreated by humans and how they have valuable contributions to make. Dumbledore says that Harry wins in part because Voldemort is so arrogant that he doesn't think house elves have anything significant to offer. And it would have been so easy to show a house elf with a wand at the train station or mention something about rights for werewolves changing, etc. I also think it drops the ball re: Sorting. The last few books seem to really emphasize the idea of school unity and thinking beyond Houses, and in the epilogue, the characters are right back to the same old binaries. Bit disappointing.
2. Gotham is back!!
I absolutely adore the heroes' walk (Penguin, Bullock, Riddler, Gordon) the show opens with, and I can't wait to see the events that lead to that moment.
I love that Barbara and Tabitha are running a women's only club as a sanctuary for women. Can't believe they killed Tabby. :(
I feel so badly for Selena. The previews for next week show her walking, so clearly her paralysis won't last long, but I hate how full of despair she feels.
Love that Penguin has named his dog Edward.
I bet the Gordon/Penguin shippers are extremely happy. Gordon just can't bring himself to kill Penguin. LOL
3. We watched a great little indie movie called Life after Beth. It's a take on the zombie apocalypse with a great cast; very funny with lots of good pathos. It's not scary at all (or else I couldn't have watched it LOL). It's also an hour and half long which is a huge selling point for me; I lament the loss of the hour and a half movie. You can't watch a three hour movie on a week night after the kids are in bed and still get to sleep at a decent hour.
4.
executrix send me an awesome batch of books. I am enjoying going through them.Infra-Apparel by Richard MartinMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Beautiful pictures of clothing in which the underwear or under-layers of clothing are either exposed or come to influence the outerwear or outer-layers.
I think the text is unnecessarily fussy and obfuscating at times, but it's still fascinating if you are interested in fashion.
View all my reviews
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Exactly.
I also think that there might be some in-universe values dissonance at work. Probably even in the wizarding world, it wouldn't have been unusual to have just sent Ariana to St. Mungo's. Her family was actually the exception for not doing that, and I'm sure Dumbledore felt they were doing enough.
I think I liked Ron leaving a bit better in the movie, only because they showed that Ron actually had some... good points. In the book, it's more of an angry rant, but IIRC in the film he outright keeps asking Harry "what's the plan?" Not that it excuses his leaving, obviously, but I think between the Horcrux playing at his insecurities and having concerns that weren't so off-base, he just flipped. Then again, I love Ron. I never understood fandom hating him.
I feel like JKR dropped a lot of coins she never fully elaborated on, and non-Wizard magical beings are one of them. In her original envisioning, she may have meant for House Elves and Goblins to get more nuance, but this didn't happen. For all the hidden gems like "Sirius Black" being casually mentioned at the beginning of the first book... a lot of her world-building itself took a while.
Him yelling out, "I must not tell lies!" is so much more satisfying from a narrative standpoint.
Wait, what?! How do I not remember that? Maybe I missed it. (There are lines I always miss. Apparently in the OoTP movie, Sirius tells Harry "good one, James." I've seen that movie a few times and never noticed it.)
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In the book, Ron totally loses it, but it's precipitated by him accusing Harry of having no plans.
It's been awhile since I've seen the movie, but in my memory, when Harry reveals himself in the Department of Mysteries to Umbridge who is questioning Mary Cattermole, she says something absurd and evil and Harry pops out and goes, "You must not tell lies" or something equivalent and stuns her. It's awesome.
I love that he calls Harry James in the movie; that's not in the book (although Hermione does say a couple of times that she thinks Sirius thinks of Harry more like he's James than Harry); it's such a sad moment.
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