The Aftermath of the Grand Hallows Ball
WARNING: This entry is chock full of Harry Potter geekdom. There are no spoilers, so those of you planning on reading the book are safe. However, those of you who honestly don't care about Harry Potter whatsoever might feel the need to skip this one, unless of course you love my writing style just that much.
I apologize once again for the long delay in updates. It's been a weird summer so far. Most of the time I'm working, and when I'm not there, I feel like I don't have the energy to do anything but sit around and watch Scrubs. The fatigue and lack of motivation stem from stress due to a thousand petty tasks that I've got on my mind and, because of the stress and tiredness, find myself unable to complete. It's a vicious circle.
During the past couple of weeks, however, I've been making the best of what little free time I have. In my past few days off I've been forcing myself to ignore the desire to lie down and sleep all day, and I've started working through a fairly substantial to-do list. I've finally worked my way down to this entry. Let's do this thing!
For this entry, I'm going to be doing something a little different than I planned. About three months ago, (wow…), I posted an update in which I counteracted everything that was bothering me with reasons why I shouldn't feel so down about all of the stressors in my life. I thought, for my next entry, I'd give you all an update on how it was going. Unfortunately, the plan seems to have changed, due to the following, which you may remember from the aforementioned post from April:
PROBLEM: I keep having dreams that I'm reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but then I wake up and realize that it's not coming out until the end of July, and then I get upset.
SOLUTION: ...Okay, this isn't really a "problem" per se as much as it is an annoyance. I just wanted to rant about it.
The original update that was to appear on my new report was something along the lines of the fact that I didn't have as long to wait for the book anymore, and that the release was getting closer every day.
This changed again about a month ago, when new worries about the contents of the book began to surface in my mind, and the Harry Potter section of my new entry seemed to stretch on forever, making the entry as a whole seem far longer than it should have been. For this reason, I have continued to put off the actual act of writing and posting the entry.
It wasn't until very recently that I got the idea to take this part out completely and give it its own separate entry. It was my intention to write it over the past couple of days before the actual release of the book, but things just kept on getting in my way.
So here I am, mid-afternoon, sitting in my living room with the book lying beside me, afraid to open it again.
I spent a good portion of last night standing in a huge, geek-ridden line at Borders waiting for my turn to approach the counter and get my book. For the better part of the two hours that I was in the store, I managed to quell my fears by making a couple of new friends and chatting it up to pass the time, but eventually the time came. As we wound around the final shelf and made our way through the final stretch of the line, my heart started pounding, and by the time I was next in line, I was visibly shaking. I felt almost as if I were making my way to the gallows. After I'd received my copy of the book, I said a hurried goodbye to my new friends and ran out the door toward my car, headphones blaring loud music in my ears to avoid any passersby who might get a kick out of ruining the ending for us poor geeks. I had planned to stay up all night reading with some pizza rolls and a spiked float, but when I got home, I finally realized how terrified I was of reading it. Partially, this was because I've had to endure a summer of truly bad sequels. But even if the book is wonderful, (which it has been thus far), I'm afraid to find out who Rowling has decided to kill off in her self-proclaimed bloodbath. As it stands, a mere 136 pages have already seen me in tears. Both sides have suffered considerable losses, both in deaths and irreparable, often gruesome injuries.
More and more I'm beginning to dread the final outcome of this book. I'm starting to believe those who are convinced that Book 7 will see the death of Harry Potter. For a long time, I denied it until I was blue in the face, and I thought I had a fairly good reason for doing so. After hearing some of the arguments to the contrary, however, I started to wonder if my denial of this potential tragedy was only because of my hatred of any and all tragedy, and my sick need for a happily ever after. I feel that if Rowling has chosen to kill him in this book, despite whatever wonderful reason she may have for doing so, I may never be able to read the series again. For the past eight years, I've grown with the characters, and the books have held such re-readability for me. However, I feel like it would all be ruined for me if Harry kicked the bucket in the end. If I tried to read the books again, I feel like I would pick up Sorcerer's Stone, open it to "Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived," say something along the lines of, "Well, not anymore…" and slam it shut.
I suppose one might infer that I might not have such a harsh reaction. Maybe the reason for his death might be so brilliant that I will forgive Rowling for it and continue to read the series over and over as I have done for years. Still, my suspicions for believing otherwise are well-founded. It would be something like the same reaction I have to the film Moulin Rouge. (For those who haven't seen the movie, you may want to skip this paragraph). I mean, what's the point of watching Christian and Satine trying their damndest to hide their love from the evil Duke when you know that Satine has tuberculosis the whole time and is just going to drop dead when the Duke has finally been run out of town and the last curtain falls?
There was a short time when my roommate would have had me believe that he had seen scans of the book, and that while Harry allegedly lived, Ron and Draco weren't so lucky. Rest assured, beloved readers, that it was nothing but a joke, (which, I'll admit, I partially suspected considering my predictions for the characters, Draco in particular), but that isn't to say it didn't jar me a little bit. After all, what if one of them did die? At this point, there is no telling who is going to make it and who isn't, (aside from the unfortunate souls who have already failed to make it through the first seven chapters). Will I be able to cope when it comes time to mourn the fallen members of the Order?
Floyd, (my aforementioned roommate), made a good point the other day when he finally admitted that he was kidding about the scans. This is a series of books, nothing more. The characters involved are not real, nor will they ever be. And yet, it's overwhelming and even amusing how far some people go for the series. Even I, who consider myself a bit of a Harry Potter geek, though nowhere near the nerds that flooded bookstores the world over last night, found myself waiting for around two hours in a line just to get a copy of the book as early as possible, trembling with fear at the notion that something tragic may happen at the book's finale, and ready to put some serious hurting on anyone who tried to spoil the ending for me; then later on sitting out in the living room reading until about four in the morning when I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, tears running down my cheeks every few pages due to feeling touched, sad, worried, relieved, horrified, and pretty much everything else you can think of. Floyd considered the kind of uproar just one person could cause, simply by finding out the ending of the book and revealing it to people like me before we actually managed to get our copies. Luckily for me, though he claims to know the ending, he kept it from me, supposedly because I made him dinner. I like to think it's because he has more of a heart than he likes to let on, and that, despite the fact that he has no obsessions quite so huge, he has tried to imagine what it would be like, being in my shoes and having to live in fear of jerks who would get a kick out of making people like me angry or upset.
While he makes a good point about it being "just a book," I have to both agree and disagree with him. Yes, it's a book, but it's also a phenomenon. Millions of people the world over feel exactly the same as I do. I began reading the series when I was thirteen years old and my sister, Mandy, sent me a copy of Sorcerer's Stone for my birthday. It's been eight years since then, and I, like a very silly person, have come to regard the people in these books as friends or even as family. Seeing these characters die has been like watching my intimate friends being killed right in front of me. The knowledge that several more of them, (though, at this point, it's not clear who), are on their way out, is pure torture, and there is nothing I can do but wait in fear. I suppose I'll know soon enough. And rest assured, I'm going to want to cry to you people about it, so give me a call when you finish the books and we can rant together. For now, I'm off to read as much of this as I can before my friend's party tonight. Happy Reading!
I apologize once again for the long delay in updates. It's been a weird summer so far. Most of the time I'm working, and when I'm not there, I feel like I don't have the energy to do anything but sit around and watch Scrubs. The fatigue and lack of motivation stem from stress due to a thousand petty tasks that I've got on my mind and, because of the stress and tiredness, find myself unable to complete. It's a vicious circle.
During the past couple of weeks, however, I've been making the best of what little free time I have. In my past few days off I've been forcing myself to ignore the desire to lie down and sleep all day, and I've started working through a fairly substantial to-do list. I've finally worked my way down to this entry. Let's do this thing!
For this entry, I'm going to be doing something a little different than I planned. About three months ago, (wow…), I posted an update in which I counteracted everything that was bothering me with reasons why I shouldn't feel so down about all of the stressors in my life. I thought, for my next entry, I'd give you all an update on how it was going. Unfortunately, the plan seems to have changed, due to the following, which you may remember from the aforementioned post from April:
PROBLEM: I keep having dreams that I'm reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but then I wake up and realize that it's not coming out until the end of July, and then I get upset.
SOLUTION: ...Okay, this isn't really a "problem" per se as much as it is an annoyance. I just wanted to rant about it.
The original update that was to appear on my new report was something along the lines of the fact that I didn't have as long to wait for the book anymore, and that the release was getting closer every day.
This changed again about a month ago, when new worries about the contents of the book began to surface in my mind, and the Harry Potter section of my new entry seemed to stretch on forever, making the entry as a whole seem far longer than it should have been. For this reason, I have continued to put off the actual act of writing and posting the entry.
It wasn't until very recently that I got the idea to take this part out completely and give it its own separate entry. It was my intention to write it over the past couple of days before the actual release of the book, but things just kept on getting in my way.
So here I am, mid-afternoon, sitting in my living room with the book lying beside me, afraid to open it again.
I spent a good portion of last night standing in a huge, geek-ridden line at Borders waiting for my turn to approach the counter and get my book. For the better part of the two hours that I was in the store, I managed to quell my fears by making a couple of new friends and chatting it up to pass the time, but eventually the time came. As we wound around the final shelf and made our way through the final stretch of the line, my heart started pounding, and by the time I was next in line, I was visibly shaking. I felt almost as if I were making my way to the gallows. After I'd received my copy of the book, I said a hurried goodbye to my new friends and ran out the door toward my car, headphones blaring loud music in my ears to avoid any passersby who might get a kick out of ruining the ending for us poor geeks. I had planned to stay up all night reading with some pizza rolls and a spiked float, but when I got home, I finally realized how terrified I was of reading it. Partially, this was because I've had to endure a summer of truly bad sequels. But even if the book is wonderful, (which it has been thus far), I'm afraid to find out who Rowling has decided to kill off in her self-proclaimed bloodbath. As it stands, a mere 136 pages have already seen me in tears. Both sides have suffered considerable losses, both in deaths and irreparable, often gruesome injuries.
More and more I'm beginning to dread the final outcome of this book. I'm starting to believe those who are convinced that Book 7 will see the death of Harry Potter. For a long time, I denied it until I was blue in the face, and I thought I had a fairly good reason for doing so. After hearing some of the arguments to the contrary, however, I started to wonder if my denial of this potential tragedy was only because of my hatred of any and all tragedy, and my sick need for a happily ever after. I feel that if Rowling has chosen to kill him in this book, despite whatever wonderful reason she may have for doing so, I may never be able to read the series again. For the past eight years, I've grown with the characters, and the books have held such re-readability for me. However, I feel like it would all be ruined for me if Harry kicked the bucket in the end. If I tried to read the books again, I feel like I would pick up Sorcerer's Stone, open it to "Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived," say something along the lines of, "Well, not anymore…" and slam it shut.
I suppose one might infer that I might not have such a harsh reaction. Maybe the reason for his death might be so brilliant that I will forgive Rowling for it and continue to read the series over and over as I have done for years. Still, my suspicions for believing otherwise are well-founded. It would be something like the same reaction I have to the film Moulin Rouge. (For those who haven't seen the movie, you may want to skip this paragraph). I mean, what's the point of watching Christian and Satine trying their damndest to hide their love from the evil Duke when you know that Satine has tuberculosis the whole time and is just going to drop dead when the Duke has finally been run out of town and the last curtain falls?
There was a short time when my roommate would have had me believe that he had seen scans of the book, and that while Harry allegedly lived, Ron and Draco weren't so lucky. Rest assured, beloved readers, that it was nothing but a joke, (which, I'll admit, I partially suspected considering my predictions for the characters, Draco in particular), but that isn't to say it didn't jar me a little bit. After all, what if one of them did die? At this point, there is no telling who is going to make it and who isn't, (aside from the unfortunate souls who have already failed to make it through the first seven chapters). Will I be able to cope when it comes time to mourn the fallen members of the Order?
Floyd, (my aforementioned roommate), made a good point the other day when he finally admitted that he was kidding about the scans. This is a series of books, nothing more. The characters involved are not real, nor will they ever be. And yet, it's overwhelming and even amusing how far some people go for the series. Even I, who consider myself a bit of a Harry Potter geek, though nowhere near the nerds that flooded bookstores the world over last night, found myself waiting for around two hours in a line just to get a copy of the book as early as possible, trembling with fear at the notion that something tragic may happen at the book's finale, and ready to put some serious hurting on anyone who tried to spoil the ending for me; then later on sitting out in the living room reading until about four in the morning when I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, tears running down my cheeks every few pages due to feeling touched, sad, worried, relieved, horrified, and pretty much everything else you can think of. Floyd considered the kind of uproar just one person could cause, simply by finding out the ending of the book and revealing it to people like me before we actually managed to get our copies. Luckily for me, though he claims to know the ending, he kept it from me, supposedly because I made him dinner. I like to think it's because he has more of a heart than he likes to let on, and that, despite the fact that he has no obsessions quite so huge, he has tried to imagine what it would be like, being in my shoes and having to live in fear of jerks who would get a kick out of making people like me angry or upset.
While he makes a good point about it being "just a book," I have to both agree and disagree with him. Yes, it's a book, but it's also a phenomenon. Millions of people the world over feel exactly the same as I do. I began reading the series when I was thirteen years old and my sister, Mandy, sent me a copy of Sorcerer's Stone for my birthday. It's been eight years since then, and I, like a very silly person, have come to regard the people in these books as friends or even as family. Seeing these characters die has been like watching my intimate friends being killed right in front of me. The knowledge that several more of them, (though, at this point, it's not clear who), are on their way out, is pure torture, and there is nothing I can do but wait in fear. I suppose I'll know soon enough. And rest assured, I'm going to want to cry to you people about it, so give me a call when you finish the books and we can rant together. For now, I'm off to read as much of this as I can before my friend's party tonight. Happy Reading!