Meme - 30 Days of Harry Potter - DAY 1
I'm supposed to be assisting with packing for a four-day trip. So, naturally, it is time to inflict my long-winded personal opinion upon those who may or may not care. I saw this over on ms_anthrophy 's LJ, who in turn saw it on scarletladyy 's. This is a veritable chain reaction.
Also this is massive.
Day 1: Your Favourite Book
I'm going to be blunt: there is not a single book that I despise. Each has its own gems that I regularly flick to and read whenever I feel like it - in PS, the first Potions class, CoS the MANLY fight between Arthur and Lucius in Flourish and Blotts, and I'm sure you're not really dying to know the rest so I'll move on.
My favourite book for the longest time was CoS. It still holds a place in my heart for numerous reasons. The balance between humour and the still-enchanting magic and the (quite frankly) frightening idea of this force able to pick off the "contaminated" students without being seen is beautifully achieved. The duel between Snape and Lockhart is hysterical and showboat!Snape (or as close to showboat!Snape Snape ever got) is a Snape I love very much indeed. (Snape Snape Snape how many times can I write Snape.) The Valentine's Day sequence, missed out in the film to my great distress, is as close to fantasy hilarity as one can get - confetti in the Hall? Singing dwarves dressed as Cupid? It's a full-blown riot and Rowling is at her best when she is writing for the lulz. However annoying and unbearable Lockhart got, I genuinely miss him. Having him reappear in St. Mungo's just wasn't the same. (Unfunny Branagh!Lockhart can fuck right off, though. Bastard.)
Interestingly, my copy was "lost" in the house for about a year before mysteriously turning up in one of my cupboards - I suspect sibling interference - and I resorted to reading and rereading it in the school library at lunchtimes (nowhere near as grand as Madam Pince's domain, sadly). I couldn't check the book out: I owed the exorbitant fine of £1.33 and had never quite remembered to bring the correct coinage with me whenever I made the trip there. So like the lonely bookworm I was, I curled up at the table at the very back of the room and hunched over my treasure. I think not being able to read it at home made it even more of a favourite - children always want what they cannot have. 12-year-olds are no exception.
Nowadays, it's GoF. Mainly because that twist with Moody was insanely fucking good. She'd got us before with Scabbers, and now she's doing it again, and better still, we did not suspect a thing. We saw Barty Jr. in the course of the book but never once was there anything to connect him to Moody. And Moody himself was set up as a paranoid nutcase anyway (the carriage clock fiasco is sheer brilliance), so all behaviour was, as far as we knew (and we thought we knew a fair bit), perfectly in character. And oh, Barty Jr. I love you. You neglected little screwball, I will always love you. That's my one huge regret regarding the series: Barty Jr., had he been expanded upon, would have been far more unsettling than Voldemort. He might even have been more unsettling than Umbridge.
And that scene in the Pensieve obviously gave us the strongest female antagonist in the series. So she's only up against Umbridge and Alecto, whatever. Bellatrix is shown to be both madly courageous and a total lost cause in the sanity department in the space of two pages. You knew she was going to come back from the promise she made Crouch. When she says "We will rise again," you know she is going to rise again and fuck up your shit.
I realise this is not a sensible analysis at all, so for posterity's sake, l mention the torture scene in DH - the thought of Bellatrix screaming in a young girl's face, let alone trying to sever every fibre of every muscle in her body with pain, is chilling. Imagine the rotten teeth, the dead eyes and the awful searing voice. Ugh.
TL;DR - GoF is awesome.
Day 1: Your Favourite Book
Day 2: Your Favourite Film
Day 3: Are there any of the film adaptations that have made you angry because they’ve ignored important parts of the book?
Day 4: Least favourite female character and why.
Day 5: Favourite male character and why.
Day 6: What house would you want to be in?
Day 7: Favourite female character and why.
Day 9: Least favourite male character and why.
Day 10: Horcruxes or Hallows?
Day 11: What character would you say you are most like?
Day 12: Favourite ship.
Day 13: Least favourite film.
Day 14: Team Voldemort or Team Harry?
Day 15: Who would be your best friend(s) at Hogwarts? (three only)
Day 16: Favourite professor?
Day 17: Are you excited about The Deathly Hallows films or scared they won’t do the book justice?
Day 18: Least favourite book?
Day 19: Do you prefer the books or the films?
Day 20: If you had to meet one member of the cast, who would it be?
Day 21: Out of all the characters that died, if you could bring one back, who would it be?
Day 22: Harry Potter or Twilight?
Day 23: Any part of the books/films that make you cry?
Day 24: Any particular scene you wished would have been put in the film but it wasn’t?
Day 25: Nineteen years later. Are you happy how it turned out, or do you wish something was different, ie Neville married Luna?
Day 26: If you could be able to work one spell without a wand what would it be?
Day 27: Would you rather own The Invisibility Cloak, The Resurrection Stone or The Elder Wand?
Day 28: Do you listen to Wizard Wrock? If so, what do you think about it?
Day 29: Did you enjoy A Very Potter Musical?
Day 30: What effect has Harry Potter had on your life and how much does it mean to you?
Also this is massive.
Day 1: Your Favourite Book
I'm going to be blunt: there is not a single book that I despise. Each has its own gems that I regularly flick to and read whenever I feel like it - in PS, the first Potions class, CoS the MANLY fight between Arthur and Lucius in Flourish and Blotts, and I'm sure you're not really dying to know the rest so I'll move on.
My favourite book for the longest time was CoS. It still holds a place in my heart for numerous reasons. The balance between humour and the still-enchanting magic and the (quite frankly) frightening idea of this force able to pick off the "contaminated" students without being seen is beautifully achieved. The duel between Snape and Lockhart is hysterical and showboat!Snape (or as close to showboat!Snape Snape ever got) is a Snape I love very much indeed. (Snape Snape Snape how many times can I write Snape.) The Valentine's Day sequence, missed out in the film to my great distress, is as close to fantasy hilarity as one can get - confetti in the Hall? Singing dwarves dressed as Cupid? It's a full-blown riot and Rowling is at her best when she is writing for the lulz. However annoying and unbearable Lockhart got, I genuinely miss him. Having him reappear in St. Mungo's just wasn't the same. (Unfunny Branagh!Lockhart can fuck right off, though. Bastard.)
Interestingly, my copy was "lost" in the house for about a year before mysteriously turning up in one of my cupboards - I suspect sibling interference - and I resorted to reading and rereading it in the school library at lunchtimes (nowhere near as grand as Madam Pince's domain, sadly). I couldn't check the book out: I owed the exorbitant fine of £1.33 and had never quite remembered to bring the correct coinage with me whenever I made the trip there. So like the lonely bookworm I was, I curled up at the table at the very back of the room and hunched over my treasure. I think not being able to read it at home made it even more of a favourite - children always want what they cannot have. 12-year-olds are no exception.
Nowadays, it's GoF. Mainly because that twist with Moody was insanely fucking good. She'd got us before with Scabbers, and now she's doing it again, and better still, we did not suspect a thing. We saw Barty Jr. in the course of the book but never once was there anything to connect him to Moody. And Moody himself was set up as a paranoid nutcase anyway (the carriage clock fiasco is sheer brilliance), so all behaviour was, as far as we knew (and we thought we knew a fair bit), perfectly in character. And oh, Barty Jr. I love you. You neglected little screwball, I will always love you. That's my one huge regret regarding the series: Barty Jr., had he been expanded upon, would have been far more unsettling than Voldemort. He might even have been more unsettling than Umbridge.
And that scene in the Pensieve obviously gave us the strongest female antagonist in the series. So she's only up against Umbridge and Alecto, whatever. Bellatrix is shown to be both madly courageous and a total lost cause in the sanity department in the space of two pages. You knew she was going to come back from the promise she made Crouch. When she says "We will rise again," you know she is going to rise again and fuck up your shit.
I realise this is not a sensible analysis at all, so for posterity's sake, l mention the torture scene in DH - the thought of Bellatrix screaming in a young girl's face, let alone trying to sever every fibre of every muscle in her body with pain, is chilling. Imagine the rotten teeth, the dead eyes and the awful searing voice. Ugh.
TL;DR - GoF is awesome.
Day 1: Your Favourite Book
Day 2: Your Favourite Film
Day 3: Are there any of the film adaptations that have made you angry because they’ve ignored important parts of the book?
Day 4: Least favourite female character and why.
Day 5: Favourite male character and why.
Day 6: What house would you want to be in?
Day 7: Favourite female character and why.
Day 9: Least favourite male character and why.
Day 10: Horcruxes or Hallows?
Day 11: What character would you say you are most like?
Day 12: Favourite ship.
Day 13: Least favourite film.
Day 14: Team Voldemort or Team Harry?
Day 15: Who would be your best friend(s) at Hogwarts? (three only)
Day 16: Favourite professor?
Day 17: Are you excited about The Deathly Hallows films or scared they won’t do the book justice?
Day 18: Least favourite book?
Day 19: Do you prefer the books or the films?
Day 20: If you had to meet one member of the cast, who would it be?
Day 21: Out of all the characters that died, if you could bring one back, who would it be?
Day 22: Harry Potter or Twilight?
Day 23: Any part of the books/films that make you cry?
Day 24: Any particular scene you wished would have been put in the film but it wasn’t?
Day 25: Nineteen years later. Are you happy how it turned out, or do you wish something was different, ie Neville married Luna?
Day 26: If you could be able to work one spell without a wand what would it be?
Day 27: Would you rather own The Invisibility Cloak, The Resurrection Stone or The Elder Wand?
Day 28: Do you listen to Wizard Wrock? If so, what do you think about it?
Day 29: Did you enjoy A Very Potter Musical?
Day 30: What effect has Harry Potter had on your life and how much does it mean to you?