Monday, March 24, 2014

the drop dead dream, the Chosen One

this weekend, which was supposed to include me doing some actual work, helping a student (oops), and reading a book that i need to review, somehow ended up including none of those things, and instead was filled with harry potter. it was awesome.

i used to read the series with my brothers when they were younger, but what with me getting married and moving out and my younger brother getting impatient and just reading them on his own, well, it just sort of fizzled out somewhere in the middle of the fourth book. this resulted in one brother having a semi-complete knowledge of the wizarding world (it's amazing how much you forget when you only read the books once) and one having even less than that. (the older one's knowledge of everything post quidditch world cup-ish comes from the lego harry potter video games. you can understand how upsetting that has been for me.)

anyway. i've spent the past few years trying to get the older brother to read the books (which he hasn't) and then finally decided to go the second-best route and just watch the movies.

(completely unrelated side note: i just had to go outside to transfer my mom's and my pottery stuff from the trunk of her car to the trunk of my car and oh my god why the hell is it so cold outside? i thought we were into spring and warm weather and blossoming flowers. my hands are burning. you know that burn-sting feeling from the cold? yeah. and they feel sore all the way down to the bones. i wasn't even out that long. ugh.)

but back to harry potter. a few weeks ago i decided to do a harry potter movie marathon with my brothers because a) they hadn't watched all of the movies which is ridiculous because abc family throws a marathon every three weeks, b) they needed a refresher slash basic education of the world and characters, and c) it's been a while since i had a harry potter marathon despite abc family's broadcasting tendencies mentioned in (a).  the problem with this, though, is that my parents do not know how to marathon, and since we were watching them in their living room, this cut into our fun. it took us about a month to get through the first three movies. (which sounds worse than it was. we were only watching when i visited on sunday and one of the sundays we were unable to watch anything because of some football or soccer or other organized sport thing that i do not remember.) but then my parents left to connecticut and i moved into their living room and my brothers and i were finally able to get through them. my youngest brother was half watching-half playing minecraft up until the deathly hallows movies  because he claimed he had seen them all (though i am almost positive he hadn't), but the older one got really into them. which was awesome.

there was the usual disgruntlement that everyone has after watching a movie adaptation for a book they have read. for example, he was super excited for the quidditch world cup and that was pathetic in the movies. they were both outraged after watching the first movie that they cut out dumbeldore's "nitwit oddment blubber tweak" speech, and after the final one they said, "man, i was really hoping that they were going to put that speech into one of the later movies. they missed a golden opportunity with that." and then of course there were the usual comments that you would expect boys that age to make dealing with butts and other similarly pleasant subjects *rolls eyes*. turns out that my brother is a harry-hermione shipper, but i forgave him for it because of his deep loathing of snape. his hatred for him was beautiful.

i think my favorite comment of his, though, was during the fourth movie when the weasley twins have just dropped out of hogwarts and there are fireworks going off everywhere and the entire student body is in the courtyard cheering them on as they fly away and harry gets the vision of sirius being tortured by voldemort. he groaned and said, "god! whenever anything good happens, he has to make it bad." which i think sums up the series pretty well. (he was a huge fan of harry's, though. liked him way more than i did when i was his age.)

the weekend, though, left me really wanting to reread the series. it's been something ridiculous like two years since i read them last. i was planning on getting to them after finishing the stack of need-to-reads i have, but i may just bump them up to the top of the list.

*Read My Mind - The Killers

8 comments:

  1. anonymous hippopotamusMarch 25, 2014 at 10:22 AM

    1. I'm looking forward to the design changes you're planning on making.
    2. Which brother was rooting for Harry/Hermione? I got so excited until I saw he hated Snape. (Then again I think my only reason for liking Snape is because of the actor who plays him... *swoon* after Sense and Sensibility I find him so attractive :D lol)
    3. WHOOOOAAA!!! TWO YEARS?! That's a record...what about Ella Enchanted? I remember you reading that a lot too.

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    1. 1. me too if and when i get around to them.
      2. abdullah of course. ali was the one that already read them all and was claiming that he had watched the movie. (apparently his favorite book was the seventh so he watched those movies. i don't even know what to do with that.) ali is strictly canon. if the book says ron/hermione, so does he. if the book says feel sorry for snape he was a brave man, he does.i told abood that he was half-you-half-me.
      3. right?! i dunno i've been seriously slacking in the literary department. (and every other department, too.) i think the last time i read ella enchanted was when i read it to the boys years ago. (i wanna say five years...)

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  2. anonymous hippopotamusMarch 26, 2014 at 7:07 AM

    also...you never reply to your comments anymore.. :'( you suck!

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    1. the only comment i didn't reply to was the "i hate mondays" because i had nothing to say. i used to be on blogger every single day. even when i didn't post anything. i would read blogs and respond to comments and just keep it open. now, things are crazy and i don't. plus, i'm between houses and computers and schedules and just... stuff.

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  3. 1. reread the series asap. i am on the 7th now and I'm reading it while doing pottermore stuff, so its all just perfect.
    2. snape sucks. and harry in the books is WAY more amazing than i gave him credit for when i first read this series.
    3. harmione/grangotter/hermarry shipper forever.

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    1. 1. i think i have to. i am in major potter mode.
      2. snape does suck. i still think he was well-written (which i remember you not agreeing with) but i seriously hate him. i can't believe harry named his kid after him. i think the first time i read the series i was way more concerned about experiencing the world than relating to the character, so it was like yeah harry you're great and stuff now shut up about your parents and go learn a new spell or explore that part if the castle we haven't seen. and so harry was just sort of typecast into a meh character in my head and that leaked into the rereads. i remember rereading the seventh book a few years ago and thinking, wow harry you're kind of awesome.
      3. ron <3.

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  4. also, i appreciate the title. i get it and you should know your effort is well appreciated.

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    1. yay! that's actually something i worry about sometimes, so it's nice to know you get it.

      (also, i have reworded this reply so many times i don't even know if it makes sense anymore. i just constantly feel like i'm coming off as sarcastic, and i don't mean to be. i really am happy that you appreciate the title.)

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