More comments on the set report (spoilers)

[Carol]

> bboyminn:
> 
> On the 'uncanonical gown', I agree as you will see from the rest of
my comment. 
> 
> While Narcissa is not an un-handsome women, I absolutely don't get
the image that she is a sexpot. The low-cut bare-sleeved gown with the
long flowing hair seem completely inappropriate for someone as stodgy
as Narcissa. I would expect a more formal and traditional dress that
comes up to the neck and with arms covered, plus her hair done up in a
tight formal bun (or equivalent). 

> I think it is a case of the producers and directors wanting to sex
things up a bit to make the movie more interesting, but I have to say,
I would be far more interested if they would stick to the characters
in the books. I think, for the most part, they got Lucius and Draco
alright, and did a tolerable job on Bellatrix, but they are way off
base on Narcissa. She very much needs to be Stern and Stodgy.
> 
> Just one man's opinion.
> 
> Steve/bboyminn
>
Carol responds:
"Stodgy"? Even Harry thinks that Naricissa would be attractive if she
didn't look as if there were a disgusting smell under her nose
(presumably, the imagined stench of the "Mud-blood" Hermione). And the
one time her hairstyle is described--in the "Spinner's End" scene--her
hair is flowing down her back:

"Narcissa threw back her hood. She was so pale that she seemed to
shine in the darkness, the long blonde hair streaming down her back
giving her the look of a drowned person" (HBP Am. ed. 22). She strikes
me as a cross between a Veela and a waif in that description--pale and
shining on the one hand, helpless and desperate on the other. Later we
see her white hands trembling in her lap (23), tears sliding down her
pale cheeks (33), her tear-filled blue eyes (36).

She's supposed to be beautiful. That's part of the reason that her
damsel-in-distress appeal works: she's appealing to every chivalric
instinct that Snape--Slytherin though he is--possesses. The other
reasons, of course, are that snape genuinely cares about Draco and
he's already promised Dumbledore that he'll "do the deed" if he has to.

I agree that Narcissa is *normally* stern (and arrogant, a Black
family trait), but in this instance, she's pleading for her son's
life, and she's distraught, grabbing the front of Snape's robes and
splattering tears on his chest. She's willing to do anything,
including hex her own sister (and, later, lie to the Dark Lord, albeit
without looking at him), but "stern" doesn't apply in this scene.
She's dealing with *Snape*, himself stern and seemingly unmoveable,
and she's throwing herself on his mercy (which, luckily for her, he
does possess).

But "stodgy" (which suggests drab, dowdy, and heavyset? You make her
sound like Pomona Sprout!

I think that she would be elegant, even in her everyday robes, and I
agree that she wouldn't be wearing a sleeveless and partially backless
gown. But, like Bellatrix at her sentencing in the Pensieve scene in
GoF, she'd appear, most of the time, like a queen--practically royal.
That Narcissa deigns to throw herself at the feet of a half-blood,
begging him to protect her son, is a very great change from her usual
haughty demeanor.

All I can do is hope that both her acting ability and the writing of
the scene make up for deficiencies in casting and costuming.
Rickman!Snape will hold his own no matter what. And I'm counting on
brilliant special effects to make the Unbreakable Vow a heart-pounding
experience for filmgoers. (I'm almost looking forward to gasps and
cries and murmurs from audience members who aren't expecting it.)

As for Bellatrix's costumes, she's supposed to be wearing DE robes in
the MoM battle in OoP, but she wanted to look vampy (as well as
completely demented). I doubt that she'll vamp it up for Snape, whom
she doesn't like, and, oh, I hope that Rickman!Snape gets to speak the
sardonic lines aimed at her and Wormtail that he has in the book,
accompanied by suitable curls of the upper lip. ("But we're not
counting vermin, are we?")

Carol, wishing that the costume designers would actually read the
books but still having very high hopes for this scene