Carol's questions for New Steve Was: Tempest in a teapot/cup/kettle

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Cabal" <md@> wrote:
> 
> 
> > A stag would be the adult male.
> 
> 
> zanooda:
> 
> Yeah, I should have said deer, Steve, sorry :-). I don't know if the
word "stag" is used a lot, but they call it a stag all the time in the
book, so I asked about a stag. I take it it's a large male deer, with
antlers and all :-), but I really don't know much about it. So, is it
understandable from the movies that Harry's Patronus is a deer?
>
Carol responds:

Actually, you're correct to say "stag," not only because it's the term
used in the books but because it indicates a male deer, and, as most
people know, male deer behave very differently from female deer
(does). The male is majestic looking (Bambi's father, anybody?) and
the antlers distinguish it from the female at a glance. Also, as the
films don't indicate, James Potter's Animagus form was a stag, which
is how we know that the Patronus symbolizes James.

So the question should be the one you originally asked, is it
understandable from the movies that Harry's Patronus is a stag (a male
deer)? (In the U.S., we would call it a buck, which somehow loses the
connotation of majesty (and whatever symbolism is attached to stags in
mythology and folklore).

Here's the Stag Patronus from the PoA film:

http://www.quizfarm.com/section_image/2007/07/20/170277/Patronus.jpg

There's also a movie poster from OoP showing Harry with a rather
different Stag Patronus:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.123posters.com/images/movie/f-harrypotter10.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.123posters.com/harrypotter10.htm&usg=__wx29lG7h25xVhQvOD8AGGGr2qDo=&h=365&w=240&sz=25&hl=en&start=9&sig2=LmFEHH8Zbn4Af3hS9Xqqng&tbnid=FpP6ivcOxvvc7M:&tbnh=121&tbnw=80&ei=3stsSeOjKp68MfP9-LQL&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHarry%2BPotter%2Bstag%2BPatronus%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG

Here's a tinyurl in case the long one doesn't work:

http://tinyurl.com/7v75z4

I've heard that you can slow down the footage in OoP and actually see
the stag (doesn't work with my annoying DVD remote), but what's the
point of that? It needs to be visible on the screen or viewers will
just think it's a bunch of bright light.

So, New Steve, did you know that Harry's Patronus was a male deer?
That's the question at the moment.

Carol, who thought that the Dementors in the OoP film were less scary
and realistic than the Dementors in the PoA film