Harry Potter and God

[Carol]

Nightbreed wrote:
>
> Actually, I'm completely indifferent. I can't believe how people keep beating on them as if the five minutes in the film ruin the experience. Of course, I think 3 & 5 are the best films and I was so happy to see Columbus out of the director's chair and a real film maker adding style and validity to the series -- as well as making the films about characters and not just plot -- that I could have forgiven the heads either way. Now, the shrunken head in the DVD extra's -- that's annoying!!! (and stupid beyond reproach, imo.)
> 
> My only thing is, as a writer, I don't want people second-guessing my choices in my world. I think, the moment JKR decided to use "magician's" wands which, IIRC, have never been part of any major wizard lore (wizards carry staffs, if anything, only charlatans and illusionist use "wands") she had made a decision to break with traditional genres and conventions. 
> 
> What I don't understand is the need to respond negatively to these things, and often, not at all constructively.
> 
> md
>
Carol responds:
I've never seen anyone criticizing JKR's use of "magician's wands," but I do recall thinking when I first read the books that they seemed a bit odd in combination with brooms and pointed witches' hats. Once I saw the kids using them in Flitwick's Charms class (to comic effect), I never gave it another thought.

But no one is criticizing JKR in this instance (except her, IMO, questionable taste in liking the heads). We're just saying that we, as viewers, find the heads annoying (or whatever)--not just in the extras, but in the films themselves. And the fact that JKR likes them isn't going to persuade us otherwise. It's like trying to persuade us that giving Dudley a pig's tail is funny. JKR thinks it is, but if we don't think it's funny ourselves, nothing is going to change our minds.

But JKR's genre bending? Who's criticizing her for that? All we're talking about is the liberties that Cuaron took with the book, including those uncanonical shrunken heads (which, in the books, don't speak and aren't intended to be comical). I'm quite surprised that she like them, frankly.

Anyway, you seem to be talking apples and oranges here. JKR's decision to use wands in her books is an entirely different from Cuaron's decision to alter the book in including a "comical" Dark object advising Ernie how to drive the Knight Bus. Three minutes or three seconds, it's too much.

OTOH, I thought that Cuaron's having Aunt March float out of the garden and over the neighborhood like a giant hot air balloon was hilarious.

Carol, who would (almost) rather eat a cockroach cluster than watch and listen to the shrunken heads