The Real Hogarts. was: The Movie vs. JKR?

[Mandy]

No: HPFGUIDX 100389

> Snow-who wrote:
> Hogwarts was like a comfortable old shoe; it fit well. When you're 
> tired and just want to escape to a magical world you could visually 
> go there via the movies. Waiting for the POA movie to come out was 
> much like becoming Harry anticipating leaving the Dursley's but 
when you finally, with much anticipation, got off the Hogwarts 
Express you found that everything was changed. (Change can be good 
when it is smoothly introduced, just like in the books, things change 
but at a growing pace not at a dramatic one.) What the heck happened, 
did Voldemort come and take over Hogwart's over the summer. No
 It 
was just the new director. The new director didn't just clean house 
he changed the house, the grounds, the lake, the quiddich match and 
even some of the characters that we knew like Professor Flitwick. But 
most of all he changed forever that almost tranquil non-existing 
world of refuge into a real non-existing world. He took the 
magicalness (new word means beyond magic) out of the magic.


Mandy here: (trying to pull this back on topic)
I have to disagree.   Hogwarts is not and never was a Disney World 
castle.  Too clean, too light, too bright, and far too happy.  It is 
a 1000-year-old Scottish castle with a rich dramatic, turbulent 
history.  It's walls are filled with fierce magic, both goods and 
bad, it practically a living entity, and, in the words of Trelawney 
in the film, 'it's aura is pulsing.'  To see Hogwarts as an escape 
alone, is precisely what 11 and 12 year old Harry sees in the 
innocence of the first too stories (books as well as movies).  But 
we, Harry and us, are growing up!   PoA (book and film) saw the 
pulling of Harry Potter into adolescence and teenage fury with a huge 
emotional bang that makes PoA (the book) still the most popular of 
the series.  It marked not only the growth of Harry Potter, but the 
growth of the HP saga, from children's stories into literature for 
all ages and all times.  I don't agree that it was a slow transition, 
Harry is having to grow up faster then all those around him.

Harry finds Hogwarts to be his true home, all warm and fuzzy, because 
it is all he's got. (Back to the film for a minute: Sirius also makes 
the comment to Harry that he also sees Hogwarts as beautiful and 
remembered the first time he walked through the front door, but that 
is because of what Sirius was coming from, a family filled with rage 
and hate that Sirius couldn't wait to escape from also.)   It is what 
the individual finds inside that makes it beautiful.   From an 
aesthetic point of view anyone who had been to a castle knows how 
cold, hard and unforgiving they are.   I think people tend to forget 
that Hogwarts is a boarding school, not an adventure playground 
painted in bright primary colours.  Sure adventure can be had in 
school, no doubt, but the primary focus of a school is education.  
Rules and discipline abound. Strict law of status and hierarchy 
between teachers and students must be maintained.  Homework and study 
must be completed.  It is not all play, fun and laughter, but hard 
work, heart ache and discipline.

The books show us the world is changing around Harry, as Harry 
himself is changing, as he is growing up.  And the PoA movie reflects 
that perceived alienation teenagers carry around with them 
beautifully.  Harry is beginning to feel that he truly is different 
from not only the Durslys, but all those around him including his 
friends.  He carries secrets and horrors no one else can ever 
understand, and like all teens he is beginning to realize that the 
world doesn't revolve around him, even though he has an undisputed 
important role to play in it. Everything is beginning to look dark, 
angry and mean.  Don't forget we see the Potterverse through Harry 
eyes and they're eyes that are starting to get, in PoA, resentful and 
selfish.

I'm very happy to finally see a version of Howarts that is closer to 
my vision of the school.   

Cheers Mandy, who loves and chooses to live in New York City because 
it is the only place I ever felt at home, but it's a hell of a place 
to live.  Dirty, loud, aggressive, fierce and will beat you down 
faster than any place on earth. But I love it.  To me,  New York is 
beautiful.