Marauders/End/Fandoms/TWT&Kirk

[silmariel]

I'm a bit lost in the threads...

Kneasy:
> The Marauders were a bit of a let-down, but not yet a totally lost cause.
> Pippin et al still have a beady eye on Lupin, and I still have deep
> suspicions of Sirius. Never did like flash bastards.

Gatta:
> Oh, Kneasy, you do this little kitty cat's heart good! I haven't liked that
> particular flash bastard from the get-go, and I don't think it's just
> because he's a big black d*g!

Count me on the anti-Sirius clan. ¿Do we have an acronim for it? I decided 
that after all, Sirius was Good, because he ended dead, that counts as strong 
evidence, but still, I have some reserves.

Before his death, I though that the prophecy also applied to him.

The fun thing with the second prophecy is that makes DD's opinion on how the 
prophecies work worthless. So it was Voldie who made it real? Buuut... this 
second prophecy is not heard by the actors implicated, no one does a thing to 
prevent it or not, and it plays in an unpredictable way. It fulfills as 
announced, smoothly. Iirc, that is.

On Peter, I think he's outed in part of the dialogue (conserved in the GoF 
film, btw) at the Riddle House.

'It could be done without Harry Potter, my Lord'
...Voldie's reaction
'My Lord, I do not say this out of concern for the boy!- -The boy is nothing 
to me, nothing at all! (rambles long excuse)
 
Sure Peter, you ain't concerned. Then why say it? - instead of 'My Lord! I'm 
not suggesting your mightyness can't overcome any obstacle! + ramble excuse'. 
Why do you bring up love for the boy as a reason? You were supossed by 
default not to like the boy, you know, or so I thought before reading the 
line.

Kneasy:
> Ah, yes.
> The first four books.
> Make that 3.75 for me.
> Does anyone else think/suspect/feel/imagine/deduce/surmise that there're
> differences between those four and the last two? Besides length, that is.
>
> Maybe familiarity breeds contempt (not really, but you know what I mean),
> but those earlier vols were stuffed full of fascinating detail that you
> just knew had to mean something. The later ones - there was detail, but not
> nearly so fascinating and it read more like background than the "you'll be
> sorry if you don't take note of this" feeling of the earlier books.

You nailed it. The first three books shine with that feeling, GoF was a little 
more tiring but still fun to reread. First books were quick and to the point, 
easy to read, cinematographic, in a sense, and still, full of details that 
screamed I'm_a_plot_point.

I tried to reread OoP recently and left it at page ~200, instead, I reread 
CoS. HBP is in the way to be the same. As fascinating as TR's background can 
be, it weights the storytelling like lead.

Maybe she's been trying to write 'better' and as a result has lost her 
freshness, maybe she decided Harry had to be depressed/enraged so the text 
had to recreate a nightmarish ambient for long, long, long pages so that we 
also felt it.

I know I can't stand the agonizing hero, those long stream-of-consciousness 
each five pages, telling always the same, or purely predictable (read 
chicled) things, bore me to death. They use to plage the mega trilogies.

Could be also that she wants to hide more the clues, but I find what she has 
done is counterproductive, it is better to outsmart the author that to loose 
the feeling that there is a mistery at all, and that's what I have with OoP 
and HBP, the feeling that OoP contained absolutely no misteries and HBP tries 
to rescue the old 'surprise' feeling, but doesn't quite reach it.

I didn't mind she invented new canon, or her plot holes, or her agatha 
moments, because clues were, even when not logical, highlighted, as well as 
red herrings, so it felt fair and it gave us wings to theorize.

The last two books are sunken with detail.

Now, it is possible that after book 7 we have to eat this words? It is. Just 
doesn't fare well, by the last interviews. But she may be delivering a book 
full of answers.

Let me difference between magical answers and the rest. I want to be given 
background, to know who betrayed whom, who loved whom, if something was 
stolen, etc. I expect magical explanations about horcruxes and the like not 
to be logical.

Problem is, she could have had some revelations planted in the last two books. 
Yes, she has told us some things, but looking at the mistery mountain, she 
could have offered a lot more. Unless it is all tied together, what's the 
paranoia about not resolving questions and adding more with each book?

About fandoms - Mainly I don't get bitter in fandoms because I'm used to 
ignore the parts I don't like (I'm a ruthless audience), and ignore authors 
when I feel they've lost it. It worked with Dune, to me it is only one book. 
I just ignore the others, selective memory is a wonderful thing. I'm still a 
fan of star wars (and star trek, talking of apparent dichotomies), because I 
don't let Lucas ruin the day for me. I didn't see epidodes 2&3 in cinema, the 
DVD helps, it gives you the 'edit' option to skip or shorten (forward) 
scenes. And glad I didn't because the only thing I loved from episode I and 
made me endure the boring film and the urge to strangle Jar-Jar was the sable 
laser fights between Maul and our heroes (fantastic, imo), and that kind of 
choreography had disappeared in the second prequel.

If book 7 is a mess, I'll happily cut HPverse at GoF as worthy material and 
classify the rest. It worked with Alien, also. Alien 3&4 are Alternate 
Universes, that I'm aware, they just don't cross the make believe line, I 
can't help but be reminded, while seeing them, that they're just only 
big-budget films, and that's a big no-no. In contrast, some of the comic 
books are interesting.

- - -

Pippin asked on TOL the opinion on the TWT by someone who considered Kirk a 
cheater, from the Kobayashi Maru test in... the third Star Trek film? 

I considered him a cheater, and also very in character for him. It striked to 
me that by aproving his actions Starfleet wasn't rewarding him for being a 
cheater, but for showing survival skills. It wasn't a contest, the only one 
suffering by lack of experience with a no win scenario was him. But, of 
course, it was cheating.

On the TWT, I had already disengaged in the second trial so I didn't mind who 
was receiving points or why. The fist trial was so obviously cheated that I 
disengaged from the sports-competition thing. I was more interested in what 
the trials were than in the champions doing them.

It happens the same with house points and the House Cup. I know it can acid 
rain over the Griffindors entire set of books and housework, rats eat their 
broomsticks, they can be all petrified and still, they'll get the house cup. 
PS/SS end told me that, it was just a nice add-on for the heroes to win, so 
good if you want to cheer up spirits and give a 'heroes win' final, so bad if 
you want to maintain house points as something to be paid attention to. 

Sideways... 'Intentions Detector' have been mentioned/challenged on TOL, but 
we've seen at least one, the charm DD used on the PS and the mirror of 
Erised. The mirror appeared to know your intentions with regard to the stone.

- - -

No one thinks is curious that when Harry&Ron hide in the staff room in CoS the 
chimney in the room isn't mentioned? Has the staff room moved or the chimney 
been removed? (I warned I was wondering about Binns)

Silmariel