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Dec. 1st, 2010 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solitary_summerStill alive and rather better, as in, I can actually move and use my right arm again unless I'm trying to lift it above shoulder level. Tired and lethargic though, my stomach isn't happy with the medication, and M. sends me home a lot to rest the arm while I still can, which makes me feel guilty and useless.
I'm also going to see a physiotherapist friend of Ch.'s at a disgustingly early hour in the morning on Friday before work. *sigh* This whole thing really couldn't have happened at a less opportune time. I'm starting to rethink using the bike when it gets dark this early.
~ ~ ~
Decided I'm going to watch the HP movie with my sister after all. Everyone seems to rather like it, and it's only the first part, so. I'm still extremely sceptic though, after they failed so badly with the last one, essentially completely gutting the story. I'm not the woobifying apologist kind of Snape fan, but I think his arc is fascinating, and erasing all of his childhood also erased, at least in the movie-verse, the parallels between his and Harry's (as well as Tom Riddle's) stories. Having Snape dramatically declare out of absolutely nowhere that he is the half-blood prince at the end of the film was extremely pointless bordering on the ridiculous.
I guess I am, at least as far as fandom is concerned, the odd person who absolutely and without reservations loved DH. I loved the complicated moral ambiguity of Dumbledore's and Snape's arcs, the conclusion of Harry's story, the King's Cross chapter is maybe my favourite thing in the whole series, and I simply don't trust the people who—intentionally or not—sacrificed everything that was fascinating and complex about THBP in favour of teenage romance and yet more teenage romance to handle this well. I don't really trust the actors, either.
It's strange, I haven't really thought about the HP books for a while, but now I'm almost tempted to reread them (*), especially after spending so much time writing about death in DW and TW. I still vividly remember watching The Lazarus Experiment and being rather bored with it, because the accept-your-mortality-or-else! message seemed a little repetitive after I'd just finished DH. I wasn't watching DW very attentively at the time, and didn't really notice just how pervasive the theme was and certainly couldn't know how much more pervasive it would become in the later seasons, but looking back I still kind of wonder about that. There were these two temporarily overlapping pop culture phenomena, and in different ways they're both very concerned with death and the acceptance of mortality. It's more relentless in DW, because the world of HP includes at least a vague idea of an afterlife and love is a force that can not only redeem someone, but also effectively defeat death, whereas DW is much less idealistic, and love, while it still functions as an important counter-weight to the death-theme, is also much more complicated and nowhere near the kind of central driving-force it is in HP. Essentially, in HP love wins, in DW death does.
Is this death/mortality motive actually an incredibly common trope that somehow I managed to miss because I read/watch the wrong books/shows? Coincidence? Influence? Or am I simply too obsessed with death and it isn't actually as strong a theme as I think it is?
(*) Actually I am rereading the first volume right now—in Russian, which I realise is a bit beside the point since there certainly isn't any lack of Russian authors, but it caught my eye a (longish, way before I was ready) while ago in a bookstore and I bought it on a whim, because at the time it seemed a good way to start since it's easy reading and I already know the story...
I'm also going to see a physiotherapist friend of Ch.'s at a disgustingly early hour in the morning on Friday before work. *sigh* This whole thing really couldn't have happened at a less opportune time. I'm starting to rethink using the bike when it gets dark this early.
Decided I'm going to watch the HP movie with my sister after all. Everyone seems to rather like it, and it's only the first part, so. I'm still extremely sceptic though, after they failed so badly with the last one, essentially completely gutting the story. I'm not the woobifying apologist kind of Snape fan, but I think his arc is fascinating, and erasing all of his childhood also erased, at least in the movie-verse, the parallels between his and Harry's (as well as Tom Riddle's) stories. Having Snape dramatically declare out of absolutely nowhere that he is the half-blood prince at the end of the film was extremely pointless bordering on the ridiculous.
I guess I am, at least as far as fandom is concerned, the odd person who absolutely and without reservations loved DH. I loved the complicated moral ambiguity of Dumbledore's and Snape's arcs, the conclusion of Harry's story, the King's Cross chapter is maybe my favourite thing in the whole series, and I simply don't trust the people who—intentionally or not—sacrificed everything that was fascinating and complex about THBP in favour of teenage romance and yet more teenage romance to handle this well. I don't really trust the actors, either.
It's strange, I haven't really thought about the HP books for a while, but now I'm almost tempted to reread them (*), especially after spending so much time writing about death in DW and TW. I still vividly remember watching The Lazarus Experiment and being rather bored with it, because the accept-your-mortality-or-else! message seemed a little repetitive after I'd just finished DH. I wasn't watching DW very attentively at the time, and didn't really notice just how pervasive the theme was and certainly couldn't know how much more pervasive it would become in the later seasons, but looking back I still kind of wonder about that. There were these two temporarily overlapping pop culture phenomena, and in different ways they're both very concerned with death and the acceptance of mortality. It's more relentless in DW, because the world of HP includes at least a vague idea of an afterlife and love is a force that can not only redeem someone, but also effectively defeat death, whereas DW is much less idealistic, and love, while it still functions as an important counter-weight to the death-theme, is also much more complicated and nowhere near the kind of central driving-force it is in HP. Essentially, in HP love wins, in DW death does.
Is this death/mortality motive actually an incredibly common trope that somehow I managed to miss because I read/watch the wrong books/shows? Coincidence? Influence? Or am I simply too obsessed with death and it isn't actually as strong a theme as I think it is?
(*) Actually I am rereading the first volume right now—in Russian, which I realise is a bit beside the point since there certainly isn't any lack of Russian authors, but it caught my eye a (longish, way before I was ready) while ago in a bookstore and I bought it on a whim, because at the time it seemed a good way to start since it's easy reading and I already know the story...
