life without a plot

# Torchwood — Since I'm completely crap at predicting plot twists in advance, I should probably stop speculating, but looking at Jack's arc, I can't help wondering what the endgame is. ( spoilers for ep.7 )


Is it Saturday already?


# Finally saw the last HP movie with my sister, and while unlike THBP it wasn't completely terrible, even somewhat touching occasionally, I can't say I was very impressed either. It's hard to tell after eight months, but I think I liked the first part better. Or maybe I was just in a better mood at the time? I'm aware that a film necessarily follows different laws than a book, but what I simply don't understand is how someone can read DH and apparently come to the conclusion that Dumbledore's story is some kind of filler or afterthought that might just as well be left out. Then again, they already managed to to miss the point by a mile with THBP, where the title of the book might at least have given them a clue, so that's nothing new....

Is this sheer stupidity though, or are TPTB just incredibly cynical regarding the intelligence of the average movie goer?

Or is this me being weird? But especially since TGoF I remember coming out of every movie thinking how much smaller, how much less they were than the books in the ways that really counted. A central part of Harry's growing-up process in DH is that he goes through this crisis of trust regarding Dumbledore, but in the end can understand that Dumbledore was only a man, brilliant in some ways and flawed in others; that often the world isn't as black and white as the eleven year old boy who first came to Hogwarts believed. And it's an important part of the King's Cross chapter that Dumbledore isn't just the wise, mysterious (if somewhat eccentric) mentor figure any longer, but also a man who asks Harry's forgiveness, and who has deep and lasting regrets about the mistakes the arrogant, brilliant boy he was had made, tempted by power and grand dreams.

I didn't hate the part with Snape's memories, although Alan Rickman never was the Snape I saw after reading the books and the discrepancy never jared quite as badly as in this movie, but there were still so many important details missing, like the fact that Dumbledore's reason for making Snape promise to kill him wasn't his concern about Voldemort's trust in Snape, but that he didn't want a frightened teenage boy to become a murderer on his behalf. It's an important part of his characterisation that despite his determination to win the war and all the sacrifices he was prepared to make he did care about things like that, and to change that is, IMO, a problematic decision. I really do love the whole conversation between Dumbledore and Snape in the book because it offers a glimpse at them not filtered through Harry's eyes and shows the level of trust and respect that had developed between them over the years despite everything, and the movie didn't really manage to convey that either.

Or why exactly Lilly in the end broke off her friendship with Severus. These things matter more than extra minutes of CGI battle and the endlessly drawn-out killing of Nagini, which barely takes up two paragraphs in the book...

Still 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 really don't like Sundays. )


Also, on a less whiny note,

( a few more thoughts about the Dumbledore outing. )


And I really must grab DH back from my mother and re-read it now. :)

On a less whiney & self-pitying note...


( a couple more DH thoughts & questions )

::closes book::

::breathes again::


( Brief DH first reaction comment; no specific spoilers )





ETA: Major spoiler in comments!