Reading the Bricks: Harry Potter HFriday

07 February 2013

Harry Potter HFriday - Week the Somethingth?

I missed last week because – I forget why but it was definitely legit. Suffice to say that, like many of you, I had forgotten that CoS gets vastly better in the second half, what with Tom Riddle and poor dear Ginny and LOCKHART. Oh Lockhart. Your best moment is yet to come!

BUT before I get into PoA, about which I have Things to Say, look at what came in the mail! Just LOOK!

All the glitter! My desk is so festive now!

Kayleigh is Australia’s premier wand-maker. Mine is made of ash, quite springy, and has a phoenix tailfeather core. I have been using it to open doors at supermarkets and change traffic lights, and it works beautifully.

This brings me to a question I have regarding wand cores: if most reputable wand distributors use three major (core, if you will…) ingredients, then where do they all come from, I’d like to know? Dragon heartstrings can’t come cheap, and if they (wild dragons) have mostly died out except in Romania, are there dragon farms for heartstrings and dragon leather garments? And are there unicorns running around with rather scraggy looking tails? How many phoenixes are out there who are willing to give tail feathers if Fawkes gave only two?

FINE THEN, moving on. Prisoner of Azkaban!! Here’s a bullet point list of things I have been thinking about while reading:

This book is so. good. It's all uphill from here (until it's NOT. Ahem.)
This one eschews a lot of the (by now) boring exposition and jumps right in with scary shit and drama. JK is doing a much better job of leaving newer readers reminders without bludgeoning the rest of us over the head with stuff we already know.
OMG you guys, Ginny with the dementor on the traaaaaain! Why didn’t anyone give HER chocolate? She looked almost as bad as Harry! And then HHR are super-rude to her later and it pissed. me. off. Be nicer to Ginny, you guys!
How hilarious is Professor Trelawney at Christmas dinner? “To my surprise I saw myself joining you all…”

I love the feud between her and MacGonagall. Somehow it makes me think that MacGonagall sees a little of herself in Hermione which would explain… STUFF FOR NEXT WEEK!

Lastly,

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readingrambo 112p · 650 weeks ago

THERE AREN'T MANY WIZARDS SO THEY DON'T NEED MANY WANDS

But then why does Ollivander have all those wands in his shop.....maybe he gets them from dead wizards. Hm.

2 replies · active 650 weeks ago

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Tikabelle 87p · 650 weeks ago

Right? It's a mystery. And how many heartstrings does a dragon have? Two? I mean, if there are "hundreds" of students at Hogwarts, no wonder the dragons are all dying out... *glares at Ollivander*

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Kayleigh_M 92p · 650 weeks ago

Tika, taking a stand for dragons and their heartstrings everywhere!

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etudesque 73p · 650 weeks ago

This book starts a chain of epic books (Chamber of secrets? not so much.)
I love that JKR jumps right in with the dementors! And I love how her solution to everything is MOAR CHOCOLATE. Eeeexcellent.
Trelawney is this book's Gilderoy Lockhart - she can do no wrong in my eyes...

1 reply · active 650 weeks ago

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Tikabelle 87p · 650 weeks ago

Trelawney is pretty wonderful, isn't she? Such the stereotypical mystical hoo-doo person. I just love her.

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Kayleigh_M 92p · 650 weeks ago

LOVE this book, especially the lack of exposition. I mean, if you throw your kid straight into book 3 then too bad, they start in the deep end and have to work stuff out. It'll make them smarter.Or something.

Ginny!! I felt so sorry for her on the train. It's been 2 months guys, tear your eyes off Harry for a sec and give her a cuddle or something.

Yay! Wand!

3 replies · active 650 weeks ago

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Emily · 650 weeks ago

funny, i thought that there was a LOAD of exposition in this one!

but yes, i was all upset on ginny's behalf on the train in my post today. come one, people!

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Tikabelle 87p · 650 weeks ago

Oh interesting. Hmmm, I suppose you are right, but the exposition isn't quite so "And now we are at Privet Drive - you remember Privet Drive, right? And now we talk about Harry's parents - remember them?" as it was in CoS. It's more mixed in with new stuff like the Grim and the Knight Bus.

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@Murphy_Kayleigh · 650 weeks ago

Yeah that's how I feel. It was woven into the story a little more delicately and less two chapters rewriting the previous book.

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Laura · 650 weeks ago

Emma Thompson is Prof Trelawney in the films? Somehow... I am more interested in them!

Anyway... I think McGonagall and Hermoine are totally like similar ladies. In that they're both awesome. So yes. I don't have an answer to you on the wands though. Unless they've been made over THOUSANDS of years when there were way more unicorns and phoenixes and dragons and things?

1 reply · active 650 weeks ago

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Tikabelle 87p · 650 weeks ago

She is pretty excellent in the films. I actually thoroughly enjoyed all 8 movies.

And the wand thing, right? And Ollivanders has been around since *mumble mumble* BCE, so that's a possibility! But If you assume the populations of wizards has stayed constant over those several thousand years... and it does seem that wands are specific to one person, so what happens to a wand when someone dies? Are they buried with it, or does the magical whoozy-whatsis just KNOW that their owner is dead and find another?

SO MANY QUESTIONS!

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What Red Read 121p · 650 weeks ago

YAY for your wand! And I think you've uncovered the seedy underbelly of wand making. I bet they have whole farms with these poor ragged animals (or dead ones, in the case of dragons) so they can make these wands.

They make this big deal about how Harry has seen the worst stuff when the Dementors attack him and how his horrors are so much worse than everyone else's. Except then you remember Ginny was possessed by Voldemort just a year ago and yeah, she's probably dealing with WAY WORSE. Why is everyone so mean to Ginny?

1 reply · active 650 weeks ago

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Tikabelle 87p · 650 weeks ago

Ollivander is definitely a shady character, so it's possible, y'know? At least there should be a large percentage of unicorn tail-hair cores, because if the wands are all around 15" and a horse hair is ~36", then that's 2 wands PER tail hair, right? And there would be more of those than, say dragon heartstrings per dragon or tail feathers per phoenix.

I have maybe thought about this too much.

And YES jeez. I have to keep reminding myself that each book's characters haven't aged with me - book 3 Harry is still 13, and 13-year-olds are so, so weird and horrible to each other.

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emily · 650 weeks ago

That's a super-swell wand!

I suspect that wand makers in other countries rely on other things. Part of this is canon (Fleur's wand has a veela hair in it), part of it is fanon (oh, lord, the things those fanon wand makers use!). And I'm not sure that Ollivander is the only wand maker in England, just the best. Doesn't someone say that, somewhere?

1 reply · active 650 weeks ago

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Tikabelle 87p · 650 weeks ago

Why thank you! It makes me happy. :)

And hmmmmm that is interesting - good catch on the veela hair, etc.! And yes, I do recall Ollivander being the best - which implies not the *only*. Hmmm. I am STILL upset about the dragon heartstrings, though. Poor dragons.

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briefraser 73p · 650 weeks ago

Bahaha @ last gif.

And yes! I was feeling a little bad that I wasn't sucked in during the first two books as much as I had been expecting, but now!...now I'm hooked!

Poor Ginny is right- I wish she had a bigger part in the book!

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Jennifer · 650 weeks ago

Oh my god, dragon factory farms - damn is wizardom a messed-up place. It just keeps getting worse and worse. And how many heartstrings does each dragon have, or is it one dead dragon per wand? I can't believe I never thought of this before and now I won't be able to think of ANYTHING ELSE.

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Kayleigh V · 649 weeks ago

Yes Ginny on the traaaaaaaain!!! Neville, too, is badly shaken. Huh? Huh? Think about *that*.

The idea of factory farm dragons is harrowing. HARROWING.

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07 February 2013

Harry Potter HFriday - Week the Somethingth?

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