Letting Go

As Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince release mayhem comes to a close the grieving must begin in earnest.

This book has given us many things to grieve; the death of our beloved Headmaster, any hope that JKR might realize just how right Harry and Hermione are for each other, Bill’s dashing good looks and, for many, the time has come to finally grieve the death of Sirius Black.

Since death is probably the world’s most pervasive tragedy, it has been studied extensively by therapists, scientists, philosophers, and even industry. It has also been studied extensively by me and therefore, I feel fully qualified to pass along some tips for getting through the grief so you can move on to go the good things in life, like shamelessly mocking the feeble transitions in this book.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross defined the five stages of grief in her book “On Death and Dying.” I read this. It was boring. I contemplated many ways to liven up the subject matter a little, hand puppets were considered, but I thought that might offend some so we’re going to have to go at this in the same dry manner as always; a list.

Step One: Denial

Denial is probably the most recognizable stage of grief and the one in which so many of our forum users seem to be stuck. Alas, it takes more than peanut butter to get this wad out of your hair. For some it will require a full assessment of the facts and a complete exhaustion of every far-fetched idea they can think of while others are happy to take it as writ that it’s just over. Still some will never be satisfied that the buck has stopped, the bucket has been kicked and the timer reached zero. To you, the truly committed, the next passage is dedicated.

Dumbledore is dead. So is Sirius. Harry and Hermione is just never going to happen and Remus is probably next. Deal.

This should free up a lot of your time. Your grades might even pick up.

Step Two: Anger

No, not at me. At the world, at JKR, at her editors and publishers. You are angry. That’s understandable. Regardless of whether you liked Dumbledore or not, it can’t be denied that he just shouldn’t have died; it was cruel to take him from Harry and in that fashion no less. Many impulses will occur to you now. Ignore them. Do not write that angry letter. Do not abandon the series. Do not tear up your fanclub membership. Do not burn all of your memorabilia. You will regret this later when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire comes out in cinema’s and reminds you why you liked this in the first place. If nothing else, you’ll regret it when you realize just how much grey matter you’ve dedicated to this obsessive love. Why render it useless now? You’ve survived other JKR train wrecks and even if this one gave you a bit of whiplash, that’s no reason to stop watching.

Step Three: Bargaining

Like a tourist strolling through Purerto Vaillarta, the desire to negotiate is probably overcoming you now. “What about Peter? We never really liked him in the first place!” or “Take Ron, he’s annoying!” A few deep breaths and facts should knock you right out of this phase.

Something like 2 Million copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were sold in the UK in the first day of sales. This is not the kind of statement you can just retract. Ever watched the Prime Minister stumble during Question Hour and spend the next six weeks trying to take it back. This is the level of denial we’re talking about here, and the Prime Minister only has to deal with disenfranchised adults, JKR is tangling with obsessed teenagers. She could lose a limb or two

It’s also important to consider the notion that Dumbledore’s death may have some shred of relevance to the series as a whole. I know, it’s a far off notion, but perhaps Dumbledore’s death was meant to help Harry to grow in some fashion.

Step Four: Depression

And the upswing of stories labeled “Sensitive Topic/Issue/Theme” takes a dangerous rise in the queue, the angst category swells to the breaking point and Draco and Hermione are suddenly pairing off far more frequently than the staff is used to.

Yes, you have finally accepted the death, devastation, and outright cruelty of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and it’s bloody depressing.

You, my friend, need to wallow. Go get some ice cream, put on your sweatpants, rent The Way We Were and drown your sorrows in a gallon sized tub of Cherry Garcia. You’ll feel better. Or, if that’s not your style, re-read some of the more not-quite-canon moments in HBP. My personal recommendation is the Madame Malkins scene. It gets me every time.

Step Five: Acceptance

You’ve cried, you raged, you’ve probably broken a few things in the process and maybe even gained a pound or two. Finally, however, you’ve reached your destination on the other side. You’ve accepted it and you are better for having gone through the experience.

Welcome, well-adjusted individual, to the ranks the indifferent. Join us in giggling fits as we read the threads in The World of Harry Potter that desperately cling to some shred of hope. Don’t worry, they’ll come around.

Thinking, Over-Thinking and the Ties that Bind

I am all for anything that makes youth really sit down and [i]think[/i] about something, so when the new books release and analysis abounds on the forums, I'm usually thrilled. Lately, and possibly just because I wasn't around for the OOTP release, I've noticed a trend, namely picking ut the wrong things and taking them to the moon.

For instance - in the US edition of the book, Dumbledore makes a comment to the effect of "Draco, they can't kill you if you're already dead." Now, without context clues, it's easy to think that that's a little menacing, but if you take in the next sentance the meaning is clear and in no need of analysis. "We can protect you, Draco. We can send someone for your mother. We can hide you more completely than you ever imagined." Mind, those are not exact quotes but that's the general jist of things.

To jump to the conclusion, for those sentances, that Draco is already dead is a bit batty. A bit like the witness protection program, the mob, or the FBI, Dumbledore is offering to hide Draco and to make it look like he is dead or has disappeared. In exchange for Draco's sharing information with the Order.

Why JKR included this is unknwon but I suspect she wanted to show Dumbledore's trusting, merciful side once more before he died. Draco had been overtly trying to kill him all year and, in his mercy, trust, and complete lack of faith in Draco, he siad nothing to spare the boy. Now that the time for himi to do the deed is upon him, he's certain in Draco's 'true heart' he's not a murderer or a true follower of Voldemort and willing to save him.

Throughout the book, his mercy and trusting nature have been hammered as his greatest weakness and, in this situation, it killed him. He imobilized Harry to keep him from a. attacking Draco while Dumbledore was bargenning with him and b. to prevent him from moving and calling attention to himself, thereby risking his life.

To be honest, so far as I can tell, that's the sole intention of the sentance but many are seizing and taking it to a rather strange place :)


Now, if you'll go back to GOF for a moment, to the scene in Moody's office when he discusses the Secrecy Sensors and the fact that they can't function properly in the school around so many people. Very few took that up with the numorous other clues run to the conclusion that 'Moody' wasn't really himself.

It isn't the scenes that seem big that contain pivitol plot information, its the scenes that seem inconsequential that make the biggest impact on plot development.

Top 10 Reasons Books Are Responsible For Any Deviant Impulses I May Have

As I sat here tonight thumbing through my weather worn copy of Half-Asleep in Frog Pajama's, trying to get into the right second-person mindset, my mind wandered to the oddities on my bookshelf and I realized something important; it's all literature's fault.

What I read was never monitored for...uh...explicit content. My mother liked that I read (and my reading level surpassed her own by the time I was about 8) she she was never much fuss about what I decided to pick up. As a child, I read any and everything anyone reccomended; whatever I could get my hands on and the books I loved weren't Goosebumps like so many kids my age. I was drawn to The Giver. I read Anna Karenina before my English teacher did and when I was about 10, someone handed me a copy of Skinny Legs and All.

I blame it all on Tom Robbins.

No 10 year-old should be handed a copy of this book. It's a good book, that goes without saying, but when you throw in the authors tendancy toward the sexual (including the 50 year old Jew with the shoe fetish) it's just flat out not appropriate. Then, i suppose no one thought Tolstoy was either. What can I say, anyone can read Number the Stars; I was a Maverick and there's shit in Half-Asleep in Frog Pajamas that I wouldn't validate.

From thereon out, I was hooked. Tom Robbins was my man and I have dutifully picked up every book he's put out since that day. Switters, the pedophile CIA agent. Larry Diamond, the ex-Broker genius gone frog-licker. The characters were never the reason i read them - who can resist a book with lines like "Christianity - the emey of teeth, the clitoris and the brain," but when i dissect the character responsible for every pseudo-deviant motivation I have, it's a piece of these concepts behind it.

While girls my age were watching Cinderella stories sans-poofy skirt and really uncomfortable shoes for their make-up of the perfect man, I was at home with four-hundred page novels liberally sprinkled with phrases like "This is more than a vagina, this is a monstre sacre!" It's something like the difference between Chad Michael Murray and Billy Bob Thorton, but wittier, i suspect.

While most girls my age were falling for the guy with the motorcycle, I was fawning over a man created and compiled by many an hour spent reading that should have been spent sleeping. He doesn't exist, i know this, but there's a piece of every male-lead i've ever enjoyed in him. A bit of John Galt and a dash of Howard Roark with just touch of Siwtters and a pinch of Larry Diamond. He is the instant orgasm.

And that, class, is why books ruined my teenage years.

I'm fucked.

Thigs I Should Never See: The Tonks/Lupin Edition

My favorite ship and even it has some things that just make me want to sit through another reading of HBP with some Vogan sensory enhancments. So, we embark on "Things I Should Never See: The Tonks/Lupin Edition"

Excerpts below have been taken from actual stories. While i would normally credit the authors for their work, given the context, I think it's probably more polite not to.

Passage:
Tonks was alone in Grimmauld place. Tonks was alone in Grimmauld place with Remus Lupin. She'd had a huge crush on Remus ever since she'd first seen him. The fact that this July had been incredibly hot--so hot that even the usually conservative Remus was in cargo shorts and a sleeveless white t-shirt--didn't help.

No:
Right, this story was clearly writtten by someone who has a seventh year installment of Harry Potter and the Second War. It probably starts in a very simmilar fashion.

Remus Lupin is 37 years old. He is a cash-strapped werewolf. He is an intellectual. I cannot picture him in a shirt without a collar. I'm sorry, I just can't. I would bet that there's a consencus on that.

Passage:
He looked hot. Not movie star, or model hot, but perfectly tanned Californian surfer type of hot. This was definitely not good. How could she ever hope to help him heal from the loss of Sirius if she was battling with her mouth whether or not to ask him out?

No:
Does...can I even...ugh.. If you can't figure this out, you're just an idiot.

Passage:
She sat, sobbing, on the cold hard unyielding floor. Her body shook and trembled, she was so angry at herself and so numb; she needed to feel again, she needed to feel alive. Taking the scissors, out of the pocket of her robes, she rolled back her sleeves and began to carve. It had started, at first, just as scratches but she realised, as they began to fade into nothingness, that it wasn’t enough and so she had begun to cut deeper.

No:
She's a grown fucking woman - not a melo-dramatic 16 year-old.

Passage:
And yet here he was, off on a visit to see her. He tried to tell himself that it would be enjoyable to see Tonks, and perhaps even catch up with her mother, Andromeda, as well. He hadn't see Andromeda since school; the last time had been one weekend just after leaving Hogwarts when he and Sirius had paid a visit to her at home, strictly for the purpose of aggravating her sisters Narcissa and Bellatrix, and scandalizing their parents. Finally he gave up; there was no way that he could convince himself that he had the slightest interest in catching up with an old friend. It was her daughter that he needed to see.

No:
Check your canon people - there is a 12 year difference between Remus and Tonks. Even if it was plausible that they were friends in school, time wise, it's just creepy to think that that would be the context :)

Forum Usage

In spending a lot of time on the forums in the past few days - trying desperately to keep things neat, tidy, manageable and useful, I've ntoiced a few really atrotious trends.

1. Topic Titles Are Not A Teaser

Topic titles, in any case, particularly when you're trying to avoid spoiling things for other people are supposed to be descriptive of the topic at hand - a general summary.

i.e., if you would like to know some great sites for blogging the most descriptive and effective title is:

"Searching For Great Blogging Sites"

It is not:
Blogger
Do you know of any....
I need a....
OMG I can't find a....
help!!!


2. Rules, what are they good for?

The true evil for a forum admin would be those who ignore the rules. You can post them - you can link to them - you can make themin really big letters. It doesn't matter. No one will read them.