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Thanks for the write up Macy! I know you’re under the weather so it’s appreciated!
This is another nice slice of life chapter but it also help establish that the animosity between Harry and Draco isn’t going away anytime soon. Harry now considers Draco worse than Dudley. I wonder: does everyone agree that Draco is worse?
So imagine how he felt, in that one moment when he stepped on a broom, and he was actually REALLY GOOD at it.
Harry Potter, the boy who was constantly told he was good for nothing and good at nothing, is surprisingly good at something. It’s like the Dursley’s couldn’t see him as a person he became a “nothing” for want of a better term.
He also finds out that Professor McGonagall knew Harry’s father, who was also an excellent Quidditch player. It’s the first of many things we will find Harry has in common with his father.
I’m often surprised that none of the Professors ever took the time to sit Harry down and tell him about James and Lily–what they were like in school, their favorite subjects, the sort of trouble they might have gotten into. I know it’s largely because PLOT (JKR answers those questions slowly over the course of the series through various means) but I’ve just wondered why Hagrid, even, didn’t try to flesh out Harry’s parents more.
But I think it’s important to note that his disregard for authority is never motivated by rebellion or to simply be mischievous; he always has a good, even noble, reason for his actions.
#HeroArchetype
What I find surprising (and a little unbelievable to be honest), is that Harry is rarely punished, and often rewarded for his behavior, which probably doesn’t help his rebellious ways. And even when he is punished, it never seems to prevent him from doing what he thinks is right, even if to his own detriment.
Does anyone else wonder if Dumbledore told the Professors to go easy on Harry? That they couldn’t outright expel him? Or they couldn’t give him a punishment that would put him in danger or would lessen his ability to learn?
the 3-headed dog is actually guarding a trap door.
Hello Cerberus. Okay, his name isn’t really Cerberus, but it’s Cerberus nonetheless. I’ll mention this again as we get closer to the final chapters in the book but I just want to mention it now more or less in passing.
Cerberus is the Greek mythic dog who guards the entrance to the Greek Underworld. What is Cerberus standing on in this Harry Potter Universe? A trap door…that goes down.
Harry Potter (and friends) get ready for your katabasis. It’s coming. Until then, I’ll remain silent because I actually get to do that chapter!
What do you think Neville’s forgotten that prompts his grandmother to send him a Remembrall? And why is Draco so intent on having it?
As to the first part, I don’t know. Maybe homework? Maybe his Gran just knows that Neville is super forgetful and bound to forget some of his studies.
Draco wants it because Draco is a miserable little boy. Ugh, I’ll unpack that because while true, it’s also not strictly fair. Draco is largely a product of his environment where he has been spoiled and taught that as a Malfoy, he is better than everyone else. He has a superiority complex and I think it’s likely that he doesn’t want to fail in front of anyone. His constant challenging to Harry in various wizard tasks–flying, dueling–are to show everyone (and himself) that he’s better. However, I have to wonder if it’s not 90% bravado and Draco is actually just as insecure as Harry.
Why do you think Hermione goes along with the boys, instead of alerting a teacher?
Oh because she’s trying to forge a connection with them. I’ll be analyzing Hermione quite a bit in the next chapter, so I’ll save most of my answer for then if that’s okay. 🙂
Would a Slytherin describe Draco’s manipulation of Harry (luring him into a trap) by drawing on his brash tendencies as a clever strategic move worthy of celebrating?
Oh my that’s a good question. We’re back to that idea that people in houses can be reduced to some set of characteristics. I think, as it does with everything else, it depends on the person and who they are at their core. Some might disapprove of Draco’s manipulation, though they may stay silent for fear that Draco turns his attentions on them. Anyone who wants Draco’s favor (we hear about all the sweets and presents he gets from home) would applaud him though.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I don’t think we’ve heard of Bobby filming since 501, but he could just be filming in studio. Like how Rumple was in episodes 313-315, but we didn’t see him filming til they were filming 316. My guess is Rumple is still in a coma, but we’ll continue getting those odd scenes with Dark One Rumple training Dark Swan, which we still can’t comprehend.
That’s what I thought, more or less. I’m guessing he’s in studio. Though often when actors are in studio, we get a general idea that they are there. Can’t recall anyone saying “Bobby is in studio today”
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"*stumbles into thread blinking somewhat owlishly*
I just finished Season 1. I have…things to say.
Okay, first…Pan, I know you’ve been wanting me to watch this series for awhile now and talk about it with you but I kept having to put it off to watch other things/get caught up with other TV shows. I finally managed to sit down and watch it, and like you, I burned through the first season because I simply couldn’t stop.
Overall rating: 9
This is a very very very very good show. That’s a somewhat trite and remedial way of saying I really liked it, I know. More depth to follow but my bare bones, very general reaction is that this might (no, scratch that)…this is Netflix’s best original drama to date. Granted, their other super smash hits–House of Cards and Orange is the New Black–also had stellar first seasons but have petered out recently, and while I think Sense8 shares a lot of similar threads to OitNB, there is something *more* to Sense8 than there is to OitNB or HoC.
A little less comedic situations than you have in OitNB but with more heart than you get in HoC; in other words, instead of me struggling to constantly define OitNB as a comedy or a drama, Sense8 is a straight up drama with a capital D, even though, like I said, it shares a lot of similar themes (more to follow…). I think that “it” factor that makes Sense8 stand above the other Netflix originals is that it’s so unbelievably relevant to the point where the plot doesn’t actually matter. It’s…well, it’s doing what SciFi is bloody well supposed to do, which is look at our modern society by examining some sort of future or advanced human (the latter in this case) and making us all reflect on how we’re conducting our lives today in the here and now.
This is going to be pretty scattered and probably tangential because I literally just watched the finale but here goes. I think there are three important things to talk about when it comes to Sense8: the plot, the characters, and what the Wachowskis are actually doing or saying.
The plot is more or less straight up science fiction in the modern world. It’s nothing totally revolutionary. You have a group of “other” individuals who are somehow set apart from the rest of society, in this case by virtue of telepathy. They are different and thus feared or hunted by some other group, in this case Whispers and his men. You see this frequently: X-Men, Alphas, as examples. The plot, though, I don’t think is the selling point of this series. In fact, they could marginalize the plot of Whispers as a whole, and I’d still think this show would do incredibly well.
And, to a point, the plot of Whispers was marginalized this season. It wasn’t like it played too big of a vital role. A lot of episodes mentioned him or the BPO plot in passing but the real meat of the story isn’t this science fiction, hunter vs prey story: it’s how the Wachowskis want to tell the stories of people whose stories are never told and show that they are just as human (and perhaps MORE human) as the people’s whose stories are told on a daily basis and that by ignoring these “other” stories, we (those doing the ignoring) have disconnected from the fabric of humanity.
See. I told you this was going to be wildly random and tangential.
This is why I think Sense8 and OitNB have a lot of similar threads. OitNB is also about telling stories that don’t get to be told, the stories of the disenfranchised, in their case the Litchfield inmates who comes in a variety of colors and types. Obviously Sense8 doesn’t have inmates but in a lot of ways the main characters, the senseates, are just as trapped. While Piper and her friends are literally trapped by the Litch fences and their own prison sentences, the Sense8 are trapped by the confines of society that refuse to grant them personhood and agency because they are somehow beneath the society in which they live.
Kala is a woman in a culture where the parents largely make the decisions about marriage and she can’t even voice, really to anyone, that she doesn’t love Rajan because how could she not–he is apparently perfect for her.
Sun is the big sister who is told that her role is to guard her brother and her father to the point of ridiculous extreme because in her culture, her father and other male relatives are deemed of greater value even though Sun COULD DESTROY YOU WITH ONE LOOK. (I really like Sun).
Cepheus is poor but well intentioned and trying to make an honest living but soon discovers that the only way to affect the sort of change he wants or make the sort of actions he wants to make, requires selling part of his honor, because he can’t crawl his way out of his society, one bus ride at a time.
Lito lives in a culture where he is the picture of masculinity–hard, beautiful, and a man of action in his line of work. Like he tells Nomi, he can’t be the kind of actor he wants to be and be gay and yet gay, and closeted and in a seriously loving and long term relationship, he is.
And then there’s Nomi herself and this is where the plot vs what the Wachowskis are doing really comes into play. (side note: but I think Nomi’s success as a character largely stems from Lana W. being transgendered herself). One of the first big plots for Nomi is her captivity by Metzger who wants to, essentially, lobotomize her because there is something wrong with her brain and openly refuses to listen to what Nomi is trying to tell him and won’t allow Nomi any communication or access to the outside world. Take it out of the plot context and it’s exactly–exactly–how some people view transgendered men and women in our world. That the way they tell us who they are, how they feel, or the way they want to live their lives is somehow the result of a misfiring of synapses in the brain.
That’s what I think the Wachowskis are trying to do, really. Yes, there must be a plot because it’s still a TV show and you can’t have a show that is totally devoid of plot and just an examination of the human character (well, you could…it might be called Seinfeld or Mad Men…) but the plot doesn’t matter as much as the characters and the stories being told about them as people interacting with other people. Science fiction-y mumbo jumbo aside.
I touched on a few characters but I did miss a few so I’ll backtrack.
Will: I like Will, I do, but I think he might be the weak thread in the series. He is as everyday (for someone who experiences telepathy) as they come. He’s the white, midwestern, Good Guy who believes in justice and fairness and saving people and who has a bit of a rough home life. Paging Jack Shepherd, anyone? It’s not that I dislike Will, but it’s that he’s no where near as compelling to me as Lito or Nomi because we see people like Will in society all the time. Will’s story is told a lot–again, without the telepathy–but in general his story almost doesn’t fit with the delicious diversity of the show. He is white bread in a sea of ethnic and multi-cultured delights. That might have been a bit of a tortured metaphor.
Riley: First, I love that they have an Icelandic chic. That’s just..not done. Sense8 is so concerned with equal representation but they could have easily had their European Female be from the continent, from a place TV audiences are familiar with already. But no…they went with Iceland. It took me awhile to warm up to Riley because, like Will, her story seemed pretty straightforward. Traumatic past, ran away, doesn’t want to go back, drugs, sex, rock and roll. It’s only in the last two episodes when we get the low down on Magnus and baby Luna that I began to seriously sympathize with her. I also love that she was the hero in the end, the one who had to get up and push herself to save everyone. If it had been Will–the white heterosexual American boy–saving the day, there would have been some serious frowning.
I like how self aware Wolfgang is, he knows he’s a monster. His loyalty to Felix is kinda beautiful (like his non-romantic version of Amanita or Hernando).
My fingers are actually going numb at his point from all the typing so I may have to wrap it up.
Favorite Sense8: Nomi and Lito
Jonas thoughts: don’t know if I trust him. don’t know if that matters since outside of the Cluster I’m not sure they should trust anyone. But I do want more of his backstory. And obviously just more Naveen.
Best ship: Nomi and Amanita. GAH. THOSE TWO. Perfect.
Funniest Moment: “I see you! I see you villain!” (I’ve been yelling this at people…)
Okay. That’s what I got for now.
ETA: my fingers are too tired, but please insert J. Michael Straczynski every time I talked about the Wachowskis and their vision. Obviously he’s a big part of this too. (Also, I may have to think about Sense8 in connection to B5)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"It’s cute that you think they care about the timeline.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Okay, someone remind me. When was the last time we saw Bobby or heard that he was on set?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I just finished watching Sense8. I need to declare my undying love for the following:
1) Nomi and Amanita
These two. THESE TWO. GAH. Yeah, I’m a goner. (I’ll make my way over to the Sense8 thread in a bit for a larger review but this couple is *important*) Nomi is transgendered and Amanita is a lesbian and they fight everything under the sun (including a doctor who wants to lobotomize Nomi) to be with each other. Amanita doesn’t even blink when she realizes that Nomi is hearing voices and seeing other people. She literally just accepts Nomi for who she is, no matter what she is. It’s like…gorgeous. I can’t even with these two. I might be having a moment.
2) Lito and Hernando
Lito (right) might be one of my favorite new characters in TV right now. I’ve started screaming “I see you! I see you, villain!” to people at random. There’s is a heartbreaking but ultimately happy story (well, so far) and I love how you can tell it was love at first sight for them, like finding their perfect match. The way Lito realizes that he can’t live without Hernando and is willing to accept whatever stigma comes his way (Lito is a Mexican actor known for playing a mix between James Bond and Don Juan so essentially the epitome of “masculinity”) because the alternative is to live without the love of his life…it’s lovely. And they are simply *adorable* together.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Merida is going to share backstory with Belle.
I’ve been thinking that the ‘adventure’ Adam previously hinted Belle and Robin shared will feature Merida.
That seems likely since they did state that at some point we might learn why Belle recognized Sean as Robin when she’s only ever met Tom but that it was really Sean the whole time because…magical plot device #45632 that I’m forgetting. Clover? Was it the clover? I think it was the clover.
Anyway.
Big part of Brave is the idea of magical transformation but seeing the real person. So…you could be on to something.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I am confused by the darkness of the Dark Swan.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Snape makes Potions actually sound cool, and if it weren’t for Snape being so vile towards his students,
He does make it sound cool. But all we ever see of Snape teaching Potions is him more or less telling the kids to follow the book and then yells at them when they get it wrong. Part of me wonders if he’s not better at his job because his heart isn’t really in it, despite the very cool sounding speech he gives here in the beginning. Yes, I think you’re right that he’s bored or doesn’t want to teach youngsters just starting out, but like you point out Hermione is the elephant in the room in this scenario.
ETA: the real test, I suppose, will be comparing his potion teaching to his DADA teaching style
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
