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Part of the fun for me is being able to discuss the entire series, as long as the points being made are relevant to the chapter being discussed. I think we should be able to discuss future events and how they relate to the series as a whole, provided we put spoilers in spoiler tags (that is their purpose after all).
We were going to do a retrospective at the end of each book and then the series. I get that its fun to discuss the series as a whole, but it’s not the point of a re-read. I mean, doing the whole “here’s why Dumbledore left Harry” is somewhat…frustrating. We all know why. We’ve all read this series many times. We don’t actually need the stuff spoiled out; it’s not like we’re going to ruin the big denouement for anyone. But discussing it here and now isn’t the point. The point would be to look at Dumbledore, knowing what we know (because, again, we all know it) and see what his character is like, to see how Jo built him slowly over the series. We know where we are going and we’ll get to it. The point is to start from the beginning and look carefully at each chapter as it stands on its own. When you first start off reading a series, you don’t discuss the entire thing because you don’t have the entire series. You have to work piecemeal.
Also, conversation is going to be really stifled if people keep posting giant walls of black text only to have other members of the re-read project skip over it because they want to stick with the here and now. Secondly, we’re going to get there and the inpactfulness of those conversations about the larger mythos are going to ring less impactful if we’re having them now. Thirdly, this really stresses our need to analyze and focus on the here and now. If you’re so focused on what’s to come then you jump over tiny things you might have missed because you’re too busy thinking about what is to come. It’s harder, but in a good way.
Please don’t think that this is a criticism of anyone (Slurpeez, as always, your points are totally on track and I agree with them all) or what they want out of this project, but please also understand that Jo, Macy and I did have several conversations about how we wanted this to run. Re-read projects are supposed to be focused on one chapter, one book at a time. You lose a lot if you start going from Book 1 to book 7 to book 3 in the blink of an eye.
So why aren’t the teachers, head master, and/or school counselors from Harry’s school concerned or at least suspicious when Harry doesn’t show up at school for weeks on end? Are we, the readers, supposed to buy that the officials at Harry’s school believe Harry is gravely ill, bedridden or in hospital?
As Matt pointed out, he’s most likely being let out to go to school and then going back to the cupboard the instant he gets home. We know he graduated from his previous school and is moving, which he couldn’t have done if he had missed all those weeks.
Exactly. How could Harry not suspect something supernatural was going on when letters continued to show up in mysterious ways? It’s odd enough when a letter shows up for the first time addressed to a Mr. H. Potter, the Cupboard under the Stairs. First of all, wouldn’t Harry be curious that the sender seems to know which room he lives in? Second of all, wouldn’t his suspicion that something magical is going on be heightened when the sender keeps changing the address, according to Harry’s change of room or physical location. Thirdly, wouldn’t Harry’s suspicion that magic actually exists be confirmed when he was witnesses the letters shooting out of the chimney or showing up in the morning eggs?
I talked about this in the chapter 1 analysis. Humans who exist in this mundane world–which is to say all of us–go to extraordinary lengths to ignore the magical and rationalize it in a way that makes sense to them. They will ignore all the evidence to the magical contrary and try to find a way to make it make sense in terms they can understand. For Harry to suddenly go “I bet magic exists!” when these letters start appearing would fly in the face of how humans rationalize and codify their world. Of course it’s suspicious but no one in our world would jump to “magic!” It’s not how humans operate.
ETA: look at our own mythic hero, Emma Swan. She goes out of her way to ignore what is going on in front of her eyes to the point where she can’t see August turning to wood until the moment when she finally believes in magic, when it is made apparent to her that magic does exist.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"We’ve been discussing the Dursley’s at length and I think this might be a good time to bring up something that was revealed on Pottermore, namely the relationship between Petunia and Vernon and their relationship with the Potter’s. As I’ll be posting Ch 4 analysis here in the next 24 hours, I thought this section of text from Pottermore was relevant as we move into the next stage of Harry Potter, namely Harry’s entrance into the magical world.
PLEASE NOTE: I have removed about 2 paragraphs just because it goes into the larger mythos of the story which, as noted, we are trying to avoid as we focus solely on a chapter by chapter analysis with only brief hints or minor discussions of what is to come. You can read the full thing at the link below (the X)
“Harry’s aunt and uncle met at work. Petunia Evans, forever embittered by the fact that her parents seemed to value her witch sister more than they valued her, left Cokeworth forever to pursue a typing course in London. This led to an office job, where she met the extremely unmagical, opinionated and materialistic Vernon Dursley. Large and neckless, this junior executive seemed a model of manliness to young Petunia. He not only returned her romantic interest, but was deliciously normal. He had a perfectly correct car, and wanted to do completely ordinary things, and by the time he had taken her on a series of dull dates, during which he talked mainly about himself and his predictable ideas on the world, Petunia was dreaming of the moment when he would place a ring on her finger.
“When, in due course, Vernon Dursley proposed marriage, very correctly, on one knee in his mother’s sitting room, Petunia accepted at once. The one fly in her delicious ointment was the fear of what her new fiancé would make of her sister, who was now in her final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Vernon was apt to despise even people who wore brown shoes with black suits; what he would make of a young woman who spent most of her time wearing long robes and casting spells, Petunia could hardly bear to think.
“She confessed the truth during a tear-stained date, in Vernon’s dark car as they sat overlooking the chip shop where Vernon had just bought them a post-cinema snack. Vernon, as Petunia had expected, was deeply shocked; however, he told Petunia solemnly that he would never hold it against her that she had a freak for a sister, and Petunia threw herself upon him in such violent gratitude that he dropped his battered sausage.
“The first meeting between Lily, her boyfriend James Potter, and the engaged couple, went badly, and the relationship nose-dived from there. James was amused by Vernon, and made the mistake of showing it. Vernon tried to patronise James, asking what car he drove. James described his racing broom. Vernon supposed out loud that wizards had to live on unemployment benefit. James explained about Gringotts, and the fortune his parents had saved there, in solid gold. Vernon could not tell whether he was being made fun of or not, and grew angry. The evening ended with Vernon and Petunia storming out of the restaurant, while Lily burst into tears and James (a little ashamed of himself) promised to make things up with Vernon at the earliest opportunity.
“This never happened. Petunia did not want Lily as a bridesmaid, because she was tired of being overshadowed; Lily was hurt. Vernon refused to speak to James at the reception, but described him, within James’ earshot, as ‘some kind of amateur magician’. Once married, Petunia grew ever more like Vernon. She loved their neat square house at number four, Privet Drive. She was secure, now, from objects that behaved strangely, from teapots that suddenly piped tunes as she passed, or long conversations about things she did not understand, with names like ‘Quidditch’ and ‘Transfiguration’. She and Vernon chose not to attend Lily and James’ wedding. The very last piece of correspondence she received from Lily and James was the announcement of Harry’s birth, and after one contemptuous look, Petunia threw it in the bin.
“Prior to Harry’s arrival, Petunia had become, if anything, the more determined of the Dursleys in suppressing all talk about her sister. Petunia had some latent feelings of guilt about the way she had cut Lily (whom she knew, in her secret heart, had always loved her) out of her life, but these were buried under considerable jealousy and bitterness. Petunia had also buried deep inside her (and never confessed to Vernon) her long ago hope that she, too, would show signs of magic, and be spirited off to Hogwarts.
“Their lies to Harry on the subject of how his parents had died were based largely on their own fears. A Dark wizard as powerful as Lord Voldemort frightened them too much to contemplate, and like every subject they found disturbing or distasteful, they pushed it to the back of their minds and maintained the ‘died-in-a-car-crash’ story so consistently that they almost managed to persuade themselves it was true.
“Even though Petunia was raised alongside a witch, she is remarkably ignorant about magic. She and Vernon share a confused idea that they will somehow be able to squash the magic out of Harry, and in an attempt to throw off the letters that arrive from Hogwarts on Harry’s eleventh birthday, she and Vernon fall back on the old superstition that witches cannot cross water. As she had frequently seen Lily jump streams and run across stepping stones in their childhood, she ought not to have been surprised when Hagrid had no difficulty making his way over the stormy sea to the hut on the rock.”
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Well, we don’t know how long he’s in Sydney for, so we don’t know how his screen time appearance is going down. Merlin is supposed to be fairly crafty, though. I pictured him keeping out of line of sight but being able to watch everything from the sidelines and laugh at the silly humans trying to find him. Eventually they find him (just in time for his first centric) but until then he can still be around without being found.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"There is a lot of foreshadowing in the books though, so it’s kind of difficult not to discuss future events. You can discuss what appears to be going on with just the evidence in the present chapters but then it takes on a whole new dynamic when allied with evidence from future chapters. Something in the present chapters foreshadows events in the future chapters so can we talk about how something in a present chapter sets up something in a future chapter?
There is a reason why each chapter analysis has a “potential foreshadowing” section. We fully recognize that this series hints at a lot of things before stating it outright. Some minor discussion of future events is okay. But really big “here’s why this happened and how it impacts the series as a whole” not so much. In other words, discussing the show’s mythos and how its explained in future books shouldn’t be happening. That’s just talking about the series generally which isn’t the point of a re-read where you read each chapter, very slowly,and discuss it in its own right without thinking too much about how it will impact the story 6 books from now.
Again, very brief conversation about stuff in the future. But on the whole, for a re-read to successful you have to keep it focused on the bits at hand. In future, I’ll make the rules a bit more clear in this regard but there shouldn’t be any confusion now.
I think Harry never questioned the strange things happening because he’s relieved that they’ve occurred and there is a sense of “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”. For example, when Petunia cuts off all of Harry’s hair leaving only the fringe, Harry is dreading having to go to school because it will only make him more of a target. Harry’s hair grows back overnight. Harry isn’t going to question why it grew back so quickly, he’s just glad it has grown back. The same could be said for the other instances. Harry didn’t question why the snake could understand because that was the first being he probably encountered that he could talk to about how he felt.
Well I think that’s true too; he clearly wouldn’t want to suffer any further embarrassment that would have come from the various choices the Dursley’s were making with the express intent of causing him embarrassment or shame. But it also goes back to what we’ve seen so far–Harry’s self confidence and self esteem are appallingly low. He doesn’t question it because it would be examining his inner self and trying to figure out if there is something different or strange about himself and Harry has a tendency to view himself as utterly unimportant because that’s how the Dursley’s have treated him. That’s why the letters mean so much.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Maybe physically Rumple is in a coma and has a white heart, but spiritually Rumple is still about and up to no good?
Which means he learned absolutely nothing from S4 and any and all hopes of a fully redeemed Rumple are dead. No thanks.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love""He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"One of the definitions for latent is “hidden: present or existing, but in an underdeveloped or unexpressed form”. So yes, according to that definition, Harry’s powers are latent. They’re present but he doesn’t know how to use them and they’re not developed. And he doesn’t even know that he has powers.
For all the weird things Harry has had happen during times of emotional stress, it seems as though he’s never actively tried to make anything happen. Like, he’s never tried to recreate the moment of oddness after the fact.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I’m pretty sure Bobby is just saying, “in flashback you see Rumple still as the Dark One. In present day you’ll see Gold in a coma!” as if we didn’t all know that already. It’s just a really dumb way to put it, Bobby.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"The people of Camelot end up sucked into Storybrooke in 4.02 and all fairybacks will feature their time in Camelot and showcase how Emma transitioned to the Dark Swan. But about the ball, I do think it is a flashback. This is the picture WickedRegal mentioned. Lana is with the guy who plays Percival. It would be awesome if it was an OQ dance though:
Well I agree with this. But since everyone is sucked back in time for 502 and the ball is in 502 and in Camelot, then we can pretty much rule out a present day OQ one and a flashback OQ since OQ weren’t together until recently and never visited Camelot together except for in the present day in 501.
Ergo, it’s most likely a flashback and the surprise guest is either Merida (the Scottish fairy tale and the British legend) OR, more likely, Charming and Snow given Charming and Arthur’s bromance.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
