Search Results for: Khaytman

Ink Black Horcruxes

April 16, 2023 by 4 Comments

Much work has been done tracing the parallels between The Ink Black Heart and The Half Blood Prince. One of more intriguing ones is the plot point of horcruxes and the search for them. Anomie’s sock puppet Twitter accounts were first identified (I think) by Sandy, here in the comments, just a few weeks after the book was published:

– The sock puppet accounts seem to parallel horcruxes, especially when both are designed to bully and torture perceived enemies

Sandy in the Hogwarts Professor Comments

Is this a viable parallel or a reach to far? Find out what the top parallel-pundits think after the jump!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Louise Freeman

Three Broomsticks Podcast

April 3, 2023 by Leave a Comment

It is no secret that I am a bit of a podcast junkie, listening to over fifty different ones regularly, and for me this has largely replaced live radio. The launch of a new podcast centred around one of my passions and led by the insightful Irvin Khaytman was therefore a cause for celebration in the Jeffery household this February. Irvin is the author of Dumbledore: The Life and Lies and has writes under the name “hpboy13” in the Three Broomsticks column covering not just Harry Potter but also Strike, The Christmas Pig and The Ickabog. The Three Broomsticks podcast bills itself as:

A Harry Potter podcast that dives deeply into the seven books and the wider Wizarding World to find new insight and discuss the tiniest of details.

Irvin was a host of the Alohomora! podcast from 2019 to 2022, a fun and slightly anarchic look at the Harry Potter books. Generally one chapter at a time, and featuring many Mugglenet contributors. I had hoped that The Three Broomsticks would follow Irvin’s interest in the post Potter, and so I was delighted when along with Dr Beatrice Groves and Mugglenet contributions editor Sophia Jenkins, I was asked to participate in episode five, looking at the parallels between the villains in Half Blood Prince and The Ink Black Heart. Irvin had previously written on this very subject and more generally and of course Beatrice has also published The Ink Black Prince in The Rowling Library magazine and Ink Black Vampires in Bathilda’s Notebook. These formed the basis of what was a very fun discussion, which at over two hours form, with Alohomora, the longest podcasts that I subscribe to. Talking with Irvin, Sophia and Beatrice was such a pleasure it certainly didn’t seem that long when we were recording.

In this episode:

  • Draco parallels ALL the characters!
  • Why Death Eaters never wear t-shirts
  • Peaches are dumb. So, so dumb.
  • Will Charlotte be redeemed? You heard it here first!
  • Do we like Madeline or no?
  • Is Harry actually a villain?
  • RIP the Farting Sofa

You can listen to the episode here, or subscribe on Apple, Google or Spotify. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Filed Under: Beatrice Groves, Cormoran Strike, Nick Jeffery

MuggleNet Reviews ‘Ink Black Heart:’ Harry Potter Fandom Reversing Course?

October 17, 2022 by 9 Comments

Irvin Khaytman, author of Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwarts’s Renowned Headmaster: An Unofficial Exploration and longtime columnist at MuggleNet.com (where he writes under the pseudonym hpfanboy13), has written a review of Ink Black Heart. [The original article was taken down after I posted this piece; it can still be read at The Wayback Macine archive.] I recommend it with enthusiasm for three reasons.

First, Khaytman is worth reading about anything Rowling writes because of his profound grasp of Potter canon, his wit, and his capacity to turn a phrase to delight and cuff the chin of his reader. An ‘hpfanboy13’ piece on Potter, Fantastic Beasts, or the Strike series is sure to challenge the reader, maybe even make her or him raise either a fist or a toast, and to re-think whatever subject Khaytman explores, to contradict or support his argument.

Second, he knows his Cormoran Strike, though not as well as he does Harry Potter, alas, and is familiar with some of the ideas we discuss here, most importantly, the Parallel Series Theory and the Seven Book Ring. His takes on the echoes of Half-Blood Prince in Strike6 alone are worth the time invested, as you’d expect from this caliber Potter Pundit, and make his decision to write the review for MNet before reading work others have written here and elsewhere seem well-founded.

His ignorance of how ring composition works, of the 5-6 Flip idea, of literary alchemy, of mythology, and of Strike Extended Play, however, will leave those who have been part of the Ink Black Heart conversation here scratching their heads when reading his confessed confusion about some topics and his certainty about others (he’s sure about how 100 pages could be cut from Troubled Blood without affecting the narrative, for example; only someone clueless about the clockwork structure and inner relationship of the Strike5 story parts could say this without blushing). Rowling’s intertextuality or literary allusion, too, outside of references to the apposite Potter book, seems to have totally escaped his consideration.

Despite those failings and blind-spots, I loved Khaytman’s review and his subsequent conversation in the post’s comment thread with Beatrice Groves. I laughed, I groaned, I rubbed my chin and re-read parts that were especially thought-provoking. He is sui generis and a boon to Serious Strikers, a breath of fresh air, really, and a welcome voice. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Hog Pro Notes

Surprised Grindelwald is Clairvoyant? That’s Not the Screenwriter’s Fault

May 18, 2022 by Leave a Comment

Irvin Khaytman, author of Dumbledore: The Life and Lies of Hogwarts’s Renowned Headmaster and who writes at Mugglenet.com as ‘hpboy13,’ wrote a dyspeptic and dismissive review of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. ‘The Real Secret is No One Cares’ begins with something like an assertion that Grindelwald’s ability to grasp the future in this film was inserted in the third film to explain the disconnectiveness of its own plot points:

while Secrets of Dumbledore is a VAST improvement over its predecessor… it still isn’t any good. To those withholding judgment from Crimes of Grindelwald in the hope that the franchise would course-correct enough to redeem that film, I would be very curious if that hope is still alive after this installment. Because while this film is not as bleak and boring as the last one, it still is in no way coherent.

The creators are aware of this and engage in a bit of lampshading to wave it away. Apparently, Grindelwald has the Sight or some magical ability to see the future. The only way to combat that is to have a plan that is so chaotic and makes so little sense that he won’t be able to puzzle out what’s going on. Yeah, sure, and that has nothing to do with heading off criticism that the events of the film are chaotic and make no sense!

If like me you did not know what “lampshading” is, the article to which Khaytman links defines it this way:

Lampshade Hanging (or, more informally, “Lampshading”) is the writers’ trick of dealing with any element of the story that threatens the audience’s Willing Suspension of Disbelief, whether a very implausible plot development, or a particularly blatant use of a trope, by calling attention to it and simply moving on.

The sarcastic conclusion that Grindelwald’s “magical ability to see the future” has been inserted here  to head “off criticism that the events of the film are chaotic and make no sense” takes as its unstated premise that we have not been told that Grindelwald has this ability until Beasts 3. Which is true.

But that isn’t Rowling’s fault. We know that this information was in the shooting script for the first Fantastic Beasts film, that the scene revealing this capability was shot, and that it was cut from that movie before its release. Kelly Loomis discovered this in December 2016 and it was written up here in a post titled Fantastic Beasts’ Seventh Deleted Scene Grindelgraves’ Vision in MACUSA Office.

This seventh deleted scene in Fantastic Beasts was one Kelly found in an interview Colin Farrel, the actor who plays Percival Graves in the movie, did with ‘Inside Reel.’ He says: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fantastic Beasts

Fantastic Beasts Secrets of Dumbledore: A Collection of Reviews and Asides

May 6, 2022 by Leave a Comment

No, I still have not seen Secrets of Dumbledore and probably won’t for a week or two, believe it or not, between a son’s wedding in a different time zone and thesis deadlines.

I know, though, that readers are coming here for discussion and brilliant commentary on the latest Fantastic Beasts entry, so, because I haven’t posted anything this week about the movie, I have put together a list of seven interesting online pieces about Secrets for you to surf — and, I hope, a list to which you will append your favorite reviews, YouTube exegetes on fire with theories, or Hollywood rumor. It’s open microphone night at HogwartsProfessor.

Enjoy this smorgasbord of sorts, seven special opinion slices, and share some of your own!

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized