Louise Freeman is conducting another survey on empathy, this time for fans of Veronica Roth’s Divergent series. Please help out by going to this link and answering 15-20 minutes worth of questions. Anyone 13 years old or older and a native speaker of English is eligible! Many thanks!
Survey for Divergent fans
February 3, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Delusional Joanne Rowling Joins Harry-Hermione Shippers?
February 2, 2014 by 26 Comments
CNN’s Saeed Ahmed reports this morning in an article titled JK Rowling says Hermione should have married Harry Potter, not Ron that the Presence Herself, speaking with Emma ‘Hermione’ Watson, now regrets her most important ‘Shipping decision in the Hogwarts Saga.
The Wonderland issue doesn’t come out until Thursday. But Britain’s Sunday Times published excerpts of the interview in a front-page story, “JK admits Hermione should have wed Harry.”
“I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really,” Rowling says in the interview.
“For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” she adds. “I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.”
And what did the fictional Mrs. [Ron] Weasley have to say about all this? She agrees!
“I think there are fans out there who know that too and who wonder whether Ron would have really been able to make her happy,” Watson says in the interview.
Three quick notes after the jump:
“Heavensbee? Heavensbee?” On the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman
February 2, 2014 by 2 Comments
Sad news this morning that Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Hunger Games‘ movie franchise’s Plutarch Heavensbee was found dead this morning at the age of 46, of an apparent drug overdose. Our heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones.
Mr. Hoffman had received many accolades for his film roles and his portrayal of the Gamesmaker-turned-revolutionary was one of the many welcome additions to Catching Fire. He had been set to reprise the role in Mockingjay.
I don’t know how far along the filming for the first Mockingjay was, but it will be interesting to see how the filmmakers cope with the loss. Recast the role? Kill off the character, perhaps introducing his assistant Fulvia Cardew to take his place as Propos-maker in District 13? Even more interesting would be to take one of their other popular Capitol figures, like Claudius Templesmith or Caesar Flickerman and have them turn traitor and join the revolution as part of the rebel’s PR team.
Can anyone think of any other creative solutions? This is certainly a bigger challenge than the loss of “Crabbe” for Deathly Hallows, Part II.
Update: Lionsgate has released a statement that Hoffman’s work on the Mockingjay films was nearly complete. So, perhaps the filmmakers will be able to piece it together, a la Brandon Lee in The Crow.
Mailbag: On Harry Potter as a Tool for Evangelical Witness
January 22, 2014 by 2 Comments
Dear Mr. Granger,
I heard you speak at Biola’s Torrey Honors Institute back in September 2008; I’m sorry it took me so long to write as you requested. I read How Harry Cast his Spell twice and the Harry Potter series once in the meantime. Having heard your lecture on “The Eyes of Harry Potter” and read the book, book 7 made much more sense to me. Thank you for putting in the work to help us understand the story better.
I like what you say in the introduction about how the books are not meant to be used merely as Christian propaganda. As people who dwell in a universe that God made beautiful, we don’t have to force everything to be utilitarian, because beauty itself is good for our souls. I have one question: Would it be a misuse of the text to discuss its Christian content with the purpose of evangelizing?
You said that the reason the evil characters of Harry Potter can use invocational magic is basically that all of us can choose to serve Satan with our talents. But if this power is harmony with God’s good Word, I don’t understand how it can be twisted to evil. The only way I can harmonize it is that magic is seen within the story as merely a technology, not a subcreative act.
In regards to the body-mind-spirit trinity of Ron, Hermione, and Harry, are there any times when Harry is wrong and one or both of them should legitimately take precedence?
Your arguments on Harry as both Christ symbol and Christian Everyman are cogent and convincing. They helped me define what I felt about the books.
Thank you again for your book. I plan to review it many more times and to make use of the themes you helped me discover in my own writing.
Yours,
(Name withheld) [Read more…]
‘Erased by Time and Blockbusters: Ron Weasley’
January 20, 2014 by 6 Comments
Emily Asher-Perrin writes in her ‘Erased by Time and Blockbusters: The Cautionary Tale of Ron Weasley‘ that the Harry Potter films have turned fandom against Harry’s best mate — and this in direct correspondence and causal line with the films departing from, distorting, and dreadfully inverting the role Ron plays in the books. She makes a more than cogent case.
I’ll make three observations along with this note to urge you to read the whole piece.
(1) Movie making from a story that was originally a short novel or screen play is necessarily a destructive act. Creative, too, after a fashion, but only in so much as blowing up a house and then re-building it with occasional reference to photographs or blueprints of the original is also ‘creative.’
(2) Serious Readers who have seen the films more than once, as a rule to which there are very few exceptions, have had their experience of the stories altered. Much in the sense that the emasculation or neutering of a dog is called ‘being altered.’
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