Category Archives: 7: DH

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“Never – Never Tell” – In Defense of Albus Dumbledore (2.0) – Part 5

Posted by ccollinsmith on

Here’s the conclusion to the series… discussing some consequences of the secret Snape made Dumbledore swear to keep.

You can find the 1.0 version here.

Still Waiting for Pottermore? – Here’s More DH2

Posted by ccollinsmith on

I’ve got about 40 minutes until my potion finishes brewing, so… okay, where were we before I got sucked into Pottermore? As I recall, we were discussing DH2. And I still had a few things left to say.

For me, the movie “worked” all the way up until the final battle with Voldemort. Thankfully, it had worked in a big way to that point – from the moody opening, with Snape on the balcony and Harry at Shell Cottage, through the tense conversation with Aberforth, through the the look of heartbreak on Snape’s face when he realizes he must duel McGonnagall (not to mention his quick-thinking in taking out the Carrows and leaving Hogwarts to McGonnagall), all the way through the Battle of Hogwarts, the Pensieve memories, and King’s Cross.

I cried when Hermione blasted Fenrir off the dead body of Lavender Brown, her former rival for Ron’s affections. I cried when Aberforth announced his return to the fight by casting a powerful Patronus. I wept, like everyone else, over the fallen heroes in the Great Hall… and then over Snape’s memories in the Pensieve and Harry’s walk into the Forest.

The first three times I saw the film, though, I did not cry over Snape’s death. I just sat there with my mouth hanging wide open, hyperventilating. Curiously, a few friends who do not like Snape did find themselves crying… and then hated themselves afterward. LOL.

On the fourth viewing, I finally did cry. I think maybe it was because the theater was nearly empty. Snape is the character who resonates most with me, and so his death is the one that is most personal to me. I think I probably just needed some time alone in order to really let loose. And when I finally did, I cried so hard that my eyes were burning with the salt of my tears!

But enough of Snape for now, what I really want to talk about is the big VoldyBattle.

I suppose that any moviegoer would prefer a running-around-the-castle-Wizard Battle over a Harry talk-a-thon. BUT the problem with the sequence for me is that it creates the misperception that Harry could actually match Voldemort in power and skill. I mean… Srsly?

In the book, Harry wins because he understands the situation (the Elder Wand belongs to him) and because he sacrificed his life in the Forest to kill the scarcrux… not because he’s more powerful or more skilled than his antagonist. As a consequence of Harry’s sacrifice, Voldemort really can be killed. All it takes is for Harry to cast a disarming charm at the same moment that Voldemort casts a killing curse. The Elder Wand will do the rest.

Now, none of this is to downplay the significance of what Harry has done. In going into the Forest, he becomes a truly great man, a sacrificial figure, a young man willing to lay down his life in order that the Wizarding World might live. That, imo, is of far more significance than wizarding power or skill.

But the film plays up power and skill – matters in which Harry cannot begin to match Voldemort – and downplays the sacrificial significance of Harry’s walk into the Forest. Though I understand some of these choices from a cinematic standpoint, this is one matter in which I think the film does the book a disservice.

The point is not that Harry wins because he has power. The point is that he wins because he has love.

Well, my potion has finished brewing, and I was supposed to get House points, but the system logged me out, and I didn’t get the points.

(Funny how I never fail to lose points when I melt a cauldron but never seem to gain points when I successfully complete a potion. Argggggg. There’s Beta for you!)

Anyway, I’ve finally said everything I have to say about DH2. So next stop for those waiting is to start in on the Random Re-read. First chapter up is the first chapter in PoA: “Owl Post.” Should be fun!

Waiting for Pottermore DH2: The Taunting

Posted by ccollinsmith on

A fifth batch of emails has been sent out, and there’s still not one for me.

So with that in mind, Expecto Patronum! continues the “Waiting for Pottermore” series…

Note: While we continue the never-ending wait for the Pottermore email, we carry on bravely with our discussion of the DH2 movie…

“Severus Snape wasn’t yours,” said Harry. “Snape was Dumbledore’s. Dumbledore’s from the moment you started hunting down my mother.”

I, and a lot of people, waited for that line in the movie…
and it never came.

After thinking about it, though, I have a theory about why the filmmakers cut it.

It was redundant.

In the book, Harry needs to say it out loud (or think it internally) so that the reading audience gets the point of what he sees in the Pensieve. Yet even with several pages of Harry circling around Voldemort, proclaiming that Dumbledore planned his death with Snape, there remains a tiny contingent of readers who still insist that Snape was truly working for Voldemort and that Harry was merely taunting Voldemort with Snape’s loyalties. He didn’t really mean it. *shrug*

In the movie, though, it’s kind of impossible to miss, or explain away, Snape’s true loyalties. Film is a visual medium, and here is what the viewers (and Harry) get to see…

"You have your mother's eyes"


"... and you're special"


"He doesn't need protecting..."


"So... the boy must die?"


Sure, Severus cradling Lily’s body at Godric’s Hollow is extra-canonical. And sure, Severus never actually says “You have your mother’s eyes.” But movie-only viewers don’t have the advantage of reading the text… over and over and over again… and thinking about its implications. They need to have things spelled out visually. And this approach to the backstory does have JKR’s highest blessing:

“They do it perfectly in the film, that was a place I was very glad they were faithful to the book. Snape’s journey is important, it’s such a lynchpin of the books, the plot can’t function without Snape.” ~ J. K. Rowling

After witnessing the series of images from Snape’s demise through the Pensieve memories, the viewing audience has no question that Severus loved Lily from the time he was a child or that he had been working for Dumbledore – and against Voldemort – ever since the Dark Lord started hunting her down. Viewers don’t need Harry to tell them that. And so, in the movie, he doesn’t.

I’m disappointed, of course, to find one of my favorite moments missing. But I’m appeased by the recognition that it was not necessary to show it. How about you?

Let us know in the comments.

Waiting for Pottermore DH2: choices, choices, choices

Posted by ccollinsmith on

Note: While we wait for the Pottermore email, we continue our discussion of the DH2 movie…

But first… you need to know about the most deeply horrible, astonishingly EVOL poll in the history of humankind:

It’s the Anglophenia Fan Favorites poll, in which we are given the choice of voting between Alan Rickman and Benedict Cumberbatch or between Colin Firth and David Tennant.

In fandom terms, that translates:

Professor Snape (or Colonel Brandon/Alexander Dane/Hans Gruber/ Sheriff of Nottingham) VS. Sherlock Holmes.

and…

Mr. Darcy VS. Barty Crouch, Jr. / The Tenth Doctor

Yikes! Those are choices that really hurt – probably at least as much as the choices the filmmakers had to face in translating the second half of Deathly Hallows to the screen.

Choices that hurt

Let’s say you’re doing a book that fans are passionate about. There are moments that fans have been dying to see…

Fred’s death, for example. Or Snape’s loss of Lily’s friendship. Or Dumbledore’s backstory. Or Snape saving Lupin’s life and telling the portrait not to say “Mudblood.” Or Harry taunting Voldemort with Snape’s true loyalties and giving Riddle one last chance at remorse.

But you’ve got this other audience to account for… the audience that never reads the books and only sees the movies and that could care less about the intricacies of wandlore.

How do you make a movie that gives the book-fans enough of what they want to see and is still comprehensible for the movie-only fans? That’s the dilemma that the filmmakers were faced with. And they left every single one of those “dying-to see” moments out… yet managed to leave most fans feeling satisfied.

Let’s talk about a few of those choices…

The Mudblood Incident

One of the key complaints I’ve heard from one small corner of the fandom is that the film’s portrayal of “The Prince’s Tale” makes Severus Snape look like an innocent victim by failing to present the “Mudblood” incident or its aftermath.

Okay, I personally wanted to see this material on the big screen, but after giving it some thought, I realized that it presents a devil’s snare of potential difficulties. Here is what I wrote about it on the CoS forum:

I would have liked to see them include the “Mudblood” incident too, but in thinking it over, I realized that its inclusion is fraught with all sorts of potential difficulties for other characters – difficulties that I doubt the filmmakers wanted to unleash, particularly given the raw emotional power of Rickman’s overall performance.

As soon as Rickman’s Snape starts showing the depth of his pain, he’s got the audience in the palm of his hand. If the pain had started sooner, beneath the portrait of the Fat Lady [when Lily cut off their friendship], it could have swayed movie-only audience opinion in directions that the filmmakers would not have wanted – like against Lily, for instance. That wouldn’t be fair, since he used the word [Mudblood] on her, but film is an essentially emotional medium, and film audiences love redemption stories – especially when a character is in love. Film audiences generally want to see all but the most monstrous characters given a second chance after they’ve blown it in a big way.

In that context, the filmmakers probably made the right decision to cut the incident. They could not really tell which character(s) would get hurt the most by showing it, and filmmakers like to know exactly what audience impact will be.

There are additional problems with its inclusion as well. David Yates used a portion of SWM (“Snape’s Worst Memory”) in the OotP movie, but he did not incorporate the “Mudblood” incident. Adding it for DH2 would require re-shooting the earlier scene or working some digital magic to insert Lily into it. And that, of course, would mean casting a third actress to play Lily’s part – and getting Alec Hopkin (Teen Snape) back to utter the unforgivable word. (ETA NOTE: The additional material with a third Lily that was originally shot for OotP and then cut would not help since Harry is in the frame – in completely the wrong clothes and without all of the battle grime and gore that we see in TPT).

In addition, I think that the complaint that the exclusion of the Mudblood incident makes Snape look like an innocent victim is a product of very short-sighted thinking. What is most visually striking about the incident (and film is a visual medium) is watching James Potter and the Marauders launch an unprovoked attack on Severus Snape. In all likelihood, including the incident in the film would make Snape look even more like a victim.

Little James is puckishly cute as he runs through the halls tipping over his “victims'” school books.

This James, though, is hardly “cute” as he attempts to remove “Snivelly’s trousers”:

I would humbly submit that the filmmakers just didn’t want to go there with James, particularly given that they will later need to present him sympathetically in the Forest… and there’s really very little story to get the movie-only crowd to buy in to that sympathetic portrayal once the filmmakers re-unleash SWM. It’s hard enough already for many book readers to make the leap of faith into believing that James simply changed, and book readers have information that the movie-onlies don’t possess.

The choice the filmmakers made, then, was to make nobody look very much like the victim, and nobody look very much like the perpetrator. For purposes of the film, it was probably a wise choice.

Weasley Loss and Gain

Some book fans are angry at not seeing Fred die. And one big question many fans have asked is, “How the heck did Percy get there?”

That’s a good question! But there are actually other people whose return is a bit confusing – for instance Cho Chang (what’s she doing there in the Room of Requirement when she graduated the year before?) and Luna Lovegood (how’d she get there ahead of Harry, when she’d last been seen at Shell Cottage?). In the case of the Ravenclaw girls, my assumption is that they are there mainly to answer Harry’s question about the lost diadem. And yes, they are supposed to be there, even if the film never quite lets us know how they arrived.

Percy, though, has one of the book’s more dramatic entrances into the Room of Requirement, and we never see that drama in the film. I do think, though, that the filmmakers’ decision (while perhaps making Percy’s sudden appearance confusing for book fans ) actually makes matters less confusing for the general movie audience. Percy’s estrangement from his family has never become an overt plot point in the films. We do see Percy doing Ministry duties at cross-purposes to Harry and Dumbledore, but that’s about as far as that subplot goes. And let’s face it, without the subplot, many movie-only fans probably don’t really remember who Percy is anyway.

So, that nixes Percy’s big entrance because the big entrance would simply not make sense. And sorry, but if we nix Percy’s big entrance, we also nix witnessing Fred’s death. Yeah, we could still see Fred die, but we wouldn’t see it in the context of his welcoming Percy back into the family and later Percy throwing himself on Fred’s dead body.

If we remove Fred’s death from the context of Percy’s return, we may as well see Fred lying already dead in the Great Hall. And that is the choice the filmmakers made. Rather than go for overkill by showing Fred die on the screen and then show his family mourn, the filmmakers went the more subtle route of showing him already dead, surrounded by his family.

Whether we actually see Fred die or not, this scene still has tremendous emotional impact. I have not gotten past it once without breaking into sobs.

Dumbledore’s Backstory

King’s Cross is a big disappointment to many people. The wandlore, the backstory, Dumbledore’s remorse – all of it is missing.

Most of the essentials, though, were presented in DH1. And when the filmmakers decided (ACK!!!) to negate Grindelwald’s big moment of defiance and remorse, they couldn’t exactly go deeply into the Grindelwald plot in King’s Cross. In fact, I predicted in November that this would happen.

At least Ciaran Hinds’ fabulous performance – bringing to life Aberforth’s hundred years of bitterness – implicitly verifies the depth to which Albus Dumbledore had sunk in his youth. If we want to know more detail about the manner in which Albus’ choices sacrificed his sister’s life, we can always consult the books – or at least the nearest Potter fan. :)

Honestly, though, I did miss the King’s Cross wandlore. I suppose I experienced a bit of it vicariously through the interaction between Harry and Ollivander at Shell Cottage. But after all we’ve seen of the wand, would it truly have been too much information for the general movie audience if Harry had briefly discussed the Elder Wand with Dumbledore?

Well, at nearly 1500 words, this post has now gone on too long (thanks for making it this far with me!). So  I think I’ll devote my next DH2 post entirely to the element I missed the most… and why I think it made sense for the filmmakers to cut it.

Until then…

Pottermore: Clue #7 Is Up!

Posted by ccollinsmith on

UPDATE 5: Registration has closed…

Now the waiting for our Welcome Letters begins. :)

UPDATE 4: Clue 7 is still up! There is still time!

UPDATE 3: Screenshot of the Magic Quill

Remember, the Quill will not glow if you do not hover over it. Here’s what the screen should look like:

The banner ad is at the top (above Parseltongue Translator).

The Quill that will glow is the light brown/white striped Quill.

UPDATE 2: Help with the Magic Quill

The Magic Quill will not appear before the Warner Bros. promo finishes playing. When it does finish playing, you will see a banner ad.

The Magic Quill will not glow automatically. You will need to hover your mouse over the Quills to make the Magic Quill glow. Click on the Quill that turns into a sort of blue glowing Quill.

UPDATE: What to do with the Magic Quill

You will be redirected to the Warner Bros. website, where you will watch a promo for the Deathly Hallows 2 movie. Once the promo has finished playing, you will see a small banner ad at the top of your screen. It asks you to find the Magic Quill.

You will need to hover your mouse over the Quills. One of them will change to a blow glowing Quill when you hover over it. Click on that Quill, and it will redirect you to the Congratulations notice, from where you can get to Registration.

If you do not see the promo or the small banner ad, try turning off ad blockers.

Day 7 clue:

Can you find The Magical Quill?

How many Deathly Hallows are there?
Multiply this number by 7.

Here’s what you need to do once you’ve figured out the clue and multiplied by 7:

Put http://quill.pottermore.com/

in your address bar, put the number you’ve derived from multiplying the clue times 7 after the slash, and hit enter.

NOTE: This is NOT the Pottermore address. This is the Quill address. Copy and paste the Quill address given above into your browser address bar but DO NOT HIT ENTER BEFORE adding the solution after the slash at the end. Otherwise, you will end up on the Pottermore website.

DO NOT add www. to the beginning of the Quill address. Otherwise, you will (sadly) land nowhere.

DO HIT ENTER after you have put the solution at the end of the correct Quill address (after the slash).

Once you hit enter, with the correct solution at the end of the Quill address, you will be taken to the Magic Quill.

The Magic Quill will be on a 3rd party website. Do not panic when you see that you have been redirected.

I will go try the challenge myself right now (but not register), so that I can give you more information on what to do with the Magic Quill.

If you run into technical difficulties, TRY AGAIN!

Don’t have a book handy?

Here’s a good breakdown of Deathly Hallows.

If you are still unsure of the answer, you might try the last page of Chamber of Secrets forum’s Pottermore thread. Or, as the Last Muggle suggests, you can use hp_batsignal on Twitter.

Oh, and of course, there’s always the Comments thread below. Some people may just be kind enough to post the answer for you there. :)

Feel free to use the Comments thread to let us know how it is going so that we can help you troubleshoot if you run into difficulties. Comments by people new to the blog may be delayed a little bit, but I’ll work hard to release comments quickly from limbo. :)

GOOD LUCK!

Pottermore: Day 7 Hints (or… Hints for the Final Clue)

Posted by ccollinsmith on

If you don’t want to read through the Day 6 debrief or the time conversions, you can easily scroll down the page for speculation on the final clue. :)

Well, Day 6 was pretty easy.

Even though the clue was not what we predicted, it was still pretty straightforward. And it was posted early enough in the time window that we didn’t have to do a lot of refreshing.

Registration lasted about 2 hours. The Orlando Universal website seemed well prepared to handle the demand, and I didn’t hear many rumblings about significant technical difficulties.

A few people on a fan site spoke of getting the “overwhelming demand” message, but I didn’t get that today. I found it pretty easy to get through, wait for the Magic Quill to settle down into the lower left corner of the Harry Potter World promo, and then click on it.

Demand actually may be growing less. There were fewer page views and comments here than there have been during the past couple of days… as there were fewer page views and comments on the Chamber of Secrets Pottermore thread. But we’ll see in about 7 hours if there’s going to be a big final push.

So now… On to Day 7!

Day 7 Time Window

In the UK, the final clue will arrive early Saturday morning. In the Western Hemisphere, it will arrive on Friday night… i.e., on the same day that we got Clue 6.

Here (once again) is the notice from Pottermore Insider:

UPDATED: So far, all the clues have appeared in the early hours of the morning in my time zone. Will this continue for the remainder of The Magical Quill challenge?

We know that Harry Potter fans around the world are taking part in the challenge, so we will be varying the times that the clues are revealed. We can tell you that tomorrow’s clue (Day 6) will be released between 1:30pm and 4.00pm BST, and the final clue (Day 7) will be released between 12:30am and 3:00am BST on Saturday 6 August.

For your convenience, here is the current time BST.

Day 7: Here is a short time conversion for those in the US:

7:30-10:00pm (US Eastern)
6:30-9:00pm (US Central)
5:30-8:00pm (US Mountain)
4:30-7:00pm (US Pacific)

Some Possible Day 7 Clues

I think most people were expecting a question about horcruxes for the 6th book. Pottermore threw a bit of a curve by asking about number of chapters. (Maybe horcruxes was too tricky… a possibility we discussed in the Day 6 Hints comments thread).

The next book is Deathly Hallows (DH). And here are the most obvious numbers I can think of:

  • How many Hallows comprise the “Deathly Hallows”?
  • How many students lead Dumbledore’s Army in Harry’s absence?
  • How many prisoners do Harry and Ron find held in the Malfoy Manor Cellar?
  • In what chapter do we learn the truth about Severus Snape?
  • How many years after the Battle of Hogwarts (or the death of Voldemort) does the Epilogue take place?
  • Possibly too tricky: How many horcuxes do Harry and the Trio set out to find?
  • Probably too difficult: How many people are in the party that arrive to escort Harry from Privet Drive to the Burrow?

Based on today’s clue (and the fact that the Grimmauld Place clue could also be solved just by looking in the ToC), I think we may well get another Table of Contents question… and I think it would be kind of nice if it’s the Snape question I mentioned above, since his backstory is one of the biggest reveals in the series.

But if they’re doing Table of Contents, the question could just as easily focus on one of the big Dumbledore backstory chapters – such as “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore” or “King’s Cross.” Or we could get the chapter in which Ron destroys the Locket horcrux (“The Silver Doe” – which also happens to be the chapter in which Harry follows Snape’s Patronus). Actually, Pottermore could pick any one of many memorable chapters.

I think there’s a good chance, though, that our number will be the number of years to the Epilogue. The Epilogue is the final resolution. Plus, the number of Hallows just might be too easy (though that didn’t seem to stop Pottermore from asking the TriWizard question!).

If anyone else has additional suggestions for numbers to focus on, please share them in the Comments thread.

Based on the already-established pattern (7 books * number of days/chances remaining), once you have the solution to the clue, the number you will multiply by is 7… except, of course, in the extremely unlikely chance that Pottermore breaks the pattern!

For those who are still working at getting early access into Pottermore: Good luck on the Final Clue!

I do intend to live blog the Final Clue, so I’ll see you then.

Note about the Comments thread: If you’re new to the blog and have never commented before, there may be a small delay in getting your comment posted.