Last battle of Harry Potter and Hogwarts

Here.

Update 4/29: More discussion.

J. K. Rowling acknowledges the support structure

That saved her when she was a desperately poor single mother. And she'll never vote Tory even though she's now one of the richest people in Britain:

But wait, some will say. Given that you have long since left single parenthood for marriage and a nuclear family; given that you are now so far from a life dependent on benefits that Private Eye habitually refers to you as Rowlinginnit, why do you care? Surely, nowadays, you are a natural Tory voter?

No, I’m afraid not. The 2010 election campaign, more than any other, has underscored the continuing gulf between Tory values and my own. It is not only that the renewed marginalisation of the single, the divorced and the widowed brings back very bad memories. There has also been the revelation, after ten years of prevarication on the subject, that Lord Ashcroft, deputy chairman of the Conservatives, is non-domiciled for tax purposes.

Now, I never, ever, expected to find myself in a position where I could understand, from personal experience, the choices and temptations open to a man as rich as Lord Ashcroft. The fact remains that the first time I ever met my recently retired accountant, he put it to me point-blank: would I organise my money around my life, or my life around my money? If the latter, it was time to relocate to Ireland, Monaco, or possibly Belize.

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug.

Child poverty remains a shameful problem in this country, but it will never be solved by throwing millions of pounds of tax breaks at couples who have no children at all. David Cameron tells us that the Conservatives have changed, that they are no longer the “nasty party”, that he wants the UK to be “one of the most family-friendly nations in Europe”, but I, for one, am not buying it. He has repackaged a policy that made desperate lives worse when his party was last in power, and is trying to sell it as something new. I’ve never voted Tory before ... and they keep on reminding me why.

I read the news today

Oh boy...

Justice for Sale. (Bill Moyers talks about the perversion of our judicial system, from small courtrooms to the Supreme Court.)

Rowling’s being sued for plagiarism again. (Apparently every thought she ever had is owned exclusively by weird self-published authors lurking in basements...)

Your Worst Nightmare; Conservative Success (Reminding conservatives that Georgie Bush did exactly what Republicans have been dreaming about for years... observe the wreckage.)

The NYT's mystery Op-Ed writer. (Glenn Greenwald puzzles over the bloodthirsty Op-Ed writer.)

Santorum Suggest Military Was 'Indoctrinated' Into Supporting DADT Repeal. (Because if we accept gays into the military and lose the fear of the gay, there goes most of Santorum's platform to run for president...)

Schwarzenegger says Obama's stimulus created jobs. (Ahnold steps outta line... clearly he's been too Hollywooded to be a real Republican. This headline demands this short skit. I can't stand the Gropenator, but this made me laugh.)

Expelliarmus!

Latimer writes that administration officials objected to giving author J.K. Rowling the Presidential Medal of Freedom because her writing “encouraged witchcraft” (p. 201):

This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged withcraft.

Strange that she didn't hex the Bush administration to failure and contempt.....

oh.



Rowlings clearly has done the Imperius Curse on some of her fans, though. They feel no shame...

Apparently J. K. Rowling is a witch

Because she writes about wizards and witches and stuff so she must be one and it must be evil because witches are evildoers and must be burned or drowned or something....

Discussions found on the threads on Amazon discussing the sale of Rowling's The Tales of Beetle the Bard:

Gary Oates says:

Not that I have anything aganist witches, but I think now its fairly obvious that Rowling and her writings seem to be favoring a certain sect of paganism where she cleverly hides her beliefs and practices in a story where everyone can have a witchy, magical good time. There are several books that back me up available on this website stating that the Harry Potter books encourages kids to take an interest in witchcraft and a few even raises the possibility of real white magik spells in the Harry Potter books. The skull on this auctioned book and the drawings of several paganistic objects associated with witchcraft (including wizardry) only makes it more obvious. Just making a point to those who are confused about this whole issue... By the way, what is the difference between white and black magik when the power behind the both kinds of magik and their spells come from the same source?

I wonder what it feels like to be so benighted....

Oh, the knickers that are getting in a twist

Via Chet Scoville of The Vanity Press.

Love it! Thanks for your humor and your epic saga, J. K. Rowling!

Update: Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof has some choice words on the matter:

Rail on, supercilious twits. Your rants and outrage only point out how ridiculous and ignorant you are and prove once again that your predilection for focusing on irrelevancy pretty much confirms that you have no earthly business as literary critics or social commentators. And in an ironic way, making a big deal out of Dumbledore's sexual orientation will only sell more books.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Harry Potter series has already served as an allegory for misunderstood and demonized people -- witches and wizards -- and it's not too far a stretch to make the connection to the gay community. In Rowling's world, the wizarding community has to live apart, they have their own language and traditions, and they do all they can to conceal their true selves as they move through the Muggle world. As the story is told through the point of view of a teenager, the additional layer of adolescent angst and hormones makes it even more allegorical, and I daresay that there are probably legions of young readers who are already coming to terms with their own identity -- sexual or otherwise, gay or straight -- who felt an affinity towards Harry Potter as an outcast based on nothing more than who he was by birth and yet the rest of the non-magical world cannot accept him. The fact that "the gay character" in the story is Dumbledore and not one of Harry's contemporaries -- Ron or Neville, for example -- is understandable; these kids already have enough to worry about as teenage wizards. It also makes it clear that a gay man such as a teacher can be a mentor and a friend without any of the lurid overtones of pedophilia that is never far from the fevered imaginings of the Christian conservatives and their perpetual adolescent fixation with sex.

I have news for them: there is more -- much more -- to being gay than the basic matter of attraction, sexual or otherwise, to someone of your own gender. The fact that the fundies cannot get beyond that says a lot more about their hang-ups than it does about anything else.

Update 10/24:
Bill O'Reilly galumps up to put his two cents in:

On his Fox News show last night, Bill O’Reilly joined in the fray, asking if Dumbledore’s outing was part of the “gay agenda” of “indoctrination” of “children.” O’Reilly claimed that by dropping “the gay bomb,” Rowling is a “provocateur” who is “going to let all hell break loose”

Uh... right, Billo. Just what hell is that? Does it involve falafels, loofahs, phone sex and a huge mega-million dollar settlement? That kind of provocateur?

Update 10/25: Paul Croft's two foot tattoo of Dumbledore is a teasing point with his workmates, but Paul says:

“The tattoo is about 2ft in length and shows Dumbledore played by Richard Harris – who was the original and best.”

He insisted: “I don’t regret it and I’m not going to get rid of it.”

Way to go, Paul! How about acknowledging that Dumbledore is one hell of a cool wizard, you guys?

Horrible hunch for last Harry Potter

I do hope Lance Mannion is wrong:

To me, it seemed as if Rowling had lost focus and she'd lost focus because she'd lost interest.

She didn't seem to care anymore what happened to Harry in the end, so she stuck with what was happening to him in the immediate present, which turned out to be nothing but a lot of adolescent angst.

A worse sign was the way she threw away the death of one of her secondary heroes.

The big battle sequence is as confusing and cluttered and as seemingly pointless---in that neither side appears to have a strategy---as the battle between the Ewoks and the stormtroopers on Endor in Return of the Jedi, and the way Rowling handled the death of his hero was as if George Lucas had decided to kill off Han Solo but did it in a cutaway shot between the scene of Luke on the Death Star and Lando in the Millennium Falcon.

She got things back on track with the Half-Blood Prince, but that's what that book seemed to be about---regaining control and setting the stage for the final installment. There's a perfunctory quality to it, which isn't just disappointing, it's strange, considering which main character she kills off in it.

Rowling may have been saving it all up for the end, but the impression I've had for the last three books is that she's been losing more and more of her steam. And now I suspect that the final book is going to be a big letdown.

Last Harry Potter book has a title.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.