fawkeshermione

"I understand that a lot of you are young, but if you think that gay = pedophile then you need some serious educating. Most pedophiles are hetero. I'm really appalled that in 2007, people don't know enough to realize that a person's sexuality doesn't mean a thing in regard to who they are as a person. I know this is fiction, but how we react to fictional characters is often reflective of how we react to real people. Those of you who are saying this changes everything about how you feel about the character and cracking jokes about him having inappropriate feelings for Harry should just line up with the intolerant Laura Mallorys of the world. You're no better than she is"

"The fact that he's gay shouldn't have anything to do with the story being read to young children. Seeing as she never mentions once in any of the books what his sexuality is you wouldn't ever need to tell younger kids until they're older and can understand those sorts of things. So what is the big deal? Jo is an author who has clearly made some very well developed characters and isn't afraid to set limits just to please people with certain beliefs and I applaud her for that."

from the comments section on Mugglenet.com

I really don't need to say anything else.

~fawkeshermione

I've said enough about this blog revealing Deathly Hallows spoilers.

----

O.K., so I wake up this morning and hop on the computer, heading over to Mugglenet. It's there I read the news. Dumbledore is gay.

Now, let me first say - I have no problem with this news. It actually explains alot - J.K. Rowling says that's why Dumbledore was 'blinded' to what Grindelwald really wanted.

Dumbledore has not changed for me. I've always thought he was abolutely brilliant and I still think he is. My favorite quote is still "thick, woolen socks" and he is still one of my favorite characters.

Therefore, I hate the fact that people are now going to start making fun of that fact. Is it really that big a deal? Seriously, why does it matter if Dumbledore is gay or straight? Why sould that change people's opinions of him? I would think it's incredibly sad if somebody who loved Dumbledore suddenly changed their mind about his - all because it turns out he was gay. WHY DOES IT MATTER?

What hurts me the most is the fact that I have a friend who is opposed to gays. Two, actually. And when they here this news - I don't know what they will think about Harry Potter anymore. And it is actually making me almost cry that somebody would throw away something they had grown up with, such an amazing piece of literature, all because one of the characters is/was gay.

My second issue - I'm begging you people, all my fellow HP fans, to SHOW SOME MATURITY. Oh, ha ha, Dumbledore is gay - is it really that funny? In my opinion - no.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I don't give a monkey's rear end if Dumbledore is gay or not.

~fawkeshermione

O.K., so before I start - once again - if you have not read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, PLEASE read no further! THIS BLOG CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS!!! So if you do not want to be spoiled, GO AWAY! (sorry, not trying to be mean there)

For those of us who loved Sirius, *ahem, yours truly* the image is still fresh in our minds . The image of Sirius Black, falling backwards with a fading laugh upon his face and then dissapearing behind a crubling archway, shrouded by a veil.

The Veil. It is one of the most mysterious images in the books. Harry and Luna, of the group that fought in the Department of Mysteries, were the only ones who heard the whispering, the unknown voices echoing from behind said veil. Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood were the only ones out of that group that had lost love ones. (a sidenote here - Neville's parents didn't die - they're alive but insane). Not only is this one of the most mysterious images in the books, it is one of the most moving. The veil teaches lessons about life and death, love and loss.

So what bothered me was - in the aftermath of Book 7's release - the amount of people who were annoyed at the fact that the veil didn't make a reappearance in Deathly Hallows.

Why am I bothered? Well, I'm annoyed that other people are annoyed at J.K. Rowling for not putting the veil back in. The thing is, we don't need to see the veil again. In my opinion, it would have taken away from the beauty and mystery of the veil had Jo given us a straight out explanation of what exactly the veil was and what it did.

Anyways, it's not as if Jo didn't give us any explanation at all about the Veil. At the end of Order of the Pheonix, Harry speaks with Luna after searching relentlessly for away to speak to his dead godfather. As they are discussing Luna's dead mother, she says the following:

"...it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it? You heard them, just beyond the veil..."

Though Luna does have her spacey moments, she is a far deeper character than anyone would expect. This line proves that. It also gives us a hint about where Harry's loved ones may be - just behind the Veil in the Department of Mysteries.

J.K. Rowling gives us more than one explanation of the Veil, though. As Hermione is reading aloud The Tale of Three Brothers, she reads about the second brother, who possessed the Ressurection Stone:

"...he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand...the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry, before her untimely death, appeared at once before him...yet she was sad and cold, seperated from him as if by a VEIL."

For me, that pretty much sums it up. That quote is the one that really causes me to believe that the dead really do dwell somewhere beyond the Veil. However, if you want another explanantion, there is a quote from the part in The Forest Again when Harry - using the Ressurection Stone - finally is able to see James, Lily, Sirius and Lupin: "...They were neither ghost nor truly flesh, he could see that...less substaintial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts..."

This description matches up pretty well with the description of the second brother's lover, which really causes me to believe that Harry's loved ones came back from somewhere beyond the Veil.

Now, don't get me wrong. I could be completely incorrect about where Harry's loved ones came back from. But what I'm trying to prove here is that having the Veil reappear in the seventh book is really not nessecary. J.K. Rowling gives us wonderful hints and explanations, but I think she is really leaving this open for her readers - us - to make up our own minds on.

In fact, Jo even said this in an online webchat after the release of Deathly Hallows:
Elisabeth: In the chapter of kings cross, are they behind the veil or in some world between the real world and the veil?
J.K. Rowling: You can make up your own mind on this, but I think that Harry entered a kind of limbo between life and death.

You can make up your own mind on this. You should make up your own mind on this. I just don't want people comlaining that Jo didn't put something in Deathly Hallows that is really not needed.

~fawkeshermione

Check out my poem about the Veil at Mugglenet Fanfiction. Use the link below:
http://www.fanfiction.mugglenet.com/viewstory.php?sid=69570

Hello, my fellow Harry Potter fans!

This is just a quick little update - but if you will notice - my last entry was about the epigraph in Book 7. Well, in an article discussing Harry Potter and Christianity, our hero Jo said the following about the epigraph:

"I really enjoyed choosing those two quotations because one is pagan, of course, and one is from a Christian tradition," Rowling said of their inclusion. "I'd known it was going to be those two passages since 'Chamber' was published. I always knew [that] if I could use them at the beginning of book seven then I'd cued up the ending perfectly. If they were relevant, then I went where I needed to go. 

"They just say it all to me, they really do," she added. 

The thing that really got me was that last quote from Jo, because that's exactly what I said in my last entry - those two poems really do just say everything about Harry for alot of people, myself (and Jo!) included.

Anyways, that was just a quick little sidenote I thought I'd post. 

~ fawkeshermione

 

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't read my first post, you should know that this journal/blog is ALL ABOUT THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. So if you haven't read the seventh Harry Potter book yet, read no further!!! Please, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction before it is too late - I don't want to ruin this spectacular series for you.

So, the first thing I'm writing about here is the epigraph in Deathly Hallows. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, the epigraph consists of the two poems at the beggining of the book. Deathly Hallows is the only Harry Potter book with an epigraph, and I don't know about you, but I thought it was absolutely beautiful how Jo put those poems in. It added to the sorrow, mystery and -again- beauty of the book, not to mention the entire series.
The first part of the epigraph is a poem by Aeschylus, an ancient Greek playwright.

Oh, the torment bred in the race,
the grinding scream of death
the stroke that hits the vein,
the haemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,
the curse no man can bear.

But there is a cure in the house
and not outside it, no,
not from others but from them, their bloody strife.
We sing to you, dark gods beneath the earth.

Now hear, you blissful powers underground -
answer the call, send help.
Bless the children,
give them Triumph now.

Allright, so the first part of his poem is a little gory - "haemorrhage" is a word that means 'blood', and the first several lines are basically talking of death, bloodshed, and grief. But if you think about it, this really does match up with the war against Voldemort; there is certainly alot of blood shed in battle and, as we witnessed in the seventh book, many deaths. However, death is basically one of the main focal points of the entire series: the Harry Potter books teach us unforgettable lessons about death.
The last lines, however, are what really got me. "Now hear, you blissful powers underground - answer the call, send help. Bless the children, give them triumph now."
As we all know, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Colin Creevy, and countless others are mere adolescents; yet they are fighting together against the most evil force in the Wizarding world. There last few lines add a touch of hope to the darkness of both the book and the poem.
My favorite part of the epigraph, however, is the second piece of literature: the quote from "More Fruits of Solitude" by William Penn.

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

If this does not sum up the main lesson taught by the Harry Potter books, I honestly don't know what else can. This paragraph by Penn is basically saying that even though friends and family move far away or die, they live in us forever. He (William Penn) is telling us that friendship never really dies. Though Harry has lost his mother, father, godfather, mentor, and countless friends, they are always with him; they live in him.
Aeschylus and William Penn created these beautifull pieces of writing, and J.K. Rowling make her novels match up perfectly with their meaning. They create a simply amazing epigraph to the book and remind us before the story even begins how much stronger love and friendship, courage and loyalty are than death.