Harry Potter Time!

[rockinhamburger]

There once was a sixth grade classroom. The teacher, Mr Riley, liked to read out loud to us from the books in our classroom library. That classroom library was my first real library; I explored it from top to bottom. Mr Riley read aloud from The Great Gilly Hopkins, And Then There Were None, Maniac Magee, and many more.

One day, during the second half of the year, three copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone appeared on the Mr Riley's desk. Anae, one of my best friends, said it was a great book and I should try reading it. I told her I'd think about it, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't read it, because I thought Harry Potter looked and sounded super lame. The irony is hilarious to me.

And then Mr Riley announced he would be reading aloud from, what else, Harry Potter. I internally groaned. This was gonna be so boring!

Well, as they teacher began to read, some of the classmates I sat near made unrelenting fun of the book whenever they could get away with a whispered comment. I chuckled and smirked along with them until we got to the second chapter and Harry made the glass from the snake's display case vanish into thin air. That did sound... mildly interesting. But only mildly!

And then all Harry's Hogwarts letters started coming, one by one at first, and then hundreds of them, and I could no longer pretend I wasn't completely intrigued. When Hagrid arrived in the shack on the rock in the middle of that stormy sea in all his friendly giant glory, I knew I was a goner. Within a few days I couldn't stand waiting until the next time Mr Riley read aloud to us, so I sneaked one of the extra copies into my backpack and finished it over the weekend.

I've been a Harry Potter fan ever since.

I could go on and on about my numerous and various Harry adventures. I could tell you all about the first time I ventured into the online Harry Potter world, wherein I discovered Fanfiction.net, and the very first story I clicked on happened to be a Remus/Sirius slash story. (Was my slash destiny written in the stars or what!?)

I could tell you about my ridiculous obsession with Harry as a character. You know how he's Dumbledore's man through and through? Well, I'm Harry's man through and through, to the end. I adore him. I am deeply in love with him.

But I digress. The reason for this post is not to ramble on about my Harry Potter love (though clearly I have done so), because since finishing the seventh book I haven't been as enamoured as I once was. That has now changed.

It all started with a certain blogger (http://markreadsharrypotter.buzznet.com) who started out in his blog career by reading every chapter of the Twilight series and tearing it a new asshole. This single-handedly solidified my utter respect for the man, but my adoration of him has now been sealed. Since finishing the Twilight series he has moved onto better things (but let's face it; almost anything would be better than Twilight). He is currently about to finish Half-Blood Prince. And you know what? I'd say he's single-handedly responsible for reanimating my obsession with all things Harry Potter. Watching him read the Harry Potter series chapter-by-chapter is like watching my own journey all over again. It's nice to see someone else discover how mind-meltingly OUT OF THIS WORLD Harry Potter really is, and how brilliant the author of this phenomenal series truly is. I am Jo Rowling's man through and through.

So. From here on out I will post occasionally about my reanimated obsession, which starts with



HAVE YOU SEEN IT YET!?

GUYS. GUYS. THIS IS THE MOVIE US HARRY POTTER FANS HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR. I CAN FEEL IT.

If you're a Harry Potter fan, I want you to do something. Go to YouTube. Look up the very first Harry Potter trailer. Watch it. Pay close attention to how COMPLETELY INNOCENT AND ADORABLE THIS TRAILER IS. What are the conflicts in this movie? Harry finds out he's a wizard; he enters the Wizarding World (of Awesome). He learns how to fly a broom. Hagrid says something PARAMOUNT: "I want you to understand something, Harry, 'cause it's very important: not all wizards are good." Oh man. How is this film marketed? What does the trailer say about the movie you're going to watch?

Now, if you please, look up the trailer for Deathly Hallows. Make sure it's the one that's 2 minutes, 27 seconds. Watch it. Pay close attention to how COMPLETELY GROWN-UP AND TERRIFYING THIS TRAILER IS. What are the conflicts in this movie? Harry has set out to destroy Voldemort once and for all, and the SHIT that awaits him at every turn is going to be NOTHING LIKE the stuff he faced in the first movie. That was only a small taste of what's coming in this installment of Harry Potter. Look at the difference between how that first film was marketed, and how this one is. Doesn't it send shiver down your spine?

When we first met Harry he was eleven years old. Neglected and abused in a place that could never be called home, he found a magical world that seemed like the very opposite of everything he'd ever known. It seemed warm and friendly and downright magical in more than the obvious ways. But he finds out RIGHT AWAY that this new world isn't really any better than the world he knew before. Sure, there are great and wonderful things, but there are also evils in this world that are more terrifying and real than he could have imagined.

Deathly Hallows is what it's all about. You can feel it, can't you? You can feel how this movie's going to be different than the others. The other movies were all right; they couldn't possibly be the stories we know because there just wasn't enough time. This is the one we've been waiting for, as fans of the books.

I CANNOT FUCKING WAIT TO SEE THIS MOVIE! I haven't been this excited about a Harry Potter movie since that very first trailer for SS/PS appeared on the internet. It's gonna be, as the trailer so aptly says, an EPIC FINALE. *keyboardsmash*

What do you think about all this? Are you as psyched about Deathly Hallows as I am? How do you feel about the series?

TELL ME YOUR HARRY POTTER TALES!

Comments

[joospjos.livejournal.com]

It's like you read my mind. :O
The reason I started reading HP was because my teacher read it out loud to us during class, and then I was stuck. After reading the second one, I waited for the third, and after the third I didn't have the patience to wait for the forth book to be released in Swedish, so I started reading them in English instead (which my dad claims is why I learned it so quickly). I don't remember the first fanfic I read, but I remember loosing my innocence after reading that god-awful Harry/James necrophiliac fic at the tender age of 14 D:
My obsession has watered down a bit since the last book, but I've been meaning to read them all again before the movie comes out.

[slash-solace.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know what a Harry Potter was until I was about 19 and my brother-in-law's wife insisted that I borrow the first 4 books and read them as soon as possible. I'm pretty sure I thought the same as you..that they sounded lame and boring. But after reading them they were probably the most amazing books I'd ever read. I've read GoF about 5 times already and I can never get tired of it.

The movies I didn't like as much as the books. I can barely tolerate them at all actually. They never lived up to my imaginings of the books. Not until recently and HBP came out that I even liked one of the movies. Now I'm more excited for Deathly Hallows.