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[rhiannonmr]

So more of the cover art for the new HP book has been released. Interesting to see the joined hands of two wizards there. Speculation is that it may be Snape. Guess we will find out next month. I would like it to be Snape. My slashy heart would love to see my OTP become canon, but I don't think JKR will do that. Indeed I would be very surprised if any of the major characters hook up even semi-permanently in the series.

Part of me thinks that she is telling an adventure story more than a coming of age story so romantic involvements are not going to be a priority in the books. Killing Voldie and fulfilling the prophesy is where it's at for her. Exploring the delicate nuances of first love just isn't a priority for her here. God gag me now that last sentence had to be one of the more pretentious pieces of writing I ever did. I just don't think romance is the focus and any that gets chucked in will not get the attention her main story will get. That said I do wonder whose hands those are, what the ring means and who the hell is the half blood prince. Everyone is wondering that so I am not alone with it.

I wonder if Lupin will step up to the plate and actually do something for Harry. I wonder if Dumbledore will be more open with Harry about the war. I wonder if Mrs. Weasley will finally realise that her idea of keeping the kids in the dark is a bad one. I understand where she is coming from but, it almost killed them and did kill Sirius to do it that way. Like I said lots of questions and about a month til we get answers.

The death lists that came out from just about all of us last fall are waiting to be dusted off when the book comes out. I expect there will be lots of LJ entries on how it sucked that character X got killed and why wasn't it character Y. I think this time there may well be a significant death on the DE's side also. I wonder if we will ever find out what happened to Bagman and Karkaroff. Personally I think Karkaroff is dead and Bagman also. Don't know if the goblins got Bagman or if it was the DE's, but I doubt either one of them is breathing still but answers in the canon would be nice. I would also like to know if Wormtail is still hanging onto Voldie's cloak and where was he when the DoM went down? Seems like all the major bad guys were there but him and Nagini. Hmm maybe Nagini ate him in his rat form? Lovely image that and if she did I hope she got indigestion myself.

Anticipation is a bitch and yes I am in that state right now.

Comments

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

I think if it's not the HBP holding Harry's hand, it's Snape (and it would be cool if Snape were the HBP). Has anyone speculated that it might be a bad guy to die---such as Lucius? That would be interesting, and it would pit Harry and Draco against each other even more.

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

I have thought the speculation that Snape may be the half blood prince lately to be interesting myself. What surprises me is it took so long for the fandom to even speculate about it. I've seen arguments for Hagrid, various students, Dumbledore, Lupin the new character but Snape is a recent addition to the list and I wondered myself if it were him rather quietly without logic since the title was announced and JKR ruled out both Harry and Tom Riddle.

As for significant DE death? Yeah killing Lucius would ratchet the hatred between Draco and Harry, I suspect that's pretty much off the scale right now anyways since Harry put Lucius into Azkaban by Draco's lights. Right now as I see it Draco himself is at a crossroads situation. He can choose now without his father breathing down his neck. The question as I see it for him is will he got light or not. I think Narcissa may be the one who has the influence on that decision and since we know nothing of her really in canon except that she wanted him close to home, we don't know what her influence will be.

I would love as I said for the two hands shown with the fire around them to be Harry and Snape but I am not holding my breath although I rashly promised in Cordelia_V's LJ to give up caffeine in solemn honor of it if it were. I suspect my addiction is safe though.

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

I rashly promised in Cordelia_V's LJ to give up caffeine in solemn honor of it if it were.

F---forever? *meeps at thought* Hell, I have no business drinking caffeine, but I still sneak it. *meeps again*

You know, I'm very much hoping to see more of Narcissa in HBP; there is such potential there.

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

Considering that I've just about given up nicotine without much conscious thought concerning it, I think I probably could. Nah! Who am I kidding? I should own stock in Coke because of thw amt of it I put away daily, never mind weekly and Starbucks is my favorite coffee joint on the road. Quitting caffeine would be no walk in the park here at all. Damn ... anyways I don't expect to have to live up to that pledge at all. Sad but true.

[avus.livejournal.com]

"I wonder if Lupin will step up to the plate and actually do something for Harry."

As you probably realize from my story, I really hope that someone, even several someones "step up to the place", emotionally, and do something for Harry. That kid's in a hellova fix, psychologically. Damn it, some adults are really needed to, here, to act towards Harry like they were adults and like Harry was something other than the cute but indestructible Boy Who Lived.

*grumpgrumpgrumpgrumpgrump*

Enough grousing on someone else's lj.

*grins*

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

Grouse away friend, because I am with you on that. No one in the books seems to have a clue as to the impact of what has happened in his life has had on him as a person. In real life the kid would be an excellent candidate for counseling and I wish JKR would show him getting some sort of emotional support from an adult who does NOT have a vested interest in him as the superduper seekrit weapon to fulfill the prophesy. Aint gonna happen though and that makes me mad too.

[avus.livejournal.com]

That, literally, is why I wrote Getting Harry Back. I was furious after reading Book 5 -- I still haven't been able to re-read that one. Through JKR's shift, in the books, from cheerful & playful fairy tale to creating a real person in Harry (and some others), I'd come to actually care about him. I suppose it was made worse b/c I treat a lot of kids with backgrounds like Harry's, and so understood some of what it meant.

Well, as I said, I was furious at the end of Book 5. And now this is incredibly silly, b/c while I'd written acres of non-fiction, I'd never written fiction before, but I didn't trust JKR to get it right for Harry. Like sending one of my clients to an inept therapist. So by the November after Book 5 came out, I was writing away.

Again, sorry for hijacking your thread, but that bit is still sore with me. I'm actually not looking forward to Book 6. I'm kind of dreading it, and hoping it won't be too painful. *chuckles*

Part of me knows this is just a made-up character in a made-up world. But part of me knows, too, that it's a great & humane gift to in us to care, even sometimes, to care fiercely -- though that can be much more dangerous gift and needs cautious monitoring.

And so.....

May we both find happiness in Book 6, though I fear your OTP and my worry for Harry are both likely to find more irritant than balm.

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

I was infuriated at book 5 for the scene AFTER Sirius died in AD's office. HOW DARE HE GIVE HIM THE PROPHESY THEN? I was so pissed off I was just about ready to scream. The only thing that stopped me was my son was asleep in the other bedroom at the time after a hard shift doing mindless work that paid bills and I didn't want to wake him. I was upset that nothing was done for him after Cedric, never mind the home situation he had. I remember giving the precis of that to a caseworker at TX Child Protective Svcs and she flat out said in TX that child would be removed from the home and the people who didn't report it *should* feel guilty. I know I'd rather call it in and be wrong than not myself so I think society as a whole on both sides muggle and wizard have failed him seriously. And yeah it's fiction but a lot of folks read it and the idea that such treatment can occur w/out consequences is very discouraging to me.

[avus.livejournal.com]

"And yeah it's fiction but a lot of folks read it and the idea that such treatment can occur w/out consequences is very discouraging to me."

In Colorado, I'd lose my license if I didn't report it, and I should! I'm way beyond very discouraging.

You know, it's one thing, if she'd kept it at the level of cardboard characters, though even here, I'm uneasy. I was furious after Book 4, too, w/ what was not done, or even considered, when all that happened to Cedric, and then he was sent back to the Dursleys. Though you know what pissed me off the most in Book 4? Interrupting his getting a hug from Molly. That stayed with me so strongly, I've written about that in Getting Harry Back. I mean, hell's bells, the kid has never experienced a loving hug from an adult, and then it gets interrupted before it gets started. And none of them say anything but go on like it hadn't happened?

I specialize in helping kids who have been severely abused & neglected. I KNOW what that does. And to heal it, you need that touch, that holding. I'm not talking the weird restraining & crap that gets tossed around as therapy -- provoke & restrain, a version of rebirthing shit -- which I suspect does more harm than good. I'm just talking smiles, and genuine words of real concern, and loving touches -- what I did with my own son when he was frightened -- that sort of stuff.

And Book 5 -- you're absolutely right! I lost it completely twice. First, w/ Umbridge. She tries to kill him, she does torture him. And then the woman doesn't go to Askaban? (Frankly, I'm not a whole lot happier w/ Snape. If any of my clients got treated by a teacher like he treats Harry? I'd have their license, and they'd never teach again.) And I, too, went ballistic w/ what Dumbledore did, and then didn't do. Harry just goes back to the Dursleys, w/o so much as a "kiss my" from the ol' D. At least there was that bit of stand up for Harry at the end -- Tonks, Remus & Moody. But in my mind, it was way too little, way too late.

And have you noticed? Not a single damn person in all 5 books has ever told Harry that they loved him? After everything that's happened to him?

Ach, don't get me started. I'm so pissed off about all that. I DO NOT LIKE ABUSE & NEGLECT OF CHILDREN. I DO NOT LIKE IT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. I DO NOT TOLERATE IT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. AND I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE ANYTHING THAT MINIMIZES IT!

JKR minimizes it, this after making the kid real. Bluntly put: how fucking dare her!

These kids are already invisible, and every service that ever thought about protecting or helping them is getting cut left & right.

I've got an extensive beta system for Getting Harry Back, b/c I thought that writing simply but clearly about child abuse would be VERY hard for most readers to take. I was extremely nervous about several chapters, where I was the clearest.

What I've found? Those chapters were the ones where I got my most & most touching reviews -- these from people who have, themselves, experienced similar abuse.

This notion that somehow we need to make nice about what abuse really means is total horseshit. These people need clear & realistic voices in storytelling. And they're not going to get it from JKR.

*fumes* *small mushroom cloud visible over Pikes Peak*

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

I have had several jobs in the past where if I didn't report such neglect I woulda been canned and rightly so. I've worked in the same bldgs as CPS in the past. The agency was part of DHS at one time then got spun off for some reason. JKR minimises it and it does hack me off that she does that. Umbridge was just one more nail in the WW's coffin as far as I am concerned. Any gvt that corrupt deserves all the Dark Lord problems they get. The idea that a *child* is the one who has to take on the Big Bad and defeat him is infuriating. I almost abandoned the series after reading the prophesy, but I've invested in it so I will read it out, but I know it will still piss me off. This is a world that tolerates the worst sort of narrow mindedness and bigotry and does nothing to try and improve or change. I am hoping the last two books improve things but I suspect that all the *Light* side is fighting for is the status quo. I suspect AD is right when he says wizardkind has much to answer for. The question I have is will they?

I like Snape but yeah if my child was in his classroom when he acts like such a sadist I would be seriously calling for his termination. And doing as much as I could to get him fired. I doubt he is that bad with other classes but his behavior towards Harry is inexcusable and he could benefit froma counselor also to deal with his issues.

Aside from Harry the idea that 11yr old kids are evil based on the selection of a ratty old hat, well you can imagine how I feel there. I liked the first books and now I want to know the rest but I still get hacked off at the neglect and outright corruption of the WW.

[avus.livejournal.com]

Your feelings about the series are fairly similar to mine. I, too, have problems w/ the Sorting Hat, and I've been pleased that several fanfics have rearranged that hat considerably.

Children having to defeat evil is anathema. I already have enough problems knowing that most of the soldiers in Iraq are late teens and early 20's. I wish there were a way that old men like me & ol' W would be forced to go instead.

"Umbridge was just one more nail in the WW's coffin as far as I am concerned. Any gvt that corrupt deserves all the Dark Lord problems they get."

Unfortunately, most of those who suffer during war aren't soliders, but old men, women & children, especially children. So while the gov't of the WW may deserve that -- god knows what our gov't deserves -- it would be those most vulnerable who would pay.

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

I was on a tear yesterday when I wrote this. I DO understand Molly Weasley's feelings about sheltering the children from the sheer ugliness of what's to come.

I have children the "right" age for Iraq and I know I am one the parent's the military recruiters hate. When the No Child Left Behind thing hit I made sure that our information was not accessable. My feeling at the time was if they wanted my kids they were going to have to work for it. My children have friends in Iraq and know some who've been killed or wounded there. And both of them are very aware that I am really against this war. Their father was in during the first Gulf War and they knew then we did not support that one either. Oddly enough my ex was pretty senior in the NCO ranks at the time and he volunteered to go on more than one occasion because he had the training the young ones did not. He felt and I understood his thoughts at the time, he had a better chance of keeping his people alive than others we knew who went.

The WW's gvt is corrupt but in all honesty reading about how gullible the populace is of that world I wonder if they even know how to think critically. Heinlein said once we get the government we deserve and they got that. I can see how Tom Riddle went to the bad the more we learn about that world in the books and while his pure blood supremacy thing is repugnant as hell, I could understand someone wanting it to change. What I don't understand is why so many there are sheep.

Yes the kids will suffer. We've already seen a truncated generation ahead of them. I am thinking the majority of casualties in the last one was that generation. I suspect the Grindelwald generation was hit hard too. I wonder just how long it will be before that world is no longer viable.

[jenocclumency.livejournal.com]

I always love your speculative HP entries. So interesting.

The joined hands -- Hmmmmm. It just seems like JKR is putting so much emphasis(through sorting hat songs, Dumbledore's words, statue in the Ministry lobby, and SPEW, etc) on wizards of different houses, different backgrounds, and even house-elves, centaurs, giants, and other intelligent beasts putting aside their differences and cooperating. It's being loudly shouted from the pages of canon that all four houses must eventually work together...or that's the point I'm seeing. I see the hand-holding as a symbol of that necessary cooperation. So my first thought was that the linked-hands represented that. As for the owners of those hands/arms...hmmm. Snape fits.

Since one arm/hand looks much older than the other arm/hand...I think the smaller one is clearly Harry.

I've read so much speculation that the hands belong to the HBP and Harry. That seems likely, but I sure wish we knew who the HBP was. (I'm betting that the HBP will be a new character, previously unintroduced).

I think that it could also be Dumbledore's hand with Harry's.

What I want to know is: what's with the cool magic stuff surrounding the clenched hands?

As for my "slashy heart," I'm one of the rare folks who'd like Harry to end up with Ron. I just don't understand why any pairing involving Ron seems to be so unpopular!
As for Snape, he belongs with me, damn it!

And thanks for reminding me -- I need to post another death-list prediction soon about which character(s) will die!

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

I am of the opinion here that Ron is hopelessly heterosexual and will end up with Hermione or another girl, Luna comes to mind also there. Because of the color of the robes there I do not see that hand as AD's, but yes I could be wrong and I know it. Now I would love it to be Snape and I wouldnt't care if it weren't slashy either. Snape mentoring Harry is a subgenre of the fandom that I like also. And yeah she's made the point as of book 5 that all 4 houses need to work together and I hope she advances that in the next two. I have a real problem with the alienation of Slytherin based on the belief that at age 11 a child can be judged evil. Evil is a learned behavior in most cases. To think 11 yr olds are evil based on the Hat's sorting is just plain wrong IMHO.

The Death Lists will be out again. Having posted 2 that I remember I need to find them and think on them again. I know the *smart* money says Dumbledore. But, I will be very unhappy if he kickes off without acknowledging HIS choices had an impact on everyone else around him.