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Monday, July 16, 2007

I'm very torn between wanting to buy the final installment of the Harry Potter series when it comes out or waiting till it comes out in paperback because all the books I have are in paperback. All my Harry Potter books are the UK paperback children's version of the novels. One of these days, I'd like to read the American version of the novels to see if there's a huge difference.

If I buy the hardback version, then the book will really out of place sitting on the book shelf next to its paperback brethren. But, darn, darn, I am dying to read what happens at the end. I am one of those readers who always reads the ending of the book before I've finished reading. I absolutely hate the suspense of not knowing what's going to happen at the end. It doesn't bother me the slightest bit that I know the ending, I mean who cares. What's fun for me is seeing how the author achieved the ending and whether the ending makes sense given everything that's come before.

I still hate the ending of "Cold Mountain". I don't say that about very many stories. The ending makes perfect sense and the story couldn't have ended any other way, but I hate that the characters don't get together.

Speaking of sad endings, Philip Pullman's books starting with The Golden Compass is being made into a movie. Talka about another novel series where the ending made me cry so much. It was very, very poignant and I was surprised that it stirred that much emotion in me. I'm not sure I'd want to see that ending on the big screen. It would be too painful.

Okay, back to Harry Potter. Here's who I think will die in the final novel.
Valdemort, Snape, Hermoine, Ron, Sirius Black and his brother again because they will come back to life somehow but will be killed defending Harry. I also think Lucius and his son Draco Malfoy will die, but it will be sad for Draco because he was more of a coward than an evil person.

Monday, July 09, 2007

They had a Harry Potter movie marathon over the weekend and I got really interested in the books again after watching the movies, so I read The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince last night. JK Rowling is a brilliant plot writer. I love all the story lines are being tied up.

I watched an interview she did on some BBC program where she said she cried after she wrote one chapter, and I think she cried about Snapes dying. I think it's obvious that Snapes has to die. I think RAB has to be Sirius Black's brother. I mean why bother to mention the man twice and not have him show up somewhere. I'm speculating that Sirius comes back from the dead with his brother and they both help Harry to defeat Valdemort, but then they both go back to where ever they came from. They could even come back with Dumbledore, who went out without much of a fight, like Obewon Kanobi in Star Wars.

JK Rowling said that the colour of Harry's eyes and the fact that he has his mother's eyes is an important plot point. My speculation is that Voldemort will either make Harry look like him or make himself look like Harry, and that the only way to tell them apart and kill one of them would be by the eye colour.

I don't like to think of Harry dying, but after The Order of the Phoenix I was getting the feeling that he might. There's too much talk about dying nobly for one cause and going into a fight with your eyes open. But he might not, I just got a feeling that he might have to die to make his character arc make sense.

I'm also thinking that Hermoine and Ron might die to protect Harry, which would be just like his parents. There are paralells between Hermoine and Ron's relationship and his parents. Ron is a pure blood just like Harry's father, and Hermoine is muggle born like Harry's mother. Harry's mother hated Harry's father when they first met, but got together their last year at school. I think before Hermoine and Ron die that they will get together and realize they love each other.

Poor Harry Potter. I hope this Ron/Hermoine scenario doesn't true but Harry seems to have a lot of anger and revenge feelings about this parents' murder right now, which is making him very dark. I can't help but think of Luke Skywalker who had to give up his anger and hatred before he became a full Jedi. One way for a person to give up their anger is to reexperience the tragedy which caused the anger, only under different circumstances. Maybe Harry has to live through his family, because Ron and Hermoine are his chosen family, dying again to realize the futility of revenge and anger.

I can see Harry becoming Headmaster at Hogwarts, and him marrying Ginny, who would be like Minerva McGonagall. There are some nice parallels there. I read somewhere that Dumbledore was too isolated. Dumbledore told Harry that witches and wizards do not understand the mystery of the human heart, which explains their seeming cruelty. Even Harry's own father was quite cruel when he was a teenager. But love changed him, and for the change to be complete in the witch and wizard worlds, there has to be a leader who has both the wizard/witch gifts and the gift of a human heart which can love and make unexplainable sacrifices.

Wizards and witches really hates muggles, but what if witches and wizards helped muggles with their issues. It's odd that muggles and witches and wizards live in such parallel existence with each other, when it would be much better for the world if they could somehow work together.

It's what people are saying the "revolution" is all about; that there is a spiritual awakening going on with the countdown to 2012. People are realizing their true potential, their true powers which they have learn to use because things are supposedly going to come completely apart at 2012.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

I'm at the Alameda County Fair watching Peter Noonan and Herman's Hermits with my friend K. I'm sure my real mom loved this band.
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There's a line in the movie "Queen of the Damned", where Lestat says something like - in LA which feeds on the beauty of youth I didn't eve cause a ripple.

I'm at a seminar at the Beverly Garland hotel in North Hollywood, and I think I finally get the differences between LA and San Francisco. Nothing causes a ripple in LA. It's too big, there are too many people, and everyone who lines here is too jaded and too cynical to care.

San Francisco is for all its big city talk is still a small town. I don't think in Los Angeles it would make the front page of the LA Times if the mayor was accused of doing cocaine.

Los Angeles' jadedness is calling me, just like NYC's anonymity called to me in high school. I like that LA is warm and I love that if I lived here I could disappear and do my own thing and not draw too much attention to myself. I can't really disappear in SF; I've lived there for too long and I'm always running into people I know.
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