If Cedric had beaten Hagrid, I would have stop following the Harry Potter World Cup. So, "Congratulations," or "I'm sorry," depending on how you feel about this series of posts. I did my part in getting Hagrid to the this round. There is a limit to the number of times that you can vote. I counted my votes once, and it was eighty something. That seems like an strange limit, so I probably miscounted. After voting my limit, I would be forced into a cooling off period. Then after an amount of time that I never measured, I was able to vote many more times for Hagrid.
Some of my other favorites did not do as well. I voted for Fred over Ron, the Dark Lord over Sirius, and Dumbledore over Lupin. Last post I said that Ginny vs George would be the most difficult vote, but Dumbledore vs Lupin was nearly as tough.
I have at times questioned the seeding of this tournament, but it looks like they got it right. All four top seeds have made it to the elite eight along with two twos and two threes.
This started as a very short comment and grew and grew and grew. I've been through about three edits now, and it's 1:15 AM. For diurnal humans like me, that's pretty late, so I'm just clicking post comment now....
ReplyDeleteI haven't been following this very carefully, but I'm beyond shocked that Lupin beat DD and what is Draco doing in the sweet 16?
The idea that Malfoy even makes it to the sweet sixteen is sad to me since he's one of the very few cardboard characters in the series. He was so flat and one-dimensional for so long that I found the attempt to humanize him in six to be fairly stale and forced. It wasn't that I felt it was out of character for him, it was just that he had never had any depth before then so it felt artificial to me, and I didn't care that much about it.
Dumbledore is the second best character in the books, and I wonder if his defeat has something to do with the ill advised announcement about his sexual orientation that J.K.R. made after book 7.
I would like to see (or hear if I see you before you write it) a defense of why Lupin is better than Dumbledore. In my mind, the two aren't even in the same league. Allow me to explain this in a GRE style analogy problem.
Dumbledore is to Gandalf as Lupin is to ______.
A. Aragorn
B. Sam
C. Faramir
D. Prince Imrahil
E. Celeborn
F. Denethor
The best answer is probably C, though I think that a strong case can be made for D or E as well.
ReplyDeleteLike Faramir, Lupin's a cool character brought in to replace a cooler character who died earlier in the books and act as a miniature version of a cooler character who plays a more central role. Really, I think that the whole Order as well as the core group of death eaters does is guilty of this to some degree. They're just expendable extensions of the main good guys and bad guys. The heart of the story is Harry vs. He Who Must Not Be Named. Harry/Frodo must be accompanied by loyal friends (Ron and Hermione/Hobbits), guided by a wise mentor (Dumbledore/Gandalf), protected by a good but seemingly dangerous guardian (Early on this is Hagrid, but then becomes Sirius/Aragorn) in order to face and ultimately defeat the villain (The Dark Lord/The Dark Lord) the power of self-sacrifice and by grace given from his community. What HP does is extend and diminish those archetypal roles by bringing in minor villains and minor heroes to do the same things that main characters do but with little idiosyncrasies and sub-plots. For me, this sometimes works really really well (as with the 2nd tier Weasleys - all of whom are brilliant) and other times it felt like filler (as with the order - which felt like sort of like an excuse for a big action scene). I like that the HP world is populated by hundreds of characters some of whom are mundane and represent the small scale but really painful conflicts of everyday life (Uncle Vernon and Dudley for example or Rita Skeeter, or Umbridge) or the simple pleasures all around us (Neville, Quidditch, Mogonagall, Fred and George).
But the best character in the Harry Potter books is the one that combines these two worlds, the character who bridges the gap between modern multifaceted character and mythic icon, the character who suffers most deeply and suffers the most tragic fate, the one who sacrifices the most, who travels the furthest across his character arc, the one who embodies humanity's darkness, our petty and grand jealousies, our pride, and our capacity for deceit, but who also most poignantly displays the indefatigable power of our love, our ability to sacrifice everything - not only to die for love and goodness, but to live for them daily despite the pain, dishonor, and mental anguish such a path demands-, our capacity to forgive our enemies and to maintain a fierce loyalty toward those who have acted as friends and redeemers to us when we did not deserve them. I'm talking, of course, about Severus Snape. He should face Harry in the final, not the sweet 16, and he should win. Harry's wonderful, but we knew that all along. Snape seamlessly, believably, beautifully moves from the most significant villain in the books to its most compelling hero. If Draco makes it to the final four and he doesn't, I'll have to put this bracket in the Spider-Man 3 category and refuse to acknowledge its existence.
I think that the bracket was laid out so that either Draco or the Dark Lord would make the final four. The only other contender in their region is Sirius.
ReplyDeleteI love Lupin more than Dumbledore because I am a fan of outcasts and werewolves. I voted for Dumbledore, but I understand why others would vote for Lupin.
Also I disagree that Sirius and Boromir are cooler than Lupin and Faramir.
Wow, a comment of such magnitude definitely deserves some sort of acknowledgment, but since we talked about it live, I'm not going to say anything here.
ReplyDelete