Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I am still leaking tears...

I finished the book this morning and WOW. Powerful and sad and wonderful and heart-breaking.

The movie version of this book, which I have seen before and will be watching again in the next day or two, does not include some of what happens at the end of this book. Those things, I believe, happen in the film version of HP and the Death Hallows Part 1.

I was thinking it myself and after having read some commentary yesterday afternoon have come to the conclusion that J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, kept fan fiction and fan fiction authors in mind when writing the last of the books.

Fan fiction was a relatively new phenomenon back when the first and second books were written. It steadily gained popularity and a place in our current culture over the last ten years. And I was thinking as I was reading the previous book (HP and the Order of the Phoenix) about if I were to write a fic with a certain thing happening how would that play out...and then all of a sudden, my questions were answered in the text. I'm sure more than anything that it was coincidental, but cool none-the-less. But Rowling knew as she wrote the subsequent books how popular her characters and her world was and really gave fic writers some really wonderful gifts in the process. Mainly and namely a blank slate.

The epilogue of HP and the Deathly Hallows tells us a few things for certain, but that those things happen a certain number of years in the future. She doesn't tell us how they came to be and leaves that gap of time for fan fic writers to fill in the blanks however they so choose. A wonderful gift indeed--not to mention the characters and the world itself to play in.

3 comments:

Regina Richards said...

Just dropping in to say howdy. Isn't it wonderful to read a book that makes you feel real emotion? It is so hard to find those!

mtnchild said...

Sounds like you're thinking of jumping back on the band wagon ...

How many books are there in the whole series?

Love you
Mom

Jen FitzGerald said...

Regina, it's awesome!

Mom, there are seven books. I'll be starting the last book in a day or two. There are two movies made for the seventh book and the first half doesn't come out on DVD until 04.15, so I have a bit of time to catch my breath. The second movie comes out in July.