Also, for skeptical would-be readers: Especially early on, it’s typical to get frustrated with Harry and crew… because they’re acting like 11-year-olds. Which they are. But, again, the books have a nice way of making that work. So by the stories’ ends, some questionable behavior ends up being correct. And sometimes not.
Holy Crap, NBTR!! You are a fast reader! (Or maybe you just seem that way to me cuz I’m so slow.)
I think it’s been mentioned on a podcast at least a year ago, that Audra tends to take a while to read a book, but she totally absorbs it. I’m like that too. High comprehension, low speed.
It’s a lot easier to plan out a book series becuase it is one person writing it. A TV show has multiple people writing scripts , and creating the show. An author is a little less likely to just make up stuff ,and fix it later becuase when they make up stuff they already have the rest of the books planned, and can fix it then. Book series written by one Author usually have a pretty tight continuity. On TV, the shows writers are writing in seasons, and only have ideas of the next season (most of the time.)That is the difference between a franchise based off books compared to TV or movies.
I haven’t listened to the podcast yet but am very excited for the arc. The new movie looks very good. Harry Potter was one of the things I grew up with. The maturity of the books grew with me. Reading the seventh book was such a big event for me. The Harry Potter Series is definitely worth checking out.
TONKS was sorted into Hufflepuff. and she is Bad_ _ _ ! (sorry barb)
I don’t buy that tbh, I think JK just said it after the fact to give Hufflepuffs somebody cool. She’s totally a Gryffindor
Also the most visceral scene in any of the books, at least read by Jim Dale is Marge in the beginning of Book 2. I listened to that and I was raging so frakkin hard, read to break craaaaaap ragin.
I’m at the point in the podcast where Sean is talking about 3D chess. I’m so jealous that Sean has a 3D chess board. When I was a kid I tired really hard to figure out a way to build my own Star Trek style 3D chess board, but couldn’t manage it.
My friends and I did play 4 player chess (see below). It’s 2 black players vs. 2 white. And if you get one of the opponents Kings in checkmate the game isn’t over. The checkmated player just can’t make any moves until his teammate gets him out of checkmate.
That looks like fun!
This
baltar
Loved this podcast. Harry Potter is to date one of two books my sister has ever gotten me to read. Mom picked up the first one for her to read when all the hoopla over the release of book 4, and I disdained it for some crappy kid’s thing. And then she kept telling me about the stuff that was happening and I decided to give it a try and wow, am I glad that I did.
One of my cats is named Tonks, because he was so clumsy and my husband and I were listening to the OotP audiobook on the way to get him from a friend two hours away. Also we thought he was a girl for a month 
Roosterpfunk, give the books a try over the movies, at least for the first two. Much as I love the series, it’s all I can do to watch the first one and keep interest.
Oh, and according to that quiz, I’m apparently a Hufflepuff. Go badgers!
Here is a documentary that came out (maybe just in the UK) when Book 7 was released. A year in the life of J.K. Rowling -
If you are not familiar with her story it is well worth your time to watch these. As with most great literature there is another story that inspired it and Jo’s is one all Harry Potter fans should be familiar with.
Thanks for the video links!
The way the books are set up are pretty amazing, especially for readers who started the books as kids. You get to grow up with the characters as the books went on, and thus it made sense for the story to become more adult, more complicated, and darker, because the readers would have been growing at a similar rate as well. It’s pretty ingenious.
But I definitely do wonder at how much planning JKR took to writing them, since the resolution of the stories often include unimportant things in the past that turn out to be hugely important. It’s pretty amazing.
So, My favourite HP book is Order of the Phoenix, because it was the first time i felt as much as I did for these fictional characters, and I actually really appreciated the darkness of the book. It sets up the stakes through to the end of the series really well. Also, it was the one HP book that I gobbled up in one sitting. Perhaps that was why I was disappointed in the movie version of this book, not that it was a bad movie, because it wasn’t, but because I had a very different picture of how things went down in my head, and just too much was cut to accomodate the medium. But, if I think that now, I guess I’m not sure what to expect of the HBP movie - probably even more would be cut from my second favourite book. Purely because I LOVE Snape so much, and to this day, I don’t care much for James Potter. In fact, he might be my least favourite big character in the books - not because he was evil or anything, because there are many more despicable characters in the books, but because he is a very smart person who happens to be this gigantic sorry barb while being on the good side. He’s basically a douche. I pause now to duck for tomatoes flying in my face.
And my favourite movie (so far) is the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, because I got hooked on the books after watching this movie - it was my introduction to the HP world, and boy, I loved it!
What are yours, and why? I’d love to hear.
Uh, no, “that.”
Oh, word, what Uchiha Daisuke said. Rowling’s story is amazing. Like, if anybody deserves to have that much success and swimming pools full of money, she does.
what about Scrooge McDuck?
They really do present James Potter as an arrogant kid. Brave, but full of a youthful arrogance and a bit of a jerk to people he doesn’t particularly like.
I forget if we learn more about Mr. Potter in TDH, because I forget if we do, and the image you get after the first six books is that he grew up some, but he was still something of a self-absorbed bully at Hogwarts, and probably could have been sorted as a Slytherin quite easily.
More reviews for HBP are pretty positive, and the HBO special was pretty great, too. Can’t wait!
I was working a half day one Saturday, and after I got off at 1:00 I went over to the local theater. I don’t remember what I meant to see, but because of the timing I saw HPatSS. Never had read the books and had low expectations as I had no idea what to expect. This was an old theater, the movie had been out a while and there may have been 8 people total in the place but boy was I blown away. I immediately got the first book and it a full burn from there. It was also my first big foray with audiobooks.
As for a House, the two different quizzes had me as either a Ravenclaw or Gryfindor.
I thought Brave is the characteristics of Gryffindor…
I don’t think arrogance is a quality of Slytherin either…
My thought on that line was that he was brave in the face of Voldemort, but that was the adult he became, certainly not the petty child he was when he was in school.
Slytherin values ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness, of which James Potter had plenty.
But I often see Gryffindor and Slytherin as largely interchangeable, with only minor differences.
I haven’t finished reading the whole thread yet, but I took the quiz badger linked to and I got… HUFFLEPUFF!! Lol I came up Gryffindor in other sorting quizzes but I’m fine with this. 
I always took it as, James potter was an arrogant kid, and the fact that Harry had to be raised by his Aunt and Uncle is what taught him humility. Had he been raised by James, he might of been Slytherin and a lot like Draco. IMHO.