This week we wrap up our first Harry Potter arc with discussion of the newly-released Half-Blood Prince. Highlights: we decide that Draco is small-E-evil, note that Bellatrix is absolutely insane, discuss Harry’s actions at the critical moment (and their difference from the book), question whether Dumbledore could have controlled the situation sans Snape’s vow, marvel at how the Death Eaters’ destruction of Olivanders will affect the wizard world for years to come, get seriously pissed when the burrow burns, enjoy seeing our favorite characters grow up (and hook up), note how relationships are every bit as important as saving the world (to a 16-year-old), have a great time listening to musical guest Swish & Flick, and take more great listener calls.
Ha-HA! First post!
One thing I forgot to mention in the 'cast is how cool the little subtle visuals were in the Muggle world, like the subway posters that have the word “Magic” in their ad copy, and we see Dumbledore and Harry standing on either side of this word in the background- very cool.
The background ads were a nice touch. Visually, this movie was stunning. Storywise, it was a bit… lacking. My wife thinks the teen romantic comedy wasn’t integrated well and that this movie really requires one to have read the book.
Audra, nice avatar!
Just finished listening to 175 - great podcast. I’m so glad Swish and Flick was able to make it onto the episode - they are my favorite Wrock band! Here’s the myspace link:
Swish and Flick
I could date someone from the HP universe, it would have to be Draco Malfoy - how HOT was he in that scene in the bathroom where his face and a bit of his hair was wet! <swoon> But if he was not available, i would take one of the Weasley twins…or both if i could manage it! hehehe.
In my call about Dumbledore’s Army and liquid luck - what i meant was that since Harry drank the entire bottle of Felix Felicis, the Army couldn’t drink it when they had the show down with the Death Eaters at the end of book 6 - which ends up giving them the edge they need to survive the battle. As soon as we saw Harry chug that potion down, we knew the battle scene had been chopped. Here’s the Wikipedia blurb about it:
Felix Felicis
Felix Felicis, also called “liquid luck,” is a potion that grants whomever drinks it unusually good luck; the time span depending on how much is imbibed. It is dangerous in large quantities and banned in all sporting events. It looks like gold in fluid form. According to Horace Slughorn, side effects include giddiness and overzealousness, among other effects related to overconfidence. In Half-Blood Prince, Harry pretends to give some to Ron so that he will do well at Quidditch, and Ron’s luck turns for the better, with the confidence working as a placebo. Harry uses some of it in order to extract memories from Slughorn about Voldemort and Horcruxes, and the rest is shared between Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna Lovegood when Death Eaters break into Hogwarts and kill Dumbledore.
I’m still in the middle of the 'cast, but the discussion about the destruction of Olivander’s (sp?) wand shop really resonated for me – but not for the reason that you might think. Y’all are very perturbed about the impact of the actions of the Death Eaters in this case but seem to forget about one glaringly significant point:
They’re EVIL. All caps EVIL.
Causing destruction and devastating the magical world are fun for them. Having a negative impact on those around them is the loftiest goal to which they aspire. These are not nice people.
I’m reminded of an exchange from the series finale of Angel, during his fight with Hamilton (better known to many as the man they call Jayne):
Angel: “People who don’t care about anything will never understand the people who do.”
Marcus Hamilton: “Yeah, but we won’t care!” 
Very true, and that’s what lawyer’s, guns, and financial industry regulation reform are for. Force them to spend the vast majority of their time dealing with bureaucrats who don’t care about them either, and that limits the amount to evil they can do in a day to a manageable level.
BTW, totally get the concept of Death Eaters being EVIL. But the glaringly obvious doesn’t really make for interesting podcast discussion, does it? 
What kinda interested me (and obviously got me going on the podcast) was the concept that their evil even overrides things that affect them, too – like destroying Olivander’s. As Sean pointed out, even if the Death Eaters had won, they’d have crippled themselves for years – because Olivander’s was a critical part of supporting the wizarding world – evil and otherwise. Sean has a lot of similarly interesting thoughts about the mechanics of wizarding – interesting stuff, I think.
I thought for the death eaters, especially this second time around, while a few of them - Bellatrix, or Barty Crouch Jr, etc - were batshit crazy and evil, most were really just scared into helping Voldemort gain reign. I’d say most death eaters are selfish and cowardly, maybe to the point of evil, and they’re definitely not nice people, but, at the very least, they are people. I don’t really think their evil is anywhere near Voldemort, who’s really the only one in there devoid of any love to anyone, and thus is incapable of anything else but evil. Even Bellatrix, crazy as she is, loves the dark lord. (which doesn’t help things…:D)But Voldemort loves no one. (Given his terrible childhood and everything. But we can look at Snape, who also had a not great family and a terrible adolescence, and did turn to the dark side (at a very young age too. Wasn’t he just about 20 when that all happened?), only to turn back because of love. Did Voldemort ever have any loves in the book?) Anyway, without Voldy the leader, I wonder how many death eaters would actually be evil, instead of just some giant ass.
It’s funny to note that while Tom Riddle is a very gifted wizard who was very susceptible to the dark arts, it’s really when he began killing people to make the hocruxes that made him Voldemort. And really, it’s just him and maybe a handful of wizards who actually made hocruxes. Given the number of murderers (and battles) in our world (and for much smaller things than making hocruxes and the fate of the world) , it’s a little sad that our world is capable of so much more evil than the wizard world.
On the topic of names: It’s good that Harry was never afraid to use Voldemort’s name, but wasn’t it in the final book where in fact, saying his name caused a problem or something? I can’t remember.
I especially loved this week’s wizard rock. Awesome.
Love the podcast everyone and these discussions just bring the world of HP alive again in a different and richer way. I’d also like to chip in with my reaction to the discussion mid-cast of Olivander’s destruction and how deep in the evil pool different Deatheaters or Tom Riddle is. Maybe it’s just because I finally got to watching “The Dark Knight”, but all I could hear is Michael Caine, in perfect cockney accent, warning that “…some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
I mention this to play off of coco’s post here and support the idea that not all the Deatheaters have equal love of a burning world–some are deeper in the evil pool than others. Poor Draco seems to have wet himself before even getting into the pool…and who can blame him?
Finally, I think Sean nailed it by saying that Bellatrix is creepy hot.
Keep up the great casts guys!
Yeah I don’t remember the name of the charm on it, but they had it set so anyone who said the name was revealed somehow, under the thought that only the Order of the Phoenix people would call him by name. It got Harry Ron and Hermione caught by Fenrir Greyback.
Yeh, they put the “Trace” on the name (after they took control of the ministry) so that it would detect anyone who said the name and break all charms at that location. Just more of the cool wizard tech. Is it some big contraption in the ministry or a spell of some sort? I sure hope Jo decides to write that Hogwarts Encyclopedia.
Actually they kidnapped Olivander. So they could keep him and force him to make new wands only for Death Eaters. They might have to use the Imperious curse but it still gives them a Huge advantage.
I wanna comment on Dumbledores death. I always was under the impression that he did pull a Obi-wan. He knew he had to die and had to die at Snapes hand. He had to die so Harry could go off and fight Voldemort. Harry would have not gone off if he was still under the Dumbys protection. And Dumbledore had to make let Snape do the deed. If Draco had killed Dumbledore it would have completely pushed him over the dark side. Its says alot for Dumbledores character that he cares so much about the kids at the school that he even gives his life to prevent even the vilest kid from coming to harm. He could have easily taken down Malfoy, all the Deatheaters, and Snape, even in his weakened state.
The charm is called “taboo”, I believe, and it meant that saying the word was like using Elfstones, or putting on The One Ring, or admitting you prefer Go-Bots. People come and find you.
Really digging the 'cast; listened to most of it while doing yard work today and it kept me happy while doing something I generally loathe. I’m liking all the different wrock bands. I don’t know if the genre is for me, really, but I like that it’s explored and heard in this arc. I also like how grown up about it all Swish and Flick are.
People talk about Harry sitting still and how he could do that, but it seemed pretty obvious that Harry thought Dumbledore could trust Snape to back him up. People have said that Snape doesnt’ seem “evil” enough when making the kill, and while it’s true that he doesn’t sneer in loathing like the book, he definitely kept Harry down below while running upstairs and ultimately killing Dumbledore.
You also have to keep in mind that Dumbledore’s destruction of the first horcrux had him staring death in the face anyway, so it’s not like Dumbledore was cut down in his prime. He only had so many months to live anyway, though they never went into it in the film and his right hand never seemed as damaged as I pictured it.
A lot of people probably have complaints about the adaptation, but I want to reference Stardust, which was a fantastic little fantasy tale by Neil Gaiman that became a film as well. The book was great, but for it to flow like a movie should, the entire climax had to be redone. On Neil’s journal someone asked him about it, and he explained that an adpatation is rarely going to be too simliar to the book because, as two different mediums, they work differently. His book didn’t have a knock-down, drag-out final battle, but the movie did, and in each case, it worked out for the best.
I wasn’t disappointed by any part of the movie really, and having just re-read HBP, I feel they did a great job of winnowing the movie down to what mattered.
About Ollivanders, you have to keep in mind he’s not the ONLY wand-maker around. He’s simply the best, though Viktor Krum felt that Gregorovitch (I believe) was the premiere wand-maker, so there’s obviously a field of work that some wizards choose.
Still have a bit more to go in the 'cast, maybe half an hour, but great so far, and I’m very pleased you guys remembered the DA fight at the end of HBP. I didn’t miss it, but the book certainly had it.
PS - The Cave - You saw a picture of the cave in Riddle’s room, as Audra said, but the reason it’s important to Voldy is because it was where he took two other children from the orphanage and scared them half to death with his burgeoning magic. Like the other horcruxes, it was a trophy of his own importance.
Oh another thing. Sean…the scenes where Snape teaches Harry and Harry learns about his dad being kinda a jerk are in the Order of the Phoenix. They were still in the movie but less so.
Also found this on Swish and Flicks myspace page…Needless to say NSFW
A clarification about my call (and in my defense, it was about 3 AM :p): the movie theater was filled with teenagers. Spouse and I, in our mid-twenties (ok, we’re getting to the mid-late at this point), were about 6-7 years above the average age of the movie-goer at our midnight showing. And there was definitely some stuff going on. I’m convinced the kids behind us were drunk - I could smell the liquor on their breath. They talked about genitalia a lot before the show, too - which was amusing to us but made the older (in their 40s?) couple next to us look very uncomfortable.
Nope, The time defense doesn’t work anymore.
I’m already an old man. I told people I didn’t got o the midnight because of my kid, my job, etc., but really I just didn’t want to go to a packed theatre, wait outside for an hour, deal with overexcited children, blah blah blah. The Friday 6PM show had maybe 75 people in the entire theatre and everyone was quiet and respectful.
I to am on old man. I went to the 1:10pm on Friday and there was only about 60-70 people there, and everyone watch the movie…
I am a little sad that the HP arch is over. these were a lot of fun.
but i have watch the first part of clear skies (as i don’t play eve) and I have ‘On Basilisk Station’ loaded up on my Blackberry and have started reading. I am enjoying it so far.
Reminds me of LOTR. Went to opening day matinee showing of FOTR and shared the theater with a spattering of fellow 20-something or older fantasy geeks who were so excited to see the movie. A year later went to the same matinee showing of TT and were surrounded by teenaged girls that giggled and sighed every time Legolas came on screen…
You can’t claim your old until you drag your wife to the cheep $6 9:00 am Sunday screening…
(Yes, I am that old 
)
OK… I am only oldish…