And in one of the least surprising results of this year, the last Harry Potter movie just scored the highest-grossing first weekend of all time.

I don't intend to see it. I lost interest in the series after "Prisoner of Azkaban". I bought "Goblet of Fire" but never unwrapped it.

One problem is that reportedly every single male father-figure Harry has ends up dead by violence. With just one exception: Ron's father. Reportedly, she intended to kill him off, too, but just couldn't bring herself to do it.

And maybe Hagrid, too? I see that Robbie Coltrane is in the cast list for the last movie. Does he survive it?

...speaking of endings and spoilers, I haven't been able to find anyone who blogged about the last episode of Anohana, and revealed just what the heck the ghost girl wanted. Anyone care to let me in on it? (With spoiler tags)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 01:57 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 154 words, total size 1 kb.

1 I think there's some of the "Archetypal Hero" cycle there--teacher figures can't be there for the Hero to complete his task(s).  

Weasley, Sr. and Hagrid both survive the final fireworks.

Posted by: Douglas Oosting at July 17, 2011 02:42 PM (N9Lwt)

2 Can it be a spoiler to say whether or not Hagrid dies when the book came out two years ago?.
he lives.

Posted by: RickC at July 17, 2011 03:44 PM (VKVOz)

3 In Ano Hana, what Menma's wish was.


At the behest of Jin-tan's (then dying) mother, she wants him to express emotion and be less emotionally shut in more often. More like a normal person.

Posted by: bloatboy at July 17, 2011 05:38 PM (nwtwl)

4 For what it's worth, the fourth movie was my favorite of the movies (haven't seen the latest one yet, but I can't imagine it being better).  On the other hand, even though it's a cliche, the books are better than the movies (except for part 5). As for Hagrid, RickC covered that

Posted by: Kaedrin at July 17, 2011 06:13 PM (i24Ag)

5 Went and saw it despite not having seen part 1 or read the seventh book. ("When the cute girls ask you to go to the movies, Venkman, you say YES!") Enjoyable for what it was, in a wow-it-all-done-blowed-up-GOOD sense.

The books had a distinctly non-British distrust of authority (it's not going too far to say that the entire thing is a parable for "How Bad People Can Get Control of Government And Screw You"...) Some of that makes for hard reading, though...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at July 17, 2011 08:01 PM (pWQz4)

6 Boy, do you understate it.  Even without giving the slightest thought to it, Wizarding Britain looks pretty bad.  Apply even the slightest fridge logic, and things just get worse and worse. . .

Posted by: metaphysician at July 17, 2011 08:20 PM (hD30M)

7

I vaguely remember reading that Harry eventually becomes headmaster at Hogworts. Seems to me, though, that he's the perfect choice to be the "Defense against the Dark Arts" professor.

There's a Harry Potter wiki. I should really go get my answers there.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at July 17, 2011 08:32 PM (+rSRq)

8 The ending of the books actually doesn't specify what Harry does a job, there is a "send the kids off to Hogworts" coda, but it doesn't specify anything else about Harry's future other than that he's happily married with kids, as are several other significant characters from the books.  Although I believe Rowling said in an interview or some such what she envisioned the characters doing.

Posted by: David at July 17, 2011 09:17 PM (Kn54v)

9 As I recall, JK wrote that Harry and Ron became Aurors who hunt down evil wizards, Hermione became a government bureaucrat working for civil rights of house-elves, Longbottom becomes a professor at Hogwarts, but none of the main characters become headmaster AFAIK).

Posted by: Siergen at July 18, 2011 10:11 AM (6xFLh)

10 Re: Harry as Defense Against the Dark Arts prof:

He basically does that in the fifth book/movie.  He's obviously not an official Hogwarts teacher, but when Hogwarts is taken over by feckless bureaucrats who appoint a bad DADA teacher, Harry takes it on himself (w/Ron & Hermione of course) to prepare the rest of the students in secret meetings, etc...  

I think David covers the actual ending well, though I think it's implied that Harry would some day take up the headmaster position (if not at the end, then throughout the series - memory is fuzzy on that)...

Posted by: Mark at July 19, 2011 07:02 AM (aUPJJ)

Hide Comments | Add Comment