This thread is a focused discussion group. Please see the first post below for the current topic and upcoming book discussions. While natter will inevitably happen, we encourage you to treat this like a virtual book club and try to keep your posts in that spirit.
By consensus, this thread is reopened specifically to discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will be closed again once that discussion has run its course.
***SPOILER ALERT***
- **Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows lie here. Read at your own risk***
I did miss the action back at Hogwarts. I wish there was at least a chapter about Neville, Ginny and Luna leading the Hogwarts resistance.
Rowling's biggest weakness in the HP books is that she married herself so much to Harry's point of view. She breaks it very seldomly.
On the other hand, she came up with some pretty innovative ways around it -- the scar visions, the pensieve, etc. But once in a while, I wanted to see what people were doing, rather than hear about it later.
Nothing to prevent multiple parents from using the same name (or multiple names like Alfred, Frederick, Wilfred, that lend themselves to the same nickname).
And then, there's the case of George Foreman ...
I suspect their 7th year was studying for leaving exams, and Ron trying to get Hermione to sleep with him.
Whereas Ginny jumped Harry the first moment she could ...
(I'm guessing Senior Week is not actually a thing in the UK...but it is funny to imagine them all drunk on wine coolers, sleeping on the beach, getting into drunken epic fight with their best friends, and making out with random dudes from DC...um not that I'd know anything about that kind of a Senior Week. woo)
Well, I always wondered about butterbeer? How alcoholic is it? They're pretty free with drinking it in the last couple of books. I think JK Rowling shows a lot more casual attitude towards the young'uns and alcohol that reflects English attitudes.
Well, the butterbeer is certainly less alcoholic than the firewhiskey. (Hermione gets all "You. Are. A. PREFECT!" when Ron considers seeing if they can get served firewhiskey, but there isn't any problem with them drinking butterbeer.)
For some reason, I've always imagined butterbeer as a sort of butterscotch/root beer hybrid, all foamy and rich and spicy and alcohol-reminiscent without actually being alcohol. The color of cream soda, but with a very dense Guinness-like head. I've never seen it or tasted it (obviously, on account of the not existing), but I feel certain I'd recognize it in a second if I ever did.
There's lots of flower names. Lily, Petunia, Narcissa, Lavender, Pansy
Don't forget about the firewhiskey and wine drunk in DH, in addition to the mead in HBP.
I just read a drabble at Sugar Quill that had Neville learning from one of his students that the kid has a cousin named Neville (his aunt was a sixth year who fought at the Battle of Hogwarts). He, of course, being Neville, was flabbergasted at the tribute.
There's lots of flower names. Lily, Petunia, Narcissa, Lavender, Pansy
Feeling even more stupid by the minute.
Doesn't Dobby's wife get drunk on butterbeer, though? Would seem to indicate at least a little alcohol content.
Winky gets trashed on butterbeer. One of the kids says (roughly) "but that's not very strong stuff" "It is to a house elf"
So there's something to it.
