Well, in the richer districts the "Careers" would volunteer on a regular basis. In the poorer districts, whoever gets picked gets picked. When Prim got picked, it seemed like a freak chance. I suppose they could rig the drawings, but I'm not sure why they would bother. They're already plenty rigged with the tessarae and such.

I edited it and put in quick-edits. Your error was that every time you open a spoiler span tag, you need to close it. You only closed it once at the end of each post.

Oops! I'm so sorry, guys. I was swamped and didn't check back.

My bad.

Jim Dale's Lockhart voice is great. It's cracking me up. Lockhart is so terrible. (His McGonagall and Hagrid are spot-on, by the by.)

Colin Creevey is so annoying, holy crap. Colin Creevey AND Dobby AND Lockhart all in one book?? Geez, this is going to be an annoying book. Even though I do appreciate that it's darker than the first one already.

Wait a second: when Harry was out post-Quirrel, Gryffindor suffered their biggest loss in 300 years? They actually played without a Seeker ?? Why didn't they just forfeit?

Jim Dale's Lockhart voice is great. It's cracking me up. Lockhart is so terrible. (His McGonagall and Hagrid are spot-on, by the by.)

Emmett and I are particularly fond of his Madame Sprout. Though his Luna isn't right. Or rather Evanna Lynch's Luna is better than JKR's and Jim Dale's combined.

His Sprout is interesting, but I don't really have a sense of Sprout as a character, so I have no opinion on whether it's good or not.

so I have no opinion on whether it's good or not.

I think that you can judge that "interesting" is good. Especially for a minor character.

That's true. It's distinct, for sure.

And funny too. Really, that's all it is for us. We quote his reading of "Buboo Tubers" about once a month.

So I'm up to the endless cleaning section in Order of the Phoenix, and my thoughts so far are as follows:

-- JKR really likes the punctuated-equilibrium method of characterization, doesn't she? All of a sudden (only a month after the last book) the kids are difficult adolescents, and Harry's spending all his time stewing with rage. To be fair, this isn't unjustified given the trauma he experienced at the end of the last book, but he'd been traumatized before without reacting that way. I guess it's meant to be a combination of adolescence and trauma, but it doesn't feel totally organic to me.

-- Jeez, are we meant to dislike Molly Weasley quite so intensely here? She's become shrill and domineering, pretty much a one-note domestic character. And yes, justified by her concern, but there's not much nuance there.

-- This is the first book that really shows the lack of a strong line-edit. The argument between Sirius and Molly about whether to tell Harry anything goes on and on and on, and it doesn't really need to. As does the scene where Harry yells at Ron and Hermione for not telling him anything over the summer. It's rather repetitive, especially on audio, where you can't really skim.

-- Dumbledore comes off very badly in the way he's bogarting information. In hindsight, you can kind of see why he's being so cautious, because too much information about the prophecy or Dumbledore's theories about the relationship between Harry & Voldemort might make Harry act in a way that would interfere with Dumbledore's plans, but it's so manipulative and high-handed.

Of course, that's the point. Again we have an adult institution, the Order, which is going to fail Harry. And which is already failing to protect him, educate him, or provide him emotional support.

-- I'd forgotten most of the family connections between Sirius and all those Death-Eaters.

-- Speaking of family, apparently JKR said that James' parents died when James was young; has anything ever been said about Lily's? It just seems unlikely that he has no family living other than Petunia, especially given that James and Lily married so young.

Speaking of family, apparently JKR said that James' parents died when James was young; has anything ever been said about Lily's? It just seems unlikely that he has no family living other than Petunia, especially given that James and Lily married so young.

Petunia mentions their parents in the first book -- she says they were always so proud of Lily, so that implies that they were alive at least through Lily's first few years at Hogwarts. I guess we're meant to assume that they died some time before Harry was born, or at least before Lily and James died.