Article on the value of reading. Not sure what the point of the article's supposed to be, actually, but thought people might find it interesting.

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Good lord. The Ron = Dumbledore essay was almost convincing. My eyebrow remains steeply raised, but the physical similarities are a fair point, and recycling the time turner conceit wouldn't be inconceivable. Dumbledore was most famous for defeating the Evil Wizard Grindelwald in 1945, according to his chocolate frog card - maybe that's going to come into it? But it seems very far fetched.

Lily/Snape struck me as a plausible thing way back, and I've been chuffed with the Snape-flashback, because I didn't feel it undermined my reading at all. My take on it pre-OotP is summed up here and after OotP I added this. YMMV, and as a reading it certainly owes much to my romantic streak - still, I don't think their interactions in OotP would preclude or contradict any measure of attraction or flirtation, be it mutual or one-sided.

Hagrid - I'd agree that race and 'simplicity' are far more key elements of his depiction than class. He's working as a gamekeeper (which you can regard as a 'low class' role within the hierarchy of the school) because he was expelled from the school - not because he is bound by his class. The whole half-giant thing is supposed to be a surprise when it comes out in The Goblet of Fire, so surely one can't blame his position of gamekeeper upon a class thing. Samwise, on the other hand, is a loyal manservant within a context which is explicitly class-conscious; Sam is Frodo's gardener because the Gaffer was Bilbo's gardener. It's the niche he's been born to, trained for and clearly relishes. He looks upon Frodo and Bilbo as his betters by virtue of their class as well as by virtue of their own particular skills. Hagrid's loyalty, however, is specific and personal. He was a student, on the same social level as others who went on to become successful wizards, and had he not been kicked out for supposedly opening the CoS we've not got any textual reason to suppose he would have been a Wizarding Janitor.

Still, the whole big'n'simple thing and the sense of otherness (which does have strong parallels with 19th Century stereotypes) is established through the use of dialect. It's this, rather than any textual evidence of class distintion, that makes Hagrid feel 'other' and 'less'.

Also - Hagrid's not Ms Goodall! shakes head. He is clearly and most definitely the Wizarding World's answer to Steve Irwin. His love for all bitey poisonous critters is a deep and tender love, and he regards their vicious and blood-thirsty snappings and thrashings as nothing more than evidence that they're 'A grumpy little fella'.

So utterly convinced am I of this notion that Hagrid's father is a distant relative of Steve Irwin that I'm planning to work it into a fic. I mean, Hagrid's dad married one of the 'monsters', damn it - Irwin only named his daughter after his favourite grumpy monster, he didn't actually wed said grumpy monster.

I know it's a wee while ago now, but - Anita Blake? I read the books purely because of you guys, and indeed despite you guys. My feeling was that the sex pretty much all sucked, and that it kept on getting cheesier and more irritating. There was one sex scene out of all the flaming books that I found sexy. One. Sigh. Whereas the plotty stuff in the first few books, when we were actually paying attention to her day job, and in Obsidian Butterfly, with the fabulous Edward, was lots of fun.

I should really like to bounce around and sing the praises of Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody books, because I'm so enjoying them right now. Just having a ball wolfing them down. Went out and bought two more today and finished one already - He shall thunder in the sky. V. good fun.

I remain less convinced by Vicky Bliss - I don't think that the whodunnit element is the strongest feature of the Peabody books - they're far more interesting in terms of local colour and soap opera-ish appeal. I'm going to keep on at Silhouette in Scarlet, but (a) I hate the name Vicky Bliss, (b) I'm having trouble seeing her as not being a Mary Sue. One might accuse the various members of the Emerson clan of being less than perfectly realistic, but because Amelia's such an unreliable narrator, and because we're often laughing AT her (affectionately) I think it works. Vicky's still not engaged my interest.

Whereas the plotty stuff in the first few books, when we were actually paying attention to her day job, and in Obsidian Butterfly, with the fabulous Edward, was lots of fun.

EXACTLY. Hamilton's porn is nowhere near as engrossing as she thinks it is.

I guess she thinks we're junkies, preferring quantity to quality. Actually, I think it's hot sometimes, but a.I'm in a looking-at-linoleum place right now...and therefore not a very tough audience. and 2. I've only read a couple.

I think that LKH has fallen into the trap of thinking that "the characters have sex....a lot....in many different pairings, positions, and locations," is a sufficient plot.

nods.

Silly woman.

I wonder where all the hot women go, in the Blakeverse. Cause for all these men to be so beautiful and Anita to be the only XX worth boinking doesn't make any sense at all. And the ardeur is completely involuntary yet only responds to A Penis. Must be the Xander Harris theory "Nothing can defeat the Penis!"-

I read Obsidian Butterfly first, and thought it was really good, and was quite disappointed with the other three books in that series I tried.

Obsidian Butterfly was so far above the ones right before it and all those since that it's almost like it was written by someone else. And her day job is fascinating. In one of the last two, it's like you're reading two different books, one about a bunch of murders and one about the pack and the vamps and all.

Totally agree on the obnoxiousness of every other woman but Anita being an utter twit and generally hating Anita on top of it all. I'll probably scan the next one in the library rather than bothering to buy it. I sent all my copies--other than Obsidian -- to Deena.

I'm having trouble seeing her as not being a Mary Sue.

I think Jacqueline Kirby is more a Mary Sue that Elizabeth Peters might want to be. I can't call Amelia a Mary Sue, because Peters is herself an Egyptologist.

What's really funny is when you scan the reviewers pages of either Peters' books or Barbara Michaels' books (Michaels being Peters' gothic romance alter ego) and you see Michaels reviewing Peters' books and vice versa. Or when both of them are reviewing someone else's book (a Pratchett, I think).

Hagrid is one of the characters who reminds us that the wizarding world is dangerous, and that, despite what many wizards think, other beings in the world don't necessarily look upon magical humans as the apex of evolution (remember the fountain at the Ministry of Magic, and the prejudice against half-breeds like Hagrid and Lupin). It's a wonderful world of magic, but it's no fairy tale- and although Hagrid is a polarizing force, I think he shows what lies between good and evil. For example, many of the "creatures" which are introduced via Hagrid are dangerous, but not necessarily evil- the centaurs, the giant spiders, and the hippogriffs. As the books go on, and become darker in tone, these shades of gray become essential to keep the stories multi-dimensional. Of the other things that do this, one is the Imperiatus curse (IIRC- that is the one that makes others do your will)- with Voldemort at large, it is hard to tell who is truly evil, and who is being controlled, in no uncertain terms, by evil.