I'm finally reading this series! My sisters have been telling me for years that I need to read them, and I finally am now! I'm halfway through the fourth book now and I love the series so far! I think my favorites are going to be the first three though. I personally think that books are always more fun when the characters are little kids.

Oh and I've seen some of the movies. I've seen Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone and I've seen Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. I didn't really understand the last one.

My lengthy absence from the forum has been far too long for me to catch up on everything.

So for now I just want to say that DH Part 1 was brilliant. It was everything I hoped it would be, and very close to the book.

And I'll briefly weigh in on one of my favourite arguments . Deus Ex Machina is not an applicable fallacy in Fantasy Stories, that's why they're called FANTASY.

It's also one of the tiresome criticisms that I hear philistines level at the Narnia series "Aslan always pops in to save the day." Hello people...He's a Magical Talking Lion who also Happens to be a Deity . It's not DEM when the Deus is actually part of the story .

But seriously, as long as Fantasy writers are at least self-consistent with their own established Magical Rules, DEM is not an applicable critique of fantasy stories.

GB

There you say it Aslan is a deity in his world. Gandalf is also a kind of deity, one of the Ainur. But Harry Potter is just a simple teenage boy with a wand and he resurrects??
Movie Deathly Hallows lacked the magic, as did the book. There were hardly any creatures, Dobby and Kreacher, Dementors for 1 minute, Thestral for a couple of seconds. Most of it consist of runs through a ministry or forest with little explosions and spells flying around like bullets.

Erm...Harry doesn't "Resurrect" per se RTD . He had an

That's not DEM by any stretch of the imagination (no pun intended ). Again, it's a book/movie about magic and fantasy. The literary "rule" about DEM doesn't apply. It's like the Stormtroopers who can't shoot straight when Luke is just standing right in front of them. It's Fantasy.

Then you have another odd gripe about there not being enough magic to suit your tastes (in the book and the movie) . There's nothing wrong with having an opinion, but it doesn't seem to add up. Do you want fantasy or not fantasy?

If you've read the books, you know that there is a whole lot more to come, and I can't understand how you can say nothing much magical happens in the beginning bit . Nearly every scene has something magical happening in it.

In any case, the books and the movies are about three dimensional characters, their relationships, the choices they make, and politics and mythology as well as magic. Harry follows the time tested Archetypal Mythic story of the Hero's Journey from child to adulthood. And he is, in a sense, reborn. Not as a God or demigod, but as a fully realized Human Being.

Now some people could certainly argue that Rowling is giving us a Humanist Spin on the Mythical/Theological archetype, and I think that is true. Harry isn't supposed to be God, he's "Just Harry"...but he is a Hero nonetheless. And that's fine with me.

GB

Hurray, Ruby! I read the series just last summer, and began a re-read this week actually. I'm having a wonderful time with The Sorcerer's Stone. It's always fun going through a book/series for the second time. You catch all of the little clues that you completely missed before.

I agree about the first three books - in a way, at least. I love all of them, though Prisoner of Azkaban is probably my overall favorite -- next to Deathly Hallows, that is. I just loved the seventh book! The conclusion is amazing.

Where are you in Goblet of Fire?

And aw man, don't watch the movies before you read the books! It spoils so much!

What do you think about the characters? Any favorites? Any ones you just hate? I have so many favorites: Sirius, Lupin, Fred and George, Harry, Luna, Dobby, Neville, and Snape, to name a few. I was always rather fond of Mollie Weasley and Professor McGonagal as well.

My favorite character has to be Luna Lovegood. I love her personality. I also love Dobby, because of how loyal he is to Harry, and Dumbledore, because of his honesty and father-like figure to Harry. My favorite professor is Snape(yes, I know, stone me! ), because of his love for Lily.

I HATE Bellatrix, even though the acting in the movie is very well done. Umbrige is the worst, I can't stand her. I also dislike Fudge, because he is much to cowardly to be Minister. Voldemort scares the living daylights out of me.

Miss R, we're watching the movie Prisoner of Azkaban tonight. I love the book especially, because of the clever twist she throws in at the end. She always throws in an unexpected twist, but I really love the third book.

I'm not so excited about the fourth book, because, I accidentally saw the ending to the fourth movie before I had read any of the books. And so I already know who dies, what happens, blah, blah, blah. And I know that it isn't the happiest tale.

Oh, and did anyone else think that David Tenant in the fourth movie was funny? He played an evil character, but I still think that he is sooo type cast in everything he plays. Sorry David. He's a good actor, but I always get the feeling that he's playing the crazy character...

Favorites- Harry, Ron. Hermione, McGonagall(I love her in OOTP), Ginny, Fred and George, Luna, Bellatrix(mainly her acting by Helena Boham Carter), Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin, Draco(same reason as with Bellatrix- Tom Felton is great!)

Luna is fantastic, amdd97, I heartily agree. Her personality is priceless! Snape is such a tragic character, but I always liked him for some reason --

Ah yes, Ruby, Rowling and her plot twists. I love them! Just wait until you get to Deathly Hallows. (I hope you don't know the ending already! The surprise is what makes it so good.) Meh, that's too bad that Goblet of Fire was spoiled for you. I never liked that book a whole lot (though it's been growing on me of late). It was the turning point in the series, I suppose. The books took on a much darker tone from then on.

Actually, georgiefan1, I kind of liked Bellatrix as well. She's just so good at being bad. (That is, up until Order of the Phoenix

Speaking of the last Harry Potter episode, the first trailer for it was on tonight's news.

Spoiler

Much of Voldemort and Harry, I saw Shell Cottage, and the announcer pointed to some 'romance' between Harry and ?. It was only a brief news grab.

There always seems to be a Harry Potter character trending on Twitter, but I was delighted to see Bellatrix Lestrange trending this week. For those who don't know, a name or phrase can "trend" when thousands of people are tweeting about it. I looked into it to see why she was trending, and someone had made the following tweet that had been re-tweeted about ten thousand times:

Bellatrix Lestrange, thanks for killing Sirius Black but can you please come take out his muggle cousin, Rebecca?

I'm not generally one to bash on celebrities, and I'm not doing so now, but that one definitely made me LOL.

The DVD and Blu-Ray is out for the last movie. The Blu-Ray not only shows the movie, it also shows it again with commentary and focus points. It is quite interesting, but takes a good while.

I'm still trying to find the promised scenes from the second part to be released in July.

I'm getting the DVD tomorrow! I'm really excited!

and the celebrate its release on Monday me and my 2 closest HP lover friends are having a movie marathon! This will be my first time watching them all the way through! I hope my short attention span can take it!

Georgiefan1, that'll be quite an effort. It's far longer than even the LotR EE (11.5 hours). A HP marathon would take around 17 hours!

my friends are spending the night, and they are coming at 10 in the morning, we all are really determined to do it!