I have a lot of things I'd like to write about regarding my trip to the SigmaTD convention last week (New Orleans!! Amazing!!), but I have been trying to keep up with various BFA and classwork things since my return on Sunday. Plus, I have class in twenty minutes, so I need to be really, really quick about this.
Saturday is the fifth wizard rock concert here at K-State. It's this great evening full of book nerdiness and celebrating reading and Harry Potter and His Dark Materials and Hunger Games and other such awesomeness. It has become one of my favorite things about the spring semester, and there's just something really wonderful and special about being around people who love reading as much as you do and listening to really quality music celebrating the power of story and the books you love.
For time's sake, I'll save more gushing about this until I have a moment or two. But for now, I leave you with Ministry of Magic's "Don't Leave". Happy Thursday! (And see you Saturday at the Alumni Center!)
So. Have you seen the new made-of-awesome Hunger Games trailer? I have soooooo much love for it. Effie! The Capitol! Peeta! Gale! Katniss volunteering! Cinna! Caesar Flickerman! Rue! My heart! And March seems like such a long ways away....
The Leaky Cauldron has posted links to part one and part two of a documentary called "When Harry Left Hogwarts" (from one of the special Blu-rays of DHp2...I think). It's beautiful, and I have few words.
Finally, I highly recommend the Loudspeaker podcast, which is also made of awesome. (It's amazing. It really is.)
Have I mentioned how much I love having a break from things for a bit? I am currently watching Chamber of Secrets (Harry and Ron are just about to change back into themselves after taking Polyjuice potion), taking a quick breather from planning a drawing strategy for my final drawing project. This morning, Mom and I made a quick trip to Lincoln to do a little Christmas shopping, and I found a little something for Heidi and my goddaughter Emilyn. I also now own my very first pair of Birkenstocks. I feel like I've achieved some sort of right-of-passage wearing them. Is that weird?
When I have time to really think through things...I'm just really thankful for this week off. I really needed it.
...that tonight, hours away from the very last Potter release, I still have no clue what to wear to the midnight showing.
Seriously. This is why I'm in this mindstate. What with:
The recent confirmation that Kurt's last season on Glee is Season 3 (NOOOOOOOOOO!!)
My work schedule for next week being utterly crazy-cakes (i.e. ANNOYING)
Work itself (I want back at the Derb ASAP)
I haven't spent more than four days at home since Christmas.
Packing and moving over the next three weeks or so, complete with all its confusion, annoyances, and stress-inducing situations, and
Oh yeah, and the fact that after the credits start rolling tonight, my childhood, my adolescence, will have come to a close. I will wake up tomorrow morning and things will feel different. They will BE different.
Too much emotion right now. With the distress and stress and excitement and every other emotion coursing through my veins right now, I am surprised I haven't imploded yet.
But even with all this, I am so very excited. I will cheer, I will cry when appropriate. Bring it on, Seth Childs. Now to figure out what to wear....
So this is how the last week has been (up to this point, anyway).
I cannot easily put it into words. Since my class finished (and I'd had about 24 hours to process the reality of where I was on the Grand Timeline of Life), I've been overwhelmed with emotion. It was this beautiful, moving moment at the London premiere last Thursday that it really started to sink in. I know the full emotions were experienced when Deathly Hallows was released in 2007--but at that time, there were still three movies that had yet to come out. Now, there's a loss of sorts; no real new and unseen thing left for us to anticipate. (Well, except Pottermore, but I'll get to that in a second.)
Part of my remembered childhood and the entirety of my adolescence was tied in some way to this series. I encountered Harry as a sixth grader, preparing to enter jr. high. The first movie came out when I was in eighth grade, trying to survive girls' basketball (the only time I ever went out for a sport). The fourth film came out when I was a senior in high school, and my first year of college was capped off with not only the fifth film, but the unforgettable release of Deathly Hallows. The sixth film came out a month after I'd been in England, having walked across the very bridge that is destroyed at the beginning of the film.
And now here I am, one year from completing my undergraduate degrees, and we are days away from seeing Deathly Hallows Part 2, the very last ever Harry Potter film. Somehow it feels appropriate--or I happened to time my exit from KSU just right--that it was released now. One could argue that it's even a kind of capstone to my adolescence, and adulthood is the next step. I've said before that I've accepted the knowledge that "all good things come to an end"--which I still believe, to be clear--but the other half of me is distraught. This is so much a part of me, who I have become. I have invested so much time in the expectations and excitement...now that Part 2 is (nearly) here, it's hard to imagine the mind state's absence.
I'm not saying that it's going to be one of those, "My life is over!" scenarios, because you and I well know that it is far from it. I am merely remembering how important it was (and still is) to me. What if I hadn't decided to put my name on the waiting list for Sorcerer's Stone all those years ago?
I constantly wondered in high school if people really understood what it meant to me, to be a part of this whole thing. The books, and then the movies, gave me something to latch onto. They helped me fight my internal battles. They gave me somewhere to escape to, to imagine somewhere that was a helluvah lot better sounding than school. When I told people how much I cried reading the last hundred pages of DH, some of them seriously looked at me and asked, "You know it's just a book, right?"
But it's not. It's the reason I'm majoring in creative writing. It was the reason I finally realized how much fun reading was. It was an example for how awesome (and beautiful) filmmaking can be. It gave me the damn pick-me-up I needed to get through my hellish adolescence. It encouraged me to think beyond the confines of the fields and Big Blue that surrounded my hometown. It gave me the experience of walking up to a random person in King's Cross Station to ask if they knew where Platform 9 3/4 was, only to receive a look of complete bafflement in return. It gave me memories that I will treasure forever.
And Pottermore is certainly something to look forward to; I still have few words to describe how exciting it is. It's going to be incredible. It's almost too much for me to process at the moment.
Remembering all those years of keeping up with movie news, going to releases...those were some high points for me. The film is going to be amazing. I can feel that bubble of happiness starting to swell the closer we get to Thursday night. But thinking about the actors and filmmakers--especially Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint--and how they have built up bonds after spending so much time making these films, films that we flocked to and quoted and loved and hated...so much emotion at the thought.
Ten years is a long time, but not in the grand scheme of things. This film is what they've been building to for so long. And I feel so blessed, filled with so much gratitude the actors, filmmakers, and most importantly J.K. Rowling, that I able to take part in it, even as a fan. You know, one tiny part of the Harry Potter Generation.
The trailer debuted online on Thursday, and I know I should have mentioned it then, but that was also the same day as Pottermore's clues were put up, so I was a little overcome with various emotions and all I could do after class that night was sit and watch the trailer for the first time. I didn't full-out cry, but I did gasp, and tears did well up....and I had to process it.
The full water-works will hit when watching the film for the first time. I'm almost certain of that. When reading the book, right at the end of "The Prince's Tale" is when everything hits me like a big yellow school bus and I can't stop crying for years, it seems. It starts to pick up when Harry tells Neville to make sure to kill Nagini, and Neville tells him, "We're all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?" (p558, UK edition). And it gets worse when Harry talks to his parents and Lupin and Sirius. Never have I cried harder when reading a book, never have I felt the emotions so strongly or passionately. (That's the kind of power Jo Rowling has when she is armed with pen and paper.)
Which is why, when in the trailer, Harry is suddenly talking to his parents and Sirius and Lupin, that I almost fell out of my chair.
It still has not hit that this is going to be the very last Harry Potter movie, ever. (And it probably won't fully hit me until I'm sitting in the theatre, watching the last few minutes of film before the credits.) Since I was a sixth-grader, waiting to find out what happens in Goblet of Fire (which came out the summer between my sixth and seventh-grade years), there has always been something a little more to look forward to. This final release will definitely not reach the kind of emotion of ending that reading Deathly Hallows did, but it will also be the ultimate release of something that has become a part of who I am now. With the release of the book, we still had three movies to look forward to. Now, however, there will be nothing more tied directly to this series that will be released.
I keep thinking about a song by The Byrds, which is based on a set of Bible verses from Ecclesiastes. Things have their time in this world: each and every one of us will have our time, events in our life will come and go. I understand that, and as the years have gone on, I have come to accept it and love it, however affecting the loss in question may be.
But at the same time, however, I'm remembering the excitement of the wait: where we would make predictions about what was going to happen based on mere titles of each book and the precious few tidbits and hints that we were given before each release. I remember fighting with Heidi and Prairie about who was going to get together, Ron and Hermione or Harry and Hermione*--and seeing R/Hr clutching each other at 1:40 kills me because there's so much beauty and power and love and protection there and I want to cry because I had almost the same reaction as FYA did. The rawness, the newness of it all, the joy of spending releases with fellow fans who get that feeling of excitement/fear/love/community...I'll bring that with me for the rest of my life.
The trailer itself is gorgeous, and I'd argue the best of all of them--which is only fitting, since it will probably be the very last one we'll ever get (I'm not counting the TV spots). The dragon's in it, and that made me super excited to see the Gringotts sequence, which is one of my favorite parts of the book because it's so badass. And then the suits of armor (!!), and the Room of Requirement, and all the battle stuff, and I think you also see Neville with sword somewhere in there....Part 2 is going to be amazing. And the way they begin with clips from previous movies? So much awesome packed into 3 minutes.
Honestly, though this is the last movie, and it will be sad beyond comprehension to fully accept that, there will always be more. Perhaps not in the same sense, but certainly in spirit. Rereading the series (something I've meant to do for ages), rewatching the movies, and FREAKIN' Pottermore, when it's true identity is announced to the world next week. And then, anything that J.K. Rowling publishes in the future will surely be top of my to-read list. Also, if I do get married and have children, there will hopefully be a day that my children decide to pick up the books for the first time, taking in every word as I did, eager to find out what happens next.
Most of all, though, I'll keep the books, films and experiences close to me, because they have become a small part of who I am today. These books made me realize how much I love reading for the sake of reading rather than for a few Accelerated Reader points. The many wonderful themes will stick with me, the ones of love, friendship, and many more. Jo Rowling is one of my inspirations for wanting to be a writer. The characters of Luna Lovegood and Ron Weasley--and Snape, too--will always be models to look at when thinking about character. Through these books I've met many people, discovered and fallen in love with Wizard Rock--which led me to meeting even MORE people--and being a part of something more. There is so much more that I will encounter in my life, but I will carry every single aspect of this with me; it's part of me.
*My friend Alicia posted another BRILLIANT R/Hr video on her FB, and I love this one as much as the other one. It's soooo good....where does she find these things? And whoever made it should get an award or something. Seriously.
With the exception of maybe Prisoner of Azkaban, I have a firm belief that at least on of the deleted scenes for each of the Harry Potter films should have been included in the final cut. I don't have a lot of quips when it comes to Deathly Hallows Part 1, because there's still a whole half of the film to see, but there are a few of the deleted scenes I really wish they'd included in the movie.
The Petunia/Harry scene is a given (Prince's Tale, anyone?). That should have been there. Somewhere. I don't care where. But also, I really, really wanted the skipping stones scene to be included.
Reasons This Scene Should Have Been Included in the Final Cut:
This would have contributed positively to the emotions felt when Ron leaves later.
It's incredibly adorable to watch Hermione pretend like she doesn't know what the hell she's doing. (And it's very Hermione of her to let Ron show her how to do something she probably already knows.)
You see a glimpse of Aberforth, which is crucial for setting up for Part 2.*
It's a nice pause moment, much like the one earlier in the film of Hermione teaching Ron how to play Fur Elise on the piano. (I mean, overall, both scenes serve basically the same function, but I'm selfish.)
I'm a Ron/Hermione shipper, and any moment of them building up to their relationship is like candy to me. Plus, it's another excuse to poke Heidi and Prairie, who are Harry/Hermione shippers. :) **
And then there's the tent discussion.
Ron mentions the taboo, which would help explain why the Snatchers suddenly show up at the Lovegoods (because Xeno says the name).
It actually explains a LOT about the particulars of being on the run. Without it, those who haven't read the books will be confused as to why things happen as they do.
Harry lists the horcruxes they know about at that point. That's also important for Part 2.***
I also really, really like the mention of the locket's heartbeat. But that's just me.
*They really, really need to explain the mirror well. As of Part 1, there is no explanation for why Harry is carrying it around--and sufficiently OBSESSED with it, and I want them to be able to make up for the fact that it was never explained in OotP...
**Have you seen this R/Hr fanvideo? A friend of mine posted it shortly after Part 1 came out, and it popped up on my newsfeed, and since then I've been very near obsessed with it.
***Also, I'm curious how they have the trio find out about the cup and the diadem. You know, since Dumbledore never gave any info about them to Harry in the HBP film.
