So yeah, I saw Harry Potter today.

Light Speed · Post by **Light Speed** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 2:34 am

Jeez, that guy looks like he is 35.

plasticwingsband · Post by **plasticwingsband** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 4:00 am

I may be 37-years-old but Harry Potter really brings out the kid in me.

Yeah, you're almost right.

Argent Silver · Post by **Argent Silver** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 6:47 am

There isn't, like a GHZ hive mind;

I never said that. Obviously, all the GHZers very different, but there's a certain "vibe" that the forum gives off as a whole.

-wyvern · Post by **-wyvern** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 8:21 am

Sorry to ignore Argent Silver for a second, but...

This guy, on the other hand....

Where did you find this guy? An ugly computer nerd (and coming from me that's quite something) approaching 40 who insists that Hermiony is the hottest thing ever, and has named his computer mouse scabbers? That would take some delving. How did you find his website, indeed, what possessed you with the inclination to look? It is so compellingly scary I am inclined to believe that it's a hoax.

Post by **Segaholic2** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 9:27 am

I didn't look for it, I Found the link on some other forum. You think I'd waste my time looking for this kind of stuff?

I kind of think it's a joke as well, but you never know... This world has some screwed up people.

Rlan · Post by **Rlan** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 9:44 am

Age doesn't particulary matter in terms of hotness. Doing, or thinking of doing them, is fairly wrong. It's more of a feeling that you KNOW they're going to be a stunner when they're 18+.

Heck, my 14 year old brother is friends with some stunning girls around his age. Shame most of them are as thick as paperweights, but one of 'em supposedly needs back surgery to cope with her huge breasts, and she's 14.

plasticwingsband · Post by **plasticwingsband** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 12:21 pm

Segaholic2 wrote: I kind of think it's a joke as well, but you never know... This world has some screwed up people.

After further investigation I'm convinced that it's a joke site.

Post by **Delphine** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 8:58 pm

....ewww.

Yeah, that's all I've got.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 4:52 pm

I went with a group of friends to see the 3rd Harry Potter today, and I thought it was quite good. It followed the story of the third book closely enough, and since that was my favorite I was already looking forward to seeing it (although, admittedly, I haven't read the 4th or 5th book yet).

Read the 4th book. Enjoy it. It's the best one.

Stop there and picture how the rest of the series goes in your head. Seriously.

Book 5 was awful. I positively hated reading it. It was so boring, and many of the characters were . . . well, weird.

Take Harry for instance, how can you feel for a protaganist who's constantly whining and who has his hand on his wand all the time? Harry came off as a little violent brat. I wanted to punch him in the face.

Then were have Hermione. She's become even more of a Mary Sue, now. She has the answer to everything. I know she's JK's avatar in the Harry Potter world, but that really makes it even more frustrating that she's so bloody perfect.

Then we have Ron, who is shoved out of the way for most of the book. We don't even get to see his infamous save, and Dumbledore only picked him because he thought Harry had too much to handle. Yeah, nice ego boosts for poor Ron.

And the death of You-Know-Who was very poorly done, and needed more explanation. They never quite explain WHY he's dead, so it's frustrating, and seems a bit silly. Oh well, I didn't like him anyways.

The DA scenes were cool, and mostly interesting. But the rest of the book made me grit my teeth.

Oh well, at least Neville got a boat-load of character development, and the twins really shined. So that's good, at least.

Oh, and I adore Luna Lovegood! At this point, if Harry MUST get a girlfriend, I'd prefer it to be her . . . I can stomach her a lot more easily than I can Cho.

I'm still in awe that she has any fans left after Order of the Pheonix. That was to Harry Potter as Episode I: The Phantom Menace was to Star Wars. I know that's a big insult, but it's true. It went wrong in so many ways, boring dialogue, plot contrivences, Hermione becoming even more of JKR's self-inserted MarySue, several incredibly obvious "plot twits" (and I use the term lightly), horrible characterization, and what I will forever refer to as "The World's Most Insultingly Anti-Climatic Death Scene Ever" (tm).

I'd hate to say this, because I might get flamed. But compared to other genres, the Harry Potter wizards are WIMPS.

Aside from the three Unforgiveable Curses, they're humorously weak. In serious duels, wizards use tripping and laughing charms. Hah! The DEATH EATERS, supposedly the cross between the KKK and Nazguls hit one of their enemies, Ron Weasley, with a laughing charm. I just read that chapter of OoTP shaking my head at how wimpy the full might of the Death Eaters turned out to be.

An equilvalent comparison would be imagining members of the Nazi German army raiding a Brittish millitary installation with rubber chickens during WWII.

One moderately strong Black Mage from Final Fantasy or most other fantasy games or stories would wipe the floor with the lot of them. "You're going to cast a jinx that causes carrots to grow out of my ears? Cute. I'm going channel 1,000,000 bolts of pure, elemental, lightning directly into your body. Want to start running now?"

If I went into battle, I'd be damn sure to at least bring a spell that sets things on fire.

Although I wouldn't mind being able to turn my foes into bouncing ferrets, truthfully speaking.

plasticwingsband · Post by **plasticwingsband** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 6:39 pm

Ah, well, I certainly do hope the next book turns out better. I'm still going to read #5, though. As soon as I get my hands on another copy of the first book, I'm going to start reading the series over from the beginning, because I've pretty much forgotten everything that happened in book 1 & 2.

Argent Silver · Post by **Argent Silver** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 6:45 pm

Read and watch LOTR. It owns everything Harry Potter related.

plasticwingsband · Post by **plasticwingsband** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:05 pm

I have seen the LOTR movies, and while I'll probably be reamed for saying this, I find the books insufferably boring. One day I'm just going to have to force myself to read them.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed The Hobbit. That was a great read. Plus it had Beorn, and Beorn kicked ass.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:25 pm

Indeed. THe LoTR books sucked because they were too dry. Tolkien had an awesome story, but he told it with so little emotion that I only got to the end of the Two Towers before I gave up on them. I've read history books that were more interestingly written than the LoTR trilogy.

And therin lies the problem. LoTR are written as history books. Thus, the author ends up concentrating so much on backstory that he often goes off on a long tangent and forgets totally about what's happening in the story NOW. Thus, you have to skim a LOT if you want to stay awake and actually remember what the heck was currently happening to the characters.

Light Speed · Post by **Light Speed** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:39 pm

Yeah there is a lot of backstory in LotR. It is still a great read though, I loved them. The movies on the other hand were boring as hell. Screw you guys, they were boring!

Anyway, I started reading another book in this genre called Eragon. Anyone else read it? I'm only on page sixty, but it seems like it is a LotR type tale without the 25 page off tangent lessons on hobbits and whatnot.

Post by **Popcorn** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:01 pm

I just saw Azkaban. I'm not exactly a Potter fan, though I do tend to nick each successive book from my sister when they come out, but I really enjoyed it. It's wholesome and satisfying and often quite pretty. And nicely-paced, as opposed to LotR which is just often quite pretty. LotR sucks, anyway.

You guys have read His Dark Materials, right?

plasticwingsband · Post by **plasticwingsband** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:12 pm

Popcorn wrote: You guys have read His Dark Materials, right?

Hell yeah I have! This topic just brought His Dark Materials from the recesses of my mind. Now those are some damn good books. I actually named my cat Lyra after the protagonist. However, over this past Thanksgiving, she ended up getting killed.

But yes, I really did enjoy reading His Dark Materials, although I can safely say that after I was done with The Amber Spyglass, none of it made a lick of sense. That's another series that I need to read again.

The Golden Compass is still my favorite, as it had the most Iorek.

Argent Silver · Post by **Argent Silver** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:17 pm

LOTR is actually my favorite book/book series. The fact that it can sometimes being boring and a tedious thing to read is the complaint I get the most, but the fact is that's how he meant the books to be. Really, Tolkien wanted to make one, gigantic book called "The History of Middle-earth" that contained all the stuff in The Hobbit, LOTR, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc. Of course, this wasn't exactly feasible, so it ended up getting chopped up into tons of different books, many of which weren't released until after his death. I've read almost all of them, and I've found almost all of them to be good reads (besides the Books of Lost Tales), if the whole Tolkien-style is your thing.

And how can you not like the movies? That's like a sin or something... I mean, I'm sitting here still trying to think of anything wrong with the movies... I can't. I'm stumped. They just kick way too much ass to not be liked.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 9:26 pm

You guys have read His Dark Materials, right?

That was a weird but good series. A little girl, her manifested soul, a boy, a scientist, and two gay angels set out to kill God and allow the power of love and sex to flow freely.

And how can you not like the movies? That's like a sin or something... I mean, I'm sitting here still trying to think of anything wrong with the movies... I can't. I'm stumped. They just kick way too much ass to not be liked.

Elijah Wood's faux British accent was like nails on a chalkboard. But the rest of the trilogy did indeed kick ass.

But seriously, Elijah Wood needs a restraining order filed against him to prevent him from ever trying to speak like a Brit.

Post by **Segaholic2** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 10:41 pm

I agree with Argent Silver here. LotR is the best movie trilogy of all time, in my opinion. Better than Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Terminator, and Godfather. And don't remind me about Matrix.

Post by **Delphine** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 10:41 pm

Heh, man, I love watching adults compain that a children's book doens't act like a book written for adults. I enjoy the Potter books as much as the next person, but they were never intended to be Shakespeare.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 11:09 pm

Heh, man, I love watching adults compain that a children's book doens't act like a book written for adults. I enjoy the Potter books as much as the next person, but they were never intended to be Shakespeare.

I'm not saying they should be great literature. I'm not even thinking of measuring them against that high of a standard. I'm meerly comparing the 5th against the other 4 - and in my opnion, there was a GIGANTIC drop in quality. So much so, that I wouldn't be suprised to learn that JKR had it ghostwritten. It wouldn't be the first time in children's literature, although most ghostwritten children's series are monthly or bi-monthly affairs that can reach up into the 100s, rather than a relatively shorter series of longer novels released on a yearly or bi-yearly basis.

And I think Shakespear sucks. There. I said it.

Better than Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Terminator, and Godfather. And don't remind me about Matrix.

I don't really consider the Terminator or Indiana Jones trilogies. BtF, SW, the Godfather, and LoTR are all groups of three interconnected movies that basically tell a single story in three parts - everything is interconnected.

The Terminator and Idiana Jones, on the other hand - are more episodical. They use the same characters and universe in each of the movies, but they're all mostly stand-alone self-contained tales that act as three seperate stories rather than one told in three parts.

I prefer to think that the entire Matrix fiasco never happened.

Post by **Segaholic2** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 11:13 pm

Shakespeare blows. What the heck is so great about his plays? They're so freaking hard to understand, it's like deciphering a foreign language. Sure, maybe the stories and stuff are classic, so why don't they just "translate" his stuff into modern English so everyone can read and actually enjoy it?

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 11:22 pm

Shakespeare blows. What the heck is so great about his plays? They're so freaking hard to understand, it's like deciphering a foreign language. Sure, maybe the stories and stuff are classic, so why don't they just "translate" his stuff into modern English so everyone can read and actually enjoy it?

Yeah. You've discovered the secret of Shakespear. They're boring, lifeless, archetypical tales of betrayal that a bunch of monkeys could type up while drunk. The only thing that makes them interesting is the poetic writing.

The very reason that most people give Shakespear so much credit, is because they can't understand what's happening - and thus, they assume that the whole thing has to be beyond them - that they couldn't possibly comprehend the artistic and masterful plot.

In truth, it's all just "Person A kills person B, and A is killed by C" - with thes and thous and flowery speech thrown in to keep you distracted.

Post by **Delphine** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 11:47 pm

Segaholic2 wrote:Shakespeare blows. What the heck is so great about his plays? They're so freaking hard to understand, it's like deciphering a foreign language. Sure, maybe the stories and stuff are classic, so why don't they just "translate" his stuff into modern English so everyone can read and actually enjoy it?

Darling, they were written so long ago that they ARE in a foreign language. It's only related to Modern English enough to be able to understand it if you squint a certain way.

And his stuff HAS been translated, so to speak. Even turned into novel form. Just a matter of finding the books.

-wyvern · Post by **-wyvern** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 12:48 am

Please note that shakespear was not incapable of writing an excellent play - Henry V involved no murder at all, apart from a big lapse in which something like 5000 french people died.

After saying which, it probably sounds xenophobic to tell you that I enjoyed that shakespear most of all. It probably sounds extremely nerdy and snobbish to say I liked shakespear AT ALL, but there you are. I've gotta say something in the old guy's favour.