It won't, unfortunately. But thank you for the recommendations, I'd not heard of any of those authors except Terry Pratchett.
You seem to know fantasy, so you might be able to help me with this current dilemma of mine: I'm halfway through the fourth Wheel of Time book. Should I finish up that series, or skip it and start something else? I understand they get crappy near the end, but they're god so far, so...
I didn't say people were as stupid as Harry - people identify with Harry, and Harry, as we seem to agree, never pays attention in class and just generally doesn't know his ass from the hole he just blew in the ground.
That happens to, what two or three characters? Snape turned out to be good, Dumbledore had some shameful bits in one of the many years of his life, Ron went all emo then came back, Lupin tried to leave his kid, and Xenophilus Lovegood turned out not to love good so much as his daughter. Okay, five. I see that she probably was trying to do what you said, but even with those, most of the characters were either evil people, who liked to eat babies and deserved nothing but the basest treatment (Fenrir Greyback, the Lestranges, the Malfoys, Dolohov, Umbridge, and all the many other Death Eaters I won't name here), or good people who fought evil bravely and deserved to be showered with sugar and orgasms all of their days (all the Weasleys, Tonks, Hagrid, Grawp, all the students at Hogwarts, the rest of the Order).
When the heroic protagonist of a book series, with whom three-quarters of the fans identify themselves, is ignorant and apathetic about it, that makes the books anti-intellectual.
Yeah, and never any indication that truth and knowledge come from reading and paying attention to people who know more than you,and that it's not always the most exciting thing in the world. Truth always came from Dumbledore explaining why Harry just won, or from a memory, or from a dream, or from a dead person, or a million other places that didn't require Harry to pay attention too long or listen to Snape.
"Hermione!"
"Harry - you're a great wizard, you know."
"I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him.
"Me!" said Hermione. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!"
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
"No, it's not," said Hermione. "All we'd need would be some Polyjuice Potion."
"What's that?" said Ron and Harry together.
"Snape mentioned it in class a few weeks ago -"
"D'you think we've got nothing better to do in Potions than listen to Snape?" muttered Ron.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry yawned. He really wanted to go to bed, but he still had his own
star chart to complete. He pulled his bag toward him, took out
parchment, ink, and quill, and started work.
"You can copy mine, if you like," said Ron, labeling his last star with
a flourish and shoving the chart toward Harry.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
It was a mark of how much the class loathed Snape that they were all glaring at him, because every one of them had called Hermione a know-it-all at least once...
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Moody's magical eye had now left the door. It was fixed upon Harry. His lopsided mouth leered more widely than ever.
"It hasn't been easy, Harry, guiding you through these tasks without arousing suspicion. I have had to use every ounce of cunning I possess, so that my hand would not be detectable in your success. Dumbledore would have been very suspicious if you had managed everything too easily. As long as you got into that maze, preferably with a decent head start - then, I knew, I would have a chance of getting rid of the other champions and leaving your way clear. But I also had to contend with your stupidity. The second task . . . that was when I was most afraid we would fail. I was keeping watch on you, Potter. I knew you hadn't worked out the egg's clue, so I had to give you another hint -"
"You didn't," Harry said hoarsely. "Cedric gave me the clue -"
"Who told Cedric to open it underwater? I did. I trusted that he would pass the information on to you. Decent people are so easy to manipulate, Potter. I was sure Cedric would want to repay you for telling him about the dragons, and so he did. But even then, Potter, even then you seemed likely to fail. I was watching all the time... all those hours in the library. Didn't you realize that the book you needed was in your dormitory all along? I planted it there early on, I gave it to the Longbottom boy, don't you remember? Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean. It would have told you all you needed to know about gillyweed. I expected you to ask everyone and anyone you could for help. Longbottom would have told you in an instant. But you did not. . . you did not. . . . You have a streak of pride and independence that might have ruined all.
"So what could I do? Feed you information from another innocent source. You told me at the Yule Ball a house-elf called Dobby had given you a Christmas present. I called the elf to the staffroom to collect some robes for cleaning. I staged a loud conversation with Professor McGonagall about the hostages who had been taken, and whether Potter would think to use gillyweed. And your little elf friend ran straight to Snape's office and then hurried to find you..."
Moody's wand was still pointing directly at Harry's heart. Over his shoulder, foggy shapes were moving in the Foe-Glass on the wall.
"You were so long in that lake, Potter, I thought you had drowned. But luckily, Dumbledore took your idiocy for nobility, and marked you high for it. I breathed again.
"You had an easier time of it than you should have in that maze tonight, of course," said Moody. "I was patrolling around it, able to see through the outer hedges, able to curse many obstacles out of your way. I
Gilderoy Lockhart was obviously a liar, a fraud, and a coward the whole book. Sirius Black had a sudden realignment at the end of the book, as did Alastor Moody. None of them were questionable like Snape. Other than Snape, characters in Harry Potter are all black and white, they either like killing for fun or love their families and pet their dogs often and never, ever give up fighting Voldemort.
I meant richer than the queen currently is. The discussion isn't about the merit of the Queen's riches. In the grand scheme of things Rowling really should be richer than the Queen because, as you so rightly point out, the Queen doesn't do anything.
Popularity is generally not based on merit. See Snakes on a Plane, Britney Spears, Chrysler 300, etc. People like what other people like, if the chain reaction moves the right way it hits critical mass. That said, I find that the Harry Potter books are quite good, worthy of popularity (though perhaps not enough to make the author richer than the Queen).
Deathly Hallows fortunately played down the anti-intellectualism of the previous books. Harry admitted he should be able to heal wounds by magic (but still didn't admit any fault of his own for not knowing), Hermione's wide knowledge proved very useful on their little trek, and even Ron decided he should look cool in front of the kids at Hogwarts by spouting off a random fact he'd heard from Hermione. That was good, I liked that.
Yeah, but something else will provide an excuse for mayhem, and people will never really learn to think, even when given the chance. It'd be nice, though, wouldn't it?
No, you've got cause and effect backward. Religion is a symptom. People don't kill each other and fail to understand how the world works because they're religious, they're religious because they don't understand how the world works and want to kill each other. If religion goes away people will find plenty of other things to fight about, and plenty of other reasons to watch American Idol instead of reading books.
They were thinking "wow, there's a lot of students demanding wireless... too bad they're too drunk to understand why it's unreliable! Oh well, they're the bosses..."
Hot! Are Harry's kids named Lily, James, and Sirius?
waaaaait.... is that bold line supposed to be the last line of the book? That's not true, scar has to be the last word, as in "Harry drove off into the sunset in hi scar."
I should clarify that this is just a summer job, near-minimum-wage work at an electronics manufacturing plant. You're probably right that I'm not talking to the most educated or intelligent people here (I tend to be just a touch pessimistic sometimes, you might've noticed).
What, do you expect the government to release a statement saying "Check it out guys, we stopped some terrorists who were trying to blow up three major metropolitan areas with nukes Russia lost track of back in '82... no need to panic, or grab all your guns and head for the hills, or start lynching brown people, kthxbye!"
Interesting position. I am also acquainted with some of the home team's players, but don't root for them. They've got better equipment and a much bigger team than the other side, and the other team's nonparticipating fans have been dying much faster than the home team's players. Though I'm not personally acquainted with any of said fans, I can't support killing them.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a pointless waste of time? Seriously, thousands of letters against thousands of dollars, what do you think wins?
It won't, unfortunately. But thank you for the recommendations, I'd not heard of any of those authors except Terry Pratchett.
You seem to know fantasy, so you might be able to help me with this current dilemma of mine: I'm halfway through the fourth Wheel of Time book. Should I finish up that series, or skip it and start something else? I understand they get crappy near the end, but they're god so far, so...
I didn't say people were as stupid as Harry - people identify with Harry, and Harry, as we seem to agree, never pays attention in class and just generally doesn't know his ass from the hole he just blew in the ground.
That happens to, what two or three characters? Snape turned out to be good, Dumbledore had some shameful bits in one of the many years of his life, Ron went all emo then came back, Lupin tried to leave his kid, and Xenophilus Lovegood turned out not to love good so much as his daughter. Okay, five. I see that she probably was trying to do what you said, but even with those, most of the characters were either evil people, who liked to eat babies and deserved nothing but the basest treatment (Fenrir Greyback, the Lestranges, the Malfoys, Dolohov, Umbridge, and all the many other Death Eaters I won't name here), or good people who fought evil bravely and deserved to be showered with sugar and orgasms all of their days (all the Weasleys, Tonks, Hagrid, Grawp, all the students at Hogwarts, the rest of the Order).
When the heroic protagonist of a book series, with whom three-quarters of the fans identify themselves, is ignorant and apathetic about it, that makes the books anti-intellectual.
Yeah, and never any indication that truth and knowledge come from reading and paying attention to people who know more than you,and that it's not always the most exciting thing in the world. Truth always came from Dumbledore explaining why Harry just won, or from a memory, or from a dream, or from a dead person, or a million other places that didn't require Harry to pay attention too long or listen to Snape.
"Hermione!"
...
... all those hours in the library. Didn't you realize that the book you needed was in your dormitory all along? I planted it there early on, I gave it to the Longbottom boy, don't you remember? Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean. It would have told you all you needed to know about gillyweed. I expected you to ask everyone and anyone you could for help. Longbottom would have told you in an instant. But you did not. . . you did not. . . . You have a streak of pride and independence that might have ruined all.
"Harry - you're a great wizard, you know."
"I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him.
"Me!" said Hermione. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!"
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
"No, it's not," said Hermione. "All we'd need would be some Polyjuice Potion."
"What's that?" said Ron and Harry together.
"Snape mentioned it in class a few weeks ago -"
"D'you think we've got nothing better to do in Potions than listen to Snape?" muttered Ron.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry yawned. He really wanted to go to bed, but he still had his own star chart to complete. He pulled his bag toward him, took out parchment, ink, and quill, and started work.
"You can copy mine, if you like," said Ron, labeling his last star with a flourish and shoving the chart toward Harry.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
It was a mark of how much the class loathed Snape that they were all glaring at him, because every one of them had called Hermione a know-it-all at least once
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Moody's magical eye had now left the door. It was fixed upon Harry. His lopsided mouth leered more widely than ever.
"It hasn't been easy, Harry, guiding you through these tasks without arousing suspicion. I have had to use every ounce of cunning I possess, so that my hand would not be detectable in your success. Dumbledore would have been very suspicious if you had managed everything too easily. As long as you got into that maze, preferably with a decent head start - then, I knew, I would have a chance of getting rid of the other champions and leaving your way clear. But I also had to contend with your stupidity. The second task . . . that was when I was most afraid we would fail. I was keeping watch on you, Potter. I knew you hadn't worked out the egg's clue, so I had to give you another hint -"
"You didn't," Harry said hoarsely. "Cedric gave me the clue -"
"Who told Cedric to open it underwater? I did. I trusted that he would pass the information on to you. Decent people are so easy to manipulate, Potter. I was sure Cedric would want to repay you for telling him about the dragons, and so he did. But even then, Potter, even then you seemed likely to fail. I was watching all the time
"So what could I do? Feed you information from another innocent source. You told me at the Yule Ball a house-elf called Dobby had given you a Christmas present. I called the elf to the staffroom to collect some robes for cleaning. I staged a loud conversation with Professor McGonagall about the hostages who had been taken, and whether Potter would think to use gillyweed. And your little elf friend ran straight to Snape's office and then hurried to find you..."
Moody's wand was still pointing directly at Harry's heart. Over his shoulder, foggy shapes were moving in the Foe-Glass on the wall.
"You were so long in that lake, Potter, I thought you had drowned. But luckily, Dumbledore took your idiocy for nobility, and marked you high for it. I breathed again.
"You had an easier time of it than you should have in that maze tonight, of course," said Moody. "I was patrolling around it, able to see through the outer hedges, able to curse many obstacles out of your way. I
Gilderoy Lockhart was obviously a liar, a fraud, and a coward the whole book. Sirius Black had a sudden realignment at the end of the book, as did Alastor Moody. None of them were questionable like Snape. Other than Snape, characters in Harry Potter are all black and white, they either like killing for fun or love their families and pet their dogs often and never, ever give up fighting Voldemort.
I meant richer than the queen currently is. The discussion isn't about the merit of the Queen's riches. In the grand scheme of things Rowling really should be richer than the Queen because, as you so rightly point out, the Queen doesn't do anything.
Popularity is generally not based on merit. See Snakes on a Plane, Britney Spears, Chrysler 300, etc. People like what other people like, if the chain reaction moves the right way it hits critical mass. That said, I find that the Harry Potter books are quite good, worthy of popularity (though perhaps not enough to make the author richer than the Queen).
You're retarded It was only Snape you were supposed to wonder about, and he was one of the most important characters in the books because of it.
Deathly Hallows fortunately played down the anti-intellectualism of the previous books. Harry admitted he should be able to heal wounds by magic (but still didn't admit any fault of his own for not knowing), Hermione's wide knowledge proved very useful on their little trek, and even Ron decided he should look cool in front of the kids at Hogwarts by spouting off a random fact he'd heard from Hermione. That was good, I liked that.
Yeah, but something else will provide an excuse for mayhem, and people will never really learn to think, even when given the chance. It'd be nice, though, wouldn't it?
...or an unimaginably small sample size, or confirmation bias?
No, you've got cause and effect backward. Religion is a symptom. People don't kill each other and fail to understand how the world works because they're religious, they're religious because they don't understand how the world works and want to kill each other. If religion goes away people will find plenty of other things to fight about, and plenty of other reasons to watch American Idol instead of reading books.
Vendors with low prices, vendors with bad locations, and vendors with no advertising budget don't hate it.
They were thinking "wow, there's a lot of students demanding wireless... too bad they're too drunk to understand why it's unreliable! Oh well, they're the bosses..."
I go there. I know this to be true.
Shit!
Hot! Are Harry's kids named Lily, James, and Sirius?
waaaaait.... is that bold line supposed to be the last line of the book? That's not true, scar has to be the last word, as in "Harry drove off into the sunset in hi scar."
That's exactly what it is. And no nerd would be caught dead in SL, so don't worry about that.
You can change the date/time format in your preferences, under "homepage".
I should clarify that this is just a summer job, near-minimum-wage work at an electronics manufacturing plant. You're probably right that I'm not talking to the most educated or intelligent people here (I tend to be just a touch pessimistic sometimes, you might've noticed).
What, do you expect the government to release a statement saying "Check it out guys, we stopped some terrorists who were trying to blow up three major metropolitan areas with nukes Russia lost track of back in '82... no need to panic, or grab all your guns and head for the hills, or start lynching brown people, kthxbye!"
Interesting position. I am also acquainted with some of the home team's players, but don't root for them. They've got better equipment and a much bigger team than the other side, and the other team's nonparticipating fans have been dying much faster than the home team's players. Though I'm not personally acquainted with any of said fans, I can't support killing them.