Thanks for your contributions…one critique though, since this is kind of a literary thread, could you guys put some effort into your spelling??

I also think it’s a bit rich of Rowling to say she was trying to subvert the genre. If she really thinks that she has had a very limited exposure to her chosen genre.

And that’s precisely it. She’s admitted she hasn’t read much in the genre, wasn’t intending to write in that genre, and didn’t realize she was writing in it till she had written a bunch.

The real “subversion” going on is her translating the Great Books themes into a fantasy world and blending them with postmodern concerns into several other genres. Her genre-blending, while not unique to her, is probably not to the liking of fantasy-genre purists.

Eomer- ” ‘It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. Elf and Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and the sword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?’
‘As he has ever judged,’ said Aragorn. ‘Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another thing among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.’ ”
Tolkien’s works are littered with the importance of fairytales and the fairytales of fairytales.
Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood is an interesting exploration of the location and source of our world’s mythical figures and how when their world becomes threatened it is someone from our world who plays the part of mythic hero… Sounds a bit to much like Neverending Story… but good.

I also think it’s a bit rich of Rowling to say she was trying to subvert the genre. If she really thinks that she has had a very limited exposure to her chosen genre. The corrupting nature of power is an often explored theme in fantasy. I read Megan Lindholm (AKA Robin Hobb) in an interview where she said that her Farseer Trilogy (Assassin series) was completely a study of the negative trade-off for power.

As for magic rings-
‘Hey! Come Frodo, There! Where be you a-going? Old Tom Bombadil’s not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring! Your hand’s more fair without it…’

Gandalf ‘A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off trecherously, but its keeper never abandons it.’ …Gollum…’called the Ring his “birthday present”, and he stuck to that. He said it came from his grandmother, who had lots of beautiful things of that kind. A rediculous story. I have no doubt that Smeagol’s grandmother was a matriarch, a great person in her way, but to talk of her posessing many Elven-rings was absurd and as for giving them away, it was a lie.’

Magic rings = Corruption, power and peril all in the one package. Reminds me of the Perivel ring withering Dumbledore’s hand when he exorcised the Voldemort spirit shard from it.

Nancy Solon Villaluz, “Does Harry Potter Tickle Sleeping Dragons?” Priced at a ridiculous $25 on Amazon. I’ve only managed to get fifty pages into it; probably the same for Travis. She might have some interesting things to say but her prose drives me insane. It’s painful for me to try to push through it. But I admit that might not be everyone’s reaction. Most of the reviews on Amazon are practically sycophatic. The one really excellent review by inked, who posts over at Hogpro’s, seems to have been taken down.

Red Rocker, you get more informative results when you google than I do, so thanks for all the info. Mataphore does seem to be the appropriate word, though I kind of like the sound of paragory.

But in reading through the comments, the name Villaluz was mentioned. I seemed to have missed something, but who is that? When I googled that name all I found was a soccer player, and I don’t see any tie in with HP.

Pat

Slinkhard writes that ‘counterjinx’ is the name people give their jinxes when they want them to sound more acceptable, while Hermione argues that jinxes can be useful when used defensively. Slinkhard wants to declare all jinxes bad, while Hermione says that they can be good if used for a good purpose. Even the Unforgivable Curses seem to support this idea. It’s clear that these curses are banned because no end should be worth torturing another human or depriving another human of life or freedom. But the tone of the book doesn’t suggest that there’s anything wrong with Moody using them on the spider, or even using them on students in order to teach them to better defend themselves.

Ah, come on, Travis! As the semi-professional HP expert on this site, I expect you to slog through Villaluz’s book, no matter how painful it might be or mentally damaging.