Goblet of Fire Mistakes
| I was just listening to HBP earlier in the week, and before that had watched the GOF movie with friends and realized some mistakes both times, so I though I would throw them up here just as sort of tidbits for thought. 1. I had said in a comment on one of Pauli's posts on the Priori Incantatem chapter of GOF that the potions position is the only one that gets refered to as "master" (pointing out the Neitzsche connection of "masters and slaves"). But I was wrong, or at least it is not a rule with no execeptions. In HBP, when Ron makes it snow in charms, in the Sectum Sempra chapter, rowling refers to Flitwick as the "charms master" ... I still think that the concentration of the term on the potions position with only one (that I know of right now) instance outside of potions, lends a certain character to the terms usage as regards the character of potions as a discipline (BTW, On a side note: this is a really interesting passage because their task is supposed to be turning vinegar into wine ... very Cana [water into wine] meets Calvary [vinegar on the cross] type of thing. In fact, it always interested me in GOF that in the weighing of the wands Harry's wand shoots out a fountain of wine. The Cana incedent, incedentally, was a favored of Johnny Cash, whom I have spoken of briefly here as a country mystic [official mysticism being, like alchemy, a distinct phenomena within several different religions]. In the Sony re-release of one of his prison shows, either folsom or San Quentin, he plays a song he wrote when he and June visited the Holy Land, after going through Cana - "He turned the Water into Wine") 2. In watching the GOF movie I think they goofed a major but subtle characterization thing. When Harry has one of the dreams they have Wormtail calling Voldemort "my lord Voldemort" ... I would love to hear if anybody has evidence to the contrary but I think that in the books it is between the lines that what Voldy wants is for NOBODY ever to refer to him as Voldemort, whether it is prefixed by "my lord" or not. I think he's into the whole thing of "everybody knows the name, nobody dares to think of him as Tom Riddle anymore ... but nobody dares pronounce the name either name either, the good guys are too scared to say anything other than 'he who must not be named' and the bad guys only ever say 'my lord' or 'the dark lord'" That's why Fred and George rule and why Molly is so scared reading their "You-no-poo" sign. Because the pun is based on the humor of the hysteria, the fear of Voldy. To take something like the "reverence" the ministry pays to Voldy and use it for a joke product is probably considered a huge insult by Voldy (I think it's also why Rowling probably loves that people have come up with short-hand like "Voldy") Y'all are more than welcome to provide what evidence you can that somebody (other than DD or Harry) refers to Voldemort by name in his presence ... it's just a theory that it's consistent throughout the works and that the script-writers goofed on that - I don't have the time right now to go get # 4 and look up the Riddle House killing of Frank Bryce) |
Comments on "Goblet of Fire Mistakes"
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Merlin said ... (June 27, 2006 6:33 PM)
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jkr2 said ... (June 28, 2006 8:53 AM)
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Pauli said ... (June 28, 2006 9:27 AM)
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Pauli said ... (June 28, 2006 9:37 AM)
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Merlin said ... (June 28, 2006 11:47 AM)
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jkr2 said ... (June 28, 2006 5:37 PM)
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post a commentWHOAAHHH!!!
sorry bout publishing this post like 7 times or something (I thought people would get the most out of it if I published it in the most magically powerful number :) )
I was trying to publish it the other night and it just never seemed to be going through so I gave up (fortunately, or there would have been nothing else on the site ... um, apparently the publishes were going through after all LOL)
Jo, that might be some of the same trouble you have had on your blog ... maybe when one "finally went through" previous attempts went through too.
Anyway, sorry bou' that.
well, I had saved the text out to try publishing another time, ie now, so at least I don't have to mess with that :)
my father called all his teachers at school the x- master.
the maths master, the english master, the french master etc
i think it's a british old school thing.
oh, and merlin, like i said up above somewhere, even though i check here most days, all the stuff from here up only just appeared today for me. very odd.
wormtail in gof was so wrong in so many ways.
in the graveyard he is just too assertive or something. not scared enough. he grovels after LV gets his body back, but that's about it. he doesn't seem to be in much pain after chopping HIS HAND OFF!
jo
Maybe Wormtail did a quick non-verbal "pain-killer spell", LOL.
Some rambling thoughts: The changing of vinegar back into wine would seem to be a "reverse process", maybe a sort of resurrection, restoration or redemption -- a reconstitution of something. Changing bitterness back into something sweet. Kind of a metaphor -- and participation (see I Cor. 10:16) -- of/in the alchemical Great Work itself. And of course the restorative work in HP involves the defeat of Voldemort.
Jo,
Interesting on the British old-school masters thing - although I still think the concentration gives it a certain tinge or flavor ... but here is one of the things I was also wondering, if Rowling is may be a little critical of the old British schools, maybe a bit of a Pink Floyd Fan ... I forget the name of the song that precedes "Brick in the Wall Part II on the Wall," (lyrics though: "when we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who would hurt the students any way they could, exposing all their weakness to the other little kids") but both those songs are ones concentrating on that particular era Brit school system that Waters saw as contributing to (not necessarily completely maunfacturing on its own)Barret's/his own lack of mental stability.
All of this not being on the level of an "agenda" or anything that large, or even necessarily a specific, you know, distinct "literary element used" ... just kind of flavorings, little pinches of this and that.
And I think in a lot of ways some of it (at this level of the "extra seasonings") is just about raising the questions, the concerns, the dangers. Which is why I think a lot of times when people get caught up in "is Snape a good guy or a bad guy?" or the type of thing where if you talk about DD's goof-up somebody might ask if that makes him a "bad-guy" (I know one guy who was really into the series until book 5, which he thought stunk, and after book 6 he was like "yeah! Snape is my man!" - basically, after book 5, he agreed with the attitude of the death eaters atop the tower)- that it misses some of the point of Rowling. DD is refered to as "headmaster" but not really ever the way Snape speaks to Draco of Voldy as "your master" ... but still, I think the language has a certain hint or flavor, even with DD, that every position of authority or power carries with it certain dangers or pitfalls taht you simply have to watch out for, especially in a fallen world. "The higher the leap the harder the ground." That doesn't mean you shouldn't climb, though :).
And I loved the map-pitch connection too once I saw it ... it seems too obvious to be accidental. You have the same sort of back and forth when she writes Quidditch matches - Harry is distracted by this or that, then notices the other seeker or gets yelled at or something and returns to scouring the pitch for the snitch, only there is a neat reversal in the imagery, he's being distracted by seeking Malfoy - but I think it will lead up to important thematic stuff in book 7, the whole seeking your enemy to love them.
But I was just thinking about this ... what if Malfoy seeks Harry in book 7 first, what if Voldy is ticked about Snape having to do Malfoy's task for him and he ... or rather I should say, what if WHEN Voldy gets ticked about it he ... sets Draco another task: "I know Potter Hates you ... lead him to me" ... and they are sort of mutually seeking each other although neither doing so for the reasons that in the end they will realize were the reasons they needed to find each other
(One of my favorite all time movie lines, makes me cry evertime I hear it, is in "The Green Mile" after Cofee takes the tumor back from the guy's wife and she is whole and beautiful and she says to him [something like] "I know you, I had a dream, I was wandering in the dark, and so were you ... and we found each other ... in the dark"
Oh, and on womrtail ... yeah, for how much you can do in movies that is more exhilirating and able to grip the imagination more immediately etc - the movie carries none of the electric feeling you get in that scene in the book in a line like "a swishing noise and and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: Avada Kedavra" - I had goosebumps the first time I read that - the whole picture of wormtail in the thrall of Voldy's command, even though he holds the wand and Voldy is a baby (assuming WT doesn't know of the Horcruxes, as DD surmises Voldy doesn't trust the death eaters to tell them about those fully) - even after killing how many muggles on the street framing Sirius, performing the killing curse is still troubling and hard, almost like he has to call upon the forces of darkness, night and chaos to help him do it - and at the same time almost a plea of agony and help to the simple naturalness of night in the good sense, not the forces of chaos but the time of simple quiet in which the normal people that Voldy depsises as mundane at least have the blessing of natural rest - all wrapped up in that line that was just ink on a page, yet they couldn't carry any of it off really, in a more gripping medium like film. ... oh well (like I said, imagination is the most magical :) )
And I just went back and looked at the hand-cutting scene and you're right, she speaks of a sream that cuts through Harry like a dagger and when the hand enters the potion it flares red so strong that Harry can tell even through his clenched eyes.
And I just went and checked the beginning too ... Wormtail never uses the name there ... but I did find something else, which I guess you can't pick up eveything in a book this size in a feature length film, but I was still disappointed to see Frank Bryce get slighted
Ilove his character in this bit:
" ... said Frank, defiantly now, for now that he was inside the room, now that the time had come for some sort of action, he felt braver; it had always been so in the war."
... exactly the type of characterization that I loved in Lewis, Tolkien and Chesterton ... and on the name thing and the "my lord" thing, she has Bryce directly challenge WT's wimpering attitutde of deference - "Lord, is it? Well, I don't think much of your manners, My Lord." (original emphasis .I think for sarcasm on Bryce's part)
Pauli,
I like the reversal alot. There is a lot there ... I forget where in Exodus or Numbers but I think it was the waters of Miribah that Moses turned from bitter to fresh by throwing a piece of wood in (I think). In Ezekiel's vision of the river flowing from the south side of the Temple (which would be the right side, like the right side of Christ pierced on the Cross - a number of Fathers in the Partistic age also connect the rock of Horeb producing water when struck by Moses with the piercing in the side) - the river from the Temple flows out and as far as the sea and turns all the salt water to fresh (ie drinkable, able to sustain life - Ezekiel 40 or 47, can't remember which).
In Cana itself, they were the purification waters and would not have been very clean ... I mean not like the guest had taken a whole bath in them, it was mainly ceremonial washing, but like Jesus in the upper room at Passover, the water probably would have passed over some lovely smelling feet as part of the ceremonies. - personally I think I might have rather had to drink straight vinegar than that water before it was transformed.
Lot's of good stuff there
wormtail.
he is in this state where he feels everything he does is because he has no choice. he's backed into a corner. he couldn't help it could he? none of it is his *fault*.
whereas in the movie it's just a bit *hehe, i'm the dark lord's henchman *. he was better in POA.
there was another reversal i thought of the other day too, in ootp. i'll have to find it.
re - using the name. one thing i wonder if jkr will edit out in later editions - like something she wrote before realizing how things would go - was quirrel using voldemort's name in philosopher's stone.
cheers
jo