I have been following the J.K. Rowling/Harry Potter Lexicon suit with some interest, and I even linked to a Slate article on the issue recently, as I recall. For those of you who haven’t been following, the Harry Potter Lexicon is a huge clearinghouse of information on all things Harry, compiled and maintained by dedicated fans of the book. Rowling likes it so much that she even gave it a fan award, and she has praised it numerous times in countless interviews, even admitting that she uses it as a writing resource.

However, when the Lexicon announced plans to publish a book compilation of the material, things went sour. Rowling has filed numerous injunctions trying to stop publication, and now the issue is dragging on, and on, and on. It’s definitely lowered my opinion of Rowling, and it also makes me wonder…what in the heck is going on?

Rowling claims that they are infringing on her copyrights. The Lexicon contends that their site, and the book, would be considered fair use, and I agree. There are numerous guides to the world of Tolkien, for example, which discuss characters, action, settings, and so forth, providing analysis and new perspectives for readers, and these are considered fair use. Likewise with Narnia and numerous other famous fantasy worlds. When people write good books, other people like to talk about them.

And a lot of sites are making a lot of money on Harry Potter, like, say, Mugglenet, which pulls in a handsome monthly income. Most of the big fan sites are, yes, by fans for fans, but they are also making a tidy profit, so don’t fool yourself about their altruistic intentions. And don’t let Rowling’s claim that she only stepped in when the Lexicon wanted to profit from their work impress you, because if she really cared about that, she’d have bigger fish to fry.

This case has potentially far-reaching repercussions for literary fans. Issues like fan fiction have long been contentious, but to seek an injunction against the publication of an encyclopedia is madness. Rowling says that it would cut into her plans for her own version of an encyclopedia, and before all this happened, I would say that she needn’t worry, because Harry Potter fans will buy anything that spills from her pen. After this, I’m not so sure. I probably wouldn’t buy her encyclopedia out of sheer spite, even though it will probably contain new and interesting information.

I can’t help but wonder if Rowling is using the suit to keep her name in the press, reminding people that she does still exist, as authors tend to fall off the radar once they complete something like a major seven book series. And she also champions a number of social causes, so maybe she thinks it would be a good idea to stay in the public eye. It’s ludicrous to suppose that she wants to protect profits. The woman is wealthier than the Queen of England, and I can’t imagine what she would do with even more money. Buy more money, perhaps?

I also wonder if Warner Brothers is perhaps pushing her into it, in a desire to protect their film franchise, which has been flagging a bit. American movie studios are, after all, a bit notoriously overzealous about their copyrights, and they have copyrighted the characters. Rowling’s publishers have also gotten a bit of a bad name with their determined efforts to weed out any use of Rowling’s characters and world, even attacking bookstores for holding “Harry Potter Parties,” claiming that Harry Potter is a protected trademark.

And…I hate to be the one to bring this up…but encyclopedias of the world of Harry Potter have already been published, in much the same vein. Rowling’s publisher is notorious for rabidly protecting her copyrights, which I understand, but they apparently haven’t taken issue with books like The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the World of Harry Potter, The Magical World of Harry Potter, The Sorcerer’s Companion, An Unofficial Muggle’s Guide to the Wizarding World, and Fact, Fiction, and Folklore in Harry Potter’s World, among numerous others. Why attack the Lexicon in particular?

This is one of those cases where the facts are probably obscured, because both sides aren’t talking too much about the case until it is settled. So there may be information that we don’t know about coming into play here. As far as I’m concerned, though, it stinks, and I hope that Rowling loses her suit. It seems like a lot of people agree.

If she doesn’t, I fear for the future of the publishing industry. And Harry Potter fandom can kiss all of its fan fiction sites goodbye.

The big news in the Potterverse this month is that Dumbledore is gay, and everyone has their own two cents on the matter. Some people want to use it to warp the parent/child relationship between Harry and Dumbledore, for example, while others use it as further evidence of the “gay agenda,” and some people, many people, actually, say that it doesn’t really matter. That the sexual orientation of the characters is certainly part of who they are, but it doesn’t change the books for them.

I have mixed feelings on the matter. As Dan Savage points out, if Rowling thought it was no big deal, why wasn’t it in the books? Why not let readers see a positive portrayal of a strong, fatherly, wise, wonderful gay character? And, for that matter, why aren’t more characters in the series gay, given the statistical likelihood of being homosexual? I have my suspicions about Lee, but no character is explicitly gay, which I think is interesting in the English public school environment; Savage points out that this environment is notorious for being rife with homosexual undertones.

Rowling says that she didn’t put it in the books because it was crucial to the plot of the last book, what with Dumbledore’s great lost love and all. And perhaps she’s right. But one of my favorite things about this series is the lessons that it contains; social responsibility, caring for others, the existence of strong female* characters. Why not put in some awesome gay characters in addition to all of the other great role models in the books? And would it have ruined the plot to make it clear that Dumbledore was gay? I think not. It’s interesting to see that all of Dumbledore’s faults and follies came out in the last book, making him a rather flat character until the very end, which is a great pity, since he was obviously a complex and very interesting man.

Dumbledore’s sexual orientation would have mattered to me if he had been out in the books. As it is, I think it’s just an irrelevant add-on. If Rowling thought it was important, she should have included it in the series, not announced it at a reading. She keeps delivering dribs and drabs about characters in interviews, which is really frustrating to me, because I think that information should be in the series for future readers to know about. Unless she wants to write another book with all of this information, which would be nice, since I would like to know more about what happened to the characters than what was in that poorly written piece of fan fiction appended to Deathly Hallows.

Furthermore, I think it’s interesting that Rowling outed Dumbledore, when that sort of thing is severely frowned upon in the gay community. Outing someone is a pretty serious act of betrayal…how come no one is talking about that?

*Speaking of strong female characters, would someone please explain why the end of the last book has Ginny and Hermione both happily married and pumping out kids? Not that motherhood isn’t great, and an admirable pursuit, but both of these women were painted as strong, smart, independent, confident characters, and now they’re stuck behind the Aga with their wands? Or did Rowling just “leave out” the bit about jobs at the ministry, professorships at Hogwarts, and so forth? What kind of lesson does that teach young women? Sure, be confident and awesome all through school, but once you graduate, you’d better hook up with the hunky boy and start making babies.

The sky in the East is just starting to lighten, and I feel like I am slowly surfacing from a dream.

Well kids, I’ve just finished. I even splurged and bought the deluxe edition, and let me say that it looks mighty fine on my bookshelf. And before I move on to a brief discussion of the book, I would like announce that this also happens to be my 1,000th post. Which I happen to think is pretty neat, a landmark post to talk about a landmark book.

Click onward if you would like to read my brief and somewhat sleep deprived thoughts. If you haven’t read the book and you intend to, please do not click onwards, because you will be spoiled.

Before I begin, I would like to thank Rowling for her work, because the books really do represent an astounding amount of effort. Earlier today, someone chided me for being impatient, saying that I had waited two years for the book, and surely I could wait a little longer. Perhaps they were right…but I also think I might have exploded if I hadn’t started reading when I did. Of course, now there’s so much to say that I feel like I might explode anyway.
[...]

I nursed Half-Blood Prince out through the week, reading small snippets each night so that I would finish today. I’m about to hop over to Bloomsbury to listen to Rowling read…and then I am logging off until I am done with Deathly Hallows, to avoid any more possible spoiler exposure. I’ll be posting my review as soon as I finish, behind a jump cut. I am so excited that it’s almost physically painful, and I’ll be working off my excess energy tonight running around with a bunch of Harry Potter fans.

Half-Blood Prince has been my favourite book in the series, because it develops much more emotional and plot complexity. it’s also pretty fast paced, with a lot of really chaotic stuff going on, and a large number of little hints and clues. It was a good book to linger on, I think, since I had to digest so much as I read it.

The crux of the book, of course, is the murder. Is Snape good, or is he evil? I’ll be finding out in, oh, about eight and a half hours, but it bears a moment of reflection anyway, since to me, this is really the most important part of the series. Personally, I think that Snape is good, and that he killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore’s orders, knowing that appearing to come out in support of Voldemort would strengthen his usefulness for the Order. This is not to say that the scene was not intense or horrifying, as it is every time that I read it. Snape will redeem himself in book seven, and it will be an important moment.

I’ve had a lot of issues in my own life this year with “choosing between what is right, and what is easy,” so the book really resonated with me, perhaps even more so than the first time I read it. To me, the world really does break down into two kinds of people: the people making these choices, and the people who cannot even understand or comprehend them, as Harry realizes as well. Half-Blood Prince really brought that home for me, and strengthened my conviction that you should choose what is right, you should always choose what is right, and you should disregard the cost because the cost of not choosing what is right is simply too high. If the people around you do not understand that, you probably shouldn’t be around them, because you will ultimately suffer for it.

Speaking of choosing what is right, what is up with Harry cheating at Quidditch all the time? Seriously, people. It’s been bugging me through the last couple of books, and that scene where he shouts at the Slytherin Seeker to get him to drop the Snitch…it troubles me. I’m all for giving Harry a little darkness, but he’s just being unsporting there. I wonder if that will come back to bite him, even though Quidditch won’t be in book seven, according to Rowling. Speaking of which, why is the ball called a Snitch? You’re telling me she didn’t think that one out carefully?

And did anyone notice the cameo appearance by the Giant Squid? I’m telling you, people, this whole thing is hinging on the squid. Is the squid a horcrux? God, I hope not, that would be terrible! I’m hoping that the squid will defend Harry, participate in the destruction of a horcrux, or possibly eat Voldemort. (By the way, do not search for any Harry Potter character+giant squid in Google. Just…don’t. And if you do, do not do an image search. You have been warned.)

Speaking of horcruxes, let’s talk horcrux for a moment. We’ve got two down, the diary and the ring. One presumed horcrux, the locket, missing. Personally, I think that the locket has been destroyed, since who in their right mind would take it and then not destroy it, especially when they leave a note saying that they will? Or is it possible that RAB is actually in the lake with the other Inferi, still clutching the locket? And how did Dumbledore not realize that the locket was fake, since he’s so good at detecting Dark Magic and Voldemort’s mark in particular? That leaves four, according to Dumbledore, one of which is Voldemort himself. Hufflepuff’s cup and Nagini seem to be two likely candidates, as suggested by the discussion between Dumbledore and Harry. This leaves…something of Griffindor or Ravenclaw’s? I find it hard to believe that Voldemort wouldn’t hit all four houses, personally. And, of course, if Harry is a horcrux, is he the seventh, or the eighth, as I suspect? And how/when will he realize that he is a horcrux? Is he the Griffindor horcrux?

I’ve also been thinking about name origins and meanings, especially for the Death Eaters. Take Voldemort, for example, which translates to “Thief of Death” in French. I really cannot believe that I didn’t notice that before, since stealing from death is such an important part of his character. Lestrange would translate into “the stranger,” while Malfoy could be stretched to mean “bad faith” or “bad religion.” Interesting how a number of the bad guys have French names, or other unusual names, while the heroes have good solid English names like Granger and Potter, isn’t it?

I feel both gleeful that the release is fast approaching, and sad because I am nearing the end of a long road. Whatever happens, it will all be over in only a few hours…what a strange thought.

[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince]

Tomorrow is the big day for readers and retailers around the world, as the embargo on sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is finally lifted. Of course, the book has already been extensively leaked, leading to an assortment of lawsuits and angry words over companies which broke the publisher’s embargo, and the people who took advantage of the breaks.

The idea of an embargo is not unique to Harry Potter. It’s just that, most of the time, people don’t care. Most publishers set specific release dates for their new books, usually on Tuesdays, for anyone who wants to know. When booksellers purchase from these companies, they agree not to open embargoed boxes until the listed on-sale date, which is usually stamped on the carton. Distributors do likewise. If a bookstore breaks an embargo, the publisher usually says that it will not ship books with a specific on-sale date in the future until after the date has passed.

By and large, no one really cares. Only with Harry Potter have we seen consumers worked into a fever pitch over the release of a book. I think that this is in line with the trend in the last decade or so to hype things like movie openings and the releases of major video games. Oddly enough, most of these things would sell well enough even without the publicity, with things like midnight parties simply acting as icing on the cake. It’s not as though people wouldn’t buy Harry Potter if they had to wait until bookstores normally opened to do so, which begs the question of what’s with the hype? Why this book? What is the big deal?

For me, along with many other readers, this book is a long time in coming. We’ve been reading the series for years, and we’d like to know what happens. Since a huge community has grown around Harry Potter, we sort of feed the frenzy ourselves by pushing for midnight parties and other events like them. Booksellers, of course, will take advantage of the opportunity to publicize themselves, in the hopes of selling products not related to Harry Potter. Publishers are hoping to advance their brand, and distributors are always happy to sell more books.

There’s something mystical and cool about the idea of the whole world getting excited about something and reading it all at once, which is why I am kind of sad that people have chosen to break the embargo. It makes me especially sad that people have felt the need to publish spoilers, since I have to say that spoilers really would ruin the book for me. The experience of reading it would simply not be the same if I knew what was going to happen, and I wish people had not gone to such lengths to try and publicize important events in the book. For the people publishing spoilers, of course, it generates publicity, because people give them the attention they crave, more’s the pity.

Honestly, given the opportunity to read the book ahead of time, I do not think that I would. I am looking forward to the experience of drinking it in with the rest of the world. (Well, eight hours behind every English speaking country other than the United States, and months before readers in other languages. But you know what I mean.)

Embargos themselves are not…well, terribly legally enforceable. Yes, bookstores sign contracts and the penalties are clear. And Scholastic and Bloomsbury could argue that pursing embargo breakers protects the property. But I don’t think it does, really. I think that most people are going to read the book anyway, to see how the things that happen occur, and to drink in the subtle nuances which a spoiler cannot convey. Honestly, I don’t really care about the embargo being broken, I care about people willfully and maliciously spreading spoilers.

I do not entirely know if I approve of the practice of embargos on books. It seems like murky territory to me, and I kind of hope that the Harry Potter frenzy is the end of it. There are, after all, more important things in life, and while I am trembling with excitement about what is going to be in many hands only hours from now…I also have other things to be excited about, interested in, and concerned with, as do most Harry Potter fans.

Some might call us nerdy. I think it’s wishful escapism into a fantasy world, as one way to deal with the crazy and sometimes bitter place we inhabit. Is that such a terrible thing?

D for Deathly Hallows, rather than victory in Europe. I’m afraid my news roundup isn’t terribly interesting today because I have instituted a personal media blackout to avoid spoilers, which seem to be abounding left and right. Instead I’m posting an assortment of spoiler free links. (Dear readers who cannot abide another word about Harry Potter…er…it will all be over soon. Put in your requests for Sunday’s topic now!)

Bloomsbury will be posting a streaming live feed on their website at 12:01 AM BST, which is 4:00 PM PST. All of you in other time zones are on your own figuring that one out. It will include coverage from the launch party…and Rowling reading a part of the book aloud. Safe to assume that it will be a spoiler free part, as otherwise it would be no fun.

The Harry Potter Alliance is an awesome organization which focuses on bringing the spirit of the books out into the world, working on projects like putting a stop to government sponsored torture, ending discrimination, and addressing poverty, hunger, AIDS, global warming, and other important issues. And you thought we were all just lazy bookworms!

Mugglenet is an awesome resource for all things Harry, and it includes a great big counter for anyone having difficulty counting down at this point.

JK Rowling’s website is worth poking around, if you have not done so already. There are all sorts of fun little Easter eggs, and I especially like the links section because it directs readers to a number of her favourite causes.

In the non-Harry department…

The Police Log at the Arcata Eye is world famous, and hilarious. Click on the “next” button for hours worth of archives.

SFist has a video, courtesy of Kron4, of a garbage heroine in Oakland, who blocked a garbage truck in with garbage to force it to pick up the trash on her street. For those of you who haven’t been following this, some people in Oakland have not had garbage service for almost a month. In addition to being just plain gross, this also has the potential to result in a public health crisis. That woman deserves a medal for her efforts.

The President issued a chilling executive order on Tuesday. Read it, ponder it, spread the word, and thanks again to Kremlin, who sent it to me in the first place.

I spent most of Saturday reading, and finished Order of the Phoenix in the evening, over a plate of pad Thai at Nit’s. Oddly enough, the table next to me held a mom taking her kid out to dinner, and I could tell that the girl was craning her neck to see what I was reading, and then she finally whispered to her mom “look…look mom, she’s reading Harry Potter!” I suppose I don’t really look like the Harry Potter reading type, because her mother stole a glance at me and when I grinned she turned pink and studied her pot roast intently.

One thing I really like about Order of the Phoenix is that Harry stops being a little saint and starts being a bitchy adolescent, screaming at his friends, breaking Dumbledore’s office possessions, being irritable all the time. It really humanizes his character for me, especially when he finds out that his father was not exactly a little darling either. There’s a lot of disillusionment going on, what with Sirius dying and Harry’s father turning out to be a vindictive, spiteful little shit. Which I think makes Harry stronger, because he is really forced to think and act for himself.

There’s also some interesting foreshadowing in that infamous scene with Snape, when Snape calls Lily a mudblood. Snape, clearly, is obsessed with lineage, as evidenced in the Half-Blood Prince.

I also think it’s intriguing that Rowling makes Sirius into a kind of unlikable character in this book, a marked contrast with Dumbledore in the next one. Sirius seems reckless, impatient, especially in his dealings with Kreacher. Indeed, as a father figure, Sirius does not really seem like the best choice. The loss of Sirius seems like it would bring Harry closer to Lupin and the Weasleys, which is perhaps the goal. Sadly, I do not think that the Weasleys will make it to the end unscathed…the only question for me is which one(s) will die.

I also think that it’s interesting to see Dumbledore’s great weakness, love, revealed. We have Dumbledore confessing to Harry that he kept secrets from him to protect him. Yet, at the same time, Dumbledore puts love forth as one of the strongest powers on Earth, the very power that protects Harry. I think that love will be very important in book seven, because it’s one of those big things that guides people’s choices. Snape, for example, may redeem himself through love.

The book also made me wonder about ghosts and portraits. Clearly, the portraits are able to keep up with current events and exchange information. In a way, people with portraits are not truly dead, although their bodies might not be present. Likewise with the ghosts, and I would like to learn more about how ghosts are created, since Nick is so coy about it in the exchange that he has with Harry at the end of the book. Dumbledore doesn’t strike me as the type who is afraid of death, so I doubt he’s going to come back as a ghost, but his portrait is certainly going to make an appearance, I’ll bet.

I also feel like Harry has a lot to learn, as demonstrated by the duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore. Obviously, Dumbledore is insanely skilled and powerful…and I wonder if Harry is strong enough to take Voldemort on alone. If Harry isn’t, who is going to teach him the skills he needs to defeat Voldemort?

The giant squid pops up, once again, lending further credence to my suspicions that the squid is important! I don’t know how or when, but expect a crucial squid sighting in book seven, my friends.

Reading the book also brought home the differences between the book and the film for me. There were definitely some things which should have been in the movie, but were not, in my opinion. But maybe it’s because I’ve read the book that I think this…perhaps people who have only watched the movies think the film is fine, even though they’re missing out on the nuances of many of the characters.

[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix]

So, what about Harry Potter so captivates readers that they are worked into a frenzy over the release of a book or film? The fever pitch of excitement around the world is almost overwhelming, as Harry pops up in more and more media every day. I half expect to see a front page, above the fold review in the Times next Saturday, and I’ll bet that spoilers will abound in global news stands. This next week is going to be insane for ardent Harry Potter fans, as they drink in any scrap of news and try to avoid learning about too much of the plot. I’m still jealous that every English speaking country in the world other than the United States gets the book at midnight British time. It seems silly to do that, when the whole world could have been simultaneously reading!

When the books were first released in England, the run was fairly small, because the publisher didn’t expect them to take off that much. Contrast that with the first printing of Deathly Hallows: over 12 million books around the world. I’m not sure what caused the series to take off to the point that millions of books are included in a first run. Especially when you consider the fact that remarkable children’s books are written every day. Take His Dark Materials, a trilogy of books set in a magical version of England which abounds with strange technology, talking creatures, and smart, sensitive people. Indeed, one might argue that the plot and language in this series are far more sophisticated. Or the Bartimaeus Trilogy, a romp through an intelligent and witty England filled with classist magicians, powerful spells, and djinn. Why aren’t these books as wildly popular as Harry Potter?

After all, the language in Harry Potter is fairly simple, so one might imagine that adult readers would be easily bored. On the other hand, the plot is extremely complex, although not immensely emotionally sophisticated, representing years of focused work, backed up by extensive notes and checking of references. A look into Rowling’s office must be amazing, because I imagine it’s just filled with reference material to remind her of all the delicate details in the books, like what color Luna’s eyes are, or the exchange rate for Galleons.

I think that one of the things that readers like most about Harry Potter is the aspect of believability. It is not set in a patently different world, one so alien from our own that we cannot imagine it really existing. Harry is an ordinary boy living in a dull suburb at the beginning of the series, and many of us can imagine ourselves there. The books suggest that the possibility of magic is always around the corner. I think that’s satisfying a dream for readers of all ages, don’t you?

For English readers, the book follows a familiar model, using the setting of a boarding school and harnessing the emotional responses that setting evokes. We Americans, secretly obsessed with English society, see the books as a dip into the world of the British. The characters of the books also mature with them, something which is difficult to accomplish in a single book or a short series. Readers who started reading young are actually growing with the characters, and probably finding a lot to emphasize with.

I would be tempted to put the Harry Potter fever down to hype, but I do not think that it is that simple. Something about the books has fired and gripped the imagination, and I think that the end of the series is going to be sad for a great number of people. Not simply because characters will die, but because this is the end. No more. And although it may be finished and wrapped up, there’s a sadness in that as well, just as there is when you finish a superb single book and you realize that there are no more chapters left to read.

With only one week to go, today’s news roundup is, of course, dedicated solely to Harry Potter news.

As was the case with Half Blood Prince, Bloomsbury is doing a live webcast of Rowling reading from the book at the launch party. Given that it’s on the Bloomsbury site, I think it’s safe to assume that it will be spoiler free. I loved listening to her read from Half Blood Prince, even though I didn’t get to actually read the book until eight hours later.

The Wall Street Journal covers the issue of potential spoilers.

Harry Potter is having a devastating impact on worker productivity.

20% of Harry Potter fans will skip ahead to the last page? Have they no shame?

Will bookstores in the UK break the embargo? I hope not…

Many of the actors in the films are just as eager to get their hands on book seven as we are.

Ah, Snape…good or evil? MSNBC goes a bit terrifyingly in depth on this topic. (I, of course, think that he is good.)

Finally, a brief note on spoilers. As you can well imagine, I will be posting a review and commentary of Deathly Hallows as soon as I have finished reading it, and as I digest it in the weeks to come. However, I know that not all of you will finish it as quickly as I will. (And that some of you are probably bored to tears of all this talk of Harry Potter.) All of my posts on Deathly Hallows will be click throughs, so it will be perfectly safe for you to visit the main page. If you don’t want to read spoilers, just don’t click the links to the full text!

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which means that I have now crested the middle of the series. It took me rather a long time because people are visiting, and I’ve been reading it in snippets rather than sitting down to devour it. But I’m finally done, and digesting.

To start with, how did Voldemort get his wand back? I feel like this is kind of important, since his wand is an important plot element. For that matter, why/when did Fawkes donate feathers to make the cores of Voldemort’s and Harry’s wands? I just think it’s very interesting that Voldemort kills Harry’s parents, dies (well, sort of) and gets his wand back 13 years later. Hrm?

And what is up with the famous “gleam of triumph” in Dumbledore’s eyes? The first time I read this book, I went back and read that bit three or four times, just to make sure that I was not imagining things. But, no, a gleam of triumph is definitely there. Why? Because Voldemort is mortal? Voldemort himself says that he is settling for a mortal body while he quests for immortality again. This also sets us up for prophecy funtime…”neither can live while the other survives” could be read as Harry needing to die…but if he dies and part of him is inside Voldemort, doesn’t that mean that Voldemort has to die too? Has Voldemort condemned himself to death?

More with house elves. I think that they are going to be important in the last book, not least because Rowling has said that Kreacher is important. House elves are powerfully magical, and that’s got to count for something. I also think it’s interesting that many “enlightened” wizards condone the slavery of house elves, including Ron. Potential for clashing between him and Hermione later?

Why isn’t Sirius back at Grimmauld place in this book? I just think it’s odd that he is homeless when he has a perfectly good…well…sort of habitable house to return to. And why can’t Sirius conjure up food for himself? Indeed, as a larger question…in a world where you can make anything you want with your wand, why can’t you, well, making anything you want? Why should the Weasleys be poor? Is there some kind of ethical boundary about conjuring things?

We also met all sorts of magical creatures in this book…Abraxan horses, Blast-Ended Screwts, the Sphinx…an interaction with the merpeople, even. And astute readers will note that the giant squid is mentioned, again. Come on guys, the squid has to be important!

This book also starts to hint at the extraordinary talents Fred and George have, despite them not getting enough OWLs to please their mother. Canary creams, for example, represent a tricky piece of Transfiguration. While this is setting up for the escapades of the next two books, clearly, is it also possible that the duo are going to do something rather important with those skills in book seven?

Speaking of setups, I wonder what is going to happen with Wormtail and his blood debt to Harry. I believe it’s important, and it pretty much has to get wrapped up. I am curious to see how Wormtail will spare Harry’s life. While it’s kind of far fetched, I could imagine Wormtail killing Voldemort, possibly? Maybe too far fetched. I don’t know. It just seems odd to think of Harry staining himself by killing Voldemort. Although, as Dumbledore points out, there are fates worse than death.

Also, on a shipping note, when does Hermione get a chance to make out with Krum? It seems like she works way too hard to have time for that sort of thing.

I think also that this book speaks really well about corruption of power, illustrating it with Crouch and Fudge. Indeed, the Ministry in general seems really corrupt, in a lot of ways, at least among administrators. Is Rowling secretly anti-government?

[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]