An Overview of Legend of Korra

Last week I talked about Legend of Korra's contrversial ending.  This week I want to talk about the entirety of the series.

The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that the entire series needed an extra season, or at least a half-season of more episodes.  I could go into detail about it, but I think having season 4's villian show up in the last episode of season 3 just to get two lines of dialogue and a name says it best.

The second is that the entire series is contracting what I call the "DBZ effect": instead of adding more story, they add more powers and characters.

This is not unusual when it comes to action/adventure television programs. With so many characters running around with so many powers, the story becomes less about the conflict the characters face and overcome, and more about who has the secret power that makes them king of the hill.  I mean, considering that iron is a metal, and iron is found in blood, does this mean that metalbenders could also be bloodbenders?

Third is that having Zaheer help Korra reconnect to her Avatar spirit was too convenient.  I mean, aside from Zaheer's "I'm a highly intelligent and enigmatic dude, so yeah I'll help you" aura, what other reason did he have to help the Avatar?  A bigger question than that, why is he and his compatriots still alive?  I mean, several armies have fought each other, killing people and soldiers by the thousands, but they can't kill a group of four people, who have proven, twice, that they are highly competent and devoted to murdering the Avatar and world leaders?  What's the point in making these special prisons and guarding them round the clock when you could execute them?

The fourth is that it had a plethora of strong female characters.  Not only does it pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors, but it has women who are not just erotic villians or damsels in distress; the women have a range of colors, emotions, and characters, and makes a special nod to deal with women's issues besides "oh did I--did I--did I not get the guy?".  George R. R. Martin said it best when he asked how he was able to write such rounded, well-written female characters: "Well, you know, I've always thought of women as people."

My fifth comment is on (of course) the show's ending.  Having Korra and Assami pair up as a romantic couple... well, I won't say that it is impossible because the groundwork was in place for their relationship, but I will say that up to that point, I think their relationship wasn't warranted, just yet.

The reason why I say this is because neither Korra nor Assami expressed sexual interest in women at all.  A simple "Kuvira, you're a beautiful, talented, and capable woman, but your methods are entirely too brutal and oppressive blah blah" from either one of them would be inocuous enough to not reveal the show's ending, but important enough to indicate their attraction to women. Personally, I think the majority of people who correctly predicted the show's ending did so out of wishful thinking rather than compiling logical and persuasive evidence.

What's more is that Korra was obviously pining away for Mako, and Bolin for Korra (and later Opal), yet we don't really get this sense for Korra and Assami.  Yeah sure, they were close, and Korra did choose Assami over everyone else to speak to while recovering, but I feel like they didn't spend enough time together to truly make their affections and their intimacy legitimate.  But that's just my opinion.

My last comment is the soundtrack is awesome.  I should be getting it in the mail today. :)

Got any thoughts about the Legend of Korra?  What were your favorite moments?  Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.

Have a lovely day!

Legend of Korra's Controversial Ending (spoilers)

A couple days ago I finally finished watching Nickelodeon's "Legend of Korra", a year after it already ended.  And I'm conflicted, to say the least.

Michael Dante Dimartino made a statement that very clearly and explicitly said that Korra and Asami were a romantic couple at the show's ending.  He notes in his statement, "For the most part, it seems like the point of the scene was understood and additional commentary wasn’t really needed from Bryan or me. But in case people were still questioning what happened in the last scene, I wanted to make a clear verbal statement to complement the show’s visual one." 

I think the reason people (including myself) needed clarification was because it came as such a shock:

A lesbian couple, in a children's cartoon?

I spent much of my weekend contemplating this ending, and wondering if it was appropriate to the story, and wondering if my vexation stemmed from any moral objection I have over homosexuality.  It's led me to some interesting places.

First, in western culture, woman are typically seen as symbols of sexuality, virtue, and fertility.  Assami's character has always been exquisitely feminine; if we were to label rage and general aggression as "masculine", (as far as I can recall) she has never behaved in that way; she's always been gentle, kind, giving, and prone to be hurt (read: be victimized) over lashing out.  Even when she discovered her father's darker side her initial reaction was dismay over vengence.  That's not even addressing her physical portrayal: soft features, long hair, delicate and slender body, always has on a little eye shadow.

Bearing all this in mind, I asked myself, "Would it be possible for Assami to be romantically interested in women?"

If Assami were an archetype of feminity, and intrinsic to that archetype is sexuality, then the answer is yes, Assami could be interested in women.  I say this because I've heard far more stories of women having sexual encounters with other women (of various degrees) than men.  I think this is because western men tend to solidify their sexual identity by being romantically interested only in women, and any undermining of this reputation has traditionally been labelled as "unmasculine". Women, however, are more free to express their sexuality just to express their sexuality, and are capable of crossing this border with impunity.  (Indeed, even men tend to encourage this behavior.)  So it is entirely possible that Assami, as an archetype of feminity, could be romantically interested in Korra.

Which led me to the next question: "Would it be possible for Korra to be romantically interested in women?"

This question was harder to substantiate, as while Assami was definitely feminine, Korra didn't have her feminine qualities as sharply expressed as Assami.  But that didn't mean it would be impossible for Korra to have romantic feelings for women.

The masthead theme behind season four was Korra's reminisence of all of her experiences, and how she has adapted and learned to overcome each one.  Some writers say that a story isn't a story unless a character changes, and as we've explored the Avatar universe with Korra, we've seen her grow and adapt.  As far as a character goes, she's undergone so many subtle and major changes in a short while that I'm hard pressed to think of a character who is more dynamic.  Switching her interest from men to women (if indeed there was a switch) then, wouldn't be that great of a jump.

Then again, technically speaking, if Korra's identity is a cumulation of her past lives, which included both men and women, then it would make sense that her affections would transcend her gender or the gender of her romantic partners, even if (or despite that) she lost her connection to her past lives.

So the answer to that question is also a yes.  But neither one of these questions were the first that I asked myself.

My first question was "Was this the right ending?"

In my gut I knew that this was not the most convenient ending for the writers, but the most appropriate ending to that story.  I had to say that this was the best and most satisfactory ending the series could've had: somehow, some way, it just made sense.  A little sad, a little timid, but ultimately very hopeful.  I don't know if it was the perfect ending, but I'm hard pressed to think of a better one.

I'll continue my discussion and critique of Legend of Korra in next week's post.  See you there.

Photo cred: http://www.dailydot.com/geek/bryan-konietzko-korrasami-date-fan-art/

Thomas, The Protector of Children's Dreams (Story)

I hate the night time. But I hate those things more.  Little Anita was having nightmares, so her parents gave her grandmother some money and then she and her grandmother went to the store and bought me off the shelf.  She carried me around all day.  Her hair smelled of lavender.  She held me so tight, so tight.

The first night was the worst.  After her parents kissed her goodnight, her grandmother read her a story, closed the door and turned off the light.  When the grandmother’s steps faded from down the hall, Anita held me close and whispered into my ear.

“Will you stay awake for me, Thomas?”

I didn’t say a word.  Didn’t move.  I don’t know what I would’ve done if I knew I could.  She held me close and turned over. It was quiet and dark for a long, long time.  Then I heard something hiss from underneath her bed.

Shivers ran up my seams and spine.  I moved the legs I didn’t know I could move.  The floorboards creaked.

I tried to squirm out from under her arm, and then I heard something big and heavy breathing below us.  My arms and legs struggled as she held me tighter.  Something moved from underneath her bed, then rose up, its horns scraping the ceiling.

Its nostrils twitched as it sniffed the air.  Twin rows of red eyes lined its long snout.  Its teeth were the size of Anita’s fingers.  It smelled like her grandmother.

I thrashed and twisted in Anita’s arms.  The thing rose high above us and blew a sharp breath out of its nose.  I pushed her arm and slipped underneath her.  She shifted in her sleep as the creature loomed above us.

I spun around and shook her shoulders.  I spoke with words I did not know I had.

“C’mon,” I said to her, “C’mon, please, please, please, wake-up, wake-up.”

She didn’t stir; didn’t move.  She lay there sleeping, deep within her soft blankets and comforters.  When I felt the creature’s warm breath on my back, I turned around and it lean closer to us.

My legs were shaking so hard as it got closer, its red eyes blinking in the dark and the gloom of her room.  It laid a clawed hand on Anita’s arm.  I punched it in its face.

It flinched and reared back, and then snaked down towards me.  I ran, rolled, and tumbled off her bed, landing belly-first on the floor.  It lunged at me.  I scrambled out of the way, my furry feet slipping across the wooden floor.  Its claws tore into the floor as it chased me, wooden splinters pelting my back and arms.  I ran toward her toy box, and the thing raked and clawed my back. I felt my fabric blossom open.  I cried out, cotton stuffing sprouting from my wounds.

I ran, stumbled, and ran from the creature.  It didn’t follow me.  It turned around and crept back to the little one. I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t know what to do.  I wanted to collapse, to scream, and pound my fists on the floor, but all I thought about was how badly it would hurt her if it got close to her.  

So I ran to her toy box, flung open the lid, and began pelting it with anything I could find: wooden blocks, bouncing rubber balls, little carved chairs and tables from her doll set.  It ignored me at first, until I hit it in its nose. It whipped around, blinked at me, and crawled toward me as I showered its face and back with the little cups and saucers from her tea set.  Its lips peeled back as it slunk across the floor.  I was throwing metal jacks at it when it snatched me up in its jaws.

I screamed as its finger-sized teeth punctured my back and belly, my tiny furry fists battering its face as it chewed.  I rammed the metal jacks deep into its eyes, and it roared as I rolled out of its mouth.

I crawled toward her closet as it swiped at its face with its claws.  I held my stomach, trying to keep my cotton stuffing in as I searched through her dresses of pressed lace and linen. I was looking, searching, trying to find something, anything that I could use.  I found a croquet stick leaning in the corner of her closet.

I strode out, wooden mallet spinning in my hands.  The creature turned around to face me, most of its eyes bleeding and slammed shut.  It hissed at me as I walked closer to it.  It slunk forward, away from Anita Bennent, the little girl that held me all day.  I felt a warmth blossom within my chest, loud and hard and strong.  I spoke with words I did not know I had.

“C’mon,” I said to it, “C’mon!”

It lunged again, and I swung with everything I had, striking it on its jaw. I struck it again and again as it tried to crawl away from me, hunkered down and dragging itself back underneath the bed.  I pounded the mallet against its face and back until the shaft broke, then I speared it through its belly.  The creature fell, and its body curled around the broken haft of the croquet stick.  I walked over to its head, my hand clutching my side as I went, and I kicked it in its face.

Its fat tongue rolled out.  Its red eyes dimmed.  I kicked it again and again until I fell down weeping.  I wiped my eyes, got up, and limped back to her bed.

I climbed back up her deep comforters and blankets. Stumbled to her side, cotton fluff falling out as I went, and crawled under her arm.  Her hair smelled of lavender.  She held me so tight, so tight.

I wanted to sleep so bad, so bad, but I was so scared.  Before she went to sleep, before that creature came, she asked me to stay awake for her.  She knew what waited for her if she slept.  She knew about the things hidden in the dark.  She asked me to stay awake for her. So I did.

The dawn streamed through the window.  The creature’s body disappeared, along with the torn up floor.  When she woke up, she smiled at me and kissed my head.  I wanted to cry so bad, but I didn’t.  

The parents came in later, saw me torn up and all of her broken toys and blamed it on the dog.  The grandmother took me, restuffed and sewed me back up.  When her parents asked her if she had any nightmares last night, she smiled and said “no”.  I felt the warmth settle into my stomach when she said that. Later that day, her parents bought me a sword and helmet. 

And now every night, after her parents have kissed her goodnight and her grandmother has read her a story, after her grandmother turns off the light and closes the door, Anita holds me close to her chest and asks me if I’ll stay awake for her tonight.  I don’t say anything, because I don’t know what to say to her.  I don’t want to tell her how much I hate the quiet and the dark, those frozen and still moments before another creature slinks from under her bed.  I want to tell how every stitch of me wants to stay in her arms and let her hair warm my face as we drift off to sleep.  But I can’t. I can’t.  She holds me too tight.

As she sleeps, something hisses from underneath her bed.  I wriggle out from underneath her arm.  The moonlight glints off my blade as another creature rises up from the foot of her bed.  It has come out to face me.

I hate the night time.  But I hate those things more.

---

Photo Cred:

http://begemott.deviantart.com/art/sweet-halloween-dreams-42197587

Police Officer plays with Harlem Kids, 1978

Source: http://imgur.com/SaAXISC

When looking at any image, be it on your screen, in a museum, or in a book, ask what factors came and collided to make this piece of human expression come before you.

Was the racism and violence in the 70's and 80's that bad if a police officer could play with these kids?  Are we de-volving or e-volving when it comes to matters of race?

Is she playing because she is also a member of a minority, and sympathizes with the plight of other minorities?

Was this one isolated moment when one person refused to treat others differently?

Will these children remember this moment too?  How will they reflect on it, years after it happened, in the social context we now live in?

I've been thinking about writing lately

Like I usually do.

Recently, I've thought about why I'm doing this.  I mean, it seems odd, devoting my life to a profession that is about ordering a bunch of dark squiggles into symbols that represent ideas, to try to move, motivate, and inspire people.  I mean, what's the point?  What's my end goal?  What's my win condition?

It just seems odd, the whole process that I'm doing.  Maybe I've been working too hard, drawn too close to the labors that I'm doing, and have forgotten the magic and wonder that comes with storytelling.  And wonder is an important aspect of writing I need to be working on more.

Some recent readers of mine have remarked that my writing style is too dense and inaccessible.  I won't begrudge them that point; I guess I haven't figured out the rhthym and pacing to keep a reader interested while also telling a story where things are going on beneath the narrative being told.  Part of that is because I can't establish wonder.

The first people who saw "Star Wars" felt like they were seeing magic enfold before them.  It was spectacular, not in the sense that it was good (which it was), but that George Lucas was able to make a spectacle.  Rowling did the same thing with her wonderous and whimsical world.  Could I ever do the same thing?

Maybe I get too distracted from what the characters are physically doing that I don't take a moment to point out the beauty of a thing, which is funny, because people IRL tend to think I speak too much when I try to explain the beauty of an idea or event, yet my writing doesn't reflect this.

Am I that serious and sober-minded?  Hmmm... I don't know.  I know that I have the potential to write a decent comedy or twelve, but that sort of thing doesn't interest me.  Serious things interest me, and any play that I do while I write is more for someone else's benefit than my own.

Aside from all that, I've noticed that there are some techniques you can use to speed up your writing narrative:

The first is dialogue.  Dialogue is interesting; that is why so many stories start off with characters speaking.

The second is that sometimes specific descriptions of every person and action is completely unnecessary.  Tolstoy (though a bit dated) will sometimes not even bother giving a name to a reoccurring character; just a profession.

Streamlining is necessary.  Kept the story moving and your readers interested.  That's what I need to learn too.

On a side note, I'm planning on starting a new fantasy webseries.  I'm not too sure when I'll do the updates, but I want to do them twice a week.  Hopefully they'll be interesting to you.

Wow, this post was all over the place, lol oh well.  Thanks for reading!  See you next week!

Man of Bel'Tasq, Part 2

The spiders lifted him up, and carried him away.  He heard their limbs and sinews pop and crack as they moved. They jostled the other occupants of the webs as they went along.  It was not long before he felt them deposit him in some other part of the webs.  He felt the webs across his face ripped from his skin, and he gasped from the pain.  Blood poured into his eyes.  He still couldn’t see.

He felt something soft and fuzzy press against his face, mopping up his blood.  His blood continued to drip, yet the clothe was persistent, wiping his eyes until he stopped bleeding. He heard a purring murmur near him, and when his eyes cleared he saw that it came for a giant spider that stood over him.  It held a strand of his cocoon in its front legs, and offered it up to him, its mandibles clicking as it spoke.

“Do you know what this says?” it asked.

He frowned, the scabs pulling at his taunt skin.  He stared at the sharp lines and squiggles written into the webbing that cocooned him.  He stared for a long, long time.

“It says ‘Bel’Tasq’,” purred the spider.

The man remembered.  The smell of dust and sweat.  Oil and leather.  Days spent training in the sun.  The man’s chapped lips parted as he spoke, the first words he had spoken in centuries.

“My father,” he said.

“Yes, yes,” said the spider, “And his father and his father before him, and your brother and sisters and cousins as well.”

His father told him to not leave the Revlin boy, to protect him from harm, as the Bel’Tasq had done centuries before.  He left anyway, for glory and battle. When he came back that morning, flushed and full of success, he found his charge slain, and his father deeply, deeply, angered.

“I failed,” said the man, finding fresh tears to shed.  The spider let him cry for awhile, before it spoke again.

“Hmmm…” it purred, “Not quite yet.”  The spider began to undo his cocoon.  The man gasped as the threads were ripped away from his bare skin.

“The last of the Revlin is in danger, and The Weaver of Fate has decided that it is not her time to die,” said the spider. The man was free, and the giant spider held him aloft as it tore at the webbings below him.

“The Weaver of Fate remembers your name, and if you are clever enough, if you are brave enough, it will be returned to you.”  The spider dropped him, and the man spun and twisted in the plummeting blackness.

“Find Illannis Revlin,” called the spider, “Who goes by the name Banbrig, in the Grishell Mountains, north of the River Celes!”

And with that, the man fell and fell, until he landed, hard. 

The Man of Bel'Tasq, Part 1

A cold blade plunged through his collar bone, the mourning mother standing above him, her eyes red, raw and misted. He saw the thin line of her mouth as she twisted the blade within him, mutilating attached muscle and sinew, puncturing his lungs and heart.  He felt himself pulled upwards, and when he saw his own body slump and collapse to the frozen earth, the pull became stronger, and he fell, tumbling into the sky.

The webs heaved below him as he landed.  Hundreds of barbs dug into his skin as he screamed and thrashed.  He was welcomed with a chorus of moans erupting all around him.  The barbs bit deeper as he writhed and roared.  Soon the webs bound him tight, and he was immobile. He could only weep and bleed, suspended in all that black, plushy darkness.

In the dark, there was no day, or night, and he did not know if minutes or months had passed.  He tried to remember the moments before the twisting blade, to dull the pain that bit into his biceps and cheeks, his legs and spine.  He tried to remember the glinting sun and the feel of sweat crawling down his back.  He tried to remember the warm meals his pale and cold fingers would wrap around, or the stink and smell of dust when his father returned from months on the road.  He tried to remember what it meant to be small, and little, and the feel of his mother’s sleeve across his cheek as she held him.  Eventually, the pain from the thousands of barbs receded, not because his memories fought them back, but because the unmarked eons he spent in the webs soon outweighed the moments before he fell into them. He cared as much about staving off the agony as he cared to stall his memories.

Time passed, and other bodies fell into the webs, the sticky strands shivering all around him as he and others moaned and screamed.  He tried to mark the time by their descent, or the spiders that would come and cocoon the young and old, women and men, trapped around him.  Hundreds, thousands fell, and then were cocooned, and taken away, and yet he still lay in the webs, bleeding and begging for a spider to come and cocoon him too.

It was after the number of spiders and people began to blur together when he stopped his counting.  Millions upon millions upon millions. He did not know how long it was, but after he cared not for the memories he had lost, or the people weeping around him, or the moans that escaped his lips, the spiders finally came, and enfolded him too. He screamed as he felt the webs cover his face and eyes.  Then they left him, and all was still, for a while. He did not know long it was, until he tried to remember his name. 

He spent what felt like centuries, trying to remember it.  He knew he knew it, before he fell, and a little after, and he could not remember it, try as he might, and later he would feel vexed because of it.  This was not because he couldn’t remember it, but that he couldn’t remember why it was important.  That was when the spiders came for a final time for him.  Their pincers clicked as they spoke.

“Is that him?”  One asked.  Another spider came and examined his barbed shroud.

“It’s him.  Take him.”

And with that, they unstuck him from the webs, and carried him away.

Harry Potter wasn't all that great (part II)

So I said in an earlier post that despite all the great things Rowling did correctly writing the Harry Potter books, there were a few things I didn't agree with.  So why was she so popular?

I think the biggest thing is that her books appeal to a large audience.  Where do you find the Harry Potter books?  In the children's section, and if you want to write a book for children, it has to establish wonder.

Wonder is a necessary part of story-telling.  Andrew Stanton says in his TED Talk (15:17) that wonder is the thing that makes people stop and stand there a while. Rowling's world has this in spades.  Part of it comes from her large cast of characters, another is the sense of whimsy and play instrinsic to every moment the characters experience.  There are poems and puzzles and this light sense of humor.  Think about it, the boys in the story often have competing worries: winning Quidditch and not dying via Voldemort.  This sense of mortal danger versus social anxiety makes the moments comical.  The mixture of danger, imagination, and humor is what makes people feel this innocent and enthusiastic wonder about her characters and story.

So the books entertain children because of wonder... yet why do so many adults read it?  Part of it is from the aforemention wonder, another part is the sheer length of the series.  HP is easily over 2k pages long, and had over one MILLION words to the enitre series.  That sort of length usually requires an adult attention span and stamina to complete.  On top of that, every story was a mystery, and often the clues were so subtle and hidden (at least to me it was) that it would keep the interest of even adult readers.  That's not to mention the complexity of the story as the character (and its readers) aged and their understanding of the world became more naunced and discerning.

But wonder and complexity aren't the only two reasons why Harry Potter remains so popular; every story has to teach us something about life and ourselves.  Stephen King once said that "Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity."  That's not to mention the many other concepts HP fans have noted, among them: education should never have a political agenda, there is nothing more important than family, and that we shouldn't be afraid of our weirdness, but celebrate it. 

These are all wonderful insights, however I think a couple that gets too frequently overlooked is the concept of racial equality and that birth grants privilege but not talent or character.  I think racial equality gets some of the best examination in Order of the Phoenix, with challenges over keeping Hagrid's half-brother, or Dobby and Kreacher's servitude, or how the centuars view themselves over how the wizards view.  I have no qualms about how Rowling presented this first concept, but I do have objections to the second.

In the series we learn about how Voldemort believes children of full wizarding families are inherently superior to "Mud-Bloods" or "Half-Bloods", and that Squibs and Muggles are an abomination which should be viewed with either out-right malice or disdain.  Dumbledore is ultimately against this ideal, and constantly professes his support for the half-giant Hagrid as well as witches and wizards from non-wizarding families.  So we shouldn't judge people based on their birth or their early childhood... yet we know that even as a young child Voldemort was something of a prodigy when it came to magic.  I mean, as a little kid, he not only could control his magic, he could do it without a wand.  How can we disregard talent as a matter of birth when the main villian (and possibly Dumbledore) was born talented?  How can we disregard "talent is a matter of birth" when people from wizarding families can't perform magic?

While characters like Hermoine and Snape offset this disparity (because both worked hard at perfecting their magical abilities), the fact that Squibs exist and there seems to be no direct system indicating magical talent, heritage as an indicator of magical ability runs contra to the philosophies that Dumbledore and Voldemort espouse.

In Colin Stokes's TED talk, he points out that many of the films of today feature heroes who were born with powers and are coerced by fate to defeat the villian with violence.  In comparison, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz defeats the wicked witch through making friends and being a leader.  Now this former concept is not something unique to stories of today; many of the Greek classics like Hercules, Oedipus, and Odeseus were born talented and had prophesies somehow attached to their lives, and there is something moving about seeing an individual character having to face and defeat evil by themselves.  It takes a strong individual to face death alone, and alone, triumphing over it, but Stokes's point about Dorothy uniting people to overcome the antagonist... I like that better.

Call me an American, but I don't think birth is a guaranteed indicator of later success, and ever since watching this TED Talk, I've made means to write stories which are closer to the ethic from The Wizard of Oz; the protagonist wins because they worked hard and the support system around them helps them succeed.  I know that this is no longer (or in some ways, was never) true, but I don't think people should feel entitled to success; I think they should work for it, and people should work for success, together.

Thanks for reading.  Hopefully I won't get that much hatemail.

See you next week (hopefully). ;)

Harry Potter wasn't all that great.

I know, I know, I'm sorry; but it's the truth.

Don't get me wrong, Rowling wrote Harry Potter well, but the more I read her work the more I see her making decisions I don't agree with. 

I know what you're probably thinking: what's this know-nothing "writer" thinking, saying that HP wasn't a masterpiece?  Doesn't he see her string of awards?  Doesn't he know that she was the first billionaire writer? All before age 50?

Well, Rowling's popularity was much better earned than many other writers, and frankly her style is so radically different than mine it's hard to judge who is a better writer just because she does things differently than I do.  I mean, she did a lot of things correctly when she wrote the HP series. 

First, her characters were distinct and memorable.  Sometimes writers fall into the pit of "talking head syndrome", in which the characters feel more like puppets getting manipulated by a single operator than distinct personas in a living world.  Everything from Hagrid's thick accent to Snape's disdain for Harry makes the characters more different and believable than the rest of the expansive cast set in the HP universe.  Think about it for a second, if I mention half-moon spectacles, who do you think of?  Bushy hair and buck teeth? Hooked nose and greasy hair?  That's not to mention a lightning-shaped scar, or an electric blue eye, or some of the great and memorable dialogue from the books. 

Remember how badly Umbridge was treating the students and faculty, and that Madam Pomfrey would resign out of protest, only she'd "worry about who would take care of the students if they got hurt"?  What about how McGonagall's eyes misted up when Harry and Ron said that they wanted to visit Hermoine? The details of the characters are so different that you have to remind yourself that Fluer, Peeves, Dedalus Diggle, and Dobby all had lines written by one person.  Simple details like Molly Weasley telling Ginny and Hermoine about how she brewed a love potion as a girl, and how, for some reason, telling this story included a lot of giggling, makes the characters feel geniune and unique.

Second, she provokes an emotional reaction from her readers, not as a fandom (like the Beliebers), but by her sheer skill as a writer.  Do you remember the fury you felt at Umbridge as she forced Harry to harm himself, night after night, or your frustration that Harry kept isolating himself and raged at his two best friends at the slightest provocation?  The confusion of how to view Dumbledore from a more complex and complete light as Rowling uncovered his past to us?  Or how badly Harry was crushing over Cho, and how much she was crushing over him, as well as the awkwardness of their relationship over Cedric?

What about how hard you threw your book after completing The Half-Blood Prince?

Finally, Rowling made sure that every element from the first book related to the last, and that all the clues you needed to solve to the mystery within each book, and the entire series, was provided for you all along.  After a second or third reading, it becomes so glaringly obvious, the stuff you miss, that you kinda kick yourself for not paying attention.  Then again, the details to solve each puzzle were buried so cleverly that you shouldn't blame yourself too much for not getting it the first time, especially if you're an 11-year-old just getting into the series.

So, I've praised Rowling over and over (as if she needs reaffirmation from myself or others), why do I think the books could've been written better?  My first objection is that she doesn't spend enough time to establish settings in which characters are speaking to each other.  Sometimes I have to go back and remind myself where the characters are having a dialogue.  You could chalk that up to my quasi-ADD, but Rowling does tend to cover a lot of ground in a sentence or two, and because she spends so much time describing one scene (let's say the greenhouses for Herbalogy), when we switch to another (let's say the Griffindor common room), I get confused as to why there is a roaring fire next to all of these potted plants.

My second qualm is a tough objection to substantiate, due to the audience the books were written for, but it is a huge thing when it comes to writing a good, intelligent, story: Rowling tells us too much, and doesn't show enough.  With any children's book there will always be a small amount of hand-holding when telling a story; a juvenile's experience is often not cultivated enough for serious introspection to pick up on the subtleties of a scene.  That being said, sometimes she takes a shortcut and tells us directly what is being said, done, or felt, and doesn't let the reader come to their own conclusions. 

In the end, is this a bad or good thing?  To tell the truth, I don't know enough about YA fiction to make final judgement on it, and I haven't decided how I ultimately feel about it.

My final objection is over Order of the Phoenix.  I'm not too sure if she hired anyone to review and edit her book, or people were to afraid to "correct the master", or that her publisher gave her too much freedom to write, but Order of the Phoenix was entirely too long.  Harry hadn't left his summer home at Privet Drive until almost 200 pages in, yet Sorcerer's Stone was less than 300 pages in its entirety.  By the time Harry arrived at Hogwarts in Order of the Phoenix, Harry was already on his way to fight Voldemort in Sorcerer's Stone.  It's not that I'm against long books, it's just that I feel like I saw many instances where Rowling could've eliminated a description or short phrase to make the narrative tighter and more streamlined.

Speaking of going too long, I need to wrap this post up!

Next week, I'll talk about the popularity of Harry Potter, and why it was so successful, along with (another) one of my objections.

See you there ;)

Bonus Saturday

So, I was supposed to do my post on thursday...

Yeah so it's saturday now, but I swear I can explain...

In short, I've been busy.  REALLY busy.  My typical day begins at 7am and I don't get back to the house until 10pm (on good days); and I'm not talking about Mon-Fri I get up early and don't get back 'till late, I'm talking about every day.  I won't go until exact details of my schedule, but let's just say that between tutoring, reading, and working at the restaurant, I've been contemplating cancelling my NetFlix subscription (total 1st world problem, I know) because I haven't used it in two months.  I don't recall the last time I sat down to play a video game (which is good), or went to the theatre (i've been to two movies in the last month, at least).

The crazy things is: I don't mind being so busy.  I feel like I'm constantly setting goals and achieving them.  In the last month or so, I've read about 8 books, not including the 6 novella-length comic book trades, and I've completely re-written an old story I wrote a while ago.  The trouble is I'm too busy doing the things that's preventing me from diving head-first into my writing career.

First, I REALLY hate my restaurant job.  Granted, I've had worse managers, worked longer hours in worse conditions, and have had to work with some of the dirtiest dirt bags ever, but I'm working really hard for pittance pay in something that is very much unrelated to what I want to do.  People (not my father) have said that I'm a pretty smart dude.  Working in a restaurant... well, let's just say that it doesn't necessarily attract the biggest and brightest minds of our generation, and the disparity between my intellect and the people around me has never been so... stark, I think.  Last Sunday, I actually contemplated asking the manager if I could just not come in that day.  While it's certainly not the #1 most dreaded thing I've ever experienced in my life, I don't recall having to drag myself into work as much as I have with this job.

Second, my tutoring job is... alright.  The kids are cute, and listen to me (mostly), and they seem like they are getting better at English.  The problem is that while I'm getting paid significantly higher than my restaurant job per-hour, I spend time outside the tutoring sessions preparing lessons, and I spend money out of my own pocket to have enough teaching materials to keep my students invested.  I could ask the parents to help buy the materials, but I feel that it would be better if I could own the materials myself so that I can use them with my other students (and not one specific family).

Paying the bills is great and everything, but I need to do some more research on entering contests and fish for more literary agents, and yet I haven't found any time to do it.  I still need to read Nicola Morgan's "How to Write a Great Synopsis" for the Caledonia Novel writing contest, and I need to parse out photos on my laptop for my daily photo posts, as well as continue to manage my twitter account to grow a following, not including reading all of the blogs and articles I find on there to help me write better.  Not to mention that I haven't worked that much on the sixth revision of my novel.  Not to mention all of the day-to-day chores I haven't been able to address yet.

My car looks like the nest of a homeless person, and I still need to send in my insurance info to the hospital that fixed my hand, while also getting the appropriate documents for my car, while still paying my speeding ticket (I was late to one of my tutoring sessions), while still looking for a job that will replace my other two jobs. 

There's just not enough time in the day, and I'm actually thankful that I introvert hardcore enough that I don't need much social interaction, otherwise socializing would also cut into the precious little time that I have.

I'm seriously contemplating taking the month of November off to participate in NaNoWriMo, and I think that the break would be good for me.  I've been also thinking about future living arrangements, something that will get me out of the house so I can work, allow me to work late at night, and be okay for me to knock out for a few hours if needed.  Not too sure what the solution will be, but I'm always open to suggestions.

I think my next post will be a short review of the Harry Potter series.  I'm expecting to recieve a lot of hate for it.  Sorry!

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll see you next thursday!