Harry Potterrific Names

Now I don’t know if you noticed, but J.K. Rowling gives her characters some pretty goofy sounding names sometimes.  Believe it or not, there’s a reason for that. Rowling has this very Dickens-like style when it comes to naming her characters.  Which makes sense because Dickens was actually one of her inspirations. I don’t think that any author just names their characters without thinking, but Rowling in particular has a pretty clear reasoning behind all of her character names.  As a little kid reading the series, obviously, I didn’t really see a lot of the cool things that Rowling was foreshadowing with these character names, but now that I’m a smarty-pants English major, I’ve come to appreciate the true cleverness behind it all.  So I’ve come up with a list of my seven (because seven is the most magically powerful number!) favorites to show the awesomeness that lies in these characters names.

Remus Lupin: Looking back on it now, dear old Lupin’s name seems to be the most obvious.  “Lupus” means wolf so if you know anything about biology, it’s pretty easy to guess what Lupin’s little secret is.

Sirius Black:  “Sirius” is the name of the brightest star in the sky.  So in that way, it seems a bit strange for the name of an escaped prisoner of Azkaban.  But because we know this little tidbit of information about the meaning of Sirius’s name, we may also question whether or not the rumors about him as a murderer are true since light is often a symbol of goodness and according to this definition, Sirius has about as much light as you can get.  Similarly to Lupin’s name, Sirius’s name also clues us in to his animalistic form as Sirius is known as the “Dog Star” because it is part of the constellation “Canis Major.”

Dolores Umbridge:  Aside from the fact that Umbridge’s name already sounds unpleasant, the word “umbrage” actually means displeasure.  So it’s no surprise that Umbridge is as horrible as she is.

Sybill Trewlaney:  “Sybil” was actually a seer from Greek mythology.  This obviously makes perfect sense based on Trewlaney’s profession, but it also clues the reader into the fact that she may not be just a fraud like Harry, Ron, and Hermione often think.  And of course, in the end she happens to have made one of the most important prophecies of all time, concerning Voldemort and Harry.

Voldemort:  Voldemort’s name is actually taken from a French phrase, "Vol de mort," which means “to flee from death.”  Voldemort’s main goal in the series is to ensure his invincibility, stretching his soul to its very limits all so that he can avoid death.  So really this choice of name is perfect.  According to J.K. Rowling, the “t” is Voldemort is supposed to be silent…but we’ll talk some more about that later…

Argus Filch:  Okay, so this one is actually my favorite because I JUST discovered why it is the way it is.  I mean, I already knew what “filch” meant.  That on its own is brilliant because Filch is always “filching” illegal items from students and making life hell for them because of it.  And then “Argus” it turns out is actually the name of a dude from Greek mythology who had eyes everywhere on his body.  That’s just so perfect.  Because Filch is totally the “eyes” of the castle, always searching for any troublemakers to punish.  I wish I could say that I stumbled upon this one through my intense study of Greek myths, but really I discovered it through Percy Jackson and the Olympians…STILL THOUGH…awesome.

Draco Malfoy:  My interpretation of this one is gonna be a little goofy compared to the rest.  The rest are like indisputable, but I have some kind of weird ideas about what Draco’s name might be referring to.  Now, I know that “Draco” means “dragon” in Latin.  But I also know that the Hogwarts motto is, “Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus,” which of course means, “Never tickle a sleeping dragon.”  Gotta love the whimsy and charm of Harry Potter.  So here’s what I’m thinking; Rowling could have given Draco any name that she wanted…but she chose to give him a name that is actually referenced in the school motto itself.  Now this may seem far-fetched, but I take this to mean that rather than never “tickling” Draco specifically, it means that Draco is not someone to be messed with.  I mean, he turns out to be kind of a pussy, but he definitely puts on this air as if he owns Hogwarts and that if someone messes with him they’ll pay for it…which they most likely will because he’ll tell Luscious Lucius about it and lord knows that Luscious Lucius Malfoy has got mad game with the bitches.  Right, so there’s that rant.  Then there’s the last name.  “Mal” means bad…so there you go.

So those are my interpretations of some HP character names.  Now that I’m on the subject of names, I have some questions to pose about them.  You know how I said before that Rowling says the “t” in Voldemort isn’t supposed to be pronounced?  Well, I’m pretty sure that every time I hear her say Voldemort, she pronounces the “t.”  So I wonder, did she just start saying it to conform to what her fans had interpreted it as?  Because that is very very unusual for her.  Personally, I believe that once an author has published a book, that book now belongs to the public – the author has some credit in the book’s overall meaning, but it is up to the reader to dissect and interpret different aspects and meaning of the text because everybody gets something different out of every reading.  But J.K. Rowling generally seems to disagree with this.  Like, when she told us all that Dumbledore was gay.  I mean, I can see why someone might interpret that from his mannerisms and such, but nowhere does the author specifically say that he is gay and I don’t think that this has to be universally accepted as a truth because of that reason.

Anyway, aside from the Voldemort thing, she seems to be like this with names most of the time too.  For instance, she has said that Lily’s (as in Harry’s child, Lily) middle name is Luna.  Now, I happen to think that is adorable and wonderful and perfect…but it doesn’t say anywhere in the book that her middle name is Luna, so if anything that seems more like a fanfictiony type thing to claim.  I mean, we have to accept that Albus Severus is Harry’s son’s actual name because it’s written in the book.  But the book says nothing about Lily Luna.  There’s also the whole case of the character “John” Dawlish.  Again, nowhere in any of the books is Dawlish ever referred by his first name, but Rowling has said that she eventually named him “John” due to the enthusiastic reaction to the character by The Leaky Cauldron’s site contributor, John Noe.  I think John Noe is a swell guy and that Dawlish is a great character and everything, (I’ll definitely need to write a blog about Dawlish sometime because his joke of a character is sort of awesome) but I’m sort of not sure if J.K. Rowling has the right to give names to these characters after the fact.  I pretty much feel this way about all the futures of characters after the books as well – I mean, in my head Neville and Luna love each other forever and live happily together in a field of nargles, so why does J.K. Rowling get to discount that by saying that Neville marries Hannah Abbott!  If she really wanted that to be a solid fact of the books she would have included it in the books!

I’m a little befuddled here.  Part of me thinks that J.K. Rowling is totally clever and awesome for her character names, but then part of me is also confused about why she would try to name certain characters after the fact.  I mean, I understand that she’s intensely connected to these characters so it only makes sense for her to imagine their lives outside of what is written, but I’m just surprised that this is something she feels like she has to share with the public.  I don’t know.  It’s just puzzling to me because obviously she stopped consulting an editor about size by the time book four came around so if she really wanted these names to exist, why didn’t she just include them in the books?  I happen to be a fan of most of her name choices after the fact, but I just wish she had actually written them in the books so they could be truly validated.

All right, that last bit was kind of a convoluted rant, but oh well.

Comparing Harry Potter and Percy Jackson

About a month ago, my sister forced me to read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.  Now now, don’t be shocked and appalled that I had to be forced.  I tend to be rather kicking and screaming about reading anything that someone else suggests to me.  I have no idea why I do this.  But I’ve been like this since I was a kid.  Believe it or not, my mom had to force me to read Harry Potter.  I remember that I didn’t want to read it because I had seen a popular girl that I didn’t like reading it on the bus one day.  So naturally my six year old self decided that since that girl was stupid, Harry Potter must also be stupid.  Then of course my mom started reading it to me and I fell instantly in love.  I’ve repeated this process with every single book that I’ve ever loved.  Harry Potter, Ender’s Game, The Hunger Games – I even had my doubts about Looking for Alaska.  But in the end I fell head over heels in love with all of them.  So I guess that I shouldn’t have been surprised that I loved Percy Jackson as much as I did.

A lot of my problem with the idea of the Percy Jackson books was that I had already seen the movie version of The Lightning Thief.  If you’ve seen it, you know that it’s a pretty stupid movie.  My sister HATES that movie with a burning passion, but she told me dozens of times that the book was like “her Harry Potter.”  So I decided to give it a shot.

The funny thing is that while I was reading the books, I wasn’t thinking of Harry Potter at all.  I was so caught up in the clever, modern use of the Greek myths and the endearing, perfect characters that my mind was far from Hogwarts.  But I still know exactly what my sister means by the series being her own Harry Potter– because the Percy Jackson books gave me the same warm fuzzy feeling that Harry Potter has always given me.  No– “warm fuzzy feeling” isn’t really the right way to describe it…it’s more like this heart-wrenching feeling of bittersweet-ness– like you feel so inexplicably full and content but simultaneously distraught that you will never feel the same way again that you feel right at that moment.  You will never feel the effects of that first journey with your favorite characters again.  It’s the best feeling you can get from a work of fiction– this all-encompassing melancholic joy.  That more than anything makes Percy Jackson a worthwhile series.  It makes you feel ALL THE THINGS.

Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on it though, it’s impossible not to see some pretty damn obvious similarities to Harry Potter. 

First of all there’s the whole three companions thing.  It’s pretty easy to label Percy, Grover, and Annabeth as Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  I mean, seriously, Percy even has black hair and green eyes like Harry.  They’re quite a lot alike in personality as well.  They’re both kind of just stupid, adorable derps who happen to be “the chosen one.”  And then Hermione is “the brightest witch of her age” and Annabeth is a daughter of Athena, praised for her strength in wisdom and knowledge.  There really isn’t much of anything alike about Ron and Grover except for their side-kick-like rolls, but with the similarities between the other guys can you blame people for making the connection?

Then there’s the whole prophecy driven plot.  Bear in mind here that I’m not in any way calling Percy a copycat.  It makes perfect sense for a series with heavy reliance on Greek myths to include prophecies and oracles and things of that nature.  Pretty much all fantasy fiction ends up having a “chosen one.”  That’s just the way it is.

And of course there are a bunch of random similarities like the “Mist” and the inability of Muggles to comprehend what’s going on, Annabeth’s invisibility cap and Harry’s invisibility cloak, how people avoid using the gods' names and how people avoid using Voldemort's name, Rachel Elizabeth Dare being that one awful ginger character messing up your main character’s love life that you just want to go away and Ginny being that one awful ginger character messing up your main character’s love life that you just want to go away… I’m sure there’s a bunch of other stuff I’ve forgotten, but you get the point.  They’re a lot alike.

Unsurprisingly, I’m not the only one who thinks that Harry and Percy have got a lot in common.   In the back of one of the books (I can’t remember which) a reviewer says to “look no further for the next Harry Potter.”  And then looking at movie reviews for The Lightning Thief one day I came across some pretty brutal ones, all calling the movie a failed HP knock off.   Honestly, pretty much every bad review was like “blah blah blah this is trying to be Harry Potter but it’s not blah blah blah…”

Here’s the thing though, Harry and Percy might be a lot alike, BUT the voice of Percy Jackson is something completely unique to its series.  I often have a problem with first person narrators because they tend to be pretty whiny since I’m stuck inside their heads, but everything about Percy’s internal monologue is likeable.  Knowing exactly what’s going on in Percy’s head makes him all the more lovable because he’s never annoying, he’s always believable, and he’s hilarious.  And I feel like because of this there’s something more attractive about the way Percy Jackson is written. 

Now, I’m not saying that I like Percy better, because obviously nothing is ever gonna replace Harry Potter for me.  But there are just sometimes when I’m reading HP and I’m like, “Okay, what the hell could J.K. Rowling possibly mean when she says that Tom the bartender from The Leaky Cauldron looks like a ‘toothless walnut?’”  And yes, that is a direct quote from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Every once in a while I’ll come across some weird things like this that irritate me.  I’ve never come across anything that’s really awkwardly worded like that in Percy Jackson and I think that’s probably because it’s told from first person.  I’m sure that first person Harry would never call Tom the bartender a “toothless walnut.”  I understand that a lot of those weirdly described instances are just J.K. Rowling being quirky and whimsical and all that.  And believe me, I love the quirky, whimsical shit– it just annoys me when it doesn’t make sense.

Then there’s the whole issue of the maddening narrative structure of Harry Potter.  Like, I’m reading The Prisoner of Azkaban right now and for the first 80 or so pages every single character refers to the dementors as “the Azkaban guards” just for the point of making things more dramatic when they are finally revealed.  As a first time reader, you probably wouldn’t notice that, but if we’re being honest here it just doesn’t make sense for the characters to avoid calling them dementors.  When you’re rereading the series and you already know that they’re called dementors, it’s definitely distracting.  It takes you out of the magical world and brings you back to the real one, reminding you that this is fiction, that there is a plot going on here and that J.K. Rowling is trying to hide vital facts from you for dramatic effect.  On a similar note, WHY DOESN’T HARRY KNOW THAT VOLDEMORT’S FOLLOWERS ARE CALLED DEATH EATERS UNTIL HALFWAY THROUGH THE SERIES!  Death Eaters are referenced constantly in books 1-3 but they don’t get a name until book four.  That’s so stupid!  Same thing goes for the Dark Mark.  Why doesn’t Harry Goddamn Potter know what the symbol of Voldemort looks like until Goblet of Fire?  Alex Carpenter has a pretty excellent video further explaining my feelings on this subject if you want to hear someone describe it more eloquently.

Percy Jackson is pretty good at keeping up the suspense of what’s going to happen next, and Rick Riordan doesn’t have to keep the overarching plot a secret from us throughout the entire series.  From the very beginning we know that there’s a prophecy.  And I’m pretty sure that by book two we know that Percy’s most likely the “chosen one” who’s gotta put Kronos back in his place.  Granted we don’t know everything the prophecy says but it’s better than in Harry Potter where you have to wait until book five to discover the existence of a prophecy at all.  And honestly, didn’t we kind of already know what the prophecy had to say?  Didn’t we already know that Harry had to kill Voldemort?  WHY DID NO ONE TELL HARRY ABOUT THE PROPHECY BEFORE?!  I doubt that it would have shocked him, even as an eleven or twelve year old that he was the one that had to kill Voldemort.  As Hermione often says in book five, he’s got a “saving people thing.”  Obviously he wanted to be the one to kill Voldemort just like HE wanted to be the one to save the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone and HE wanted find out who the Heir of Slytherin was.

I love love love love love Harry Potter and I love J.K. Rowling, but I honestly feel like a first person narrator and some revision to the narrative structure could have made it something even more amazing.  Harry Potter has one of the most intricate, detailed, and captivating stories of all time…but I just wish that Harry was present in the same way that Percy was throughout all of his series.  

Abby Has Issues with the Oscars

There are a lot of things I do not understand about Hollywood.  I don’t understand why they can’t come up with original blockbusters not based off of bestselling books.  I don’t understand why they think Sandra Bullock is a good actress.  And I don’t understand why they decided the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie was a good idea.

But what I don’t understand more than anything else is the goddamn Oscars.

The Oscars suck.  They’re pretty much Hollywood’s way of patting themselves on the back for being pretentious douchebags.  Every year I expect to see some good movies nominated, but I don’t know why I expect this because every year they pick a bunch of crap I’ve never heard of and maybe one movie that everybody loved.  But the one movie everybody loved never wins.  The pretentious douchebaggy movies win.

So here’s what bugs me the most about the Oscars.  They’re supposed to be rewarding the best films of the year, right?  And from a critic’s standpoint, the best films of the year are supposed to be the ones that got the best reviews.  Personally, I don’t care much for reviews.  I like to make my own opinions about what makes a movie good or bad…BUT THE OSCARS ARE ALL ABOUT THE PRETENTIOUS REVIEWS!  So why why why why why why WHY is Harry Potter not up for some serious Academy Awards this year?

I’ll admit, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is not my favorite film.  It is not even my favorite Harry Potter film.  But the critics freaking loved that movie.  It’s one of the highest reviewed movies of the year and the third highest grossing film of all time.  Obviously it’s doing something right.  So why on earth is it not nominated for some serious awards!  I know it got nominations for like Special Effects and Art Direction and Make-up and stuff…but where the hell is Alan Rickman’s nomination for Best Supporting Actor?  Where the hell is the Best Picture nomination?!  According to the damn critics the movie is “Thrilling, powerfully acted, and visually dazzling” so why isn’t that being recognized?

I’m about to throw some numbers at you here.  Rottentomatoes.com is a website that combines all the reviews a movie gets and gives them a 0-100 percent rating based on how good they are.  Here are the ratings of the movies up for Best Picture:

The Artist:  97%

The Descendants:  90%

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close:  46%

The Help:  76%

Hugo:  94%

Midnight in Paris:  93%

Moneyball:  95%

The Tree of Life:  84%

War Horse:  76%

The rating for HPDH Part 2 is 96%.  You know what that means?  That means that Harry Potter got better overall reviews than EIGHT of the nine nominated films.  

There’s really only one explanation for this.  Only one fantasy film has won Best Picture before and that was Lord of the Rings Return of the King.  But Harry Potter doesn’t even get nominated because not only is it a fantasy film – it’s a young adult fantasy film.  And in case you were wondering, LOTR ROTK has a score of 94%.  So even Return of the King, my favorite movie of all time, Best Picture of 2003 has a lower score than HPDH. This kind of discrimination against young adult fiction just really pisses me off.  The same kind of thing happened with the Harry Potter books.  They were doing so amazingly well on the bestsellers lists that eventually they made a separate list for children’s books just so that Harry Potter wouldn't be hogging up the space.  Not only is that unfair, but it seems pretty cowardly and pathetic to me.  I don’t understand why people discount young people and their passions so easily.  As Oscar Wilde so eloquently said, “It’s absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth.  The only people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much younger than myself.  They seem in front of me.  Life has revealed to them her latest wonder.”  

Now I’m not saying that I have anything against any of these other films.  I’ve seen most of them and they’re okay.  But the fact is that the Oscars are supposed to be about the best movies of the year and most of these films did not get the same kind of acclaim that Harry Potter did.  Although I WILL complain about one film…

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE?!?!?!  SERIOUSLY?!  It got mixed reviews at best.  HOW did it get nominated for Best Picture of all things?!  Considering that it was reviewed so poorly it’s hard for me to believe that so many people in the academy thought it was worthy of the title best picture.  Also, one more thing about the movie’s nominations.  The old grandfather dude got nominated for Best Supporting Actor.  THE MOST ACTING HE HAD TO DO WAS LIFT HIS HANDS.  HE DID NOT SPEAK A WORD THE ENTIRE FILM.  I REPEAT, WHERE IS ALAN RICKMAN’S NOMINATION?!?!?!

You know what’s funny?  I’ve read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  It’s one of my favorite books.  And I didn’t hate the movie.  But I don’t think it’s worthy of Best Freakin’ Picture.  Sheesh.

Like I said, HPDH Part 2 is not my favorite movie, but you would think that since it was overall successful and received widespread praise that the academy would at least give the movie some serious nominations to acknowledge the series as a whole.  Over the past ten years the Harry Potter film series has made an enormous contribution to film and the fact that they could just ignore it like this baffles me.  Eight beautiful, well reviewed, culturally impacting movies were made.  Not one of them has gotten an Oscar.  That just seems so wrong to me!  Harry Potter is such a significant piece of literature to our generation!  Even if you don’t like Harry Potter, you can’t deny that much.  These movies may not be as important as the books in the eyes of many fans, but in my opinion they are still hugely important to the kind of Harry Potter culture and fandom that has been created.  I cannot stress the impact Harry Potter has had on our generation enough.  It’s a big deal, people.  Deal with it.  Recognize it.  It deserves to be recognized.  In the words of Hank Green, “It would have been easy for the Harry Potter books to be just, you know, another kids’ book fantasy adventure.  But it is not just another kids’ book fantasy adventure.  There’s something very different going on here.  This is like the biggest thing that’s ever happened in publishing since like…the Bible.”

I may not be an expert on film and I may be completely biased about Harry Potter.  But this much I know for sure – fifty years from now no one is going to remember The Tree of Life, The Descendants, or Moneyball.  But Harry Potter will still be a household name.

Darren or Dan?

Okay, so here's the scoop.  You may not have noticed, but I kind of really really really love Harry Potter.  People tend to get pretty tired of hearing that in real life so that's what this blog is for - for me to talk about Harry Potter.  If you do not like Harry Potter or happiness then I suggest you read something else.  I will even be kind enough to supply you non-Harry Potter lovers with something else if you click that fun little link.


Right.  So let's get to it then.  Today I was walking out of the dining hall and I head the dulcet tones of the lovely Aaron Tveit.  At first, I thought I was making it up because that is exactly the kind of thing my mind would do - decide that Broadway music is playing in a public place and then announce it loudly,looking like a fool.  But today I was not a fool!  Next to Normal was indeed coming from the Philbrook Cafe.  So because of this, I started to engage in a magnificently non-awkward conversation about How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying with the cashier.  I don't know how she knew I found this topic interesting.  Either she just assumed that I would be interested in it because I like Next to Normal so naturally I must like all Broadway shows, or I just have OBSESSED WITH HARRY POTTER stamped on my forehead.  ...Or there is the slight possibility that I have met her before.


If your confused as to how HP is related to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying then I guess I should clarify something.  Daniel Radcliffe just recently finished his stint on Broadway playing J. Pierrepont Finch.  And then Darren Criss replaced him.  So that's just about the coolest thing ever, right?  A Very Potter Musical-Harry Potter replaces Movie-Harry Potter on Broadway.  A situation just full of awesome.


Unfortunately, I was not able to see Dan or Darren perform in this show because I don't have the kind of money to go see Broadway shows all the time.  So I remain an adamant enthusiast from afar.  Anyway, cashier lady and I started discussing who we would prefer to see given the chance - Dan or Darren.  Now, anybody who knows me knows that I pretty much think that Darren Criss walks on water.  He is in every way the perfect man.  He's beautiful, he sings, he writes music,(including the soundtracks to AVPM, AVPS, and my all time favorite musical, Starship) he loves Harry Potter, and he plays Kurt's boyfriend on Glee.  He is inhumanly perfect.  But for some reason when I was asked who I would rather see, my automatic answer was Daniel Radcliffe.


Why?  Why would I say Daniel?  I LOVE DARREN CRISS!  If I could trade lives with any one person it would be Darren Criss.  Darren is a better singer.  Darren is about ten thousand times more attractive.  So WHY would I pick Dan over him?  I really didn't know the answer to this at first.  But after thinking about it for a while I have decided to stand by my quickly given answer.  I would rather see Daniel.  Not just because Daniel is more famous, not just because I've already seen Darren perform live before, but because Daniel, more than any other person in the universe, is a symbol of my childhood - a symbol of everything that I love about Harry Potter.  I definitely associate Darren with Harry, but Daniel really IS Harry in my eyes.  I mean, I'm not delusional, I know he's not REALLY Harry Potter and I know that often times the Harry he portrays on the screen strays from the Harry I know and love in the books, but he is linked to my love for Harry Potter in a way that no other person ever can be.  The Harry Potter in my head will always be Daniel Radcliffe and despite fangirlish claims that the books and movies are completely separate things - they're really not, not to me anyway.  The books are really just one aspect of what I love about Harry Potter.  Harry has really taken on a life of his own outside of the books. Some of Harry's best moments are in the movies or in the consciousness of the fans who have recreated him in their own minds.  So even though Daniel is NOT exactly the Harry from the books, he IS in some way part of what Harry has become.  And because I have known Dan since 2001 when the first film came out, he is so much more of what Harry means to me than Darren is.  And yes, believe it or not, I would base my decision on who to see on Broadway based on who is more Harry Potter.  Because really Harry Potter is why I love them both.  But Daniel is my Harry more than Darren.


So if you had the choice who would it be?  Dan or Darren?