The Los Angeles Times has an informative update on the “fourth” film in each of these fantasy franchises: Pirates of the Caribbean, the works of Tolkien, Spider-man, and X-Men.
James Cameron is an insane genius (and, it sounds like, a bit full of himself). A great New Yorkerprofile of the filmmaker, and an another interesting piece on how the revolutionary CGI effects in his upcoming Avatar were done.
By contrast, Terry Gilliam thinks 3-D and other expensive effects tend to corrupt movies: “You’re not there to disturb people when you’re given 200 million dollars — you’re there to reassure them.” God, I love that man.
The Gathering Storm (the first book in the trilogy conclusion to The Wheel of Time) debuts at #1 this week on the New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller fiction hardcover lists, #2 on the Washington Post list, and #4 on the combined USA Today list. It’s a hit, but I still hate the cover.
A writer visits the set of Voyage of the Dawn Treader and writes and talks about it — but isn’t allowed to take pictures! As the expression goes, a picture is worth a thousand words — maybe more.
Locus interviewsSuperpowers author (and Nebula finalist) David Schwartz: “I got the sense from the reviews that Superpowers is a book people either like or really hate. I think a big part of that is the fans coming from the comic book/superhero angle seem to want villains and fights, and they don’t want the interpersonal drama.” As for me, I love the interpersonal drama in comic books.
Have I mentioned lately how sick I am of the Twilight books? And we’re only on the second movie!
Why is there suddenly all this news from Ian McKellen talking about The Hobbit? Because he’s out promoting his AMC mini-series The Prisoner (which airs on Sunday, and we’ll review this Friday), but everyone wants to ask him about Gandalf (except Whoopi Goldberg, who asked him aboutDumbledore!). The thing is, McKellen hasn’t signed a contract yet and doesn’t really know much about the movie.
Jake Gyllenhaal discusses his role in the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, calling it “40 days and 40 nights of misery.” But in other ways, the role is just play-acting: “This is how you play when you’re a kid, and you go outside and I remember specifically many times I would go outside and be like, ‘I play him and you play him and let’s fight!’ And we’re just like doing that every day.”
A ridiculously misleading headline alert for ComingSoon.net: “Is Aragorn Ready to Return to The Hobbit?” The article’s answer: well, the actor would, but there’s no role for him in the movies. How in the world do sites like this stay in business?
It’s hard to say if this is a misleading headline or not: “Do we meet Dumbledore’s gay lover in the last Harry Potter films?” The article tells us the producers have hired an actor to play the role of Grindelwald, the man J.K. Rowling says Dumbledore loved, and the character appears in a vision in the film. But the article doesn’t say if his relationship to Dumbledore is any clearer in the movies than it is in the books (which would obviously be a big deal!).
Realms of Fantasy (the fantasy fiction magazine) is back in business, and is now accepting art and fiction submissions.
Was Harry Potter really the hero of the Harry Potter series?
On the surface, this sounds like a stupid question. Potter was the main character, and he did do heroic things. Most importantly, Voldemort was defeated because of Potter.
Or was he?
When I recently reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I concluded that Potter was, at best, a weak hero. Too much of Potter’s success with defeating Voldemort hinges on Albus Dumbledore.
Dumbledore was dead, of course. But in the final book in the series, it becomes clear that he set many plans in motion before he died. These plans set things up so that Potter could defeat Voldemort. They clearly went well past merely explaining a Horcrux or showing Harry memories about Voldemort in the Pensieve.
Some plans were small, like arranging for the safekeeping of Gryffindor’s sword (which was useful for destroying Horcruxes).
Some things were bigger, like his handling of Severus Snape. At the start of the book, it appeared that Dumbledore’s trust of Snape had been the biggest mistake of his life. By the end of the book, it’s clear he knew exactly what he was doing. As a result, Snape ended up being an unexpected asset, not liability.
Then, throughout the book, Potter regularly thinks of Dumbledore and what he’d wanted. This influences Potter’s decisions. On page 692 of the 2007 US hard cover edition, it even says: “Dumbledore’s betrayal was almost nothing. Of course there had been a bigger plan; Harry had simply been too foolish to see it; he realized that now.”
All in all, it seems clear to me that Dumbledore had everything planned. All Harry Potter really did was act as Dumbledore’s pawn in helping carry out part of the plan. Harry was critical, of course, since there were certain things that only he could do. (However, he needed to do these things because of events outside of his control. For example, Voldmort’s attempt to murder him when he was a small child.)
I have mixed feelings about my realization. In one way, it’s nice to see “brain” rather than “brawn” win. And Dumbledore does represent “brain” far more than any other character.
Yet, overall, I’m disappointed. All along, I’d been viewing Harry Potter as the hero. Even early on in the series, long before Voldemort made his return, I was betting on two things: Voldemort would return, and Harry would forever beat him.
This would be a classic David and Goliath type story — a classic theme of the ordinary person who is called upon to fight evil, and who wins, despite the odds.
This happened in the earliest books. Dumbledore then appeared to be little more than a source of wizard knowledge. He’d sometimes help, but usually in small ways. Early on, Harry Potter would have to fight mostly his own fight.
Some fights were impressive. For example, take Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The Chamber’s reopening caused a real problem. It even stumped the best wizards, up to and apparently including Dumbledore. It was Harry Potter who actually solved the problem. Not bad for a second year Hogwart’s student!
As the series went, my view that Harry would vanquish Voldemort was supported more and more. My view met its apex at the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, when Dumbledore died. It was a shock, but it made sense for the story line. He needed to go so Harry would be the hero; the young wizard who is forced into greatness.
Except, I was wrong.
While Dumbledore never did return from the dead, he did operate quite effectively from the grave. His plans, made before he died, guaranteed that. Indeed, he worked so effectively, even dead, that I think it feels almost heavy-handed at times. (If nothing else, it’s incredible how infrequently his plan didn’t work as planned!)
In the end, it leaves Dumbledore the real hero of the final book. And I think he’s also the real hero of the series, since the overall series is about vanquishing Voldemort for good.
And I — a loyal reader since 1999 — am left disappointed.
The Gathering Storm (the first book in the trilogy conclusion to The Wheel of Time) debuts at #1 this week on the New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller fiction hardcover lists, #2 on the Washington Post list, and #4 on the combined USA Today list. It’s a hit, but I still hate the cover.![[Bloglines]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
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Or was he?
All in all, it seems clear to me that Dumbledore had everything planned. All Harry Potter really did was act as Dumbledore’s pawn in helping carry out part of the plan. Harry was critical, of course, since there were certain things that only he could do. (However, he needed to do these things because of events outside of his control. For example, Voldmort’s attempt to murder him when he was a small child.)
Some fights were impressive. For example, take Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The Chamber’s reopening caused a real problem. It even stumped the best wizards, up to and apparently including Dumbledore. It was Harry Potter who actually solved the problem. Not bad for a second year Hogwart’s student!
