Blogtown, PDX

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Music Harry and the Potters

Posted by Alison Hallett on Thu, Jul 5 at 10:52 AM

Harry and the Potters at Voodoo Doughnut tonight, 8 pm!

This band—two brothers from Boston who dress up as Harry Potter and sing songs based on the books—is fun and adorable, as anyone who saw last summer’s show at Acme will attest. They play libraries and all-ages shows, they have a reading list on their website (which includes Philip Pullman’s amazing His Dark Materials trilogy), and if you write a book report on any of the books and bring it to the show you get a free toothbrush! Apparently they also like to eat, so I promised to take them around before the show—any suggestions on places to take a couple of dudes who dress up like wizards for a living? Quick, cheap, delicious, please.

This blog posts devolves into unabashed nerdery after the jump

If you weren't already sold on the wizard rock/dress up thing, this band also has the awesomest T-shirts, like, ever. The black one says "This Guitar is a Horcrux":

While we're at it, Is Harry a Horcrux?

A recent NY Times article summed up the Harry Potter phenomenon nicely, in reference to the Is Snape Evil? debate:

"I've seen really intelligent, really literate women and men discuss these points and provide more than cogent arguments that Snape is X, Y or Z, and they all make sense in terms of all the clues [Rowling]'s given in the book," Granger said. "This has probably been the most fun that intelligent people can have with their clothes on in the 21st century."

God, what am I going to do for fun once the book comes out?

My money's on the theory quoted in the same article, that "Professor Snape, whose allegiances have been the subject of fierce debate, will sacrifice himself to destroy Lord Voldemort, the unequivocal villain of the series." Harry is a sanctimonious little prig on the subject of Snape—I think I want Snape to be good just so that Harry will have to admit that he was wrong. And then Snape will have to die, of course, and Harry will have to live forever with the knowledge of Snape's sacrifice. If Snape ends up being evil, I'm not getting out of bed for a week.

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Comments

the roxy is always hipster-rific.

Posted by hipsterslikeharry | July 5, 2007 12:18 PM

Snape better actually be evil. This bullshit about him just appearing to be evil but really being good would be so falsely and stupidly heartwarming. Like, so predictable. On the other hand, how fucking creepy would it be if he actually is bad? How much credence would it give to the idea that Voldemort and the Death Eaters are a legitimate threat--that they can corrupt even the most hallowed institutions (Hogwarts), and fool even the wisest characters (Dumbledore), and thus are way more scary than just some eeevil, generic bad guy skulking around in a cemetery? That would be awesome and scary. That is all. Argh.

Posted by Erik Henriksen | July 5, 2007 12:41 PM

1) Dumbledore knew that Draco was under orders to kill him. He knew (because Snape told him) that Snape had taken an unbreakable oath to finish the job. In his final moments, the pleading that Dumbledore is doing is for Snape to have the strength to carry through with this act. The look of hate on Snapes face is for Voldy, not Dumbledore.

2) Snape was in love with Lily, Harry's mom.
- It explains why he harbors such a lasting hatred for James.
- It explains why Dumbledore was willing to accept him: honest remorse for causing the death of the woman he loved.
- It explains his continuing motivation for revenge against Voldemort.
- Slughorn repeatedly describes Lily as smart, funny, and beautiful; that you could not help but like her.
- Slughorn says that Harry is the most gifted potions student he has seen since Lily. But Harry is using Snape's book. Which means either a) Lily was incredibly good at potions, and Snape does respect skill and power, or b) Snape was helping Lily in potions the entire time because he had a crush on her.
- In HP5, we see Lily come to the aid of Snape when James was tormenting him.

3) Speculative, but.... Harry is a horcrux. So how can Harry win if he has to die in order for Voldemort to be mortal? Consider the horcrux that was the ring. Dumbledore destroyed the horcrux prior to the opening of the book (the first time we see him, his hand is blackened). But the ring definitely survived the process because Harry sees it on a shelf in Dumbledore's office. We learn that the horcrux doesn't have to be destroyed, just disenchanted. So the finale of book 7 will see Harry Potter give up his ability to perform magic, and in doing so make Voldemort mortal.

Posted by caustic | July 5, 2007 4:03 PM

i LOVE harry potter sooooooo much i would neva want to see him die

Posted by bella | July 15, 2007 10:42 PM

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