Oh. You said LAST name. OK then.
Posted on 07/12/2011 9:44:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
As "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2," is set to hit theaters Friday, consider J.K. Rowling's villains.
Nasty boy Draco Malfoy's first name is downright draconian; any last name that starts with Mal does not bode well. His aunt Bellatrix (female warrior) is also Lestrange. The sibilant-rich and spiteful Severus Snape possesses a name that needs no explanation. Dolores Umbridge? The senior undersecretary of the Ministry of Magic takes constant umbrage at any and all who challenge her authority.
Even if young readers did not realize it, Rowling infused her characters with context and linguistic markers. Rowling was a French and classics major at Exeter University. Hence the Latin derivatives, old-school Briticisms and French panache.
Of course, it is the story of an ordinary 11-year-old boy who discovers he is a wizard that reels in readers. Harry is not just any wizard; he is "the boy who lived" after a fatal battle between his parents and a dark lord.
At the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry befriends Ron and Hermione. For the first time, the orphan feels a sense of family. Draco Malfoy does his best to make the three feel inferior, but Harry, Ron and Hermione discover and develop their own talents. They must learn how to harness magic without being corrupted by it. And they must destroy the dark Lord Voldemort (French for "flight from death") before he annihilates them.
Adults can appreciate that, without lecturing, Rowling makes a strong case for kindness -- without which knowledge is hollow. Harry's father, James, used magic for frat-boy pranks, but mother Lily's love gave her the strength to protect her son from Voldemort.
While waiting for a delayed train in King's Cross Station in 1990, Rowling conceived the idea for the books. A divorced single mother on welfare, she began to write. She was rejected. She didn't give up. She found an agent -- and more rejections. In 1997, Bloomsbury bought "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" with an advance of 1,500 British Pounds.
In 2004, Forbes dubbed Rowling the first billion-dollar author. (I like to think that's the power of Latin. I know it is the power of creativity.)
In a sense, J.K. Rowling is Harry Potter. But for Rowling, words are the magic. Pages became the canvas on which she transformed the everyday world. While the movies convey the author's bounty of imagination, the books convey the long slog and pangs of doubt that plague the high-stakes quest.
Now that the last Harry Potter movie follows the last Harry Potter book, tomorrow's children will not know the excitement that greeted the release of a new Harry Potter book or movie. But it is a tiny miracle that so many children in a generation weaned on TV, the Internet and video games one day decided to pick up a book and engage in the solitary pursuit of reading.
Although products and amusement rides followed, the Potter plot wasn't constructed around merchandising. Rowling invented a complex world, with layered individuals and rough consequences. She wrote with a robust vocabulary -- Latin included -- and children ate it up. There has to be a lesson in here somewhere.
Oh. You said LAST name. OK then.
Voldemort dies in the last movie...
“Grimmauld Place” I don’t get that one. Help a non-native English speaker out.
I did see a sign held by a pretty young lady at the premier that said “Draco, I want to Slytherin to bed with you,” which I thought was both sad and funny.
What kind of pistol is that? Or is it Scifi?
Its from a Sci-Fi show called “Firefly”. They sort of look like modified Colt Navy’s
Oh, I have no idea what kind of pistol Mal Reynolds uses. I did like the eps I saw of the old show (8 of the .. 13?) but didn’t get into the details. I bet my wife would know.
I’ve enjoyed reading the books. She does weave a complex tale. And wow, what a way to get off the welfare rolls.
“Mauldy” could either be a reference to a slang word meaning “really”, or simply reminiscent of “moldy”.
“Grim” means somber.
It’s a cheerless, forbidding place.
From what I remember, the ‘Firefly’ prop gun was based off a Taurus 85, which itself is a derivative of the S&W J-frame.
The Harry Potter series got my daughters to really enjoy reading. With the younger ones, it was how they graduated from the Dr Seuss level to regular book level. I would read a page to them, and then it would be their turn to read a page. Back and forth until we finished the book.
"Grimmauld Place"
Grim old place.
““Grimmauld Place” I don’t get that one.”
Grim old place.
I thought it was at Edinburgh Station. I never could get through even one of her books.
My girls, who have just finished their third year of studying Latin, translate the spells for me.
I started reading these books only two years ago. They are brilliantly subtle while passing along the idea of right and wrong. I have heard many Christians slamming these books, yet they are such a teaching tool, we use them all the time.
For my 50th birthday, I got a trip to The Wizarding World of HP in FL. Of course the kiddies came along, but really it was for me.
We will be at the IMAX Thursday. I have one Herminone, one Luna, a Crookshanks and a Hare patronus with me. Dad has a shirt that says “Hungarian Horntail, the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life” (a nod to “A Very Potter Musical”) and I have a shirt that says
“I Served Time In Azkaban.
WARNING! Do Not Attempt To Use Magic Against This Person!”
And repeating at the Drive-In on Friday for the big costume party there.
This is one of the reasons I love the series so. It is full of names with latin and hidden meanings. Even the spells “Lumos” for light, “Lumos Maximus” for strong light, have latin roots.
It’s fun to troll through the books looking for meanings. And the books are so carefully constructed that there are tons of meanings hidden in them. And I know I’ll run afoul of a few here, but I think those meanings are conservative and have Judeo-Christian roots.
Grim old place. Also “grimy” and “mold” (British spelling “mould”).
Thanks, all!
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