“Avada Kedavra, Harry Potter!”: as J. K. Rowling kills your magical world
Unnecessary prequels, plays and Twitter suck all the magic from the beloved series of books and movies.
On 26 June 1997 in the London publishing house Bloomsbury published the first book of JK Rowling about the adventures of a young wizard — the novel “Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone”. The writer promised that the books in the series will be seven and no more. But “let go” of Harry Potter, Rowling was not able — over time, the universe has grown with new sites, movies, and even play. The world of Harry Potter today resembles a wizard who drank unicorn blood, he will never die, but will be cursed and doomed to eternal “half-life”.
Write, expand
What does the writer after he has finished his epic? Arthur Conan Doyle killed his hero Sherlock Holmes (however, because of the indignation of readers, he was soon resurrected). John. R. R. Tolkien released “the adventures of Tom Bombadil” is a collection of poems in addition to three volumes of “Lord of the rings”. It is almost nothing added to the plot of the Saga and only served as a kind of “Coda” for fans of Tolkien. In the same way the first went and Rowling published “the Tales of Beedle the bard” — the thin book of magical stories which were part of the latest “Harry Potter”. But this was only the beginning.
In 2012, Rowling launched the Pottermore website, which started to regularly get stories about the world of wizards. Thanks to them, fans found out, how was the first meeting between the potters and the Dursleys (nightmare), how many Ministers of magic (35, and about every Rowling told separately and in detail), as the wizards went to the toilet until the XVIII century (don’t ask), etc.
Stories become viral and invariably divide readers into two groups:
those who would like to continue to receive “insights” from the world of wizards; those who begged Rowling to leave the franchise alone.
However, the most dedicated fans continued to hope for a full release of the eighth book about Harry Potter.
In a sense, their prayers were answered: in 2016, the world saw “Harry Potter and the cursed child” — play, which starts immediately after the epilogue of “Deathly Hallows”. Strictly speaking, this is not a work of Rowling — its authors are the writer Jack Thorne and Director John Tiffany. But for Muggles around the world that played no role — the book set a record in 2016 for pre-order, but the “Cursed child” in the London Palace theater sold out several months in advance.
In this case the content of the plays kind of went by the wayside, but in it lies the main problem — the plot with flashbacks and alternate realities were too confusing, the new characters have not captured the imagination, and sucked from the finger story moves (who would have thought that the flounce-de-mort had a daughter) left readers puzzled. To say that the play ruined the series, it would be too loud. Rather, it added nothing to the world of the “Harry Potter” and therefore only angered some potteromania.
Accio, Twitter!
Since the release of last book about Harry Potter, Rowling has mastered the art of maintaining the hype around the franchise.
In 2007, during a speech at new York’s Carnegie hall, she announced that Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of witchcraft and wizardry Hogwarts was gay. It instantly became the number one news for fans of the Saga, after all around the sexual orientation wizard, they have long ago built various theories. Subsequently, the “mouthpiece” Rowling became a microblogging Twitter — writer bombarded the readers with new details about the Wizarding world.
It turned out, for example, that Hagrid could not create the Patronus, of the two Weasley twins Fred was born first, and at Hogwarts was Jewish magicians, one of whom was called Anthony Goldstein, he learned in Kulturne. Such tweets-fan fiction Rowling has published a few dozen. In addition, every year on the eve of the battle of Hogwarts (may 2) that occurred in the climax of “Deathly Hallows”, the writer apologizes for the death of a character: in 2015, it was Fred Weasley, and then the werewolf Remus Lupin, this year the Professor of potions Severus Snape.
OK, here it is. Please don’t start flame wars over it, but this year I’d like to apologise for killing (whispers)… Snape. *runs for cover*
— J. K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) may 2, 2017.
Well, let’s go. Please do not start verbal war, but this year, I want to apologize for being killed (in a whisper) Snape. *runs to hideout*
All this husk, which is not only a Twitter feed, but the universe of “Harry Potter”, regularly gets into the news and blogs. However, it has almost nothing to do with the fact that we love the original novels.
Fantastic money and where they live
“Harry Potter” is not only the seven books and eight movies that brought $6.5 billion in net income. Hollywood never misses an opportunity to capitalize on a popular franchise, and hardly anyone surprised by the message that the universe Rowling will be shot five more films. The first of these “Fantastic beasts and where they live” — has grossed more than $814 million, taking fourth place in the list of most grossing movies of 2016. For comparison, “Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban” at the time, brought the creators only $666,7 million, although this film is considered the best of the entire franchise. Does it mean that the new film is better than the old? Hardly.
“Fantastic beasts” is both a spin-off and prequel. The film tells about the events that took place 60 years before the events of “Harry Potter”, the action takes place in new York, and the main character this time — not a teenager with a scar, and a young man with a suitcase filled with magical animals. MAG-a zoologist named newt Scamander accidentally frees their Pets and over two hours of screen time engaged in finding and fishing — just like in the game Pok? mon Go.
Towards the end of the film we are shown the future of paslode Gellert of Grindelwald (johnny Depp with hair of Draco Malfoy), and this effect ends. Visually, the picture is flawless, but there is a feeling that the whole strip is one big trailer whose purpose was to intrigue the viewer and make him go to the next movie and not to tell a good and solid story.
It seems that through the building of kynoselen, Rowling and company have forgotten that “Harry Potter” is a story not only about magic, but about friendship, love, death, growing up, relationships with parents and many other topics that really resonated with the reader and the viewer.
Newt and his friends at all desire can not be replaced by Harry, Ron and Hermione. Whoever was playing Grindelwald, he still will not make us tremble in fear as it was doing Volan de mort. No, muhler in the world can replace us with Dobby, the free elf. And so on.
However, there is no doubt that the new movies will continue to draw a full house. Our nostalgia for the world of Harry Potter is so great that we are willing to watch them, even if Harry Potter isn’t there.
Arthur Thunders