The Devil Wears Prada wasn't a bad movie. It was fairly enjoyable, and made its point about the whole 'family comes first' theory, that seems to be getting very popular with Hollywood filmmakers these days, quite efficiently. But there was one sequence in the movie that was so jarringly unrealistic that it tarnished an otherwise quite proficient screenplay. I could readily agree with the movie's stand equating obtaining the manuscript of the latest unreleased Harry Potter book with the 'impossible' that Meryl Streep's Devil wishes to assign to the poor Anne Hathaway. But wonder of wonders, Hathaway actually manages to get hold of the manuscript! Now that was a fatal error that could most definitely been avoided. I mean, which self-respecting Harry Potter fan could possibly forgive such a monstrous lapse by the makers of the movie? Getting hold of an unreleased Potter manuscript is the most frighteningly impossible thing ever, and everyone knows that, right? If there existed even a slight possibility of obtaining such a priceless treasure, wouldn't every Potter lunatic (and there are quite a few of those) be straining every sinew to devise an awfully brilliant plan and grab it? Wouldn't they?
So the talented Ms Rowling has not considered it appropriate enough to give her despairing fans anything to cling their hopes to, like a release date for book 7 or something. It's alright, we can live with that for a few days more. In the meantime, what better way to kill the months than by going through the millions of theories that are simply waiting to be analyzed by the most hard-nosed of Potter followers? Other than the more obvious (and a little frustrating) 'Harry is a Horcrux' and the perennially unanswered 'Snape is evil' (or 'Snape is good', whichever way you wish to look at it) theories, I've been quite interested in speculations about the 'deathly hallows'. The common consensus is that the hallows refer to the places where Voldemort has hidden his Horcruxes, which I personally don't find convincing enough. But there have been some other versions too - one theory is that the 'hallows' are the souls of people who have died, hence the adjective 'deathly', and that these 'hallows' will in some way communicate with Harry, through avenues which could be anything from the Veil in the Department of Mysteries to the two-way mirror that Sirius gave Harry. Supposedly, the communication will be for the benefit of Harry in his quest to defeat Voldykins. J K Rowling has mentioned in one of her interviews that the two-way mirror will have an important role in book 7, and while I have always assumed this would be on account of Sirius's comeback in some form to help Harry, it could well be a means of communicating with any dead person, including Harry's parents, or perhaps more realistically, Dumbledore. Rowling has also said, of course, that Sirius had to die, that is, his death was very important for the story, so that's another intriguing little point that I have found no conclusive theories for yet. Perhaps the two-way mirror is far more significant than any of us have ever thought.
The mysterious R. A. B. continues to dominate most discussion forums, and yet we are no closer to knowing his (or her?) true identity than we are to knowing whether Harry is the heir of Gryffindor (another hotly debated topic). For my part, I'm almost convinced that the snivelling Mr. Borgin, co-owner of Borgin and Burke's (I hope I've got the name right - I'm not that crazy a fan), whose first name has been very suspiciously concealed by Rowling so far, fits the bill perfectly. He's a coward, he knows a lot about the Dark Arts, he looks at Death Eaters with something close to distaste - he really does have the right credentials. Though, of course, Severus Snape is a strong candidate too (his name seems to figure in nearly every theory; clearly, his character is a masterpiece - we salute you, J K Rowling!), as I just realized after reading an editorial at www.mugglenet. com. Interestingly, the argument with this is that Snape isn't actually R.A.B. - he is only impersonating, or framing, the real R. A. B., whoever he is. And considering Snape's general temperament and nature, this little point sounds very convincing. I'm still rooting for the inconspicuous Mr. Borgin though, and I'm sure I'll be very pleased with myself if I turn out to be right.
Lily Potter remains a fascinatingly cloaked character, and Rowling's declarations about the importance of her wand being good for Charms and Harry having her eyes, her green eyes, has only added to her 'charm'. Some say that the eyes thing was explained by the Slughorn incident in book 6 - when Slughorn looked at Harry's eyes, he was reminded of his favorite student Lily, and so could be persuaded to divulge the missing memory that Harry and Dumbledore wanted. But I'm not convinced about that one. I do believe that there will be a much more strong and interesting reason for Harry having his mother's eyes, or else Rowling would never have bothered to talk about it at all.
The possibility of Nagini, Voldemort's beloved pet snake, being the sixth Horcrux, as assumed by Dumbledore, has been dismissed by many theorists, on the belief that this assumption was one of Dumbledore's 'errors of judgement'. Well, if these theorists are right, and Nagini is not the sixth Horcrux, then we've got another huge problem, haven't we? I mean, we've hardly come anywhere close to cracking the identity of the fifth Horcrux, which Rowling had once said would be easy to find for a true Potter fan from book 6, then how on earth are we going to discover the SIXTH one? Clearly, we need to be even more maniacal than we now are to beat Rowling at her game. Another subject that has been discussed fervently is Trelawney's Prophecy, and just to show how stubborn and outrageously crazy Potter fans can get, some are even suggesting that it's Neville Longbottom, and not Harry, who is 'the One' referred to in the Prophecy, in spite of the fact that Rowling has unequivocally stated that Harry is most definitely 'the Chosen one'. Their argument? The Prophecy talks about 'the ONE', and not 'the CHOSEN one', and apparently there's a big difference between the two expressions. Think this is irritatingly outlandish? You haven't got a taste of the whole big, mad world of Pottermania.
Moving away from Harry Potter, England crashed to yet another dismal defeat against New Zealand today. Though this is not even mildly surprising any more, members of the British media have once again outdone themselves in heaping their scorn on the hapless team. I'll leave you with one passage written by Andrew Miller, the UK editor of Cricinfo, that had me laughing hysterically for no less than two whole minutes:
"And when the cameras panned in on the dressing-room, Fletcher's hangdoggy-in-the-window expression was, to the average long-suffering England fan, every bit as slappable as Ricky Ponting had found it to be at Trent Bridge in 2005. Quite how the shunned Chris Read, sitting in fulminating silence beside him, resisted the temptation, no-one will ever know."
Well done, Mr. Miller!
2 comments:
The translator of the Portuguese language editions of the book, Isabel Nunes, revealed that, to be sure she was translating all references to "R.A.B." correctly, she asked Rowling the sex of the character, who told her the full identity of the character: "Regulus Arcturus Black."[1] There is much evidence to support this, but it is yet to be confirmed by Rowling herself.
See the Wikipedia entry on R.A.B.
Well yeah, Regulus IS the most obvious answer, but JKR has been known to pull out surprises when least expected. Personally, I really like the idea of someone impersonating the real R.A.B. That way, even if R.A.B. IS Regulus Black, no one will have guessed the identity of the Horcrux stealer. So it's all just guesswork right now.
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