It Is Trish

Day 3 of my abbreviated Harry Potter 30 Day Challenge found on Short Story Long‘s blog.

Day 11: Which character would you say you are most like?

I kind of covered this yesterday when I talked about how much I love Hermione Granger.  To keep things interesting, I’ll go with a different character, though Hermione remains my one and only.

I’m a lot like Remus Lupin, with his love of chocolate and books.  He doesn’t own much, and he can move in and out of a place pretty quickly.  He loves his friends but often feels like an outsider (though I am not, actually, a werewolf).  He’s a good teacher, and he cares about getting his students invested through fun.  Especially in The Shoebox Project, which apparently I will mention every day, I feel so much kinship with Remus, who only buys his friends books for holidays and sheepishly pretends he doesn’t care that they are immediately thrown to the side in favor of a more exciting gift.  

Day 12: Favorite ship?

Oh no, so many!  I was really into Hermione/Draco back in the day.  I think that started in 1999 after The Prisoner of Azkaban.  I do like a relationship that evolves from a girl punching a guy in the face.  I got a lot of grief for this ship, so it was hugely rewarding when A Very Potter Musical chose to make both Ron and Draco fall in love with Hermione.

I’ll admit that Hermione/Draco flourishes in fanon far more easily than in canon.  For good reason – Draco is an arrogant jerk and Hermione deserves far better.  Which means, no, not Ron, who I’m sorry, but I just can’t understand her attraction to him.  I always knew Hermione/Ron was endgame, but if I could have rewritten the series, it would have been Hermione/Harry all the way.  They complement each other’s strengths, have each other’s backs, and could have built a really great romance on top of their friendship.  But whatever.

I also like Harry/Luna, Remus/Sirius, and hey, this is actually canon, Lily/James.

Day 13: Your least favorite movie?

Probably Prisoner of Azkaban.  This is total nerd-girl fury, because they ruined my favorite book.  Beginning with the shrunken head, I just sat through the film with a Nick Miller Turtle Face of Unhappiness.  The Marauders are my FAVORITE and I was horrified by the casting of Gary Oldman as Sirius Black.  Oldman is a fine actor, but I mean, this is a too-easy joke, but he’s an old man!  Sirius ought to be 33 at this point, and I remember his menace as seeming stoic and dead-eyed, not that screaming Wanted poster nonsense in the film.  And we get Lupin, who is also cast 20 years too old, and there was not enough contact between him and Harry, or him and Snape.

I will say, I thought they did a good job of showing the Time Turner scenes, adding just enough to make it clear what was happening for the non-readers in the audience.  And I thought the dementors were nicely creepy.  But.  They messed up the Marauders, and I will never forgive the film for that.

Day 14: Team Voldemort or Team Harry?

Is this a real question?  Did someone honestly read the entire series and….root for Voldemort?  I don’t care how cute and charming he was in the flashback, that’s absolutely ridiculous.

Maybe the question is:  who is the more interesting character?  To that, I’d say they are both equally interesting, mostly because Rowling set them up as foils to each other.  Both are orphans who were abused during their formative years.  Both knew they were weird until they were taken to a magical school where they found peers of their own age.  Both were suggested to be sorted into Slytherin.  Both became legends – powerful wizards with devoted followers.  But one was evil and the other was good.

Working out WHY Voldemort became evil and Harry became good is one of the more fascinating philosophical questions in the series.  Voldemort’s childhood isolation caused him to see people as objects to be used, while Harry’s isolation caused him to long for connection and friendship.  Why?  Harry was conceived in love, while Voldemort was the product of, essentially, a date-rape drug.  But I lean more toward nurture rather than nature, so what could possibly account for the difference?  Arabella Figg, Harry’s Squib babysitter who bred knezle/cats.  Crazy cat ladies to the rescue!

Day 15: Pick three characters to be your best friends at Hogwarts?

I LOVE THIS QUESTION, but it’s so hard.  Can I bend the laws of nature and choose friends from different time periods, but we’re all the same age?  K, thanks.  My BFFs would be:

1. Fred and George Weasley (they count as one person because I say so)
2. Luna Lovegood
3. Lily Potter

Here’s my reasoning.  Fred and George are obviously the cool friends in the group, the ones who push us to do crazy things and make everything fun.  Luna is the one who thinks outside the box and introduces us to things we would never experience otherwise.  And Lily is the one I would probably be closest to – she’s fairly normal, but with just enough “that’s crazy let’s do it!” to be a great friend.  The five of us together would be unstoppable!

Because this is a horrible question, I would like to think my BFFs would have a very large secondary squad, consisting of Molly Weasley, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, James Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Minerva McGonagall.  And everyone else.

Previous Days:

Day 1: Your favorite book?
Day 2: Your favorite movie?
Day 3: Is there anything in the film adaptations that annoyed you?
Day 4: Least favorite female character and why?
Day 5: Favorite male character and why?

Day 6: Which house would you want to be in?
Day 7: Favorite female character and why?
Day 8: What’s your favorite lesson from the series?
Day 9: Who’s your least favorite male character and why?
Day 10: Horcruxes or hallows?