when you are occupied with this new game called Kerfluffle where you go “Kerfluffle!” and your puppy-niece waves her teensy little paws at you in response and that’s it, that’s the whole game. And when you are occupied with this highly adorable game, you do not always have time to read the blogs promptly so sometimes you miss posts that notify you that you are supposed to post an introductory post to the Harry Potter Readalong. And then it is nine in the evening and you are scrambling to get a post written fast fast fast even though what you really wanted to be doing was reading Tigana in bed.
The Harry Potter Readalong commenceth!
(It’s not too late for you to join us, comrades.)
So, here is my introductory post: I am Jenny, and I jumped on the Harry Potter train in 1999 or so, and thereafter I waited with baited breath for each subsequent book. I read the last three at midnight. I never believed that A Certain Person was evil, no matter how many signs pointed in that direction. Many were the theories proposed by my family about what was going to happen in books four through seven. Around book three my mother called a major plot point that doesn’t get proven correct until book seven; and using her theory as a jumping-off point, I figured out something quite clever about Harry’s mother’s childhood. Not to brag. I was just really, really right. I was so right.
(I wasn’t right about this one other theory I had, that McGonagall was secretly evil? She is not. But my friend Teacher proposed this theory, and the more I thought about it, the righter it seemed. I still feel like the books could have gone that way without its being too jarring. I am willing to argue about this in the comments with you, as long as McGonagall isn’t, like, your favorite character. Cause I don’t want you to think I don’t like her. I just think it would have been reasonable for her to turn out evil.)
Since I will be carrying on at some length about these books over the upcoming weeks, I shall take this opportunity to say that everything I say about these books comes from a place of very intense love. I love these books so much. Whenever I criticize them, even if they really deserve it because why are the Blast-Ended Skrewts and why didn’t he just hand Harry a Portkey sometime instead of going through that whole ridiculous-ass plan with the goblet and the maze and whatnot, I feel kind of churlish and ungrateful. Like there is this voice in my head going, “Really. Really. You’re going to complain about the injudiciousness of JK Rowling’s adverb use? That’s what you’re going to do right now? You don’t think maybe instead you should THANK HER FOR YOUR ENTIRE CHILDHOOD?”
Which like, yeah. That’s clearly what I should do. I will commence doing a lot of that, plus a very tiny bit of complaining. Hooray! Let the Harry Pottering begin!