Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (Spoilers)

[jamiebk]

I concur. She should adopt my motto, which I adopted from Pontius Pilate: Quod Scripsi, Scripsi.

Funny, I was going to use:
"Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur"

[Shapley]

Is that akin to: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt."

Sorry, I don't know the Latin translation for that, according to the translation software, it would be: Melior ut subsisto silens quod exsisto sententia stultus , quam oro sursum quod aufero totus nuto. But, when you translate it backwards, you get something completely different.

[jamiebk]

According to the translation I have it means: "It is a wise man who speaks little". However, these things always seem to be a little off or loosely translated.

[Shapley]

"Wise is the man who speaks little." is the translation I found but, as you say, the translation can vary. It matters not whether you say "Wise is the man who..", "The man is wise who...", or "The wise man is one who...", the meaning remains unaltered.

On a thread a while back we had a discussion on translation software. I took a simple phrase and translated it from English to German and back to English, and posted the result. It was quite interesting how much it changed. I then took a phrase and tranlated through several languages and then back to English. I believe only one word survived the translations intact.

"Quod Scripsi Scripsi" is taken from the Latin Vulgate, or the original Latin Bible of the Roman Catholic churhc, as found online. I added the comma, consistent with other translations found online. The Vulgate was translated by St. Jerome around 300 A.D., so it is likely to be consistent with the words spoken by Pontius Pilate (who probably did speak those words in Latin) a few years before. (I suspect that St. Jerome did not create the online version of the Vulgate until some years later. )

Of course, one could also choose the words of Omar Khayyam:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it

Which is a more poetic way of expressing the same concept.

V/R
Shapley

[piqaboo]

Done, in one marathon session with minor breaks to run errands, dress a child, etc.

I'd like to know:
Who becomes Headmaster of Hogwarts?

What jobs everyone has 19 years later?

Who in the hell would marry Malfoy?

How do they sort kids if the sorting hat burned?

How did Neville get the Sword of Gryffindor if the Goblin had it?

Jobs - me too. Ron works somewhere to do with Muggles, so he can continue to play witn their toys (he was so proud to have parked the car at the train station!)

I wish Harry would have spoken to Draco at the station. 19 years is a long time to hold a grudge, particularly with the theoretical perspective of adulthood. I cant see em becoming friends, but cold nods seem ridiculous. Draco's mom did save Harry's life (granted for selfish reasons), thus enabling Harry to save the wizarding world as we know it.

The Hat got the sword for Neville, natch. Same way it did for Harry, once.

Neville was clearly going to play a major role from his second appearance in the series. She took too much care developing his character for it not to be. Interesting that he played such a major role with so little space actually spent on him thru out the series.

D's brother. Oh my.

I gotta get me some of that healing potion Hermione kept in her expanding evening bag. (Dittany, yes?)

Tonks and Lupin dying, with infant son left to Gma. Sad. Betcha a euro that infant son will be center of any new series. Any takers?
Also, he'll probably start by getting the wand/cape/stone together. Maybe he'll find the stone first, wandering about the grounds at Hogwarts.

Line the books up on the shelves. Each one is wider than the next. This last one weighs a ton. I agree, the wanderings in the woods could have been trimmed. However, if they were, I would have lost my main primer for remembering what its like to be a teenager. I've already told OT we have to reread in 10 years, to prime us for the angst, selfcentered POV of the not-quite adult. That readiness to believe ill of anyone who didnt give us everything we asked for, etc.

[Shapley]

This last one weighs a ton. I agree, the wanderings in the woods could have been trimmed.

I think the wandering in the woods was necessary for a couple of reasons: Ron had to break with the group and then rejoin them after he had sufficient time to come to grips with the importance of their friendship, and Harry had to find out about the Hallows, become obsessed with them, and then overcome that obsession.

I think, ultimately, the book is about materialism, or the rejection of it. Not to the point of forsaking possessions (clearly J. K. Rowling hasn't!). Harry possesses things, but is not possessed by them. This is quite the opposite of Voldemort, whose obsession with objects was a driving factor in his life. Reading the last book, it seems that many of the wizards had obsessions with objects. Dumbledore's weakness, too, was his obsession with the Hallows. As far back as the fifth book, he tells Harry to "feel free to smash more of my possessions", commenting that he had too many. Harry's one desire was for family. The epilogue clearly lets us know that he finally found it.

Of course, it's a children's book (or rather, collection of books), not a philosophy book. All in all, however, I think Ms. Rowling does a good job of conveying the message to her readers about what is important in life - love and family.

Okay, enough of this sentimentalist crap - let's get back to politics or anti-neutrinos.

V/R
Shapley

[Shapley]

Seventh Harry Potter Book Will Be Split Into Two Movies.

Apparently, they've finally realized the've been compressing the books too much in the last two films.

Or, they figured out they can get twice the reciepts if they do it this way...