The Benefits of a Healthy Appetite for Cheesecake, Wine and Snape; or, Another Sane Post by Yours Truly

Now, it’s not news to anyone that I love Snape/Alan Rickman/Harry Potter.  Nope.  Nor, I find, that I love wine and cheesecake. So it’s time to come clean.  I have valuable news for all of you fans looking to drop a pound or more.

Ahem.  A diet is only as good as the dieter.  So how can you be a good dieter?  Why, pick the diet that works for you!

Dear Reader, the following two are my favorite diets ever…

The Cheesecake and Wine Diet (Lost 27 pounds on it), a Reward-Based Diet

This may not be an orthodox diet.  Wait, it’s definitely not an orthodox diet.  But it’s certainly balanced, for it balances cheesecake with…you guessed it–wine.

The idea is this.  Once a week, meet a friend for wine and cheesecake out.  Why out?  Because if it costs more, you’ll only have one piece of cheesecake.  That evening, you may not eat dinner.  The cheesecake is your dinner.  Result?  Deliciousness.  And sometimes weight loss can also occur.

Granted, this may depend on you following another, more stringent diet on the side.  As in, on the other 6 days a week.

The Alan Rickman Diet (Weight loss, unknown. Commitment, complete.), a Reward-Based Diet

This one’s new; I’m on it now.

Here’s how it works:  No Alan Rickman (and therefore no Snape and no second viewing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) until I have followed these five rules for two weeks straight.

Rule 1:  No cake or cake-like products.
Rule 2:  No chips or chip-like products.
Rule 3:  No hummus.
Rule 4:  No second helpings.
Rule 5:  No larger first helpings to make up for missing second helpings.

And can I tell you–I DON’T CHEAT.  Why?  Because I don’t want to feel BAD enjoying Alan Rickman/Harry Potter.  :)

I started July 15th, 9:30pm.  I get to watch him/HP again starting July 29th, 9:30pm.  I shall post on the 30th as to my success. I bet you I make it. Because who could fail such a worthy endeavour?  (cue celestial music)

As I said to a colleague of mine, B, just today:  ”Who am I kidding–Even if I don’t lose any weight at all, the reward for this self-restraint is a solid two hours of Harry Potter.  And that’s reward enough.”  :)

And there you go.  Another sane and timely post by yours truly.  :)

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, or, Yay, Snape is BACK! :)

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince RAWKED.

Rickman takes Snape to a whole new level.  Now, everyone knows I love Snape, and there can’t be a disparaging word said about Rickman’s acting by anyone with a funny bone to tickle and a self to menace, so let’s leave him for a moment and turn to the others.  (Yes, just a moment.)

The kids.  Holy crap, but Radcliffe and Grint upped their game in this one!  Radcliffe still doesn’t know what it means to cry, apparently; he’s stiffer than an Inferi trying to do so.  But barring his fear of crying, he’s improved so very much, it’s astonishing.  Almost my first words whispered after the film started were a surprised “but he can act now!”  Very great.  Grint brings Ron to a new level too, finally blending comedy with sincere emotional grounding.  And Emma Watson, well, she could always act.  :)  Tom Felton finally shows what’s what, too.  Great Draco, great bathroom scene.  Uber impressive.

Need I say Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and the regular cast were spectacular as usual?  Yes?  Okay, they were.  And Jim Broadbent–!!!  That man is magic, wizard or no.  He was beautiful, magnificent…just perfect as Professor Slughorn.

But eff the acting, anyone going to see the movie knows exactly on what par this troupe of British actors are.  (The highest.)  The real question for any fan is:  does the movie do the book justice?

It does.

SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE MOVIE AND BOOKS SIX AND SEVEN FOLLOW:

Best Scene:

After seeing Pensieve Slughorn reveal Horcrux information to a young Tom Riddle (brilliantly cast), Dumbledore sinks to sit on the ground.   Harry asks if Horcruxes can be anything at all.  Dumbledore says yes, but that dark magic always leaves…a mark. He’s risen during this speech, and is staring deeply at Harry.  He tells him he thinks he’s found another one, but he can’t destroy it alone.  The next scene is them heading off to leave Hogwarts for the RAB Horcrux.

What’s amazing about this scene?  While Harry (and the non-reading viewer) thinks Dumbledore is speaking of the Horcrux they’re about to go after together, he’s not.  Dumbledore is discussing Harry.  Harry as a Horcrux.  That’s why he sinks to the earth, and why he looks at Harry–his lightning scar–as he speaks of dark magic leaving a mark.  And if that’s not clearly enough foreshadowed, the script calls for Harry touching the Slytherin ring and feeling a zap of darkness.  Brilliant writing.  I feel it’s not written into the book that way, but I’ll have to check.

Worst Failing (IMHO):

There is no battle at Hogwarts in the movie, and the anguish and fury on Harry’s side at Snape’s betrayal, and Snape’s meltdown in his final showdown with Harry…are missing.

Rowling writes a magnificent scene into the end of HBP drawing a strong parallel between Fang, trapped in Hagrid’s hut, which is ablaze and threatens to destroy him alive, and Snape.  Snape has just killed the only man who ever trusted him, the only man who ever really knew him, the only man who cared for him–at this man’s own urgent, secret request.  No-one will ever know.  He’s alone, he has no-one to turn to, no friend on earth, no-one.  Only the end to contrive, hidden in the evil background.  It’s heartbreaking.  It’s vivid.  It’s raw.  And in the film, it’s missing.

In the book his emotional turmoil is powerful.  Harry is beyond reason too, throwing hex after hex at Snape.  Snape effortlessly deflects them, and taunts Harry to conceal his emotions or he’ll never win.  Then Harry summons up a curse he learnt from the Half Blood Prince’s potions book.  Snape deflects it too and cracks.  You dare cast my own spell on me, he snarls, revealing that he is the Half Blood Prince.  Harry, who’s shunned anything ever taught him by Snape, has improved in potions and, sadly, in the dark arts too, by connecting with a younger and more inventive Snape via his old high school potions book.

Again, Snape turns to escape, but Harry calls him a coward.  Snape snaps.  He loses it, on par with his Shrieking Shack scene in the third book.  Don’t call me a coward! he shrieks into the wild air between them–and casts his first and only curse on Harry.  It stings, and Harry’s thrown back, his wand falls out of his hand.  Snape runs away with the other Death Eaters, trapped in a future that must burn him to the ground soon, and no-one will ever know that it killed him to kill Dumbledore.  His grief, his loyalty, his love, his commitment must all be hidden without a murmur.

What a scene, what power, what intensity, what visceral power…  But it’s not done that way in the movie.  *sigh*  Ah well, win some, lose some.

Overall, however, the movie was fabulous.  Snape, as another blogger mentioned earlier, holds his pauses as long as he damn well pleases, and is sheer beauty to watch.  The cast feels 100% real and comfortable in their roles.  The kids are in high school now, and everything from their antics and emotions, to the natural lolling about of their classmates, is perfect.  Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and London are fabulous.  The movie is MAGIC.

Highly recommended

(If you’re into the bad boys of Harry Potter or literature in general, here’s another post you might like to read…and to share your thoughts on!)

The Bad Boys

I won’t lie.  I love Professor Snape more than I love Harry Potter.

Not because I reckon he’s a better person and not just because his dialogue drips with perfect acidity and deliciously rendered sarcasm.  No.  I love him for his flaws and for his struggle with his soul.  Maybe he stopped his struggle at a certain point, never willing to look at Harry as an individual with his own heart-bound luggage.  Maybe he turned into the bully that as a child he was subjected to.  Maybe he himself crippled his emotional development by latching onto and trapping himself into the past as much as Sirius did, albeit for different reasons.  But that tragedy makes him, if not a hero–for Jo Rowling won’t hear that word used for him–then at least a damn compelling person whom it would hurt to know and care about, were he real.

All this is nothing against Harry.

Then there’s Frodo, say, or Samwise Gamgee, versus Sauron.  But who is Sauron?  No-one but an idea with almost invincible power and dark servants scouring the earth, hunting down the One Ring–the one ring the heroes must destroy before their entire world is vanquished.  Great book, Lord of the Rings.  But the bad guy never had a shot with me.  Can’t love a being endowed with no humanity.  Can’t hate him, even.  Can feel viscerally opposed to him–thinking of Gollum even in Sauron’s clutches chills the bones.  But…Sauron doesn’t move me.  It’s Samwise’s loyalty that gets me every time.  He’s my hero.  And I weep over Frodo’s journey, commitment and sacrifices.

Back to Lord Voldemort, Harry’s nemesis.  Is he great?  As a villain, I mean, not as the master of all dark wizards.  Sure, he keeps the plot going.  He forces Harry to grow up and reveal who he is as a person, who he’s willing to be.  He forces others’ hands too–Draco Malfoy’s, for instance.

Swinging back to Lord of the Rings… Boromir is a flawed soul, aching for greatness–true greatness and not just petty grandeur–but he’s torn by his desire for self-glory and heroism.  I prefer him to Sauron, as a character with depth to move me.  And I prefer Snape to Lord Voldemort, and even to Harry.

My favourite hero in Harry Potter is … Remus Lupin.  Another torn character.

Am I called to torn characters in general, because their inner conflicts and outer conflicts just add so much tension and hope and tears to the story that they become unforgettable?  Maybe.

So what does this all mean?

I find myself pondering this because I’ve noticed that contrary to my expectations, I find writing my antagonists approximately 99% easier than writing my protagonists.  Because they are defined, in a sense, by their own flaws which is where they settle, but which is simultaneously the point within them that causes them the most pain, anguish, shame and anger.  I feel their pain.  I know their self-deceptions.  Their conceits.  Their fears.  And so I can write them and feel for them.

Despite the fact that both of my “leads” were created and “in action” weeks before my antagonists appeared, it’s my antagonists who have taken to life with strength, tenacity and vivacity I’d never expected.  There’s only one exception to this protagonist rule for me.  And interestingly, it’s for a tragic heroine.

My book’s not angsty.  It’s not tragic.  And I’m among the cheeriest people I know (thank God).  Yet inner conflict is what allows me to speak with my characters, to see them, believe them and help breathe that spark of life into them.  Only once I find the pain and the journey can my characters step off the page and into life.

Picnic Tables Askew, Upstate New York

Rhyme and Reason

So J comes home late last night.  She’s hiding something under her jacket.  Her smile is wide and guilty.  So pretty much I know something good’s coming.

“It was a impulse buy.”  Her eyes are wide, serious.  Hopeful.  Which worries me.

Then she reveals it.  Only…I can’t see anything.  I peer closer.  Then she moves into the light, angling her arm.  Ah.

Wee turtles.  But not normal wee.  We’re talking almost invisible turtles.

We spent the rest of the night coming up with names.   J wouldn’t accept my first pick:  Snape and Harry.  I loved the idea of mortal enemies living in loving couplehood forever…even when I heard these poor turtles don’t often make it to adulthood.

She voted for Kirk and Spock last night, foregoing their titles.  Who was I to argue?  She tried to connect with them, cooing at them and expressing encouraging opinions on their appearance.  But they would hear nothing of it.  J would open her mouth, and they would paddle away, desperate looks etched on their faces.

Well, okay, I anthropomorphize.  But J had apparently spent the better part of the day looking up The Habits of Tiny Weeny Turtles and was full of wisdom that unfortunately revealed that Kirk and Spock lived in abject terror of her.  For instance, when J speaks, the Turtles:

a)  paddle away quickly
b)  breathe
c)  hide their faces in their shells
d)  stick their necks out
e)  stop looking like they’re breathing
f)  roll upside down and play dead
g)  submerge themselves desperately

According to J, all of these–including the polar opposite reactions–are signs that turtles are afraid.  Very afraid.  I mused.

It reminds me of when my mom asked me if J’s dog Axel understood my commands.  ”Yes, yes,” I assured her, nodding vigorously over the phone.  ”Well, what words does he understand?” my mom wanted to know.  I thought for a moment.  ”Chicken.”  I kept it private that I generally have to wave a piece of it in front of his nose for him to get the drift and pounce.

What can I say.  When you love an animal, you tend to think it’s smart, for some reason.  Or adorably dumb.

Anyway, this morning J comes back from work, a frown plastered on her face.  ”Ruth,” she says, “their names are all wrong.  They don’t fit right.”

I think.  (I mean, not at that moment, I simply think all the time.  I’m just saying.)  And then I answered her.  ”Their names are Rhyme and Reason.”

My friend P, who has turtles, had just informed me that fewer than 10% survive to adulthood in captivity.  And, although this was sad news in and of itself, on the other hand it begged, BEGGED for the turtles to be named after something you’d like to say has died.  And what better to proclaim dead than all Rhyme and Reason?

And how better to enjoy life than to do so while watching all Rhyme and Reason flee when J tries to speak?

Fun times.  Good times.  :)
(These are the smiles of a happy woman.  I’m on page 128, by the by!  28,168 words down on what I s’pose will come to a book about 50,000K or slightly more.  First draft, naturally.  Loving it!)

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