Pottermore. If you're reading this, stop it. Just stop it and get back to work. Impressions after the break as always.
So today we have... apparition lessons. I know I should have known by looking at the images when I spoiled it but, if anything, this was a chapter that deserved an extra moment. Providing background the chapter is 18 for HBP, "Birthday Surprises" and it has one of what I consider one of the bigger moments in this book: Ron almost dying. Harry uses a Bezoar to save his life. There is poisoned mead. There is talk of horcruxes in this chapter when Hermione is in the library. There is SO much potential here, wasted... all because we had to plug in some audio. While it was, admittedly, a nice touch. It wasn't necessarily what we needed. Galleons, a card and some exploding bonbons that weren't too hard to find, and a riddle with the answer just to the right. I know, perhaps it is picky, and I am quite frankly saving my harsher critiques for later as I want them measured against any surprises or bits of wonder they may have hidden from me. It is unlikely.
The more I look at what has come out, Florean's ghost plot was more or less what I had in my head, and if Rowling was going to release it, I'd almost she rather had fleshed it out a bit more for us. It seemed almost as if she saw her notes and just wrote what came to mind before tucking them away again. It is quite the same with the vampires and Trocar. There are things, wonderful things she can tell us. "What specifically would Florean know about the hallows and diadem?" "What would Trocar have taught? Do/did vampires side with voldemort at any point? Are they like Merpeople, with civilization and such for themselves or are they more like werewolves with their lycanthropy?" "What are the basics behind apparation? Can one start with no wand? How far have people gone? What of apparation in the Middle Ages?"
Basically, so far it seems like Rowling's content that is being released is stuff that was perhaps bottom of the barrel, stuff she sent early on that is being released later. Because given the information she revealed on twitter, I really doubt that she would just release small snippets like that for Pottermore.
We can only hope that something large will happen tomorrow, as we have another pensive moment, so prepare yourself to have nothing collected!
As always, post your thoughts below.
I can't wait to read your assessment for today's release (Chap 20, Hepzibah Smith). It's hard to stay optimistic when they release only 8 chapters of 20 ... and 2 of them have nothing but a visual. I can appreciate that we are "looking into the memory" ... yada yada yada ... but when they have already limited a 30 chapter book to 12 chapters, and then waste 2 of them with "nothing" moments, might as well say they only gave us 10 chapters.
ReplyDeleteI did post it late, but it is a bit insulting that we aren't getting much, and it goes to show that the comments I've made about "blowing the load" too quickly seem to be well founded on that end and they aren't really giving much reason for me or anyone else to think otherwise I'd imagine.
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