Our Totally Normal School: Hogwarts!!

 Now that I've completed our latest building, we can begin filming our next episode!!

The new building is the kids' school -- Hogwarts -- which is accessible from the Seilbahn Bergstation!! (If you don't recall what that is, please see my earlier post.)

I would like to start right off the bat with an apology to the trans community. Hogwarts has been a key part of Totally Normal Town since the first episode in 2018 -- long before J.K. Rowling decided to devote her life (and giant platform) to being the world's biggest spokesperson for transphobia.

At the time of this writing, Rowling is currently being sued for having spread the false claim that a women's boxing Olympic gold medalist is a man (she is, in fact, a cis woman) -- a claim that could potentially endanger her life if vigilantes in her native Algeria believe it.

Also problematic is the fact that Rowling has specifically pointed to the continued popularity of the Harry Potter franchise as evidence that people agree with her bigoted transphobic rhetoric. So, even though I built this new castle mostly from parts from two old sets from 2011 and 2019, I'm still potentially bolstering her claims by including Hogwarts in this new 2024 build.

I would counter that the lion's share of what makes Hogwarts fun is the atmosphere created by the set design and music, not to mention that nearly all of the best British actors have played roles in the film series. Here's an example:

Snape is a good character, but Alan Rickman's Snape is a great character.

For this build, I found that I had lots of spiders and spider webs (largely from various Spider-man mini-figs), so I decided that this incarnation of Hogwarts should start with potions class in the dungeon.

This is the first time I've included a light brick in an original build of mine. I thought it would look cool to add red light coming from the stand under Snape's cauldron, and I was right.

Of course the most important Hogwarts professor for Totally Normal Town is Professor Trelawney -- she's the one who repeatedly (and accurately!) predicts the destruction of Totally Normal Town!

In this build, Professor Trelawney and her sister "Trofessor Prelawney" share the open terrace floor that connects by stairs with the Seilbahn station. They also have owl (and other bird) perches, plus space for crystal balls and tea sets.

For Hogwarts and the restaurant/station next door I built backs that open so that they can potentially be photographed from all sides. Since these two buildings are up against the back wall, this isn't really necessary, but it adds to the fun of the build.

The room at the top of the tower is a common room, including all of the various pets, plus Slughorn disguised as a chair.

We had so many wands that I thought it would be funny to put bins and barrels and chests of them all over the place. We'll see if Nico adds a joke to the script about why there are so many spare wands.

The main floor has a dining hall.

This was a really fun build to make, and I like having Hogwarts as a part of our Totally Normal Town -- even though I already had serious reservations about the Harry Potter universe even before Rowling became the queen of the transphobes.

...But that should perhaps be a separate post.

Let's close with the two trams -- since this incarnation of Totally Normal Town is a transit paradise!!

You can probably see that these two trams follow the same design as the trams from the Christmas version of Totally Normal Town.

All these photos are certainly going to make this post take forever to load, so if you've made it this far, congrats and thanks for your attention!

The Plan!!

The other day a friend of mine posted this link to Facebook: Every Major Snape Scene in Chronological Order. It reminded me yet again how absurd the Snape subplot is, but... then it hit me that playing in the plot holes would make a hilarious YouTube video!!

This is my first attempt at making a stop-motion Lego video -- I hope you'll like it! :D

What else is wrong with Harry Potter?

Before starting a post like this one, of course I have to start with the disclaimer that I am a fan. I have read all of the books at least twice (to myself, and then as a bedtime story to my kids), and I've seen all the films multiple times. It is only because of the enjoyment I've gotten from the series that I waste time contemplating it and getting bothered by its flaws. Remember the parable of criticism is a complement -- if it were total crap, I wouldn't bother to post about it at all. So I don't want to see any comments accusing me of being a black-hearted Harry Potter-hater.

My second disclaimer is that, yes, I should probably be spending my time on something more important, like, say, climate change. But since it looks like our species is heading into oblivion and there's precious little an individual like me can do to stop it, I like to take my worrying down a notch and worry instead about stuff that really, really doesn't matter. Hence this post.

I've heard tons of different insights on what are the critical flaws of the Harry Potter series. Pretty much all of them were valid criticisms. For me, though, I feel like the top problem is that -- while Harry Potter is an interesting character -- he is not interesting enough to carry seven weighty tomes. I know, he's the chosen one and everything, but the fact that pretty much everything important that happens in his universe revolves around Harry himself and a small circle of friends and acquaintances makes their world seem petty and simplistic. At one point McGonagall asks, "Why is it always you three?" -- and I spent most of the series asking the author the same question. Especially considering that the series has so many other interesting characters that I'd rather be reading about.

Then, since I've been trying to just relax this week, I hit upon the solution! Fan-fic! Who knows what amusing tales the various fans have invented for all of our favorite peripheral characters?

I decided to start with the most incongruous relationship in the entire series: Hermoine and Viktor Krum. So, this guy is one of the most famous sports stars in their entire wizarding world. He could have his pick of girls, to put it mildly. Yet, he falls for the nerdy co-protagonist, who, by the way, isn't even interested in him. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I will say that this relationship requires some explanation/motivation that is sorely lacking in the books and films. But maybe the fans will come to the rescue!

Sadly, the first one I found on this topic was so laden with technical discussion of Quidditch strategy and sports scenes, I was unable to slog through it far enough to get to the point where he takes up with Hermoine. So I gave up on that one and decided to see if I could find some back-story for Regulus Black -- a fascinating character who (as far as I recall) doesn't make an appearance in the real story at all. There I found some interesting tales of his home life with his brother Sirius in their crazy evil London townhouse with their crazy evil parents. Good fun! So I decided to read some more from the Moony-Wormtail-Padfoot-Prongs generation.

Then a curious thing happened. I found it rather upsetting to watch popular sports star James Potter and his fun-loving buddies bullying young Severus Snape -- and winning the hearts of the fans (not to mention the girl) in the process. You can try to blame the fan-fic authors, but they're merely highlighting and expanding upon a key point from the original story.

I've written about bullying before, and I like to believe this is a subject where our culture has made tremendous progress in the past few decades. In stories from the fifties, it was typical to see bullying presented as par for the course, and it was unsurprising to see an author present a scene of bullying with the clear subtext that the victim deserved it because he's such a loser -- and expect the audience to view the bully as the more likable guy overall. It's disappointing to see this happen in a modern story.

As someone who was "different" as a kid -- and consequently bullied by the popular kids -- I naturally identify with Snape a lot more than I do with James and Lily and their friends. And the worst part of the story is that -- unlike a typical real-world bullying situation -- in this case the whole "it gets better" thing didn't happen. After being traumatized as a teen, Snape went on to be a bitter, spiteful, miserable person until he died.

Don't get me wrong -- of course he was also awesome. I think Snape is hand down the best character in the series. And the actor in the films did a fantastic job of interpreting the character -- better than what was in the books alone. But the stuff that happened to him was awful.

Then I started feeling like a huge idiot because is there any stupider waste of emotional energy than sitting around feeling sorry for a fictional character? I need to get out there and find some real people with real problems whom I can help for real. ;)

In the meantime, allow me to present how it should have ended:

I finished reading Harry Potter to my kids!

That was a cool, fun trip! I have fond memories of my mom reading to me and my siblings when I was a kid, and I've enjoyed passing the tradition along!

And now -- since this story has been taking up so much of my brain of late -- I have to give you my promised critique:

1. The evil-just-for-the-love-of-evil villain. My kids already spend enough time on commercial stories that are designed just to sell toys (eg. Lego Hero Factory, Planet Heroes) where they make a simplistic division into bad guys and good because its the easiest way to give your hero a conflict. And I know that Voldermort had some depth and character development (he sure a hell better have some, in 4176 pages...), but I think that an excellent children's series ought to have a more imaginative quest/conflict than the usual "We have to stop Dr. Evil from destroying the world because he's so evil just because he loves evil."

I found Lord Voldemort to be an incredibly boring villain. The series makes up for it a bit by having a number of interesting side characters, like Snape. I liked most of the teacher-characters, though (as my husband pointed out) it's a bit odd that none of the teachers are married or have a significant other. Did Rowling forget to mention that accepting a teaching position at Hogwarts means you have to take a vow of celibacy?

2. The monotonically increasing level of evil. To borrow some Dungeons & Dragons terminology, Rowling's series feels like "Lawful Evil" compared to, say, some works by Roald Dahl which feel more "Chaotic Evil". In Potter-land you don't get the feeling that anything might happen (unlike, say, Alice in Wonderland). It's more like Science Fiction than like magic -- the characters have a specific set of additional powers/technologies and a particular set of alien creatures, and they're all plodding towards the epic battle. And if there's X amount of violence and death in book 1, then the amount in book 2 is X+1, etc., so that by book 4, it's already pretty questionable whether it's appropriate for children, and by the last book, so many people were dying noble, glorious deaths in battle that I felt like I was reading a Klingon opera.

3. Underdog! After the beginning of book 1, Harry's not really an underdog anymore, and yet a lot of the story seems to rely on the reader rooting for poor Harry. Some of the situtions the author constructs to repeatedly try to put him back to underdog status (he's stuck at the Dursleys' again, Snape is mean to him, Dumbledore won't tell him everything) seem contrived and petty. I feel like I'm not explaining my point very well, so just consult this Potter Puppet Pals episode:



For such a long series, it might have been more interesting if the POV didn't always follow Harry. As I said earlier, I felt the "Dark Materials" trilogy did better than the Potter series at having peripheral characters take important independent actions rather than having all the action revolve around one or two battling champions. (And those battle scenes! Everyone picks a partner and starts duelling, as though it were the Yule Ball.)

I have a couple of other picky complaints, but I'll just leave it at this. Despite the occasional annoyance, I really did enjoy reading these to my kids. But now that it's done, they're asking me to go back and read them selected chapters! I'm happy to keep reading to them, but I'd like to move on to something new. Suggestions...?

Rereading Harry Potter, Part 1

A few years after my first read-through, I'm re-reading the "Harry Potter" series to my kids. This morning, I just finished book 5. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, and I'm ready to start posting about my reaction the second time through.

This book (#5) was the one that changed me from avid Harry Potter fan to lukewarm Harry Potter fan. My first reaction to this book was "OK, she finished the set-up in the previous book, and it's too early to start on the wrap-up, so she's killing time between books 4 and 6. And yet it's still I-don't-know-how-many-hundred pages long." My reaction this time? The same, except that I was less annoyed/disappointed this time because of my lowered expectations going in. I was able to just enjoy the episodic ride because I wasn't thinking "Sheesh, do we have to plod through every date on the school calendar before the final chapter where Dumbledore explains everything...?"

Now, I'd like to go over some of my main criticisms of the series. But before I begin, I want to make it perfectly clear that I don't want to see any angry comments about what an evil hater I am for not liking the Harry Potter series. I do like it, and I'm enjoying re-reading it to my kids. Please review my parable of criticism as a compliment. I wouldn't bother to critique/analyze the Harry Potter series if I thought it were just a pile of scheiss.

Also, I'd like to draw your attention to some other critiques made by fellow-blogger friends here and here. These are interesting points, and I have nothing in particular to add to them.

I could swear that I read Holly say somewhere that the "magic" in Harry Potter is not at all magical, but I can't find the link. That is quite a valid and interesting point. Yet, I'm actually kind of intrigued by Rowling's conception of magic as being kind of like science/technology. Indeed, it's interesting how she presents the wizards as sticking with outdated technologies like quills and ink bottles because -- once they've found a way of bewitching a "muggle" technology to their liking -- they have no reason to switch to the latest thing. It creates a situation where sometimes it's actually not clear that the wizarding community's ways are better or more convenient -- just different, and existing in parallel with more familiar ways. So the author's unorthodox conception of magic isn't what I particularly object to.

To be continued. ;^)