As others have no doubt noticed too, the Gravett Right Wing Death Beast Blog Empire has been off the air most of the time for the last fortnight or so. For this lover of blog bile, that leaves a yawning gap in my daily blog browsing. What with Tim Blair being away somewhere in the bowels of the Great Satan and only posting sporadically, I’m suffering serious RWDB withdrawal symptoms.
It’s far too much to expect that Professor Bunyip and poor old Uncle from ABC Watch will be able to keep supplying the necessary quantity of vitriolic hyperbolic prose unaided. So what the hell is Gary doing about it? There’s no shortage of relatively inexpensive web hosts out there with much greater service reliability than the turkeys he’s currently using (whoever they are). Show a bit of RWDB ruthlessness, sack the fucktards and shift your domain to a web host who can deliver the goods consistently.
PS – While Googling for a picture of Dementors from Harry Potter to illustrate this post, I came across an article called Kissing Dementors: Fear and Social Discipline in the Harry Potter Novels. Haven’t had time to read it yet, but I will when I get a longer spare moment.
The Ubersportingpundit.com domain, which includes this fine blog, is hosted by http://onsmart.net who I can heartily recommend.
Im not so sure it is a problem with the web host. Nobody knows what the hell is going on, least of all me.
AND STARRING
Malfoy, Draco: Harry’s arch-nemesis. A Slytherin student and seeker
played by Mr. T. Abbott.
Malfoy, Lucius: Draco’s father, is a Death Eater…could be Voldemorts right-hand man. played by Mr J. Howard
Voldemort: The dark lord. Most wizards refer to him as “you-know-who” or “he-who-must-not-be-named”.
played by Mr. D Cheney (Mr G.w. Bush understudy)
OK parish I’ll bite.
she is clearly a gradual student gradually entering the hallowed halls of the educated stupid.
God I get impatient with you lot. You intelligent academes or in this case students who should know – how can you study arts with no intuition, perception or insight?
Me on the other hand, my lot are as dumb academically speaking as dogs balls – flirted with current affairs while flirting with parish, but its mostly a repetitive media world that gets dull.
Now HP on the other hand distills our culture, a culture of which I am enormously proud to be a product. And distills it so my little girl and her lot can participate – she’ll move on to dear old Tolkein eventually and may even have a little look at old english, celtic and gaelic lore and living.
The defining moment of the Prisoner of Azkaban was the moment in which Harry realises that he is his own protector. It was not his father from whom he drew the positive energy to dispell joy suckers, but himself. – we call it growing up.
When jes discovered the patronus charm she drew the connection between it and her egg with the fairy sitting on a lilypad inside it – an image supplied to her by my friends daughters to ward off teasing and the agonies of juvenile betrayal – from which some of us never escape – the egg is a strong nurturing place that protects her and the fairy on a lily pad is the beautiful and fragile spirit of possibility – good girl jes. It doesn’t prevent her from dissolving into hurtness, but it lets her know she is not an alien in a crass wrongheaded playground.
The the effect of the patronus charm is the ideal effect of the egg and fairy. The difference is of course that one exists in theideal world of HP and the other in jes world of Sergison Cct, school and unreliable parents.
Jen
You’re right that the article I linked is a bit laboured and takes a lot of space to make only a couple of fairly obvious points. But what’s blindingly obvious to some might not be for others.
I certainly agree that the moment when Harry realises that it was him and not his father who succeeded in warding off the dementors is the dramatic climax of the third film and its central moral message (and that message is maturity and responsibility, courage and inner strength, and realising that only you and not your parents or anyone else is usually going to save you from your own inner demons and most outer perils as well).
But don’t forget, the article is focusing on particular themes across all of the books, not just on the third movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I thought the author’s teasing out (however laboriously) of the general imprisonment theme running through all the books was interesting. I haven’t read the books, only watched the films, so these things tend to be less obvious to me. I also thought the reflection about Bentham and his panopticon concept was worth making (if a trifle simplistic) and, (as you also observed) the drawing on the Christian legend in relation to guilt, betrayal etc. As I said, what’s obvious to some might need spelling out for others.
In general, I think you can make a pretty strong argument that the underlying moral messages, themes etc of the Harry Potter series are more complex and mature, and certainly more relevant to today, than anything Tolkien wrote. Lord of the Rings is an awesome imaginative work in terms of creating a fully-realised fantasy world in incredible detail, and it’s a powerful good versus evil allegorical tale with lots of strong “political” messages (anti-Nazi/Communist etc). However, Tolkien’s characters are fairly simplistic cardboard cutouts, and the individual moral messages are fairly simplistic too. Rowling’s characters are much more complex, subtle and nuanced, and the moral messages are much more direct and personal (and therefore more useful for kids growing up in today’s world), rather than being couched on a global political level like Tolkien.
re: Bentham’s panopticon
It is not fear of punishment that motivates the best in people. That motivates the petty soulless shit that life on earth seems mostly heir to. Whether the enforcers are seen or unseen makes no difference and not knowing will will not increase the goodness that is required to jolt humanity off the merrygoround of – I must do …. to avoid punishment – balls! we must do to increase happiness – ours and everyones.
Rowlings joy suckers haven’t a thing to do with authority or punishment although it amazes me how often it is that the joy suckers get into positions of influence. They should be shot. This would take care entirely of the whole prisoner connundrum – who is, who isn’t, the happy are free.
Nelson Mandela – decided after having been in prison for a while that that prison couldn’t steal his joy – even while they took everything and so did jesus gandhi and all that lot …. blah lunch is over
Jen
But surely the two are connected. You need to realise that fear of punishment/disapproval, living up to the expectations of others etc, is what is sucking joy, in order to liberate oneself and pursue happiness and real personal freedom. Some find that realisation (and then actually living it) easier than others: you certainly seem to have found it much easier (maybe even instinctive) than I have, for instance. So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this author’s teasing out of the punishment theme, it’s just she didn’t go the extra step in any meaningful sense (although Rowling certainly does).
It all sounds a bit cracker barrel when I read it back, but I still think this stuff is important and worth discussing if we can draw in other participants.
punishment disapproval expectations can’t steal joy.
They can make it very painful and I get so sad, but there always is a patronus pollyanna
Its just that you lot are comfortable with misery or a relative and gravitate toward that – when you can choose. Pain doesn’t preclude joy it is the aftermath of an unsuccessful attack – sulking and its malignancy is the result of a successful attack.
you are right it is crackerbarrel in a forum like this – intuition and feelings that aren’t attached to an event theory or a specific personal experience must be part of rambling conversations. however, being a little out of context is kind of interesting when, now I am this tired and hunting for a hook.
a hook on bloody car accidents and bastard bosses
– the dementors cannot hurt you if you don’t let them – destroy them before they destroy you – but from where do you find the confidence in your own goodness? in experience – is that wisdom?
You’re right, but you’re also understating the difficulty of the middle step (for many including me). In fact being aware of social expectations of all sorts is a necessary part of being a functioning member of a community. It doesn’t mean you must always (or even often necessarily) comply with them, but it IS legitimate to take them into account in getting to the point of following the path that brings happiness.
I’ve too often tended to compromise in those situations, rather than follow the path that my heart tells me is good (for other readers I’m not just talking about romance here, but life in general including career etc). In fact the most you should do is be conscious of those expectations, but still follow the path your heart tells you. That might well involve no more than your favourite test question: will I feel guilty if I do X? (X being what I reckon my heart is telling me). Asking that question IS actually bringing in the only social expectations that usually really count, namely the effects on our friends and family. And even then, we may well come to the conclusion that their expectations etc are unreasonable or just can’t be accommodated without too great a cost to our being. But then again, we might bring into focus probable effects that end up meaning that the path we thought was the one of goodness no longer feels that way.
Maybe as one gets more practised at that process, it becomes totally instinctive/intuitive and “amoeba-like”, but for me it still involves a process of intellectual reflection. The trick is to make sure that I end up going with my real (but considered) feeling for the good path, and not with some other option that I’ve intellectualised myself into accepting while ignoring or suppressing what my heart/gut is telling me.
So social expectations are only a prison if you let them dictate your path rather than just be one factor in a process that’s mostly intuitive, but still involves thought for muggles like me.
how did you get to be so sweet?
I don’t believe it. Tuff Ken Parish, Northern lawyer, sweating experience of a harsh and disappointing world, hacking through the forests of chopped logic and dumb hope, is blogging in detail about Harry Potter.
Ah the world’s a twisty old place. What’s wrong with Gravettland? Why won’t they come here and talk about the problem?
David
Do I really come across that way? I hope not. I was sort of hoping to provoke some discussion on these sorts of topics for a change. I sometimes get bored with law and politics and stuff. But so far it’s only Jen and me navel-gazing (which is very nice – I’m not complaining or anything).
As for Gravettland, Gareth posted and said he didn’t know what the hell was going on either. Presumably he’s been emailing Gary and getting no answers or unsatisfactory ones. Maybe Gary hasn’t paid his webhosting fees. Maybe he’s been terminated with extreme prejudice by Niall or some other LWDB. Maybe he just got pissed and maudlin and can’t be bothered. Maybe he fell in love and is off a’shaggin’ and maintaining a blog empire is no longer a priority. Who knows?
No sorry, it was Sam/Yobbo.
No Gary is trying to figure out what is wrong- he rang me for help, but my IT skills have atrophied too far. It is all very peculiar, I must say.
He’s in the process of changing hosts now, but we still don’t know if that is going to fix the problem or not.