Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

Finally, someone has expressed something I've been trying to convey for years: Factual assertions are not opinions. It's a baseball blog, sure, but the point is there. This is my favorite part:

Preferring chocolate to vanilla is an opinion. No one can argue about your personal preferences or tastes, or tell you that those are incorrect, even if their tastes differ greatly. But when someone begins to make claims like “Jack Morris pitched to the score” or “Designated Hitter is not a position”, they are no longer offering opinions – they are making factual claims about something which is either true or false. And no one has the right to their own set of facts, and people who make illegitimate factual claims should expect to be told that they are indeed wrong.

I've always kind of expressed myself badly when I tried to convey this. I think the closest I ever got was ranting, "Just because it is an opinion doesn't mean it can't be wrong." This was probably the wrong way to go about it because I called into question the validity of opinions when, instead, I ought to have called into question the definition of opinion.

Note the progression:

"I like this song" is an opinion.

"This is a good song," is a factual assertion.

"I think this is a good song" is STILL a factual assertion.

"I think this song sounds good" is an opinion and you may express this freely without me calling your statement into question (though I can't say the same about your taste).

Musings on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I

So I finally caught up with the rest of the world and saw the seventh installment of Harry Potter. It terrifies me a little to realize that we've been going at this film franchise for over a decade. I saw the 5th installment in Washington DC with Courtney and that seems like ages ago. What are we going to do when the film franchise airs its last segment? Well, I know what I'm going to do: read the damn books. Bear in mind that this is coming from someone who hasn't read the books and doesn't know what's going to happen in Part 2.

So The Deathly Hallows comes right on the heels of what I still consider the crowning film of the franchise thus far: Half-Blood Prince. One of the first things I realized after having seen the film was that it sure doesn't use a lot of characters. The Half-Blood Prince himself gets a brief cameo at the beginning, Ginny Weasley gets a bit of screen time at the beginning, seemingly only to remind us that she is, indeed, romantically interested in Harry, and this seems to be the case for all characters aside from Harry, Ron, and Hermione (and even Ron buggers off for awhile). Then again, I also think that taken in context of it being the first half of the last book, there is no onus for this film to be a complete film in and of itself - it only needs to act as a set-up to part 2. With that in mind, I think that the choice to make Harry, Hermione, and Ron - their characters, their feelings - the centerpiece of Deathly Hallows 1 was a brilliant cinematic choice.

The thing I loved the most about this film was the idea of "timelessness" as it played out during the middle part of the film. From the wedding scene until the scene with Luna Lovegood's dad, the trio basically bounce around the world for a seemingly indefinite amount of time (how they are able to do this is something I'm sure was either explained in the books or in the 6th film that I've only seen once despite loving it so much). It is only when they knock on Mr. Lovegood's door and Harry mentions that they met at the wedding "months" ago that there is any indication of how much time has passed.

This passing of time was interesting to me because I feel like the Harry Potter franchise has tackled this concept particularly well. Though I have not seen the third film since it came out in theaters, I remember telling people that I felt like it was a very short film. This I attributed (and still attribute, to this day) to the fact that there was a lot of time travel involved in Prisoner of Azkaban and thus, the length of time that actually passed on an objective scale amounted to a relatively small amount. Therefore, even though the actual running time of Prisoner of Azkaban was no shorter than the two films that preceded it, I actively felt like not much time had passed between the beginning of the film and the end.

It's not just Prisoner of Azkaban, of course. The Harry Potter films have always been charged with conveying the idea of time passing because the whole story is, in a lot of ways, about Harry Potter and him growing up. I think it is also no coincidence that regardless of what they may or may not have cut out of the books, the films almost always include Christmas. Simply having the scenery move from autumn to winter to spring has always been an effective way that the films have conveyed the actual passing of time and the Christmases themselves have usually reflected the general mood of the story arc - from the cheerful present-opening Christmases of the earlier films to the eerie, silent Christmas eve of The Deathly Hallows.

At any rate, back to The Deathly Hallows. So there's this long middle bit where it feels like Harry, Hermione, and Ron kinda live in their own little world. I think Hermione perfectly captures this sentiment when she says something along the lines of "What if we just stayed here and... grow old" (I can't quote the exact line but she says something to this effect). It is a remarkable tribute to the film that it manages to create a sense of timelessness that almost makes you forget that there is a freaking Apocalypse/establishment of a new world order happening in civilization. But no... for those seemingly brief months, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are allowed to exist in a kind of purgatory: one that is made all the more disconcerting by the fact that they are unable to be serene in a serene environment because of the problems they know they will have to face...

Sorry, did I say Harry, Ron, and Hermione? I mean just Harry and Hermione... because as we know, Ron, like a doink, runs away for pretty much this entire middle bit. It seems appropriate, though, that this should happen, for a number of reasons.

Ron is seemingly unable to participate in this little bout of purgatory that Harry and Hermione are "enjoying" because of this underlying inferiority complex and hint of jealousy. And why not? As the horcrux demon...thing points out, it's Harry freaking Potter. The Chosen One. And there's Hermione Granger, pretty much the hottest girl to ever grace the wizarding world. I'm sure the original readers of Harry Potter books also asked themselves during the first few books if Harry and Hermione would end up being "the couple" and irrational as it is, you can't really blame Ron for wondering.

The fact that Ron ends up storming off illuminates a few things about this film. One, that it's impossible to feel a sense of timelessness if you aren't, at least, OK with your current situation. Harry and Hermione are, understandably, worried and terrified about the future. But throughout the film, the sense of timelessness has always been paired with a feeling of immediate comfort - from them sitting together on barren rock, to standing before the Potters' graves, to walking along a street on Christmas eve - there's always a sense of "something terrible either happened in the past or is probably going to happen in the future... but at least we're ok right now, in this precise instant." In fact, it is precisely the understanding that things were terrible in the past and probably will be terrible in the future, that allows for this sense of timelessness to be associated with the present.

Ronald Weaseley, on the hand, has a pretty shitty "present" for the first little bit of the journey around the world. First, he gets his arm... I don't even know what the hell happened - it gets thrashed up somehow. Then, as he is reduced to a healing bag of uselessness, he has to watch his girlfriend (I think the implication, by this point in the story, is that they are dating although no one bothered to confirm this fact for us non-book-readers) gallivant around with his best friend... giving him water when he's thirsty and whatnot (as far as I can see, this is the only blatant act of flirtation that Hermione and Harry engage in - let that be a lesson to you water-drinking types... pack your own damn water when you're around your best friend's girlfriend who also happens to be your other best friend... wait, what?).

So Ron, understandably, is not privy to this world of timelessness and leaves. The next little bit with Harry and Hermione, I think, are some of my favorite Harry & Hermione bits of the entire franchise. It's funny, because I think it is only during this segment of the film that we realize we've been missing something throughout the entire first 6 films. As a trio, we've always seen Harry, Ron, and Hermione together. We've seen the relationship between Harry and Ron flushed out because they are both boys and share moments in their dormitory; we'll call it "bromance" for dramatic purposes. We also know about the relationship between Ron and Hermione, since it's pretty well established by The Goblet of Fire, that they were going to be the "pair" within the group. But we've only ever caught little glimpses of a very peculiar bond that Harry seems to share with Hermione.

Harry's friendship with Hermione has always struck me as strangely platonic. Now, I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I've always held that the Harry Potters films started getting really good with The Goblet of Fire. I mean, Chamber of Secrets was great and all but until all the hormones kick in, nothing's really for keeps. Again, I think it is a remarkably well-considered plot device for the stakes to get real, right around the time when love starts to play a role. And I say this mainly because it seems appropriate that the first death in Harry Potter occurs right when the threat of losing someone you love becomes a very real emotion. I mean, Harry's already lost his parents, Hermione's parents are kinda non-existent, and Ron's family is big (which, by extension, means shared grief, which, by further morbid extension, means that that grief is less personal). But with The Goblet of Fire comes not only the threat of death (granted, only our beloved Edward Cullen gets offed in this film but still...), but also the realization that death is more than something to be feared for oneself; it is something to be feared on behalf of the person you love.

So from The Goblet of Fire onwards, I started to pay particular attention to the way romance now affects the stakes. In doing so, I ran into the curious case that is Harry and Hermione. On the surface of it, they obviously care about each other a great deal. However, their relationship seems carefully constructed to omit any hint of romance. I've already mentioned the rarity that is Harry and Hermione being alone together. On top of that, when they ARE alone, what do talk about? In the Goblet of Fire, Harry jokes with Hermione about the weirdo she's dating (with seemingly no jealous undertones whatsoever), and in The Half-Blood Prince, they commiserate over their shared experiences of being shunned by other lovers. As socially stunted as Harry Potter sometimes is (s'what you get when you spend the first 12 years of your life locked in a cellar), I still found it interesting that their relationship was kept completely platonic.

So we return to The Deathly Hallows (wow, I've been rambling for a long time). I thought it was interesting that perhaps for the first time, we get a sense of romantic undertones between Harry and Hermione. This isn't to say that either of them was encouraging the other, but I think it occurred to both of them, perhaps for the first time, that romantic undertones exist and I've always been fascinated about how people react to this realization. This really came to a head, I thought, during their impromptu dance session when, for a little while, they seemed to put their cares aside and just... dance (cue Lady Gaga). For that short time, Harry and Hermione seemed to share something for the first time that is wholly theirs and theirs alone. Unlike their shared moment in The Half-Blood Prince, which was a shared moment directed outwards at other people, this was a shared moment that was directed simply at each other and suddenly, they created this world that oddly enough, they had somehow managed to avoid creating in the first 6 films. The fact that this world coincided with their current situation in no-man's-land seemed all the more appropriate.

Recently, I've been talking to a lot of people about the idea of having a best friend of the opposite sex. I think it's kinda cool that I should see The Deathly Hallows right after I've had these thoughts because it illuminates a similar kind of dynamic. I guess it doesn't surprise me, now that I think about it, that Harry and Hermione only fully realized their bond after Ron buggers off for an hour or so. As I said to some friends recently, it's REALLY freaking hard to share a close bond with someone of the opposite sex if that someone is in a relationship. That graveyard scene, for instance - the one where Harry is standing by his parents' grave and Hermione comforts him by holding his hand and resting her head on his shoulders... she couldn't (or wouldn't) have done that if Ron had been around. The line between having romantic feelings for someone and having feelings of warmth, closeness, and caring are so easily blurred that it's almost impossible to act on one without people asking if you're acting on the other... and sometimes, maybe we don't even know the answer.

I think it is no coincidence that the film moved out of this no-man's-land sort of timelessness upon Ron's return. Think of the aforementioned graveyard scene with Harry and Hermione standing over the Potters' graves. Flash forward a few scenes to Harry holding Dobby in his arms as the house elf dies. He looks up, panicking and scared, and what does he see? Ron and Hermione standing together in the water. They can see him; they can sympathize with how he's feeling, but I think that in that moment, Harry Potter is once again alone.

Poor sod, eh? I think that's why I liked both the 6th and 7th film. In both of them, I think we get glimpses of Harry Potter being taken out of his lonely world, for once, and it's that feeling of human connection that really makes these latter films stand out.

So I keep hearing the following Bruno Mars lyrics on popular radio:

"I’d catch a grenade for you
Throw my hand on a blade for you"

And so on. Now admittedly, the first time I heard the song, I thought the second line read, "Throw my head on a blade for you," which seemed like a very confusing sentiment. I have since then realized the error of my ways and concluded that the true version of the lyrics, while slightly less inane, are also redundant, yes? I assume the threat of catching a grenade comes from the possibility that it will explode and send shrapnel through your hand and this doesn't seem very far removed from the actual throwing of one's hand on said "blade" in the second line.

Also, what kind of blade is he talking about? Like a sword? What does that even mean?

Has everyone forgotten this classic comic by xkcd? Come on. "Just sit anywhere," is hardly the best plan of action for large gatherings. The worst part is that people always seem to say this in a tone of voice of that implies that I'm being an idiot for WANTING a socially optimal seating plan. Seriously, it'll take 5 minutes. I consider that a small price to pay to enjoy the next 4 hours to its full extent.

To the guy squatting like a homeless bum in front of Chapters' Graphic Novels section: the fact that you have been reading unpaid merchandise in that exact location for the past half hour does not give you the right to glare at me when I ask you to move so I can browse for something I might actually buy. I'm sure the management would agree.