board77

Hee-that pronounciation guide is too fun. I think I got most of the names right (Except for DEE da lus) but was getting some of the spells totally off.

The one name I know I used to get wrong was Draco. Before the movies I always pronounced it Drah-co instead of Dray-co.

-m

Tinsel_the_Elf wrote:

Anything else just seems unnecessarily cruel to Lupin's character (I mean, what else can JKR do to the poor man? Drop a baby Grand piano on his head? )

Ssh!

I always thought it would be pronounced along the lines of the french "morte" as in Le Morte d'Arthur... which is not a silent 't'.

however, I guess "mort" has a silent 't'. stupid french pronunciation!

I would imagine that's the origin of the name... makes sense. I don't know, though, in english, the hard 't' sounds so much more menecing.

JKR really should have had a pronunciation guide in her books... then everyone could have been saying things correctly from the beginning...

Well since I'm obviously not going to get any sympathy from all of you about my recent finishing of a book some of you have probably already read multiple times (I was very slow with this one), I'll add this to your pronouciation fest.....

Sirius: JKR= serious TheMary= Si-rye-us

And I've always been partial to the Aloha-Mora spell

Congratulations, TheMary! We're happy for you.

halplm wrote:

I always thought it would be pronounced along the lines of the french "morte" as in Le Morte d'Arthur... which is not a silent 't'.

however, I guess "mort" has a silent 't'. stupid french pronunciation!

I would imagine that's the origin of the name... makes sense. I don't know, though, in english, the hard 't' sounds so much more menecing.

JKR really should have had a pronunciation guide in her books... then everyone could have been saying things correctly from the beginning...

You know what French tell you

As it is in "la mort" you don't pronounce the "t" (I would say it is "la mort d'Arthur" btw )

I would find it rather logical not to pronounce the "t" because if you read it in French "Voldemort" reads like "vol de mort" meaning "coming of death"... though indeed the "t" pronounced in English sounds more threatening...

Well, Sir Thomas Mallory named his book Le Morte d'Arthur (actually, the first firstion was Le Morte Darthur, but that might have been a printer's error), but I'm pretty sure he was English, so who knows what he was thinking.

I'm not too happy that the movies and audiobooks caved to the wrong pronunciation. However, I do think the blame lies with JKR for not putting a guide in. Unless, of course, her publisher made her take it out...

Could have happened, I mean they made her call the philosopher's stone the sorcerer's stone... but then, they filmed two versions of the movie for that one...

The ones I missed and know I missed:
Alastor
Animagi/Animagus
Bellatrix (accented the a)
Dedalus Diggle
Firenze
Knuts (pronounced it "nuts")
Nagini (Damn soft Gs...)
Veritaserum
Voldemort

I think their list is debatable... I missed almost all the ones that were straight from the Latin and had altered pronounciations.

DaMuzikMan wrote:

The ones I missed and know I missed:
Alastor
Animagi/Animagus
Bellatrix (accented the a)
Dedalus Diggle
Firenze
Knuts (pronounced it "nuts")
Nagini (Damn soft Gs...)
Veritaserum
Voldemort

I think their list is debatable... I missed almost all the ones that were straight from the Latin and had altered pronounciations.

See, that's the problem. There are real ways to pronounce these words based on normal pronunciation (as much as any language has "normal" pronunciation), and it's up to the Author to tell us when it's different, or even ambiguious. It took her to book three to explain how to pronounce Hermione... although she thought it was funny people pronounced things differently... kind of annoying of her, really...

TheMary wrote:

I can't wait for Harry to kick major ass in Book 7 LV's going down. To think I felt bad for Snape

Snape rules the world.

And even if Jo Rowling does the utterly boring thing in Book 7 and Snape really does turn out to be Teh Evil after all - yawwwwwwn - he will STILL rule my world, because he killed Dumbledore.

Sorry, but I can't stand Dumbledore, and if it turns out that he ordered Snape to kill him, knowing that Harry was there watching the whole thing and unable to move because of DD's spell, then I will still think DD is, quite frankly, a bit of a bastard. There's a side to the guy I just don't like.

'Dumbledore's man through and through ...' Oh Harry, you can do better than THAT.

Quote:

Not that I wouldn't like to see Harry deliver the Sectumsempra spell to Malfoy in living color, grr.

Noooooo! Poor Draco, poor baby.

Well, at least he's not a one-dimensional villain anymore.

Don't you dare do that to Snape, Jo Rowling.

'Cause if so ... Snape is too good for you.

I do so hope that Jo Rowling pulls out all the stops in Book 7 and renders unto her fans a satisfactory Snape. She'd better!

And if Dumbledore turns out to be alive after all, I shall be exasperated in the extreme.

I'm not kidding.

halplm wrote:

Well, Sir Thomas Mallory named his book Le Morte d'Arthur (actually, the first firstion was Le Morte Darthur, but that might have been a printer's error), but I'm pretty sure he was English, so who knows what he was thinking.

"Le Morte" is a fairly common medieval Anglo-Norman spelling. "La mort" would be correct standardized French today. But spelling was still a fairly fluid and individualistic thing in those days. And if I remember correctly, Thomas Mallory didn't name his book anything -- it was his publisher who titled it.

Tinsel (glad her short stint studying medieval lit. in grad school has been of use )


I also Snape. I melt over the anticipation of Alan Rickman portraying his anguished, guilt-racked love for Lily Potter in Movie 7.

Quote:

I also [x3] Snape. I melt over the anticipation of Alan Rickman portraying his anguished, guilt-racked love for Lily Potter in Movie 7.

Tinsel, you speak my mind!

Dude I didn't say Snape wasn't a hottie I was just a little upset that I felt bad for him and then he killed Dumbledore! It almost seems too good to be true that JKR would actually have Snape be a baddy after Dumbledore defended him.

And there is no way anyone can convince me to like Malfoy he's a pompus ass and I hope Harry slaughters him in the 7th book, although that's not likely to happen. I was rather pleased that he choked at a crucial moment.

am I the only one who wishes that the book ends badly, for Harry I mean .

To me the only interesting end would be Harry taking Voldemort's place as the dark lord=:) or that he dies... Not that either is likely to happen but I'm bored to death with stories ending with the victory of the good guys...

And I do think that it would be nice if indeed Snape was a bad guy, because that would mean Dumbledore is not the "all knowing" man that he sometimes seems to be...
oh well random thoughts in the morning (maybe should have abstained )

Personally, I'm rooting for the good guys.

Wampuscat wrote:

Personally, I'm rooting for the good guys.

Me too. Call me a sentimentalist. Somehow I think that good should triumph over evil. One of the things I do like about HP though is that the lines between good and bad are not always clear cut. Snape is a good example. Draco seems to be poised to become another. Even James Potter had his dark side. In fact, the only character who does not cross the line at all is Dumbledore, who is admittedly somewhat two-dimensional as a result.

I have to ask about all of this Snape adoration though. Book Snape, not Alan Rickman movie Snape. Mind you, I do not think that he is evil, at least not wholly so, and is still working to overthrow Voldemort. But I cannot see him as a “likeable” character. His treatment of Harry is malicious and spiteful, regardless of whatever Harry’s father did to him many years ago. The same goes for his treatment of Sirius and Lupin. A tortured soul? Perhaps. Justifiable feelings of resentment towards those who have wronged him? Understandable. But the way that he acts on those feelings seems rather juvenile in my opinion.

So, what is it about Snape that some of you like? Or is it just Rickman?

Uh, it's just Rickman for me. I felt bad for book Snape because of how James Potter treated him, but he is taking out his anger on a Harry which is kind of juvenile considering Harry's 20 years Snapes junior.

I think the only acceptable way for Harry to die at the end of the series is if he was destined to take Voldemort's place as the Dark Lord, otherwise it would be horribly lame to just kill Harry because JKR likes to kill of characters and get a big *shock* out of people. Ideally Harry will survive till the end and take over the DADA position, Hermione and Ron hook up and get married spawing dozens of half-blood Weasley children to keep Hogwarts in business And Dumbledore rises from the grave laughing at everyone because he fooled 'em all into doing the hardest part of the task while he took a nap!

To me, Snape is the most interesting character in the whole series. Because he is so tortured and conflicted. For example, he loathes Harry, yet does not hesitate to protect Harry when he's in danger. He chose evil once, and then changed his mind, and has spent years fighting himself and public opinion to regain his soul. I think he's the most human character there is in the series - the others are more illustrations of stereotypes. Harry the young hero, Hermione the smart plain girl, Ron the faithful sidekick, and Dumbledore the Gandalf character are all so predictable, and then there's Snape in the middle of all of it keeping things interesting.

I mean, when the books are from Harry's point of view, and Snape's conflictedness and intricate character still manage to show, it's rather amazing. He's too petty and self-doubting to be either a hero or a villain. Just an ordinary man caught in the middle of a war, dealing with ordinary emotions and trying to survive.

Alan Rickman as Snape is the icing on the cake to me. He brings out in the films a little more of why Dumbledore trusts Snape, I think. There's a good man somewhere under the pettiness and the unwashed hair, and Rickman reveals little glimpses of that.

just been shown this

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... 0820032050

my fav is stick it to dolores

www.myspace.com/thedownouts

Eltirwen wrote:

To me, Snape is the most interesting character in the whole series. Because he is so tortured and conflicted. For example, he loathes Harry, yet does not hesitate to protect Harry when he's in danger. He chose evil once, and then changed his mind, and has spent years fighting himself and public opinion to regain his soul. I think he's the most human character there is in the series - the others are more illustrations of stereotypes. Harry the young hero, Hermione the smart plain girl, Ron the faithful sidekick, and Dumbledore the Gandalf character are all so predictable, and then there's Snape in the middle of all of it keeping things interesting.

pretty much the same reason why Boromir was from the first reading (10 years ago in a month ) my favorite character in LOTR... And why Snape indeed is the most interesting character in HP series. Maybe not likeable indeed but the best nonetheless as far as dimensions are concerned.


As for my desire for a "sad ending story"... I guess it's more because I like being surprised. So yes, that would be more Harry dying because he would become the new Voldemort than killing him just for the sake of killing an important character... It's just sort of boring to know what is going to happen. And I thought that here, there were some surprises, even if I knew AD would die, but blame the newspapers for saying that one of the characters would. It had to be Dumbledore so that Harry could grow up and not rely on the knowledge and power of the wizard. He had to develop his own skills without having such a backup. But that it would Snape killing him, didn't think it possible. I did exclaimed "no way!" when I read this.