elanor_x

HP epilogue: I read many criticisms of the epilogue on my Friends list. One of them concentrated on its last 3 words “All was well”; justly pointing out that old prejudices were still alive and nothing would prevent the rising of another Dark Lord. The wizarding world didn’t change, only returned to the same point, in which it was 7 books ago (more exactly, when Harry’s parents were still at school, between G’s defeat and the rising of V). How can all be well? David Ganin gives his personal perspective “on the closing words of the seemingly saccharine epilogue” in his essay All Was Well on Mugglenet, basing his unique interpretation on the last words of the poem Death Is Nothing At All by Henry Scott Holland and simultaneously telling a moving personal story. Personally, I don’t think neither that JKR wrote the last sentence thinking about this (or another) poem nor that she intended us to understand them in any other, except the straightest meaning. But she wrote them, and imo the interpretation is valid, specially since it goes so well with the theme of dealing with death – the central theme of the whole HP series and, in particular, of DH. What do you think?

Bingos: Remember the HP DH bingo, which made fun of fandom flame-wars and the responses we get for literary criticism? (I found another one here.)

Visiting feminist blogs, I regularly stumble upon anti-feminist trolls, and reading newspapers exposes one to numerous pseudo-scientific studies, trying to present the norms of contemporary culture as universal, evolutionary-evolved traits, aka “All women like pink”, and giving real Evolutionary Psychology a bad name. Now I will be able to raise spirits and regain my belief in humanity with the help of Evolutionary Psychology Bingo! and Anti-Feminist Bingo! Aren’t they wonderful?

And let’s end with Fransisco Goya’s picture from b-a-n-s-h-e-e’s post:

The Magpie's Calling Lyrics

(E. Pugh)

Oh-oo the magpie's calling

The farmer has had a child

Will it live or will it die

Only this bird will tell

Oh-oo the magpie's calling

One for death

Two for love

Three for the gypsy's journey

Never to be done

One - Two come the magpies calls

On Jonny's wedding day

But on the bed of old Caradoc

There was only to be one

Oh-oo the magpie's calling

One for death

Two for love

Three for the gypsy's journey

Never to be done

Her lj is fully in Russian, but my English speaking art-loving friends can enjoy it too - b-a-n-s-h-e-e posts entries with collections of pictures on various topics (the artists’ & the pictures’ names are in English), like caricatures against suffragists [noting in her post that those pictures were put since they are very interesting and characterize that epoch, not to hear anything bad about men or women – me: those pictures include very funny dialogues in English], children’s games, the fairies, hardworking children, gothic winter, witches, castles and ruins, and much more. (I specially liked Wonderland by Adelaide Claxton.)