Harry Potter and the Genius of the Boggart

Having grown up with the Harry Potter series, I, like a lot of people, tend to see it through rose-tinted glasses. The characters, the setting, oh, and the magic... what kid doesn't dream of going to a wizard school? With being forced to go to the mundane equivalent everyday (with such boring knowledge a lot of the time), it's absolutely no surprise that a fantasy series like Harry Potter captured the imaginations of not just kids, but adults as well. Everywhere, in fact -- the Harry Potter series has been translated into 68 languages and has sold 400 million copies worldwide (thanks Google!)

When you're a kid, you don't quite know what makes Harry Potter so special (or, at least, that was how I felt). However, I've loved the stories since I first saw Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Sorcerer's Stone on the TV in my old house almost two decades ago, and I love them all today just as much as I did then.

While there is an overabundance of things in the stories to fall head-over-heels for, one thing that really stood out to me on re-read and re-watch is just how clever the characterization is. Specifically in the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In both the film and the novel, students in Remus Lupin's Defense Against the Dark Arts class must be able to use the "Riddikulus" charm against a Boggart. Riddikulus (literally pronounced "ridiculous") is a task-specific spell meant to defend against the Boggarts (While they came from wider European mythology, in the Harry Potter universe, a Boggart is a shape-shifter, and can take the form of someone's most intense personal fears). 

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the student's are all roughly 13 years old, being in their third year at Hogwarts and all. The concept of the Boggart and the Riddikulus charm work in tandem to characterize them without being outright exposition; it shows their emotional priorities and weaknesses at such an impressionable age pretty frighteningly well. 

In the book (and the film), the first student to take the stage against the Boggart in class is none other than Neville Longbottom. Up until the fifth installment, Neville is quite the coward -- always being pushed around by the other students (even Hermione!) and not having any outward self-confidence. A lot of this personality is shown in what he fears when the Boggart is first revealed; 

"A jet of sparks shot from the end of Professor Lupin's wand and hit the doorknob. The wardrobe burst open. Hook-nosed and menacing, Professor Snape stepped out, his eyes flashing at Neville."

                       -- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, page 137 (US hardcover release) 

This passage makes indirect reference to what Neville fears most as a third year at Hogwarts: Snape. Throughout the series, while Snape is quite hostile to most everyone not in Slytherin house, he is particularly mean to Neville. By just writing a Boggart encounter the way she did, Rowling has told us in one paragraph that Neville's biggest fear is the way he's treated, specifically by a figure of authority. His peers treat him this way too, so it's important to note that his Boggart was not simply a reflection of the act of cruelty, it was specifically a teacher acting this way.

In the next paragraph, where Neville casts the Riddikulus charm and the Snape-Boggart is forced to wear his grandmother's clothing, we also see what he finds humorous. By forcing an entity to appear this way, we see how exactly Neville would find Snape less intimidating. Now -- despite what we may be led to believe by this, the series eventually implies to us that Neville's grandmother is not a very kind person; not in an abusive way, but in her stern, commanding nature. A passage on the Harry Potter Wiki states; 

"Augusta was clearly strict with her grandson, who she initially feared was a Squib. Even after Neville proved to be a wizard, his grandmother was stern and demanding of him, sending him Howlers when his behavior displeased her and pressuring him to uphold the 'family honor'."

Much of the thesis of Neville's emotional state is redefined with the reveal of Neville's parents, Frank and Alice Longbottom. After being brutally tortured to the point of insanity, they were admitted to St. Mungos -- a wizarding hospital -- indefinitely. They're around in Neville's life, but they're not able to act as parents due to their heightened level of dementia. In fact, in the fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Neville is seen speaking to them in St. Mungo's, and they're entirely handicapped. This points to Neville's grandmother as his only actual guardian, and when she's stern the way she is, Neville only has Hogwarts to go to for positive contact with authority. And, with Snape being Snape, Neville is denied that positive reinforcement for at least one period of class every single day. 

TL:DR -- It is only reasonable to deduce that with the trauma in his life, figures of authority/guardians are a tender subject with Neville's character. 

So, with the whip of his wand, third-year Neville reduces the Boggart to something he found funny; Snape wearing Augusta's clothes. Mixing the two negative points in his life distilled their impact. In other words; My grandmother is mean to me, and Snape is too -- but if he's wearing her ridiculous clothes, he's not as scary! (it's also worth mentioning that Augusta Longbottom has a very strange sense of fashion)

Things get even more interesting when the Boggart turns on Harry -- it becomes a Dementor, a dark creature he encountered only earlier that school year (I'd hope you all know what a Dementor is). We've read the books and seen the movies (hopefully), so we know Lupin's hypothesis -- this means that Harry's biggest fear is fear itself. He was terrified during his first Dementor encounter because it resurfaced fears in him from probably his oldest memories -- the shriek of his mother, and a flash of green light as Voldemort struck (wanded? magic'd?) her down. Harry faced scary things in his two years before, but the fact that his Boggart took the shape of something that brought back those specific feelings gives us a better picture of his outlook altogether. 

The Boggart letimotif makes its return in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Molly Weasely (the Weasely family's mother) finds in in a closet in 12 Grimmauld Place. The form it took for her were the corpses of her family; her sons, Ron, Fred, and George, her husband Arthur, her daughter Ginny, and finally, Harry. 

This may have a simpler explanation than Neville's (Molly loves Harry like her own children), but it doesn't mean anything less of the Boggarts as a literary device -- they're a fantastic way to show the audience things about a character, and not tell them. 

The series is full of examples of these kinds of things, and it's honestly one of the reasons it's so widely loved -- a good story, for sure, but also a well written story. 

Until next time. Keep watching, keep writing, and most importantly, keep reading.

Batman 1989 (Bat-A-Thon 1)

Not long ago I decided to watch all of the live action Batman films. As far as American superhero franchises are concerned, Batman has always distinctly been my favorite. He may be a lot of people's favorites, but I think there's a good reason for that. Batman characters are different from just "DC" characters. In a very broad, unique way, Batman manages to have interesting and unique villains that no one else even comes close to -- there's also no lack of distinct, tangible tone in Batman-related media, laying the groundwork for a setting as diverse and investing as Gotham city. 

It's honestly hard to go wrong with Batman. The Adam West (rest in peace) television series is a family-friendly classic, Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is masterful in every sense of the word, and even the worst of the Caped Crusader's two films, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, manage to recreate some of the campier Batman ideas well enough to be watched and enjoyed, even if it it's done ironically. 

To start off the Bat-A-Thon, here is my review of Tim Burton's Batman (1989)

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Burton crafted a setting almost as iconic than the land of Oz out of Gotham (if not more so). The image of this seemingly 30’s behemoth of a city is intentionally polluted, Gothic, and unwelcoming in presentation, giving it a unique identity. Nothing can come close to the true noir-grittiness of this place; it begs to be saved, and begs to be feared, which makes it a perfect place for a dark hero like Bruce Wayne. To me, this makes Burton's Gotham possibly one of the best portrayals of a single, fictional location ever. Everything is uncut and murky, shady characters are lingering down dark alley streets, and fog is constantly sweeping the ground, clouding the residence in an eerie mist. 

You're not safe here -- no one is.

What I found more interesting, however, is how the dialogue in this film is incredibly subdued. The scenes are usually quiet, somber, and lie within a visual darkness, but that’s not really what I mean. The lines spoken by many of the characters are drowned out by background commotion and foreground imagery, rendering them somewhat unimportant. While this makes the film a little hard to follow, (I actually turned on the subtitles) it adds more of an artistic nihilism to the world around them. Like the city is just so loud with silence that what they say means nothing.

Unfortnately, the flow of this movie does not feel natural. The direction makes it feel more like a sequence of important events that are awkwardly flip-flopping between two sides of the same plot, only one of which being consistently interesting. There’s a lot of trashed potential in some of the extra characters in this story, mainly the wasted archetype of Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale, and the lackluster portrayal of Harvey Dent/Commissioner Gordon by Billy Dee Williams. I believe this film would benefit from much, much less of the story that revolved around Vale’s damsel in distress, and instead focused more on the psychology of the Joker vs. Batman and the creation of the two. In hindsight it does to an extent, but it’s overshadowed by what often takes center stage, that being Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale’s relationship.

As for the mains in their respective roles, Jack Nicholson makes a great psycho but his interpretation of The Joker doesn’t quite hit the mark with me. His demeanor and crimes are accurate in essence of the character, but his raw motives aren’t what drive the character traditionally, and that takes an esteemed fan like me somewhat out of the moment. I also have a bit of a hard time getting past his voice. Mark Hamill and John DiMaggio offer sort of a different take on the same zaniness. Ledger completely deconstructed the character altogether. But Nicholson? He doesn't quite have what it takes.

In similar vein, Michael Keaton plays a great Bruce Wayne but a somewhat unconvincing Batman. He excels with the small talk as his alter ego, and manages to make the prolonged and awkward Wayne/Vale scenes bearable. However, he’s not quite strong or brutal enough for me to sit and go, “Yeah, that’s totally Batman.” Instead, I sit with my hand on my chin and go, “Yeah, that guy in the Batman costume plays a good Batman." 

I don't thin these flaws make the film bad, but it holds it back. Batman stories have always had a lot of things to say, and this movie is no exception. I can admire how it looks, and how it presents that look, but there's better ways to experience this character and his stories.

Overall, Tim Burton’s Batman is a good film. It remains a pinnacle of setting and lacks somewhat in other departments, but is still a worthwhile watch.

Arbitrary score: 7/10

Paperback Problems

The loose stitching. The softened page edges. The white rub-off on the spine and corners of the cover.  If you read, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm talking about paperbacks and their curse -- hold one too long, or in the wrong way (especially transporting them), they can get pretty ruined, and as Lemony Snicket wrote in The Wide Window, "There are few sights sadder than a ruined book."

And as true as that is, unless you're using a tablet (bless your poor soul), you're gonna have to hold your books to read them. None of us have unlocked the psychic-powers power up yet, unfortunately, so until then, it's gonna have to be with your hands. 

Some methods are worse than others -- my mother is guilty of folding paperbacks when she reads them so that the covers touch (just writing that made me shiver). That is one of the reasons my father's Piers Anthony novels look like hell... but not all people abuse books so much. Yet still, opening them creases the spine, which rubs off the print -- especially when the paperback is larger, which means it has to be held longer. The oils on your hands can get on the corners and edges and collect dirt, the pages get a little fluffy and dark, and overall books just get absolutely battered in bags. 

I may not have a solution to all these problems, but here are some of my tips in avoiding totally decimating your precious paperbacks. 

1. Improve how you transport them

When you tote around books, it can be hard to keep them from rubbing against the sides of your purse, backpack, or satchel -- and often, these things are made of material that likes to... harass paperbacks. My backpack has a little front pocket where I put my books, and it's made of a sort of lightweight canvas, which means it has a rough texture. This is book torture. Prolonged storage in a bag with this material (and purses/satchels are no exception) will rub your books apart, especially if, god forbid, you toss them in with things like your keys, pens, makeup, or what have you. To counter this, I started sandwiching my books between two sheets of cardboard to act as a sort of cushion, and put a large plastic Ziploc bag between them. Also make sure to drape the edges of the open bag over the cardboard, so it stays open. With this method, what pushed up against my books was the soft, non-harmful material of plastic, and the cardboard keeping the bag stiff absorbed much of the brunt of the canvas material of my backpack. It has really kept them looking good, too.

2. Hold them differently

My hands sometimes get pretty sweaty, and sweat is a prime source of book torture. It shreds printing on most traditional paperbacks -- maybe no so much on plastic-covered ones, but that's not the case on the paper ones. This is especially true on their spines. Another problem is when I sit at a table or desk and rest my book there. It can end up folding the little bit at the bottom of the spine too, and that drives me nuts. A countermeasure for this is to just not hold the book by its spine. Hold the covers, and rest the spine on something soft and cushioned, like a folded blanket or pillow. It honestly works wonders, and siting with a pillow in your lap is a pretty comfortable way to read. 

3. Be careful putting them back on and taking them off of the shelf  

Scooting books around on the shelf can peel the edges of the spine and roughen the paper. If you want your paperbacks to be in peak condition, then minimize how often you move them this way. Better yet, just don't move them this way at all. Lift them off the shelf, set them down nicely, and then rearrange in the same fashion. Slow and steady wins the race.

Obviously, you can't protect every single book form every single little dent and tear, but being diligent and careful is at least a step in the right direction. I'm sure all of us wish books were just impervious from harm, but paper and paper materials just don't work that way, so we need to make an effort to acknowledge what to do about the issue, and work toward fixing it one little bent cover at a time.

Until next time, keep watching, keep writing, and most importantly, keep reading. 

The Struggle for Meaningful Content

I've been trying desperately to establish an author platform for a while now. From pretty much... every source I've read or seen on bringing yourself some traffic, there seems to be a need for a kind of regular content relating to your actual label.

Given that I have an end goal of getting published to a larger audience, I'm trying to, of course, attract attention. But not the attention of just anyone, I mean the attention of people who would be likely to buy and read a book in the first place. And, as I've heard, the best way to start is social media. Of course! Why wouldn't it be? People are constantly on social media, and have been for years. So, for years of neglecting the lifestyle, I hopped on to try and whore out advertise myself.

My first foray into the game was a Twitter page, which can be found here. For its credit, it did attract a decent amount of attention at first, and I don't tend to lose followers (like SOME platform I can think of). But it's also not like anyone else has been following, or even so much as liking my tweets. This is alright. None of my tweets actually need to be liked, or seen, nor do I really need to be followed - but there's definitely some importance on being "out there" for the beginning of a career. A part of it may be the first strategy, which was shallowly following hashtags -- those got... some attention, and they still do if I post in writing hashtags, but not the kind of stuff I needed. 

Then it was Facebook. This is a more personal web space (I guess), and it's only been a way to connect with family and friends. Obvious, obvious, but just in case, I keep my profile public and post all of my Instagram photos there just in case

Next, I tried YouTube. Please don't make me talk about that. 

When that didn't work so well (I didn't try very hard, but I quickly realized that I hated everything that had to do with video creation) I went to Instagram. Now, Instagram happened to be the best platform for things I enjoyed making, which was amateur book photography. I don't pretend like any of those pictures are any more than a quick setup with a book and my phone, but despite their nonprofessional appearance, I happen to like creating them quite a bit. And I won't lie, I've gotten a teensy bit of traffic from most of them. But what hurts a bit every time I post one is the amount of people that actually like them is made up of people I know, not people looking to find an interesting new photo of a book (and possibly following as a consequence, and one day seeing news of my newly published story). Not to mention the types that tend to follow are accounts that just want others to follow them, and leave if you don't.

But the largest issue with this is that, despite the pictures not being top tier pieces of art, they take time to plan, money to create (with props and whatnot, let alone buying the book), and they demand locations -- locations that I'm running out of. Plus, with my measly traffic, I am not going to go driving out everywhere further than two or three miles for some silly phone photograph. 

So here's the gist. Content from creators has to be "meaningful," but what is "meaningful" in the first place? 

Pretty much all that I can offer (for the time being) from social media can be found better in other places, but this won't be true forever. I do not, by any means, see this blog attracting any attention at all, and that is also okay. It's mainly for me right now, to have an excuse to write a few times a month about things without a limited scope. After all, on sites like Goodreads, IMDB, etc., the type of writing published has exclusively to do with reviews. This is a given, and it's not like I don't enjoy writing a good review here and there, but is it "meaningful" to anyone but me? That is the million dollar question.

Just Make a List

I think all (or most) of us are prone, on some level, to a bit of procrastination. Some more than others, me definitely included - most of my life has been about how long I can wait to get something done. This usually had to do with school assignments, where I'd, more often than not, wait until the very day they were due. I'm probably not the first to tell you this, but old habits die hard, and despite my efforts, I'm still procrastinating to this day. 

However, with artists, procrastination can be a deadly virus that takes root in one work of yours and spreads out to everything else. This is true for all types of artists, but especially for writers. The amount of tweets I see poking fun about how "writers can't do anything without their coffee" (not true - I don't drink coffee) and "writers put off the editing phase as long as they can" (true - and it hurts to acknowledge) is humongous. This is because it's relatable, and there's something to be said about relatable things. They tend to be true. 

So why is it a deadly virus? Think about it. You think of something new, something you're super hyped to have ever conceived. You start making that something, however it is that you make it (I outline my stories, some writers don't, like the fantastic Stephen King). You follow through with every twist and turn of the paintbrush, every little trim and cut of the scenes you filmed, all the breathtaking monologues and plot twists of your manuscript. 

Then you hit a rough spot. 

It starts to dawn on you how hard it's gonna be to fix the problem, you realize that the color you chose is off, the scene you filmed is missing that [insert important plot detail] you needed to establish, and that no, your beta readers weren't wrong, your character was a massive bitch from the start. 

When you step back and see some of these problems, whatever they may be, it can be hard to continue. You may keep telling yourself that it's not worth it to try, or that you don't have time. 

Don't fall into these traps. 

If the poison can infect one work, it can easily spread. You start something new, and fall into another trap. Then something else, and another, and another - and the cycle repeats itself. We've all been there, we all understand. To this day I still tell myself these things, and procrastinate... but an artist's job is to create art. If we ever want that art to see the light of day, it needs to be finished. 

So I've devised a trick that keeps me accountable for everything I want to get done in a day. It's simple, and probably a no-brainer when it really comes down to it, but if you actually do it, then you may see how much it helps. I keep a list, with check-off boxes. Every day, I'll write everything in this list that I want to get done, be it responsibilities, and luxuries alike. The system is simple - when you finish something, just check it off the list. 

Done. 

This gives you a visual representation of the projects and responsibilities you needed to get done in the day, certain goals that you need to meet that wouldn't have been met otherwise. To some, that may sound intimidating because you'll now have a whole page of stuff to look at and point to when you say, "but I really don't have time! Just look at all the stuff I need to do!" 

I urge you to stop doing that, and just do what's on the list. When I was writing my first book, I didn't think I'd be able to make it in time for the deadline (I believe I had three months, it was my eighth grade project). But, I had a number of words I needed to hit every day, and I wouldn't let myself do anything else until I hit it. Long story short, I made it, and finished my book. Then, a few years later, I started a real manuscript in May of 2016, and finished it in February of 2017. Now, because I can look back at how much I've done and how far I've come, digging through my time to make new stuff doesn't seem like so much of a challenge. I started another manuscript this month (Jan 8th, 2018) - at the time of this blog post, it's the 24th, and I already have 22,000 words (nearly 70 pages) done!  Whenever I minimize the document and look at just how much there is, I say to myself, "If I've already done this much, I can finish it as well."

The same theory applies to your list - just get one thing done, and check off the box. Notice how there's one less box? Well, get another thing done, and check off that box. Now there's two less boxes! Magic, right? In my opinion, the real magic here is mixing your personal goals with your responsibilities. In my lists, I have things like "Finish Math Homework" and "Read one chapter of [insert book here]" together. This way, I can hop around what I want to do and what I need to do while still getting both of them done. I've found that having your artistic objectives in the list works as well! 

This type of structure may not work for everyone, but I figured I'd share a little bit of my personal organization with my blog. That's what it's for, right? 

Until next time, keep watching, keep writing, and most importantly, keep reading.

Small Promises

Finally I have somewhere to put thoughts like this!

Long story short, I'm a weeb. I mean, not really... but that's the word that gets attached to people who enjoy anime and manga, so I'd say we're just meant to embrace it at this point. In any case, it's no secret.

I've been collecting and reading manga for a long time now (a good eight years, I'd say) and I still can't seem to stop. Nothing else published in the west is quite like it - each one seems to have its own individual style of art, and the experience of finding a great story, getting new content for that story (content that you hold in your hands and can place on a shelf), and following the story until its conclusion, years later... it's cathartic. I yearn for this experience in many other mediums, but alas, I find it a fruitless endeavor. As pulpy as manga is, I can't ever seem to shake my interest. 

Naturally, because of this, I'm always on the hunt for new titles. The folks at my local Barnes and Noble practically know me by name at this point (not really), and I can usually be found sniffing out the Sci-Fi/Fantasy aisle, Stephen King's little nook in "Literary Fiction," and of course, the manga section.

The American side of the industry has gotten really good at bringing in new IP's in recent years, but there's still a lag. When VIZ licenses a Shonen Jump title that's popular and publishing weekly in Japan, we tend to get the first volume anywhere from six months to two years after the original debut. This frustrates me to no end - obviously translating is more art than science, and doing so consistently is not an easy feat, nor a quick one. But I want my Japanese comics, goddammit!  But when you have to wait for so long, you either start to lose interest, or you're biting your nails in anticipation for the next volume, sometimes for months on end.

Luckily, with the new (or, well, new here) Shonen Jump title; The Promised Neverland, I can thankfully say I don't think I'll lose interest. To give you a short rundown, The Promised Neverland
follows the characters Emma, Norman, and Ray, three children who live in an orphanage of an undisclosed location, surrounded by a vast forest, a tall fence, and a looming, fort-like gate. Other children live here, too - children of ages 1 to 11. They routinely take an electronic test of equations, facts, and problem solving - afterward, they can laugh and play. About every two months or so, one of these children is adopted and shipped off to their new homes in the night.

One night, Emma and Norman discover that a little girl, Conny, has left her stuffed rabbit behind on her way to her new parents. When they decide to break out of the house and take it to her, they discover her body in the back of a shipping van, and learn that they are raised in captivity to feed giant demons that live outside the gate.

All of this happens in chapter one, so I hardly consider it a spoiler, but not knowing anything about the story really did wonders for how much this sucked me in. I've said before that manga is pulpy, and I'm not lying. Like everything else, most of it is just bad. However, The Promised Neverland has potential above most anything else I've read in the medium.

While I flipped pages like a madman, I couldn't get over how baffled I was that The Promised Neverland was published in Weekly Shonen Jump; the magazine that gave us Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, and Dragonball (amongst other notable works). The magazine has gone out of its comfort zone before, with things like Death Note and Bakuman (both of them penned by the same two people, no less), but this is a different type of manga entirely. I presume there's a possibility of battles and powers in the future, but as of volume one, it's a game of survival and wit between three kids and their cunning caretaker. Will they survive and escape? Or feed the demons beyond the gate?

I'm pretty hyped to follow this series. We're six volumes behind Japan, but that's a small price to pay for something so promising.

(I'm beginning to figure out why they named it that way...)

Until next time. Keep watching, keep writing, and most importantly, keep reading.