My hot take on this book is that it is seriously black and rather demented. While the book is perhaps best known for it's detailed commentary on the London public transit system and the controversial decision of the author to suggest Winston Churchill might be considered a hardened criminal in the wizarding world, people often miss the vile and prejudicial underlying message.
I cannot tolerate the hateful suggestion that the rat in this book is lazy, disobedient and downright evil! I've worked with rats a lot in my life, and I've found them to always be kind and obedient creatures. This book propagates the negative myths about the noble rat that I've devoted my life to fighting. Mercifully, the final reveal that the rat here was a white guy named Peter does (unintentionally) align with my message that #RatsArePeopleToo, but it is too little too late!
But worse than that are the time turners. Time travel isn't a magical trope, there's no reason why it had to be included in the magical universe, but it's thrown in here haphazardly and really only takes away from the credibility of the series. Bad guys could do some pretty fucking powerful things with the ability to travel through time, but in the fifth book they repeatedly walk past shelves of time turners in search of a poem. Pick one of those up, go back in time, and listen to the prophecy yourself you bozos! When you introduce time travel in book 3 and are careless enough with the technology that you give it to any 13 year old kid who wants to learn more about muggles, the only logical conclusion of book 7 is a four-dimensional Battle of Hogwarts with Godric Gryffindor, Merlin and Dumbledore duelling side by side like some sort of... Suicide Squad.
You can't tell me that Voldemort spent decades making horcruxes but didn't research or kidnap a researcher to find a way to innovate with time turners and hide his horcruxes in the future.
Finally, I'm a big Don Hertzfeldt fan, and to me, the brilliance of his Academy Award nominated film "Rejected" is that in that movie, the protagonist's spoon is too big.
Regrettably, even though Alakazam has two spoons, both of them are too small and the impact of choice of cutlery pales in comparison. As proof, compare this video to the one above:
#6: HARRY POTTER AND THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRINCE
Not everyone is going to be happy that I listed this way down in 6th.
But the truth is that I've not been a big fan of the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince ever since I met someone who grew up in a small steel-producing town where manganese got into the water supply and they experienced literal purple rain. That shit can cause some serious neurogenerative disease and should not be celebrated.
Honestly, this book is shockingly low on action until the final few chapters. I think Rowling realized she had been putting off a lot of the exposition that was needed before the final book and she had to cram a lot of it in before the final book(apparently she considered revealing Snape was the half-blood prince in book 2 but pushed it back). And yes, there's a lot of time spent on the love stories which are never really more than a C plot in any of the other books.
The thing that really grinds the pace of the book to a halt though is the plot device known as a Pensive. It might be the closest thing in the series to legitimate bad writing imho. Harry needs a wide range of historical exposition in a short amount of time so they bring in an exposition machine with everything he needs to know. There is literally a History of Magic class that currently contributes nothing to the plot of the series, but could have been used to gradually reveal this type of information over the series. Heck, Professor Binns could even use the Pensive if you have to have a pensive - it would add an interesting element to the class as students could observe historical wizarding events firsthand through memories collected and donated to the school (it's weird that History of Magic is basically the only class that is conducted exactly like a Muggle class in the books with lectures and notetaking). Why is there no class where students learn anything about Voldemort and the First Wizarding War? (the first six defense against the dark arts teachers seem to have mostly ignored this too).
The result of all this is you get a sixth book where a huge chunk of time is spent studying history in a controlled environment where none of the main characters are at risk in any way. If all my confessionals were about my past, they would start to drag too.
The Muggle Prime Minister part is great.
And lastly, as a horcrux user myself, I dislike that this book has made so many people aware of the practice and how to start destroying them. Maybe I regret splitting my soul in seven, but now that I've done it, I don't really want to become mortal again either.
The Chamber of Seacrest was released in 1999! And Ryan Seacrest was already pretty well established way back then. The man is old!
In fact, years J.K. Rowling gave him his big break he was weirdly invading kids' personal space hosting a children's show so 2018 appropriate that they covered the set with neon signs that say "CUCK".
If you're debating whether this is worth 3 minutes please take into consideration this gif of Ryan Seacrest being unsure what hip-hop is.
Okay, maybe you're thinking "this wasn't thaaaat long ago". Or "this show isn't toooo weird", or "that's kinda weird how he's massaging a little girl for 10 seconds but I've seen worse examples of personal space invasion," or "at least he didn't force a little boy to slowly pour chocolate syrup over his own mother while a live monkey points and laughs".
Oh boy have I got a clip for you from 2 years earlier:
I was gonna stop this bit there but I got curious... No one has really uploaded any clips from his first tv appearance, but I got my hand on a full episode and uh
ITS QUITE SOMETHING
So I made a supercut of the most iconic moments from the only episode I found. If you watch one thing I post in my confessional this season it should be this.
I have a couple of comments.
1) Okay this intro is iconic. As best as I can tell, it starts with candid video of the hazing ceremony for Ryan Seacrest's mid-90s child cult. At best this chant is a fraternity pledge said by 12 year-olds. This immediately leads into a 30 second montage intro that has more screen-wipes than the entire Phantom Menace movie. I'm a fan.
2) We are introduced to a very young Ryan Seacrest. I couldn't think of what his haircut reminded me of so I checked the Google Arts and Culture App and I shit you not I actually got this:
This is the greatest moment of my life. #RatGoals
3) Why does Ryan stare unblinkingly into the camera for 10 seconds? Cyborg programming wasn't very realistic in the 90s.
4) At 1:02 you get a very brief but very textbook look at "awkward tall person posture" as Ryan has NO IDEA how to stand beside someone shorter than him.
5) My favourite subject is not sweat.
6) "Carbs are our most important sources of energy" - this must have been at the height of the period where the food pyramid convinced everyone 12 servings of carbs per day was ideal.
7) There is no Secreast-related reason why I included LASER the knuckle-cracker in this, but I just want to highlight how amazing his point at the camera for emphasis routine is. I counted TEN finger points in 20 seconds. god-like.
8) From now on I want all TV hosts to be lying on the ground at the finish line.
9) I've been saving this for now but WHAT IS GOING ON WITH HIS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS??? Look at this TALENT:
10) And finally, as the winners are announced we see Ryan completely fail to high five or shake hands with everyone on set. He's trying sooo hard to connect on at least one of them and it's kind of sad. I can only feel encouraged by the fact that he didn't let this experience change him, famously refusing to give up on high fiving a blind contestant on American Idol.
There you go, I made 10 points about that video in honor of LASER's 10 finger points.
Rest In Peace you beautiful angel.
VERDICT: WORK HARD PLAY HARD HEALTHY BODY HEALTHY MIND
So with the Chamber of Seacrest debuting at #5 on our countdown, we have reached the final four. We'll be back with more after these messages as we continue to count down to number one!
It was a brave move for Rowling to centre the finale of the series on big bads Alecto and Amicus Carrow who weren't big parts of the prior books. But it is very true that there is nothing so precious as the education of the younger generation. And really there can be no bigger villain than those who take away the opportunity to learn.
Now I know the question you all have on your mind about this book and I'm going to answer it once and for all.
Well almost all of it. The epilogue was totally made up - Harry learned the diminishing value of a university education and starved of job opportunities he turned to exploiting his celebrity to make a quick buck.
Things really came to a head recently when he went on Celebrity Big Brother and Omarosa didn't know who he was. This painful snub brought back the spectre of his ongoing struggles with Butterbeer addiction and he began to snort floo powder while shouting "The Burrow", which either had no effect or sent his brain on quite a trip depending on whether you treat the books or movies as canon.
On the plus side, this meant that he got dumped by Ginny (for Susan Bones) and did not have any children that would go on to be uninspiring characters in a cynical fan-service cash grab masquerading as a theatrical event.
All of this goes to show that even if you manage to pursue and capture the most powerful and evil witch and wizard of all time and send both of them to Alakazam, eventually people will forget that you vanquished the Carrows and move on with their lives.
#3: HARRY POTTER AND THE MAIL ORDER DIPLOMA OF PHOENIX UNIVERSITY
I love the message of self-sustainability that this book conveys through the featuring of the Weasley twins' story. These two brave young men realize that they don't need the rigid structures of the educational paradigm that has been imposed on them and they choose to go their own way and they eschew the establishment to pursue their own learning at their own pace from the comfort of their own home.
It also gives me an opportunity to share my favourite Phoenix University ad, which is honestly like cinematic quality. It's almost scary that they have enough money to make ads like this.
On a strange side note it JUST struck me as odd that there are no post-secondary institutions in the wizarding world. Is Flitwick the charms teacher because he got a good mark on his N.E.W.T. when he was 18? If these teachers are the most pre-eminent educators in their fields in the UK, are any of them doing any scholarly research in between teaching teens?
Maybe the study of Wizarding history is so neglected because there aren't tenured positions available for wizard historians to maintain a steady income between writing books. There's really not much educational innovation at all as kids basically learn the same things as wizards 20 years prior. Even someone like Snape who (as we learn in the 6th book) was able to improve on potion recipes when he was in school hasn't really improved how potions is taught or updated instructions. Students are still using the same potions textbooks as were used when Snape was young.
7) There is no Secreast-related reason why I included LASER the knuckle-cracker in this, but I just want to highlight how amazing his point at the camera for emphasis routine is. I counted TEN finger points in 20 seconds. god-like.
Let's see if I can summarize the plot of the Sorcerer's Apprentice entirely with gifs.
"Yer a wizard Harry!"
"Let's buy some wizard clothes"
"Wow you impressed me, you should join our sports team that plays with tiny magical balls"
"It's pronounced Levio-SA and you're doing the hand movement all wrong"
"This mirror I found does weird things!"
"I had this book for some light reading and it says Nicholas Flamel is a old guy"
"You have a baby dragon in a wooden hut wtf"
"Woah these chess pieces are aggressive"
"I can't escape, the exit is blocked by fire!"
"Oh crap there's a man with two faces."
"No one can hurt me when Nicolas Cage loves me"
"We won the house cup by 5 points"
And they lived happily ever after
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My second favorite part of the Sorcerer's Apprentice is the unicorns. I think this explains why I like unicorns pretty sucinctly:
Thank you for providing me with a safe place to share my love of unicorns.
My favourite part of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, and my favourite line in the entire series comes at the start of the twelfth chapter:
Quote
Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrel around, bouncing off the back of his turban.
This shows how good of a Zarduluist J.K. Rowling can be when she puts her mind to it, because everything here is not what it seems. In this one throwaway sentence, the Weasley twins are being punished by the school for trying to rebelliously inconvenience Lord Voldemort.
Occasionally I try to read parts of the books trying to reconstruct what the series would look like written from Voldemort's perspective and I love how much more dramatic this scenario would play out.
I n-n-need to s-sneak out again to the f-f-f-forest to try and k-k-kill a b-beautiful unicorn.
Hell yes you do! I'm gonna die if you don't pull this off and the next six books won't happen!
N-N-No one in the t-teachers lounge ever w-w-wants to talk about unicorns.
Z-Z-Z-Zoinks! We've b-been f-f-found out!
Would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddlesome kids!
Quirrel! I can feel the turban getting dislodged here. Hold onto the cloth and run away you son of a horcrux!
STOP IT RIGHT NOW! YOU TWO ARE INTOLERABLE!
She's knows about us b-b-b-both!
Shut up you git!
Come here Weasleys! Don't make me banish you to Jakku!
Wait are we in Star Wars now?
No it's a Tide ad.
And none of this would have happened if I hadn't given Quirrel advice on Twitter in the first place!
VERDICT: Cedric Diggory would still be alive if it weren't for McGonagall
As a fellow mythmaker, I really felt that Gilderoy Lockhart and myself were kindred spirits when reading the Chamber of Seacrest, but when he started losing his mind and his memory even I wasn't holding out hope for his triumphant return.
Thus, I was shocked when Lockhart returned, even though this Zardulist genius was not in a very stable state anymore. I was even more surprised to see this doddering braggart with memory issues get elected Minister of Magic!
Looking back at this book seriously for the first time since the Trump election really has given me a renewed appreciation for the lessons Rowling was able to subtly teach us about the dangers of rising economic anxiety among the white working class in bringing about populist resurgences in established democracies. For instance, if you take a second look at the advisors Lockhart appointed to key positions, they are actually almost as unqualified as Trump's vanishing Cabinet:
- Appointing Lucius Malfoy as the Head of the Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare is actually kind of questionable considering his past treatment of Dobby the House-elf in the Chamber of Seacrest.
- The wizard he chose for Press Secretary spent most of his time hiding behind curtains to avoid Daily Prophet reporters or screaming at them from a microphone.
- It sometimes seems like he just picked people for positions based on their names. Channing Tatum was a weird choice as a trade negotiator with the Giants because despite being called Magic Mike XL, he is neither a wizard nor an oversized person.
- Hiring a Death Eater to lead the Department of Food and Agriculture is just wrong, because death is not in any of the four main food groups and she really wasn't demonstrating responsible eating behaviors.
- Viktor Krum was overly qualified for his foreign affairs role having slept with half of Hogwarts while he was supposed to be dating Hermione exclusively.
- And the niffler he put in charge of the Budget is just one of many examples of cabinet members that had accumulated wealth before taking the job and signed up so they could find ways to hoard more.
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I learned a lot from this book, and as soon as I heard my good friend and twitter follower Anthony Scaramucci was in line for a communications role in the real world, I slid into the Mooch's DMs and told him to take the job, immediately use the White House staffer divestment loophole to defer paying capital gains tax on the $80 million he made from selling his company and then find a reason to get fired before he was there long enough to be implicated in any capital crimes.
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Yes, the central role of sport in advancing the central plot of this book is something that appeals to me specifically, especially when the Olympics are going on and I get all gooey at the idea of introducing dragons to the less exciting Olympic events (biathlons where you shoot dragons, then ski away from dragons as fast as possible would be intriguing). And I can't help but give bonus points to a Triwizard task where someone transfigures themself into a fish and swims toward mermen. But this book is so ambitious, works on so many levels and is a really really pivotal point in the story of Harry Potter.
This is the book where he stops being a kid and decides what kind of adult he is going to become. It is the last book where Harry is primarily fighting to protect himself and win himself glory while allies try to keep him away from the real danger. By book 5, he's on the front lines of a war for the wizarding world, fighting as an equal with some of the greatest wizards of all time.
In fact, years J.K. Rowling gave him his big break he was weirdly invading kids' personal space hosting a children's show
Okay, maybe you're thinking "this wasn't thaaaat long ago". Or "this show isn't toooo weird", or "that's kinda weird how he's massaging a little girl for 10 seconds but I've seen worse examples of personal space invasion," or "at least he didn't force a little boy to slowly pour chocolate syrup over his own mother while a live monkey points and laughs".
Oh boy have I got a clip for you from 2 years earlier:
Oh look new allegations have emerged of ryan seacrest inappropriately touching people on set.
