Been reading a great book, Made to Stick. Basically, it’s a great guide to shaping ideas so they’ll catch on better. I’m sure I’ll be writing a whole series of posts about its advice and insights. Here’s a great tip related to storytelling, credited by the book to screenwriter Robert McKee: Get viewers/readers hooked by Read More …
*SPOILER ALERT!!* What didn’t I like? Hardly anyone but Harry figures anything out! Or gets their proper moment to shine … (Read on only if you’ve already read the book)
I’ve made only a little progress since my last Harry Potter speculations. Still believe I’m onto something with the theory that Harry’s mother, Lily, did something, used a potion to protect him. Believe she made him/his scar a horcrux, which made him invulnerable to Voldemort’s killing curse. To do that, my hunch is, she marked his forehead Read More …
SPOILER ALERT ONCE MORE!!! Potions, potions, potions. As I speculated before (see A Bloody Better Theory About How Lily Potter Saved Harry), clues from the first six books suggest that Harry’s scar is a horcrux Voldemort unintentionally created (which is why the Dark Lord failed to kill Harry — a horcrux can’t be destroyed by a simple curse, even Read More …
SPOILER ALERT, PART 3: As the release of Harry Potter 7 approaches (July 21), I’ve been theorizing about the biggest mystery of the series: How did Harry become “The Boy Who Lived,” not just surviving a killing curse but somehow causing it to rebound against its perpetrator, Lord Voldemort, destroying his body and exiling what was left Read More …
SPOILER ALERT: This post continues “What Was Lily Potter’s Trick?” [and is continued in “A Bloody Better Theory“]. Many have speculated that Harry’s scar is the final horcrux, or hidden piece of Lord Voldemort’s soul. How Harry got it, however, remains mysterious. We know from the Dark Lord’s own mouth that he was trying to kill Harry, not create a horcrux: “You all know that Read More …
One of J.K. Rowling’s geniuses is her gift for invention. Not real inventions, but ordinary things that become magical with a little wishful / twistful thinking. Hats that evaluate one’s brain. Portraits that move. Jelly beans that come in every flavor, even dirt. Brooms that fly, of course. It’s a child’s kind of imagining, and Read More …