Sunday, July 24, 2005
4:50 PM
Its been a Crazy week! Okay I'm determined to makeup for so many missed posts so I'll just have to post more this time =P
Well Harry Potter & the Half-blood Prince was released, and actually I torrented it off the net and read it after having the majority of the plot spoiled for me by nitwits in school. Naturally I decided that it would not be worth my money, thus as I went home angrily on a Monday afternoon and torrented it down.
My initial reaction? Well, rather excited I suppose, but all in all I already knew the bulk of the story, so reading was just to assuade my personal yearning for the next installment of the Harry Potter Series. Personally, I agree with almost
EVERYTHING that Karan has said about it, except that I think it sucked. Well, it was most intriguing to hear that one would die if one broke the Unbreakable Vow later in the book, well after Snape had made the vow with Narcissa. But it was quite an irony, to be able to "break" and "unbreakable" vow merely through the means of dying. I mean after all Rowling has shown us, death really does not seem as important as the all powerful LOVE! Love will allow your death to protect your loved ones, as shown in the case of Harry's mother. So therefore, one binded by the Unbreakable Vow would only have his own life to succumb to. If he loses hope and is desperate to escape from something far worse than death, then the Unbreakable Vow would serve no use, would it?
Then again, death is constantly highlighted in the book, through the "terror" on the faces of families, and the most clearly shown family is the one Harry stays with, the Weasleys. They have associated themselves with Harry Potter, and by aligning themselves alongside him, they are all in Mortal Peril consistently (Molly's clock) due to the existence of Lord Voldemort. Thus, it means that the clock had to be rather powerful, for all that is apparently threatening the lives of her family is the mere presence of a powerful Dark Wizard, and one who hates them at most. His endeavours of killing the innocent to maximise his power through instilling fear is obvious, but then why shouldn't everyone else be in Mortal Peril too? He does not target the Weasley family exclusively. And if the existence of Lord Voldemort meant Mortal Peril to be extended to everybody, then it would already become a natural state of things. If everybody was in Mortal Peril, then it isn't really that big of a thing anymore.
Another implicit irony in the book, which is furthered by the occasionally overpowered artifacts. I am not one fit to question the magical items or magic in Rowling's series, but the discrepansies are subtle yet constant. If there was a clock of such magical power, to be able to sense a single being's current state of mind, bet it murderous or of ill intent, which was the cause of "Mortal Peril" towards the Weasley family, how can there not be more powerful forms of Magic existing? And to top it off, such an item belongs to a member of an ordinary wizarding household, termed extra-ordinary only because of their conincidental link with Harry. Why shouldn't there be more powerful artifacts that could be unveiled then?
Of course, this could be argued that prophecising or prophets themselves (Sybill Trawnley) are rather unstable stuff. They are not that solid (in a metaphorical sense), yet are important enough to be recognised by the Ministry of Magic. It is plausible that the clock be working off this prophecising ability, because if there were artifacts which could easily sense the changes in a current situation, AND it was a common thing to possess as mentioned before, then there would easily be greater and more powerful artifacts that can be used to purge evil, or to destroy. The prescense of using artifacts or Catalystic potions has not really be explored yet, and that is one area which I hope the series will improve on.
Furthering one's power to magnificient levels shouldn't really be a feat if such powerful things are all around them. So whats the point of studying then, whats the point of learning spells and magics which are obviously inferior to artifacts that CAN and WILL boost one's magical abilities? So delusive, yet it is imperative to a story based on a non-existent world.
Final conclusion to the book? Well the arguement still stands that we cannot use "muggle" logic to decipher the many mysteries in the Wizarding world, but in the series, the muggle world is clearly linked to the wizarding world. And there are many "muggles" who can learn magic and interact between both worlds. As are the Prime Ministers of both worlds, as shown in the latest book. It goes on and on. Inconsistency after inconsistency.
But it was still a decent read I suppose. Oh well lets hope the next book will be better.
And on to other stuff! Well we had the chamber performance yesterday, and our
Misa Rebis was really good I think, winning a "Bravo!" from Prof. Bernard Tan himself. That was pretty good, and we also got the watch the 2nd half of the show, from this incredible soprano lady to the Singapore Lyrical Opera. Personally, their youth group was really nubbish and I think our own sops could even hold their own to them. But yeah their adult counterparts are really impressive, but weren't showcased for such an unimportant event (to them anyway).
The RGS Chinese Orchestra performance was really good too. There was this indispensible girl who appeared in nearly all the pieces performed. She was really good though. And the solo-ist Erwu was really impressive too, and on closer inspection of the booklet which was given to us, it turned out that she was alumni. Obviously imbalancing the show with seniors! But then again, our choir night was guilty with that too, with our alumni singer Reginald =P And me and Mark were coerced into buying flowers from this girl who looked like a female version of Mikey. As in she had those kind of cute look, with a petite frame and blah. Basically acting like a Mikey on crack during the time we busked in the subway, she had already managed to sell away a large amount of flowers. Then we gave them to Jun and Olivia and Jiayan, the latter who was not in our memory of being in the CO. Anyway the performace was great, really lively and interesting, though some parts dragged on a tad too long. The place itself was crappy though, a really small performing theatre, but I had been there multiple times when my sister was in Chinese Drama in RGS.
Err what else happened? Oh we went and lanned before the Chamber performance. Bryan Poser Ben Stuart Justin Pohyee and me. And I wont every game, with Vengeful/Mag/Med/Morph as the heroes player. First and last game was randomed, 2nd and 3rd game was picked. I was forced to choose Med in the third game because I had one teammate for that game, and it was POHYEE the puss. And he picked prophet against imba shit like fletcher Sa. So I farmed a butterfly, then got a Manta 5 minutes later, and won the game. Talk about imba. As for their standard...Well they all suck(s). Ranking? Justin < Bryan < Ben < Poh Yee < Poser < Stuart < Me. Mwehehe...So godlike ah, like WASL3Y.
Thats about it, and I'm really getting into gear to mug for prelims. Ragh time to go finish up all my work.
