The Disorder Of The Phoenix

[reddit-me]Also, known as “Wizard Withdrawal” and “Phantom Wand Syndrome.”

the-hijinks-ensue-store-e28094-sci-five-t-shirtNow that I’m done with the whole Harry Potter series, I feel a little empty. Like I’ve learned everything there is no know and life poses no more challenges [not actually… I just really enjoyed the books]. I find myself wanting to engage strangers in Harry Potter related discourse, and make constant references to HP characters and events in normal conversation. “Who does this jackoff think he is? The Minister of fucking Magic? C’Mon!

Die hard fans may disagree, but I think the HP mythos is crying for an expanded universe. I still desire to immerse myself in the wizarding world, and there’s no more magical waters in which to dip my dainty toes. Maybe the release of “The Half-Blood Prince” movie will liven my spirits. The early reviews all say it’s the best in the series.

If nothing else, having finished all 7 books I am better equipped to make veiled sexual references using the vernacular of the Potter-verse. Armed only with knowledge of the movies I might have said something like “I bet he wants to stick his bludger in her snitch, if ya’ know what I mean.” While humorous to the average muggle, that phrasing and word substitution is all wrong. You see “snitch” bares a striking resemblance in spelling to “snatch,” a crude euphemism for vagina. Saturated with Potter lore as I am now I realize, other than in name, a snitch doesn’t accurately convey the idea of an “opening” in which to place a phallus. Unless, you count Harry’s first golden snitch in which Dumbledore hid… well you get the point.

I’d probably be better off comparing, let’s say, an old woman’s (perhaps your mother’s) vagina to the Sorting Hat. Leathery, patched up and floppity.

Thanks to everyone who followed along with my live tweeting while reading (with my ears) the books. I got a lot of positive feedback and only a few “STOP! NO! SPOILERS! AHHH!” A lot of you commented about the long buried emotional scars I was stirring up with my tweets. I admit to getting a little misty on more than one occasion towards the end.

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  1. Man, when the D-man… and Helena BC did the thing with the thing, before they what'd the place… and then, with his bare hands… I cried. -Like, Iron Giant cried.

  2. LOL. Love Denise's expression in panel 3.

    And singing. Don't forget the singing.

  3. "Leathery, patched up and floppity"

    Haha, that killed me. I'm guessing you had to decide between "the sorting hat" and
    "wizard sleeve".

  4. I have to agree, I'm not quite done all the books yet, but I'm dying to hear more about various characters histories.
    I too am dying to discuss / make reference to the Potter universe. Just the other day I had to mail an oversized letter and felt like Mrs. Weasley because I was unsure of how many stamps it required.


    And everyone's been in it already.


  6. Joel, if you ever feel like ranting to me about HP, just drop me a line. I'm going to review Half-Blood Prince on my site next week and I'd love to hear your opinion.

    Plus, I thought of something the other day. After Neville gets the sword, does he carry it with him through the whole Battle of Hogwarts… because that must have felt awkward to hold while trying to defend himself against death eaters.

  7. Everyone here seems to enjoy the thought of destroying rotting undead creatures that that try to eat your brain, so I'm not sure why you like Harry Potter.

    Rowling should be very aware that the movies are all far better than any of her books.

    • I don;t know squire, I think that the books are far better than the films. None of the films have been able to live up to the depth, the background, the imagination or the characters of the books, and, of course, no film can surpass a half-decent imagination when it comes to interpreting what we see when we read books.
      And we can like zombies and Potter, they're not mutually exclusive. Unlike Zombies and My Little Pony. Which would be odd.

      • Yeah, there is so much more depth to the books. Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy the movies, but they can never match how emotionally involved you become while reading/listening to the books. With the movies you also miss out on quite a bit of interesting character development and backstory.

    • I'm all up inside of you, in regard to the first two movies. -Chris Columbus should be object-raped with anything wrapped in razor-wire; to death. But since then, and particularly the third by Alfonso Cuaron, the films have been very good. Admittedly, Goblet of Fire, was a little weak. But the third and fifth movies are as best you could have hoped for. She's a very good writer, but most especially so when you consider in kind with that heifer who's written those Twilight books which are only just well-enough put together to see a generation of parents marveling at the amount of CLR they're needing to purchase to keep their hand-held showerheads running clearly.

  8. I'm beginning to worry about you. I mean, the Sorting Hat as a gynecological metaphor? It's meant to be worn ever briefly by ELEVEN YEAR-OLDS for fuck's sake.

    Need I remind you, when people did press JK for more info after the series' supposed end, she wound up outing Dumbledore. So be careful what you wish for.

  9. I agree an EU would be nice for Harry Potter, if for no other reason than to see an oppourtunity like this wasted makes me cry. J.K. Rowling has a horde of rabid fans chomping at the bit for new material, and she has cut all the addicts off cold turkey when she could have her very own license to print money.

  10. My friends and I have a whole list of Harry Potter euphemisms.
    "I'll make your shack shriek, if you know what I mean…"

    Also, I would have loved a support group like that. The last book almost killed me with some deaths and they way they were handled.

  11. The only reason anyone should read those "books" is to go on and make all the spoilers he can to those who loved those "books", and I use the word "book" just because I rather not start saying ugly things. I am sorry, but Pothead is nothing but the DaVinci Code of Fantastic Literature. Having read the whole seven books, several in two diferent lenguages, I find them poorly writen, pretty predictable, and as a whole, disapointing. And the last book was by far the worst of them all, promising deaths all over it but only one twin and some other background characters dying, or the owl, and that cheesy end. And it is a pity, because the Half-blood Prince was fairly good.

    • Why is books in quotation marks? They're printed on pages of paper, they are made up of words and you read them. If that doesn't constitute a book I don't know what does.
      I'm not usually a militant Potterite but I think I'll don my cloak and draw my wand now to say that, in my well-read, well-rounded, above-averagely-clever-but-by-no-means-a-pretentious-know-it-all opinion I found the books enchanting, the characters believable and well-rounded, the plots always interesting (except for Chamber of Secrets, I'll give you that), entertaining, funny, sad and overall one of the best series of books I've read. I think its lasting appeal comes from the fact that just about anyone, regardless of age, status or level of education, can pick up the Potter books and find something they like in them. As you have yourself. I do think that the death-list at the end of your post is a bit disrespectful to those people who haven't read it yet though, but I'm not getting too uppity about spoilers. I think I've worn the cloak long enough today! 🙂

    • How dare books aimed at younger readers not be long, intellectual and complicated!

      Pretension won't really serve your ends either because the less people who read books the less publishers will feel able to risk publishing potentially 'inaccessible' works, thus robbing you of the opportunity to be snooty about the 'real books' that you read verses the Harry potters and the Twilights of the world.

  12. Joel, if you want more magicy magicness, you should definitely check out the Tales of Beadle the Bard. It's very short and the stories are very much similar to our muggle fairy stories or childrens' fables, but they do shed light on the world of magic and I often found myself chuckling and praising Rowling for how she slots her world into ours so seamlessly.
    Beadle the Bard; check it out!

  13. I do not think I was trollis at all, I admit I enjoyed the first three books,and then again, the Halfblood Prince wasn´t bad, but I do think those books are poor, predectible, and even tedious some time, and disagreing doesn´t mean I´m acting as a troll. I do think those books were made for children and considering them anything more than children books is a mistake. When I compare it with DaVinci´s Code, what I wanted to point out is that it is a mediocre book wich everybody seems to enjoy.

  14. Right there with you Joel. I spent weeks walking round in a nostalgic magicky daze after finishing the series for the first time. Felt like there was something missing.

    And Darthsheol – Troll much? Yes, the overall outcome is predictable – she's not going to kill off her main guys is she? But comparing it to the DaVinci Code is too much of an insult. At least JK Rowlings characters have brains and use them. Dan Brown's characters are all supposed to be hyper-intelligent leaders in their fields but are, without fail, unable to solve a simple riddle! The writing of the Potter books is clunky in places, particularly when you are reading out loud to children, but as a personal read, the stories are fantastic.

  15. I want J.K. Rowlings to write another series in a Harry Potter alternate universe where Harry was sorted into Slytherin.

    I'd write it myself, but I'm pretty sure I'm not up to the task.

    • wow! Thats a really cool idea. It would be a massive undertaking but it reminds me of games like KOTOR where you can take the light or the dark path.

      • I feel like it would turn into Rosemary's Baby really quickly… with Dumbledore and McGonagall being the creepy Satanic neighbors down the hall, ready for Lily to give birth to "the chosen one".

      • A Potter Mumorperger would be quite cool; based on the attributes you choose the sorting hat sorts you into your house and whatnot, lessons are tutorials, you learn new spells as you level up, do exams and whatnot (Fallout 3 style tutorials as the first few 'years' of your life or hours of gameplay) then you have some fun around Hogwarts, then off into the big bad game world where you choose your path, dark or light, and the game goes from there! Same as KOTOR I suppose, set the game during Voldemort's rise to power and see if you can't change the future or something. I dunno, needs some work 😀

      • I came up with that after finishing book 6, actually, before I even read book 7. (Because I had already figured out Snape's "relationship" with Lily from book 5.)
        I think it would allow a different view of the Harry/Snape relationship, not to mention a different view of the Harry/Malfoy relationship. Would Malfoy even still matter if Harry was in Slytherin? Would Harry be the Slytherin house Cinderella? How would things have gone down with the basilisk?

  16. Personally I'm all for "Hermione Granger: The College Years" and get Emma Watson back to do the movies *grin*

    • No it has to be a crappy saturday morning sitcom like "Saved By The Bell: TCY." They cant get the whole cast so they promote a few side lines people like the Patel twins and Neville.

      • Or, even worse, Dr. Who it and have it as a kids TV show, a la The Sarah Jane Adventures. It could be Neville's Adventures in Herbology and every week Nev defeats some dark witch/wizard with his abnormal knowledge of plantlife and along the way the kids learn stuff about potting plants and pruning petunias.

  17. Do you want the Michael Stackpole extended universe, where we get some really good adventures featuring little-used characters from the original material?

    Do you want the Matthew Stover extended universe where a young wizard is pushed to the edge and claws his way over a heap of bodies to win the day at the last possible second at nearly infinite cost to himself for the cause he believes in?

    Do you want the Karen Traviss extended universe where we get a moral examination of superpowered people who can fix every disease, solve world hunger, and provide free energy, but instead use their incredible skills to remain hidden from law and society, erase memories against the free will of others, and utterly fail to keep their worst citizens from hurting those poor, defenseless Muggles… except for a secret group of warrior wizards utterly separate from wizarding society who use their magic in combination with technology to perform super secret spy work for governments across the globe to prevent magical and nuclear war?

    Personally, I'd like to see a HP EU that features the Appalachians as America's magical ghetto, just so we could have the adventures of Zedekiah McCoy, Redneck Wizard.

  18. did you know there was recently a big harry potter convention in Boston called LeakyCon? If not, you should definitely check it out. they'll have one next year.

    You should also check out Mugglenet which is a fansite and the Harry Potter Alliance which is not unlike a HP UN. <–link to HP alliance.

  19. I would actually love to have Rowling even write a short story about James and Lily and all of them when they were at school. I'd want it to be right when James stops being such a prick and Lily starts to fall for him (because you really don't get to see that in the series) and just some more interaction with the Marauders and Snape and all that.

    She did do a very short story for charity a while back about James and Sirius taking the motorcycle for a joy ride. I know it's on the internet somewhere.

  20. Great comic… post below was also entertaining. You've seemed to help breathe life into rule #34 with your potter porn puns. Great work as always.

  21. I know this is close to my 5th comment on here, but I just read your twitters (tweets? twits? whatever) on HP7 and they were great. I read them to my boyfriend and we couldn't stop laughing.

    You know what I loved? After the 7 Harrys, when Mrs. Weasley suggests Harry go play with Hedwig. "Or you could ride your broom. And why don't you send a note to Sirius. Oh, and call your parents, they must be worried about you."

  22. While I agree that the final outcome was predictable (It pretty much HAD to end that way), there was a lot in the books that wasn't for most people. The way Rowling's writing style flows, the books never seem to have any incredibly slow spots to me, and she uses that to slide a lot of stuff by the reader only to have it pop up as important later on. I and my friends were all very curious as to how she kept every little detail organized.

    I would love to see Rowling write some more in the Harry Potter universe. Personally, I'm very curious about what Ron actually did after graduating (aside from getting married and having kids) since his specific talents didn't always shine forth like Harry and Hermione's did.

    @histumness: Heh. Its like Joel steals Denise's happiness in panel 2 😛

  23. I felt that way after finishing off the Coldfire trilogy. Yeah, I said it. I liked 'em. It's a shame that the author more or less killed off the setting in wrapping up the series.

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