New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

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Helen8
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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by Helen8 » Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:58 pm

Definitely, my post was vehement. I even said I "vehemently" disagree. LOL

a.p.k., I stand corrected. But . . . I also stand by my comments that debate is a good thing, and we shouldn't let feelings get in the way. I'm justa Libra tryin' ta keep the peace.


if JKR was playing "the game" of telling the media one thing, but doing her own thing in the background.

I thought that, too, LadyS. Why give away her secret and spoil the story for her readers. I'm glad she gave Alan Rickman the heads-up about the plotline, so he could play him with that knowledge. Though, I am a fan of Alan, and loved his portrayal.

And I do agree that she had zero love for Lucius. He was so wrapped up in his position as "second lieutenant" to Voldie and his absolute hatred of Muggles that he had so far to fall. She cut him down to size and then some. The makeup dept. did the rest.


Narcissa to be the one who starts the redemption (motherly love and all)

And counterpoint to Lily Potter and her sacrifice for Harry.

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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by marilaine » Fri Nov 25, 2011 12:51 pm

Well if she won't give Lucius any love, I WILL! :yip :woot :adore :hug

~ML :loco :brows :cool:

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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by Angel Tavington » Fri Nov 25, 2011 1:15 pm

Oh ML, I can give him some love too :brows



~me :cherub

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laurielove
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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by laurielove » Sun Nov 27, 2011 11:57 am

This is all fascinating stuff. Wish my life wasn't quite so busy at the moment so I could keep up with your posts properly.

There's been a lot of debate over JKR disliking or even hating certain characters. I don't think it's possible for a writer to write ANY character they don't have some affection for. Yes, it may only linger while they're writing for them, but they have to empathise and project something of themselves (even if that is very dark) onto them for the character to live and breathe. If you can't perceive the humanity of all of your characters, you may as well not bother writing. You may write thoroughly unpleasant characters, but they are still your characters.

Lucius certainly has very very little to redeem him in the books, and even less so in the films. He is a weak, cowardly, selfish twat. Basically. For those of us who still (warped, pervy bints that we are) adore him, there is a glimmer in the books and a sigh of relief (no more, really) in the films, but that's about it. Ah well. I'd still do him. :cool:

As for his 'redemption', the film and book are so different. I see it thus: (sorry for the pretentious tone, I can't help it sometimes) In the book, Lucius abandons the fight because his family needs him. In the film, he abandons the fight because he needs his family. The outcome may be the same, but it tells two very very different stories. He comes out much worse in the films than the book, in my opinion. But at least he survives. Although I vehemently declared he would when all around me were wibbling, even I had my doubts at times.

Inamac, you said that perhaps Lucius gets out of Azkaban because JI begged JKR to release him. I think she'd already written his escape when this happened - he asked her shortly before the book was published and she told him it was going to happen. Anyway, she's not going to let her plot be influenced by a pair of blue eyes. :adore Lucius needed to be released to suffer his fate at the hands of Voldemort: classic case of hubris and hamartia (oops, more pretentious waffle).

There's a new HP course at the University of Durham. They can discuss it there. :soap

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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by LadySekhmet » Sun Nov 27, 2011 6:56 pm

Oh, yes, Lucius is still our pet- even if he is a complete weasel.

Ah, an HP class - alas- U. Durham is quite a commute from the Northeast coast of the US, but I did see a book on Harry Potter and Philosophy in Barnes and Noble today written by two Philosophy profs (alas, no mentions of Lucius that I could see, but they did talk about Draco, Snape and Sirius).

Ooooooh, I love pretentious waffle. :D Could I leap in with some more pretentious waffle, please? :D

I am in complete agreement concerning his hubris, as it is a classic hubris in all ways Greek- except most Grk heroes who suffer from their hubris tend to die, and he's lucky in getting away pretty much scott free- so to speak-he's still alive & with his family & probably with his fortune (and presumably in JRK's world, nothing really happened to him afterwards). (It seems that many of JI's characters, which we love most, suffer some bad cases of hubris.)

But, I'm not sure about hamartia. I'd have to mull that over a little bit more. Hamartia is generally associated with an ignorant or mistaken wrongdoing, or sometimes a wrong committed in ignorance by a noble man rather than a willful violation of the gods' laws (if you go with Aristotle, if you go with other Greek authors then it can be just a fault, sin or error)-sometimes also attributed as a hero's fatal flaw. Soo... if, in order to make our Lucius more redeemable in our eyes (which I can do, after all, as LadySekhmet I can easily reside in the Land of De-Nial :mrgreen: ), we could ascribe Luicus' initial decision to join the Death Eaters, and then all following decisions, as his hamartia (or hamartiae) or his fault(s) done in ignorance (compounded over and over again), and then combine them with his hubris to make him a tragic...err...cough...hero, who hopefully has a learning curve- rather than just a complete creep (sorry, Lucius dear). But if we go with just plain vanilla sins or faults, well, then he's just an utter jerk with too much pride who deserved it and perhaps a man without a learning curve. I'm going with faults done in ignorance and a miniscule learning curve. :cherub

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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by laurielove » Tue Nov 29, 2011 5:16 am

Don't worry, LS, I stand to be corrected on the finer detail of the meaning of hamartia. Admittedly, it's not a term I've bandied about much for several years ... ! I took it merely to mean a failing or fault inherent in a personality - in Lucius' case, being a twat. :shock:

JKR makes him pretty two-dimensional. He's a bad'un, essentially, from the Bumper Book of Camp Aristocratic But Oddly Appealing Pantomime Baddies. That's why it takes us poor miserable cows with too much imagination and (not nearly enough) time on our hands to ascribe traits and redemptive qualities to him which, quite frankly, don't exist. I think he got away with it far too lightly in the books, and I think the film-makers realised that this was probably not going to be sold to mainstream movie audiences who I should imagine (if they didn't know the books) would assume he'd die (my husband for one). Yes, he survives in the film, but he is certainly not redeemed - he is reduced to being a desperate, puny, hounded puppy sloping along after the only people who (may) yet feed and support him. A fate worse than death in a story-telling sense, in some ways.

At the end of DH, simply because he abandoned the fight, he is not a hero. Not at all. As much as I would love him to be. But, who knows what happened in the future ... he certainly had a lot to think about and a lot of time to think about it ... :scratch

PS - I only just found your post here (ie after prior communications!) - your words make more sense now! And I still mean entirely what I said - the more discussion, the better! x

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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by LadySekhmet » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:10 pm

laurielove wrote:...fault inherent in a personality - in Lucius' case, being a twat.
Snort. heh.
laurielove wrote:He's a bad'un, essentially, from the Bumper Book of Camp Aristocratic But Oddly Appealing Pantomime Baddies.
Heh. Heh. I'd love to see that book! (Is Tavington in there, too? :brows)

Yes, I know, I know, when I do my reality check about Luscious Lucius, he is quite a toad. (Sigh. :uhoh ) No, he was never a hero- THAT would've required some magical writing! Draco was, but not Dad. I wish there was some phrase -the flip side of "tragic hero"-for a "tragic villain," (because there are so many of them in JI's character lineup), but the Greeks didn't write their anti-heros to be sympathetic (or maybe there is, and I can't remember it anymore?). I suppose there must be, at least, in modern theater???

The running away scene was rather disappointing for me. I was glad he survived, but I really expected more from him- even if he went out in an evil bang (or even half-hearted evil bang)- I had the collection of damp tissues at hand! Alas...no - just a cowardly scamper across a bridge. At least if they had him actively searching for Draco (as in the book), it would have been slightly more redemptive, but the movie makers even took that away from him. It makes it really hard to defend the arrogant son of a...err... wizard when you're walking out of the theater. The only defense, against the accusations of "complete and utter cowardly weasel," that I could come up with was a very feeble: He loved Draco? (Damn you, Malfoy! (Shakes fist at him. :bat) Couldn't you give this Evil Wizard Loving Muggle something better to work with?!! Pfffftt...)

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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by laurielove » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:24 pm

LadySekhmet wrote: The running away scene was rather disappointing for me. I was glad he survived, but I really expected more from him- even if he went out in an evil bang (or even half-hearted evil bang)- I had the collection of damp tissues at hand! Alas...no - just a cowardly scamper across a bridge. At least if they had him actively searching for Draco (as in the book), it would have been slightly more redemptive, but the movie makers even took that away from him. It makes it really hard to defend the arrogant son of a...err... wizard when you're walking out of the theater. The only defense, against the accusations of "complete and utter cowardly weasel," that I could come up with was a very feeble: He loved Draco? (Damn you, Malfoy! (Shakes fist at him. :bat) Couldn't you give this Evil Wizard Loving Muggle something better to work with?!! Pfffftt...)
I agree entirely. The bridge scene made me feel all queasy, but it was not entirely unexpected. He has no defence whatsoever in the film. He is just pathetic. The only glimmer of empathy even comes when Voldemort slaps him and asks how he can live with himself and Lucius replies, 'I don't know.' But even then it doesn't really blur into sympathy. I knew he wasn't going to end as well as in the book (which is quite redemptive - that word again) but something more would have been lapped up. But then, in the grand scheme of the HP universe, I don't suppose LM fans have a huge amount of say. And LM certainly doesn't. I'm glad he survived, to put it mildly. Not sure what I would have done if he hadn't. :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl :bawl repeated

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Re: New Maximum Movie Mode video(s)

Post by LadySekhmet » Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:38 pm

It was bad enough that Snape was killed off :-( ; I don't think I could've handled Lucius, too! :bawl

Okay - this train of thought is based on the movies, not the book.

Sometimes I wonder, when I see the scene where he has Draco by the collar and is asking him if it is HP ("If we are the ones to hand Potter to the Dark Lord, everything will be as it was, you understand? ") and the boathouse scene- if there couldn't be two meanings?

Geez...Talk about pathetically hoping to make him redeemable? Right? :loco (LadySekhmet does, indeed, live in her temple in the Land of De-Nial.)

First, he says to Draco- "everything will be as it was" - so when he asks that - does he really want it to be the new regime with the Dark Lord, or does he just want - desperately - everything to go back to the way it was BEFORE the Dark Lord came back? When they were safe, secure, arrogant, but not threatened by the Dark Lord and not in danger with everyone else (because I do think that L realizes that they are in danger and not just at the moment, but for the rest of their lives if the DL wins- which probably explains the haze of alcohol that seems to cloak itself around him in the movie (yay, Jason! Good job!)). (Remember, the DL points out that Lucius wasn't such a good DE while he was gone - sort of half-hearted- and Lucius certainly didn't instantly run to the DL's side when the signs pointed to his return.)

Then in the boathouse when the DL asks him how he can live with himself and he says, "I don't know" - if he isn't thinking "I don't know how I could call myself a Death Eater," perhaps he really is thinking "I don't know how I can live with myself, because I sure f**d up Draco's life, possibly my marriage, my standing in society, and my life, because of you. What the F was I thinking? I don't know."

I think two moments, where there are vaguely ambiguous answers, might help to cast a teeny-weeny-itty-bitty shadow of (here's that word again! ::rofl) remdemption for Lucius. :pig

(And in the HBP, Fenir Greyback says (re: Draco and him not being able to kill AD): "He [Draco] doesn't have the stomach, like his father. Let me finish him in my own way." So maybe our Lucius is a coward, but perhaps a coward who really doesn't like to kill or maim? Lucius does seem to be one for keeping his hands clean and letting others do the dirty work.)

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