Hogwarts Herald

Happy Holidays, everyone!

From time to time I’ll be creating a Hogwarts Herald Podcast…sharing some of the most recent Harry Potter news and views. This first podcast (found at the end of this post) was created last week—before the big Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows announcement—so that big news will be covered in the next podcast.

This week’s Hogwarts Herald Podcast focuses on Daniel Radcliffe in Australia discussing:

* What we can expect from the upcoming movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
* Filming the (soon to be) famous kissing scene between Harry and Cho.
* And lastly, what’s on all of our minds: Will Harry live or die at the end of Book 7?

Enjoy!

 Hogwarts Herald Podcast 1 [3:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (173)

In his Interfaith Celebrities column on InterfaithFamily.com, Nate Bloom writes about…Daniel Potter? Oh, the proofreaders must be on holiday again.

“Well, here’s big news that almost nobody outside Australia knows yet: one of the biggest stars in the world–Daniel Potter, 17, best known for playing Harry Potter in the Harry Potter movies–just disclosed, for the first time, that his mother is Jewish.”

I don’t know if that really qualifies as “big news” but I guess it’s an interesting bit of information. If you’re interested in watching the interview in which Daniel Potter…err, Daniel Radcliffe…discusses his heritage on the Australian Today Show you can find it here.

In the “Ask a Critic” column in today’s Louisville Courier-Journal, the subject of Daniel Radcliffe’s age (and thus his ability to keep portraying Harry Potter) is discussed. Not coming as any surprise, the writer comes to the conclusion that Daniel should be good to go through the seventh and final movie.

For those of you Harry Potter fans who are hungrier than hungry for anything new in Potterworld, here’s a just-released image of Daniel Radcliffe and OOTP Director David Yates on the set of Order of the Phoenix.

Technorati Profile

There’s really no new information in this Harry Potter article in the Hindustan Times (an Indian paper with editions in Mumbai, Delhi, Bhopal and Lucknow), but it definitely shows the growing chorus of coverage anticipating Harry Potter’s death at the end of Book 7.

In the article Daniel Radcliffe is quoted as saying:
“I don’t know that there is any other way she could end the series. It’s the right and honourable thing to do.”

I understand Daniel’s feeling on this matter and why he feels the way he does, but I just don’t understand how it’s “honourable.” There are certain times when there is honour in death, certainly. But there is also honour in life. Harry Potter has been “honourable” in every way throughout the series, yet he is still very much alive. Honour is found in your actions, not your death.

As I read this article I thought back to what Daniel said in an interview in Australia last week:
“If [J.K. Rowling] ended the series with Harry alive, the calls for more books would be [deafening].”

This got me to thinking:

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List two more voices to the “Harry should die” list: Author Chris Paolini (Eragon) and Actor Edward Speleers (portraying Eragon in the movie). As stated in their interview with USA Weekend:

Paolini: “You know what she could do? Have Voldemort die and then have Harry die at the same time. If you have death in the last book, it has to be important death.”

Speleers: “In theory, it should be Voldemort. But part of me thinks Harry should die, following in his father’s footsteps.”

No disrespect intended to either of these guys, but it all sounds a little too cliched to me (having both die at the same time sounds too much like Rocky II when both fighters knock each other out at the same time), and if we know one thing about J.K. Rowling it is that we should expect the unexpected.

She’ll definitely have something up her sleeve, something that no one is expecting…i.e. Snape and Dumbledore at the end of Book 6. No one really expected that to happen. “Wait. No. That didn’t just happen. How could that happen?”

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Newsweek has a brief but interesting article about David Yates, the Director of Order of the Phoenix. Here are a few of the more interesting snippets from the article…with my thoughts on the snippets in italics:

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According to the latest edition of the (London) Sunday Times Rich List—which ranks Great Britain’s 5000 wealthiest people—Daniel Radcliffe is worth a cool $27.5 million (£14 million) which makes him the youngest person on the Times list. Not bad for a 17-year-old. And with three Potter films yet to be released, you can bet he’ll climb even further up the list.

What about J.K. Rowling? She’s worth $1.02 billion (£520 million)…and she deserves every penny of it.

Yesterday we posted Daniel’s interview on Australia’s “A Current Affair.” Today this companion interview on Australia’s “Today Show” aired (similar to yesterday’s in that it covers December Boys and Harry’s possible death at the end of Book 7, but it’s covered from a slightly different angle and seems a bit more in-depth). Here it is…enjoy!

A great interview with Australia’s “A Current Affair.”

Highlights from this interview:
Harry’s kissing scene with Cho (it took 30 takes);
December Boys plug (looks like it could be a really nice film);
and (gasp!) Daniel’s still thinking Harry will die at the end of Book 7 (NO!).

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