May 30, 2023·edited May 30, 2023Liked by radicaledward
Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite Harry Potter movie because, among other things, they do a great job with the cinematography during the time travel sequence, cueing it up from Harry's perspective where random odd happening and coincidences keep saving him, but he doesn't realize until the end that Future Harry is the one causing them. And as you say, that foreshadowing is a theme of the whole book - it feels like this is the first book in the series where Rowling consciously went back through and inserted the hints and clues in her first draft as purposeful edits rather than just following a fanciful story wherever it took her. Hints about Scabbers missing a finger and interacting with Hermione's cat, hints about Lupin's lycanthropy, hints about the Time Turner, hints about Sirius, Trelawney's seemingly absurd predictions that can be interpreted as correct...the novel is sprinkled with foreshadowing throughout, and it's done artfully enough that they often feel like "Wizards are crazy" window dressing rather than obviously lampshaded clues.
I love this novel too, and you are right that this is the point that Harry and the series as a whole begin to grow up. Another important complexity of the adult world the kids learn in this book is that the justice system can be decidedly unjust. So many popular crime books, movies, podcasts, and TV series make the unstated assumption that what the police and the courts decide is just, and I like that Rowling’s kids’ book has a clearer view of the failures of justice than these works, ostensibly for adults, have.
Spoiler alert: Harry does not graduate, although he eventually gets whatever the wizarding equivalent of a GED is.
I remember liking the first two books as a kid, but I liked the His Dark Materials trilogy much more...until this book came out. Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire lived in my brain for years.
You know, it's funny - I read all those books at around the same time, and at the time, being an edgelord atheist tween, I thought that Pullman was sooooo obviously the better writer. And yet as an adult, I could not tell you a single detail about His Dark Materials, whereas I could tell you all sorts of random things about the Potter books. Part of that is that Potter is a much more merch-friendly franchise, but even ignoring obvious stuff like the Hogwarts houses that's entered the popular consciousness via the movies it's wild how many random details from these books I remember.
(This is not mutually exclusive with Pullman being the better writer, of course.)
Great analysis! This one sticks in my head, too. I reread the first four books in the series a dozen times as a kid (as I reread everything I loved back then), and the last three only once each. Prisoner of Azkaban hit me just the right way at just the right time for all the reasons you describe.
This is the Harry Potter that has stayed lodged in my mind throughout the years. And I remember feeling crazy and thirsty waiting for the next book to drop.
Honestly, my favorite thing about this book is that it introduces time travel into the ""Potterverse"" ... only to have the dorky supporting character use it to take some more extracurriculars, and then show up in the climax of the book, and then never be mentioned again. I think it's kind of adorable, honestly. :P
Ha, exactly! And that kind of thing really is the engine driving the first few books of the series. It's all a bit silly and wacky and mostly designed to amuse, rather than set up a sturdy world with rules and consequences.
But I think this does work for the series, though it makes its darker, more serious turn in subsequent books sometimes ill-fitting for these earlier ones.
Dark/serious vibes + totally arbitrary rules and consequences worked like gangbusters for that Kafka guy! I'm kidding but only a little - it annoys me that in the basically justified rush to condemn Rowling people knock her for the loose worldbuilding in these books, as though that's a bug and not a feature.
Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite Harry Potter movie because, among other things, they do a great job with the cinematography during the time travel sequence, cueing it up from Harry's perspective where random odd happening and coincidences keep saving him, but he doesn't realize until the end that Future Harry is the one causing them. And as you say, that foreshadowing is a theme of the whole book - it feels like this is the first book in the series where Rowling consciously went back through and inserted the hints and clues in her first draft as purposeful edits rather than just following a fanciful story wherever it took her. Hints about Scabbers missing a finger and interacting with Hermione's cat, hints about Lupin's lycanthropy, hints about the Time Turner, hints about Sirius, Trelawney's seemingly absurd predictions that can be interpreted as correct...the novel is sprinkled with foreshadowing throughout, and it's done artfully enough that they often feel like "Wizards are crazy" window dressing rather than obviously lampshaded clues.
I love this novel too, and you are right that this is the point that Harry and the series as a whole begin to grow up. Another important complexity of the adult world the kids learn in this book is that the justice system can be decidedly unjust. So many popular crime books, movies, podcasts, and TV series make the unstated assumption that what the police and the courts decide is just, and I like that Rowling’s kids’ book has a clearer view of the failures of justice than these works, ostensibly for adults, have.
Definitely! This is where you begin to see the cracks in the Ministry of Magic that come to dominate the next few books.
I would love it if, once a month or so, this here newsletter was briefly renamed radicaledward's Werewolf.
Well, off I go!
Hahaha, me too!
Spoiler alert: Harry does not graduate, although he eventually gets whatever the wizarding equivalent of a GED is.
I remember liking the first two books as a kid, but I liked the His Dark Materials trilogy much more...until this book came out. Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire lived in my brain for years.
You know, it's funny - I read all those books at around the same time, and at the time, being an edgelord atheist tween, I thought that Pullman was sooooo obviously the better writer. And yet as an adult, I could not tell you a single detail about His Dark Materials, whereas I could tell you all sorts of random things about the Potter books. Part of that is that Potter is a much more merch-friendly franchise, but even ignoring obvious stuff like the Hogwarts houses that's entered the popular consciousness via the movies it's wild how many random details from these books I remember.
(This is not mutually exclusive with Pullman being the better writer, of course.)
Great write up.
Also, I need to know, how’s whiplash of reading McCarthy and Potter at the same time?
Ha! It's pretty wild! The two writers could not be more different.
Great analysis! This one sticks in my head, too. I reread the first four books in the series a dozen times as a kid (as I reread everything I loved back then), and the last three only once each. Prisoner of Azkaban hit me just the right way at just the right time for all the reasons you describe.
Also you’re totally right about werewolves.
This is the Harry Potter that has stayed lodged in my mind throughout the years. And I remember feeling crazy and thirsty waiting for the next book to drop.
Honestly, my favorite thing about this book is that it introduces time travel into the ""Potterverse"" ... only to have the dorky supporting character use it to take some more extracurriculars, and then show up in the climax of the book, and then never be mentioned again. I think it's kind of adorable, honestly. :P
Ha, exactly! And that kind of thing really is the engine driving the first few books of the series. It's all a bit silly and wacky and mostly designed to amuse, rather than set up a sturdy world with rules and consequences.
But I think this does work for the series, though it makes its darker, more serious turn in subsequent books sometimes ill-fitting for these earlier ones.
Dark/serious vibes + totally arbitrary rules and consequences worked like gangbusters for that Kafka guy! I'm kidding but only a little - it annoys me that in the basically justified rush to condemn Rowling people knock her for the loose worldbuilding in these books, as though that's a bug and not a feature.
Ah, I mention Kafka in the upcoming review of Order of the Phoenix!
But totally agree. The loosey goosey whimsy is part of why people even showed up.