Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Abridged Version

Can't wait two days for the official movie release? Didn't read the book and having trouble keeping up with the films? Waiting in line at the movie theater already and killing time on your smart phone? (You dork.) Then spoil everything with the following abridged version of Harry Potter 7.

DUMBLEDORE: Well, Harry, it's the end of Half-Blood Prince, and I'm about to kick it. I will take a moment at this point to introduce a truly fearful undead enemy, which Voldemort will no doubt leap at the chance to use against you sometime in the future: the Inferi.

HARRY: Yikes!

Fighting happens.

MAD-EYE MOODY: It's Deathly Hallows and I'm dead. (Falls off of broom.)

HARRY: We've got to go back and get his body!

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX FOLKS: Why do we have to do that, Harry?

HARRY: It's plain to see that the Death Eaters will make him one of the Inferi and I'll have to battle him before I face Voldemort.

MAD-EYE MOODY: No, I'm just dead.

HARRY: Then what was all that buildup about the Inferi for? Surely J. K. Rowling isn't going to forget to include them in Deathly Hallows!

J. K. ROWLING: Shut up. I have a deadline to meet here.

Fighting happens.

FENRIR GREYBACK: Rawr! I'm a horrible werewolf and a formidable foe!

HARRY: Actually, you have only a teeny-tiny part that could easily have been filled by one of the previously-established Death Eaters. I suspect you're just here for the licensed action figure potential.

FENRIR GREYBACK: I hate my life.

More fighting goes here.

RON AND HERMIONE: Harry, the venom in this basilisk fang will instantly destroy the Hufflepuff Horcrux.

HARRY: Good thing I got fatally bitten by that basilisk back in Chamber of Secrets, then. Otherwise, I'd be worried that somehow I'm a horcrux and would have to die to defeat Voldemort.

J. K. ROWLING: You have noticed a gaping hole in my logic. Prepare to die.

Fighting, acts of bravery while fighting, horrible deaths of adults we liked and of children we didn't like. Snake.

SNAPE: Stupid snake. Now I'm going to die and then they'll all realize how wonderful I was, but it'll be too late and they'll all be haunted for the rest of their lives by the fact that they were always mean to me. (Ask Michael Bay if we can borrow a Linkin Park song for this part.)

LUPIN: For some reason, I'm dead. You?

TONKS: Yep. I think there's supposed to be some kind of history-repeating thing going on here, where all of Harry's guardians perish each time he starts to depend on them for care and support, and he has to stand up and become the guardian of orphans.

LUPIN: That is bloody lame.

Fighting again.

VOLDEMORT: Die!

HARRY: Okay.

DUMBLEDORE: Hello again.

HARRY: Nice place you've got here. So, when I return to the world of the living, am I going to demonstrate compassion and mercy that will somehow ultimately triumph over the violence and bitterness of Voldemort?

DUMBLEDORE: No; you're going to prance around like a dope while he accidentally kills himself with his own wand.

HARRY: Really.

DUMBLEDORE: Well, not quite. Actually, the wand belongs to you, since Grindelwald stole it from Gregorovitch, and then I bested Grindelwald in a duel, and then Draco disarmed me, and then you stole Draco's own wand. So it's your wand. I think. Did I miss a step? No. It's definitely yours.

HARRY: Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Fight fight fight fight fight.

NEVILLE: Hello, Sorting Hat. As long as you're on my head and all, I thought I'd ask you a question. A theme of the series is the fact that, while the Houses of Hogwarts were intended by our ancestors to be polarized, with Gryffindor being the "good guys" and Slytherin being the "bad guys," that is not the way that things should be. Every person has the potential for good and for evil inside of them, and our generation can break this cycle of tribal hatred and violence by offering friendship, trust and forgiveness to our enemies. But all of a sudden, Slytherin is universally filled with cowards and supporters of Voldemort, and the rest of Hogwarts isn't finding any ethical problems in fighting those children to the death. What's up with that? Are we really ending the cycle, or are we just killing enough of our enemies so that we can defer the problem to the next generation?

SORTING HAT: I do not have to answer that question, due to the fact that I'm on fire.

VOLDEMORT: Die again, Potter!

HARRY: Nope.

VOLDEMORT: (Thumps onto ground, stone cold dead.)

GINNY: Oh, look, Harry! Everybody, including my brother, is finally dead. Let's go make babies.

HARRY: You don't have to tell me twice!

MOVIEGOERS AROUND THE WORLD: I really shouldn't have paid extra to see this in 3-D.
You know you wanna buy it.



2 comments:

  1. Nice analysis of book seven's many flaws. I will add that it really, really bothered me to see the "good guys" using Unforgivable Curses in the last couple books. I thought that was going to be presented as some kind of a turning point, to show how when you use the tools of war you become the very thing you are fighting against, but it never got addressed.

    (Here via Experimental Theology)

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  2. This made me laugh. Also here via Experimental Theology.

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