“Welcome to our meeting hall, ladies and gentlemen.”

A tall woman with mid-back length, straight brunette hair stood behind a podium before a large room with uncomfortable plastic seats, a black bored smeared with powdered chalk behind her. The woman gestured to her audience and then nodded to the door. “I'm the organizer of this group, D.L see the sign looks rather hand made, it is. Now if you'll allow, let me just put up a list of objectives for today's meeting on the chalk board. This will make sure your in the right room.”

And on the board, she wrote clearly:

Welcome to P.A.L.E.S.

The Acronym stands for--
Potter
Anonymous
Loyal
Elders
Sit-in

We welcome all members who are over the age of eighteen and still rabid Harry Potter fans. The younger members will be pleased to note there is a playroom set up down the hall to the right while the elders congregate.

Objectives:

• To sympathize with other members over 18 that are HP fans and RPG aficionados
• To take solace in the fact that there are others in this position
• To assure ourselves that we will never 'get over' this fanaticism for Harry Potter.

Returning her focus to the room, D.L. continued, “Now that we have that covered and we should know who all belongs here, there is the serious business of actually seeing who shows up. Because, I'm terribly curious to know!”

OOO! I'm 19! I can so join! yes! Hi, my name's Leo aka Amanda, and I've been to a Harry Potter release party that was full of chitlens!

Heck I didn't realise you were ninteen Leona . . . Oh well I'm only sixteen so *toddles off to kiddie playroom*

Oh, well it's nice to see that there are some over the age of 18 but I would like to know if there are any that are over 40.

Hope you kids can help me feel ok. about being a Harry Potter fan.

I'm 47 going to be 48 soon, boy do I feel old now. Oh and in case you all don't beleave me I was born in 1959.

Well, I've got you beat, Aleretta. But I'm not sure I'm ready to admit by how much.

Anyway, when I think of some of the stupid things that some of my friends are fans of (not to be judgmental or anything, but...), I feel proud to be an HP fan. The books are well written, and JKR sure knows how to tell a story. And it's one heck of a story. Her imagination is amazing! What kind of mind can think up something like Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans?

I've often wondered what kind of mind creates many of the things in JK's world myself. I mean.. Dumbledore. Yes, just him. He was such an interesting character, with such a convoluted pattern of logic. (Arg, I'm having Dumbledore withdrawal.)

Anyway, everyone's pretty welcoming around here of all ages, regardless. But sometimes.... boy is it comforting to know that you don't have to be a school ager to be a fan. So, to both of you, welcome in, welcome in! A titch of maturity is well welcomed among our ranks!

Ah, it's nice to see some people closer to my age. I'm 23 with the same birthday as Voldemort's so I get teased a lot about my fascination with kids books and also, of course, about having the same birthday as Voldemort. But, hey, that's the hazard of being a Children's Librarian. My favorite character was Sirius followed by Dumbledore, so, of course, I'm having serious withdrawals. I like Snape, as well, but I'm not really sure why. So tell us a little about who you are. (Doesn't have to be anything real personal. You choose what to say).

To be honest, when I first got here, I was afraid that people wouldn't RP with me if they knew how old I was. Fortunately, that hasn't been the case. Or maybe it's just that they don't know! :P

Anyway, sometimes it's hard to tell someone's age by their posts. Sometimes it's obvious that somebody is really young, but sometimes someone seems really mature, and later I find out that they're pretty young, and I'm surprised.

But getting back to the books and the characters, yeah, I like Snape too, and I don't really know why either. At first I loathed him, but then after a while he kind of grew on me. Maybe it's from watching Alan Rickman play him in the movies. His Snape is very mysterious and interesting. Or maybe it's just that the stories wouldn't work half as well without Snape to confuse things.

Erm, yes, characters? Ron is my favorite, followed right up by Dumbledore. Maybe because the two of them have some of the funniest quotes in the series...

Anyway, a little about me. Well, I'm currently 23 as well. I'm at university at the moment, though I'm kind of a non traditional student. I've worked a few places, including a dental clinic for 3 years. At the moment, while at university, I'm a Taco Bell employee. Hey, its gas money.

Of the book series, well, as for people in the real world that I can have an honest Harry potter conversation with, I know two. And both of them will be fun long distance phone calls after I get the chance to read book seven :lol:

Dumbledore is wonderful! He's both crazy and brilliant at the same time. I can't think of another character like him, anywhere in anything that I've read!

Ron is my favorite in the trio, because of the way he overcame his fears as Quidditch keeper (with a little help from his friends, of course, but still, it was quite an accomplishment). It made him seem very real to me. He became more than just the comical side-kick then.

I really feel for Neville, too. I'd like it if he rescues Snape in the last book. It would be fitting.

And Luna is so brave, facing a world where she's a laughing stock. Her remarks like, "It [the DA] is kind of like having friends," really struck me. I hope she survives Book 7 and ends up with some real friends.

my favorite would be harry, I'm so empathetic for him, I KNOW HIS FEELINGS.....my other favorite's would be Buckbeak, he put Draco in his place, n'uff said.....man it's so hard looking the way i do, everyone thinks im twelve...*thought i'd outta share*

Twilight said:

"I really feel for Neville, too. I'd like it if he rescues Snape in the last book. It would be fitting."



I'll have to agree with you on this one. Of course, whatever the case with Snape, I think we're in for a surprise. He's not your usual villain or hero or martyr. He just doesn't quite fit in. Maybe that's why I like him. His inability to quite fit the cookie cutter mold describes me quite well. I guess being an adult who would love nothing more than to read a great kids or young adult fantasy would explain that, though.

I'm 23 got into Harry Potter a couple of months ago still reading the books for the first time and almost done Goblet of Fire. Untill I catch up reading all the books ( thinking by the time Deathly Hallows comes out I'll still be reading Order of The Phoenix or Half-Blood Prince) I would say my favorite chracters is Ron. Even though he was a bit of a twit in TGOF he's one of the funniest chracters in the series. The most annoying chracter is Dooby the house-elf.

Hi all! (waves)

I'm sooo glad I'm not the oldest fogey on here at 35 (soz Twilight x)!

I was really starting to worry that I wasn't natural, reading 'kids' books and enjoying being on here....

I'm a relative newcomer to HP, my mate lent me her books in March and I've been reading them ever since. I finally gave her them back last month when I ordered the whole big boxed set - I just couldn't wait until DH came out to get the full set, I was way too excited...

So where's everyone from? What are you all into apart from HP??

I'm an obsessive reader and love music and sport, especially football (yes I am a girl too...)

Oh thank god! I was feeling so old seeing all these 14 year olds running around on the boards! I'm 24 and I had a rough time at my birthday so when I came here and saw that I wasn't the oldest I was ECSTATIC! I've lover Harry Potter since the first movie but I have to admit I didn't read any of the books until the week before Deathly Hallows came out and I had every one done in a week (the first 6) and then I started the 7th on a monday night at 10 and then Tuesday night around 10 I was finished and Ive read probablly 5 times since then!

I am pushing thirty and I love Harry Potter. JK did suck an amazing job of bringing the trials and tribulations of adolecense to life, and adding the extra hook of magic to keep things interesting. I started reading the books in college right after the first movie came out. My best friend was way into the books and i thought she was nuts. She begged me to come see the first movie with her and I have been hooked ever since. My favorite character is Ginny. Maybe because after her first brush with death she doesn't need saving, even though she is the main squeeze of the hero. She's got sass and spunk, and she serves it up with flare. I am curious to know Doratheauror, were you surprised at how different the movies are from the books?

I was and I wasn't. I read a lot of books that were made into movies and I see how things get changed alot, the one thing that i wish that they hadn't taken out was SPEW and Winky!

Don't get me wrong I like the movies, but compared to the books they are so flat. I mean the special effects are dazzling and colorful and I think that the casting was mostly excellent, but the books are so indepth, that the movies have to leave things out. If I had only ever seen the movies, I think I would've been absolutely delighted to read the books because they were so much more...everything. I just wondered if you felt any since of dislocation, because the books are so different from the movies.

I discovered the books before the movies. The first 3 books had come out, but I hadn't read them because they were "for kids." A friend of mine who'd been reading them to her kids loaned me a copy of Book 1, and told me to give it a try. By the time I got to Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans I knew I was hooked. I was soon begging to borrow Books 2 & 3, and eagerly awaiting every new book after that.

The movies look very pretty. There have been some nice visual touches in some of the movies, like in POA when the changing of the seasons is shown by changes in the Whomping Willow. And I like the way they do the Dementors. :)

But in terms of plot the movies are kind of "flat", as you said. I love the cast, and I'd love to see them doing more of the scenes from the books. The last movie was disappointing because it was mostly special effects. They were fantastic effects, but I expected a lot more of the plot to be in it. :(

I'm not sure that I agree with you guys on that. Even after reading the books I still love the movies. I think that people expect a little too much from movies (working at Blockbuster I see this all the time) and people forget that movies are there to entertain and if they do that for a couple hours then thats a good thing. Sometimes there are just things that can't go into movies because 1. its to expensive, 2. if they don't think that they can do it properly or safely they wont do it, and 3. if it really doesn't serve a purpose to the main movie plot that they're following then they wont put it in. You have to remember the movies are being made for kids and not many kids will sit for three and half hours to watch a movie that will have everything from the books in it, most adults complain with movie over 2 and a half hours. If I'm entertained for a couple hours and a movie is well done, I'm happy, even if things have been cut and its not following the books religiously, sometimes things just aren't feesable. But thats just my opinion ;)

I whole heartedly agree with all the reasons you gave for the movies not being 700 pg long books. And they are just movies after all and nothing to compare with what the mind can cook up. But it is the intricasies (sp?) that make the books sparkle. As you said, from the movies you can't tell that Hermione is obsessed with house-elf freedom, but that is a big part of her character. It must have been like getting to know the characters all over again for you when you read the books. What was the biggest surprise to you when you reading the book after only seeing the movies?

I understand that they have to cut out a lot of things for the movies. And I'm not complaining about the first 4 movies in that regard. The screenwriters did a pretty good job, actually.

But I think they really cut too much plot in OOTP. It's the shortest of all the movies. Why? They built the sets, they'd assembled the actors, and there's no way that they're going to lose money on it. So why not give us a few more minutes, at Grimmauld Place, for example?

I'm not sure if there was anything that was that big of a surprise because I pretty much knew the whole story from my best friend and my sister who both read the books and they would tell me what was missing from the movies and all that. The only thing is I kind of found the first book a little slow and boring, I didn't really like that one that much, I thought that the movie was better.

The first movie was excellent. It's what got me reading the books, but I found that I couldn't put the first couple of books down. I would skip classes and loose sleep. Granted that's what I did with the other books too.
Really Twilight the last movie is the shortest? I didn't know that. Maybe it's because once they started taking things out they realized that more stuff depended on something they just snipped and before they new it they had the shortest movie. That's the thing about the books everything is enterwoven. You can't just snipp here and there without unraveling the whole thing.

It was the same with me when I read them, even though I didn't really like the first book thats all I did for a week was read them, and my boyfriend complained the whole time, because I didn't want to do anything but that! lol

You're lucky all you had was a boyfriend standing in your way. At first that's all I had too, but as time went by I was trying to juggle husband, baby and book. That was this last time with the 7th book and my husband is a gem so he took over almost all parenting duties while devoted myself to the book for 3 days. These books should come with a warning lable that reads: CAUTION FOR ALL OVER 12. HAZARDOUS TO GRADES, RELATIONSHIPS, AND JOB PERFORMANCE.

OOTP really is the shortest movie.

Sorcerer's Stone = 152 min
Chamber of Secrets = 161 min
Prisoner of Azkaban = 141 min
Goblet of Fire = 157 min
and
Order of the Phoenix = 138 min

(Run-time info from Internet Movie Database)

So OOTP is 23 min shorter than COS. And a good creative team could have done a lot in 23 min.

I wonder if they're holding back a lot of "unused" footage, so they can release a longer, re-edited "Director's Cut" DVD later (after sales of the movie-version DVD have peaked, of course). Or am I just too cynical?

No Twilight. I bet you are right. Those sneaky bastards. I hate it when they do thing like that just to make $$$$$$$$. Think of those poor kids who are deprived of the magic because they don't get the DVD. Bastards.

Apparently in the special edition of the dvd there is going to be a bunch of deleted scenes, but thats just what I heard and I don't know for sure.
My best friend has (at the time the book came out) a 4 month old and her husband was away with the navy and it took her forever to read the final book. I so agree with the warning label, if I was in classes at the time I read them all, I would have been screwed, at least i was on summer vacay!

It is indeed hazardous to your job performance.

Fortunately my hubby was away when DH arrived, but I was so tired after staying up all night reading it (and crying a bunch over all the deaths in it), that I phoned in sick for work that Monday. I almost never do that (I like my job), but I was totally exhausted.

***

Re the OOTP movie, I heard that they're going to add maybe 10 min of deleted scenes (mostly involving Trelawney and/or Umbridge) to the DVD (Info from Leaky Cauldron Net). That will help a little, but it's still a long way away from the 160 min that I think all of us loyal fans deserve.

Personally, I'd like to see some nice scenes of Harry and Sirius together. It's our last chance to see Sirius alive, after all.

That's a good reason to always put them out in the summer so the kides don't miss class, and the adults either. I almost called in sick with this book, but I had so little of it left I knew it wouldn't take the whole day to read. And I knew I would want to be around people when it was over. This might sound silly, but the Harry Potter books have been a big part of my life. I have gone through a lot of stuff while reading them and I knew I would feel a little down when I had finished the last one. But JKR gave us such a storybook (pun intended) ending that I actually felt pretty good when the book ended, I just wanted to talk about it constantly.