#maurader's map

JKR has stated that Fred and George figured out the passphrase for the Maurader's Map by being coached through it by the map itself. This makes me all the more irritated with the line "Never trust anything if you can't tell where it keeps its brain" and I absolutely hate that she made Arthur Weasley say it. It's a moment completely out of character for him, a man who offers soft comfort and encouragement to his children every day. A man who only ever raised his voice once in 7 books when his sons took a prank too far and intentionally caused harm. There's no way he would berate his daughter, who is clearly torn up about what happened, for getting manipulated, especially not as the first words he speaks to her after she was minutes away from death.

Inconsistent world building leads to inconsistent characters. It's literally never addressed that the map is sentient, just like the fucking diary. Nope, we're just told talking diary = evil, and dumb Ginny should have known better; meanwhile, talking map = funny and brilliant piece of magic.

Fred and George fucked around with a parchment that coached them how to reveal enchantments on it and nothing happened to them. How the hell was an 11yo girl supposed to assume her talking diary was nefarious??? She lives in a literal world of magic where letters scream at you and mirrors offer encouragement and grooming tips. Why the fuck *wouldn't* a magical diary offer sympathy and soothing words, friendship and camaraderie??

“For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort.

Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter’s defeat of You-Know-Who was Black’s downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep. ‘He’s at Hogwarts…he’s at Hogwarts.’

Harry Potter isn’t safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. Because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst” (J.K. Rowling).

I looked forward to re-reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban—I remember it being my favorite book in the series as a child. Nothing has changed—I still really enjoyed the book despite the fact that I knew what was going to happen.

With that being said, there were a few things that I DID NOT like about the book. First, I felt as though the story was a tad jumpy. I felt as though Rowling’s narration skipped from the beginning of Harry’s third year at Hogwarts all the way to Christmas. Then, within another heartbeat, Harry was taking his finals and then returning home. I also didn’t appreciate the smattering of typos that I found within the novel. Examples included Snape’s name being misspelled “Snap” and several instances of sentences, which lacked verb agreement.

Despite these set-backs, there were several things that I LOVED about the novel. The first was that I don’t feel as though the plot’s major points would have been something that a first-time reader could anticipate. If anything, I feel as though the only major plot point, which may have been given away before the “official reveal” was Lupin’s status as a werewolf. This characterization stems from several different factors such as the form the boggart took when Lupin stood before it, the essay Snape had his students write when he took over Lupin’s class, the weather on the day that “Scabbers” was returned to Ron, Professor Lupin’s last name, which is akin to “lupine,” etc.

I also appreciated the fact that the novel was fast-paced—once the plot got going, it didn’t slow down until the end of the novel. I also really liked the new characters that Rowling introduced in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Examples include Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. I really enjoyed Lupin’s character in particular because he was someone that Harry could look up to. Furthermore, he was a mysterious individual with motivations unlike any of the other characters in the novel.

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