Smart girls and faculty werewolves: HP3

[Spoiler warning for those of you who haven't seen the 3rd Harry Potter.] I'm with Cleis on how good Prisoner of Azkaban was. While I thought the first half of the movie dragged a little bit (the whole Dursleys-being-mean intro has become tiresome, ditto the constant minor provocations from Draco Malfoy) the time travel sequence at the end was delightful.

Hermione is probably my favorite mass-media female character since Willow Rosenberg from Buffy. Part of what makes her so sympathetic is her inability to restrain her amazing intelligence when it'll unfairly get her into trouble. I'm thinking in particular of the scene where she answers Snape's question correctly (but out of turn)* and Snape docks Gryffindor points for it. So when I see her winning with all the smart plays in the last part of the movie, running the whole time travel plan, distracting the werewolf, and busting Sirius out of jail, I'm completely digging it.

I wasn't too dissatisfied with how they portrayed Remus Lupin, my other favorite character from the books. I try to teach my sections the same way Lupin teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts -- plenty of student involvement, reverence for the importance of the material, and a hope that students will be able to use the lessons of the class to overcome evil magic (bad arguments) when they leave school. I have to say that the scene in the Shrieking Shack was disappointing. In the books, Lupin gives the kids back their wands and makes them full partners in discovering the truth about Pettigrew's treachery. (I read it and thought, "Now this is what a good section looks like!") The movie indulges in an unneccessary 'gotcha' moment where you think Lupin is helping Sirius Black do evil, and then the grownups pretty much solve the mystery themselves. But the movie did mostly portray Lupin in a way I could be happy with -- concerned with teaching well, available after class, and taking an active interest in his students' development (see his teaching Harry the Petronus Charm).

On a sidenote, it's amusing how the movie tacitly encouraged fanfiction writers' hopes that Remus is gay. I'm not just thinking of the passionate hug for Sirius. I'm also thinking of his final scene, where the talks about how the parents would all be writing angry letters if they found out that someone like him was teaching their kids, and his resigned talk about how he faces the same kind of prejudice everywhere he goes. He's talking about how he's a werewolf, of course, but the gay subtext is there. I'm always happy to see the slash writers get a present.


*This might be, in part, an idiosyncratic preference. My first girlfriend was always earnestly overanswering the professor's questions in lecture. The fact that it annoyed everyone else only made me feel closer to her. Then when I met her and she spent an hour laying out Elrond's family tree, I fell in love.