Author: Eneasz

I had to take liberties again in this episode, because I have no idea how to translate “…” into audio. Which is unfortunate, because I LOVE “…” in text.

I could be wrong, but as far as I know using “…” as dialog was first introduced in JRPG imports such as the Final Fantasy series. It’s perfect, because anyone who reads a lot knows exactly the emotion that it conveys. The only problem is that it isn’t a word, it’s punctuation.  And as a narrator, you aren’t allowed to read punctuation. It sounds stupid. No one says “exclamation point!”, and no one should say “ellipses” or (if ya ain’t as high-falutin’) “dot dot dot”. In Chapter 20 I just left a long pause. But that wasn’t an option here, as it was both explicit dialog, and quoted in the response.

So I made do with a narrative description that I hope best captured what “…” was implying in this particular case. It’s inelegant, but I couldn’t think of a better option.

For me personally, one of the most interesting aspects of HPMoR is that the people who dislike it the most are the ones that would probably appreciate it the most, and yet they’ll never know that.

Allow me to explain.

Among the people you’ve tried to share HPMoR with, but who disliked it, what is the most common complaint? If your experience is anything like mine (and most of the people I know), it’s that Harry is an arrogant little brat. His first sin is treating adults like equals and expecting to be treated like an equal in kind, which for many people is ludicrous. After that is his manipulation of others, and his many proclamations that the way something is currently done is either stupid or insane and should be fixed/optimized. Like the Snitch.

Of course this is what I LOVE about Harry! I love characters who are smart, and who fight against stupidity. I’m OK with some arrogance. To be honest, I like to see some spine and hutzpah in my heroes, rather than mewling about trying to please everyone. Blah, that’s lame and boring, grow some balls and take the world by the horns!

Anyway, I chalk this up to differences in taste and move on, as do most people, but every now and then someone gets really offended by Harry and just goes off about this arrogance for tens of thousands of words.

There are early cracks in Harry’s Awesomeness though. He loses his first army battle specifically due to his feelings of superiority. He is undaunted, as befits his character, but the further we get into HPMoR, the more often this happens, and the more dramatic the consequences. I think generally this isn’t noticed by the reader, because it is gradual, and because as the reader we identify with Harry and we want him to excel and win, and so we keep making excuses for him. And he still has enough wins to make us think “See! He is right!”

Until we finally get this giant wake-up call that just slaps us all in the face and says “Hey! Dumbass! You’ve been doing this wrong the WHOLE TIME! Look, let me show you!”

I’m speaking, of course, of Chapter 116, the Quidditch Chapter.

Because the Ur example of Harry being logical and smart and the rest of the world being stupid and insane is the freakin’ Snitch!! Everyone knows this! Even the most hardcore Potter fans acknowledge it.  The Snitch is ridiculous. And having Harry call it out in one of his first interactions with the wizarding world, and keep harping on it, makes me want to jump up and shout in glee. It’s also one of the things that detractors feel makes him an arrogant brat.

And in 116, it is revealed to the reader that Harry is not a special snowflake that was right all along. That there are legitimate reasons the Snitch was widely adopted, and that there’s a long history behind what makes the sport what it is. Any wizard who actually cares about Quidditch is already aware of the Snitch Situation (or “Snitch Sitch”) and is deeply concerned about what to do about it. The real problem is that Coordination Is Hard, and Harry hasn’t done anything to address that. And now, looking back on it, wow, there were so many other points in the book where this sort of thing was also the case, but Harry was oblivious to it, and I didn’t notice either.

Of course Harry isn’t privy to this big reveal. He has to wait a few more chapters before he catches up with the reader. But we’re already primed with the knowledge of his flaw, so it’s a natural progression when we see him fall right back into that same trap and nearly destroy the entire freakin world, by assuming that he just knows better than everyone else who’s ever lived. He even tries to route around Merlin’s safeguards, because of course he does, he’s Harry Potter, safeguards weren’t meant for him. It’s a good thing Merlin was careful, and that Voldemort was around to save the world from Harry’s simple assumption of superiority.

Which makes “Don’t get cocky, kid” the longest lesson taught in HPMoR, spanning the entire work. And one of the few that doesn’t have a chapter named after it. And, most importantly, it is a payload that is masterfully aimed and delivered. Most message-fic has limited utility because the majority of its readers already agree with it. HPMoR manages to snare the audience that most needs to learn this lesson by giving us the hero we most love, and then lands that lesson into our face with a 660,000 word rocket-punch we never saw coming. Question yourself. Don’t assume you’re right just because you’re smart. Don’t be so cocky/arrogant. It could cost you the world.

The people who most agree with this at the start of the story are the ones who dislike the story most, and will never find out that the story is secretly on their side the whole time. But that’s ok, because the story isn’t for them. They don’t need to learn that lesson. Those who most need it are the ones most likely to love it. Us. Because Eliezer is a genius.

It’s unfortunate (and frustrating) when brilliant artistic decisions don’t translate into other media, so today’s production notes are basically an apology to Eliezer for my failings as an audio producer.

Dumbledore’s office has a musical theme. It is the janglings and auditory punctuations of all his flibberty-widgets, and in the original text this is represented thusly: “Whirr, bzzzt, tick; ding, puff, splat“. When this is used in Chapter 39 it appears first at the top of the chapter as the introduction to Dumbledore’s office. Every time thereafter it is used during a surprised pause in Harry and Dumbledore’s conversation, starting off the action after a scene-break. The scene-break itself is a device to punctuate the last action and start us off on a new mental track, since the scene didn’t actually change.

On the page, this works very well. In audio format, it sounded a bit weird, at least to me. If I had more experience at the time perhaps I could have made it work. But many chapters back, in Harry’s first visit to Dumbledore’s office, I used Mystic Mysidia as background music to Dumbledore’s office. So I thought “Ah ha! I’ll use it again, and it will take the place of the narration of “Whirr, bzzzt, etc”! This works extra well, because all those audio cues are right after scene-breaks, which are natural points to reintroduce background music.” And it did seem to work well enough. Until we got to Chapter 119.

Having already established in our minds the link between a line of sound effect noises and a pause in the action, Eliezer uses it to full effect here. When a bomb is dropped in the conversation and everyone needs a minute to stop and absorb it, Eliezer doesn’t need to point that out specifically. He simply puts in “Beep. Tick. Whirr. Ding. Poot.” This tells us that a silence has descended over the human participants, so sudden and complete that the background sounds of the office are suddenly thrust into everyone’s awareness by contrast. And as those sounds are so firmly linked to Dumbledore himself, it also serves to remind us of the Headmaster’s absence in his former sanctum. And after that touch of sound effects Eliezer can launch right back into the dialog without missing a beat. It’s a masterful move, and I loved reading it.

But, having excised those lines of text in my audio version, there is no connection in the minds of my listeners between those sounds and shocked silences in the middle of conversations. There isn’t even a connection between those sound effect words and Dumbledore’s office. I had inadvertently destroyed what made those lines so fantastic. ARGH!!!! I couldn’t just have the Mystic Mysidia music come back in as a substitute, because background music does not call attention to itself like a line of “Beep. Tick. Whirr. Ding. Poot.” does, and therefore doesn’t associate itself to the specific action happening at that exact point in the text. If I just used the music it would sound like background music coming in again for no particular reason, rather than “Everyone fell silent in shock.” If I narrated the words “Beep. Tick. Whirr. Ding. Poot.” it wouldn’t mean anything to the listener, because I hadn’t done so when the device was first used and so no association was made. It would just be random words without meaning or emotional context. There was no way for me to recreate what Eliezer had written.

Instead I simply said out loud what those words were meant to signify. But dammit, that doesn’t even remotely compare to the artistry of the original text. So, to everyone listening, and Eliezer especially, I apologize for failing in my adaptation here. I wish it was better.