I HATE POTTERCAST

I discovered podcasts a couple of months ago, when I was seeking to feed my Firefly/Serenity addiction. I ran out of episodes of The Signal pretty quickly, so I looked for more stuff, and found Pottercast. It's produced by the people who do The Leaky Cauldron, and it's great. They have interviews with fans and cast and crew of the films and fun banter and stuff.

So anyway. The title of this entry is "I Hate Pottercast." So why am I praising it?

Well, the reason I hate it is not a rational one. It's all about sitting in my car, listening to intelligent, interesting people of all ages from all over the world voice theories that I disagree with, and NOT BEING ABLE TO TELL THEM.

Yes. I sit in my car shouting at my iPod. It's always something like this:

HARRY IS NOT A HORCRUX!!!!!

Oddly, no other theory I disagree with bothers me like this one does. Snape, Dumbledore, even Neville theories I find interesting, even when, IMO, way off base. But the Harry-or-his-scar-is-a-horcrux theory works me up.

Here's why:

1. Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow to kill Harry. He wouldn't have planned to make a horcrux out of him. A corpse wouldn't work so well, I'm thinking.

2. Creating a horcrux is very complex, deliberate magic. It can't happen by "accident."

3. Tom Riddle talked to Slughorn 50 years ago about creating horcruxes. He definitely killed more than 7 people before he tried to kill Harry. Knowing Harry (or Neville, but he decided it was Harry) was supposed to be his downfall, he'd have prepared well in advance of attacking him, even if he believed a baby was harmless to him.

4. If Harry is a horcrux, he would have to kill himself, then Voldemort. Can't happen. If his scar is a horcrux, he'd have to do something gruesome to it. I can't see JK Rowling going in that direction. She doesn't shy away from violence (sectum sempra) but she doesn't go into pure gore. (Note: This is someone else's argument, I didn't think of it on my own, but I can't give credit because I don't remember who said it.)

5. If Harry is a horcrux, it would change Voldemort's intent and knowledge on the night he tried to kill Harry, and though Rowling loves to surprise us, she always sets up her surprises well in advance. Hindsight shows us where she did so. So making us believe that Voldemort wanted to kill Harry for six books, then switching that completely in the seventh, is a cheap device I don't believe she would do.

There. Maybe someone at Pottercast will find this by virtue of the subject and read it. Just the possibility that they might will save me a lot of screaming in my car. :)