Being for this incarnation a gay male, she has discovered a new fascination with the newly adult version of Daniel Radcliffe—especially the full Monty version displayed in the promotion for his stint as Alan Strang in the London production of Peter Shaffer's Equus.
As one of Walhydra's gay friends remarked, upon seeing the fully *ahem* uncut version of Daniel's famous pose in front of the white horse, "Ah, now I see where all his baby fat went."
*ahem, ahem*
Since she'd gotten tired of looking for new pict...uh...reviews of this performance, Walhydra decided she would look for something about the real hero of the Harry Potter opus. Severus Snape.
To her delight, Walhydra has discovered I Trust Snape, an online "community for those Harry Potter fans who still believe in Severus Snape, for whatever reason, and for whatever theory."
Walhydra read the first Harry Potter book back in 1999, in library school, when she decided to see what all the fuss was about.
She's never been particularly patient with censors, especially faux-religious ones of any stripe. If she squints, she can find some sorrow for these folks, whose suppressed fear of the world is clearly so great that they believe they have to stomp out anything they don't understand.
But, to quote Andrei Codrescu of The Exquisite Corpse, she sometimes wishes "the Rapture would happen and take them all, so the rest of us could get on with our lives."
Anyway....
"Hey," Walhydra noted, as she read.
"This is just like dozens of juvenile fantasy books I read as a child back in the 1950s, before anyone thought about the 'Religious' being 'Right'!
"I don't think those books did any damage to me."
[Some might beg to differ.]
She harrumphed. Twice.
"And besides, it's getting boys to read. Grade school boys. Reading a big, hardcovered book that doesn't have colored pictures and talk balloons. How DARE they censor this?!!!"
Back to the future...uh...present....
Walhydra has always recognized Snape as a kindred spirit.
Granted, he wasn't exactly a teacher's pet, in the normal sense of the phrase.
Yet clearly (or, rather, very mirkily), J.K. Rowling has buried beneath the obnoxious, ambivalent surface of this character real depths of complexity and potential for heroism.
Depths which include a fierce, immovable sort of ethical stance which no one except Dumbledore seems to recognize.
So...Walhydra is holding her breath (well, not really) until the seventh and final book arrives at her doorstep in July.
She hopes Ms. Rowling hasn't totally flimflammed her.
She wonders whether, if it turns out that Rowling has made Snape into a traitor to Dumbledore, she will burn the books out of her own sense of betrayal.
In the meantime, she has added this icon to her sidebar, so that others might explore the marvelously silly website she has stumbled onto.
Play with it.
