was browsing through a couple of harry poter sites again for information on book 7...don't know why i keep doing this..suddenly was struck by a thought...
JKR did make some comparisons between the star wars trilogies and her series and mentioned that she would definitely not write prequels...in another interview, she did mention that prohecies were often obtuse and the truth about propecies would be revealed only when the act was actually complete...or something like that.
i went through the prophecy in book 5 again and it struck me as obtuse...the prophecy for those who have forgotten reads:
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not. Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."
dissecting it, there is no doubt, at least at this point of time, that the person being spoken about is harry potter...or at the very least, let us proceed with this assumption.
now, that leaves the other parts of the prophecy for us to examine :
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches :
This should typically mean that harry potter has the power to defeat voldemort.
he will have power the Dark Lord knows not :
ok...now, harry has some secret power that voldemort is not aware of...doesn't mean that harry is aware of it either (inspite of dumbledore's assertions about the power being love)
Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives .
now, this is a bit confusing...harry is already around 16 years of age...and voldemort is alive and kicking...so, how did they both survive ? assuming that we ignore that second part of the sentence (though i don't see how), the first part also seems quite clear...harry has to be victim or killer.
so, all that is left (apart from part 2 of the sentence above) is to determine what is this secret power that harry has and will he use it/ be allowed to use it when the time comes.
the way i see it, the only power that harry has, which voldemort is not aware of, is snape's devotion to dumbledore (to the point of killing him) ...i know it sounds funny, but there it is...there is evidence of it across all the books...the most telling of which is when dumbledore knows that he will probably die by snape's hand...when he tells harry about the curse that voldemort put on the D.A.D.A. job...dumbledore knows that snape will have to leave hogwarts at the end of the year (after taking up the job) one way or another...which is why snape was not given the job earlier.
my guess is that the end will be slightly different to starwars where darth vader kills the emperor saving his son...here, it is possible that snape helps harry to kill voldemort...quite possible that harry sacrifices himself in the end...remniscient of nathaniel in the bartimaeus trilogy.
well, a bit confused on structuring of the arguments...maybe i will do it a bit later if i get the time.
ta ta for now.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
More Books...More Calamities
read the lightning thief by Rick Riordan yesterday...stayed up until 3:00am reading the book and then got exactly 4 hours of sleep before rushing to office...oddly enough, i feel sleepy now ;-)
anyway, the book is a good read...if i have to compare it with any of it's peers, i would say that it comes close to book 1 of the harry potter series and book 1 of the bartimaeus series...let me explain...the plot is a light, uncomplicated one like the sorcerer's stone and the writing style is slightly humourous like the amulet of samarkand...
compared to these books of course, the inheritance series seems to be an epic worthy of comparison with lord of the rings.
on to other topics...i am getting rather tired of writing about disasters and calamities...but what is happening in Paris cannot be ignored. psychologists can probably try and make sense of it, but to me it appears very simple: years of xenophobia and discrimination combined with a mutual mistrust among people are taking their toll...of course, the explanation could also have been simpler...a bunch of gangs fighting each other for turf...but that brings us to a more fundamental question...why do ghettoes exist...which takes us back to the first explanation.
Amalgamation of people from various communities is a must for mistrust to go away...that of course, is like saying...you need trust for mistrust to disappear...which needn't be said anyway.
what saddens me though...is that though the world is becoming more global than before, people do not want to live in harmony with each other. why should looks, relegion, occupation matter when you want to live peacefully with your neighbour.
whether it is judaism or christianity or islam or hinduism or buddhism or jainism or any other relegion...
i) most seem to have common origins and epics (noah, abraham, matsya avatar)
ii) all preach exactly the same thing in multiple languages.
so, why do we need to try and alienate people based on different forms of the same words?
that reminds me...there is this really wonderful site called http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm
this has the most comprehensive english translations of most ancient relegious texts that i have seen...a must see for all those who have not been there yet..
nothing more for now...off for lunch and a bunch of meetings. more later.
anyway, the book is a good read...if i have to compare it with any of it's peers, i would say that it comes close to book 1 of the harry potter series and book 1 of the bartimaeus series...let me explain...the plot is a light, uncomplicated one like the sorcerer's stone and the writing style is slightly humourous like the amulet of samarkand...
compared to these books of course, the inheritance series seems to be an epic worthy of comparison with lord of the rings.
on to other topics...i am getting rather tired of writing about disasters and calamities...but what is happening in Paris cannot be ignored. psychologists can probably try and make sense of it, but to me it appears very simple: years of xenophobia and discrimination combined with a mutual mistrust among people are taking their toll...of course, the explanation could also have been simpler...a bunch of gangs fighting each other for turf...but that brings us to a more fundamental question...why do ghettoes exist...which takes us back to the first explanation.
Amalgamation of people from various communities is a must for mistrust to go away...that of course, is like saying...you need trust for mistrust to disappear...which needn't be said anyway.
what saddens me though...is that though the world is becoming more global than before, people do not want to live in harmony with each other. why should looks, relegion, occupation matter when you want to live peacefully with your neighbour.
whether it is judaism or christianity or islam or hinduism or buddhism or jainism or any other relegion...
i) most seem to have common origins and epics (noah, abraham, matsya avatar)
ii) all preach exactly the same thing in multiple languages.
so, why do we need to try and alienate people based on different forms of the same words?
that reminds me...there is this really wonderful site called http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm
this has the most comprehensive english translations of most ancient relegious texts that i have seen...a must see for all those who have not been there yet..
nothing more for now...off for lunch and a bunch of meetings. more later.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
comics and other books.
not sure how many of you have been able to view this blog, but it is something that makes me wish that i had not thrown away all my comix...i had a trunkload full of them and i gave them away to kids who were interested in them...the list was awesome...nearly all the amar chitra kathas published...nearly all indrajal comix published from 1979 onwards, 7 years worth of chandamama, 5 years of tinkle...a year of children's world...a dozen asterixes...
anyway, the comicproject blog is amazing....theyv'e published over 50 titles giving people like me a chance to catch up with the past...great work man...i only wish i could contribute too...
while on the subject of books, i have recently ended up reading a bunch of fiction series...well the parts that have been published anyway....these include ...the harry potter series, the bartimaeus trilogy, the artemis fowl series and of course inheritance.
the funny thing is...i found a common trend across the series...in harry potter and artemis fowl, the magical world (fairy world in case of artemis fowl) is completely hidden from mankind, though j.k. rowling makes a number of comments of how things are changing between the muggle and non-muggle world. she said in an interview (i think), that the breach of the muggle and non-muggle worlds is final and the worlds are coming closer to each other or something like that...in one of her books in the series, one of the characters says explains the reason that the worlds are different...the muggles (regular guys) will want to use magic for all their work...in a later book, she brings out how the minister for magic begins participating in the work of the muggle prime-minister by planting a wizard as his secretary...the prime-minister admits that the wizard gets through the entire work in half the time...the overlying theme of the evil in the book is how how a certain"dark wizard" (voldemort) wants to gain control of both the magical and non-magical world...so, far so good...have you begun spotting the trend...
isolated worlds --> muggles want easy way out --> magical world intrudes into non-magical world slowly.
now let's move on to the bartimaeus trilogy...here, magicians rule countries which have both magicians and non-magicians....so, looks like voldy won at some point of time.
now, even better...the second book of the trilogy delves deep into how everything happens in cycles...how magicians, so sure of their power, begin overlooking the fact that non-magical humans begin developing resistance to magic (shades of x-men here ;-) )...so, if i were to connect the books, soon the number of humans able to resist magic increases, thereby forcing the magicians to stop having absolute power...soon, they start living side by side and fighting side by side..."inheritance" and "lord of the rings" ha ha ha...
so, if i were to connect the various series....
"harry potter/ artemis fowl" --> "bartimaeus" --> "inheritance/lord of the rings"
(except for the timelines, this is nearly plausible).
anyway, the comicproject blog is amazing....theyv'e published over 50 titles giving people like me a chance to catch up with the past...great work man...i only wish i could contribute too...
while on the subject of books, i have recently ended up reading a bunch of fiction series...well the parts that have been published anyway....these include ...the harry potter series, the bartimaeus trilogy, the artemis fowl series and of course inheritance.
the funny thing is...i found a common trend across the series...in harry potter and artemis fowl, the magical world (fairy world in case of artemis fowl) is completely hidden from mankind, though j.k. rowling makes a number of comments of how things are changing between the muggle and non-muggle world. she said in an interview (i think), that the breach of the muggle and non-muggle worlds is final and the worlds are coming closer to each other or something like that...in one of her books in the series, one of the characters says explains the reason that the worlds are different...the muggles (regular guys) will want to use magic for all their work...in a later book, she brings out how the minister for magic begins participating in the work of the muggle prime-minister by planting a wizard as his secretary...the prime-minister admits that the wizard gets through the entire work in half the time...the overlying theme of the evil in the book is how how a certain"dark wizard" (voldemort) wants to gain control of both the magical and non-magical world...so, far so good...have you begun spotting the trend...
isolated worlds --> muggles want easy way out --> magical world intrudes into non-magical world slowly.
now let's move on to the bartimaeus trilogy...here, magicians rule countries which have both magicians and non-magicians....so, looks like voldy won at some point of time.
now, even better...the second book of the trilogy delves deep into how everything happens in cycles...how magicians, so sure of their power, begin overlooking the fact that non-magical humans begin developing resistance to magic (shades of x-men here ;-) )...so, if i were to connect the books, soon the number of humans able to resist magic increases, thereby forcing the magicians to stop having absolute power...soon, they start living side by side and fighting side by side..."inheritance" and "lord of the rings" ha ha ha...
so, if i were to connect the various series....
"harry potter/ artemis fowl" --> "bartimaeus" --> "inheritance/lord of the rings"
(except for the timelines, this is nearly plausible).
beginner's end
dunno how many of you have this problem...but while blogging is ..well..blogging...registering a new name requires a lot of ingenuity and imaginative powers...akin to wizards of yore...this is my third attempt at creating a blogspot for myself and i am finally successful.
actually, the second time i tried to create a blog was because i was absolutely upset with the 10-10 of the blogosphere...the treatment being meted out to gaurav sabnis and varna and of course rashmi bansal rankled and i decided to create a blog in support of them...later realised that the best course of action would be to wait and watch how things unfolded....unfortunately, it looks like it will die it's own death just like a million other happenings around the world....the only seriously affected person being gaurav sabnis...i wish him well and hope that the right company hires him and gives him the respect that he deserves...which brings me to a rather interesting point...
how are the industry's HR teams geared up to handle crises like this for their employees....what the IBM HR team did or did not do seems quite blurred at this point of time as no one has brought it up...but isn't HR supposed to take charge of such situations and help the employees out? looks like most HR teams nowadays focus on hiring and exit interviews after the employees resign...hope we begin focussing on it quickly before employee retention policies become a thing of the past.
my experiences with various HR teams have been rather interesting...a curious mix of the good, the bad and the ugly...and am sure that i will have more of these experiences before i can put together a 9-commandment list of what employees should not do with HR and vice-versa.
actually, the second time i tried to create a blog was because i was absolutely upset with the 10-10 of the blogosphere...the treatment being meted out to gaurav sabnis and varna and of course rashmi bansal rankled and i decided to create a blog in support of them...later realised that the best course of action would be to wait and watch how things unfolded....unfortunately, it looks like it will die it's own death just like a million other happenings around the world....the only seriously affected person being gaurav sabnis...i wish him well and hope that the right company hires him and gives him the respect that he deserves...which brings me to a rather interesting point...
how are the industry's HR teams geared up to handle crises like this for their employees....what the IBM HR team did or did not do seems quite blurred at this point of time as no one has brought it up...but isn't HR supposed to take charge of such situations and help the employees out? looks like most HR teams nowadays focus on hiring and exit interviews after the employees resign...hope we begin focussing on it quickly before employee retention policies become a thing of the past.
my experiences with various HR teams have been rather interesting...a curious mix of the good, the bad and the ugly...and am sure that i will have more of these experiences before i can put together a 9-commandment list of what employees should not do with HR and vice-versa.
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