Has anyone here seen " J.K. Rowling…A Year In The Life " documentary. I would like to know if its just me or were both J.K. Rowling and the interviewer/narrator guy really arrogant and just blowing smoke out there asses of the, well just about the entire HP series.

 

You know I think that JK might have earned the right to be a tad smug about the HP series...

 

Agreeing with Mordecai, I think being the author of one of the most successful book series on the planet goes to your head, and justifably so...

 

I also agree. Anyone who expects billionaires to be salt-of-the-earth, humble types can get fucked. The fact that she was a saggy-titted wellfare mother who was left by her first husband gives her even more reason to have more swagger than your average Brit.

 

I'd still bone her any day of the week. :awesome:

 

She's a cunt.

Swagger is one thing. But the constant stories of a depression-plagued mother riddled with suicidal tendencies lead me to believe she's a basketcase. Throw in the mood swings about Christianity (she likes Chronicles of Narnia, she doesn't like Chronicles of Narnia and oh look, Harry's Jesus) and her need to pretend she had this entire story plotted from 1991 and you've got a person who did a respectable deed in owning every elitist literature fuckhead out there but who nonetheless is a dipshit, personality and human being-wise (for similar comparisons, see: Mark Cuban, Kobe Bryant and Cristiano Ronaldo).

People to emulate if you can afford a few small runaway Soviet countries? Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or the myriad of other rich people who didn't have to create a shitty product thrown together in a few moments. They reached into their existing bank account.


Assholes who draw this:



And then use the 30,000 pounds it collects to give to charity aren't philanthropists. Or "good-natured" people. They're feigning it - which is the major reason I dislike her outside of her books. She's the type of person who has a kid that catches cancer and then decides she really gives a shit about St. Jude's (see Rowling example: multiple sclerosis).

If she wanted to be egotistical with swagger, she could have done a couple of things: one, she could've said all the money made off DH goes to a controversial charity or research. Or hell, just to any charity. Instant sainthood. Two: when she wanted to play-pretend as a social activist who gets it about homosexuals and who truly wants them to have their rights/be respected, she should have used the books she was popular for writing; not the podium at a liberal arts school.

Selling twenty plus million copies of Deathly Hallows in the first twenty-four hours and it discusses homosexuality in a positive light? And children of fundi parents are potentially reading it? That's swagger.

What she did is what she always does. Attention-whore.

Also, fuck Abramovich.

 

God I love you man:awesome

 

This. What really bugs me more than anything is that she made the eccentric flamboyantly dressed character gay. Why couldn't it have been another well thought of character who wasn't such a stereotype? I mean she has raised money for charity in the past via a few books that were written just for charity, but they were books that sold fewer copies.

Beyond this, I find her constant talk of how she cried when she killed off certain characters or how she got herself a little hotel room and drank some alcohol while she was writing the final touches of DH to be quite disturbing. She is either touched in the head or a complete moron. There was no reason Sirius had to die because really it did very little to move the plot forward or to alter it that much in the long run yet she chose to kill him off even though she 'cried' over doing so. She claimed it was originally Mr. Weasley who was supposed to be bumped off, but she didn't want to kill him off because he was a father figure to Harry, and Harry had already lost too many of those. I, personally, found Sirius to be much more of a father figure, but then again I'm not insane.

Seriously, she wines more than those women on Maury who have yet to find out who their baby daddy is after the 13th paternity test when they were always 1000% that this guy was the dad. She hates the press always bugging her and the pressure from her fans to keep writing, yet if they stop or there is a lull in activity around her she feels the need to go talk to some people and say or do something that gets her put back in the spot light. I don't even want to think about all of the facts she has changed in the books over the years. I haven't seen that much flip-flopping on statements since John Kerry was running for President.

I'll leave you with this.

 

check out #2, then see why she should swagger.
http://www.cracked.com/article_16989_p2.html

 

Watched this documentary when it first came out. My favourite part is when JKR goes to her old flat, which was supposedly so terrible, and it actually looks pretty nice. She then proceeds to go around the flat and cry about how shit it was, even though a family now live there. It was hilarious.

 

I didn't know that, and that is fucking wierd.

 

I would need alcohol to write the epilogue of DH as well.

 

You'd need a hell of a lot more than alcohol to write that crud.

 

She doesn't understand one of Tolkien's greatest strengths. And I won't forget to mention that Tolkien wrote hundreds of letters about his Legendarium, created the Silmarillion (or rather finished it as it was first) and a host of other works that added to his world. But he did it in a professional and studious manner - they were not supposed to be "fun" or exciting to read for most. He did it for the fans, not for attention.

He didn't randomly throw shit out there in an interview that was later contradicted in the books (see Secret Keepers, Patronus Forms and the Fidelius Charm).

But getting to what I originally wanted to say: he knew how to keep a secret. People constantly asked why Tom was able to put the ring on without turning invisible or being influenced - and Tolkien didn't tell them.

People think he's Eru Ilúvatar, others think he's the earth. Point is he let people guess what would happen. The journey is the story - after that, telling us everything without their being a reason is pointless. Did Frodo get healed? Did Sam get to the dying lands? Even King and his Dark Tower series at least had something: Will Roland ever escape the cycle? The voice did say perhaps next time... or did he say that last time as well?

The DH epilogue is poor literature (is it fanservice?). If it had ended right there, without him fixing his wand and instead just conversing with Dumbledore, it would have been fine. Or just walking past all the people who had done pretty much nothing except fuck him over and act as cannon fodder through the series. Then again, I hated DH and the epilogue is just one among many mistakes so meh.

 

I agree with pretty much what everyone has said in this thread.

My opinion of her would go way up though if she would allow other authors to write books in the HP universe ala Star Wars. When I go through the fantasy shelves in the bookstore nearby, there's like at least 50-60 SW books. I then imagine what it would be like if there were 50-60 HP books written by competent authors, and sigh.

She's too much of an arrogant, greedy bitch to ever do that though, and thus 99.9% of fanfiction will continue to be written by fans and not professional authors. I mean seriously, Jbern is the only author that I 'know' who writes HP fanfiction.

 

I do agree with you, just wanted to point out that most of the other books were written before the famous trilogy.

Well, JK Rowling can´t find a good man in real life, so she paired herself with harry. The resemblance to Ginny is striking...

 

What? I don't much like JK but how is not whoring out the series make her an arrogant greedy bitch?

 

Yeah, I'd love that too... unfortunately, your analogy falls a bit flat when you discover that most of the SW books lost a lot of quality the longer the series went on. The X-Wing series, Shadows of the Empire, and the Thrawn trilogy were excellent, and the Legacy of the Force was... interesting, but the rest weren't spectacular (and most of the stuff based on the prequels wasn't good at all).

Jbern gets props for that - out of curiosity, what published novels has he released? I'm genuinely curious and sorely tempted to go buy them.

On this topic... I can understand why Rowling wants to preserve the integrity of her universe and of her vision (Terry Goodkind is doing the same, except he's banned fanfic for his stories... which is kind of a shame, really), but once something has gotten this big, it couldn't hurt to step aside and let another author go in. There could be HUGE potential there, but she's ignoring it. Disappointing.

But then again, I'm skeptical that she has indeed ended the series entirely - mark my words, there'll be another series coming eventually. Rowling's like Lucas in that regard (the ego is similar too). And I can bet that'll be either Next Generation or Marauder-era.

 

Timeline of works released:

* 1936 Songs for the Philologists, with E.V. Gordon et al.
* 1937 The Hobbit or There and Back Again, ISBN 0-618-00221-9 (HM).
* 1945 Leaf by Niggle (short story)
* 1945 The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, published in Welsh Review
* 1949 Farmer Giles of Ham (medieval fable)
* 1953 The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (a play written in alliterative verse), published with the accompanying essays Beorhtnoth's Death and Ofermod, in Essays and Studies by members of the English Association, volume 6.
* The Lord of the Rings
o 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring: being the first part of The Lord of the Rings, ISBN 0-618-00222-7 (HM).
o 1954 The Two Towers: being the second part of The Lord of the Rings, ISBN 0-618-00223-5 (HM).
o 1955 The Return of the King: being the third part of The Lord of the Rings, ISBN 0-618-00224-3 (HM).
* 1962 The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book
* 1964 Tree and Leaf (On Fairy-Stories and Leaf by Niggle in book form)
* 1966 The Tolkien Reader (The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, On Fairy-Stories, Leaf by Niggle, Farmer Giles of Ham, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil)
* 1967 The Road Goes Ever On, with Donald Swann
* 1967 Smith of Wootton Major

Posthumously:
* 1975 Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings (edited version) - published in A Tolkien Compass by Jared Lobdell. Written by Tolkien for use by translators of The Lord of the Rings, a full version, re-titled "Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings," was published in 2005 in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull ISBN 0-618-64267-6.
* 1975 Translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl (poem) and Sir Orfeo
* 1976 The Father Christmas Letters
* 1977 The Silmarillion ISBN 0-618-12698-8 (HM).
* 1979 Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien
* 1980 Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth ISBN 0-618-15405-1 (HM).
* 1980 Poems and Stories (a compilation of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, On Fairy-Stories, Leaf by Niggle, Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wootton Major)
* 1981 The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (eds. Christopher Tolkien and Humphrey Carpenter)
* 1981 The Old English "Exodus" Text translation and commentary by J. R. R. Tolkien; edited by Joan Turville-Petre. Clarendon Press, Oxford
* 1982 Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode
* 1982 Mr. Bliss
* 1983 The Monsters and the Critics (an essay collection)
o Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics (1936)
o On Translating Beowulf (1940)
o On Fairy-Stories (1947)
o A Secret Vice (1930)
o English and Welsh (1955)
* 1983–1996 The History of Middle-earth:
1. The Book of Lost Tales 1 (1983)
2. The Book of Lost Tales 2 (1984)
3. The Lays of Beleriand (1985)
4. The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986)
5. The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)
6. The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. 1) (1988)
7. The Treason of Isengard (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. 2) (1989)
8. The War of the Ring (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. 3) (1990)
9. Sauron Defeated (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. 4, including The Notion Club Papers) (1992)
10. Morgoth's Ring (The Later Silmarillion vol. 1) (1993)
11. The War of the Jewels (The Later Silmarillion vol. 2) (1994)
12. The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996)
o Index (2002)
* 1995 J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator - a compilation of Tolkien's art
* 1998 Roverandom
* 2002 A Tolkien Miscellany - a collection of previously published material
* 2002 Beowulf and the Critics ed. Michael D.C. Drout (Beowulf: the monsters and the critics together with editions of two drafts of the longer essay from which it was condensed.)
* 2005 Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings (full version) - published in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull ISBN 0-618-64267-6. Re-titled to "Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings" in this book. Written by Tolkien for use by translators of The Lord of the Rings, an edited version had been published in 1975 in A Tolkien Compass by Jared Lobdell.
* 2007 The Children of Húrin
* 2007 The History of The Hobbit by John D. Rateliff – contains substantial text fragments

I actually pointed out they came "first" - and I believe Silmarils were his first foray but he realized it was largely concerned with language/setting the stage. Don't know if he ever released it to anyone when was alive actually. But his son was the one who released most of the stuff.