Penultimate Geekdom: study guide for the Harry Potter series

So, yes, I’ve read the series in rabid fandom, but I want to bring that level of frothing spazticness to my progeny whilst having a semi-quasi intelligent fan-wank discussion.

I was at Borders the other day and the idea hit me to look for a study guide for each of the books ( and the entire series) but a) came up empty b) my daughter distracted me which forced an early exit from the store lest she get me to spend MY money on HER STUFF instead of MY STUFF.

Has anyone seen anything like this out there?

I don’t doubt it exists, and I’ll do a search in a moment – but first: if a Harry Potter study guide represents only penultimate geekdom, the for God’s sake, what’s the ultimate?

ETA: Well, there do seem to be “SparkNotes Literature Guides” for each of the books.

I’ve found that the Wiki articles summarizing each book are pretty comprehensive, and helpful.

Penultimate?

Right, so what would be the ultimate geekdom? Maybe some of those LotR fansites…

I dunno–I went to Portus last month, and it seems like the ultimate in HP geekdom. Well, maybe not. Maybe the fact that I’m writing a paper that I’m hoping to present at next year’s HPEF conference (Azkatraz) is the ultimate in HP geekdom.

But I don’t write fanfic!!! So maybe there’s hope?

Slash fanfic?

The fact that there are 14 long books with thousands of notes and footnotes about the writing of the Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and the Hobbit and they sold well. I think in the end we Tolkien fans probably take geekery beyond the level of the Harry Potter, Star Trek or Star Wars fans for our willingness and delight in studying every aspect of it.

I already have the new work, “The collected, annotated and unfinished shopping lists of Tolkien” on order.

Jim

Writing erotic versions of Star Trek where all the characters are furries, like Kirk is an ocelot or something, and putting a furry version of yourself as the star of the story.

Can’t we just that all geekdoms are equal, that none are more “ultimate” than the others?

Except furries of course.

What Exit? writes:

> The fact that there are 14 long books with thousands of notes and footnotes
> about the writing of the Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and the Hobbit and
> they sold well.

I own something like 70 to 80 books that are some type of annotation or literary criticism of The Lord of the Rings, and that’s not nearly all that’s been printed.

Good point, I was specifically talking about the 14 Histories, 12 by Christopher and the two new ones on the Hobbit. I don’t have 70 or 80, but I do have about 20-25 total. Actually I also have the Atlas, Annotated Hobbit, Letters, Artist and Illustrator and similar books so maybe the total for me is 25-30.

If you ever find time, I would love it if you could start a thread listing those 70 or 80 books. That would be an interesting check list to work from and compare notes about.

Uh, I don’t know that “penultimate” was ever pursued.


penultimate
One entry found.

penultimate

Main Entry: pen·ul·ti·mate
Pronunciation: \pi-ˈnəl-tə-mət\
Function: adjective
Date: 1677
1 : next to the last <the penultimate chapter of a book>
2 : of or relating to a penult <a penultimate accent>
— pen·ul·ti·mate·ly adverb

Sure you meant penultimate?

I see where you’re going with this…

http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html

cough Anyway, back to Harry Potter . . .

In 2006, we visited some friends and stayed in their teenage son’s room. In raiding his bookshelves for reading material, we found this:

Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter (Analysis of Books 1-4)

It was pretty good reading. I reminded myself of the title by searching Amazon for “harry potter guide” and a whole bunch of other stuff came up. Perhaps something from there will serve.

I have the HP 1-4 guide, and what I found ehhh about it was a) it seemed completely obsessive, like line by line analysis obsessive, the way a 13 year old would be ( an as much as I try to be 13 Aspie kid, I just don’t have the TIME to be that much of a 13 year old teen age girl. fer sure.

Also, and I haven’t checked, but it doesn’t seem that there are any further guides for the latter books, like 6 and 7. Wait a sec. a quick amazon search found 6 but I haven’t seen such a thing for 7.

I was meaning that there is always room for greated fanwankdom. Ergo, the second to the best. Bridesmaid Award.

Probably not the best five dollar word to use, but there it is.

I blame Monty Python and The Life of Brian.

I found a bunch of online study guides. Bookrags.com seems to have loads of books.
Harry potter #1

Scratch that.

I found sparknotes on the matter here