The Yin Blog

A random thought about Harry Potter (no spoilers)

I picked up "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows" (aka the end of the series), but I decided to reread the first six books in order, because I'd forgotten so many of the details and even supporting characters.  I'm currently just into "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (aka #5), and here's something that's been troubling me:

Okay, the four Houses of Hogwarts are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.  As everyone knows, Slytherin is for the (overly)ambitious, and it also gets more than its share of the evil-minded.  Gryffindor is for our heroes and is noted for prizing courage.  Hufflepuff is for the loyal, and Ravenclaw for the witty and clever ones.  It's also implied that the Ravenclaw students are intellectual snobs.  (I'm pretty sure I'd be in Ravenclaw . . . .)

So why is it that Hermione Granger, Ms. Top Student in Her Class, Ms. Know It All From Books, is in Gryffindor, and not Ravenclaw?  Oh sure, narratively, she's in Gryffindor because otherwise she wouldn't be as close to Harry Potter.  But doesn't she seem like she belongs in Ravenclaw?

(And on that note, is it a little stereotypical that the one major Asian character, Cho Chang, just happens to be in Ravenclaw?!?)

UPDATE: As a commenter notes, author J.K. Rowling sort of addresses my question in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."  On page 399, there's the following exchange between another student and Hermione:

"How come you're not in Ravenclaw?" he demanded, staring at Hermione with something close to wonder.  "With brains like yours?"

"Well, the Sorting Hat did seriously consider putting me in Ravenclaw during my Sorting," said Hermione brightly, "but it decided on Gryffindor in the end."

Eh . . . this acknowledges the validity of my question, but it does nothing to answer it.  With Harry Potter, for example, the Sorting Hat thought about putting him in Slytherin, but Harry let the hat know in no uncertain terms that he definitely did not want to be in Slytherin.  There's no equivalent reason that Hermione would have felt such antipathy for Ravenclaw.  Now it is true that Hermione has exhibited much courage during the series, and perhaps the Sorting Hat decided that courage more than intellect was her defining character . . . but that doesn't seem quite right to me.

My pitch for season 7 of "24" (Fox, call me!)

After reading that Fox has scrapped the plotline for season 7 of "24" -- just weeks before shooting was set to start -- I've been thinking about how I'd plot the season if I were in charge . . . .

Day 7 starts at 1 am in Los Angeles, where the show has been set in the past, but today, it's 9 am in London.  Jack Bauer is set to take custody of a suspected al Qaeda member from British intelligence.  In an unrelated matter, London is also hosting an antiterrorism summit that afternoon involving world leaders from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, and other countries.  Too bad for them all, because Osama bin Laden has offered a bounty of $25 million per head (hah hah, pun intended) of state, and a deadly assassin codenamed Artemis has decided to collect.  [Ideally, Artemis would be played by Peta Wilson, who previously starred as Nikita in the TV series "La Femme Nikita."]

Artemis unleashes an insidious computer virus that cripples London's computer networks, shutting down air traffic, causing traffic chaos, and cutting off all cellphones.  By the end of the first hour, she's collected her first $25 million bounty -- and Jack realizes the danger that the U.S. President faces.  For the rest of the day, Jack has to deal with the effects of the computer virus while trying to track down Artemis.

Here's the kicker -- cell phones don't work!  Jack is able to get Chloe O'Brian at CTU to help him with satellite photos, etc., but he has to do it now by using a landline!  That means no calling for help in the middle of firefights, and a lot of barging into stores, homes, etc. to borrow people's phones or looking for payphones.

JACK: Chloe, I need real time coverage of the warehouse!

COMPUTER OPERATOR: You have -1- minute of time remaining on your calling card.

JACK: Damn it!  Chloe, I need you to add 500 more minutes on my calling card!

Now I don't have time to write out a detailed synopsis, but we pretty much know what happens over the next 22 1/2 hours: more world leaders get assassinated, Jack "interrogates" more terrorists, Jack shoots more bad guys, an innocent bystander helps Jack and gets rewarded by being killed, and Jack screams at a captured terrorist "I don't have time for this!  Tell me what I want to know right now!!"  Some hour-ending cliffhangers would include:

- one world leader trying to fly out of Heathrow when the virus lets up briefly . . . only to be shot down by a handheld surface-to-air missile;

- the unmasking of the inevitable mole, this time in MI-5; and

- Artemis escaping yet another "perimeter" by killing a British police officer and donning her uniform.

Hey, it's got to be better than the disaster that season 6 turned out to be!

The best company in the world

. . . in my view is TiVo.

Not just because it invented a device that has become indispensable for me, but also for truly incredible customer service.

My upstairs TiVo, which had been having some problems already, died for good the other night.  We'd bought it used off ebay and gotten a decent life out of it, so I wasn't too bothered.  The biggest downside was that all the new TiVos were far fancier than I needed for a backup DVR.  Still, I figured on spending about $150-200 for a new TiVo.  So I started by calling TiVo to cancel the monthly subscription on that device.

"Would you like to send us the broken TiVo and we'll send you a replacement?" the customer service woman asked.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked, not exactly sure what she was offering.

She explained that I could send the broken TiVo and they would send a new TiVo free of charge.  It was a service they offered for long time customers.

After looking further at my records, she noted that I had a 40 hour, single tuner TiVo.  Unfortunately, she pointed out, TiVo didn't make any more of those, so all they could offer would be an 80 hour, dual tuner TiVo.  A few people complain about that, she said.

Sure enough, less than a week later, a brand new shiny TiVo arrived at my doorstep.

As a customer, I totally love TiVo.  I'm not sure how I'd feel as an investor, but my wife did point out that in a time when cable and satellite companies are offering their own DVRs, it's probably a good business practice to keep a loyal customer hooked, ensuring a further monthly subscription fee.