[Antoninus]

Here's the next installment. Here's a link to the previous one:

Buried in Potter's Field? A Catholic Homeschooling Father Reads the Harry Potter Series

[Tax-chick]

May I suggest you give a cooling-off period, followed by editing, to your next installment? You’ve got Homophonia.

[Antoninus]

Pinging from the previous thread.

[Claud]

Good observation on the history of magic.

I think it’s particularly funny that wiccans want to be medieval and pagan at the same time—thus proving that they understand neither paganism nor the Middle Ages.

I think folks today are getting their history more from the D&D Players’ Manual than, say, Ovid and Malory. :)

[Tanniker Smith]

Chamber of Secrets almost seems to be a continuation of Sorceror's Stone rather than a separate book. As a sometimes writer, I was impressed at how things are foreshadowed in the first book that show up in the second. A poorer writer might've discovered Harry's ability to talk to snakes in book two rather than book one.

Likewise, both Ginny and Myrtle (as well as Myrtle's bathroom) play big parts in this book but were introduced in the first one. And a basilisk is a standard creature from fantasy which resembles a snake (fitting in with the overall theme) and having the power to turn someone to stone. (Medusa, with her snakes, had a similar power. Pity Ms. Rowling left her out of it.)

Overall, the story was weaker and I wish the director of the movie had done a partial rewrite and told more of the film from Ginny's POV.

You'll be in for a treat with Book #3. It's a definite improvement over the second, and has more surprises dealing with characters that we already know or have heard of.

[Tanniker Smith]

Also in this category was the scene with Ron vomiting up slugs.

Overdone? Perhaps. But as far as "scatalogical" humor goes, it's exceptionally mild. Given the age of the students involved, it's a mild thing to wish upon one's enemy. And here's where you can either infer "Do unto others ... " or "live by the wand, die by the wand". And it's a magical inversion of Johnny making Susie eat a bug. (I never ate bugs nor forced anyone to do so ... actually, I don't personally know anyone in either category, but we always hear about it.)

In either case, it's an important foreshadowing for the showdown with Lockhart at the end. The only gap in logic is how Ron managed to progress as well as he did that year with a dysfunctional wand.