It's Harry Potter Day

Intro/Overview

Okay, so it's not actually Harry Potter Day because such a thing does not exist. However, it is both Harry Potter's and J.K. Rowling's birthday today. Also, Pottermore has a new update so... there's that.

Pottermore Update

So... Pottermore released an update today... or yesterday... or something close to now-ish. I went through and clicked through the new chapters and the old chapters. The updates include a new navigation page, site layout, progress bars, and a couple new chapter moments in the Sorcerer's Stone section.

I'm neither impressed nor unimpressed by the new navigation page. I do like the new layout and the new chapter navigation. I didn't really have a problem with the old chapter navigation; in fact, I think that the old chapter navigation was much more slick than this one is. And by slick, I mean better looking.

I really like the progress bars. As I went through the new/old chapters, it was nice knowing whether or not I'd missed mousing over something. I'm a little annoyed that the progress bar counts animations as well as pick-up-able items, but meh. There were a surprising number of people in the comments under each section who complained up and down about hating the new navigation and hating the progress bars. While I agree that the chapter navigation bar could use a button that makes it collapse, I wasn't all that phased by it. The progress bar was actually what made me go down and check the comments. If I couldn't find something, I'd check the comments to see what it was. Easy peasy.

The new Prisoner of Azkaban chapter sections were awesome. It was great seeing that Lupin as a werewolf was actually portrayed as a werewolf and not as an emaciated naked mole rat with fangs. I enjoyed the new information and insight into werewolves and Remus Lupin himself. There was actually some in-depth information about Remus that shattered some of the fanfiction canon I've been exposed to, but that's par for the course with fanfiction.

I also really enjoyed the couple of new moments we got in the Sorcerer's Stone section. Each one actually added something to the experience and didn't shuttle you right off into wand selection and sorting. In fact, there was actually a moment for Ollivander's shop, which was cool. I like the movie version better, but seeing the place in need of a few candles was nice.

Overall, I feel that this Pottermore update has done more for the site than any of the others. I actually spent a good portion of my day running through the site again in order to fill up my progress bars. I will say though, the really blatant and obvious marketing for the "Book of Spells" game took me out of the experience. Yeah, the little trailer video was kind of cool and kind of entertaining, but I don't think that's a good way to market the thing. Mind you, I knew about "Book of Spells" when it was announced so... maybe I'm not the target for that advertising.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY AND JO!

Love ya, Jessie.