Woooo, there's more HP fans in here than i thought! Tolkien does not rule all after all.....not that i have anything against the guy.
:mrgreen:
Now let's see.....the thing that irked me most: Sirius's death.
Necessary I think, for what JKR is going to do with Harry's character, but still annoying.
I can't at all see what was necessary about it. All it did was serve to make Harry more angry and volatile than he was before it. And it wasn't just the fact that he died that was all wrong: it was the way in which she wrote it. It seemed so detatched, something quite at odds with the passionate and lively character Sirius was. And it was much too soon after Cedric's death.....like she's going on a killing rampage
I liked a lot of the things that have already been mentioned, but I mostly enjoy the increasing darkness of the storyline. The death of Sirius--I think we may not have heard the last of him anyway
Well, the increasing darkness of the plot was definetly good, and expected, though i got the impression that she could have written it more skillfully, judging from her previous works. Also, i agree with you that we haven't heard the last of Sirius....something about what Luna said to Harry near the end of OotP, about the whispers behind the veil....and that mirror Sirius gave him still has some part to play, i think.
Umbridge pissed me off to no end when i read the book the first time around, but reading it again i realise, like Halplm, that she was perfect for the book. Not only that, but i think she was the most interesting new character. But i can't disagree that the end she came to was extremely satisfying..... :mrgreen:
Fred and George were "DA BOMB" in OotP.....the best and most dramatic exit from Hogwarts ever. I really hope their part in the next two books isn't dimished.
Oh yea, and some questions for which i'd love to hear your opinions:
1) What is Snape's role/relationship concerning Harry, The Order and Harry's parents? (i'm convinced he's the one who tipped off Dumbledore about the fact that Voldemort was after them.....but they died in the end anyway
Intruging)
2) Percy. What are his real intentions? Now that the truth's out, what's he planning to do? (some people are convinced he's going to become a Death Eater, but i disagree. On the other hand, it's sort of hard to believe that a large wizarding family like the Weasley's could all turn out so good.....and Percy's extremely power-hungry, according to Ron)
3) Is Dumbledore the Half-Blood Prince? (based on TheWagner's theories, which are really quite ingenious:
The HP series is constructed almost like a fugue with a general mirror. We have discussed before how each story is about a something that serves as a b-theme in another story. Another thing that I think has been mention is that the vestiges of a symmetry are arising. P/SS begins with Harry surviving and Voldemort nearly dying; VII probably will end in a similar way (with the fate worse than death awaiting Voldemort and Harry's survival possibly being spiritual rather than physical). GoF, the mid-point, had Voldemort return to life (opposite of the beginning and [probably] ending), and Harry almost dying. Story 3 has Harry finding a link to his past and family and Story 5 has him losing it. Story 2 has Harry learning about his enemy’s past and motivations; thus, I think that Story 6 might have us learn about his mentor’s past and motivations.
4) A possible Harry/Luna romance (
I think it's ridiculous
)
5) Portraits and the wizards that inhabit them, somthing that GREATLY fascinates me:
Is having a portrait of yourself a little like being a ghost? Only when you become a ghost you choose it willingly and consciously, but you can hardly choose whether someone's going to paint a portrait of you after you die (unless you expressly tell them not to) And what part of a wizard/witch would be preserved in a portrait? isn't that a bit like cheating death, because you're still taking an interest in the affairs of the living? Or isn't a portrait a part of the actual person but an imprint left of them after they've died? Therefore the person in the portrait is a shadow of who they were when they were alive and something completely separate from the actual person, unlike ghosts. Portraits would act like the person they were but never age, change, or develop physically or mentally in any way. Pictures with more detail and effort put into them would act and sound more like the person painted, whereas those that don't have as much detail and effort in them (like chocolate frog cards) would only look like the person.
Oh yea, the last two quotes i've put in are from the Harry Potter Discussion thread on TORC.