J K Rowling set Harry Potter up perfectly. He seems like the perfect kid. Like every good kid seems like the perfect kid, like Sirius seemed like the perfect surrogate father and James like the perfect father. Hogwarts was a haven of safety, and the magical world was a happy place to live, with an exciting dark past. Then she strips everything away.
I love katharina's words: Harry Potter is like an onion. It started off being a smaller onion with a few happy layers. Now it's a much bigger onion, with a multitude of facets, terrible and wonderful. Book five dealt with everything: growing up, the frustrations of not being involved, the mistakes made by the adults around Harry, alcoholism (winky), the true suddeness and feeling of death and the huge implications of it, evil, good, fear. And also she dealt with the little things; girlfriends, friendships, leaving school, teachers relations and loyalties, taking exams, succeeding and failing. The wonder and the sorrow of life all wrapped up in the pages of a single book.
I love book 5. I think you can tell. I love its onion layers, ready to be unpeeled. And I love its characters, who all have flaws and all make fatal mistakes- fatal, not oops I slipped up a little and I nearly got hurt, its I slipped up and I killed my god-father. I slipped up and I nearly got many others killed. Sirius makes mistakes. Dumbledore, who everyone thought was infallible, makes mistakes. It is their failings that make the characters, and the books, great.
Sirius dies so quickly you can't believe it. That's how things are. Harry can't believe it, and neither can we.
Harry's change is painful to read, I know. What happened to the endlessly resourceful little boy? But Harry is a true person, a true hero. He pulls through, every time. He makes mistakes, like anyone, but he still manages, with the help of his support group, to pull through and make jokes. A true hero never stands alone.
It's not like real life because most of never have to deal with the worst of what Harry goes through. No one tortures our friends or family, or attempts to kill us. It is an escape, but not a fluffy one.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I'm surprized nobody has mentioned the Voldemort connections to Harry's behavior.
1. Harry "got something" from Voldemort as a baby. Why shouldn't that include some anger (or should I say venom?) along with his Parcel-tongue?
2. Throughout the book, the psychic connection between Harry and Voldemort is very important. Who's to say that Harry's behavior isn't actually a manifestation of Voldemort's emotions?
3. Ultimately, Harry has to kill Voldemort. As Bellatrix Lestrange pointed out, the Unforgivable Curses don't work unless you really enjoy hurting someone. Harry will have to really enjoy killing Voldemort, if he uses the Avada Kedavra on him.
(Is anyone else as thrilled with the word-play in "Avada Kedavra" as I am? Rowling really is a master of word games.)
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Hocus Pocus is widely beleived to already be a twist on the words: HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM, which are part of the Catholic Mass (This is my body). I don't think Rowling will mess with them.
Of course we'll have to wait for (at least) the next book to find out, but I think Rowling is going to make the story get darker until the very end. I do think Harry will use an Unforgivable. That's just my bet.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I think he will use one, but not to kill Voldemort. He'll crucio someone to get information, or use the AK or imperio curse. This will be to show us he can do it.
Then we'll get to see the character development that makes him not use it on Voldemort. If he uses it to kill Voldemort, we're at the end of the story and don't get to see him redeem himself. Unless there's a whole dark side Harry thing, which would be cheap.
Again, pure speculation with no basis except a gut feeling about the pace of the narrative.
Dagonee Edit: Did not know that about Hocus Pocus. You're probably right about her avoiding it.
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The harry Potter books are very interesting but they aren't amazing. They are fun reads and good books but compared to something like Lord of the Rings or other classics, the pale in comparison. However, I can look over every flaw I find in Rowling's books when I see the lines of kids to buy her books, Anything that will get kids back into reading I'll fully support. We need more authors like her that will enthrall both young and old and show kids that there's more to life than tv
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I totally agree, Salaam. Has anyone else noticed the trend of great new series for kids since the HP series came out? My son is currently reading one about owls, which he loves.
I always loved the original Star Wars. Darth Vader was such a bad character..so evil, yet he started off with good intentions. DV was a corrupted good guy, second only to the Emperor. I loved the dynamics. I wanted to see the first three Star Wars in order to watch that transformation. I was severely disappointed--so so horribly disappointed!
I want Harry Potter to fix my Star Wars Expectations. I want Harry to become Darth Vader. I want him to kill Voldemort and glory in his power only to fail in his attempt to kill the married Ron and Hermoine. Maybe Harry can become like Darth Vader and serve under Voldemort and try to kill Neville.
Since Neville does not have the mark or the dark side in him, he can resist evil and defeat Voldemort by either killing Harry (Voldemort may have part of his reoccurring life in Harry) or returning Harry back to the right side of magic.
Wither way, I want Harry to become evil. I have never seen that done to my satisfaction, and the process of a fallen hero has always fascinated me.
Posts: 1034 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I think the Harry Potter books are truly amazing. They are so much more than children's books.
She claims that the morality of the books is a byproduct of the storyline, but the depth of the message, from racism and slavery to such basics as right and wrong, are really presented in a powerful and realistically complex way.
Whether she intended it or not, she has created a world where, since all of her readers are "muggles," we all feel the bigotry of the pure-bloods as being directed at us.
I have a theory about the Harry Potter book burnings: It isn't because the books deal with sorcery, is is because the worst of the book-burning-fundamentalists recognize themselves in the pure-bloods.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I want him to become evil, but in a different way - doing evil in a (doomed) attempt to do good. Never serving Voldemort, who, after all, killed his parents. On thing that always rang falsely with me about the DV myth was that he called himself "dark." If the hinted at reasons for the transformation are true, he sought power to do good and was corrupted. He thinks the Emperor is doing good, and the emperor is quietly gloating at how he's gotten this force for good to serve him.
It's the one bright spot in the original Shannara book, where the evil dude is killed by being forced to confront his true nature.
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While the writing itself in Harry Potter is uncomparable to that of Lord of the Rings, I love the HP universe to pieces. I think Rowling created a fantastic world with lovable and quirky characters and it's amazing that all this came from one mind. The same goes for Tolkien, of course, but I simply prefer Rowling's HP universe to that of Tolkien's.
Given the huge LoTR fan base here, I can see that many people would disagree with me, but, er- different opinions for different folks, I say! Posts: 181 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Rowling writes what she wants to write - if we happen to like it, great. But she's not writing to cater to her audience insomuch as she's writing to her own little muse.
1. Loved the "pulling a Weasely" and the entire routine with the Political Officer.
2. Ginny had to unwind at some point - given the amount of domestic chaos in her life, she was going to relax and let her natrual Weasely-ness through sooner or later.
3. I thought Sirius died because he fell into the something-something Mirror? I'd re-read the section again, but I gave my entire book collection away. Heh - any chance the dead Sirius was using a polymorph spell? Thought not.
4. Yes, James and Sirius picked on Snape in a nasty, nasty manner - but Snape wasn't an innocent victim either. In some respects, "kids will be kids" and nasty bullying seems to be a re-occuring theme until some degree of maturity sets in, be you wizard or muggle. Does that change our outlook on Dudley? Probably not.
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I'm listening to it again right now -- not because of the movies (I haven't seen any of them, I like the books better), but because it's been a year and my memory of it is fuzzy enough for me to enjoy it again
Anyway... I can understand most of Harry's mistakes... but I don't understand Dumbledore's strategy of trying to appear distant from Harry so that Voldemort won't try to hurt Harry. That doesn't make any sense -- Voldermort would know that ANY Hogwarts student taken hostage or getting hurt is going to upset Dumbledore, it wouldn't matter which one...
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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In terms of actual writing, it has many, many flaws. The plot, on the other hand, is acceptable for its target audience.
The part I enjyoed most in that book was when 'Arry used the Crucio spell. It was a break from Rowling's wonderful method of using ALL CAPS TO SHOW HOW GODAMNED ANGRY HARRY IS BECAUSE ALL HIS FRIENDS ARE HAVING FUN AND POOR HIM--HE'S SUFFERING!
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Not now. Too late. I will get the book and go through it and find some of the stuff that irked me in terms of actual technical writing.
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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The adverbs--that woman cannot leave a speech tag alone. Page 301 of Book 5--random page--we have Harry speaking "quite calmly" and "half laughing" and Hermione "anxiously" and "accusingly" and Sirius "hastily"--most of it totally unnecessary. We could have done without all of them, although leaving in "half laughing" would be fine.
There we go, that's my official Harry Potter gripe. Aside from that I'm good.
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So, Fyfe and Katharina, it sounds like you are accusing J.K. Rowling of "Said bookism." That's the technical term for a writer who can't leave a simple "said" tag alone. But really, you have to have balance. You really can't say "said" all the time without appearing dull, but neither can you be too obsessive about avoiding "said," either.
One thing that gets me is when a writer tries to compress too much into a said tag. Like:
quote:"Oh, I didn't mean to petrify you, Neville," laughed Harry.
It is really hard to say something that articulate while you are laughing. Better would be something like:
quote:Harry laughed and said, "Oh, I didn't mean to petrify you Neville."
The sequence is implied that he laughed before he spoke.
Another example:
quote:"Oh Harry, you're such a fatuous vacuole," Hermione sighed.
Did you ever try to say something while you were sighing? It is really hard to do, especially with a sentence longer than a word or two. Better would be:
quote:Hermione sighed. "Oh Harry, you're such a fatuous vacuole!"
And in that last example, you don't even have to use a said tag, because the speaker is implied.
Good fiction writers avoid using said too frequently by implying who the speaker is most of the time. Most back-and-forth dialogs, once they are established, have no said tags of any kind.
[ July 14, 2004, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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One thing the book could have used is a nasty editor with a pair of scissors. It could be cut by a good twenty percent without making a dent in the plot. And really, what's with the ellipsis? When you use... ellipsis too ... much ... the reader gets very ... annoyed.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I loved ALL of the Harry Potter books- I think book 5 could have lost about 200 pages and still told the same story but otherwise was very good. My family and I read it out loud together and we had a rule that no one could peek ahead (although it was a rule that was broken a couple of times )
I love that Harry is imperfect. I have a 14 yr old son and he gets bratty if I ground him from the PS2. Harry is a real character with real flaws. My husband seems to think Harry has real potential to go the the "dark side" - I don't think this will happen- at least not for good, JKR would have legions of heartbroken fans if Harry turned bad
but enough said- I can't wait for the next one Posts: 295 | Registered: Jul 2004
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The editing point is a good one. Many authors, once they get big enough to have some clout, will start resisting editors' cuts. It happened to Clancey in about his third book, and JKR in her fourth.
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I agree that book 5 was very hard to get through. It lacked the intensity of the other books and basically just developed personality. I thing JK Rowling is tired of Harry and needs a new idea to write about. (See the thread on the other side about OSC's changing over time.)
Posts: 277 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I absolutely loved Book 5 -- it is, in fact, the first book in which I could tolerate Harry, who's otherwise been completely insufferable -- but could not stand Book 4, nor forgive its author for the complete shambles of a plot in that sorry excuse for a novel. Plot-wise, 5 is a considerable improvement.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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"grinding their teeth so loudly that he could not hear the news"
Ambigious whom he targets. We can assume Harry, yes, but from a stylistic point, Rowling then goes on to clarify almost every vague he with an apostrophe Harry. Consistancy!
Ditto:
Two many adverbial quotes. "Scathingly, unconcernedly, et cetra."
Ditto: Liberal use of italics. Though its fine every now and then, she will go on to over use it later. Same with elipses.
Ditto: Illogical connection in paragraph with Uncle Vernon, when he's ranting about news and Dudley.
Page 3: Overuse of descriptve quotes.
Page 3: Overuse of dash. Though fine in one place, (but here it can be replaced easily by commas) contextually becomes an issue. Perhaps too night -- after a month of waiting -- would be the night
Page 3: Elipses are abused here. Every time anything intiruging is brought up...elipses.
Page 5: On top is a very weird chunk of dialogue. Snarling, italics, dashes -- oh my!
Page 5: Some more overuse of adverbial clauses.
Page 6: Again.
Page 7: Same...here.
And it goes on for the whole book.
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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I hesitate to criticize a writer who has made millions of dollars. It might be interpreted as sour grapes.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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TomDavidson, please refresh my memory to what the plot was in Book 5. Seriously, I'd like to hear your point of view. Also, I haven't been around a whole lot. Do you have a new addition to the family?
Posts: 277 | Registered: Apr 2003
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