The rest of my thoughts on HBP

[petronia]

I stayed up til 6 reading it. So the following may be relatively incoherent. =_=

Don't listen to the Pet Shop Boys while reading Harry Potter. Now I have "In The Night" stuck in my head:

Snapey-poo, what you're gonna do?
There's a lot of people coming for you
Snapey-poo, comment allez-vous?
A knock on the door in the night

Now everybody's under somebody's spell
Unless they've already gone to hell
In the streets you can hear the people say
That Snape, he should be locked away!

A thin line between love and crime and collaboration indeed.

HBP is better than OotP on two counts: 1) the plot, editing and page count are much tighter, and 2) no Dolores Umbridge. I've never been able to decide whether this was a success or a failure of Rowling as a writer, but I'm unable to re-read most of the HP series because her minor villains are so good at annoying me that to derive any enjoyment from the re-read I'd have to skip half the book. However my feelings for Umbridge are way past annoyance and into the territory of "despise and loathe". I think what she did to Harry was child abuse and if she's well enough not to be institutionalised in St. Mungo should be institutionalised in Azkaban for it instead. I don't want to see more of her, period. She was there for 30 seconds in HBP and it was 30 seconds too many.

Whether or not you find this book boring in stretches is completely dependant on how fond you are of the core Gryffindors - not that that's not always the case, but JKR has cut down hugely on the quaint extraneities of Hogwarts life and the wizarding world at large, correctly assuming that at this point no one cares. So the book became 60% plot and 40% predictable het shipping. Personally I was not much bothered, because I am fond of the core Gryffindors. In Ron's case I actually like him best when he's being a retard over Hermione, rather than when he's having attacks of nerves over Quidditch or feeling inferior vis-a-vis Harry, and I like the latter development of Ginny because she basically turned into the Draco/Ginny shippers' grownup!Ginny who is my favorite fanon version thereof, except of course she didn't get together with Draco. XD Also there was exactly zero active boy/girl drama happening around me when I was a teenager, so I read this kind of stuff like a charmingly unreal social comedy rather than a yawn-inducingly accurate depiction of the callow high school dating scene. (I imagine it's accurate because Rowling is spot-on regarding all other aspects of high school life.) However even people who find said 40% boring should be (semi) cheered by Draco's abrupt acquisition of (semi) competence, not to mention a sensitive angsty side. Draco/Myrtle is my new OTP.

Unrelatedly, there was just enough Luna for the reader to wish there were more.

On the other hand: Remus/Tonks. *groans, back of hand dramatically covering forehead* I am staying away from the Entity Known As Harry Potter Fandom, but I can hear the conspiracy theorists from here to tomorrow. No, you fools, Rowling is not plotting to undermine t3h slash, she likes Lupin and doesn't want him to be utterly miserable, so she made him up a girlfriend. I would find this motive uber-cheesy no matter which author did it to which character (and JKR's hardly the first in history). However I find it difficult to argue against the charitable impulse per se, as Dumbledore was Lupin's last emotional support and now he's stuck with the second worst job in the universe after Snape's. Why doesn't anyone talk about that plot point, that Lupin's now living and spying among the werewolves? Dealing with the psychopath who knowingly and maliciously infected him?

This is the first book where I was actually bothered by something heavy Slytherin favourers have been frothing about for ages, namely that the Gryffindors are let off lightly when they misbehave, both literally and in the court of authorial intent/opinion. There was that bit where Ginny hexes a boy just for being annoying, and gets herself invited to dinner as reward; the bit where Hermione sabotages Ron's opposition during the Quidditch trials (I'd thought better of her); and of course Harry and Draco's bathroom fiasco. (I should probably find another way to phrase that.) Harry used a spell of unknown provenance on a classmate that had the effect of cutting him down with a sword - that merits more than detention, even by Hogwarts standards. By the way, I have to ask, these kids are in school learning spells for six years and they still haven't grasped the fundamentals of fake!Latin? What would you expect to happen if you yelled "Sectumsempra!" at a person?

Tom Marvolo Riddle: Portrait of a Sociopath. This was suspenseful, very well done, and I can't think of another instance where it was done in a children's novel, unless we count manga like Death Note (which everyone agrees is not typical shounen manga anyhow). None of this is new or shocking material to people (like me) who enjoy reading books and manga about totally psycho evil characters, but all the backstory at least helps turn Voldie from a one-dimensional villain into a two-dimensional one, like Raito. XD Unlike Raito, however, Tom Riddle thinks like the kind of serial killer who does his victims in ritually and keeps bits of them as souvenirs.

It becomes clear in this book that Dumbledore didn't and probably never has mentally placed Harry on the level of a student, more of a very, er, young adult and junior colleague - whether this was "right" of him is another question. Starting from when they went after the Horcrux I had a string of inappropriate "...Tolkien?" moments (as well as an inappropriate "...Spiderman?" moment), but there's no doubt the end was effective and moving. I cried, actually, though at 5AM after hours of straight reading it's difficult to tell whether one's emotionally affected or one's eyesight has given out. What set me off was not Dumbledore's death and funeral, but Fleur's hospital scene with Bill.

Finally, let us make something clear: Snape is not really evil. ^^; The book is of course carefully written so one can read it either way. However, this point impacts everything to date about the series and beyond, to wit:

* If Snape is evil, then the moral of the story is that there is no smoke without fire, an obvious build-up of incriminating charges leads to an obvious conclusion of guilt, and one would be foolish and naive to believe otherwise.

* If Snape is not evil, then the moral of the story is to have hope for humanity and always grant second chances, because the truth might not be what it overwhelmingly appears to be on the surface.

Which sounds more like the Harry Potter books to you?

Comments

[fantabulous.livejournal.com]

I cried as well while reading the chapter about the Phoenix Lament, and apparently, I also thought of Mithrandir. :-/

Fleur totally threw me for a loop. I laughed at Ginny's nickname for her, but she dropped a bomb on everyone in the end, eh? *wink* Score one for Fleur!

And yay! Yet another person who believes that Snape is not really evil! *cheers* w00t. (Drabble to that effect coming shortly.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Fleur totally threw me for a loop too. ^^

See, if Snape were evil all the effort spent by these books plumbing the depths of his character would be kind of pointless. "Here we have evidence that he's not a nice person. And here we have evidence that he hated all these people. And here we have evidence that he's a Death Eater. And... he's evil all right. Yup." I mean, if all there were to establish about Snape was that he was evil, JKR established that about Bellatrix Lestrange in three paragraphs and I still believed her.

[tochira.livejournal.com]

Yes, let's hear it for Remus J. Lupin, who has got to be one of the toughest characters of all-- he damn well deserves /something/ warm and fuzzy after putting up with four books of shit from every quarter. XD That description of his 'assignment' gave me the willies something awful, more than the lake of zombiefishes. I most certainly do hope someone (many someones) attempts to do that justice in detail.

As for 'the moral of the story being...', I'm not really sure what to think at this point. There are moral points, and at the same time there aren't, but I'm not really interested in backing up a full-blown argument either way, so I think I'm going to sit back and see what each side comes up with in its favor. And then I'll pick what makes me happiest and go with it. XDDDDDDD

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

I completely agree on the R/T thing. I think it is far too conspiracy minded to think that JKR is socking it to the R/S shippers... If she hated the fans, she would obviously kill off Draco. Actually, I was shocked at how...competent Draco was. No one talks about the Lupin plot point because it is so sketched in. Actually, I'm surprised that no one is talking about the fact that according to Harry we're jettisoning the boarding school aspect and just going to straight epic fantasy mode. Don't know if Harry will actually carry this through, but still.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I was amused at the convergence between canon!Draco and fanon!Draco. XD (When Myrtle starting spouting off about this poor boy who would come to the bathroom to cry secretly I was like "...Draco?" Then I said to myself No wait, this is canon we're talking about here and Draco has no dimensionality, it must be Neville or somebody. XD) Sketched in as in sketchy? I thought it was filled in enough for people to write tons and tons of disturbing werewolf!fic, anyway. >_> My sister was very excited about Harry jettisoning the boarding school aspect. I told her I didn't believe it and he'll end up coming back to Hogwarts because there is a giant McGuffin buried somewhere on the grounds again. XD More to the point if it does go to straight epic fantasy mode I don't see how she can prevent it from becoming bog-standard fetchquesting, what with the Horcruxes and all.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Sketchy in the sense that it's just exposition and we don't see much. Greyback will clearly have a larger role later. I think we can look forward to a wolf fight.

Yes, I mean, don't you think if Rowling really had it in for fandom and was being petty, she would strike hard and the Draco fans rather than the mostly harmless R/S shippers?

Heh, I don't really believe it either, but the thought of him visiting Godric's Hollow is at least interesting. But the Horcruxes pretty much are terribly bog-standard? white_serpent was telling me that someone accused JKR of biting from Cassandra Claire on them. XD Geh, I never thought I'd need to say this, but people need to read more crappy fantasy novels.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how Rowling would lash out if she really had it in for fandom, actually. XD For all you know R/S offends her idea of the characters most. But I don't believe she's antagonistic toward fandom at all so much as dismissive/amused/yeah okay whatever sell fifty gazillion copies of your book and you're bound to get a few kooks. She's probably encountered some fannish attitudes and theories she thought were completely nutty if not a bit shocking (and how to argue with that XD), but IMO the core audience Rowling has in mind has never been the online adult HP fic/meta fandom but the 12-year-old kids going "Hagrid is cool! Aww Ron and Hermione love!" which is how it should be. She's not going to hijack her own series in order to respond to the fringe.

Scratch crappy fantasy novels, people need to start with Tolkien re the "dark lord hiding part of self away in a separate object in order to cheat death" trope. =_=

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much. It would be pretty dumb to make all her 100 million other readers go WTF to piss off 500 of them. It probably all is a blur of WTF to her. XD I don't think I would care if I sold that much (although I'm actually in fandom, so I expect anything and everything). Indeed the meta audience is not the intended one.

XD True, but it is easier to read a crappy fantasy novel than Tolkien. Besides, does the LoTR fandom really need more lunatics?

[sodzilla.livejournal.com]

*grins* By all accounts, one of the things she found nutty and shocking was fans liking Snape. Apparently she modelled him on her ex-husband, and when people started asking questions about his background and whatnot she was like "huh? how can anyone find this man appealing?"

Oh, and about the Snape not being evil because that would ruin the moral of the books... am sadly not that sure if that IS the moral of the books, or just what JKR wants to claim is the moral. It seems to me that the characters talk a lot about making choices between good and evil, but with the possible exception of Sirius, what we're SHOWN is that the matter is predestined.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

...But then she should understand? I mean, she married him once, didn't she? XD;;

I think the thesis is something like, "There are usually very strong forces (family, friends, tradition, personality) predisposing people one way or another, and most people just go the direction of least resistance, but choice isn't impossible." I suppose it just wouldn't be as dramatic/suspenseful if the odds weren't shown to be overwhelmingly stacked against people like Sirius or Snape. ^^;

[deepfryerfire.livejournal.com]

I didn't cry, but I did get up after finishing the book and make myself a giant bowl of ice cream. Which didn't work, because I'm not really a stress eater and never have been, but it seemed appropriate.

[joliefolie.livejournal.com]

Wow, glad I'm not the only one who thought that Umbridge's detention activities were child abuse.

High school het love: Unfortunately, more or less accurate (equivalent of walking into common room and unable to avoid couples wrapped around eachother included, made even worse when it's IN FRONT OF YOUR LOCKER). I'm only surprised there wasn't more of it back in books 2-3 because at my school, the twelve/thirteen-year-olds sure were at it.

About Snape... I beg to differ. We shall see... we shall see...

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, last I checked intentionally making students bleed = not so ethical.

Haha you know who else said exactly that about couples in front of lockers? Cassie Claire. XDDD

[issen4.livejournal.com]

What would you expect to happen if you yelled "Sectumsempra!" at a person?

I know zero Latin, but even I guessed that it was likely to be a messy and painful spell. ^^

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Re: sociopaths in children's books, "Killing Mr. Griffin" by Lois Duncan. Only that was less about motivations and more about how good at controlling people sociopaths are, basically a handbook for how not to be duped. I really think Duncan wrote it as a public service.

Did you read Tamora Pierce's Lioness books? It used to annoy me that the motivation for every major villain was insanity. What are the odds that in a group of a half-dozen conspirators, all of them are nuts? but anyway.

Does Griffindor get off lighter than the other houses? It seems like every day at Hogwarts students in all of the Houses are using magic to do harmful malicious things. That bothered me more before the "other side has magic too" line in the first chapter -- now I just figure it's a measure of how routine magic is to wizards, that they see malicious curses as no worse than, say, spreading nasty rumors. Which is what made Hermione's actions so shocking, because you'd expect her to be more aware of what constitutes misuse.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking about that: how the wizarding world seems to be a lot more laissez-faire about minor physical harm to their children in general. It's not just things like kids causing each other to turn green and spout worms in school corridors, but Quidditch, for instance - a sport that if you think about it is fairly barbaric, what with the other team constantly aiming balls at you capable of cracking your skull and causing you to fall several stories. ^^; I suppose in contrast to the North American middle-class overprotective attitude I'm used to? Or because things like minor hexes and even broken bones are easily mended?

I think Gryffindor (well, more like Harry and his friends) does occasionally get off more lightly than they should. But I think what rankles for a lot of people is that you-the-reader are not supposed to think badly of Harry & co. for misbehaving, you're supposed to feel it justified (by the Slytherin taunts, say) or chalk it up to youthful high spirits.

[re-miel.livejournal.com]

Few of my own thoughts:
1). Narcissa and Bellatrix walked in straight out of the fanfics. In fact, after this book I am convinced that either Rowling reads fanfics, or there is a wavelength in collective subconsciousness that anyone trying to channel HP automatically tunes to.
2). Harry is so obviously the seventh Horcrux.
3). I resent the way the Half-Blood Prince mystery was written. The vital data (Eileen Prince and who is her son) wasn't revealed until the very end, there was NO way to deduce it for oneself.
4). Bill and Fleur: mwa-ha-ha-ha. You wouldn't believe how much that amused me. I happened to have played Bill Weasley at a big HP LARP in Russia, with a best friend of mine playing Fleur. And she is not quite THAT blond, but getting there. This book amused us both to no end.

And now some...
[SPOILERS]

While I agree, that the book is written so that Snape's behaviour in the end can be read off either way, I must also add that it hasn't been a success at that:
1). A row between Snape and Dumbledor which Hagrid relates to Harry. It is written so that if Snape is good, it is about him being resentful about having to kill Dumbledor, and if Snape is bad, it is about him working for Dumbledor. But the last makes no sense, as if he really meant to quit working for Dumbledor, he would never be stupid enough to mention it to him, leave alone have a row about it.
2). The death scene. Dumbledor pleads and Snape kills him in silent angst. But Dumbledor would never plead *for his life*, while Snape would never kill someone he really does hate without a thorough verbal lashing accompanying the process.
3). "Kill me like you killed him, you coward - " "DON'T -" screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping,
howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them - "CALL ME COWARD!"
4). When he was giving unbreakable oath to Narcissa, the only time he twitched was when he was asked "to finish the job, if Draco seems as if he would fail".
And so on, and so on. You will see it yourself on the second reading, when you pay attention, there is too much evidence, to even consider Snape really being evil.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

1) I think the channel is harder to tune out of than tune into. XD It's good to know JKR isn't completely tone-deaf when it comes to creating a "fanficky" villain. XD

2) Yup.

3) But you're told it's not the Marauders, and it could hardly be some unknown character with no relevance to the plot, so it's either Snape or Tom Riddle. And she's hardly going to do the Tom Riddle's old book thing again.

4) I can well imagine. *g*

As for Snape, I found it quite obvious for textual reasons as well. But I would say well more than half the fannish responses I've read so far are by people convinced Snape really has been revealed to be evil, or very shaken in their faith that he is not. (And perhaps, many of them think it would be more interesting if he were. Shake it up a little and all.)

[two-if-by-sea.livejournal.com]

*gruffly* I think you're too smart for your own good. or something.

[inarikami.livejournal.com]

I'm fantabulously late to this, but I've just gotten around finishing the book. ^^

"Bzuh?" on the uproar of people thinking Snape to be evil. I think there's nearly *actual* textual evidence of him being on Dumbledore's side. Even if chap. 2 is fantastic in it's fanficcy ambigous ways making the reader stop and think "What if he really is..?" But still, the secret conversation between DD & Snape, DD asking *specifically* for Snape as they get back to H. with Harry are all evidence for Snape's loyalty in my book. When DD said "Severus...please", my mind immediately put the "kill me" after the sentence and am convinced of this being the case ever since.

Also, yeah, this is HP we're talking about. JKR might allow for a lot of twists, but she still keeps "The moral of this story is.." thing going. Although I'd love to see the opposite ending as well. (Even though the fandom would implode, then collapse in itself and finally leave a terrifying black hole in its wake at that one. XDD)

But then, I'm also terribly fond of the "Harry's the seventh Horcrux and has to die to defeat Voldy" theory. :)

[inarikami.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I forgot, great Raito - Riddle comparison. *slaps forehead* I KNEW Tom's behaviour was somehow familiar... XDD (and OMG do I rabu Raito. I'm rooting for him to pwn the whole bunch, which is so far so good. XD)