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Thoughts about GoF and PoA
I really do read other books besides Harry Potter, I swear! I promise the next post will not mention HP at all! But we finished PoA last night, and I want to post before I forget everything.
So I kind of skipped over posting on PoA, which is my favorite and probably still is, for that awesome scene in the end with Sirius and Lupin and Harry... sigh. So, yeah, not that much to say about it, except the following: I'd always nourished a secret hope that all the silly Divination stuff in PoA was actually for real: that is, when Harry reads Ron's tealeaves and predicts a hard but ultimately happy life for him, and when Ron predicts death for Harry, those are... actually real predictions for Book 7. But my faith in this was shattered when Trelawny declares that the first to get up [from a table of thirteen] will be the first to die! Because Ron and Harry got up first from that table... and neither was the first to die. McGonagall oughtta give her a pay decrease. (I wonder what Seers do when you confront them with an obviously wrong prediction?)
This was also the book where I lost faith that Rowling had been subtly mentioning Snape's Legilimancy powers, because he doesn't seem to use them in any occasion where it would actually, you know, be useful to him, like looking into Ron or Hermione's mind (even assuming that Harry himself was good at Occlumency, which is obviously untrue) at the end.
GoF is now either my favorite or second favorite. Rowling's writing style continues to improve from book to book, and this may also be the book where the plot becomes the most convoluted and fun to follow through all the little hints she gives. And hee, I love the Hermione/Harry relationship, and I adore Krum. However, it's also where the plot Makes Even Less Rational Sense than Normal (or maybe I've just become more sensitive to these things) and where I become convinced that Voldemort is The Dumbest Dark Lord Ever. I mean, honestly, why does Moody teach Harry how to resist curses? And why doesn't he just prepare a Portkey at the beginning of the year and send Harry off? What's the point of the convolutions of the plot? And um, when you get your nemesis alone and defenseless, you don't do a wizard duel with him to prove your superiority, you kill him! And how can Voldemort not know about Priori Incantatem, when Sirius does?
At least it's got a plot, mind you. I'm not so much looking forward to the plotlessness of OotP or the half-a-plot of HBP, which reads to me like the first half of a book.
More thoughts:
-Snape shows up in "Moody's" Foe-Glass, and he does try his best to convince Fudge that Voldemort has risen. But he's even more unreasonably paranoid concerning Harry (especially for someone who knows Legilimancy!) than before. ...You know, I don't think there's any way Rowling can save Snape for me now in a way that's consistent with his actions in all the books. Unless, hm, Snape is working for himself, neither for Dumbledore or Voldemort. I might buy that.
-I predict (hope! Oh, Hermione, don't throw yourself away on Ron!) that Krum will be back in Book 7. Dumbledore all but announces it at the end.
-I really enjoyed Harry's preparing for the third task, which I'd completely forgotten about. Reminds me of high school, preparing for Science Olympiad or something nerdy like that.
-All the scenes with Diggory's parents broke my heart, even when his dad is being extremely silly, because he's so clearly proud of Cedric, and you know what's going to happen.
So I kind of skipped over posting on PoA, which is my favorite and probably still is, for that awesome scene in the end with Sirius and Lupin and Harry... sigh. So, yeah, not that much to say about it, except the following: I'd always nourished a secret hope that all the silly Divination stuff in PoA was actually for real: that is, when Harry reads Ron's tealeaves and predicts a hard but ultimately happy life for him, and when Ron predicts death for Harry, those are... actually real predictions for Book 7. But my faith in this was shattered when Trelawny declares that the first to get up [from a table of thirteen] will be the first to die! Because Ron and Harry got up first from that table... and neither was the first to die. McGonagall oughtta give her a pay decrease. (I wonder what Seers do when you confront them with an obviously wrong prediction?)
This was also the book where I lost faith that Rowling had been subtly mentioning Snape's Legilimancy powers, because he doesn't seem to use them in any occasion where it would actually, you know, be useful to him, like looking into Ron or Hermione's mind (even assuming that Harry himself was good at Occlumency, which is obviously untrue) at the end.
GoF is now either my favorite or second favorite. Rowling's writing style continues to improve from book to book, and this may also be the book where the plot becomes the most convoluted and fun to follow through all the little hints she gives. And hee, I love the Hermione/Harry relationship, and I adore Krum. However, it's also where the plot Makes Even Less Rational Sense than Normal (or maybe I've just become more sensitive to these things) and where I become convinced that Voldemort is The Dumbest Dark Lord Ever. I mean, honestly, why does Moody teach Harry how to resist curses? And why doesn't he just prepare a Portkey at the beginning of the year and send Harry off? What's the point of the convolutions of the plot? And um, when you get your nemesis alone and defenseless, you don't do a wizard duel with him to prove your superiority, you kill him! And how can Voldemort not know about Priori Incantatem, when Sirius does?
At least it's got a plot, mind you. I'm not so much looking forward to the plotlessness of OotP or the half-a-plot of HBP, which reads to me like the first half of a book.
More thoughts:
-Snape shows up in "Moody's" Foe-Glass, and he does try his best to convince Fudge that Voldemort has risen. But he's even more unreasonably paranoid concerning Harry (especially for someone who knows Legilimancy!) than before. ...You know, I don't think there's any way Rowling can save Snape for me now in a way that's consistent with his actions in all the books. Unless, hm, Snape is working for himself, neither for Dumbledore or Voldemort. I might buy that.
-I predict (hope! Oh, Hermione, don't throw yourself away on Ron!) that Krum will be back in Book 7. Dumbledore all but announces it at the end.
-I really enjoyed Harry's preparing for the third task, which I'd completely forgotten about. Reminds me of high school, preparing for Science Olympiad or something nerdy like that.
-All the scenes with Diggory's parents broke my heart, even when his dad is being extremely silly, because he's so clearly proud of Cedric, and you know what's going to happen.
I think...
I also agree with the theory (was it here that I read it or somewhere else?) that Dumbledore was already dying and just let Snape get the glory/blame for it.
I haven't retrogradely read the books for stuff from the sixth book, but I do kinda think JK is making things up as she goes. Are we to assume that all the baddies who didn't use wordless magic in Books 1-5 (can't remember the name of it right now) had their higher-level magic abilities removed along with their consciences? Et cetera.
Oh God I HOPE Krum comes back and kicks Ron's freckled butt to the curve...and now I need to go scrub my mind clean from THAT image...but yeah, Krum is a sexay beast and no mistake. I don't buy the movie's insistence that he's a mere meathead who just stares at Hermione while she does her homework. I don't think real!Hermione would put up with that. Then again, I don't think real!Hermione, the one who got Umbridge chucked into a herd of angry Centaurs and has a long history of covert manipulation/arbitration of justice, would ignore the value of improvements on potions like the HBP's. Half the time she's all gung-ho about the prince being a girl, half the time she's sulking because someone dares to suggest a way that's better than the textbook. Um, Hermione HERSELF is probably better than the textbook - why hasn't she been doing stuff like this all along? And here begins my campaign for Hersnapeone...I totally could picture them inventing new brews together and bickering over the advantages of adding another ashwinder egg to the mix...
Incidentally, I could care less about the books in print form. I've never read one all the way through except for HBP, and I was a bit bored then. It's the *audio books* that made me a fan. They're better than the movies - Jim Dale has more talent than the whole first two movie casts combined - and he makes JK's writing what it SHOULD be, that is to say, a really fantastic story with inflection and emotion.
Well, now that this comment is longer than your original post, maybe I'll just shut up now...:-D
Re: I think...
YES, Rowling is clearly making stuff up as she goes, and it happens so often that it really shouldn't bother me... but it does, because there are other things (the Horcruxes, I think? Dumbledore's Legilimancy) that she *does* foreshadow several books in.
Hm, well, it'll be a while before we get to HBP, but I had the impression that Hermione was mostly worried about Harry using the book to, basically, cheat. Also, I'm not sure Hermione is as good at improvising as she is at research. That being said... Hermione/Snape always seems a little icky to me. Though have you read Beekeeper's Apprentice? :) (Or were you one of the seventeen billion people who told me I had to read it?)
I should check out the audiobooks... So far OotP has been like pulling teeth, what with rebellious!Harry and Uninformative-For-No-Reason!EverybodyElse.