Rowling to kill off Harry?

[Tb0ne]

Neo = Harry Potter

Mr. Smith = Voldemort

Harry Potter + Voldemort = Both dying at the end of the book, and 'ending Voldemort's evil forever by the sacrifice of someone good'.

That's what I'm betting, but I could be way off if there are new hints as I havn't read the latest book.

[Maia]

Sorry. He's not. I've read a number of explanations that try to find a rationale that proves his actions are good. I've not been able to buy any of them. You don't kill someone, especially Dumbledore, without being bad. Nothing else makes sense.

What have you done with our fellow ASOIAF reader, veteran of several boards ? Harry nearly killed DD by feeding him that icky potion, and we have seen how DD brought him to do this. I mean, you don't seriously think that the potion wasn't fatal, right? And we were carefully shown in this very book how you need a sample (which they didn't bother to take) and sometimes a lot of time to make an antidote. And told that some poisons have none. Morever what was the rush? Why did DD recklessly drink the stuff instead of thinking on it some more and coming back equipped with a load of antidotes, etc. Face it, DD didn't intend to survive the experience for very long.

For Albus to have in the works such a long range plan that involved his death, a triple agent, the ability to predict to some degree the circumstnaces of his death, and how would give an opportunity to win the war with Voldemort. If this is the case then even in the last book Dumbledore would not truely be gone but would instead be still guiding the actions Harry and others through whatever his plan would be. Dumbledore's death would be robed of its significance and the story would not truely be Harry's.

What's the obsession with having the hero doing everything by himself, while the worthless world sits on its hands in awe and waits to be saved? IMHO, that would be totally yawn-inducing. Do you feel that Frodo's role was diminished because he continued with Gandalf's plan or because it took other characters heroically doing their bit to give him his chance? Would it have been a better tale if super-Frodo came up with everything on his own and then duelled Sauron mano-y-mano?

Furthermore, we have spent much of book 6 seeing that Dumbledore is far from infalliable. While brave and wise he makes mistakes, misjudges people, and is generally, while certainly of the highest quality, still very human. If he has been able to lay down long range plans such as would be the case with most of the Snape is good senarios, then this character development in the last book would overturned.

Oh, he is quite fallible. I mean, all the previous books plots were possible mainly because of his fallibility, right? Because he'd allow various disguised or open nasties a free run of his school or his secret organization. But it is one thing to be fallible and another to depict that giving people second chances is completely stupid, because they'd only turn and stab you in the back. Or that people who dislike the hero have to be villains. I am quite sure that DD's emotional mistake will play a big role in part 7 - but personally I think that it consisted of letting the hatred between Harry and Snape to get out of all bounds and keeping some unreasonable secrets. IMHO, that will come very near destroying whatever plans DD has laid for LV's defeat.

To answer the previous posters - yes, the books have enough plotholes to let huge trains zoom back and forth and the main villain is utterly dim, but setting and characters do have a certain charm. I didn't like the early books much (stupid plots and boundless wish-fulfillement), but IMHO the later books go into the right direction, getting ever darker and more realistic, so I have become something of a fan.

[Ealasaid]

i've long believed that Harry must die.

I feel the same. She's been leading toward this end for 3-4 books now. She's not exactly a complex writer, so the development toward this outcome has been fairly transparent. I'm not trashing Rowling, btw - just pointing out that her plotlines are relatively easy to figure out. Like this last book. I think it's pretty obvious that

SPOILER: just in case

Dumbledore is not dead and that Snape is not 'evil'

I agree with your spoiler. It was just too neat in that last battle.

[Mentat]

I think the "Harry is the last Horcrux" theory sounds very nice, but I'm not at all sure about it. Voldemort seems much too intent on killing Harry at the end of Goblet. From Harry's conversation with Dumbledore about Horcruxes, it seems all seven of them were intentional (and required a long and complicated process to make), so I don't think he's a "botched Horcrux" (a rather cheating concept) either.

I always read Snape's murder of Dumbledore as an attempt to protect Draco, both from actually doing the deed (which he may have been incapable of) and from being killed by the other Death Eaters. Dumbledore was dead anyway (either by the poison or just killed by another Deatheater), so I see Snape's murder of him more as a sacrifice both him and Snape are willing to make. And I'm positive Dumbledore is dead by the way.

Ginny is like a piece of sand paper on a sun burn. Seriously! She's the Kelly Kapowski of Hogwarts!

Too true. I don't buy the Neville love either, he's the kind of character a writer who was trying to do Sam Tarly (who's irritating enough of his own accord already) but lacked the talent would come up with.

mentat

[Baeraad]

I've developed a bit of a fear of expressing my opinion about HP, because it's an opinion almost no one shares, and people tend to tell me so in no uncertain terms, but what the hell. Let's pretend I've got a spine.

Rowling deals with racism? Yeah, let's take a look at that. The wizarding world would symbolise Western society, then, and the Muggleborn would be immigrants from non-Western countries - hence Malfoy's remark about "they don't understand our ways." Yes? And it's wrong to be prejudiced against immigrants, and so on and so forth.

This would make the Muggle world stand for the immigrants' countries of origin. Now, how is the Muggle world viewed? With utter condescension. With shameless and (and to me, this makes it worse) good-natured contempt. Muggles are stupid, pathetic, obsessed with boring and unimportant things like computer games and drills (whereas wizards are obsessed with cool, interesting things like Quidditch and broomsticks - don't ask me how that's better, but Rowling apparently expects me to think it is). It's wrong to dislike them, because they're too weak and easily handled to ever do you any harm.

So the reason you shouldn't be prejudiced against Muggleborns is that Malfoy is completely wrong - the Muggleborn will very soon adjust completely to their new world, which they will realise is utterly superior to their old life, and cheerfully abandon all nasty traces of Muggle-ness.

Tell me again how Rowling is against racism?

Then there's feminism. Am I the only one who's noticed that while the female characters are usually more intelligent and efficient than the male ones, it's the male characters who're important? Herminone is a friendless bitch before Harry's benevolent influence turns her into a real person. Yes, she's smarter than him, but her big purpose in the books is to help him succeed. And of course, she herself admits that intelligence and hard work (both of which he's allergic to) is worth soooooo much less than courage (which he has... though I'd personally call it "arrogance" or "stupidity," but whatever).

Umbridge and Bellatrix are the two best villains in the series, much better than their respective masters, Fudge and Voldemort - but who's in charge of who? Olympia is head mistress of a wizarding school and Hagrid is a teacher who on a good day manages not to get his students brutally savaged, but who has the courage to admit his half-giant heritage?

And Ginny Weasley. Oh, Rowling put work into making this one a character in her own right, I don't deny it. A bit too much work, actually, because here, for once, I'm not entirely alone - even some HP fans seems to have found it all a bit heavy-handed. But never mind. Let's take a look at what she does instead. Having a lot of different boyfriends. Taking up her brothers' role as school hellraiser. Controlling boys. Imitating boys. Pah, I say - at least Herminone does have some kind of non-boy-related goals, even if we're expected to laugh at her when she pursues them.

Feminism? I just don't see it.

Oh, and by the way, there are female characters who're old and single? Sorry, but... prove it. Teachers don't count, we know nothing of their personal lives - any one of them could have a dozen grandchildren for all we know. No, sorry, middle-aged female characters who exist to be love interests to middle-aged male characters don't count, either.

I'm sorry, but no way, no how, can I imagine anyone in Rowling's world, male or female, being single and happy with that - not unless they're psychopaths like Voldemort (everyone knows that devoted bachelors are evil, after all). If they're above a certain age, they're either married with children or they have some kind of angsty reason for why they're not. Their True Love died and they couldn't imagine being with anyone else. They're too shy and socially awkward to meet someone. Or something. Being single is, one way or another, a tragedy for any non-evil character. Yes, yes, I admit that I can't prove this, but I can practically guarantee it. This is how people like Rowling think.

And then, finally, we have the "they're children's books" argument. People always throw that one at me once they get sick of my complaining. They're children's books, so of course everyone who doesn't like our hero is evil. They're children's books, so of course they're going crazy with the wish-fulfilment. They're children's books, so of course reason and realism are sacrificed in favour of cheap gags. They're children's books, and that, somehow, excuses everything.

But you know something? I like A Series of Unfortunate Events. I like Prydain. I like Redwall. I like Tiffany Aching. I like Inkheart. And you know what else? I liked the first three Harry Potter books!

Well, I did. They were silly and fluffy and you didn't have to take them seriously. I thought the misdirection about who the bad guy was was nicely done. And while the third book ended in a huge anticlimax, for the bulk of it, Rowling manages to make the presence of Sirius Black pervade every scene without even showing him to the reader.

I don't have a problem with children's books, I have a problem with this unholy hybrid that Rowling has turned her books into and that her fans are praising as her making the books "more mature." You want to write children's books, be my guest. You want to write grownup books that deal with more challenging issues, then again, be my guest - but then deal with them, admit that your hero isn't pure good and everyone who's against him (or indeed, with him but for the wrong reason) isn't stupid and/or evil, admit that real people tends to want things other than a family and that this doesn't make them bad people, admit, all in all, that things aren't that simple.

Oh, and just to finish (because if experience is any guide, I'm going to get ripped to shreds here, so I might as well deserve it), when Terry Goodkind uses "the power of love" as an all-powerful defence against supposedly foolproof magic, people laugh and mock him. But Rowling gets away with it. Rowling gets away with everything, and even people I know to be allergic to bad fiction praise her as a genius. And meanwhile, all I see is a series that contains almost every single cliché I've come to hate with fantasy, marinated in mediocre writing and narrow-minded, humourless moral platitudes. I just don't understand it.

[Mercury Poisoning]

Baeraad, we could really get along.

[CelticBrennus]

Amen

[Errant Bard]

Baeraad

[Seventh Pup]

Oh, and just to finish (because if experience is any guide, I'm going to get ripped to shreds here, so I might as well deserve it), when Terry Goodkind uses "the power of love" as an all-powerful defence against supposedly foolproof magic, people laugh and mock him. But Rowling gets away with it. Rowling gets away with everything, and even people I know to be allergic to bad fiction praise her as a genius. And meanwhile, all I see is a series that contains almost every single cliché I've come to hate with fantasy, marinated in mediocre writing and narrow-minded, humourless moral platitudes. I just don't understand it.

I do not know if you have visited the Goodkind thread recently, but I assure you Goodkind using "the power of love" is not the reason people mock the Yeardi. Why mock the power of love when you have an evil chicken that is not a chicken, noble goats, and a hero who is the pinnacle of morality and yet can still kick an unarmed 8 year old girl to death?

Rowlings work has a ton of cliché's in it, but at least to many people it is still fun to read. Her world is interesting, fun and invites the imagination to stop and stay a while. I think they are great transition books for young readers, or fun books for adults. But hey each to his own.

[davos]

What have you done with our fellow ASOIAF reader, veteran of several boards ?

Oh, I'm here and as cynical and questions as ever. Rowling is no Martin though and Harry Potter is no ASOIAF in terms of the depth of the schemes or the level of the buried secrets and misdirections. Not saying that HP is not as good as ASOIAF since I enjoy both (though I could certainly do so, just not my point here), just that JKR is writing for a much younger audience. As such the books are just going to be different and one needs to approach them as such. While HP has had its plot twists and hidden truths (and I'm certain will have many more in the next book), there is a much greater chance that a cigar will just be a cigar and buried surprises are not as likely to twist back on themselves in wicked contortions. While she's made some nice moves and has had some wonderful depth, she tends to keep things on the simplier side, at least compared to a such a powerful brew as ASoIaF.

Snape has been suspected by the 3 big names on several occasions during first 5 books. On each of those occasions there turned out to be that they were, because they lacked a lot of information and made numerious assumptions based on their opinion of the potions master, dead wrong and that Snape was acting in the better interest. We see the same pattern repeat itself in book 6 with Harry and his friends coming to believe that Snape is up to something very bad indeed. At the climatic scene, when Snape appears and we would expect, based on the previous pattern, for him to intervene to save the day. Instead, to the surprise of almost everyone, he kills Dumbledore. It feels like Rowling has been setting us up for this surprise, to expect Snape to be good and end up doing the right thing despite Harry's suspicions and have the expection knocked out from under us. This is a pretty major surprise and it doesn't feel congruent with the rest of the series if she was then to twist things back on themselves and make Snape still be a good guy, albeit a rather dark one.

Not only that but there is the fact that Snape contenanced, if not aided Draco bringing in Deatheaters to Hogwarts. While willing to sacrifice his own life, I can not believe that Dumbledore would allow something to go forward that would put the children under his charge in very real danger, wich the raid certainly did. If Dumbledore had the kind of foreknowledge of what was happening and was willingly walking to his death as is implied by may of the Snape apologists then I can not but believe that he would have done everything in his power to stop it.

Why did DD recklessly drink the stuff instead of thinking on it some more and coming back equipped with a load of antidotes, etc. Face it, DD didn't intend to survive the experience for very long.

This is an arguement that I can't directly counter. Dumbledore clearly new that he wasn't likely long for this world but that doesn't mean he was privy to the specifics of his death. Maybe he knew there was no antidote. Maybe he was afraid that once they broke into the cave that Voldemort would be aware of what had happened. As such there might not be an opportunity to find a antidote and return. Or maybe there is an antidote available and was expecting to be able to get back in time to use it. Its hard to say from the info we have.

What's the obsession with having the hero doing everything by himself, while the worthless world sits on its hands in awe and waits to be saved?

I'm not arguing its what I would prefer, I'm arguing from the contest both of this specific story and the from the literary conventions. HP is very much of an archtypical coming of age story, though a long and rather complex one. Usually in this type of story when the mentor has to die for the hero to be able to come into his own. The Lord of the Rings is a different type of story and one would not expect it to follow that path. I'm not saying that JKR can't vary from the archtype but there are reasons we see those archtypical stories appear again and again. Unless she is very skillful indeed if the victory is ultimately Dumbledore's and Harry is just a pawn in that plan (instead of Harry finding the path to victory through his own wits with maybe some aid that Dumbledore planted along the way) the the story looses some of its resonance.

I do acknowledge that there is a case for Snape not being evil. In fact it appears that much of the dedicated fanbase has come to believe just that. I'm arguing that there are compelling reasons to believe just the opposite.

[Lint]

no offense, but what the hell are you doing on a George RR Martin forum?

For the same reason everyone else is, I'm a Martin fan. I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I love the Potter series and that I'm invested in the story and characters. I get emotionally attached to everything that I read and love.

I realize the writing differences and style between Rowling and Martin, and I can appreciate what each author has created in their own respective worlds.

Just because I like me some serious stuff doesn't mean I cannot enjoy the fun stuff. I like Last of the Mohicans but I also like Sweet Home Alabama.

(I agree with you Davos)

[Merentha]

Baeraad, here is the odd part. I intellectually agree with your argument. I understand it, I've made it, and think you are completely right. And yet, I still like the books. I don't know why.

[Gertrude]

Yup - the book's not great work of literature, but I find them to be charming (especially the first ones). How can you not like chocolate frogs and pumpkin juice?

The later ones lack the innocent charm that I fell in love with, but the story is still compelling and I care about the characters. That's all I need to enjoy these books. I forgive them their more glaring faults because I get more enjoyment from the good stuff, than annoyance with the bad.

[MeanMrMustard]

Noam Chomsky once wrote that we have lost our humanity if we are even willing to enter into debate over the Nazi crimes with those who deny or defend them.

In this analogy, Harry Potter is the literary Holocaust.

[Mentat]

I personally enjoyed the Harry Potter books. I agree they aren't great classics of modern literature, but they're entertaining enough to make me want to read them. While I can certainly understand other people not liking them, I find your reasons not to really weird Baeraad.

Feminism and Racism? Why would these important social issues be given a treatment that was anything else than superficial and downwatered in a series of books that (adult-oriented or not) certainly pretend to be nothing else than mind-numbing escapist fantasy?

A completely different issue is that children books (and only children books mind you, not adult oriented fantasy) should try to get through a series of positive values to children (like sharing, being nice to other people, not bullying weaker children etc.). I personally don't feel the first Harry Potter books do too badly at this, though it's not really much of a concern to me, since I'm not a child and I read the books for my own pleasure, not to educate anyone.

Do you really think the books are racist or male-chauvinist? Or do you just think they fail at addressing issues like feminism or racism? If it's the former then I think you need to make more of case towards this, if the latter then I agree with you, but I was never expecting to find these issues addressed in such books myself (and probably would have avoided them if they did, I like my escapist fantasy social-issue-free).

You also have a weird intake on some aspects of the book:

- Wizards are superior to Muggles. They have magic powers and we don't. Although some Wizards seem to be technologically moronic this isn't always necesarily the case, as characters brought up in a Muggle environment like Harry or Hermione prove. The relationship between Muggles and Wizards is thus a bad parallel to the relationship between blacks and whites, for instance. In a real world scenario, either the Muggles would exterminate the wizards out of fear and jealousy, or the wizards would emerge as a powerful ruling class with Muggles as their thralls. In the second scenario, technology would probably not be allowed to develop beyond a very basic level. In the books wizards keep to themselves, so JKR can mantain a real world setting. The reason she gives "because otherwise everybody would want a magical solution to their problems" I agree is feeble (it's like doctors secluding themselves because people would want a medical solution to their injuries), but I understand how the setting demands it.

- The contempt that some pure-blood wizards feel for muggle-born ones I always took to be a reflection of the "old versus new aristocracy" (now completely dated, of course) issue we can see in so many historical novels and films than somehow related to racism or immigration.

- Umbridge and Bellatrix are not the best antagonist characters in the book, Voldemort and Snape are (I'll not argue if Snape is good or bad, but he does play the antagonist role in many of the books, this is undisputable). Umbridge stars in the fifth HP book (which is the only one I really didn't like at all), and Bellatrix doesn't have the importance, power, scene-time, charisma or anything that Voldemort has. While this is only my opinion against yours I'm pretty sure a HP poll amongst the readers would second it.

- HP is set in a school, as such the characters that appear are mostly either students, teachers or parents. Students are minors, parents are married (I agree single and divorced parents aren't represented in the books, but I personally didn't miss them either) and teachers are left undefined. In HP most adult characters are defined because of their role in the book, which is linked to their role in the school, i.e. their job. Their personal relations are left out of it. Thus we ignore if McGonagal is married or not (although we certainly get no reference to either spouse or children...), but it really has no relevance to the plot, and thus I don't really care about it at all. Other adult characters outside the school are defined either because of their sons (Rons parents, Malfoys parents...), or because of their jobs (Minister of Magic, tavern-keeper...), which is quite usual and normal for the setting. I'm afraid this:

I'm sorry, but no way, no how, can I imagine anyone in Rowling's world, male or female, being single and happy with that - not unless they're psychopaths like Voldemort (everyone knows that devoted bachelors are evil, after all). If they're above a certain age, they're either married with children or they have some kind of angsty reason for why they're not. Their True Love died and they couldn't imagine being with anyone else. They're too shy and socially awkward to meet someone. Or something. Being single is, one way or another, a tragedy for any non-evil character. Yes, yes, I admit that I can't prove this, but I can practically guarantee it. This is how people like Rowling think.

seems rather rantish to me, and I don't agree with it at all.

Finally the target audience of the books. I think we can agree the first HP book was children targeted. I don't think Rowling had expected adults to start reading it and liking it too, but they did. The series then starts to move from purely children oriented to young adult oriented (but surely not an "unholy hibrid"...). I'm sure we can agree that HP is not written for adults. Any adult picking it up must be aware it is either a childrens book (if it's the first two), or a young adult book (if it's any of the others). Rowling is aware that many adults read her books, and I would be more than ready to concede that this somehow influences her writing, but it still keeps itself enough in the young adult area in my opinion (though you must consider that the young adults of today are much more aware of many things than 50 years ago, and young adult literature has evolved accordingly).

I hope you don't consider this "ripping you to shreds", but an invitation to discussion. I really think HP is not a work of genius, but certainly a series of books which are highly entertaining on their own merit, and not just a piece of bad fiction I've somehow grown attached to.

mentat

[Sariel]

Heh, kinda ironic that my first post on this forum is in a HP thread..

Baeraad's arguments pretty much match my own opinions of the books. I would never have complained about the feminism and racism issues unless HP fans tend to bring them up as parts of why the books are perfect in every way. If Rowling's valiant efforts to show these things had not been rubbed in my face constantly by others, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought.

When that is said, I have read all the books and not really disliked them. I'll go so far as to consider nr6 as a good book, though if dumbeldore is resurected and Snape turns out to be good, then I'll go back on that and denounce it as filth. Hp pretty much touches upon every single cliche that's been used in litterature, especially in fantasy. Now, to some extent, the cliches fit the somewhat alice in wonderland/ tooth fairy kind of world she's created, but there are some cliches that really make me gritt my teeth. The fact that she killed off Dumbledore, even though it was a fairly obvious move, pleased me as that was somewhat of an anti cliche, but only if he remains dead. When the tale is done and HP opens dumbeldore's grave to see whether he was the invisible helping hand and finds a maggot infested corpse, or a skeleton depending on the time it takes, then I will accept that Rowling did a good job.

And with Snape.. It would be so incredibly typical if his murdering of Dumbledore was some elaborate scheme to save the world. I would hate that. Snape is a character who is completly and utterly gray and I want him to stay that way. If he starts dancing with children in flowery meadows singing happy happy songs -to use a hyperbole- Rowling will have completly destroyed his character.

My personal theory is that HP really is the villian of this series. For instance, he completly dominates Ron to an extent that the kid seems hardly able to live without his spectacled and scared friend. Hp sends his friends into almost certain doom because he is too proud or too block headed to just approach dumbledore or some other teacher, thus solving everything. Bravery is often a form of stupidity, and HP has that in abundance.. I think Draco is the hero. I mean, can you point to one accusation he has made towards HP that has not been true? Has he sent his friends into almost certain death, or does he follow HP into dangerous territory all by himself so that no one else are at risk? Yes he has his issues, like the racism part etc, but those have been imposed upon him by his family, and it would seem as if he's overcoming them. Indeed he did not like, and ultimately refused to kill Dumbledore. No, when HP reveals his true character at last, Draco will save the day.

[Maia]

LOL, Baeraad, I really agree with you almost completely, but I like the books nevertheless.

So the reason you shouldn't be prejudiced against Muggleborns is that Malfoy is completely wrong - the Muggleborn will very soon adjust completely to their new world, which they will realise is utterly superior to their old life, and cheerfully abandon all nasty traces of Muggle-ness.

Yep, exactly. How this agrees with the notion that mixed marriages are good is a mystery. I mean, if even muggleborn children abandon their parents almost completely because they supposedly soon have nothing more in common with them, how is marital co-existence supposed to work? Also, it seems to me that magical folks who chose to exist in both worlds could become quite rich through discreet use of magic and otherwise cherry-pick the best from both. Yet _nobody_ makes this choice, apparently. Huh? Really, a better author would have devoted some space to this issue rather than repeatedly describe stupid Quidditch matches, etc.

Another stupid thing is that wizards don't mix with muggles, yet don't live in close-knitted communities. I mean, who'd want to constantly hide from the neighbbours, suffer rather severe inconveniences, etc.? It's good for a laugh, but is completely absurd.

Am I the only one who's noticed that while the female characters are usually more intelligent and efficient than the male ones, it's the male characters who're important?

And again, you are completely right here. Male characters are both more powerful and more important. I mean, even a female champion from the school who has a female Headmistress shows a really weak performance and comes last in the tournament. OTOH, I disagree that Bellatrix is more intelligent/efficient than Voldy, or McGonaggal than DD, etc. Umbridge, I dunno, she was more pro-active and crazy than her boss, but objectively better as a poltician? Anyway. But it is quite true that apart from Hermione females are never best at anything.

And Ginny Weasley. Oh, Rowling put work into making this one a character in her own right, I don't deny it.

I disagree. IMHO, she is not and that's the problem with her. Rowling tried to create an amalgam of Weasliness and wish-fulfillement for Harry's mate and ended with a bit of Frankenstein's monster.

Oh, and by the way, there are female characters who're old and single?

I actually, had an impression that all women who had a career were single and all married women were housewives, which is hardly better . Also, married couples seem to cop it early (almost nobody has living grandparents) and only single people live longer.

They're children's books, so of course everyone who doesn't like our hero is evil. They're children's books, so of course they're going crazy with the wish-fulfilment. They're children's books, so of course reason and realism are sacrificed in favour of cheap gags.

Well, I do hope that the ending will be somewhat more nuanced, but then I think that Snape is good. Also, wish-fulfillment isn't as bad as it could have been, because Harry's greatest desires remain unfulfilled, although he is smothered with successes in small things. But I agree, there is decidedly too much even of that.

I don't have a problem with children's books, I have a problem with this unholy hybrid that Rowling has turned her books into and that her fans are praising as her making the books "more mature."

And here is the only issue where I completely disagree. Books do get ever more realistic, nuanced and plausible and I like it. They still aren't where I'd want them, to be sure, and a huge lot depends on the last book and the resolution, but they are going in the right direction, IMHO. I like the concept of books maturing with the reader, even if it makes earlier books rather weird in retrospect . Frankly, I didn't like the first 2 books and and only became truly interested when book 5 came out, although in retrospective I like 3 too. Also, are they any more of "unholy hybrid" than the majority of other fantasy? At least, they are somewhat more consequent and gritty than, say WOT . I mean, characters of some importance actually die and all that.

[Baeraad]

Baeraad, here is the odd part. I intellectually agree with your argument. I understand it, I've made it, and think you are completely right. And yet, I still like the books. I don't know why.

I hate the books with a fiery passion. And yet I always end up rereading them, just so I can hate them with a fiery passion some more. Now, masochistic though I may be sometimes, I don't usually do that.

So yeah, clearly there's some kind of magnetism there...

Feminism and Racism? Why would these important social issues be given a treatment that was anything else than superficial and downwatered in a series of books that (adult-oriented or not) certainly pretend to be nothing else than mind-numbing escapist fantasy?

Lyanna Stark argued that those issues were given the full treatment, so I latched on to that. I was not so much arguing that Rowling is horrible because she hasn't done those things well, I was arguing that she's not a genius who has done those things well.

Do you really think the books are racist or male-chauvinist?

No, that would be putting it too strongly. And I certainly don't think Rowling put anything like that in on purpose.

However, portraying men as being stupid and inefficient but ultimately the people who matter, whereas the women are superhumans whose purpose in life is nevertheless to clean up the men's messups - that's pretty common. You see it in every sitcom. I don't think Rowling thought about it, she just put it in, like she's put in any number of other clichés. But it's still there, and as far as I'm concerned, it invalidates any claims to feminism.

As for the racism thing... well, I do think it's a bit strange that she keeps pushing the point that it's wrong to judge people by their race, while she keeps presenting Muggles as buffoons. If she doesn't want to be consistent about these things, I think she should keep away from moralising altogether, and just have her villains be generally evil for no apparent reason.

As it is, she caters to children's need to feel special. She lets them imagine being wizards and living in a magical world, far away from the dreary Muggle world. Fair enough. But having done that, she starts preaching about the evils of elitism. As far as I can see, she wants to have it all - the mindless wish-fulfilment and the sanctimonious "be good little boys and girls" preaching. I can live with one or the other, but both at once gives the books a hypocrisy that I'm sure she didn't intend.

Wizards are superior to Muggles. They have magic powers and we don't. Although some Wizards seem to be technologically moronic this isn't always necesarily the case, as characters brought up in a Muggle environment like Harry or Hermione prove. The relationship between Muggles and Wizards is thus a bad parallel to the relationship between blacks and whites, for instance.

Well, like I said, I didn't take the relationship between Muggles and wizards to symbolise the relationship between blacks and whites. I took it to symbolise the relationship between Western countries and, say, the Middle East. We're "superior" to them in the sense of having more money and military power. And when people move from there to here, we tend to expect them to immediately realise the superiority of our culture - much like the Muggleborn are always thrilled with the wizarding world.

This is another connection I'm not sure Rowling intended, mind. I just pointed it out to prove that she keeps tripping herself up when she tries to give the kids moral lessons.

The contempt that some pure-blood wizards feel for muggle-born ones I always took to be a reflection of the "old versus new aristocracy" (now completely dated, of course) issue we can see in so many historical novels and films than somehow related to racism or immigration.

Wizards aren't aristocrats, though. You need someone to be superior to, to be an aristocrat, and wizards generally try to pretend that Muggles don't exist. The wizarding world is always described as being distinct, closed upon itself, despite the geographical improbabilities. No, I stand by my interpretation.

Besides, Voldemort is so strongly based on Adolf Hitler that it's not even funny, right up to the oh-so-ironic half-blood heritage.

Umbridge and Bellatrix are not the best antagonist characters in the book, Voldemort and Snape are.

Voldemort? All he does is stagger around and wheeze and make idiotic mistakes so that Rowling can tell her young readers, "see, intelligence and hard work are worth nothing without cozy family values to back them up!" I might grant you Snape, I suppose.

I'd say Umbridge is the scariest character in the books, though. This may have a lot to do with the fact that she's an exaggerated version of my first-grade teacher... but I don't think I'm the only one who had a couple of Umbridge experiences as a kid. She feels real. Voldemort, on the other hand, is the most stereotypical Dark Lord I've ever seen.

Besides, Voldemort can be easily beaten with a few heroics and the Power of Love. Umbridge is right there, every day, and when you stand up to her you just get slapped down harder.

I'm afraid this... seems rather rantish to me, and I don't agree with it at all.

It is, and you don't have to. But I'd be dishonest not to include it, because it was the first thing that stuck in my craw with these books - everything else came later.

What of the characters we know to be single? Snape, stupid malevolence incarnate. Slughorn, who helped Voldemort become immortal and then couldn't even face up to it. And oh yes - Voldemort himself. You could almost get the impression that Rowling doesn't think much of men who don't marry, couldn't you? It's hard to say what she thinks of women who don't marry, because there doesn't seem to be any. Not even among the baddies.

Meanwhile, our archetypical good wizard family is... the Weasleys.

Circumstantial evidence only, yes. I told you I couldn't prove a thing.

The series then starts to move from purely children oriented to young adult oriented (but surely not an "unholy hibrid"...).

Unholy hybrid, I say!

My bitchy nomenclature aside... I agree that the books aren't written for grownups, but they don't seem to be written for children anymore, either. Rowling is writing about love, and disillusionment with parents and authority figures, and fallings-out within families, and death... not really kiddie stuff. But she's addressing all those pretty complex issues in the same simplistic tone as she had in the first books. It jarrs, to say the least.

What's more, with serious things happening, the way she's keeping up the gags from the first books is bizarre. People being turned into various animals is all very well, if it happens in a none-too-serious book and is in the spirit of good fun. If it happens in the same book as the wise old mentor character speaks profoundly (well, it's supposed to be profoundly) about how life is complex and everyone has their own motivations... well, that makes me wonder if there's some kind of fine print to all that deep philosophy that says "but of course this only applies unless I think I can get someone to laugh by violating it."

I hope you don't consider this "ripping you to shreds"

Not at all. Mind you, the person I was mostly thinking about when I wrote that (because said person shows up and yells at me every time I criticise Rowling) hasn't posted yet...

I disagree. IMHO, she is not and that's the problem with her. Rowling tried to create an amalgam of Weasliness and wish-fulfillement for Harry's mate and ended with a bit of Frankenstein's monster.

Well, I just said that Rowling put a lot of work into making Ginny a person in her own right. I didn't say she had the slightest success, at least not as far as I was concerned...

Also, are they any more of "unholy hybrid" than the majority of other fantasy? At least, they are somewhat more consequent and gritty than, say WOT . I mean, characters of some importance actually die and all that.

HP is better than the majority of other fantasy. I concede it. For instance, Jordan's characters all float together - Rowling's characters, while stereotypes and strawmen, are at least very distinct stereotypes and strawmen.

But for that reason, most authors can't get on my nerves like Rowling. The annoying things that Jordan does just sinks into the shapeless mass of mediocrity that's WoT. The annoying things that Rowling does stand out in sharp relief. I don't think I can explain it better than that.

(edited to answer to Maia's post)

[HimOfTwoFaces]

And nobody's even brought up the house elves yet.

"Hermione, they like being slaves."

[MinDonner]

The character of Snape has been one of Rowling's redeeming features for me - it was always refreshing to see a menacing, nasty character who WASN'T in the service of the dark lord, he was just an arsehole. I hope he turns out to have killed DD for some stupid reason and nothing to do with Voldemort at all. Which means he can survive the last book and set up shop with an evil empire of his own.