sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2007-07-21 06:35 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2007-07-21 06:35 pm
Deathly Hallows
I feel weird writing this post, because I don't really feel like posting, yet it seems like I should, and then I think--what, do you imagine the public is waiting on pins and needles for your words? Get over yourself!:-D
Anyway, I didn't much like it. Perhaps my feelings will change, but stop here if you don’t want to read any negative stuff. I don't have any rants prepared or anything or want to harsh anybody's buzz. (But misery also loves company!) I was talking to someone who's asked me what I needed from the book, what I wanted to happen or what would have made me satisfied, and the truth is, I don't have an answer. I don't have a list of prescriptive criticism, or think things were done badly, or should have been done a different way.
Well, except one little thing, which couldn't be helped. When that white doe showed up I never doubted for a second it was Snape's Lily!Patronus (cause she's a lady!James!). We'd seen Arthur's and Kingsley's Patronuses talk, and oh, how I wanted that beautiful sparkly stag to come up to Harry and tell him to get this Quest going already in Snape's sarcastic voice.
I've never loved these books the way some do--which should not be taken as a criticism of people who do. I just mean that I know there are people who re-read the books over and over as comfort, and that's not something I ever did. I didn't ever want to re-read to spend time with these people or in this world. There are other books I do feel that way about, books that other people find meh. Basically, I felt like JKR was writing a story of good and evil, and life and death, that resonated with her and satisfied her, and felt like a triumph for her--just not me. So I was a bit left out of the story, objectively even seeing characters doing good, brave things, and just not sharing much in the emotions. More than once I felt like I was seeing more story outline/structure than story so that it seemed very contrived (a couple of times Harry himself seemed to admit it) and made it feel like nothing was building to anything.
What it mostly made me do is go over all the ways I was reading it wrong, making my issues more central than the author really considered them. I don't think I was ever so off as, say, a Harmonian banking on the Hippogriff o'love or anything like that, and some things that happened I did predict (Snape/Lily, obviously, and DDM!Snape). But in general I think I was reading Rowling a bit too much like a Tolkien fan, and maybe too much as a Jungian (not that I'm any expert on Jung, but I was reading from my own idea of his stuff). And I think when JKR said that she was Christian and if she talked about her faith we'd know the ending, I immediately began interrogating from the *wrong* Christian perspective and got that wrong too.
Contrary to what some may have thought at times-or not-I don't hate the good guys. Still don't hate them, just still would not want to spend time with them or re-read the books to spend time with them. The characters I liked the most I think less of now or am just kind of confused by, which is unfortunate. I find Harry affectionately naming his child Albus Severus downright creepy--but that wasn't the first time in the book where that kind of thing happened.
Not sure what I predict fanfic-wise. I wonder if people might not start writing some interesting stuff. I did at one point think how I wanted to take a favorite character and put him in a different story.
Oh, also I've been dreading the epilogue for years, because I've always hated epilogues. Even when I was too young to know the name for them I hated them. Some books I guess can make a case for them being appropriate. HP is really not one of them that I can see. There was no reason I could see for needing to see these people married with children. The one good thing I read about it was after it was leaked, before I read it, and I read a comment where someone said the epilogue read like any cliché H/G fic...or any cliché post-war H/D fic.;-)
Anyway, I didn't much like it. Perhaps my feelings will change, but stop here if you don’t want to read any negative stuff. I don't have any rants prepared or anything or want to harsh anybody's buzz. (But misery also loves company!) I was talking to someone who's asked me what I needed from the book, what I wanted to happen or what would have made me satisfied, and the truth is, I don't have an answer. I don't have a list of prescriptive criticism, or think things were done badly, or should have been done a different way.
Well, except one little thing, which couldn't be helped. When that white doe showed up I never doubted for a second it was Snape's Lily!Patronus (cause she's a lady!James!). We'd seen Arthur's and Kingsley's Patronuses talk, and oh, how I wanted that beautiful sparkly stag to come up to Harry and tell him to get this Quest going already in Snape's sarcastic voice.
I've never loved these books the way some do--which should not be taken as a criticism of people who do. I just mean that I know there are people who re-read the books over and over as comfort, and that's not something I ever did. I didn't ever want to re-read to spend time with these people or in this world. There are other books I do feel that way about, books that other people find meh. Basically, I felt like JKR was writing a story of good and evil, and life and death, that resonated with her and satisfied her, and felt like a triumph for her--just not me. So I was a bit left out of the story, objectively even seeing characters doing good, brave things, and just not sharing much in the emotions. More than once I felt like I was seeing more story outline/structure than story so that it seemed very contrived (a couple of times Harry himself seemed to admit it) and made it feel like nothing was building to anything.
What it mostly made me do is go over all the ways I was reading it wrong, making my issues more central than the author really considered them. I don't think I was ever so off as, say, a Harmonian banking on the Hippogriff o'love or anything like that, and some things that happened I did predict (Snape/Lily, obviously, and DDM!Snape). But in general I think I was reading Rowling a bit too much like a Tolkien fan, and maybe too much as a Jungian (not that I'm any expert on Jung, but I was reading from my own idea of his stuff). And I think when JKR said that she was Christian and if she talked about her faith we'd know the ending, I immediately began interrogating from the *wrong* Christian perspective and got that wrong too.
Contrary to what some may have thought at times-or not-I don't hate the good guys. Still don't hate them, just still would not want to spend time with them or re-read the books to spend time with them. The characters I liked the most I think less of now or am just kind of confused by, which is unfortunate. I find Harry affectionately naming his child Albus Severus downright creepy--but that wasn't the first time in the book where that kind of thing happened.
Not sure what I predict fanfic-wise. I wonder if people might not start writing some interesting stuff. I did at one point think how I wanted to take a favorite character and put him in a different story.
Oh, also I've been dreading the epilogue for years, because I've always hated epilogues. Even when I was too young to know the name for them I hated them. Some books I guess can make a case for them being appropriate. HP is really not one of them that I can see. There was no reason I could see for needing to see these people married with children. The one good thing I read about it was after it was leaked, before I read it, and I read a comment where someone said the epilogue read like any cliché H/G fic...or any cliché post-war H/D fic.;-)
Re: Hello!
He wanted to be sorted into Slytherin on the train. His mother, or someone else close, must have been in Slytherin, too. She absolutely dissed 1/4 of the WW with that one, not to mention had the Supreme Mugwump of the Good Guys dis "one of the bravest men" in the series, and possibly his mother.
We do need to see Draco do more than simply refuse to rat out the Trio.
Draco seemed uncomfortable when we saw him at Malfoy Manor, even in chapter one, which was not Harry's POV. Then, in the RoR/RoHT, he was all SuperDE and out to get Potter. Crabbe and Goyle, I can see. Why throw Draco in, other than to answer Narcissa's question later on?
(BTW, Narcissa's a great sneak, and Trelawney has balls)
I really can't wait until the fans ask her about the Unforgiveables, too.
Right. If Barty and his Aurors were wrong, then Harry, McGonagall, and, I assume, Molly, were wrong. There was still a double standard. And, it was upheld by Dumbledore in ch. 33, when he intimated that it was intention that split the soul in killing. He didn't want Draco to split his soul, but when Snape asked about his soul, he gave the old line about helping an old man avoid pain and humiliation.
And I think an important difference was that, although the story arcs are pre-planned, there was enough room to incorporate the story offers that came up--instead of simply letting them drop.
I think the major problem was writing the epilogue before the series was even started. She locked herself into things that maybe didn't quite build up for her as she wrote - like Harry and Ginny. Characters do try to influence their destinies (so much for predestination in writing!) - Arthur got his reprieve in OotP, and someone got axed (in DH?) which was not in the plan.
On Arthur's reprieve, it seems to me that she couldn't have him die, since he was their link to the Ministry, unless she had meant for Percy to redeem himself sooner and be the link, with his close ties to the office of Minister. Heh. If so, then Percy's been "redeemed" since OotP, because he saved Arthur's life by not cooperating with his Creatrix.
An outline would have given more leeway to explore things, I think, and more room to tinker as stories wrote their own subplots. But what I don't get is, why didn't she foreshadow the Hallows, as merely an interesting piece of WW lore: they have their own fairy stories for kids, and they use them as cultural references the way we do. We talk about a "Cinderella Story", they could say something about surprising magic like, "It's like you had the Elder Wand!" It wouldn't have given too much away, IMO, to do something like that every so often, and it wouldn't have looked like a contrivance for the necessity of DH... IMO, of course.
Re: Hello!
I really can't wait until the fans ask her about the Unforgiveables, too.
Right. If Barty and his Aurors were wrong, then Harry, McGonagall, and, I assume, Molly, were wrong. There was still a double standard. And, it was upheld by Dumbledore in ch. 33, when he intimated that it was intention that split the soul in killing. He didn't want Draco to split his soul, but when Snape asked about his soul, he gave the old line about helping an old man avoid pain and humiliation.
mean that one splits ones soul and creates a horcrux quasi accidentally everytime one kills? I don't really get this "good guys don't kill"-thing. Not that I think you should go around murdering people like Voldemort, but the final battle felt awfully wrong to me exactly for this reason. The DEs throw deadly curses around right, left and center and McGonagall answers that with gallopping desks??? The good guys are so good they just cast bodybind-hexes, which means after half an hour the DD recovers, gets into the fray again and uses deadly force himself. Which in my view means that I'm responsible for everyone he kills after I fail to really stop him. For me the final battle felt like so often when JKR seems unable to decide whether something is cute and funny like stampeding funiture or terribly tragic like AK. Meh!
Re: Hello!
I think Voldy was the only one to accidentally make a Horcrux in the course of the series, since he blew away the shell protecting the newly-torn soul bit. I *speculate* that at some point in the WW's history, someone did make an accidental Horcrux, which is how they found out it could be done at all. Most people don't agree with my speculation.
I don't think that every killing splits one's soul. Killing in self-defense, or in defense of others, or in the natural course of war, is not, in my opinion, the same as murder, which tears the soul. A lot of people did think that Harry and the other kids especially, but to a lesser extent all of the Good Guys, should not kill if they could possibly avoid it. Some thought Harry especially should not kill at all. The message it sends to kids, all of that, was much of the reason. Harry being pure of soul was another.
Literally, you wouldn't be responsible for the actions of a DE who got out of your bodybind. He understands that he got off light, and chooses to go back into the fray. He may be contemptuous of you for having used a mild spell against him, or he may not think of it at all. Morally, I think, only you can answer that question. If it was me, I would feel terrible and be kicking myself.
The book does make the distinction that the Aurors under Barty Crouch Sr. were questionable in using the Unforgivables in the heat of VoldWarI. Moody is held up as being above the rest because he didn't kill unless he had to. The same books show, then ignore, Harry using, or trying to use, Unforgivables from about Order of the Phoenix on. It seemed like a double standard to me: Support Harry and use Unforgivables with impunity (sp?); Support Voldy and use Unforgivables and be cast into outer darkness... er, Azkaban. Same act, same circumstances, different outcome.
Re: Hello!
I do think that very likely as most inventions are made that way, namely an accident or something giving someone an idea.
I don't think that every killing splits one's soul. Killing in self-defense, or in defense of others, or in the natural course of war, is not, in my opinion, the same as murder, which tears the soul. A lot of people did think that Harry and the other kids especially, but to a lesser extent all of the Good Guys, should not kill if they could possibly avoid it. Some thought Harry especially should not kill at all. The message it sends to kids, all of that, was much of the reason. Harry being pure of soul was another.
I agree with you here, but not being in HP I didn't know the general agreement was the good guys shouldn't kill at all. I personally don't think of Harry as being especially "pure of soul".
Literally, you wouldn't be responsible for the actions of a DE who got out of your bodybind. He understands that he got off light, and chooses to go back into the fray. He may be contemptuous of you for having used a mild spell against him, or he may not think of it at all. Morally, I think, only you can answer that question. If it was me, I would feel terrible and be kicking myself.
Well, maybe not in court - but I would feel that way if someone had to die because I put the purity of my soul above the safety of my friends and allies.
The book does make the distinction that the Aurors under Barty Crouch Sr. were questionable in using the Unforgivables in the heat of VoldWarI. Moody is held up as being above the rest because he didn't kill unless he had to. The same books show, then ignore, Harry using, or trying to use, Unforgivables from about Order of the Phoenix on. It seemed like a double standard to me: Support Harry and use Unforgivables with impunity (sp?); Support Voldy and use Unforgivables and be cast into outer darkness... er, Azkaban. Same act, same circumstances, different outcome.
I have no idea how you would stop people using deadly force themselves for good if not with AK - which I find a pretty merciful way of killing with regard to weapons like bombs and grenades used by muggles. And yes to what you said about double standards. That was bothering me all the time.
Thanks!
Re: Hello!
I hope this doesn't sound too snarky, but I can't resist because the image is cracking me. This makes the Battle of Hogwarts sound like Paintball. If you get hit by a bodybind, then you should--by the rules of etiquette--retire yourself and sit on the sidelines for the rest of the day.
Re: Hello!
LOL! FTW!