Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Bump

I'm moving Luke's comments on HP and the DHs to the top lest they be missed by some. Thanks for chiming in, Luke.

Luke:

Well now that I'm home I finally got to finish the book, and I thought it was great. I was kind of disappointed by a lot of things though, and I actually think that economics article is pretty interesting. No, the Weasleys can't conjure up money, or food, and they don't have house elves, but they still do have a ton of other magical powers and are thought of as good wizards. I don't think they should have as hard of a time with things as they do.

As far as the amount of holes in the plot, this book has many more than the Lord of the Rings books did, and is also much less believable. ON THE OTHER HAND, it is a hell of a lot more fun. There are many things I would have done differently had I wrote them. But, I am not the author, it is not my choice, and I would not have nearly enough ability or patience to write anything even approaching the complexity of the HP series. Rowling did an amazing job of crafting the whole story, there are just some holes that detract from the overall believability and ruin it for me a little bit. Of course I was somewhat disappointed about some things not turning out the way I wanted but that's okay, it's her book not mine.

First of all, I wanted more of an epilogue. I want the whole biography for every single character and for the entire wizarding world. Like one of those things at the end of a docudrama movie where during the credits they show a picture of each character with a short paragraph about what happened to them after the movie. It was disappointing to watch them go through all that and then not really know what they get for it in the end.

Second, I still don't quite get Snape. It could just be that I'm too dumb, but I don't find his character in the end to be believable or satisfying.

Third, not enough time is spent on the dead people. ESPECIALLY Fred. Fred and George were my favorite characters in all the books, and I think she should have focused more on Fred's death and how George coped for the rest of his life. I couldn't believe that during the epilogue, there was no little boy named Fred running around or something. I found out from an interview with JK Rowling that George had a son and named it Fred. Still, I think this kid should have been mentioned in the book.

Fourth, the good guy's are all gun-controlled or something. They are always on defense, rarely attacking, and have some kind of strange reluctance to use deadly force against enemies who wouldn't hesitate at all to kill them. A couple of my favorite parts in the book were when Harry Crucios one of the Carrows and when Mrs. Weasley kills Bellatrix. If I were in the Order, I would be Avada Kedravaing, Crucioing, and Imperiusing Death Eater's left and right. I don't see the logic in going soft on any of them. It reminds me of when me and Laura were little, and we would play with action figures. At the end, the good guys would always finally get the bad guys and I'd say, "YEAH now let's kill 'em!" Then Laura would always get upset and want the bad guys to have a change of heart and decide to join the good guys.

On that note I also kind of wanted to see Draco do something good in the end. She really makes you end up feeling sorry for him.

Overall I loved the book and I wasn't at all disappointed until it ended. She had me wrapped up in the story so much. Really its only flaw I guess is that I wanted more of it. But I guess as she says in the book we must accept the fact that life (and a book) always comes to an end.

BTW Jesse the character's in the book probably get pretty good exercise by spending a lot of time resting, but then everyonce in a while having to exert all-out effort in running for their lives from some bad guy. Proper exercise should be brief, infrequent, and intense.
5:47 PM
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1 comment:

Mom said...

There's a famous saying about fantasy that it must have its head in the clouds but its feet planted firmly on the ground. In other words, even in an imagined world, there have to be rules, and the rules have to make sense. I think that's what you're talking about, Luke -- there are a few loopholes in Rowling's rules.

But I guess it would have been pretty tough to write several thousand pages of such sheer FUN without a loophole or two. ;-)