[HPFGU-OTChatter]Main List survival strategy

[artsylynda at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/30/2003 8:18:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com writes:

> I still can't decide if OOP is a brilliant book with lots of deep 
> revelations that carries the action seamlessly forward, or whether 
> JKR has, so to speak, lost the plot. If any kind soul could enlighten 
> me I'd be most grateful! Offline would be fine if it's considered too 
> off-topic to be on-topic on an off-topic forum :))
> 
> ER
> 

I can't even survive this list!  I can only manage to keep up with the Movie 
list these days.  Yikes!

On your questions about whether OoP is brilliant or if JKR has lost her way 
-- I think it's a combination of the two.  Quite honestly, I think JKR has 
either gotten a new editor who is not as good as the old one(s), or that her 
editor (old or new) has become awed by JKR's success and was afraid to tell her 
"cut this" or "this needs a stronger conclusion" or "you left this thread 
dangling" or "this is flabby -- do something about it!"  Honestly, there are places 
where she left things out that should have been mentioned that are so simple -- 
who brought Harry his wand, for instance, oh rats I can't remember the scene, 
toward the end of the book and he didn't have it, then suddenly he did (I'm 
re-reading it now, not there *again* yet), but I wondered "where did his wand 
come from?  He didn't have it a while ago."  (Or am I remembering incorrectly?? 
 I did read it awfully fast the first time through.)  That's just one thing 
that hit me as being an "oopsie."  A good editor catches such things, and there 
are lots of places I can find in OoP that could've used a good editor's 
touch.  Despite all that, there are huge sections of JKR's normal brilliance.  But 
the pace of this book is more uneven than the others.  And why was it that 
Harry was unable to see the Thestrals pulling the carriages at the end of GoF (in 
GoF pg. 725 US version, they're called "horseless carriages")?  He'd seen 
Cedric die by that time, but they aren't mentioned until OoP.  Such continuity 
errors are confusing to the reader.  JMO.

Lynda 
* * *
". . .the cat's among the pixies now."  Mrs. Figg, OoP


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