Did anything in the HP series make you roll your eyes a bit?

[cynthiaanncoe at home.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 24617

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., John Walton <john at w...> wrote:
> cynthiaanncoe at h... said:
> 
> > The diction of house elves grates on my ears, particularly Winky 
(PA,
> > GoF).
> 
> But house elves is supposed to be talking funny! Otherwise they is 
not being
> house elves! And they is sounding a lot less dangerous this way. I 
is
> thinking that house elves is going to be playing a bigger part in 
the next
> books, I is.

As for the house elves' dialect, dialects are fine, and Hagrid has a 
well-written dialect that really humanizes him.  Doesn't get in the 
way at all.  But the house elves?  Kind of like reading dialogue with 
speed bumps in it.


> 
> > The deathday party. (CoS)
> 
> Nope, didn't make me roll my eyes.
> 
> > Moaning Myrtle and Gilderoy Lockhart. (CoS)
> 
> Lockhart didn't make me roll my eyes. As someone said recently, the 
really
> evil thing about Lockhart is that he is willing to let a child 
(Ginny) die
> to save his own skin.
> 

OK, fair enough.  But the contrast between the evil Lockhart and 
other evil characters (Draco, Lucius, Voldemort, Pettigrew, Snape) is 
that the scenes with the latter characters are really exciting and I 
looked forward to them all.  I didn't look forward to Lockhart and 
found him kind of annoying.  Which suggests to me that perhaps he's 
just not written quite as well.

> > The Quiddich World Cup (It's a tall order to make us care about
> > Ireland vs. Bulgaria). (GoF)
> 
> Not if you're Irish or Bulgarian. I loved the QWC, and I'm neither.
> 
> > The flying car sequence. (CoS)
> 
> I really enjoyed that. Of course, the actual act of taking the car 
did make
> me roll my eyes at Harry and Ron's stupidity -- why not just wait 
for Molly
> and Arthur and get them to drive to Hogwarts? Or Floo Powder it? Of 
course,
> that wouldn't allow for...
> 
> > The "Here Comes The Calvary" rescue of the flying car in the
> > forbidden forest. (CoS)
> 
> I liked that bit.
> 
> All of these things rely on that good old literary tool, suspension 
of
> disbelief. JKR, like George Lucas, creates a universe and sticks to 
its
> rules. We just have to stop thinking like Muggles for long enough 
to be able
> to enjoy it :)
> 
> --John
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> John Walton -- john at w...
> 
> There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books 
are well
> written or badly written. That is all.
> --Oscar Wilde
> ________________________________



Anyway, these are just my personal thoughts.  I'd say that about 98% 
of the characters and scenes worked great, and that's quite an 
accomplishment.

And by the way, did every single thing in the books work for you, or 
did you have your own eye-rollers?