Why is your favorite your favorite?

[Amy]

No: HPFGUIDX 10134

PA is my favorite and I don't even think SB and RL are sexy.  I second 
a lot of the things people have listed:  Dementors, Neville getting a 
champion, Quidditch (Wood can die happy now), wondering how Hermione 
is keeping her schedule (is she splitting herself in 3 and that's why 
she behaves uncharacteristically?) etc.  And I absolutely love Lupin. 
 Wonderful teacher, actually knows something about fighting the Dark 
Arts, calls students by their first names, knows a thing or two about 
suffering, stuffs a wad of chewing gum up Peeves's nose. 

It's my favorite mostly because of the complexity it introduces re:  
Harry's character and story.  We've known from the beginning that this 
is a child whose parents were murdered but I didn't really feel in my 
gut what that meant until PA, and the book reveals aspects of him that 
are at times disturbing to read but way more interesting than boy 
hero:

-his coming to the realization, alone, that what he's hearing is his 
dying mother, and his ambivalence about hearing his parents' voices

-after he learns the story in the 3 Broomsticks, his hatred for and 
wish for revenge against Black and his sense of alienation from Ron & 
Hermione (and Hagrid and Dumbledore--everyone he trusts & loves, 
really)

-the mixed feelings of wanting desperately to see his father, almost 
believing he really will, and then realizing it's himself--the 
disappointment and thrill of learning that the Prongs-Patronus is his

-his refusal to kill Black and Pettigrew

-the rise and fall of his hope of leaving the Dursleys and having a 
real family

Then there are the layers we start to see in other characters 
(apparent on about the 3rd and 4th readings, in my case), namely 
Sirius, Snape & Lupin.  The whole tragedy of Sirius's unintentional 
betrayal and being framed (that laugh), Snape's having to swallow his 
hatred of Lupin all year--JKR just lays out the story and lets us 
imagine what these characters have been thinking and feeling.  In 
Lupin's case, I read and reread the scene on the train and think about 
what it must have been like to open his eyes and see the likeness of 
his 12-years-dead friend.  Likewise, when Harry hears James's voice 
for the first time, that's gotta almost kill Lupin.  (When he says 
"You heard James?" I imagine he's feeling some of the same ambivalence 
Harry is--he's envious--he wants to hear it too, even if it is 
horrible.)  Harry must seem to him like the only other survivor from 
the Marauders, and yet he (RL) spends the year possibly endangering 
his (HP's) life with his silence about Sirius.  It has to be torturing 
him.

My only complaint about the book:  I knew Lupin was a werewolf really 
early on.  The name gave it away.  (It did lend a good red herring 
though.  I thought the Sneakoscope was whistling on the train because 
of him--first I thought he was only pretending to sleep [still a 
possibility], later I thought it was because he was a werewolf.) 

Amy Z

------------------------------------------------------
 "We could all have been killed--or worse, expelled."
           --Hermione, HP and the Philosopher's Stone 
------------------------------------------------------