OOP: Darker (wasDisappointing AND Excellent)

[susanbones2003]

No: HPFGUIDX 66574

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "mrs_monkeypen" <ksheehan at o...> 
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat2001" 
<Zarleycat at a...> 
> wrote:
> > I thought OoP was a much darker book in tone throughout its 
entire 
> > length.  From Harry's heightened feelings of isolation in the 
very 
> > first chapter, through the oppressive atmosphere of 12 Grimmauld 
> > Place to the insidious tightening of the Ministry's noose around 
> > Hogwarts to Harry's ominous dreams of the hallway and the door to 
> the 
> > potential loss of personal privacy in communication between 
people 
> > (intercpeted letters, fireplace lurkeers, etc.), the entire feel 
of 
> > the book was darker to me. 
> > 
> Yes...it was darker because it was so much more INTERNAL than GoF.  
> Harry was alone with his thoughts for much of the book. There was 
> always a feeling of foreboding throughout the book, and much of the 
> joyousness of the earlier books (Halloween, Christmas, end of year  
> celebrations, for example) were either absent or just less cheery. 
> Whereas JKR has been able to insert bits of lightness and laughter 
> throughout most of the earlier books, there is a real effort with 
the 
> Fred and George antics to provide breaks from the darkness. I felt 
> like the sun never shown throughout the book.
> 
> kim

And wasn't it almost oppressive being shut in with Harry's thoughts 
almost the entire time? No Dumbledore, almost no Hagrid, Sirius 
rapidly becoming a basket case and Hermione and Ron almost another 
species, a species called "child" while Harry is facing all these 
horrendous things and doing it alone. I can not comprehend, just 
can't believe Dumbledore's miscalculations. To leave Sirius and 
Harry, the two people most intimately involved, well out of it, 
someone was bound to crack. Someone has said Sirius seemed to have a 
death wish. I can see how the isolation made it easier for him to act 
recklessly. But there is also this matter of the House elf. I'm not 
sure how, but this house elf is at the crux of the matter somehow. 
And that puts me off kilter. We have met rebellious house elves but 
that was Dobby and he was entitled but to meet a rebellious elf loyal 
to the bad guys, and to say that somehow Sirius' treatment of that 
elsf enabled the DE's cause, wow. That's a right knotty mess.
J