Patterns between the books as a series. OoP not as out of place?

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 68128

When the Admin team posted their "Wanted" message yesterday, they 
included links to examples of chapter discussions from way back when 
GoF needed spoiler space. I was quite interested in this post by 
Ebony, which can be found here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups-Archives/message/5072

"I think your assertion is absolutely right, Trina. The one 
difference
that struck me first between GoF and the other books was Harry's 
evolving personality. In SS, he was such a wet-behind-the-ears kid. 
Then in CoS and PoA, he had more confidence, but still seem to look 
to others for acceptance, approval, and definition.
I know this book is the turning point of the series as far as plot is
concerned, but I also believe it's a turning point in Harry's life. 
He may be a wizard-in-training, but he's still a teenager. Even if 
the Dursleys weren't so Dursleyish, he'd probably challenge their 
authority."

Sounds a bit familiar. Een-ter-rest-ink, no?
I started thinking that, were it not for the three year gap in 
between GoF and OotP, we would see them much more as birds of a 
feather, and set apart from the set of PS, Cos and PoA, which follow 
very different narrative patterns. OotP has jarred a bit with many 
people because of it's difference from the other four, but then 
we've all spent so long contemplating that particular set of four 
books as a complete canon from which to base theories that I think 
any new addition was going to come as a shock.
Is it really so different from GoF, stylistically? In GoF, as 
Ebony's post notes, we get the beginnings of Hormonal!Harry. There's 
darkness, death and endless, endless detail, all of which are 
present in OotP. If we view the first three novels as a trilogy 
which sets the scene, establishes all the major characters and most 
of the major social and physical aspects of a magical world, then 
GoF and OotP, set apart from the other three by their sheer size as 
much as anything else, constitute a more relaxed exploration of the 
extra details of that world, and of the characters which inhabit 
them. GoF and OotP do work rather well as a two-parter when you 
think about it. Harry's development into a teenager, plus all the 
romantic complications involved in growing up are dealt with in 
these books; Voldemort becomes a character in his own right, we are 
introduced to the organised evil of the Death Eaters and the wrongs 
of bureaucracy, and to the capacity of the Wizarding World for 
unfairness and enslavement (House Elves, Pensieve trials). Yes, many 
of these themes had been set up by the other three, and there's a 
great case to be made for reading PoA and GoF as a pair as well. 
However, GoF and OotP sprawl, and constitute a gradual resistance to 
tightly plotted and resolved narrative. JKR employs the extra page 
space to move around the WW in, creating a more complex world than 
that previously seen within the confines of Hogwarts/Diagon Alley, 
with increasingly complex characters (the adult tally just keeps 
mounting. Is anyone actually interested in the goings-on in 
Gryffindor Tower any more? ;D)

I'd really be interested in hearing the views of a post-OotP convert 
reading their way through the series as a set of five books for the 
first time. Anyone made any recently? I wonder if we need this sort 
of alternative perception when assessing whether or not OotP was as 
successful as the others, or even if it fits properly within the 
series.

Kirstini