HPforgrownups Re: What do you like best about the HP books?

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 72469

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Buttercup <cathio2002 at y...> 
wrote:
> Just wondering what everyone like best about JKR's
> books? Here are some of mine.
> 
> 1)JKR's talent for characterization. There are so many
> people in these books and every one is an interesting
> individual. No one's stereotypical or dull. She does
> such a good job that these characters seem like REAL
> people. Readers really care about them.

This is an interesting question.  A lot of people think that none of 
the Slytherins are more than two-dimensional, and that Draco has not 
progressed at all as a character over the last several books.  I 
personally have a real problem with how Sirius' characterization has 
changed from GoF to OoP. 
And, there is the question of how JKR seems to think she has written 
characters, judging by what she says in interviews, with how readers 
perceive the same characters.  She has described Snape as a sadistic 
teacher who abuses his power.  And, yet, lots of readers think Snape 
is a wonderfully complicated character who has ample backstory to 
explain whatever inadequacies he may have as an adult.  And, they can 
find all sorts of explanations as to why his teaching style is maybe 
not that bad.  

JKR has said she likes Sirius and she cried when she killed him off.  
And a number of people on this list said either, 1) they didn't care 
about Sirius, so the death didn't bother them, or 2) they don't like 
Sirius, so thank god he was the one who died, or 3) gee, she said 
this was the death of a major character, but it was only Sirius, so 
what's the big deal...

Well, are those readers missing the point, or has JKR not written 
those characters well enough to make people see them the way she 
purportedly does?

I'd give JKR no more than a C+ or B- for characterization.

> 3)JKR's dry sense of humor. You'd never know by her
> interviews on TV that she's got a fabulous sense of
> humor (it's not like she cracks jokes left and right).
> I think her humor is one of the best I've read.

She does have a knack of sliding in these deceptively simple 
sentences that are absolute howlers!

> 4)JKR's imagination. WOW! Didn't Stephen King say she
> should have her brain insured or something?

I think that one of the reasons the first book grabbed me two+ years 
ago (yes, I'm a late-comer to HP) was the sheer imaginative 
descriptions and depictions: owl post, the Hogwarts Express, moving 
portraits, Diagon Alley...I could go on, but, yes, there is such a 
wealth of beautifully constructed and descriptive pictures of this 
parallel world.

Marianne