OOP: Comments, Questions, and Thoughts (religion ment and spoilers aplenty)

[Mindy CL]

No: HPFGUIDX 61421

It's 2:20 pm New York Time. I don't know what the protocol will be as I
send off this post; will it go into a queue or will it be returned to me?
I don't know what time the board is reopened compared to Eastern Standard
Time. I guess if it comes back to me I will send it again later :) But I
JUST finished the book and I have to get all my comments off my chest
while the iron is still hot :-D. I am foreseeing weeks and months of
fascinating debates here, and I can't wait to be part of it. I also
wonder what points others will bring out that I haven't noticed, and if
my few questions can be answered.

Naturally, this post is chock-full of spoilers -- but then again I have
no idea what the standard procedure is now that the book has been
released. So, if you havne't bought it yet, perhaps skip over this post.

Now, on to the juicy stuff!

I read the book in approximately eleven hours -- all 896 glorious pages.
No, I didn't speed read hastily through it. I savored every single
moment, enjoying JK Rowlings beautiful use of prose and flowery
descriptions that made you feel as if you were right there, in the story,
longing to be a wizard yourself, and not believing when you clse that
book, that you're still in your own living room and you're not, actually
in Wizarding Britain. Of course I had to read the last few chapters
FIRST, to find out who was killed, what the essence of the book was
about, and when I had safely reassured myself, I read it from the
beginning, savoring every word.

Here's what happened...

I'm a Sabbath-observant Jew, and the book arrived right on time, Saturday
June 21... (I had pre-ordered it from Amazon.com). What's a crazy HP fan
to do? I wasn't allowed to rip the box open on the Sabbath. So I tried
quietly to open the box without ripping it. Well guess what -- it broke
open -- the adhesive came off from my pullinb. Oy, did I feel guilty. I
wasn't supposed to transgress the Sabbath for even something as
monumental as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix! So I at first
tried to "punish myself" (dobby-like) by not reading it on Saturday, but
after an hour I couldnt withstand the temptation anymore, prayed to G-d
for forgiveness, and got through 4 hours of reading. On Saturday night I
did another 3 hours, and today, Sunday, 4 more hours. 11 hours, and I'm
done. And exhausted. I got five hours of sleep because of Harry and
company. One thing I must say: It was worth waiting all these years for
as impressive a work as this.

I will leave it to all the others to come up with their brilliant
discussions, dissections, and explanations.... I'm sure that as I send
this email off, I will get a DIGEST in return, if not two! However, I do
want to bring up a number of points, and perhaps they can be clarified.

My thoughts:

In essence, although this book is darker than the previous ones, I think
for the first time the book really has a human element to it and is even
understandable and adaptable to today's world. Aren't we facing evil and
corrupt people in this world who don't give a darn about human lives?
Isn't it true that there's so much dissension and fighting even within
big organizations, and schools, comparable to Hogwarts? Although it felt
quite horrible to read about the hostile environment  Harry found himself
in this year, we could certainly relate to it and feel that we're
experiencing similar things in our lives now. The spectacular,
several-chaptered fight with the Death Eaters at the end was something
unbelievable, something I hadn't quite expected from JKR, and it's so
multi-tiered and multi-layered, that I was sitting at the edge of my seat
breathlessly until (almost) everyone got out alive. The small part that
Voldemort played in it made it different and refreshing. For a change
there were more people involved in the dueling, not harry vs. the dark
lord...

As a person of the Jewish faith, and the Jewish people have been
persecuted for many thousands of years, I was very able to relate to the
whole premise of being misunderstood, judged, taunted, and made to feel
hostile and having the world against you. And the particular sect of
Judaism I belong to also has dissension within its ranks, with people
throwing their loyalty to their own leader and while not being unfriendly
or hostile to members of the opposite faction, each side is misunderstood
and misguided in certain misconceptions, so I was very able to relate to
the exasperated feeling of harry as people refused to believe him in
school.

The book ended in a very satisfying way this time, IMHO, with all loose
ends basically tied up, however difficult it is for us to contemplate the
rest of the series without everyone's favorite, Sirius Black. The book
also had a more consistent and interesting plotline. GoF was comprised
basically of the Triwizard Tournament; here we got to see more *stuff* in
the Wizarding World, more about the school stuff, more places like St.
Mungos and the Ministry of Magic, which I found quite interesting. At
last we were able to get a complete picture of all the other things we
had never known about the Wizarding world, (such as the dept. of
mysteries, the truth about Neville's parents coming out), and I daresay
it's all so cleverly done and fascinating to read!

The book also took on the very predictable pattern of the previous four;
starting in Four Privet Drive, an escape from there, spending time
somewhere in the meantime, a difficult year for harry with many clues and
difficulties, of course Harry refusing to go to Dumbledore when he's in
trouble, climaxing in some kind of fight with evil, the long explanation
by DD in the end, and then going home.... Surprisingly I find I was able
to enjoy and accept the ending a lot better than in GoF because it was
less violent and more satisfactory.

I am quite concerned about the adult tone the series is taking. Although
it's to be expected, now that Harry is fifteen, that his "love life"
would start, I am a mite concerned for the underage kids whose parents
might *not* want them to read about the kissing teenagers and stuff. I
guess they'll have to censor out the "offending" sentences, still I think
that it taking on this tone might cause the HP series to get a few more
serious opponents.

I do think though that the entire plotline that centered around something
as small as prophecy being a little bit of a lame plot. So, what, so
Voldemort would find out that either he or Harry must die? It's not a
major revelation, IMHO. What's he gonna have out of it? I don't see
what... Also, he can go to Sybill and ask her for the prophecy...
However, poor Harry -- now we know that Book Seven is definitely going to
end with someone dying :(. It's a little horrible to contemplate if Harry
will be the one to go... and I have a feeling that will be it, for how
can JKR end the series with Harry flying off happily ever after? I wonder
if she's gonna kill him or not... YIPES.....

Speaking of death, I feel that Sirius is in a better place now. Look how
tough his life had been since he had left Azkaban. Death was definitely
better than being locked in, afraid to show your face... but then again,
the truth is, now that Fudge finally realized that VM was truly back,
perhaps Sirius would've been acquitted and finally could live a normal
life now. But then again -- maybe not... A life of being locked into
hiding is a doomed life... I honestly feel that Sirius is in a better
place now, although I feel terrible for Harry for having NO ONE now!!!...

By the way, when Harry was tearing around Hogwarts trying to find a way
to find out if Sirius really left, I was chomping at the bit thinking to
myself, HARRY, HARRY, USE THAT THINGAMAJIG THAT SIRIUS GAVE YOU! He
totally disregarded it, forgot about it, and only found it the last
day... I wanted to scream... that was the reason Sirius gave it to him,
there was no need for him to get into the fireplace... Oh well, then
there wouldn't have been a plot :)

Now, on to the nitty gritty:

I want to enumerate for you the things I did not find surprising, given
hints in previous books, and discussions here - incidentally, plenty of
things this list had predicted came true, I wonder if JKR doesnt quietly
lurk here and maybe use some of our ideas!

* Percy walking out on the family (though I hope there will be
reconciliation next book now that Fudge finally knows the truth about DD
and Voldemort, and I'm surprised that JKR didnt include an emotional
reunion scene in OoP, perhaps she's waiting for the next book cleverly.)
* Harry and Cho getting together, although Harry knows not a thing about
girls and loses her at the end of the year...
* Snape saving the day, once again... he might be a horrible teacher and
might hate James's son, but in the end he always comes through and saved
his skin...

However, these are the elements in the book I found a little suprising
and unexpected:

* A house-elf being the very prat that helped bring about the downfall
portion of the book (Harry being lured into the Ministry of Magic)
* Neville saving the day with his clumsiness (breaking the prophecy so
that it doesnt get into VM's hands, as well as his suprising
resourcefulness and his emerging clever side)
* Ron as prefect and as quidditch keeper
* Fred and George dropping out of school (do you think they'll be back?)

And these are the few questions I have -- perhaps others can help me out
here.

* Didn't you find it incredibly frustrating that Harry once again
stubbornly refused to submit for help, but did it all on his own, without
going to DD even though DD was ignoring him? Again his stupid pride. I
also think it was a major blunder, as DD himself admitted, that he hadn't
told Harry all along why he was distancing himself frm him, that he might
be lured into the MoM, etc. Oh well, but then there wouldn't have been
much of a story....

* This major question really baffles me: In the scuffle in Umbridge's
room,it says clearly that MALFOY POCKETED HARRY'S WAND. A page later,
Hermione is terrified of them going into the forest without the wands.
Yet, a scant few pages later, Harry casually finds his wand in his pocket
when he gets to the MoM... how the hck did the wand get to him if it was
still in Malfoys pocket? There is no storyline of him accessing it
somehow....

* Do you feel that the whole book and the fallout was substantiated to
get Harry's name cleared and to finally convince Fudge that VM is back? I
think so. I think even Sirius's death is worth it. However, for the life
of me I can't understand why neither Harry nor DD tried something like
Hermione pulled off, giving an interview to the Quibbler, months
earlier... why he hadn't written a story like that in the summer, before
school started... why he didn't call some kind of assembly and tell the
story, word for word... Instead of he just let an enormous tide of
misunderstanding and ill will rise against him all year, which made life
so tough for him, until wise Hermione finally took matters into her own
hands...

* Do any of you feel that Cho was simply using Harry as her replacement
for Cedric and didn't really love Harry? Look how quickly she dropped him
when they didn't agree on things... and she wasn't loyal enough to keep
her "friend" from ratting them out to Umbridge...

* I was puzzled when JKR wrote that Lavender and Parvati were making
their *pencil cases*? huh? fly around the room??? Is this muggle land of
wizard land?

* There was a little reference to the veil down there in the dept. of
mysteries that Luna Lovegood spoke about so confidently... what can we
dare speculate about it? Do you think it will play a part in the next
book? Is that where all the "dead wizards" go? And why did Sirius's body
disappear like that behind the veil? He won't get a burial? I find this
whole aspect of the plot a little flaky. Was Sirius dead by teh curse, or
by falling behind the veil?

* That interestingn phone automated phone booth that greeted the kids
running to save Sirius, whats up with that? They said they were coming to
save someone, they got badges -- so hey, is this thing automated? So any
flukey can come in?  I would suspect the MoM would have a better security
system... they didn't properly investigate who the visitors were or what
their reason for late-night entry was... so VM couldve come in, in
disgiuse and said he was someone else, no one would be the wiser...

* Also, why was NO ONE ON GUARD DUTY when Harry and co. showed up at the
Dept of Mysteries??? I just don't get it... The prophecy was unguarded,
everyone just showed up like that... How's that for a hole in the plot?
After all those people guarding it, getting hurt, doing guard duty, etc.,
suddenly it was unguarded one evening... Hmmmm?

* If VM was so afraid to come to the MoM to pick up the Prophecy himself,
how come he suddenly appeared in the MoM when Harry had it and wasn't
afraid then?

* This also bugs me: DD saw the shadow of VM all year behind Harry's eyes
and therefore kept far away from him, etc. etc. Suddenly at the end of
the book, after the battle with VM, he wasn't afraid to tell him all? So,
Harry won't be possessed by VM anymore? What changed all of a suden?
Willy Harry continue being possessed from now on, or will he take
Occlumency seriously or whatever?

* Do you think that Harry should continue trying to be an Auror now that
he knows VM is out to get him no matter the cost?

* Why in heaven's name did DD let VM go right there at the duel in the
lobby of the MoM? Just let him go like that??... arghhh. He shouldve told
Harry to finish him off right then and there, since one of them has to
survive and one of them has to die...

* And, for the last question, anyone got a clue where Dumbledore was
during the time he left Hogwarts and the time he showed up at the MoM? If
he has no home other than Hogwarts, where did he stay? And oh, yeah, how
did he know to go to the MoM at precisely that moment?

So it's 3:24 PM EST and I think the restrictions are being lifted at 4
oclock my time, which is in 45 minutes, this took me over an hour to
write, I'll go catch my breath and do some shopping, and when I return
home, I will find a barrage of digests and hopefully send this off....

Okay friends, let me hear your comments, questions, and thoughts...

~ M!ndy
26/NY

Postscript: It's 4:30 pm, I'm sending this off, awaiting an avalanche of
posts in return :-D

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