OotP - bit of a curate's egg? Spoilers

[meglet2]

No: HPFGUIDX 62498

'Good in parts, my Lord',siad the curate to the bishop describing 
his rotten egg.

Not that I think OotP is 'rotten' (though the WW is revealed as 
having quite a lot of rottenness at its core) but did anyone else 
have a sense of disappointment and dissatisfaction at the end? So 
many questions still seem unanswered to me, so many inconsistencies 
seem embedded in it and there is much that I miss from the other 
books.

For example, where's the major plot twist at the end? Part of what I 
love has been the surprise of having everything turned upside down 
by the revelation that someone has been at all what you thought they 
were for most of the book and that despite the clues you never saw 
it coming. Quirrel, Tom Riddle (even Ginny under possession), Sirius 
and Lupin (a whole book built for goodness sake on our 
misunderstanding of one pronoun!) Barty Crouch Jr/Mad-eye Moody - 
every book but this reverses our perceptions at the end. I kept half 
waiting for Umbridge to turn out to be Dumbledore's secret weapon. 
But nothing quite like that in this book and I miss it (maybe in 
more senses than one if someone likes to correct me). 

Sure it was horrible that Sirius died. I can't bear how Harry has to 
be stripped of every parental figure. This is almost a worse 
orphaning than the deaths of his parents, since he cannot really 
remember them but he is never going to forget Sirius. I am becoming 
more and more sure that Harry will not survive book 7. She is, I 
think, detaching him from earthly ties so that he will be ready for 
the 'next great adventure' when the time comes. I'm becoming very 
fearful for all those Harry loves and is close to or at least as 
close as his repressed emotions will let him be. Why does he spend 
so much energy shutting out those who want to help him? Still I 
suppose that is true to both his type and character. 

And the disillusionment over James (and Sirius) is well done and 
full of subtlety. Harry is even beginning to recognise through it 
that he may be closer to Snape, or at least to understanding what 
makes him tick, than he would like to think. James in fact behaves 
almost exactly like Malfoy and certainly like the taunting DEs at 
the beginning of GoF. Hard to understand why he is so anti the dark 
arts. On this evidence he's a natural. Even Sirius admits that it 
took James a while to stop 'hexing people just because he could.' 
There is much in the book that is as muti-layered and compelling as 
usual.

But I still feel let down somehow? So much we still don't know. What 
are Snape's OotP duties? When he says to Harry that it is his job to 
keep Dumbledore informed of DE activities it seems to imply he is 
playing the double agent again. But as we discussed extensively on 
this list, how could he get away with it again? Surely after GoF his 
cover is totally blown. We still don't know why Dumbledore trusts 
him implicitly. He does after all let Dumbledore down spectacularly 
in this book. Despite his lectures to Harry about letting his 
emotions take control of his mind, his own emotions do exactly that 
after the Pensieve scene and he spends the rest of the term 
disobeying D's explicit instructions about Harry. 

Why is Percy so horrible? He is positively vicious to Harry and in 
GoF while he might have been a bit of a pompous prat, at least his 
love for his family kept shining through and he was always kind to 
Harry. The reversal is too great without explanation though I repect 
JKR's right to hold the explanation back for a later book. 

The first half of the book I found horrible and very difficult to 
read. It was like an account of Nazi Germany in the early days - the 
creeping tyrannies, the repressive decress, the seeming 
impossibility of the good guys preventing it all. I enjoyed it much 
more when the resistance started up. The humour started to creep in 
a bit more, which again I had missed from the earlier books. But I 
suspect that when I re-read with more attention to the details than 
in the first gallop through to get the story, I will appreciate how 
well she has done it a lot more. 

How did DEs manage to take over the MoM for an evening? Even Harry 
in the midst of his panic over Sirius found it sinister that the 
atrium was deserted and there were no security staff around. Too 
right! What had the DEs done with them? And not only escaped DEs but 
Voldemort himself manages to turn up, and have free reign to do what 
they like in the Ministry itself. Its a bit like Osama Bin Laden and 
Al Qaida turning up in the Whitehouse and having the run of it for a 
while. 

We still as someone pointed out don't really know the full 
significance of the Prophecy. I half suspect it may well be about 
Neville. I didn't find Dumbledore's points very convincing and it 
would be a nice twist at the end to find out the whole saga should 
be called 'Neville Longbottom and the...' I'm only half joking. she 
wouldn't really do that would she?

The names are still wonderful. 'Bellatrix' - female warrior. 
Lovegood - how pointed can you get in a series about the struggle 
between good and evil! I think Loony Lovegood is going to be much 
more significant in later books. I think despite her off the wall 
manner and her batty beliefs she does see reality and truth. I thnk 
her gifts are going to be important in the coming fight. 

I hope she will develop Remus much more. He is the only true loving  
connection Harry now has left to his father since Wormtail can only 
be a malevolent link. Again I suspect Wormtail has a much greater 
part to play. He was only very incidently around in this book and 
there is much we can still speculate on in his role. 

She is still a compelling story teller, you have to keep turning the 
pages, but I have to agree with one reviewer in an English who asked 
himself if it was worth the wait. His answer was 'yes' but not such 
a resounding yes as for the previous books.

Comments welcome.

Mercia