OOP SPOILER THREAD: Is Anyone Else's Head About to *Explode?*

[Dicentra spectabilis]

No: HPFGUIDX 64578

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Cindy C." <cindysphynx at c...> wrote:

> Ya know, OoP was a children's book. Definitely. Don't you think? 
> Nope, there's no room for disagreement at all. I mean, we got the 
> same old Draco Malfoy taunts, for one thing. I was expecting 
> something a bit darker, a bit more serious. 

Um, a Grand Inquisitor isn't dark and serious?  A teacher who
literally makes you write lines in your own blood isn't?  Being
attacked by Kissing Dementors in your own neighborhood isn't?  Being
possessed by Voldemort isn't?   Harry firing off a Crucio isn't? What?
 What color is the sky in your world, woman?

I don't know how many children are ready for that scene where Harry,
inhabiting the snake, disembowels Arthur Weasley.  Or the one where
Voldemort jumps into Harry's body and dares Dumbledore to kill him. If
I were a kid, I'd be having nightmares for a year over that.

And how many other children's books do you know that graphically
depict sadism, bloodlust, and psychopathy?

How many others tackle complex themes such as how your strengths
become your weaknesses, resulting in someone's death?  Or how seeing
Death changes you?  

How many others deliberately destroy the hero's innocence and then
show him becoming bitter, angry, and vengeful, and then don't lift him
out of that by the end?  How many systematically kick the pins out
from under him and fail to set the pins back up?  How many leave the
hero worse off than when he started? 

> My main problem was the character 
> development.  It seems that favorite characters were brought out for 
> window dressing purposes.  I mean, if Moody and Lupin and Figg aren't 
> going to do much relevant to the plot, well . . . why bother? 

Oh, sorry if your favorite characters didn't get to star in this one.
 Lupin had PoA.  Moody had GoF (sort of).  Figg was never meant to be
a major player to begin with: I mean, she's just a Squib for the sake
of Pete.  Just because you wanted desperately to find out that Moody
was an undercover operative working for Rookwood -- and JKR didn't
read the list, become dazzled with the idea, and put it in the series
-- doesn't mean OoP is flawed.  It just means that your expectations
for OoP were far too rigid.  But if you want to ruin the experience by
using a narrow little ruler of your own making, that's your problem,
not JKR's.

> And major things just kind of fizzled.  Harry is jealous of Ron, 
> which goes . . . nowhere, really.  Harry dates Cho, which goes . . . 
> nowhere, really.

Well, of course those things just fizzled.  What, we're going to have
another Ron/Harry tiff, just like in GoF?   Harry struggles with the
disappointment for awhile, but it kind of gets overshadowed by the
Hearing, Umbridge, O.W.L.s, and Ron's lousy Quidditch skills.  Oh, and
Being Voldemort.  That was a bit of a distraction.

The thing with Cho fizzles because she's nice, but she only wanted
Harry as a shoulder to cry on.  Did you want some full-blown Romeo and
Juliet thing?  Some sappy teen-age swoon-fest?  Harry and Cho gazing
into each others' eyes and sighing?  See, that's the trouble with
Being Harry: romance just doesn't get to figure in so much because
you've got other things to contend with.  Murder and Mayhem don't mix
so well with making googly eyes.  I'm glad it fizzled: had it become
sappy I might have retched all over the book.

> Cindy -- starting trouble for the sake of it

You just wait, oh Cinister one.  I'll show you!  I'm gonna make you
*eat* every single word you say against OoP.  I'm gonna write some
serious *essays*.  Then you'll be sorry.

--Dicentra, who is actually good friends with Cindy and therefore can
get away with the trash talk without it being rude; don't try this at home