Feelings on OoP

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 79988

"mom31" <mom31 at r...> wrote: <<I've been wondering how everyone else 
is feeling about OoP now that we've had time to re-read it and let it 
sink in.  For me, it didn't even feel like canon at first.  When I 
first finished it, I felt very emotionally drained, and had 
absolutely no idea how I felt about the book.  <snip> It seemed such 
a downer.>>

The first time I finished it I was sort of appalled; it was just so 
incredibly bleak (that I had that "this can't be real" (canon) 
reaction as well).  Harry and Sirius both seemed to have developed 
personality disorders, and Sirius didn't even live long enough to 
find his way out of his.

"mom31" <mom31 at r...> wrote: <<I liked it much better the second time, 
and now that my daughters done with it, I'm going to start my third.  
I'm going to pay particular attention to the cleaning scenes at 
Grimmauld Place. There has to be something important in there.>>
 
I am less moved by anything that happens in OoP each time I read it.  
I go through as if I'm an investigator at a crime scene, gathering 
clues.  Recently evidence points thusly:  I think Kreacher, for all 
intents and purposes, killed Sirius; let's plaque him!  But 
Dumbledore seems to think that choices *house elves* make don't count 
(and isn't that sort of species-ist itself?), saying that Kreacher is 
what wizards made him.  Does DD know more than he's told about how 
house elves are bound?  After all, Dobby at least made 
choices "outside the box," even if it did mean he had to iron his 
hands.

"mom31" <mom31 at r...> wrote: <<The more I get used to OoP, the more I 
like it.  I love that Harry has more of a personality now!>>  

I honestly cannot read it through again.  Not yet.  I made it twice, 
but now I just flip back and forth and look things up and read a 
chapter or two, but not in order.  It is incredibly claustrophobic 
(and I'm not, usually):  Sirius is closed up in the Black mansion, 
and Harry is trapped first at the Dursleys and then inside his own 
head.  He doesn't even have the occasional freedom of the skies; his 
broom has been arrested.
 
I don't rate the books with each other; I think I won't know where 
each book falls in the rankings for me until the saga is finished and 
I know how each installment fits in.

"angellslin" <angellslin at y...> wrote: <<I'm bitterly upset by OoP. 
It's a book about human weaknesses. Rather than restoring to 
different branches of magic, the OoP is so "realistic" that it tells 
us that wizards are just human, who commit all sort of human mistake, 
no matter you're as wise as Dumbledore, or as reckless and brave as 
Harry Potter.>>

I think the earlier books were about human weakness, too: only it was 
Quirrell, Peter Pettigrew, Barty Crouch--nobody we cared about.  In 
OoP we experience weakness as the viewpoint character's and other's 
who matter to us.  Without human weakness, there's no story.  At 
all.  Ever.  Comedy is about overcoming human weakness; tragedy is 
about succumbing to it.  IMO.

"angellslin" <angellslin at y...> wrote: <<I'm also disappointed by 
Harry's behaviour in this book. Of course, you can argue that he's a 
teenager and feels angry and be misunderstood and stuff like that.>>

I just reread the OoP scene in Dumbledore's office where Harry is 
screaming and throwing things and wanting out (more claustrophobia), 
and Dumbledore refuses to let him go.  He sort of goads Harry, saying 
it's okay to feel the way he feels, it shows he's human.  And Harry 
is utterly rejecting that, screaming that he'd rather not be human 
than feel as he does.  That got me to thinking; did Dumbledore have a 
similar encounter with Tom Riddle?  Did he let Tom Riddle go stew in 
his own juices instead of forcing him to let out some of his pain and 
rage?  Could he have prevented Lord Voldemort if he'd looked more 
closely at Tom Riddle?  I know he wasn't headmaster then, but he was, 
what, Transfiguration teacher?  How influential might he have been?  
How much does he blame himself, if he does?

"angellslin" <angellslin at y...> wrote: <<But I wonder, if Harry 
continues his self-consciousness, self-isolation and self-pity as in 
OoP, can he be alive by the end of Book 7 or how many of his friends 
and mentors have to die in order to save him?>>

If Harry is as unbearable throughout Book 6, I swear I will not even 
buy Book 7 (though I would probably borrow it eventually).  I calmed 
down and felt better when I heard (rumor, but I clung) that Book 5 is 
the longest in the series and that it served to set up the plot for 
Books 6 and 7; fine, one like that I can stand.  And I'm on board for 
any theory that says that some part of Harry's OoP negativity was 
actually Voldemort's serotonin shortage coloring Harry's perceptions 
through that link.  I wonder if there's a vessel in the Bay...

Sandy, aka "msbeadsley", now thoroughly "Black(ened)" again