Umbridge, detention, scars, and plotlines, oh my!.

[phoenixgod2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 125933



> Betsy:
> Ah.  This is where we part ways, I guess.  I quite liked OotP.  I 
> don't recall any scenes that I thought unnecessary to the plot, 
> nothing I would have cut.  I liked how JKR ratched up the tension 
> and introduced more depth to the storyline.  I love that not all of 
> Harry's enemies are minions of Voldemort.  I love that friend and 
> foes are not easily identified and I love that Harry's choices are 
> not automatically correct.  (Now if we could just work on dear 
> Hermione... <g>)  

I have to lean more more towards the Lupinlore side of things. I 
don't think it was quite as flawed as he, but I think JK made a few 
bad decisions. My opinion can pretty much be summed up like this--Too 
many people acted stupidly.

The author needed the characters to get to a certain point by the end 
of the book and I think she had many of them act with a level of poor 
judgement that I found difficult to believe. I don't think that DD 
would make the decisions to act in OOTP the way he does. I cannot 
imagine a wizard of his power and wisdom thinking that way. It goes 
beyond showing him to have human falability and stretches 
believability. I don't believe Fudge would be quite so incompetent or 
stuff his head so far into the sand. And I definitely don't think 
Harry would ever really have forgetten the mirror. Aside from the 
mirror though, I pretty much think he acted about as on target as he 
could have with the lack of information he possessed.

Spot on with Hermione though :)   
 
> I think we've gotten into discussions before about how the various 
> characters changed - I quite liked the changes and thought they 
> flowed well from previous books (i.e. Percy leaving the Weasleys, 
> Molly's breakdown, Neville's bravery and determination).  Ginny was 
> a bit jarring.  There could have been more foreshadowing in earlier 
> books there, though I did like Ginny's character.  And I could have 
> done with more Draco (though I think his development for good or 
ill 
> should occur or at least start in the next book).  But I liked the 
> new characters JKR introduced (pause for Luna love moment), and the 
> introduction of more folks not Gryffindor.

Aside from Hermione, which I think suffers from to much authorial 
empathy, and Ginny, who I think was just flat out badly written, I 
think most of the characterizations were about the way I would have 
written them. If anything I would have written Cho to be more 
devastated and off balance.  Neville is a masterful representation of 
a character who changes almost entirely off screen and based on only 
a few scenes with Harry, but was absolutely believeable (I'm looking 
at you Ginny).  And the new characters were great. Before OOTP I 
didn't have a dog in the Harry/Shipping wars other than my dislike of 
HG and HHr but when I met Tonks and Luna I decided the ultimate Harry 
ship would be some sort of Harry/Luna/Tonks threesome. Although I 
would settle for just one of them ending up with Harry :)    
 

> she's said in an interview or two that she's had the final chapter 
> written for a long time now, mainly so she'd always know what she 
> was aiming for.  And she's so keen on puzzles and riddles, I 
imagine 
> she's had to plan for every mystery's outcome.  So I think we're 
> reading a series that has been very well planned out.

I think that could have been one of the problems of OOTP. She had 
every so precisely planned out that she had to go ooc with a few of 
the characters to get the to the spot they needed to be even though 
it wouldn't really make since for them to do it, since she didn't 
have the room to allow for changes in her narrative.

Phoenixgod2000