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

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 125942


>>Phoenixgod: 
>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.<
<snip>

Betsy:
Usually I'm pretty good at catching that sort of story error.  I 
don't recall anything standing out to me in OotP.  The way I see 
things, the reason for conflict in this book is Dumbledore keeping 
Harry out of the loop.  Every action taken by the various characters 
was influenced by that decision.  And I thought they all reacted as 
their characters would react.  All of the Order members followed 
Dumbledore's lead.  Molly thought Dumbledore was completely 
correct.  Sirius had his doubts but didn't press Dumbledore too 
far.  Lupin followed Sirius's lead.  Snape obeyed absolutely, and 
gave no clue as to his real opinion. I also fully believed 
Dumbledore's reasoning (as I've gone into in other posts <g>) 
mistaken though the reasoning was.

>>Phoenixgod:
>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.<

Betsy
I guess I've always felt that Dumbledore had a wizard's amount of 
power, but a human's amount of wisdom.  He's been a warrior, yes.  
He took down Grindelwald, possibly by himself?  Has he ever trained 
someone to go up against a dark wizard before?  It's a hugely 
different role, and I can't think it's easy on him knowing that this 
small boy is the only person who has a chance of defeating 
Voldemort. (And I think it's also important to remember that 
Dumbledore taught Tom Riddle.)  He's been alive for a long time, but 
not *that* long a time.  And what he's trying to do for Harry is new 
to him, as far as I can tell.  As far as JKR has shared with us 
anyway.  So I don't expect him to fully fill the shoes of the "wise 
old man" so common in myths and so beautifully illustrated by 
Tolkien.

Dumbledore is being overprotective of Harry.  In OotP (but not 
before then, I think) this protectiveness was a mistake.  
Dumbledore's wisdom is in recognizing his mistake and quite possibly 
learning from it (we'll see in HBP).

>>Phoenixgod:
>I don't believe Fudge would be quite so incompetent or stuff his 
head so far into the sand.<

Betsy:
Now this is *completely* believable to me.  It's happened too many 
times in RL to be dismissed so easily.  Chamberlain is one historic 
figure that springs to mind. Plus, Fudge has Lucius working on him 
in the background.  And JKR set it up as early as PoA that Fudge was 
a coward, completely unwilling to stand up to public opinion.  Fudge 
is one character quite comfortable in burying his head in the sand.

>>Phoenixgod:
>And I definitely don't think Harry would ever really have forgetten 
the mirror.<

Betsy:
Yeah, the mirror is a little harder to believe. Of course when I 
read OotP *I* forgot about the mirror - so it didn't throw me out of 
the story.  But Harry has a pretty stong will, I could see him 
putting something out of his mind if he decided to.  Plus, he was 
pretty panicked when he was trying to get a hold of Sirius (and he 
was under a small amount of Voldemort's influence).  He didn't even 
think of contacting Snape, and he was fully aware of Snape being a 
part of the Order.

>>Phoenixgod: 
>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.<

Betsy:
I'm withholding judgement on Hermione until after the final chapter 
is written.  There are things about the character that I don't like, 
and I'm still not sure if JKR is consciously putting those things in 
and there'll be a reckoning later on, or if she just bugs me at 
times, and that's all there is to it.

This essay by No Remorse is interesting - as is the comment thread:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/no_remorse/41723.html
It theorizes that *Hermoine* will be the member of the Trio to die - 
not Ron.

As to Ginny: I like her.  I think she's good for Harry in that she 
doesn't tip-toe around him.  I'm not sure about their ship 
potential... Erm, I'm lying.  I'm pretty sure JKR will end the books 
H/G and R/Hr, as per the foreshadowing anyway (unless, of course, 
Hermione dies).  I'm just not sure I like it.  But I do wish JKR had 
developed Ginny as smoothly as she developed Neville.  (Though the 
roughness may mean that Ginny isn't going to play a huge role in the 
upcoming books.)

>>Phoenixgod:
<snip>
>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 :)<

Betsy:
I like Ron with Luna.  I think Luna already has a bit of a crush on 
him, and I think Ron deserves to have someone interested in him.  
Plus, Luna seems to like Ron just as he is, so yay, Luna!

Betsy