Why down on all the characters?

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 179304

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jeanette" <ejblack at ...> wrote:
>
> It just might be me but since the release of DH there seems to be a 
> very negative feel to a lot of the posts.  People are trashing JKR 
> as a writer, people are trashing the various once-loved characters. 

 
> Is it because we invested a lot of time and emotion on the story 
> and feel cheated either that it is over or that it didn't end in 
> the way we wanted?

Leslie41:

I'll put on my litcrit hat and speculate--

One serious problem with the book is that the ending is crap.  Not 
merely the "crapilogue" that people cite--I'm not as upset with that 
as I am the way that Rowling ends the series so abruptly after 
Voldie's death.  

These seven books have taken up--what?  About three thousand pages, 
more or less?  And after Voldemort's death we just get a little pat 
on the behind and off we go.

Tolkien understood that after such an epic undertaking, the audience 
needs to be eased out.  Maybe he overdid it--but after reading DH I 
got the feeling the host was standing at the door with my coat, just 
as I had started the dessert.  

Not right.  Just not right.  All the questions she's now having to 
answer she should have answered in the book, and taken several more 
chapters to do so.  

Another problem was the overwhelming number of seemingly unnecessary 
deaths, most of them rushed through and not dealt with at all.  
Fred?  WTF?  Why kill Fred?  And why then pretty much pretend it 
never happened?  Why kill Tonks and Lupin off camera and then, again, 
pretend it pretty much never happened?  Colin Creevy?  Give me a 
break!

It's as if she wanted to "prove" what a terrible threat Voldemort was 
by just knocking off beloved characters willy-nilly.  But it felt 
extremely forced, and just plain wrong.  Bad writing.  Bad writing to 
kill Lupin offstage and not devote the attention to that event that 
was deserved.  Maybe not as much as Snape's demise received, but for 
god's sake give us something!  

It just seemed cruel and bad and wrong.  You can say "life is like 
that", but life doesn't have an author orchestrating it, upon whom it 
is incumbent to provide some sort of texture and understanding.  

There have been many deaths in the series that she's handled well.  
Sirius'.  Dumbledore's.  Snape's.  

But Remus Lupin should be alive, as should Fred.  There's no point to 
them being dead, within the context of the story. 

A third reason might have to do with Snape.  There were a lot of 
Snape haters out there--more, probably, than there were Snape 
lovers/admirers (of which I count myself in number).  

It's got to be hard to reconcile Snape as a hero for people that hate 
him so, and within the context of the book he's in many ways as much 
a hero as Harry.  This is supported by JKR herself (not that this 
matters, necessarily), who has in interviews underscored his bravery 
and his ability to love, and said that Harry himself will place 
Snape's portrait in the Headmaster's office.  She agrees he's mean 
and vindictive, but one cannot exit DH without getting the distinct 
feeling that Snape went above and beyond the call of duty, beyond 
what was required of him because of his love for Lily.  To my mind, 
he's her greatest character, but I've admired him for awhile.  

I can only say that if I had been wrong, and he'd been on the side of 
evil all along, I'd now be feeling terribly ill-served, and angry, 
and I imagine that's how some people that have always hated him must 
feel.