Hmmm. What's your favorite *now*?

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 183023


> 
> Mike:
> Thank goodness we have your wisdom to rescue my foreboding sense of 
> killing the list. :-) And, yeah PC, top this! Thread killing is 
> nothing to an expert assassin like yours truly. ;-)

Potioncat:
Heck, I kill the very threads I start!
> 

Mike:
 But the real hook was the Scabbers/Peter 
> revelation, anybody with the ability to hang that in front of us 
for 
> three books only to turn everything on it's ear,... I just had to 
> read more of this story. 

Potioncat:
I think that experience happened for me earlier because someone let 
it slip that Snape wasn't the bad guy when I was mid-way through 
SS/PS. He didn't give any other information and I still think the 
Bonehead had no idea he'd given anything away at all. But I started 
reading differently.

PoA was exciting because of the turn-arounds. I enjoyed that book, 
too.
 

> 
> Mike:
> OotP still tops this list. <snip>
 I did enjoy the whole MoM running fight and got goose 
> bumps when Dumbledore showed up to battle "Tom". Of course, that 
was 
> after my favorite character got himself killed, which meant I had 
two 
> more books to go with no Sirius. :(


Potioncat:
How difficult was it to continue reading the series after Sirius 
died?  Given that I'm still here, I suppose I would have continued 
reading if Snape had died earlier. But I was quite upset at his 
death, even expecting it. I thought Sirius's was completely 
unexpected.

Which reminds me of one thing I didn't like about OoP. We knew 
someone important was going to die. All through the book were 
teasers, and each time I'd breathe a sigh of relief that McGonagall, 
or Arthur or whomever, hadn't died. It was starting to feel contrived 
before we got to the real event.  
> 
> 
> Mike:
> None of the characters that survived DH, really. I suppose George 
> might be interesting, and I always wanted to hear more from 
Charlie. 
> But I'd most like to read about the previous generation, I find all 
> of them infinitely more interesting than Harry's generation.

Potioncat:
Agreed! But also, the epilogue wrapped up most of the story lines. 
Not that I blame JKR, had she left any doubt of another adventure, 
she would have been tormented by fans wanting more.

And no, I'm not saying there are no dangling threads, just that for 
the main group, it's been said and done.
> 

> 
> Mike:
> OTOH, the choices he made while at Hogwarts, when he should have 
> thrived, made me despise the adult Snape even more. He had proved 
> that he was an exceptionally bright youth, he had a strong willed 
> guiding friend in Lily, and he *still* chose Voldemort and the 
Death Eaters; that led eventually to his life of muted desperation.


Potioncat:
I find this part of the plot, the most difficult to understand. It 
does sort of mirror a plot found in Southern historical fiction 
stories set in either Ante-Bellum period or the time of segregation. 
But I don't think there's enough information to show us why he made 
those choices.