OOP: Disappointing (also posted on HPfGU)

[pippin_999]

[Also posted to HPfGU]

Just my reactions to Phyllis's post...I didn't find the book 
disappointing at all. Challenging, yes, difficult in places, but not 
disappointing. Forgive me if some of these points have already 
been made.

>>And we keep hearing that Dumbledore is the only one 
Voldemort was ever afraid of (other than Harry, of course!), so it 
doesn't seem as if any member of the Order other than 
Dumbledore could have kept a disguised Voldy out of the 
prophecy room.<<

This is explained. Voldemort thinks that Harry knows about the 
prophecy. He knows that Harry detected his presence when he 
invaded the prophecy room.  He doesn't go back because he's 
afraid he'll be detected by Harry and attacked by the aurors or 
Dumbledore.  

We're told repeatedly that Dumbledore is the only one Voldemort 
fears. OTOH, Voldemort himself expresses many other  fears in 
GoF: fear of dying, fear that the aurors or the Ministry will search 
him out, fear that Pettigrew will desert him. We see the Ministry 
as a gaggle of ignorant, incompetent, power-hungry  
quill-pushers who can't tell their posteriors from a post owl, but 
to Voldemort they represent another power he has never 
understood, the power of rightful authority. Voldemort tried vainly 
for years to dislodge Dumbledore from Hogwarts. The Ministry 
did it with the stroke of a pen. Hmmm...love and authority -- 
maybe the power in the locked room is ... God?


>>Sirius' Death: Several things bothered me here. The first 
was the way he died – taunting his cousin. How arrogant is that? 
Couldn't he have died a more noble death – in the midst of a 
proper duel, perhaps?<<

Sirius passed up his chance to confront Voldemort  when he 
chose not to be secret-keeper.  He was always arrogant. He had 
many good qualities, but humility wasn't one of them.  
Repeatedly he claims to know what's best because he's master 
of the house and Harry's godfather, asserting his judgements  
based on his position rather than knowledge or experience.

>>The second was that I didn't feel as if we had enough 
character development on Sirius to warrant Harry's feeling of 
grief. <<

You're kidding! Half the fandom's in tears, and yet all they saw of 
Sirius was Harry's PoV..why shouldn't he be as torn up as the 
readers are? Sirius was the first and only person to offer Harry a 
home away from the Durselys; of course Harry took to him. Love 
at first sight doesn't only happen between couples, you know. 

 >>And even if I could accept that he and Harry were close, I can't 
come to grips with why Harry needs more misery in his life.<<

Actually, Harry has most of his old miseries pretty well sorted. 
He's recovering from the graveyard...he dreams of it less and 
less as the book goes on. He knows now that his suffering 
wasn't pointless and that makes it easier to bear. He's found 
something he likes to do besides play Quidditch. The wizarding 
world has decided he's not crazy and Dumbledore has finally 
decided to let him in on what's going on. 

He's got at least a fighting chance against Voldemort (which is 
more than anybody else has.) As for Harry's other antagonists, 
he's got a handle on Snape, the Dursleys are intimidated, 
Draco's hostility has become a joke, and Lucius is in the pokey. 

>> The Prophecy: We had already pretty much figured this out – 
the only twist for me was that it could have been Neville. I think I 
expected JKR to come up with something more clever than what 
I had already concluded. And Voldy already seems determined to 
personally kill Harry – what would he really gain by hearing the 
rest of the prophecy?<<

This was explained- Voldemort thinks the rest of the prophecy 
contains information he needs to destroy Harry.  After being 
defeated three times,  he wasn't about to go after Harry again 
until he'd found out, so Harry was safe as long as Voldemort 
thought he had a chance of finding out what the prophecy said.

If he had  the entire Prophecy Voldemort would also have 
learned that: Dumbledore can't kill him
The good guys don't know how to destroy  him
If Voldemort doesn't destroy the "one," the "one" is fated to 
destroy him. The last might prompt Voldemort to arrange that if 
he goes down, the rest of the WW will go with him. All sound 
reasons for Dumbledore to want the prophecy hidden, IMO.



>>Inconsistencies/Unanswered questions<<

 I am wondering if  people who expected OOP to have all the 
answers read the first four books in one swell foop, not noticing 
how many loose ends were left from volume to volume. The big 
loose end from PS/SS was of course why Voldemort wanted to 
kill Harry. I believe that's been answered now. We still don't know 
why he offered to spare Lily, so we can't say the suspense is 
over. There were loose ends  at the end of CoS, like what will be 
done with Gryffindor's sword and what happened to Lockhart.  
There were plenty of loose ends after PoA, some of which didn't 
get tied up until OOP, like what was the first Prophecy and how 
the heck does Fidelius work. 

There's also the limits of Harry's point of view. He's a brilliant 
tactician but not much of a strategic thinker. IMO, it would be out 
of character for him to analyze Voldemort's strategies or ask 
penetrating questions about them. Besides, knowing too much 
about what Voldemort is planning would kill the suspense. The 
downside is that the explanations seem to be afterthoughts 
when we finally get them...and we do, eventually, IMO. For 
example, I think we have enough canon now to sort out the 
"toothbrush" problem, but that's another post.


>> Harry's Temper: This really took me by surprise. Harry 
starts the book by taunting Dudley and it just escalates from 
there.  This is so unlike the Harry of the first four books – the 
Harry that says nothing when Lucius Malfoy tells him in CoS that 
he'll meet the same sticky end as his parents. Granted, Harry's 
getting older, but I thought his temperament change was a bit 
too abrupt to be believable.<<

Harry didn't get angry at Lucius because Lucius didn't hurt 
him...Harry knows full well a sneer from him is a compliment.

Harry was  plenty angry in GoF; at Ron, at Cedric, at Voldemort 
and at Snape.  Harry was just as angry in POA as he was in OOP 
and really far more beastly to Hermione. *We* didn't see her 
suffer as much because Harry was too much of a git to notice. 
He also blew up his aunt, punched Sirius and threw Snape 
against a wall. We're more aware of the effects of his anger in 
OOP because the book is longer, and because Harry himself is 
aware that he's taking things out on people and hurting them. 
That's actually an positive development in his character, IMO. At 
least he's aware of his angry feelings  now and using words 
instead of violence and rejection. He was wrong to try to crucio 
Bella, but how was that worse than blowing up his aunt or 
punching Sirius?


>>Dumbledore-Harry Relationship: Dumbledore says he didn't 
tell Harry about the prophecy because he loved him too much. As 
with Sirius, I don't see how Harry and Dumbledore have had 
enough interaction in order for Dumbledore to have developed 
such a love. Dumbledore "watching" Harry's accomplishments 
isn't a basis for love, IMO. <<

-- See what I said about love at first sight, above. Also 
Dumbledore must have felt horribly guilty for having left Harry to 
grow up in such a loveless place. Naturally he would try to make 
up for it. From what he says, he never had a family of his own 
and his paternal emotions took him by surprise.

>>No Tricks:<<
Oh, I don't know about that. Look at the not-so-rock-solid 
predictions list over at HPfGU. Very few of us got anything right. 
<g>
 

Did you *know* Sirius was going to be the one to die? I didn't. 
There were hints all over the place, starting with PoA and the 
book that Harry sees at Flourish and Blott's. "What to do when 
you know the worst is coming" with a big black dog on the cover. 
Which is Black humor <groans>

Here's three hints from OOP to start off the list.  LOONs?

1)the Dementors made the stars go out (ch.1)
2) There were thirteen at dinner with the Weasleys at Grimmauld 
Place. Ginny leaves the table, but gets down on the floor. The 
first to "rise" is Sirius.(ch. 5)
3)Sirius says he's not sure he'll be accepting the Ministry's 
apology for denying Voldemort's return.(ch. 9)

Moi,I think the trickery quotient is way up there.  And that's
without 
mentioning ESE Lupin.

Pippin