[the_old_crowd] Re: Rewriting OotP

[pennylin]

Hi --

Gee, everyone seems to have fallen silent in light of Randy's request that we actually come up with what we liked about OoP and, more importantly, what we *didn't* like!  <g>  I see Randy has commented on just this!

It's funny -----> my list would vary fairly considerably from Jim's most excellent list of likes and dislikes.  The rewrite venture may spark lots of heated discussions!  

Okay, so ...... my list.  I must confess that details about plot points and specific scenes are only through the first 1/3 of the book, because that's all I had time to skim.  I'll try to post an updated list later, but this will hit the high points.

What I loved/liked:

** HERMIONE ---------- Hermione really has a chance to shine in this one, IMHO, and she makes the most of it.  Pippin earlier commented that for many readers (or maybe it was her own personal feeling alone?), there should be more to Hermione than books and House Elves.  I've thought about that alot lately actually, and I'm left with a question: like what?  What else *ought* there to be about Hermione?  What would make her a more fully-developed character in your mind?  To my mind, having her brains and her social consciousness (even if her methodology isn't yet perfected), is way more than enough.  Boys?  She's still snagged the best date yet in the series!  Seriously, she's shown interest in boys, and she's obviously got *some* amount of emotional maturity/depth (since she came up with very complicated explanations of Cho's feelings, etc.).  Other female friends?  Well, I wasn't willing to give it much credence based on GoF alone, but it does appear that there's more than just a passing friendship between Hermione and Ginny.  She also obviously talks to her female roommates more now, since we see she had a small 'chat" with Lavender about Harry early-on in the school term.  

So, color me baffled.  But, er........what's not to like?  What's not to love?  She has faults to be sure, but I assume we don't want Hermione to be *perfect* (and, yes, I know there are some readers who believe she was in fact *too* perfect in OoP).  Well, enough of that, the rest of my list won't be accompanied by so much verbiage.  <g>

** HARRY -- Yes, every bit of his anger and self-pity was endearing to me.  

** Harry and Hermione as a team (well, you knew I had to mention it, right?!)

** McGonagall -- she rocks.  One of my favorite OoP scenes is Harry's career counseling with McGonagall!

** Umbridge (a baddy we love to hate as Jim said) ---->  By the same token, I was really intrigued by the detention scenes. I think that was a bit of a gutsy move on Rowling's part, and I know a good many readers would rather she have not gone that route, but I thought it added considerable depth.

** Neville!!

** Dean Thomas (and a 3-dimensional Seamus!).  Oh, and Ernie Macmillan!  Loved Ernie.  Loved him.

** Harry's Snake PoV in the attack on Mr. Weasley

** Luna 

** Dementor attacks on Privet Drive ...... that was unexpected!

** Harry's taunting of Dudley and Dudley's stabs about Harry's nightmares ----- I thought this was a great way to communicate how scarred Harry remains by Voldemort's resurrection.  And, I think the whole interchange brings more depth to Harry's relations with the Dursleys.  He's showing that he doesn't always play fair himself for one thing.

** the Prefect Badge scene --- oh how I love that one.

**   We don't see much Lupin, but I liked what we did get.

** Hermione's completely lacklustre reaction to Ron's romantic Christmas gift of perfume.  Bwahahahaha!

** the Black family background........what a great way to communicate a good deal of backstory

** the Occlumency sessions with Snape (and the Snape pensieve scene!).  James is complex!  Yay!  And Lily looks very, very interesting.  

WHAT I HATED/DISLIKED/or WOULD CHANGE:

** Molly Weasley ----> unequivocally top of my hated list.  Bleh.  I absolutely detest this character.  

** Sirius is ......sob!........DEAD!!!!!!!!!!  How *could* she???????!

** "And you, Harry ---"  No dashes please, Ms. Rowling.  You will only foster tortured lengthy grammar debates amongst the fans for the next 3 bloody years about whether the dash means that she kissed Harry too or didn't.  I would change that scene to be more specific that she *did* kiss Harry too.  <eg>

** Percy!!  What has happened to my Percy?  And we don't even get a red-herring about him maybe under Imperius or some other *reasonable* explanation for his behavior!  As founding member of PINE, I am sorely, sorely disappointed by this, and well, I'm just not satisfied at all.  I hope there is a very good explanation forthcoming!

** Ginny's development communicated through other people, rather than through direct interactions with Harry.  We need to find out that Ginny's become a good Quidditch player by stealing the boys' brooms all this time?  Okay, well show us a conversation between Harry and Ginny.  Cough.  *Especially* if you intend the fair red-headed girl to be the love interest of the Hero in the final analysis.  Cough turns into choking cough. 

** Hagrid.  I'm completely bored in the chapter about his mission to the giants.  Of course, on the bright side, he's missing for a good bit of the book really.  I'm just not getting much out of his character at this point.  

** I thought the Fred & George leave Hogwarts scene was over-written (and thus over-rated), but I'm probably in the minority on that one.

** Ron as Quidditch star and prefect ...... on the one hand, I'm glad that he gets to have these honors because his self-confidence has been so sorely in need of a boost for a very long time, but on the other hand, I disliked Rowling's treatment of these issues with Ron.  It smacks of "tokenism" for lack of a better term.  It seemed more thrown in as a sop than anything else.  I'd rather have seen more development of those issues in a direct way.  Ron, IMHO, continues to get the least development of any of the Trio.  

That's all I can think of at this point, though, like I said, I do plan to continue going through the book slowly and making some notes about things I liked or disliked.  I liked far more than I disliked overall and certainly my likes outnumber my dislikes in the first 1/3 of the book.  This is my favorite book in the series actually.

Penny 





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]