What do we lose?

[entropymail]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at ...> wrote:

> over quite a short time-span the boundaries have 
> been tightened, possibilities have been discounted, what was an 
elastic
> envelope to be stretched has come to feel more like a tether - and 
mostly
> through Jo's comments and hints external from the books. 
> 
> All this depended on us not knowing. But as menu items have been
> scored out (Droobles, various bloodline relationships, Vampire!
Snape,
> ESEs without number, plus other stuff ad almost infinitem) there 
seems to be pretty thin fare left to chew over. 
> Kneasy

So true. The fun of "letting your imagination loose" is simply no 
longer there. Is this a result of JKR's knocking down theory after 
theory in a frenzy of giggly confessionals? Partly. 

But the bigger issue must be seen in the development of her 
characters and the resolution of plotlines over the past two books. 
Or should I say the lack of?  Looked at as a whole, books 1 through 4 
surely showed a far more cohesive storyline than either OOP or HBP 
came near to showing. In fact, I think it could be said that, with a 
few alterations, GOF might have made a fine ending to the series. 

But, Geez Louise, by the time OOP came around, we were being 
subjected to unnecessary character anomalies like Grawp and Umbridge 
(why? Why?), and don't even get me started on waiting until HBP to 
mention horcruxes.  

All in all, the fun is out of it for me not so much because too much 
has been resolved outside of the books' covers, but because not 
enough has been resolved inside of them.  The storyline seems to be 
heading more to a fine point (that is, Voldemort) but, at the same 
time, is also more rambling, wandering and, I fear, will not end in a 
satisfying, complex and cohesive way. What we all want when we read 
the final page of the final book is an ending with something far more 
intricate and surprising and cohesive than we could ever have 
postulated. We all want to say "Ah, of course! Why didn't we see it 
before!" and then search through our dog-eared copies to see clearly 
all the clues we had missed. I fear, sadly, that this will not be. 
It's a children's book, after all.

Entropy