Harry Potter book 7 - official thread

[Lews]

[LaFille]

Debate and criticism are not in question; where it becomes a problem is when things become openly hostile and destructive, which is the case right now. As for personal attacks, you cleverly stay in the gray zone by the form but this is pushing it.

[Elliot Kane]

I am all in favour of the cut & thrust of debate, but as Fille said please keep it civilised, people.

Winterfox - deep, calming breath, please. Someone with your literary ability is easily capable of debate without rancour. Kindly do so. Your attitude towards the other boardies is not respectful, and that must change.

Peter - HP has been the subject of the most successful hype campaign in literary history, and 7 is the last ever HP book. Of course a lot of people are going to be disappointed with it for the same reason as with Star Wars ep 1 - nothing could live up to the hype. I'm sure you know that. Demanding non-existent statistics to support the obvious is simply a wind-up. Don't do it.

Lews - quit with the insults. Thank you.

If you all wish to continue discussing the wonderful literary merits or otherwise of HP, by all means go ahead. But without the mutual antagonism. I don't care if you all hate each other's guts, but you will kindly do me the courtesy of keeping it off the boards.

Thank you.

[killerzzz]

Well, just finished it recently. And before I start, I'll say I also think the UK children's cover sucked.

Bad(-er): It lacked that Harry Potter feel, most likely, I think, because of the lack of Hogwarts, which played a big part (well, 99% of) the rest of the series. In fact, thats why I really liked the end.

And like its been said, the deaths kinda failed to cause the proper sadness. Honestly, the only one I reacted to was Dobby. Probably because he died in such a non-magical way. Which made it more dramatic, imo.

That whole jumping around camping everywhere section seemed out of place: something more for one of those huge in-the-past fantasy books of 1000 filled-to-the-rim pages, you know?

And like you guys said, too much of that Hollywood cliche involved.

The Good(-er): I was kinda happy to see Kreacher come around. I was really expecting Malfoy to, though. Was also interesting that one of the side-kicks (Crab or Goyle? I forget) ended up going supah-evil. At least mama-Malfoy came around. Dudley going all appreciative... well, that was more Hollywood. Oh! And Mad-Eye's death was a shock to me too. Just btw fyi.

I was glad there was no excuse to bring Dumbledore back. That woulda been lame. Cool how he waited at the waystation for Harry to have one last chat (thats how I saw it). And when they said Harry had to die, I was like... oook, I know he's gunna live somehow... but how'r they gonna pull that off?? They did, well enough.

As for the Nevill sorta filling in for Harry at Hogwarts as brave leader, I liked it. He's always sorta idolised Potter. Plus, when he got the snake, that was awsome... well, at least, I made it look awsome in my head. When the movie comes out, they'll screw it up or something. ;D

Just picutre it (and over-dramatize it!!): in the confusion, Nevill suddenly stops screaming and yanks off/ducks out of the burning hat with one hand and pulls the sword out at the same time with the other, face set. Crouches, lunges, warcries, slashes; so fast, you missed it if you blinked! See, I watch too much anime.

The Gay(-?r): I'm not very informed on the matter of how it was announced by her, but I'm with the "who cares" crowd. This is what I heard: some reporters were asking about Dumbledore's lovelife, and Rowling said something like "Well, I always thought of him as gay." Then, everyone sh*t a brick. ;D Who cares people? You know what? That doesn't even necessarily make him gay!

What do I mean by that? Well, to explain, I'll just ignore all the possibilities of the fact that Rowling probably did it as a publicity stunt, and just think of it as an innocent remark. When a writer says "I've thought of X as Y" when they're talking about their work, but nowhere in that work does it say X = Y (I don't think I remeber Dumbledore putting a hand on Harry's leg then winking at him slyly - though I don't have the best of memory ), then that means that the writer wrote with that in mind, but never made it fact since he/she wanted it to be up to the reader. Or maybe the writer his-/herself does not know if its true, but thinks that it might be; what some don't know is that a writer doesn't have to know EVERYTHING about their characters, especially one as mysterious as Dumbledore. For example, if someone were to say "Did Dumbledore look at dirty magazines?" Rowling would (should) say: "I don't know; I don't think so." So, was Dumbledore gay? Maybe. Rowling thinks so, but she's not sure, because the fact was never revealed to her from that 'magical sourse of tales' ( ) as she wrote.

Now, someone is going to look at that and say "So much for 'not cares' " . But thats just me caring about people's (over-)reactions and not the fact that he's (maybe) gay (or not). It annoys me. ;D

Now whats this rumour that she's going to go back and rewrite a part of one of the books just to make him look gayer? Is that true? Because if it is, someone should drug her or something before she can do the damage: she's given us her good books, she's done, don't let her ruin them.

Wow... I don't even know what I just wrote... like that whole post is just black-out for me... I totally lost track there. Ok then, I'm defenately not going to re-read and correct my ramblings up there, though I'm fairely sure I didn't adress some of the things I wanted to. Anyhow, I think this post got long enough...
...about 10% through.

Killerzzz

[Winterfox]

killerzzz said:

(I don't think I remeber Dumbledore putting a hand on Harry's leg then winking at him slyly - though I don't have the best of memory )

Perhaps that'd be because being gay doesn't make you a pederast?

[Elliot Kane]

Killerzzz is making a joke...

He's right though that the usual rule is "If it didn't happen in the story, it didn't happen."

***

The question Rowling was asked, IIRC, was "Will Dumbledore find true love?" To which she answered "Dumbledore is gay!" Quite why the answer has any relevance at all to the question escapes me. But then it was as good a PR opportunity as she was likely to get...

[Galadriel]

I finally bought the book!! If you don't hear from me in a week, the book swallowed me... ;D

[Ubereil]

I'm getting it for Christmas. I have to reread the other books before I read it though (got stuck in book 4)...

Übereil

[Winterfox]

In that case, brace yourself: it's all downhill from GoF.

[Galadriel]

winterfox said:

In that case, brace yourself: it's all downhill from GoF.

Sorry? what do you mean with GoF?

[killerzzz]

galadriel said:

winterfox said:

In that case, brace yourself: it's all downhill from GoF.

Sorry? what do you mean with GoF?

Goblet of Fire. It does change in 6 and 7, but 'downhill' will have to be decided per person. I've run into many who like it more and many who like it less. I can see it both ways, but I chose to enjoy it just the same. ;D

Killerzzz

[Winterfox]

If I've said it before, I'll probably be repeating myself, but personally? Rowling tried way too hard to be *~dark and edgy~* from around GoF onward. And she... can't do it; she was at her best when she was writing simplistic children's fantasy--then she went and broke what didn't need fixing. Her attempts at moral ambiguity are painfully inept, her villains remain stubbornly idiotic, and she fails to tackle challenging issues raised by her narrative. I could say that I'm expecting too much from children's books, but then, Rowling did try to cross the boundaries by putting "dark" things into the later books. The result is mismashed.

Of course, my opinions partly have to do with the fact that I have read fantasy with genuine moral ambiguity, character dimension, difficult politics and perfectly natural amorality that doesn't smack of "I'M DARK AND EDGY LOOK AT ME, I killed off a character!!!" To people whose chief exposure to fantasy is Rowling and Christopher Paolini, I'm sure she seems all kinds of amazing for something as oh-so-revolutionary as killing off the Wise Old Mentor.

[Ubereil]

Just out of curiosity: which are these other books/series you're talking about? They seem interesting.

(For the record, I HAVE read other fantasyseries than HP, and (greatly) enjoyed them. I've just lost momentum the last two years or so .)

Übereil

[Winterfox]

Here're a few I'd recommend that might get you back into fantasy. I consider every single one of these authors leagues above Rowling in, well, just about everything: originality, literary skills, characterization, plot, setting. They don't do stupid things like preaching about the POWER OF LURRRVE, and for all but Scott Lynch, the boundaries between "good" and "bad" blur hugely. Forget silly retarded things like "here's a dark lord of doom and despair and he's completely irredeemable and evil and omg inhuman"; these authors write real, human characters with flaws--and whose flaws drive them to make mistakes, and for that they suffer the consequences. Neither Mieville nor Martin pulls punches.

George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (starts with A Game of Thrones) is, IMO, one of the only epic fantasy series out there right now that's worth reading. It's heavy with political intrigues, inter-personal drama, and is ripe with moral ambiguity. Expect graphic violence, sex, and mentions of rape. Easily some of the most authentic medieval settings, with all that it suggests: people are brutal, nobles treat peasants like worthless animals, and everybody wants the throne and will do just about anything. Also, character deaths. Many, many character deaths. Martin has no qualms about killing off his viewpoint characters. Yes, even ones you get attached to, or ones who are essentially virtuous. Martin's setting is amoral: bad things happen to good people, and bad people get away with doing horrible things. It's excellent. There's magic, but it's not sparkly, wonderful, or predictable. Also? There's no such thing as "good guys" and "bad guys." Martin will make you hate one side for a chapter, then the next he'll suddenly make you understand the characters you hated or even sympathize with them. Including, say, a character who bangs his sister and pushes a child off a tower.

China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and The Scar are two of the flagship novels of the genre known as the "new weird." It's a mix of... steampunk, fantasy, and Lovecraftian horror. Mieville's prose is extremely heavy, sometimes arcane, often dense, and he does indulge in info-dumps (especially in PSS, his first Bas-lag novel), but they're info-dumps about such amazingly cool stuff that I can excuse all of it with a smile. Someone else has said, and I quote, that Mieville has more good ideas in one page of his novels than most authors have during their entire careers. The Scar is, IMO, his best novel, with characterization superior to PSS, and though it has some connections with the latter, it--like all his novels--can stand alone perfectly well. He's one of the authors who doesn't much care for Tolkien (actually said Tolkien "is the oozing wen on the arse of fantasy", though he's since semi-apologized for it partly because he misused "wen"), and as such expect his universe to be even more amoral than Martin's. It's actually not light reading; not only is the prose heavy, so is the content. The city of New Crobuzon is a character in itself, but it's not sweet or gentle or optimistic. The magic in this setting is semi-scientified. It's fascinating to read about a scientist character in PSS discuss the principles of flight associated with a certain kind of supernatural energy, for example.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is wonderful, wonderful light reading. It's a caper tale, essentially, set in the Italian-Renaissancesque city of Camorr. Featuring a rogue/con-man protagonist, it's pretty conventional and predictable, but the setting is rather unusual--Camorr is quite real and complex, with its own traditions and religions--and the dialogue is colorful. I don't read it for innovative concepts, just for brilliant flair, wit, and humor (though sometimes the hilarious one-liners stretch the belief when they're uttered by, y'know, near-dead characters).

[Ubereil]

Thanks for the tips! I'll check them out when school cools down...

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

If you want really dark - and if you can find them - the old Thieves World series edited by Robert Asprin are worth a look, as are the rather excellent Horseclans novels by Robert Adams.

David Gemmell pulls no punches either (Though I'd not put say he was as dark as the first two), and his protagonists are all at the least flawed and very human. You never know if they're going to survive the story, either.

[killerzzz]

Hmmm, what do you guys think of the Dragonlance Chronicles (Weis and Hickman) or the Wheel of Time (Jordan)?

Since we're talking fantasy. ;D

Killerzzz

[Elliot Kane]

Gragonlance - the original series is good, Time Of The Twins is better. The spin offs are VERY variable.

Wheel of Time - never touched. From what I gather - waffles endlessly. Couldn't be bothered with that.

If I want long, I'll read Hugo Cook's Chronicles Of An Age Of Darkness - which is often hilarious as well as really dark and brutal ;D

[Elliot Kane]

Also - if fantasy/Horror works for you at all, try Brian Lumley's Necroscope series. Vampires - but not cute & cuddly Anne Rice vampires...

[Winterfox]

killerzzz said:

Hmmm, what do you guys think of the Dragonlance Chronicles (Weis and Hickman) or the Wheel of Time (Jordan)?

Since we're talking fantasy. ;D

Killerzzz

Dragonlance is... well, it's D&D novels, and essentially with the original novels in particular, it's campaign transcript writ large. I enjoyed them when I was thirteen. Hey, Raistlin seemed cool at the time.

I've not read Waste Wheel of Time (well, I have, but only the first book and I gave up after a few chapters in because it's horrendously formulaic and the writing bored me to tears) but from what I've heard, they ramble, meander, and books can go by without the overall plot being advanced. Jordan's also guilty of some of the worst-written female characters in the genre, and his protagonist is an overpowered adolescent male fantasy Gary Stu who fits the "lowly village boy dragged into a Great Destiny" stock type to a T.