That broke my heart, imagining George without his twin. And what was up with neither Ron nor Harry naming one of their sons after him?
The Weasley twins have been prominently featured from the first book; when one of 'em dies, I'd expect more fall-out than what was provided.
Also wish there'd been more about Draco. Did he get his wand back from Harry? Isn't that right? At one point wasn't Harry using Draco's wand?
What happened to people like the Malfoys after Voldemort's demise? Were they allowed to just rejoin wizard society, even though they'd fought for him and killed the resisters? Yet there was Draco on the train platform with his son, Scorpius. Nothing about Lucius and Narcissa. When Voldemort disappeared after killing Harry's parents, those who had supported him insisted they'd been bewitched, but surely that wasn't going to work a second time.
Snape having been a double agent all those years was a surprise to me. His unwavering love for Lily Evans Potter, and his turning against Voldemort when the latter killed her, was sweet.
Y'know, in the series I never warmed to James Potter much. He came across as rather an arrogant, unpleasant jerk. The way he treated the young Severus Snape over the years at Hogwarts never jibed with the "dear James!" comments that would come from Hagrid, Dumbledore, etc.
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Sadly, wars have casualties. And a lot of fans have expressed dismay with JKR's taciturn approach to acknowledging (or not, depending on your POV) the deaths of her characters. There's a lot about the penultimate chapter that feels rushed, almost as if she'd decided (ala George Lucas) that she had a strict limit on the number of pages for this book.
Does it help to know that originally Arthur Weasley was supposed to die on OOTP but she spared him?
If you can stand to wait a few years, there's an encyclopedia coming out that promises more details about the backstories as well as the fates of the characters.
James Potter is a strange character. We really have just two glimpses of him--in Snape's memories and in his post-death manifestations. I always thought of him as the BMOC who was tamed by the good woman.
Ken
No! She was going to kill Arthur?
I'd probably have stopped reading. I'm very, very fond of the Weasleys.
Louis mentioned the upcoming encyclopedia over at The Ivy Vine, AAMOF. Sounds interesting!
Exactly, Ken. In wars, real characters have to die. In real wars, lovable people die. If you want the story to "ring true," you can't keep it all nice and never have the nice people suffer ultimate loss.
Frankly, I was more broken up about Tonks and Lupin. Don't get me wrong, I liked Fred and felt sorry for George, but Lupin was such a likable and tragic character, and I rooted for him all the way through, and their love story was so great, and then to end that way, and their child to have lost his parents just like Harry and Neville....sigh.
But that's just it. If you want the war to be really a war and not just a magic-game, really sad things have to happen. Tolkien actually suffers a little this respect -- the only central character who dies in LOTR had to be gotten out of the way anyway for the story to work.
As for James, I agree -- he wasn't a really likable guy. But arrogant cusses are loved by their families, children and friends, too, unless they're REALLY detestable, which I don't think James was.
Now Sirius was quite another thing. He actually *tried to get Severus killed when he was a kid.* Think about how horrifically we react to stories of young teenagers committing murder -- yet that's what Sirius tried to do, and would have succeeded had it not been for James, who had even more reason to hate Snape than Sirius did. So that's another one in James' favor. Sirius never really showed remorse over it beyond "I was a stupid kid when I did that," and he certainly didn't show the kind of humility toward Snape that someone ought to show who had tried to kill him and repented.
I knew Snape had to be the double agent all along, and was acting on Dumbledore's orders when he killed him. I was wrong about the bond to Dumbledore being an Unbreakable Vow, but I was right that there was some unbreakable something that held his loyalty.
And I never could accept that Harry would die, so I was both right and wrong. ;-)
I like the way Molly finished off Bellatrix, but I would have expected it to be someone with more affection for Sirius, such as Lupin or one of the Weasley boys. Yet Molly had her own excellent motivations, so I'm not criticizing the choice.
Percy coming back just in time to reconcile with his brothers was golden.
The comment I made over ABC about times that Harry did something stupid with potentially dire consequences but lucked out was prompted by the Griphook situation. Harry tried to do something really, really dumb in double-crossing a goblin, against the advice of Bill who clearly knew whereof he spoke, but he "lucked out" when Griphook caught the sword during the escape, even though it complicated matters for him. It made me think that there had to be a lot of other situations where he was "rescued" from his own stupidity like that.
It's interesting to consider Ken's point about James only being known to us substantively through Snape's memories. Was James really that much of a jerk, or did the insanely jealous Snape make him out to be worse than he was in his mind, because he was jealous of Lily's attraction to James, and James' popularity and talent?
Still, I'm prepared to believe that James was Teenage Jerkus Maximus. That's hardly a rare type. It's just that you can't be sure if that's the true picture.
The only thing I disliked about Molly's killing of Bellatrix was the language used.
It might have been realistic, but for a book presumably targeted toward pre-teens and young teens, it wasn't suitable.
Yes, the deaths of Tonks, Lupin and, let's not forget, Colin Creevy (I've a soft spot for a nuisance with a camera) hit me, too, but besides Fred, the death that most wrung my withers was Dobby's.
I liked Dobby.
Good point about Sirius. In this book it was pointed out that he was unkind to Kreacher, for instance.
Rowling certainly wasn't afraid to make clear that most of her characters have feet of clay. ;^)
Dobby's death was meant to affect you. His absence in the movie series since Chamber of Secrets will prove to be a mistake on the part of the films' producers. IMS, JKR had to "gently" suggest to the Phoenix producers that they had to put Kreacher in--clearly he's vital to the central plot of Deathly Hallows. I can't seem them leaving Dobby out of the seventh movie; maybe they'll have to sneak him back into Half-Blood Prince to make his later appearance understandable.
Ken
I haven't seen the OoP movie yet -- I plan to, but I'm in no hurry.
I have only one question -- how the HECK did the producers think they were going to pull off the climactic scene with no Kreacher?
Oh, I forgot, the same way they did everything in the previous two movies -- just make stuff up that violates the character motivations, magical logic that Rowling created as well as any semblance of plot logic. Duh.
The language shocked me, actually. (Which is wierd since I'm an actress.) Every time it happened, I would say, "Oh my gosh, Ross, she just said h***!" "Oh my gosh, Ross, she just said effing."
It shocked me, but didn't bother me. This last book is supposed to be targeted to 17 year olds, not pre-teens. Of course, pre-teens will still want to read them, so I guess that's none too good.
Ross and I just decided that we will follow JKR's original plan when we allow our future children to read them: one book per year, starting at age 10. That way, they don't get cuss words until they can get into R movies on their own.
...Only, I guess we'll have to devise some sort of threat for telling younger siblings how they end...
That's just it, Jenny...the books are now being read in order by children whom were the target market for the first book, but they carry on after the first book and read the rest of the series, the last half of which isn't geared toward that age group at all.
Really, it was a very, very strange thing for Rowling to do.
The thing is, kids that young just shouldn't be reading the last few books anyway. There's blame to go around if the books are being targeted at ages they're not appropriate for, but the use of a very few instances of context-appropriate language isn't really something to object to if people are letting little kids read dark, creepy stuff like this anyway. I just can't see being upset that Mrs. Weasley used the B-word to the person who richly deserved it, if you're not already objecting to 11 year olds reading about creating Horcruxes through murder.
Don't forget all the references to "Merlin's pants." Trousers are not in mind here. Think BVDs...
Ken
Jane, that's the point, isn't it? Kids "that young" ought to be able to read the last books.
Talk about frustrating young readers..."Now, Susie, you can read the first three books, but you'll have to wait a few years before reading the rest of 'em and finding out what happens."
Nuts, that's what it is.
Susie (I know whereof I speak ;-)) is simply learning patience. She knows that she can read each successive one when she's old enough, just as she knows there are various other books she's not permitted to read, but eventually will be. People are only "frustrated" by that if they're incapable of exercising or learning patience in matters of entertainment.
While your idea that an entire series of books ought to be accessible to the same age group is a fine one, I don't see it as a moral imperative. Consequently, I don't see why, if you're going to write a book and include the Malfoy Manor scene in it, and people gobble it up, those same people who gobble it up ought to be particularly upset about one swear word used under extreme provocation, and another one euphemistically written, proceeding from the mouth of a notably uncouth character. Torturing young girls while spewing racist epithets at them, and semi-disembodied hands strangling their owners, are far more dark and evil than a couple of bad words, though I surely wouldn't have included the words myself had I been writing the book. (I've always been a fan of, "They could could manage to make movies believable under the MPAA code, they can write books without explicit stuff" theory.) It's a little late in the day to complain that the bad words make it unsuitable for young readers, when the whole plot of the last two books is essentially unsuitable for young readers. If you want to keep the whole series appropriate for young readers, you're essentially suggesting she should have stopped at book three or four.
C.S. Lewis managed to write the Narnia series which progressed without its target audience didn't change in the middle. And until Don started the darn war movie up just now I'd thought of another series that managed to both progress and maintain its "voice", so to speak.
Violent death and mayhem on the TV drove it out of my head, though.
It'd have been perfectly possible to write the Potter series while keeping the original voice, but I'll grant you it wouldn't have turned so dark.
Which, from my POV, would have been a Very Good Thing. I far preferred the earlier books to the later.
Lewis managed to maintain the same tone by retiring kids when they hit puberty and bringing in new ones, so that it never delved into the kind of intensity that adult understanding necessarily provides.
Rowling could have done that with Potter, but then it would have been a completely different story.
What I'm saying is, if you think stories should be written that way, go write your own. ;-) But I don't see a compelling reason why they have to be that way. Some possible reasons, but no obligatory ones.
BTW, there's at least one negative, non-Snape remark about James Potter, and that's by Lily Evans when she referred to her future-hubby as an "arrogant toe rag", if I recall the term correctly.
Right, and someone pointed out at John Granger's blog that when Harry asked Sirius and Lupin about what he'd found out, they didn't dispute it at all.
Still, it's possible that he was no worse than your usual full of himself, smart-mouthed kid, who grew out of it (with help from Lily's influence, no doubt.) What might have been no worse than bigshot behavior became malicious megalomania in Snape's memory. But on the principle that people see in others what they are themselves, Snape's malicious streak might definitely have colored things.
If James was insufferably rotten, so be it. But remember he WAS a trusted and beloved member of the Order, of whom kind-hearted people spoke very affectionately in memory. So I have to think he must have been a fairly decent guy with a wide streak of bigshot.
Now a question of my own:
What the heck was Mundungus Fletcher doing, and remaining in, the Order of the Phoenix? He was COMPLETELY untrustworthy (including in matters of Order duty) and proved it on multiple occasions. He would have sold his grandmother; why didn't they think he'd sell them to Voldie? Why didn't they just throw him out? There's no Snape-like backstory to give him ulterior loyalty.
You're right about Fletcher; he proved to be a creep on multiple occasions.
But then, heaven knows I never understood why Draco Malfoy was permitted to stay at Hogwarts once his father was clearly revealed as a Voldemort-supporter.
And I didn't intend to say James Potter was a rotter to the core, just that he wasn't really an especially admirable character. I'm trying to remember positive comments about him, and it seems as if they were often praise for his Quidditch skills. Was he described as trustworthy, honest, caring, generous, etc.?
Those are qualities Harry would want to find in him, but I can't recall much evidence that when it came to his actual character, James Potter was anything other than ordinary, and when a teenager, definitely less than kind to those he didn't care for.
This isn't something I remembered on my own, but the prophecy referred to the fact that the child would be born to parents who had "thrice defied Voldemort."
So, James must have been out there taking some risks for the right reasons. That's consistent with cowboyism, to be sure, but it's certainly a good thing.
I think the reason Malfoy was allowed to remain at Hogwarts after Lucius was revealed as a Death-Eater is that apparently, you got to stay at Hogwarts no matter how rotten you or your family were, so long as you didn't violate school rules in a sufficiently significant way.
What's a bit more puzzling to me is how he managed to be there for his seventh year. Generally "trying to kill the Headmaster" would be considered "breaking school rules."
Then again, with Death-Eaters running the place, I suppose the rules changed a bit.
I have to agree with Jane about kids too young reading the book - if they are it's their parents' fault, not the author's, as I mentioned at your regular blog. My Grace has read the first two, and that'll be it for a long time. We don't even let the younger ones watch the movies because they're so scary.
And FWIW, I know one family that doesn't let their kids read more than the first four or five Little House on the Prairie books until they're well into their teens because of the subject matter - romance, and all. Not that that's our family's policy, just to point out that I don't think it's unusual or cruel for parents to tell a kid that he can only read *this* book this year, and he'll have to wait till he older to read the next one in the series.
About the language - Brits seem to be a lot more easy-going about the use of H--- and D--- than we are. That D-word in particular shows in just about all the Brit lit I read. And from reading Lynn Truss's Talk to the Hand it seems that "effing" is quite common, and is considered a legitmate substitute for the F-word, the way we say "darn" or "dang."
Jane - I just saw OotP the other day, but I don't remember the book too well. What "climactic scene" were you talking about? Kreechur had hardly any purpose at all in the movie - he was just a curiosity.
In the book, it was Kreacher who betrayed Sirius to Narcissa after having Sirius send him away in a fit of anger. At that point, Kreacher became a double agent, serving the Malfoy family (due to his familial connection to Narcissa) as well as Sirius. That is why, when Harry attempted to contact Sirius through the Floo Network and reached only Kreacher, Kreacher was able to lie about Sirius' whereabouts. He was told by Narcissa to like, and Sirius had never said, "Don't lie to Harry Potter about where I am." House elf logic allowed that happen.
I suppose the way the movie handled it was to simply ignore the bit where Harry inquires through the Floo Network and has him act on the information he has. But that's exactly my complaint about the movies -- they leave narrative holes that JKR actually handled pretty well, and make the story appear disconnected or illogical in places where it wasn't.
Okay, I remember now. Yes, that was totally absent in the movie - the mirror wasn't even there which is going to require a change in the final movie.
But it still worked okay in the movie - the Death Eaters showed up while the kids were in the Dept of Mysteries, and the OotP showed up to protect them, and there was a big fight, and that woman killed Sirius. Her killing him happened so fast that if I hadn't known it was coming I think I wouldn't have understood what just happened: one moment Sirius was fine then there was very brief shreik from Bellatrix, a rapid green flash of light, and then it went to slow motion - Sirius falling back through the arch.
It went silent for Harry's reaction, for which I was very grateful. It would seem obscene to both hear and see that level of grief, and it was done much better than PJ handled that kind of thing in LOTR - no "milking it for all it's worth" as he would have done.
Yeah, it's just that if you thought it through, you would have said, "Why didn't Harry try to check out the vision in his head before acting on it?" Kreacher provided the answer to that -- no Kreacher, no answer.
I think there's a lot of stuff that's going to look kind of strange because it was left out of earlier movies but is important later. I know there were some things where JKR told the film makers, "Trust me, you HAVE to put this in." But she couldn't do that with everything.
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