HP: OotP spoilers

[eruthros]

Just finished it. (Would sooner, but m_shell kept stealing my copy, and I had an afternoon party to go to.)

It includes an impossible number of parallels to slash fanfiction (Snape/Harry tutoring which is, naturally, interrupted by Draco; was Cedric your boyfriend; Lupin not just living in Sirius' house but living "with" Sirius; Harry on all fours in Snape's lab; and what I'm sure will shortly become the most famous dangling modifier in slash history).

Some interesting stuff going on in the book, yah. Like house-elves can be evil. OWLs contain a practical and a theoretical portion. James P. and Sirius were big meaniebootses to Snape, and what does that mean in terms of morality anyway. The word "kerfuffle" is used. I liked Fred and George's subplot. Adored the Neville character development. Loved the prof's reactions to Umbridge, especially McGonagall. Actually, I enjoyed almost all of the secondary plots -- the DAs, the War Against Umbridge, Mr. Weasley. Other subploty stuff I can't think of now, too. The plot would probably have been more interesting if I hadn't already read it, in a much more condensed form, in Telanu's Like a Glass.

But on the other hand ... Harry. Was. An. Idiot. Dumbledore takes all the blame at the end, but the whole death thing? No, that would be (at least in part) Harry's fault. He didn't listen to Hermione, he didn't do what Dumbledore, Sirius, and Lupin all told him to do, he didn't talk to anyone about his problems, and he spent the first 500 pages whinging endlessly. And then at the very end of the book we gave him another reason to feel detached and alone and Angst About His Life because No One Can Understand Him, Not Even Ron and Hermione Who Have Never Thought He's Crazy For Long, or Neville Who is Also A Possible Prophecy Child and an Orphan to Boot. The swearing was fun, though. Startling. But he needn't have been so... ridiculously OTT whiny. Cho lost her spine and her gumption and the ability to speak directly. Hermione suddenly became so popular she knew the secret feelings of everyone in the school.

And the whole death thing, actually, seemed ... well. It's the style of "well, I've got to kill someone off to allow for Big Reactions, so let's see how I can do it." (By making half the characters total idiots, apparently.)

So. Subplots were fun. Voldemort bit was predictable. Umbridge thing woulda been cooler if it had been wrapped up better. Harry needs to stop taking Drama Queen lessons from Slytherin.

Comments

Re: the technical term is "teenager"

[eruthros]

Heh. True. I accept that he whines in a very teenage no-one-loves-me-I'm-alone-in-the-world angst-filled way, and that it's not OOC for Harry.

But like the FoF, I still want to kick him to the moon. Or at least have some of his friends start rolling their eyes when he whines. It's just not tremendously fun to read for pages on end.