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...per the discussion of O.W.L.'s on page 311. It was good, but a
little long winded --- I think it could have been a 600 page book instead
of a 900 page book. Rather a lot of "no one understands" whining that
I was really hoping was due to, and in fact at one point it was hinted at,
someone feeding Harry drugs or that it was his link to "Lord Thingy" ;-)
But no, Harry was just acting a lot like I probably would have at that
age, under the circumstances (the angry part, not the hero part, though
he's really not much of a hero in this book). I was close enough as it
was.
It is a very dark book --- bad things are happening at Hogwarts, and it's
not fun to see them happen, and actually, that's another disappointment.
One can find parallels to some of the directions current political events
are taking in Hogwarts, but it essentially takes a superhero with a band
of loyal followers to set things right, which doesn't give readers a
sense of empowerment to set things right that they see are wrong in the
real world. Granted, I doubt J.K. Rowling had any political agenda at all
in mind writing this, but I would still have liked to see a stronger moral
stance on getting every day people to not accept injustices. Perhaps I'm
still just as hot-headed as Harry though, as I think one of the morals of
this book could be "fools rush in".
To some extent, there was a bit of fight in a couple of the characters,
but having them essentially turn into terrorists, albeit a realistic
turn for these characters, is probably not a good example (not that anyone
would consider them a good example in the first place ;-) ). At least
the stuff they pulled was more in the prank category than dangerous, and
they were careful not to interfere with the students exams...
The DA would have been a good place to organize a response, with some
backing from the Order, but it would have been a far different book, and
probably not relevant to the overall story arc she's working on. I did
expect the DA to figure more significantly in the ending, though, rather
than just providing plausibility for some of the actions in it.
It's possible that this book is just setting things up for the next one,
as the centaur prophecy certainly indicates more is coming, but on the
other hand, the ending appeared to wrap too much for that prophecy to
come true without a lot more bad stuff happening. On the third hand, with
everyone on the wrong side in this book, this ending was needed to keep the
bad guys from having too strong a hand.
One good thing is that we do learn various things about several characters,
but even so, in a book this thick, we should have learned more than we did.
A lot of what we learn about Harry is only at the end. One of them, at
least, is why he keeps getting sent back to the Dursley's by people who
should know better and care.
Overall, it just felt like a slow ramp to a quick ending.
Even so, it was a good read and I can't wait to see where she goes with
it...
Sooo, when's the next one due? (yes, I know there's no set date)
Posted by abatie at June 22, 2003 07:17 PM