*opinion warning*

[pauraque_bk]

Did Molly really call Bellatrix a bitch in the last book? My hazy memory says yes, but any kind of rational thought process says no...

Not because I think it's inappropriate for YA -- quite the opposite -- it actually had an absurdly trivializing effect on the death of one of the main villains imo. I mean holy shit, Bellatrix was a crazy evil motherfucker, not a high-schooler with a snotty attitude.

Seriously. Who told JKR it was a good writing decision to make every character death lame and unaffecting? That's what really left a bad taste in my mouth after the series was over, way more than the epilogue. I can't remember most of the characters who died, even though some of them were characters I loved. The heartlessness of it made me stop caring.

I didn't think HBP was so great either, but there's stuff in it that I'm glad the fandom has. DH was just so pointlessly destructive. It felt like a bored and frustrated kid kicking over her own sandcastle.

Oh well. *goes back to writing*

Comments

[scarah2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she did.

And not only that but she was all "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH"

I think I saw a Lifetime movie called that once.

[florahart]

I suppose it could have been worse. "Not my daughter, you poopyhead!"

[pauraque]

Aaaaaahahahaha! :D

[pauraque]

I would totally watch that movie.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I should not have been on the verge of sighing with relief at the deaths of Remus and Tonks. That was just wrong.

[pauraque]

I really couldn't stand the way Remus/Tonks was handled in canon, it was so forced and contrived. I'd rather see them dead than behaving that way too. :P

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

That book really needed to go sit in the drawer for a year, then get a good, hard edit. It could have been good, but it was so obviously a first draft, and really killed my interest.

[aunty_marion]

I still have it as an ambition (when I have time...) to go through it with a blue pen. I have two copies, two reams of paper (so I can dismember the books and stick each page onto a clean sheet of paper), and a quantity of pens.

The main problem is that you really need to retro-edit back to book five at least...

[pauraque]

Yeah, it totally read like it was rushed and her heart wasn't in it. I would so much rather she have left it for as long as it took for her to be *interested* in writing those characters again. I'd actually rather have seen the series lie unfinished than end it half-assed.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Hell, if it never had been officially finished, by now hundreds of fic writers would've filled in the gap in hundreds of ways...at least one of which might even have been good enough that Bloomsbury could've cut a deal with the author to publish it as the "official" book.

[woolf.livejournal.com]

I believe Molly does.

I hated DH. So many of the characters deserved so much more than what they got. (Lupin, particularly.) I don't know. I got the feeling that by the end JKR was sick of fans & fandom and a lot of it was an attempt to get us all to shut up and leave her precious people alone. And probably to stop liking all the people she was convinced were so horrible.

[scarah2.livejournal.com]

It worked, I hate Snape now!

[pauraque]

You may well be right. To me the main portion of the book read like her no longer being interested in the characters, and the epilogue read like a blatant "fuck you, fandom". Though I do see how the entire thing can be read as giving fandom the finger.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

"Who told JKR it was a good writing decision to make every character death lame and unaffecting?"

What, you mean, "Oh, and btw, Lupin was dead, too"? You don't think that was a fitting end for a character who had a leading role in one book plus a key supporting role in a couple others, who who played a vital role in the life and family of our protagonist, and who was one of the most popular characters in the series? Surely, you must be joking! Of course that made sense!

That was bad, but I had fewer problems with that than the massive plot holes, the fact that the *title* plot seemed totally pointless, the randomly fluctuating characterization, the complete lack of pacing, the utter stupidity of the main villain, and so on. I don't really like HBP, either, but that's more personal preference regarding shipping (the amount and how they played out, less than who they were) and the fact that the Voldemort backstory was really dull and pointless.

[pauraque]

I had to glance at Wikipedia to even faintly remember what the Deathly Hallows were or signified. Yeah, very very tacked on and pointless. Maybe suited for the plot of a computer game -- find the magic objects and rescue the princess, or whatever! The horcrux plot was wretched in the same way.

Most of the books have pacing problems, but DH really took it to an extreme. Camping... honestly...

I wouldn't say I really liked HBP, but I was not unhappy after I read it (that I recall). I love Slughorn, so that made up for a lot in my eyes. I didn't find the Tom Riddle stuff dull personally. I probably gave HBP a bit of a pass at the time, too, because it felt very incomplete so I took it that it needed Book 7 to be finished and decided not to judge until I read the whole thing. :P

[alabastard.livejournal.com]

Agreed, why did dobby get this big dramatic death and all the others be rushed and cliched afterthoughts... oh so many gripes with that book, but ah well, I didn't write it ;-)

[thimble-kiss.livejournal.com]

Count me among the disenchanted, then. It was the combination of the heartless mentions-in-passing and the nagging suspicion that she'd picked out deaths for calculated shock effect (one half of a pair of extremely tight-knit twins, both parents of a small baby, and Hedwig, who arguably is the books' main symbol of magic and of Harry's belonging in that world). There seemed to be no sense in it other than a childish 'look how hardcore I'm being', and it left me feeling contrary and disgusted rather than willing to engage with any emotional impact she may have hoped for. (ETA: Fred dying because a wall fell on him due to a random blast from outside the castle. Mid-laugh, even, as if that adds pathos. I need to gripe about that in particular because it was my biggest WTF moment in the whole series. Which says something.)

Also, I feel that as a writer for children, she sold out with the ill-fitting epilogue that seemed to say that the romantic pairings were what mattered in the end. As long as they paired up according to plan and formed nice core families, all was well. When I think of the creativity in the books about midway through, that's such a shabby string to tie it all up with. :(

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

DH was a deal-breaker between the reader and the author when the previous six books had established the pattern that HP is a series about Harry and his colleagues at school.

[mimine.livejournal.com]

Everything about suddenly inexplicably!badass Molly was contrived and moronic. Bellatrix should have simply wiped the floor with the hausfrau.

Of all the deaths, Snape's character assassination (See his twu wuv for Lily as his only motivation) was what bothered me the most, way more than his actual death. That and the endless exposition near the end. It started well but it was not a good book.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, she did. But good for you trying to block it out. I think Molly'd been watching a lot of action movies.

But how can you say the deaths were unaffecting just because they felt like randomly crossing off names on a chalkboard? Didn't you miss the way that when someone died Harry felt like it was really, like, significant? Because death is totally...significant?

It's a thing that was with them like a presence!

[pauraque]

I need to go on a long camping trip to think about this.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

bitch is a bit trivializing, I agree - it seems to me that the books are meant to be cartoonish though so I'm not sure more depth was really called for. I often think fandom gives the series more meaning than JKR ever intended it to have.

I have to say that I have no problem with Molly being the one to dispatch Bellatrix - she had been a member of the OotP from the beginning but more importantly, she had the will - the power of love, particularly a mother's love, being a major a theme of the book.

[pauraque]

I agree in principle with your first point, but I guess for me it's more a matter of degree. The earlier books (the first one especially) are quite cartoony and Roald Dahl-ish, and all of them have aspects of it. I'm not comparing it to Shakespeare, but to something like Cedric's death, which IMO had some gravity appropriate to the setting and situation.

I think you have a good point about a mother's love, it does seem to hearken back to Lily, and I wouldn't be surprised if JKR intended that.