Harry Potter. Because I can.

[debitha]

This rambles all over the place. I started trying to organise it, but it got hard, so I gave up. What? It’s my journal and I'll be lazy if I want.




What an opening! The Stately Home with an unconscious body hanging upside down over the table in the drawing room and a screaming prisoner in the basement. Top marks.

Snape gets the big YAYs! Although I cannot help but feel that posthumous character development is a bit of a cop out. How would people deal with horrible old Snape turning out to be noble and tragic? How would misanthropic Snape deal with people being all, "You're so noble and tragic!"? JKR says "Too Hard Basket!"

I am very ambivalent about Remus/Tonks. It has always felt forced (it doesn't have to, it's been done really well, just not by JKR), but for it then to turn out that the whole reason she did it was so they could sprog and die, so it would be all cyclical and Harry could be a better godfather than Sirius... No. Not happy.

The Dumbledore Developments were fantastic. Even though Harry always had complete faith in him, his actions kept displaying a bit of a chess-player mentality. "For the greater good" was obviously not something he really gave up on, he just learned to temper it a bit. Which makes him morally and ethically ambivalent. My favourite flavour! (So to speak. Remove your mind from the gutter please!)

Can anyone work out why JKR hates the Blacks so very much (apart from Regulus, for some reason)? I mean, OK, yes, not a nice family as a whole. But Sirius was always trying to be a decent (if arrogant and messed up) person, and she just wouldn't let him. And Andromeda. Yikes! Hi, here's Andromeda. (Finally. After six books.) Now watch while I slaughter her husband, daughter, son-in-law and sister, and leave her to raise another metamorphmagus baby. On her own! *cackle* *rub hands together* *cackle some more!* (I know she probably wasn't real fond of Bella, but a sister is still a sister.)

Which leads me to the Malfoys. I had a major "Go, Cissa!" moment when she decided that the Dark Lord could take a hike, if she could just get to her kid. But on the whole I was quite disappointed. I kept waiting for them to pull something out of the hat. I was so sure at the start, with the way she was guiding Lucius and Draco in their responses to the goading, that she had a plan. There should have been a plan, dammit.

I had another moment of cheering (thank God no one else was home. I'd have been so embarrassed) for Percy. He was another character I was holding out for. It's a real shame he wasn't busily subverting the ministry back again from his position of trust, but I can't have everything. (No one's ever given me a good reason why not, but apparently I can't.)

I rather had Aaaawwwws over Kreacher coming over all mumsy. I may have had sniggers, too. It was a pretty damn funny image.

Neville... I'm still not sure about Neville. The things he was doing were fantastic, and I loved them. They just didn't seem very Neville to me. He was developing nicely in the books, but he never struck me as having a great resistance leader deep down inside him.

The wanduendo great. Ron's comment to Harry when he gives him the book for his birthday, about how it's not all wandwork? *snerk* Although it puts another spin on the whole "I am the true Master of the Elder Wand!" bit. Plus, the Elder Wand having been Dumbledore's.... errrr. I end that line of thought there.

I was very impressed with the ruthless genius of Hermione's plan to protect her parents. Absolutely brilliant. I'd have been a bit reluctant to marry her after that, though, were I Ron.

Poor little Scorpius. He wins the lottery on the worst name ever stakes. Although Albus Severus and Xenophilius (rough translation: Lover of Strangers) were giving him a good run for it. I have read mutterings about a Scorpius/Rose pairing. Oh, hell yes.

Did I miss something? Did the good guys have a whole bunch of professional Quidditch players on side, and FAIL to launch an aerial strike? Who the hell was in charge?

Also, at what point did Griphook play tooth fairy and slip the sword back under the metaphorical pillow? That one was definitely a WTF.

Comments

[holding-pattern.livejournal.com]

Yuss. For Snape cop-out one must turn to fanfic. Le sigh. It's just a bit too easy to have Harry go "Ohhh..." once the snarky bastard's dead and he doesn't have to deal with him any more. Bit harder to be all "he's so brave and wonderful!" if he's returning your Owls on fire :D.

Ditto on cyclical Remus/Tonks. They were more interesting characters than that. Deserved better, really. Not a better *death*, as such, but better handling. WTF happened to cool OotP-Tonks? I'd wondered if Remus was going to be offed simply to round out that generation, because, along with the convinced-he-was-good, I was nearly convinced Snape wouldn't make it through. Wormtail was always going to die.

Ambivalent Dumbledore *rocks*.

The Blacks never really got a break, did they :-/. I'm very pleased by the Malfoys as family unit - there's been too much assumption that Lucius was awful to Draco, and I just don't see evidence for that in the first six books, since the wee brat is obviously devoted to his family. Someone made the interesting point that the Malfoys can be contrasted against the Weasleys and Lupin-Tonkses - they dropped everything, flagged fighting, just to find their kid. If everyone had done that, there wouldn't have been much of a fight, and V coulda just walked in. Still. I enjoyed their family focus. I thought it worked for them, and gave them a bit of dimension. Even though they were self-serving till the end... but it was believable. Rock on, Narcissa :D.

I was SO HAPPY when Percy came through. I sodding love Percy, and, yay, he went ahead and joined in when it mattered. I may also have had sniggers at the shiny house and yummy Kreacher food etc, but it still made me go aw. And because it really *would* have made a difference if Sirius had treated him differently. And then, he might not be dead. Gah. Stupid Sirius.

I think from book one Neville was shown as someone who would stand up when he thought it was necessary and could work up the nerve :). And he'd been getting more confident in the later books. So I didn't find resistance-leader-Neville to be that peculiar.

Ahah wanuendo. Awesome. *steals word* Hermione's ruthless plan was also awesome. I was impressed by how she handled that. Because, really, they would have been prime targets, and all unprotected n stuff.

Scorpius is a terrible name. Although it comes from a family of terrible names, and is accordingly *less* awful than AS, who sits between Lily and James. Although. Ginevra. Abraxas, Lucius (Lucius is fine), Draco, Scorpius. Oh, dear. With a name like that, how can he not grow up to take over Gotham City grumpy?

Sword - that was a bit wtf, yeah. General opinion is that it hearkens back to a Gryffindor in need being able to pull it out of Gryffindor's hat, AKA the Deus ex Sorting Hat. You know, the one Voldemort conveniently set on fire over Neville's face (SO EVIL). So it probably clocked him on the head just like Harry in CoS (it's not like Fawkes put it in there for him - it's clearly supposed to be a hat mechanism. It's just a bit lame). Somewhere, there is a very pissed off goblin, swearing a blue streak about wizards.

Apparently a different person dealt to each Horcrux, which is kinda cool. Harry/Diary, Dumbledore/Ring, Ron/Locket, Hermione/Cup, Crabbe/Diadem (by lame accident), Neville/Nagini, Voldemort/Harry, Harry/Voldemort.