f13.net

Mad-eye, Tonks, Lupin, Fred, Snape, Voldemort, Crabbe or Goyle (can't remember which), Harry (though he comes back to life), Grindelwald, Dobby and Gregorovitch all die.

Whoops, I edited my post didn't I?  :evil:

Bah, Erich Weisz died October 31, 1926.  Hardly a spoiler.

Here is that man in a balloon lawnchair what is still alive:

(http://images.chron.com/photos/2007/07/07/7000621/311xInlineGallery.jpg)

More shameless bumps for my cat:


(http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/1259/iseewhitedz4.jpg)

Harry probably dies like Gandalf died.  :roll:

(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/catfight.gif)

The little black kitty obviously didn't know who he was fucking with.

Do not fuck with ginger tom

(sung to the tune of Space Oddity)

The kitten is a newbie and didn't realized he is in a PvP+ area.

Poor little fella got 1-shotted. I wonder if that tom corpse camped him?

(http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_apr2004/CatBread.jpg)

Didn't they already do that with Dumbledore?

A link to the supposed leak: I take ZERO responsibility for your misenjoyment of this book. (http://seclists.org/misc/harrypotterspoilers.html)

Bleah. I hope that ain't true.

Wasn't that just a spam email?

I really think that character will die, whether or not it is true. I have been telling my girlfriend that all along.

That would anger me...probably my fav character. Other than Dumbledore, who already took a dirtnap.

Kiss them good-bye then.  The surest way to kill off a character is to like them.

(Not sure what's so spoilerish about it considering there are dozens of characters of both genders, but edited.)

Edit your post Lant? There's only one of that character -- anyone reading this thread now would have it spoiled. :/

Er, that's not true....

I'm not sure who else comes to mind. Maybe I haven't read closely enough? Or perhaps you could enlighten me in a PM?

I'm pretty sure the Dursleys are gonna die.

You can bit torrent it now.  I read that it is really bad quality but if you must know before Saturday....

HERE are the spoilers.  (http://gameinvasion.comcast.net/gameinvasion/news/article/1184681880561_final_harry_potter_hits_bittorrent&cvqh=itn_potter)

That link eventually leads to a site I can't get to load. Is there a place that lists the spoilers in a nice Cliffs Notes way? I'm one of those people that will read a book even when I know the ending, and have no problem skipping to the end to see if a favorite or reviled character survives through it.

They seem to have removed it.  Sorry.  I guess someone shouted at them.

I'll PM you what was on the page if you want.

(http://www.clisham.com-a.googlepages.com/4l42ux3.jpg)

Screenshot of some spoilerish text (http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/4076/harrypotterbq1.jpg)

oh fuck

oh man

I have to assume people that care won't read this thread. As such...

Rowling is a terrible writer and sell-out.

Hilarious. Epilogue is up at YTMND.

Edit: Fuckit, Here's a link (http://harrypotter7wtf.ytmnd.com/).

I really suggest you just skip reading the last book and come up with your own ending. Danielle Steele writes better shit than this.

Part of me wants the disappointment to be over.  But then the book will be here Saturday so it's not like another 3-4 days of waiting will kill me to find out what the real ending is.

There aren't words for the disappointment approaching. No words.

Mass Suicide Imminent.

She must really have taken the wrong way out.  Like "wake up in another country and realize your entire life as you know it was a dream and you're just a 5 year old kid" type garbage.

Worse.

Funny.  I clicked on it.  And I don't really get it, but it was pretty close to what I was expecting.

All you need to see is the 19 Years Later part. And then the tool she used becomes painfully clear.

Rowling is a stone cold bitch.

Well she is a certified gozillionaire now, so who cares how the series ends after how well she has done on the first 6? ;-)

Well, when they meet Frodo Baggins in the third chapter, it's all downhill from there.

I bet the last page is about Spiderman 3.

It's all pure "put a bullet in the head of this shit" drama.

If anyone still cares here are some more!

Harry doesn’t die
Snape dies on page 658, his last words are “Look…at…me…”
Dobby dies on page 476, his last words are “Harry…Potter…”
Moody dies sometime before page 78, you hear of his death from Bill and Fleur
Collin Creevy dies sometime before page 694, Harry finds Neville is carrying his dead body
The sorting hat dies on page 732, Voldemort lights it on fire
Fred dies
Tonks dies
Lupin dies
Neville kills Nagini
Snape was Dumbledore’s spy all along. Dumbledore plotted his own death so that the power of the Elder Wand would die with him rather than be transferred to his victor. He failed though and the power is transferred to Draco, then to Harry (of course).
Voldemort dies on page 744
Harry’s scar goes away
Harry Marries Ginny and has three kids named Lily, Albus Sirius, and James
Ron Marries Hermione and has two kids, Hugo and Rose
Neville becomes professor of Herbology
Malfoy gets married and has a son named Scorpius

I've never read any of the books, so I have no idea what any of it means. I just wanted to ruin it for someone!

Surely someone's going to point out that not everyone uses the same colour scheme ?

Uh oh.

Even with the possibility that the above spoilers are true, I am still going to spend the weekend reading the book.

If I really just cared about the major items in a novel rather than the experience of devouring hundreds of pages, I suppose I would read the cliff notes version rather than the whole enchilada.

And yes I am hungry; I have not had breakfast yet this morning.

omgses the spoilers are all contradicting each other... sorta.

At least all the spoilers agree on the fact that the Catholic church is evil.

Awesome.

At this point if I were the publisher I'd start disseminating fake spoilers just to keep people guessing, it's the only real way to fight the intarweb.

About half the spoilers posted above contradict with the spoiler summary posted on a website that photos of each page of the book. Yes, someone at a warehouse somplace took a readable photo of every page.

You're not fighting the Intarwebs, you're fighting teh stupid. If you attack the Intarwebs, it will route around the parts you break. If you attack teh stupid, they will help you.

There is already a review out by the NYT. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/books/19potter.html?ref=books)

And Rowling is not happy about it. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070719/review_nm/arts_potter_review_dc_6)

I've got the book on my desk. Who wants to know how it ends?

 :evil:

I bet thats some quality book reviewing, what with all the time taken to digest and evaluate the content. It will doubtless do the NYT's lauded arts section proud.

It takes about 6 seconds to digest and evaluate Harry Potter, Righ.

Hawt newlywed action. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070719/ap_on_fe_st/odd_potter_wedding)  More people should spend their wedding night curled up with a good book, it builds character.

JK Rowling can suck a nut with her street date bullshit. It's a goddamn kids book, fuck off you cunt. Also, Harry Potter can floss his teeth with my pubic hairs. I'll be glad if this bitch never writes another book again, that's how sick of Harry Potter I am. It's become a worse trend than fucking Lestat.

Oh come on. You hate anything popular.  :-D

Seriously, this became less about Rowlings long long ago. Nothing survives intact the success Harry Potter gets. And don't give me us "children's book" crap either. It hasn't been a children's book since the second one. Her writing style has changed concurrent with the age of her initial audience. Today's 8 year old is almost more likely to not read Deathly Hallows as the one's who picked up Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone nine years ago.

And anyone here please raise their hand if you think this truly is the last we'll hear of this.


You expected her to kill off Harry Potter?

That's why I get a chuckle out of it, Haemmy. About half the librarians are all rabid about it. (my fiancee is definitely not one of them) I could give a shit, I could go start reading it right now and I'm not even inclined to peek at the ending to mess with them. Well, maybe I'm tempted to mess with them...

I can't wait until the movie version where Harry conjures up some liver pills for Hermione in the nursing home.

To be fair, that is quite, er, unprofessional is the best word I can think of.  It's not quite cricket.

Every book launch in the series in our Children's Room disagrees with you.

It is SO cricket!

Oh wait.  By cricket you didn't mean "this thread is so boring wandering off to have a cup of tea is the most interesting bit", did you?  Sorry.

Get us one, would you love ?

Launched in the Children's Room, but how many children are the ones actually reading it? Darniaq is right, it's not a children's book anymore.

Too bad her writing level should only be entertaining those between 8 and 13. Seriously, I don't know how adults put up with her brand of filthy dialogue. It just sucks.

I like the theory that she is releasing multiple version of the book. Harry lives! Harry dies! Every possible ending is published, turning book seven into the biggest 'collectible card game' imaginable. She rakes in more cash than is actually available in the world, buys Scotland, renames it Pottertopia, and we get to see Ironwood in a hogwarts uniform and kilt - the new required dress in Pottertopia LLC.

All of this spawns a new world religion, and Edinburgh gets nuked in the great 'Was Snape good or evil schism' of 2026.

Clue was an awesome movie.

I would buy several copies to further this cause.

If she's so upset at the Times, why doesn't she buy them and fire whomever was responsible for releasing the story?

Why should the bitch care either way?

It is not like a bad review is going to lower initial sales numbers at all.

And book reviewers never spoil books enough to piss people off who want to read the book.

She also should be a little nicer to the reviewers as they are the same people who have been trumping her up for the last decade and adding to initial sales for previous releases with glowing pre-release reviews.

But whatever, the whole "we must protect our property, yo" attitude of Rowling, Scholastic, and WB is 10x worse than the much maligned Apple secrecy around the iPhone.

I must be misunderstanding this.  She's upset that the NYT published an absoulutely glowing, spoiler-free review a few days before the book comes out?  What exactly is the problem?

Oh wait, the review reveals what deathly hallows are.  Ah shit, the whole damn saga's ruined now!

Christ, it's a horrid thought.  Knees available on request.

C'mon, it was almost worth it for the Edinburgh bit.

That would really depend on the knees.  It's close...

Aside from the Harry Potter books, The Divinci Code is the only book I can think of that caused a "stir" in the past few years. Personally, I'm just happy to see people reading a book and not glued to their TV like normal.

And I'll take one lump in mine Signe, if you would please.

Adults read John Grisham and The Bridges of Madison County and think its literature. Adults are fucking tools.

I agree, but I don't think we'll have real progress until people start branching out to books they didn't hear about on TV in the first place.

Yeah, I'll give you some lumps alright.

Why would you want to hurt poor innocent me? It's not like I started this whole zombie thing.(http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/images/smilies/zombie_smiley.gif)

I heard that Harry constructs his own lightsabre, thus completeing a right of passage, and is able to defeat the evil Dark Lord, Lord Helmet.  He then flies at ludicris speed to Arakis, that desert planet, and saves his sidekick Barf from the evil Pizza the Hutt (the spice must flow after all).  United, they are able to save Yavin 4, killing Voldemort by playing Slim Whitman records, and only get a medal from the princess.  No poonany for him afterwards too.  The princess is such an uptight wench!

Finished reading it; it was pretty decent. The final showdown and the great reveal was well done. That epilogue, on the other hand, felt tacked on and extremely lame, seemingly put there as a hack-writer approach to tell people that the story is really over, please go home now, they lived happily ever after.

I've never read any of the books, but I understand the basics of the plot. Spoilers please?

If we do that, can we change the thread title to something Explicit?

Yes, I don't want to read any spoilers.

("I want to know which thread they're in so I can keep my distance," he said, in a thread called Harry dies in Book 7.)

Epilogues suck on general principle though. I don't want to hear about people growing old, getting married, having kids, getting crowned, and whatever else they did after the actual story ended. I second the call for spoilers. I'll get around to the book eventually but right now I'm way to busy and just want to know roughly how it went.

If you realllllly want them, here you go. I may be a little off since this is from memory.

The final showdown takes place at Hogwarts where it's the staff and students (minus slitheryn) versus the big bad evil Voldemort (hereto after referred to as V) and his army of cronies (including giants). Harry goes looking for the second to last horcrux (think Voldemort a phylactery, a soul storage) with the last being V's pet snake. V finds out, and you have a split screen where V finds out H has been killing all his phylacteries (the last few books) while H is hunting through the castle. V finally finds out and the siege begins. They evac the children, the siege begins, lots of people die. Harry finally hunts down the item, guarded by Crabbe Goyle and Malfoy his arch rivals in the school. Crabbe goes crazy and torches the place trying to kill H, ignoring Malfoy's orders that he is to be delivered alive. He gets himself killed by his own flames and H rescues an unconscious Goyle and Malfoy. The second to last horcrux is destroyed in the fire. V gets fed up with the carnage and tells H to give himself up, he has one hour to meet him in the forest.

V got his hands on one of a triangle of 3 extremely powerful magic items known as the Deathy Hollows, the Elder wand which was in dumbledore's possession and buried with him. The other two are H's invisibility cloak and a stone which was hidden in a ring that came up earlier in the story. He's kind of peeved since the wand isn't doing it's thing properly and figures out that it's already chosen it's owner, he who killed the last owner of the wand, Snape. He summons him and kills him with his giant snake while Harry watches invisible. Voldemort then goes off to the forest to wait for H. Snape dies but not before the great reveal in the form of some of that silver pensive fluid, liquid memories. Harry runs off to Dumbledore's study and learns what the hell has been going on.

Snape, it turns out, loved Lily, H's mother. He went to Dumbledore at the height of the last battle in order to warn that V knew about the prophecy and they were going after H and his parents and agreed to work for him as long as lily was safe/spared. Lilly dies of course but ultimately Snape agrees to watch over H. Dumbledore in the last book had tried to use the ring that was a hoarcrux and also the stone, one of the 3 artifacts because, you find out, D's great weakness is his lust for power, which is why he never took the head ministry of magic position and limited himself to being the headmaster at Hogwarts. He barely survives the attempt and his hand is charred, and find the curse will consume him within the year so he orders Snape to kill him when the time is right, a mercy killing and a final way to convince the dark lord he's no traitor. Snape does, in the last book.

You also find that when the killing curse rebounded on V and created H'd scar, a piece of V was blasted off and took refuge in H, which is why he can speak to snakes and has a mind link with him. H was an unintentional hoarcrux, and so he must die as well with one catch -- V must be the one that killed him.

Harry goes martyr in the forest and gets himself killed and meets Dumbledore in a pseudo afterlife. It turns out V actually created an unintended  hoarcrux for H by using some of his blood to create his phyiscal body this time around, so harry has done his job, the killing curse killed the little bit of V's soul that was in H. You also learn that is why wands act so strangely when they duel, that the wand senses that it's attacking its owner so acts all weird and actually rebells. H returns to life, runs off and confronts V in front of every one at Hogwarts, a duel to the death. H psyches out V by explaining that he isn't the true owner of the elder wand he's holding, that Draco Malfoy gained ownership when he pulled it from Dumbledore, since D and Snape planned his death it didn't count, and H disarmed Malfoy, so H is the true owner of the elder wand and the wand will refuse to harm it's owner. V doesn't believe him and it's the killing curse versus H's disarming curse -- the killing curse rebounds since it did indeed refuse to harm H, and H is left holding both wands. The body count of the final battle is 50 plus Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Collin on the "good" side. Harry now has possession of all 3 artifacts, the wand the stone and the cloak, but gives up the wand so he won't be tempted it's power and the grizzly endings of all it's previous owners. He hopes that if he dies of natural causes the wand's power will be broken.

Fast forward to 19 years later, at the station where all their kids are now going to Hogwarts Ginny and Harry marry, have 5 kids, Ron and Hermione marry, have .. you know what I don't even fucking care because this chapter should have been left out of the book. It ends with his scar hasn't hurt in 19 years.

Edit: Size is more friendly than color, since some people view it on white, use the quote button to read it fools ;)

I have such little control.  (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/sad.gif)

Unless you are using a browser that allows you to set a minimum font size.

Interesting. Pretty close to what I predicted, and very close to another prediction I'd seen. Someone is patting themselves on the back right now. (Besides me I mean)

Thanks. That sounds pretty damn lame to me, killing people off at an alarming rate is pretty hack for the last book in a series where only 2 good guys have died before IIRC. Color me disappointed.

Good lord you're fast.  What'd you do stay up all night?  I just finished myself about 10 mins ago.

As to the Epilogue, well yeah, what Cal said.  As you mention they're there for folks to get the loose-ends they might have had wrapped-up.   I liked the names, myself. 

Still, the amount of death surprised me, even though I was ready to see some folks die it was far more than I expected.


It all works out, though.  Almost none of them really feel 'forced' but flow well with the action.  Collin Creevy's death was the only one that struck me as "Oh, uh why toss that in there?"

Done.  Yay, I get the internet back.  Only finished this fast due the inevitability of some dickhead ruining it for me and because my wife wants to have a go at it tomorrow. *deleted non spoiler shit that a decently intelligent person could deduce a spoiler from.*

It was damn good. Yes, the last chapter was completely tacked on, but amusing.

Jk's dialogue's fine. I think schild's read about as much Harry Potter as can be accomplished during a single shit.  Bleh, I don't care.  Haters be damned, I had a lot of fun with this series.

I enjoyed it.  Was originally not going to get it,  but broke down and bought it last night around 9pm,  finished it a few hours ago.  Definitely an easy read.

I could see,  as a taste thing, why people don't like Rawlings narrative voice.  It's meant to be whimsical, light, and invoke the feeling of a fable.  She doesn't use it as well as Gaiman or Pratchet,  but...   they're fucking Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet.

As a counterpoint,  I think Mieville writes some brillant stuff but I haven't been able to finish one of his books because of the post-modern, whining, tortured genius dialogue and character interactions.

Bah, the last chapter was the character set-up for the next series of books, written by a different author/authors. The Machine will not let HP just stop - not when it's making everyone sooooooo much money.

I remember Rowling saying that she had written this last chapter when she wrote the first book...

That probably explains why it feels like a tacked-on piece of crap.

Writing an ending first and then trying to get there is really difficult. Usually either the ending simply doesn't match up with the rest of the book or the author has to make significant changes for the worse throughout the book(s) to get there. It sounds like she did the former here, just left it in place even though it didn't fit very well.

Fuck the haters with their noses stuck in the air, the book was good.  Severus Snape joins Atticus Finch, Jubal Harshaw, and Chief Beatty as one of my favorite literary figures.

Now that's just downright depressing.

You know what's awesome?  Telling people fake spoilers.  Just to fuck with them.

For the past two day whenever a friend of mine is on the phone I lean over and yell "Harry Dies!!!"

Edit: What's the over/under on the first Harry Potter spinoff, either his further adventures or the adventures of his kids? (Perhaps by another author) I'd say 2.5 years.

Finished it.

What a pile of shit.  From start to finish.

Yea, it seems like it was a lot easier to just read book 1 and the epilogue of the last book.

The characters eyes just weren't big enough.

Dunno. Rowling has a billion dollars already. This book and the next few films will probably see her close to two billion. Assuming she buys hundred million dollar castles at a rate of one a year, its still going to take a few years to make a big dent. She'll probably buy castles in a half dozen counties, collect useless but expensive tat and develop a startling cocaine habit. Then her ego will swallow her whole and she'll decide to save the world, pump huge amounts of money into some despicable extremist political party or religion and hit rock bottom. Probably around 2015 we'll see the Harold Potter, Metamagical Detective books.

 :-D I was waiting for Ironwood's "This is shite!" post. Surprised I didn't see one for the 5th movie also, that kid playing Hermoine didn't get any better.

You haven't liked one since 3, have you? Just curious. 

The composition of the detractors here isn't very surprising at all.

Finished it. The Epilogue sucked completely, the rest was ok without any real surprises. Well ok, Dumbledore already dying maybe. I live in constant fear of Harry Potter: The Next Generation now.

I'd like to make a post but Rasix already made it for me. ^

I'm trying to decide if the reactions in this thread are art fag fears your beret will be revoked or jaded sandy vaginas. Probably a little of both.

I enjoyed the book.

Mostly beret worry.

Or could it be that some of us don't really give a shit one way or the other about the series, but for 2 weeks around the release of every fucking book we can't turn on a channel without being eyefucked with news story after news story about the series like it's release is fucking news.

FILM AT 11: KIDS CAMP OUT FOR HARRY POTTER BOOKS, ADULTS DO TOO!!!!

I'm sure Mrs. Rowlings is very thankful for all the free fucking marketing, but Diane Sawyer and the rest of the Whores Brigade can eat the peanuts out of my shit.

Look, I'm sure the series is quite entertaining for those what like that sort of thing. For someone like me who finds that even getting a publisher to wipe his ass with your novel is difficult, seeing J.K. whine about a spoiler free positive review in the Times days before her more secret than classified government documents manuscript is more than sufficient sandy grains in the old crotch pockets.

Haven't seen the fifth movie yet.

On the subject of the novels, they lost the charm quite quickly;  That said, it was 6 and 7 that I didn't like, in exponential degrees.  Six was poor writing and seven was fucking atrocious.  She managed to take all the expected direction of the plot and enfuse it with total unreadability.  It was like Drain Cleaner to the eyes it was written so lacklustre.  And I saw absolutely no reason whatsoever for most of her choices in the seventh book.  It turned into a fucking bloodbath for no reason;  I could almost imagine her writing at her desk screaming 'Die You Little Cunts.  Run.  Run From Voldemort, He is YOUR MASTER.'

Seriously, Credit Where It's Due; you know that's my motto.  She doesn't deserve any, much like Donaldson didn't deserve any for his last Covenant Turd.  This, like that, was a fucking mortgage book.

That's my take.

I haven't read any of the books nor seen the films.  I don't care if they're good or not, I'm simply not interested in them.  But the phenomenon of people going crazy over them is fascinating.  There are probably some interesting parallels between Harry Potter and WoW should I ever care to delve that deeply into the psychological and sociological aspects.

And just for further clarification, I haven't read any of the books but have seen the first movie. I'm sure I'd have loved it when I was 9, but all it got out of me at the age of 33 was a decided /meh.

I thought it was a remake of Charlie and the Chocolate factory with other "good" kids.

Pretty good, not the best in the series, it felt a little too much like a greatest hits tour, running through the last six books saying, 'remember that plot device I didn't completely tie up at the time? Well here you go...'

Really liked the Snape reveal, the inevitable explanation of everything at "Kings Cross" not so much. The bits about dumbledore were well handled. Epilogue sucked, I'd probably have prefered a few a more pages of Hogwarts aftermath.

I was surprised that Draco, Petunia, and Ginny didn't get better plotlines; I think the book could have stood to lose about half the pages at the Burrow and Grimmauld Place, as well as a few random tent stops, to make room for more Ginny and more Draco. Also the Ron/Hermione thing was pretty damn clunky.

Oh, and apparition. Seriously, that was exactly as sucky a plot device as I expected; but happily, towards the end Rowling seems to realise this and simply declare 'and now nobody can apparate'.

Unlike the other books, this one had absolutely no self contained story arc, it was *only* the 7th part of a series. To some extent you could say the same about Phoenix and Prince, but much more so here.

I've read the book and you are wrong.

It is a damn fine book, the wrap up was done extremely well and everybody in this thread complaining about bitches and singing the "oh it's popular so it must suck" tune should chill the fuck out.

That's pathetic beyond belief. Not liking something I can relate to but being so cynical, jaded and miserable as to outright ruining someone else's fun with something you don't like?

Your television has multiple programs and an off switch. Nobody is forcing you to watch.

Fake spoilers don't ruin anything, especially since everyone I do that to knows I'm being an idiot.

Good conversation I had with my English Prof friend:

"So....what do you think of Harry Potter?"
"I don't."

From what I understand, the last book just isn't that good. It has a bunch of stuff borrowed from other books, it is predictable, the epilogue sucks, most people got bored in the middle and the parts most people like the most, wacky goings-on at Hogwarts, were almost entirely absent.

So you're bitter because you think she doesn't deserve to be pissed about her book release because you haven't managed to get published yet? Fuck, the series is a big deal to a lot of people, I think it's a bit beyond "those what like that sort of thing." Just because it's popular doesn't make it unworthy as literature/lowbrow, just like your difficulty getting your book published doesn't make it highbrow.

Most conversations about, well, anything involving taste/highbrow lowbrow can pretty much be crafted into a parody of the Kids In The Hall "Doors Fan" sketch.

"You know that new Depeche Mode album?  It sucks. You know what? That new Cure album? It sucks. That new Happy Mondays album? I don't know if there is one, but if there is, it sucks. I can say this, cause I know. Because I'm a Doors fan."

I like that Snape is a huge asshole throughout the entire series but still manages some heroics.  I've enjoyed reading every book and that's really all that matters to me.  I'm not saying these are Great Books, but they have memorable characters and they get children reading.  Anything to keep kids from watching anime and television is okay in my book.

And like cmdrslack says, it becomes tired when you start hating something simply because it is so popular.  It'd be akin to writing off God of War for the same reasons.  Find out what you think for yourself before saying it's shit, and watching the movies just does not count.

Y'know, my biggest disappointment with the whole series was the Harry was the most one-dimensional character of the bunch.  7 books and he's still pretty much the same clueless, lucky SOB only angrier.

Snape, however, turned out pretty damn cool.  Fucker.

You know what else is tired? A bunch of people pretending that Harry Potter is the best fucking series of books ever written. The whole release party, read it on day one nonsense is at the "gotta catch em all" level.

I won't say Harry Potter is awful, it isn't. But it just isn't that great either, and certainly not worth the tremendous hype. And watching reading books turn into brainless summer movie event shit is depressing.

What's wrong with a party?  A bunch of people getting together to have fun based around a common interest?  You're not gonna start telling me going to concerts is bad next?  How about political rallies?  Birthday parties?  So what if, at its center, is a mediocre fantasy series?  At any rate, it's better than a Wheel of Time party or something like that.

Me, I read the book in one day because I know that a whole bunch of other people will be talking about it already and spoiling shit by accident.  Hell, Schild spoiled the Snape killing Dumbledore thing for me in person. "Hey, come check out this website!"  Fucker.

Who the fuck is saying Harry Potter is the best fucking series of books ever written, or anything similar?  Is it because that so many others like it that you have to fucking bitch and moan about the whole thing instead of saying, "it's not my thing" or "I think it's overrated"?  The pretentious art-fags that don't like the series and are saying so with such vehemence are doing so because it is so popular and mainstream, don't for one second pretend otherwise.  It'd be akin to me, somebody who doesn't like the xbox, coming onto a thread for Halo3 and saying the 360 is the worlds biggest piece of shit since the dookie that came out of the last dinosaurs's ass and that everybody who likes it are like AIDS to the animal kingdom.

Nobody is asking anybody to like the series, but acting like a fucktard because some people do is asinine.

I'll gladly be an art fag if we can call you a petulant child. Deal?

I have to laugh at the Harry Potter fans who say it's just ok or pretty good. Then why are there fucking release parties and a million books sold on day one, discussions on every website, etc etc. That isn't how people treat merely decent books.

There are really only two explanations. One is that they simply luuuuurve the books. The other is that they have a pathetic need to be part of some larger cultural event, regardless of the quality of the item it is centered around. If art fags complain only because it is popular, than brats like yourself defend it so vehemently for exactly the same reason.

As I said, I'm sad to see books become the equivalent of the big summer "event movie", where it isn't about a personal experience but simply about celebrating popularity.

If Harry Potter is merely a good book why don't people treat it like they treat other good books? Sorry, that shoe doesn't fit.

It's not a binary world. You have apeshit fans of most stuff, you have less apeshit fans of the same stuff, you have people who also hate that stuff.

I liked the Harry Potter stuff I read, but I haven't run out to get the new book yet either.  I don't personally know anyone who dressed up for release day, but I have a friend who works at Borders and was dreading that day for that very reason. She also happens to like the books.

I really don't see how there can't be a middle ground on Harry Potter fandom.

On one hand, I don't give two shits about Harry Potter one way or another.  On the other hand, death to the Beret Patrol.  I'll come join your anti-anti-fanboy death squad, but only if I can come dressed as Darth Vader.

Oh, and fake spoilers rule.  Somewhere someone is reading that book, waiting in dread for the part where Hermione dies, only it's never going to happen.  Think how relieved she'll be.  Another fun thing to do is to just start making up spoilers, but keep getting crazier with them until the person you're talking to finally realizes you're bullshitting them.

"Ron is not really a woman!  That can't be true!  Have you even read the book?!"
"Well, no."

Well of course. I consider that a very healthy attitude. And again, I don't hate the Harry Potter books. There is far worse stuff. What I hate is the reaction to them and the way reading has been turned from a personal experience into a hyped event.

Buying things on the day they are released reminds me far too much of opening weekends for movies and the fixation on immediate box-office results. It's just nonsense to me that there are books that the public HAS JUST GOT TO READ RIGHT NOW!!!

I understand the need to avoid spoilers, but the end didn't surprise anybody anyway.

What turned it into a hyped event, IMO, was simply the fact that people were willing to wait in line. It's just like the people who waited in line for [insert crazy time period here] for the [insert console release here]. Shit, I used to remember when we'd camp out for concert tickets (before the wristband system came along) and there'd be a local news van there.

This just happens to have people willing to wait in line in multiple countries, etc. And they like to dress up. Just like the people at Gen Con, etc. For whatever reason, it's just more socially "acceptable" to be a Potter-dweeb, I guess.

I did think that video from the last book's release with the guys in the car driving by a Barnes and Noble yelling, "Snape kills Dumbledore!" was brilliant, tho.

I saw all three movies at midnight of their opening, the years they came out. By that third time I really didn't want to, being old and all, but by that point it was peer pressure. These weren't the best movies ever made. They weren't even original concepts in storytelling. I didn't rob people to get there. I didn't neglect my family, since they were already asleep. And they were pretty well hyped, and popular, and people liked them, and they got lots of press, and all that stuff that would normally make mouthbreathing world-haters go all bonkers...

... except those movies were for them, being LoTR.

One man's junk is another man's treasure. Catchy, and so fucking true. Get a grip.

(not you personally Margalis ;) ).

Y'know why  I bought the book and read it on the first day?

Assholes and the internet.  I knew if I didn't read it that day I'd have to avoid the internet for weeks, because I hate having shit spoiled for me.  It reduces the tension and enjoyment of that first time experience of a book or a film and turns it all sour. 

You want to bitch about the hype, blame the media in the first place.  All the coverage, all that bullshit is because they don't want to cover real fucking news.  Direct your anger at the right source, here.

I haven't read the book yet or seen the latest film.  I'll probably read the book over the weekend and see the film when it comes to DvD.  I don't mind spoilers too much.  I don't seek them out but I'm far too lazy to actually avoid them.

Spoiler: There's nothing worth spoiling.

In all seriousness, I don't think the ending really surprised many people.

This. I hate this so much. I'm getting tired of reading about people who are "underpowered" and frustrated all the time. I don't want some invincible hero, but geez, make them competant. Make them win through actually being good at what they do and knowing what the hell is going on rather than stumbling about and getting lucky/help.

That's why the first book I liked, the next 2 were okay books, but after that I didn't find them all that enjoyable. He was a kid who had never really done magic before in the first book so it's cool he's clueless. In the next 2 books he's still learning so it's all good. But after that... jesus fuck Harry learn some new spells. The only reason he's even considered good at defence against the dark arts is because every other wizard is as clueless, stupid, and useless as the general populace only they have magic. Seriously, everyone was just a normal person except a small handful like Snape and Dumbledore. Voldemorte didn't impress me as a bad guy, he was just a decent wizard who used illegal spells. There's no reason he should have been as huge a threat as he was to the world. In just about any other book he'd be the first chapter baddy the hero stomps on accidently in a rush to get at/away from the real baddies. The more the world turned to how much of a threat Voldemorte was the more I yawned through it. The books had merit when it was just about Harry learning magic and solving the school crisis of the year. I was going for that angle. Half-assed mage student fighting against and beating through pure dumb luck the biggest threat to the world that's only a threat because the world is full of idiots and its all localised in a very small area because well fuck there is no real reason but hey you should believe this is totally serious and dark and shit? Not really.

And I'm not hating on it because it's popular. I like WoW and Final Fantasy. I am therefore immune to the "you hate everything popular" shtick.

Actually, yes it is.  When was the last time anyone had a release party for a book you would consider excellent?  Harry Potter has two things going for it: the writing ISN'T complicated or overly intellectual, and this is the SEVENTH book in the series.  It appeals to the general public, and people have been waiting for this for ten years.

It's the same with any of the long series.  Imagine how people who are reading the Wheel of Time will feel when (if) that last book ever comes out.  I suspect I'll buy it right away just to get the damn thing over with.  I first read the Sorcerer's Stone because I enjoyed the movie, so I've only been waiting five years.  The anticipation of finishing the damn thing even though I thoroughly expected to be let down was dreadful.  Worse even than the damn Star Wars prequels.  George Lucas ruined three of my birthdays.  Fuck him.  I want my five bucks back.

What he says. I didn't even bother to buy the previous books myself, my sister gave them to me after she was done with them. But the hype about this one was ridiculous. Spoilers on the internet (which was to be expected), television (I wake up to morning TV running and what do I read before I find the off-switch "Ginny marries Potter - WTF), and newspapers. Reading that book as soon as I did was forced upon me if I wanted to read it at all.
Its the last book of a series. If you are invested in the characters (some of them, fuck that whiny asshole Harry Potter) you want to know how it all ends, even if you don't think it is the best book ever. No mystery to that.

Edit: I admit, if I knew what I know now I could have waited. The book was very predictable, and the fear of spoilers was worse than any spoiler could have been in itself.

Look, I've already answered it, but I'm going to answer it again.  I'm not hating the 7th book because it is popular to do so, or cool to bash it because it is popular.  That's fucking retarded.

I'm bashing it because it was BAD.  I enjoy the Harry Potter thing.  I just think that along the way it became something else entirely and got a lot less good.  Personally, I liked The Order the best, but I honestly thought that an Editor with a Hedge Trimmer could (And SHOULD) have cut that thing right back to the bone.  It was so bloated it was unreal.  The Prince was a little better for that, but the trouble was it was shittier plot wise and no-one really cared.  The Ministry got fucking stupid real early and so did the Percy storyline.  Hell, I could rant for pages and submit a fucking essay (this was my degree, remember) on the strengths and weaknesses of the series, and the weakness get LEGION towards the end.  There was little to no reason for the Bloodbath and the Kings Cross Chapter was almost a word for word steal from the worst of the Matrix films.  I expect the film version of this book to have dead dumbledore in a white suit flanked by rows of TV monitors.

Sorry, guys, I'm not hating for no reason - This book was shite.  The 19 years later bomb was just a rusty knife slice to the scrotum.

Carry on with your pointless debate.

I don't think anybody accuses you of that. Others in this thread that showed similar tendencies towards other products in the past seem to be the target.

Personally I can't muster enough energy one way or the other. Its the book equivalent of a popcorn movie. I've read TSR books that were worse, but also some that were better (and we are not talking great literature here, but Dragonlance novel 3854).

...And who the fuck in their right mind makes the most exciting search for the Horcruxes a fucking miserable camping trip in Skegness ? 

DULL.  The First Part was DULL AS FUCKING DISHWATER.  THE WEDDING WAS DULL.  VOLDEMORT SWOOPING AROUND LIKE A BAT CHASING PEOPLE YET HAVING NO CLUE ABOUT ANYTHING AND BEING TOTALLY FUCKING INCOMPETANT WAS DULL.

Hell, even the Dementors were fucking Dull this time round.

"Oh Noes, Dementors in teh forest, I'll never get past them due to my Patronus being all limp and flacid, I must summon teh Dead Parentz. Kthx Bai."

Weak.

You forget the perfect plan to break into the most secure bank ever. With a transformation spell they used since they were children.

And what's with the casual use of the 4 Unforgiveable Curses ?

That Bank Break in was like a re-tread of Oceans 12.

Yes, it was that bad.


And the Goblin just nicked the sword and ran, but it's ok, I'm sure they'll find some more basilisk venom, oh wait, they did !  Awesome !

Yeah, I gotta stop now, I'm being a prick.

You sure they were still unvorgivable? Didn't even McGonagall use one of them?

Now you did it. Once you think about that book for a second it breaks down - completely.

Don't forget the sword mysteriously reappearing at the end.  Unless I missed an explanation for how they got it bacj?

You fool, it came from the Sorting Hat.

How ?

BY MAGIC.

 :roll:


(Edit :  Bear in mind that this was the same hat that Voldemort SET FIRE TO five seconds before.  Yet, it was ok.  It was merely a flesh wound.  Kill Me.)

In all fairness, it was established in book 2 that the sorting hat could do stuff like that and that the sword would come to a griffyndor who had  true need for it.

I'm aware.

What was not made clear was it's amazing powers of regeneration after it had been burnt to death.

I wanted it to sing one of it's little whimsical songs as it burnt.

"Voldemort has set me on fire,
 I placed him in Slytherin because he was a liar,
 The Stench of Nevilles Hair is strong,
 It won't burn much 'cause it's not long.
 I sorted him into Gryfinndor,
 I literally have no idea why the fuck for.
 OMG, someone please put me out
 I'm trying not to twist and scream and shout.
 ..."

It's on EVERY FUCKING CHANNEL with "news." I have had multiple friends and coworkers come up to me to ask me if I got it yet. I can't escape this shit unless I lock myself in my fucking house.

As for saying "it's popular so it must suck" I've already said it didn't suck. The story of the first movie was meh. That's not suck, that just doesn't engender any positive feelings. It's mediocre to me, and thus not something I want shoved in my face every 2-3 years. I mean, it's not like I called her a no-talent hack like Piers Anthony or R.A. Salvatore or anything.

No, she's pissed off for getting FREE POSITIVE PRESS, when I and many writers can't even get publishers to look at page 1 of their book. She's getting her labia twisted about somebody recommending her book a day early when every fucking media outlet in the world is giving countdowns on the release date, while most published writers can't even get the local editors of their shittastic newspapers to toss them a mention. There's a reason the "mid-list" novel is getting tanked, it's because all the marketing dollars are being tossed around for the "next big thing" and the rest of the publishing world is sucking fumes.

or....

Most people just saw the adverts, pre-ordered on Amazon because it was 70% off or whatever at the time, and then spent a couple of hours on Sunday reading the book with a glass of Tempranillo. Sue us.

Guess what, just as not everyone with a console is that idiot stood queueing at midnight. Most Potter readers were perfectly happy to wait for the postman on Saturday.

That said, I can understand why the books spawn parties and endless discussion forums, at the core, they are mystery novels. They lend themselves to collective discussion and clue spotting.


If you don't want to see news stories that apparently fabricate sand particles from the glass in your TV screen and propel them directly into your vagina - don't watch television news. It's shit anyway. Buy a paper, then don't read about whatever it is that's getting your panties bunched this week.

You'll live longer.


And not doing so is part of what makes books 5-7 merely 'pretty good'.

The early books laid down so much foreshadowing and clues-for-later-resolution, that by the time Rowling reached book 5, she had so many plot lines to tie up, she didn't have time for anything fun.

You don't get it. It is on every single fucking news outlet in this country. EVERY ONE. Local papers, local TV news, then national TV news, Internet news sites, EVERYWHERE. I turn on the TV news in the morning to get the fucking weather, which is about 2 minutes worth of air time. Can't get away from it there, because the weather is sandwiched between shitty news and Potter news. It's like Paris Fucking Hilton without the wore-out vagina, it's inescapable. I don't think you understand just how much the US news media is made of whoremongering douchebags. The only way to avoid the free marketing for Harry Potter is to go media celibate for the week prior to the release and the week after the release.

I'd be ok with that if they chose one book every 2 weeks to pimp like bitches, but they don't. The rest of the news media ignores books completely, shitty or otherwise, for every day of its miserable life except when the book is Harry Potter or some shitflinging tell-all about celebrity boozers. At least the Daily Show and Colbert Report actually have authors on their program. Most "news" programs would just as soon ignore books as light them on fire.

Ha ha ha. Looks like I was way off on the over/under.

You people who say "she already has billions" don't get it. Greed is its own reward. People accumulate money just for the sake of it.

So... shouldn't there be some super-angry mob of Goblins killing every human in site to get the sword back now?  Not like the little guy is just gonna let it "magically disappear" and not give a shit.

Haemish,

If you want to know the weather, just assume it'll be more or less the same as yesterday. You'll only be 7 percentage points worse off than professional forecasters. Besides, you live in the southern United States. IT'S GOING TO BE HOT.

That aside, the beauty of newspapers, is you don't need to read Potter news, you just read the other stories.

Hell, I've been reading potter books on release day since number 4, and I don't seem to know half as much pointless shit about the author or about Potter-hype as the beret brigades in this thread.

Probably because I have better things to do with my time than read shitty stories that are obvious Potter PR filler.


Margalis,

Who gives a shit? Good luck to her, and anyway, what else is she going to do all day? Drive a minicab?

The books were fun.

Maybe they gave it a cookie. And a back rub.  Perhaps a pedicure.  Maybe in a chapter that was cut they had Remus and Tonks secure a loan for the sword with the promise of giving the goblins a nice set of goblin forged armor.  Maybe the hat when ignited shits swords.

Who cares? It's easy to poke holes in just about any book if you try.

I like how "beret brigades" is a Republican-styled derogatory term for people who actually know stuff.

huh?

All this over a children's\young adult's series of books.  I love how strong the hate has gotten in this thread.  Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy again.

I read it, enjoyed it.  It ended exactly how I predicted (and hoped) it would and without too many twists and turns that weren't foreshadowed somewhat.  I'm just glad I never have to read it again if I don't want to, because it is over as far as the 7 original books were set to go.  Anything that does or does not come afterward is meh to me.

Like Mrs Weasley channeling Ripley from Aliens before she punks Bellatrix?  :-P

On a more serious note, there is no possible way this book could have been good.  Far too much buildup in the minds of the readers plus tons of plot lines that cannot be adequetely resolved.  Course, i think this applies to ending of almost any long running entertainment vehicle, and most surely will apply to the end of the Wheel of Time series  (hell, i think anyone who's read 3 of those book could probably write their own final story and have it be just as good).  Off the top of my head i can't think of a long running series with an intact story arc that actually ended in a satisfying way (be it book, tv series or movie series).  That's just par for the course.

I've never understand why adults get so worked up both pro and con about entertainment fads.  That stuff is for kids, and viewed from that mindeset I think the lines and parties and overwhelming amounts of coverage is fine.  Hell I managed to drag my parents to see the original star wars 8 times when it first came out, plus had the mountain of toys and stuff associated with it; this is no different.  The book hype will be over in a month or less until the next idiot fad comes along, like say the Bratz movie... and of course there will continue to be sequels, prequels, side lines, more movies, theme parks (I know a Hogwarts theme park is under construction in Florida) and shameless merchandising, but the crest of the wave has now officially passed.  I more interested in how the Avatar series works out the redemption of Zuko myself...

/rerail  And I was wrong about some of my guesses.  I had fully expected Harry and probably Herminone and Ron to become professors at Hogwarts in whatever epilogue there happened to be.  I also expect a phoenix like rebirth of D, but since he still got to show up an explain that was close.  BTW, what's with the flayed baby in the afterlife?  Was that supposed to represent V in some way?

The book was like getting ass cancer in a car fire while being repeatedly stung by acid-covered bees.

Seriously, EVERYTHING about the Hallows could have been dumped and absolutely nothing substantive would have changed.  It was all tacked on.  And obviously, the series is about magic, but all the craziest shit just suddenly sprang out of the woodwork with absolutely no warning.  Grindelward?  Death handing out superweapons?  I aced the fucking SAT Verbal, the ACT Reading, and the LSAT Reading Comp. and I STILL couldn't understand Dumbledore's explanation for why Harry didn't die even after reading it four or five times.  The entire Dumbledore subplot would have been the dumbest subplot, if it wasn't for all that Grindelwald/Ollivander/Gregorovitch shit.

And why did they spend half the book camping in fucking forests, and then like three Horcruxes fall out of the sky?  I'm sure there is erotic gay Harry Potter fanfiction that does better romantic situations than the Ron/Hermione debacle.  All I'm saying is, in JK Rowling's head, Hermione better damn be infinitely more ugly than Emma Watson and Ron infinitely more attractive than Rupert Grint.  The Charity Burbage stuff?  When did this turn into a fucking snuff film?

HATE.

My understanding (not having actually read it) is that Voldemort used Harry's blood to bring himself back to corporeal form, and in so doing inadvertantly made himself into a Horcrux for Harry. Apparently it's really fucking easy to create accidental Horcruxes.

I maintain that most people like Harry Potter for the alternate reality take, the lighter humor and the goings-on at Hogwarts - the mundane made extraordinay. So history will judge the more plot-heavy books as the worst of the lot. And I'm never wrong about these things. I even called critics turning on American Beauty.

Please. Like that series is ever going to end. I've given up on reading any new volume until that last fucking* book is published.

* This thread has, on average, one "fuck" per post. That's pretty fucking good.

Dumbledore mentioned that it was easier after the first time you do it, and I suppose since Vol'd done it 6 times previously, that 7th was like picking-up Bruce at an ASPCA meeting.


Yeah, it was the bit of V's soul that was inside Harry busily dying.  The whole conversation seems to to take place inside Harry's mind/ soul which opens up the question of WTF Dumbledore was doing there along with Harry's soul and V's mangled bit. 

<insert conspiracy theory that will spring-up about Dumbledore using Harry for some 'good guy' horcrux as well.>

LOLZ.

Seriously. LOLZ.

In the terms of lit/film/games/music beret brigade is so totally the people who hate anything popular. I remember, in high school, when I was part of the brigade and claimed that Nirvana were a bunch of sellouts for going commercial after Bleach. Apparently, according to lots of people who appreciate music, I was wrong.

And I was music director at my college radio station...in the mid 90s. We ended up "breaking" a fuckton of bands that got popular in the 1998-2001 years.

Err, not just history.

That's what everyone thinks right now. It's what everyone has said all along.

Do try to keep up.


Not so much, the dumbledore reveal (which I agree wasn't that well handled) was supposed to explain the 'book 7 mystery' which is Dumbledore's background.

Harry's arc for book 7 was supposed to be to turn away from the hallows and follow the more selfless path. Thus showing that he has qualities that even Dumbledore (previously a perfect Obi-wan figure) didn't have.

If this had happened in a book like 1-3 that would have been the bulk of the story, but since the 7-book-arc got snow ploughed up into the last 3.2 books, and particularly into the last book, the arcs of each individual novel got lost.

So I agree that the hallows didn't really fly, but the problem was insufficient hallows, not too much hallows.


Not exactly.

Voldemort made Harry a horcrux at Godric's Hollow.

In book 4, Voldemort used Harry's blood to come back to life. This took Lily's protection spell inside of Voldemort so Voldemort would also have that protection, and so Voldemort could now touch Harry.

When Voldemort zapped Harry in 7, the Horcrux died, but Lily's enchantment, which most thought had gone, protected Harry because Voldemort had kept it alive beyond Harry's 17th.

Guys. It's a book about Magic. Magic is the ultimate "I can do write whatever I want because fans will rationalize it" ingredient. It's for lazy writers. Like time travel and "This character is really Jesus."

If only someone had already made that point.  Right at the top of the page.

It still fucking sucks.


Magic, time travel and, yes, even Jesus can be done properly if you try.  Hell, I'd say Babylon 5 took a shot at all 3 at the same time and did fine.

You're right of course - but Rowling always made the effort to tell the reader outright what the magic was going to do ahead of time, and then distract you enough to forget that she'd laid down the rules ahead of time. That's a big part of why the books are fun.

If you read them twice, you get the whole 'Usual Suspects' effect.

This is not Lost or 24.

No, see, Usual Suspects did everything in a subtle manner, so that you WOULDN'T notice. These are books. Rowling sets her rules in advance so she can call them up when most convenient.

You're right, it's not Lost or 24, they just make shit up as they go along. Rowling spends a few hundred pages making sure that when she makes things up she has some bullshit precedent that makes it OK.

Regardless of if they were sellouts or not, they were not the second coming of the robo-raptor-zombie Jesus that MTV, Rolling Stone, and the sheeple seemed to think they were.

Why you gotta hate on Nirvana in a Harry Potter thread :(

This is no longer a Harry Potter thread, it long since became primarily a 'my beret is more authentic than thou' thread. Nirvana hate'll fit right in.

If this were a thread about some obscure art book, and we were all storming in calling you the beret brigade for liking it, you'd have some kind of point. But as it happens...

Please reread my posts so we can check the status of my beret.

I don't hate Harry Potter the books, I hate the phenomenon and all the shitheels that are grubbing up the wodges of cash floating in the air around the Harry Potter fad. I hate the fact that the writer gets pissy about free press that most writers would give their testicles to get. Do you know how many books sales a :15 second mention on Good Morning America can provide? How many book sales a positive review in the New York Times can generate? And she's bitching about it?

That beret-brigade thing is pretty funny, but it totally is insulting the wrong thing. I don't hate the Harry Potter books, I really could give two shits about them. I hate the fad. I hate the fad that turned Nirvana from a decent garage band into the OMFGSAVIOURSOFMUSIC, a swarm of hype that I frankly think contributed to Cobain's untimely demise. I hate the fad that garnered a shitty romance novel like The Bridges of Madison County enough sales to make developing a movie a no-brainer. I hate that no-talent shitweasels like John Grisham get movie deals for regurgitating the same storyline in every book. I hate that a mention in Oprah's book club guarantees best-seller status to people who write "memoirs" of their lives that aren't even true.

Guardian digested read. (http://books.guardian.co.uk/digestedread/story/0,,2133299,00.html)

Ooh! This sounds fun. Ok…

First 8000 pages: the various females characters wander around, act catty, and rearrange the draperies while complaining about the men.

Next 1000 pages: the men whine about responsibility.

Final 50 pages: Rand realizes everything is his fault, he is causing the ‘Breaking’ and he is the Evil Dude all in one. So he stabs himself in the face with a rusty spoon and explodes thereby resealing the prison thingy.

Epilogue: 10,000 years later: Start with the corny blowing wind routine, end on a Shepard. Shepard hears the voice of Rand. Shepard freaks out, runs to the village claiming to be the ‘spoon master reborn.’ Shepard is promptly burned at the stake for being a twit.

The end.

On topic: Yes, fads are annoying. But they end. Witness: the end of Disco and lime green stretch pants. Two fads infinitely more horrific than Harry Potter. Really . Stop kvetching.

I liked the book just fine, I don't see what all the angst is about.

A lot of people are calling it the best book in the series.

Do try to keep up.

Edit: I embrace the "beret brigade" label. It's an epithet used by mouth-breathing anti-intellectuals. LOL JOHN KERRY LOOKS FRENCH!!!

If not being dumb means I wear a beret then so be it.

Only the usual PR/journo shills who call everything the best thing in every series, because copy/pasting press releases is so much easier than real work.

EDIT: And if anyone else is doing so, feel free to go harass them on *their* threads. Because, yes, everyone in this one agrees with you.

Yes,  Prisoner > Hallows.

They ALL owned Hallows.  That's the problem.

imo, for what it is worth, from good down to pretty good....

Prisoner
Chamber
Prince
Stone
Hallows
Goblet
Phoenix

Move Hallows to the bottom and I'd agree.

I may be somewhat odd in that Goblet of Fire is my favorite one.  Chamber is my least fav.  Hallows is near the bottom for me, whatever that means in a list of books that I've all enjoyed. 

The goblet is horrible almost completely based on the fact that the tri-wizard tournament was a big yawn-fest. I was expecting duels or some shit, not stealing an egg from a dragon, having an underwater scavenger hunt (what. the. fuck), and navagating a hedge maze. Oh and of course Harry needs help through it all because he doesn't know shit. It was very lame.

The third book was good, I liked the third book.  While reading the fifth and sixth books, I kept wondering when something was going to happen...book seven should have been after 4, with more dark evil world killing plotlines and Voldemort not being such a stupid douche... for 3 books!  Yeah, that would have been super neat.

Rowling is famous for clever plot twists, but she ends the series in the most banal, predictable way possible, while killing a lot of people to create ... atmosphere?  bah.
Would have been ver nice if Voldemort had lived up to his reputation just a little bit.

And didja notice how Rowlings explains the potter/riddle wand issue by basically saying it was not understandable?  I hate that crap.

Eh?

Do you mean the "Dual Cores" thing, or the new-minted "Rules of PhallusWand Exchange?"

Come again?

Who says that?  and edits it?  and has a dozen "experts" look at it?  and then prints it anyway???  who???  that paragraph sucks ass!

edited to make pretty.

No, you come again!  What is there to debate?  There are books about this stuff, books about wondering what she might be going to do next! 

The fact that people speculate is totally unrelated to being "famous for clever plot twists." People speculate because the future hasn't happened yet. Any popular, engaging narrative will encourage speculation.

The Harry Potter series really doesn't have a lot of twists, and the ones it does have are mostly predictable and not clever at all.

a.  I think you're wrong. 

b.  Having reread my post, I think my point would be just as well served if you removed the word "twiists".

So, meh.

At least 7 finishes everything off.  Book 6 has all of one major sequence combined with a ton of nothing happening, almost like book 5 but with less teen angst.

The first 3 were good light-hearted fare, easy to read and fun to deal with.  Not to mention they were maybe 350-450 pages.  Book 4 I enjoyed despite it being rather dark and like 800 pages.  Book 5 & 6 were just too long based on what happened.  After finishing 6 I just wanted 7 to be out so I could get it over with.  That's how much I didn't care for 6.

This is the worst book I've read since I quit reading American Gods after 100 pages.

Remember that thread a while back where we explained the Snape thing? So she writes it out exactly like that..

For some people things like that might be inventive and enjoyable, but for many it (and you can't argue - we have it in writing on these forums) was simply boring, predictable, and devoid of flair.

It's a bad book because there is no style, the dialog is soporific, the 'themes' are on a short and unvarying cycle, and the plot so rudimentary that you can see it coming books in advance.

Except for the whole mind bond thing, which was built up rather solidly only to be abandoned with a memory Dumbledore coming out with a "oh, I think he's safe from attack by that route now" out of nowhere. Assumedly so that she didn't have to work out a way it might have been involved in the story yet still providing a neat solution for those fans who just have to have complete closure.

Oh and the wand thing was hilarious.

The epilogue was like a very bad piece of fan fiction.

It's just a very bad book, I'm not going to get riled up about it because I chose to read it and finished doing so, but that's not going to make me hold it up as anything other than a bad book either.

If there was anything in the series that was good then, for me, it was the humor and the enthusiastic imagination of the first novel. These things disappeared more and more over the life of the series - while the books also became longer. I laughed a couple of times reading the final book, but only once or twice was it at her jokes ("Percy you're joking!" made the cut, King's Cross Station did not).

I seriously don't know how people could read through the pages of the novel without shaking their heads softly and feeling sorry for the author - who clearly didn't give a shit anymore but was forced to fill out a hefty few pages and felt obligated to satisfy a legion of fans - but then, I don't understand people much anyway.

What really bothers me (and it's not just about this book, but all books) is that the role of Publishing Editor appears to have dissappeared.

There's been a lot of famous big books I've read recently that needed sorted with a Hedge Trimmer.  This was one of them.  Just because someone earns millions doesn't mean a good critical editor shouldn't be sending them back to the writing desk.

The worst example I've seen of non-existent editing lately is any recent stuff by David Eddings (the guy who wrote the Belgariad series). He must be such a big seller that the editors don't touch his books anymore because in the last few he's actually repeated identical pieces of dialogue several times through each book. It's incredibly annoying.

I'm surprised Dean Koontz hasn't been knifed by his editors.

I suspect it's because they've given up.

And for that I, and readers worldwide, profusely thank the publishers.

Maybe if you weren't such a bitter, twisted douchebag things would actually turn out better for you.

Oh, I dunno.  I do all right.

You don't constantly fall back on the, "I'm jaded and angry all the time!  I'm extreme!  I'm edgy!" bullshit.  Most of us get past that sometime after high school.  Apparently for some of us it takes longer.

Wow, that was so perceptive, Gulp. You've seen through my entire charade! You've exposed me for the poseur that I truly am and as such my life has no more meaning!!!! You've foiled my cunning plan!

Or could be you've misinterepreted my honest feelings as some sort of "act" that I put on. No, I'm really that much of an angry, twisted douchebag in real life too. I'm a joy to be around.

Actually, I read him as saying that this is what you were like. Nobody around here could think you were putting on an act for this long. That'd take mercenary conviction of an unrealistic order :)

So was Harry Potter 7 Seinfeld-end bad or just Buffy-end bad?

In that case, he can eat a fat bag of dicks and die. Which really he can do for either interpretation, as can the rest of the world. For all time.

I AM ANGST!

Goes for films too.

I blame Peter Jackson.

The ending was fine, if predictable. Once the gang get to hogwarts, the book gets going, unfortunately that isn't till page 439.

The problem the book has is the 200 page wizarding world tour stuck on the front to tieup the plot lines from books 1-6. Rowling felt she had to give a few pages to every character and even every object that hadn't been definitively dealt with. Every order member, every birthday present, every enemy who isn't already dead, every throwaway dumbledore or snape comment, even random shards of mirror, all got their plot line. Result is that the book 7 arc doesn't really get going.

It's still a fun book.

This is the biggest douchebag comment in this thread by far.

One thing I never really understood about the triwiz, was that apart from the dragon egg thing, it was entirely unsuitable as a spectator sport.

I kept thinking, yeah, so you are variously in a maze or at the bottom of a lake, NOBODY CAN SEE WHAT IS GOING ON. Probably not something worth worrying about, but there you go.

Magic psychic cameras. DUH.

What ?  Why ?

Because the longer the Lord of the Rings films got, the more Hollywood let directors make long ass movies even if the movie didn't need that much time. Case in point: Peter Jackson's King Kong.

The Lord Of The Rings was BRIEF considering the fucking material.

 :roll:

I was aiming more at King Kong than LotR.

That said, the cinema LotR films were either too short or too long, take your pick.

They either needed filling out to the full DVD versions, or cutting down and missing sections entirely, as they were, they hit an awkward spot with not enough time to do justice to the amount of plot PJ wanted to include; rushing through as much of the plot as they did made the cinema versions unecessarily hard work to watch. imo.

And that aside, LotR's success is a big part of why every other film is 3 hours long these days.

Ok, I've not seen Kong so I can't comment.  But the LotR stuff is bullshit.

I agree that LoTR needed the time it was given, particularly in the Director's Cut stuff, and that this compelled Hollywood to let other Director's off the hook whether they needed to or not. They certainly didn't like giving that time to Dances with Wolves :)

But remember, prior to that was the fascist time limits that gave us the original Abyss. I'd rather be bored in a long movie than have a lobotomized one in an otherwise pretty darned good flick.

Before there was Lord of he Rings, there was Titanic.

That movie, and not anything after, is why Hollywood allows people to make 3 hour long pieces of crap. Everyone in Hollywood felt it was crap but figured "what the hell, 2 studios will both write it off as Waterworld 2.0, and we can go back to making short movies with sequels" but the 12 year old girls going back to see their darling Pretty-boy DiCaprio die again and again made studios realize that they could keep the attention of audiences through a couple extra hours of fluff.

The biggest problem with books to me is not the lack of proper editing (though that does get on the nerves at times) it is the fact that now, they have increased the font size and line spacing just so much that a book that would have been 250-300 pages in the 1980s is 400-500 pages now. They have probably done market research that shows that people are more likely to purchase a book with more "weight" to it, than not. It also alleviates the problem of not having enough books to fill the shelves in bookstores as they don't need as many books to do so.

Also, it's much easier to read larger text.  My bad eyesight corroborates this.

On a related note, my dad is a middle-school science teacher and they were actually considering buying super-large versions of his textbooks because one of the kids had a major eye problem.  And I mean HUGE print.

There is a difference between editing for length and editing for content. The third LOTR movie and King Kong could both have been shortened while making them better. That is different from shortening just to shorten.

However when something is a proven money-maker is makes sense for editors to be more hands-off. Especially when the artist involved may be fickle and not someone you want to piss off. Typically big-name, big-sales people get more leeway so they don't jump ship.

I like long movies.  Kong was way too long.  By the time we reached New York I was bored.

It was too long for the content. Like most MMORPGs. What made it long was the fact that when you think about it nothing really happened other than some CGI brawlin. I was bored before it even got to NY.

It was also a movie that simply didn't need to be remade. The remake added nothing at all.

"I disagree with what you said."

 :x

I'm thinking mostly of the ending and the parts where Frodo and Sam looked longingly at each other. The movie as delivered had a lot of filler and a lot of the shots just lingered too long for no reason. Maybe that filler could have been replaced with actual story, sure. Again, I don't think it was too long, I think it was too long relative to what happened onscreen.

Kong is about 20 minutes of all right followed by 2 1/2 hours of long shots, overlong Naomi Watts shots (and I think she's beautiful but damn) and way too much run run run!!!!

LotR was a mixed bag for me. Fellowship was fantastic and the Extended DVD was just heaven. Two Towers was good with the extended helping a bit. Return in the theaters was good, but I only managed to watch the extended 4 hour version once. A lot of it just seemed to be added for the fuck of it in Return, with the only parts I remember being really worth it were the Sauruman death (which the theatrical just totally ignored) and the Mouth of Sauron. Had he added the Scouring of the Shire to the 4 hours, I think I'd have had no problem with it, because that was an important part he left out completely. As it was, the added stuff didn't have the same oomph that the added stuff to Fellowship had.

Speaking of King Kong, wtf was up with the vaudeville stuff?  Naomi Watts doing pratfalls for a CGI gorilla... completely destroyed the tone of the movie for me.

This sums up exactly how I felt about Return.  Had the scouring been in there it would have been perfect.  Not because I'm a Tolkien nerd who feels their favorite scenes need to be included, but because it closed the Saruman section and closed the journey of how the Hobbits had gone from needing help at every turn to being able to stand on their own.  That said I did enjoy it despite it not being included, I just felt that 10-15 minutes of celebration scenes and jumping up and down could have been dedicated to it and not overly extended it or detracted from the movie.

I did think that Fellowship was the best and the extended version was just fantastic.  My major gripe with Towers is the way Gandalf is portrayed along with making the Battle of Helms deep go on for an hour when it was quite short in the book ;-)

Finally finished HPATDH. I dug it, and even kind of liked the 19 years later thing. Apparently that makes me a very bad person.


And look at that! I am already over it.

I finished it yesterday and I thought it was ok, but it could have been better.  I think the biggest mistake Rowling made was abandoning the framework of attending school at Hogwarts for this book.  I can't help but think that the Ginny/Neville/Luna story would have been a lot more fun to read.  She also killed too many characters apparently just for the sake of killing them.  It wasn't a bad story, it just wasn't as engaging as most of the other books were.

Well, having read it -- I'll state that only a few moments in the book got a serious reaction out of me, and neither involved Harry.

The first involved Neville, a sword, and a hat. It's nice to see the geeks rise up.

The second involved Mrs. Weasely, who showed why you don't fuck with the moms of the world.

All the screaming, carping, hammering on about Harry Potter And the Massive Phenomenon, I don't give two shits about, although there are surely worse things in the world than large numbers of people excited about a book. In fact, I consider "large numbers of people excited about a book" a good thing, even if they're insanely over-excited and clog up my TV with it, because at least some of those people will go on to read other books, and by purchasing them, support authors who I really like.

Best way to avoid The Phenomenon would be to turn off the TV and read a book.  :-D

It was better when Ripley did it.

Nah, because with Ripley you knew she was a hard-ass already. With Ms. Weasely, it was an entirely different vibe. It was shocking, yet in character. Ripley's was just in character, but not surprising.

I read the book, and on the whole I don't think it's nearly as bad as people are going to rip it apart. However, I do think, unlike her earlier works, that this book suffers in areas that a good editor or a fresh author could have prevented.

1 - She sounds tired. The whole book seems like she's done writing the series, she hates her characters now, and she wants to disappear. The obvious plotlines with no twists indicate this. The killing off of characters for no reason indicate this. You killed Harry's owl? Why you horrible bitch? That was just rude.

2 - On the plus side, she turned Snape into something you could like for a good reason.

3 - The camping thing was horrid, and absolutely excruciating to read. I understand the need to isolate the characters from the outside world and to work in the feel of a society that's now against them, but going on and on with them in tents was pointless. The effect she wanted was achieved by Godric's Hollow and the Lovegood house encounters. We understood they were hunted, we don't need to know they are foraging for mushrooms nightly.

4 - The King's Cross thing is the Matrix. I'm reading it and thinking, wow this is the Matrix. It's exactly the same right down to the nonsensically complicated round-the-way dialogue.

5 - On the plus side again, the Battle for Hogwarts was awesome. Giants, walking suits of armor, Professor MacGonagal kicking ass, Trelawney launching crystal balls at people, and the showdown with Voldemort. All of that was well done and worth the price of admission. Now, if only more of the book hadn't centered on crawling around in the bush, nobody would be bitching.

I read a Q & A she did the other day and she said the death of Hedwig was supposed to represent Harry's loss of innocence.  Personally, I can think of better ways to represent that but that's just me.

Hermoine swallowing his load would have been a better choice.

Cuminus Faciala!

'Cause, see, what happened was he lost his innocence when Cedric died.  That's a fucking stupid answer from her.

She killed the owl because she hated the owl.

Yeah, not to mention losing, you know, HIS GODFATHER. What a cunt.

You don't understand.  See, Harry's innocence was fractured into seven pieces, each residing in characters the readers loved.  But not the ones that were *too* important, the magic doesn't work that way sequels.  So she had to go and kill them all before Harry could truly loose lose his innocence!

Edit: happy?

"lose"

Here's how I'd make the movie.

80% would be the fight at Hogwarts.

In that case, I have a bit of innocence to rid myself of as well.

Did anyone else feel like she implied in the earlier books that she might resurrect Sirius?  I thought the whole doorway to hell thing was incredibly vague.

Bah that's a pure bullshit answer, but it wouldn't have sounded as clever to say; "Hedwig was a plot device, and like Apparation an 'untraceable messenger owl' like I've used her as in the past eliminates the whole alienation feeling I was going for in the overly-long camping forays... so the owl had to go. Same reason I had to give the characters a 'oh crap they can trace our apparating!' scare."

I thought it was just a doorway to wherever the dead go. Hell, heaven, whatnot. Wizard version of capital punishment, before they got merciful and just condemned you to a life of having your fucking soul eaten.

I had no problem with the death of Hedwig and Moody, that was probably the quickest way she could make clear that the death eaters were in the ascendancy, bad shit was going down, and this is IT.

Plus it would have been hard to write Moody as angst filled and as generally useless as the other adults.

Snape was always understandably doomed, but he died like a bitch, right now he's sitting about in literary hell with Mace Windu discussing how much it sucks to discover your author couldn't think of a way to kill you with just a little dignity.

The deaths of Dobby, Fred, Tonks, and Lupin were badly handled though, "oh, we won/got-away, and oh X is now dead, I'm sad".


I didn't feel like Sirius's return was promised. I felt more like she was saying flat out Sirius aint coming back, and Harry is going to whinge about it for a while yet.

Is whinge actually a word? I see this all the time now. Is it just a poorly-spelled whine?

Actually I thought Dobby and Fred were handled pretty well.  Dobby got more attention than Fred, but it was due to when it happened.  Fred's was just fine becuase, hey, war sucks and sometimes that's just how it goes.   Lupin and Tonks, however, were pure shit.  "Everyone's crying around fred.. oh and Lupin and Tonks are dead too."  Fuck, I didn't even realize they WERE dead until Harry's wandering around 'remembering those who died' and they're mentioned again.  I had to backtrack to figure out just what the hell had happened, only to discover it was a throwaway, "Oh they're dead too" line.

THAT is a shitty death.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.   :-)

Also, I agree with pretty much everything people have said above about HP7.

It's been two years since I read my last Potter book, and all I remember is that I got a very strong impression that Harry would figure out a way to bring Sirius back.  I mean, the door was in the department of mysteries, after all.  I think that I assumed she would have Harry discover exactly what that mystery was after a year or two of being obsessed with it.

One thing that struck me as either incredibly odd, or incredibly British, was her refusal to deal with 17 year old boys' sexuality. Hermione and Ron in the woods being chased by the world and they don't even get a flutter in the groin? Does this woman know any 17 year old boys, ferchrissake? Potter, ok, maybe he's too traumatized to get a boner every 5 min like I did when I was 14-17, but the rest of them? No way.

And I don't think it was because sexuality is too 'adult' for a children's book. I mean, she's got a freakin body count going, what's a nocturnal emission gonna hurt?

Hey and what is it with movies beign all "omg violnce woo" but sex is censored..

Oh and that's all GREEN FUCKING TEXT for those of you who have to know such things.

It is a word.  A Britishism though, I fear.

Don't know about it being a Britishism, the antipodean colonials use it a lot. And 10 seconds with google tells me it also predates the US, apparently it's a word of Scottish and Northern English origin.

Which makes it surprising that it isn't common usage in America, since American English is generally more faithful to historic English than modern 'proper' English is.

Google also tells me the reason you are seeing it a lot lately is that it has been popularised in the US by none other than Harry Potter.

Yes.
No.

That conniving bitch...

Don't whinge you prat.

Whinge sounds like some kind of tool you fix your doors with.

Whinge is more faithful to the sound than whine, if you ask me.

Wine is more faithful. Let's just cut the crap.

Getting drunk about Harry Potter? At least don't take the cheap wine to avoid a hangover.

I do have to agree that whinge does sound more like onomonepea. (Chance I spelled that right: 0%)

onomatopoeia.

Irony in that it's not spelled exactly like it sounds.

Wheesht.

Finally started reading this. It's a page turner in some places, laborious in others. And having followed this thread and read all the spoilers, I know what happens, so am reading just for the details. But what the fuck. They had to kill Hedgewig? There's a whole string of deaths in this book, each one piling up to lessen the impact of everyone dying. Cedric dying in Goblet of Fire, that was powerful stuff. Even more so than Dumbledore because until this book confirmed it, I still thought it was an elaborate hoax. But 27 people dying in as many pages, no matter who they were, no matter the epitaphs in the pages that follows, that's too much.

Yeah it's like she decided to make it like Hamlet, but then she forgot what made that good.

Harry Potter is a mediocre series of books.

It's awkward, stilted, badly paced, full of limp characterizations and goofy magic. If it hadn't turned into a social phenomenon it would have been completely forgotten... but instead J.K. Rowling is the richest fiction author in the history of the world and we've all got to try to explain to posterity how that happened, so we pretend that she's written something momentous and affecting. We pretend we're disappointed that it never even APPROACHED artistic merit, and try to justify its failure using its few shining moments.

Bullshit.

There are plenty of marvelous, moving books about child wizards and their struggle with dark powers up to no good. My favorite is Diane Duane's _So You Want to be a Wizard_ series. If you don't explicity need wizards try _The Dark is Rising_ (soon to be a crappy movie) or the Prydain Chronicles.

All of these books are better than Harry Potter. Not subjectively... OBJECTIVELY. They are written by talented authors and have more to say than "believe in yourself". If we live in a just world, Harry Potter will be shoved to the side as a curiosity and the true classics of the genre (or unwritten classics of the future) will keep central stage. I rather doubt it, though. More likely Harry Potter will be recommended by parents and teachers for decades because, gee, we must have made Rowling a billionaire for some reason...

Oh fuck off.  I don't even like Harry Potter, but some shrill outraged wannabe literary critic on a web forum screaming about how book X is "OBJECTIVELY" better than book Y?  While simpering about how unfair the world is because some book became way more popular than some other book he liked better?

(http://home.blarg.net/~rgphoto/2004/beret.jpeg)

Yeah I'm with WUA. (Ugh, it hurts to utter that sentence) However, don't hate on the woman because she wrote a good series of books that struck a chord beyond regular demographics. That's the key you are missing. People of all ages and from all points enjoyed this series, and while they have problems with the way she capped it off they still liked them. They still bought them, and it's still a phenomenon. You know why? It's an accessible series, and the beret-talk as WUA posted won't make books fly off the shelves in a genre so ass-backwards as fantasy.

This isn't something new to literature you know. People still teach Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe simply because it was so popular in its time (and somewhat for the subject matter). The instructors will flat out tell you it is terrible writing and not to pay attention to it.

But either way, people like Harry Potter. You can't take that away from Rowling. You have to admit that she wrote one hell of a compelling series, the likes of which haven't been seen in children's literature (Barring A Series of Unfortunate Events -- but even then, I wouldn't argue that it is even close in popularity) since arguably The Chronicles of Narnia.

I had completely forgotten about those books until you mentioned them.  They were pretty awesome.

Objective

   adj

             objective
       undistorted by emotion, interpretation, or personal bias; based on observable phenomena.


If you are going to come over all smarter than thou in a discussion about Harry Potter, expect the Grammar Basilisk to be watching.

Or, please be explaining what objective criteria you are talking about; then we can all tell you how nobody gives a crap because they were still fun.

I would assume his empirical, objective evidence being that they were not authored by Rowling. And had a different number of words. And fewer uses of the idiom 'prat'.

I could be wrong though, as I haven't been able to duplicate his unpublished hypothesis.

Harry Potter is to books as WoW was/is to MMOs, is what I'm hearing here.

It amuses me how so much of what we call 'classical literature' was snubbed as crap by the literary critics of the day.

So in the end, I read what I want and enjoy the hell of out it, and leave the snobbery to others. I admit that I don't care if they fuck up the Golden Compass movie, or if they'd fucked up the Harry Potter movie, but I will fucking hunt down and beat anyone involved in the Dark is Rising movie if it sucks as much as I'm afraid it will. I loved that book as a kid.

Heck, I can still remember the poem -- iron for the birthday, bronze carried long. Wood from the burning, stone out of song. Fire in the candle ring, water from the thaw.

This is a less obnoxious way to say what I said.

I don't think Harry Potter is nearly as polished as WoW, but it is basically the same sort of compilation of old ideas... and it hit the same sort of critical mass. After a certain point it doesn't matter how much you might normally enjoy something... you pick it up because it's all your friends have been talking about lately. Then you enjoy it more than you normally might because you get not only the work itself but the pleasure of being part of a cultural phenomenon. It breaks ice. It makes message board threads.

Maybe I should thank my lucky stars it was J.K. Rowling rather than Clive Cussler.

Now you know how I feel about Robert Jordan.

Well, you'll only have to feel that way for another year or two.

Yea, right. The sun'll cool before WoT ends. After the 35th book, I got the impression that Jordan doesn't have the confidence in ending his cash cow that Rowling did in hers' (though, I have no idea if she was confident or just had no choice because of the 7-book badge she's worn since book 1).

As to the "quality" of the Potter books, I consider them to fantasy like I do DaVinci Code to history. They're fun reads, nothing more. And if people are upset by their success, well, if not Potter, something else would set 'em off.

He meant because Jordan's dying (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_jordan#Illness), and actually IS trying to finish the books up because of that.  The question right now is will he finish it before the disease finishes him.

Damn. Now I feel like shit. That sucks bigtime. It's good to hear he's gotten some improvement, based on that wikipedia entry.

Don't feel too bad.  Most authors don't need a terminal illness to convince them to get around to finishing their series.

It took Stephen King being hit by a fucking car to make him finish the Dark Tower novels. (Not that I'm bitter. I merely waited six years to resolve the cliffhanger in The Waste Lands. I used to joke he spent the time seeking a reall tough riddle.

He was just being lazy.

It's hard to write when you've given up the crank.

Hello.

I have avoided your evil spoiler thread for weeks while I found the time to finish the book (thanks car service and taking the bus into work). The book was OK but the thread wasn't worth the wait. WTF eight pages.

Battle camping camping camping camping camping camping battle epilogue.

P.S. The person I thought was most absent from the ending was George. His twin and constant companion is dead, does one-eared George just go and run Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, does he take three Veela brides, does he jump out of Dumbledore's death window shouting "FRRREDDDYY"? Perhaps I missed it.

The book was what I expected it to be. Rowling doesn't do literature, she does old-fashioned magical storytelling for kids, a lost art that is also appreciated by adults who grew up with that kind of thing. The whole world went crazy around her and she's gone from struggling single mum to the rich list, but she still managed to finish telling the story. That's admirable.

Snape was no surprise. I could understand a child falling for the "Snape is evil" distractions, but not an adult reader. I mean in Dumbledore's death scene he's telling Snape to kill him, it's constantly emphasised that Snape is the master of occlumency and that Dumbledore trusts him no matter what, and so on.

Now I can go and read His Dark Materials again in preparation for the movie.

I do? No, I don't have to admit that.

She wrote the equivalent of McDonalds. McDonalds sells a lot of food, and also sucks shit - there is no contradiction there. Harry Potter is another Star Wars, a series that has no depth or interesting ideas but engages people at a childish level. Sometimes instead of living in an adult world and grappling with adult ideas it's easier just to indulge in things that pander to the lizard part of your brain.

I wouldn't put it anywhere near Narnia either. Rowling has more in common with Enid Blyton than CS Lewis, but that's still not a bad thing.

I didn't say it was critically amazing. Rather, I said it was compelling. People read it. It is compelling. McDonalds' fries are compelling -- people eat them.

 :tantrum:

If I had a sig I'd sig that.

You are aware that's possible, right ?

What? You mean I don't have to type this out each time?

Zounds!

Well I'm going to anyway because I'm old skool.

I apologise for not ruling out the fact that a fellow poster may in fact be a complete and utter dumbass.

Just finished the book as well. I completely agree with almost everyone here on it. However, the ending didn't piss me off as much as I thought it would. Based on this thread, I was expecting a WTFSeinfeld ending. But really, the whole book sets it up well ahead of time. As some have said here, this one truly is closure. It's done, fin, no more. Maybe she'll license out the intervening 19 years, to define what Harry has become, what George has become, how kids are sorted these days, why they're still sorted at all beyond inertial tradition, and so on. But in setting up this dead-end finale, she has also given the reader little reason to care.

That seems to be what she wanted. She is done with Harry Potter so wanted to try and set it up so that the readers were done too. "Stop bothering me! We're out."

I didn't like the amount of death. By the time Fred died, it was like, oh, yea, another death. That was the closest she seemed willing to come to killing an A-list character. I really did think Neville was going to be the one to bite it. I never ever thought she'd actually kill off Harry, Ron, or Hermione. She set those three up like the main trio of Wheel of Time. They are all critical to the outcome.

The other thing that bothered me as it did others here is that almost none of the characters ever evolved at all. The main three were always the way they were. Harry was always willy-nilly until some decisive/luck victory. Hermione was always the best witch evar!11 Ron was alway there for the ride, a way into the world/lives of a wizarding family.

I'd say the only character that actually evolved was Dumbledore, but that, like Snape, was more flashback definition than anything having to do with a character actually growing up throughout the series.

The Battle of Hogwarts is going to make for some good cinema though.

And I can see whoever does the movie nicking the entire Epilogue ala Jackson not bothering with that whole liberating-the-Shire thing.

Fred's death was the one that really moved me. I figured Hagrid and Ron were dead men going into the book for some reason.


Draco's family evolved some in that they went from "Kill all muggles" to "we care about each other more than this war." I kept hoping that Draco would evolve a little more than he did though.


That BTW is the only place where I felt that Peter Jackson fucked up. That and leaving the Galadriel gift giving scene out of the theatrical version of Fellowship. But really, retaking the Shire is critical to show how the hobbits have changed and grown.

Good point on the Malfoys. I actually started feeling bad for them in the end, particularly when Narcissa covered for Harry having been "resurrected".

I also felt a bit jipped by the final Harry/Voldemort encounter. One spell to end it all after 3 pages of speech? Sure it made sense in the context, but I wanted another Dumbledor/Voldemort fight.

Now, onto LoTR :)

I agree that the Shire events were critical to showing how the hobbits had evolved in the story. They can no longer afford to be passive isolationists as a race. They realized they were in fact a part of the larger world, and needed to truck with it.

However, their entire culture was delivered in the movie simply as a few minutes of voiceover from Bilbo. In the cumulative hours of all three flicks, there was negible time given to setting up the hobbits as anything more than "here's another race to show diversity in the world". Further, the only one of the main four that evolved at all was Frodo, maybe Sam becoming a bit more courageous. They were really just like most of the other characters, part-players for the larger advancing storyline of kicking Sauron out of Middle Earth for good.

So in the context of the movie itself, I was fine with the entirety of the Hobbit evolution being shown in Sam finally talking to and marrying Rosie and Frodo getting on the boat to Grey Havens.

Truth.  The Scouring makes more sense in the context of Pippin and Merry having become sworn-in Lord Defenders of Rohan/Gondor or whatever their titles were at that point.  They never really got to that point in the movies.

I would still have rather had the Scouring in there than not, though.  Even if it ended up adding some length to the movie, it would have made it feel shorter, because there would have been something interesting in there instead of twenty minutes of tearful goodbyes.

Yea, no doubt. It's a Hollywood conundrum though. How do you make Scouring/Liberation more exciting of an ending that killing Sauron and watching Barad Dur fall? :) After that, liberating the Shire would looke like an assault on Ewok village.

TBH I think the Scouring would be more exciting on screen than the fall of Barad Dur was.  Epic hobbit melee vs. a big rock with a neon eye on it falling over.  Hobbit melee, please.

That most certainly would have improved Return of the Jedi.

Odd.  I felt like Frodo was the only one who didn't evolve.

What ?  You felt the playful capering Hobbit that Welcomed Gandalf in the first five minutes didn't change ?

Seriously ?

Going crazy under the influence of a ring that controls the souls of anyone near it doesn't really fall under "growth" in my dictionary.  Too much of an external force, which provided for may ten minutes of screen time where we could see him without that influence.

How did he look at the end? I seem to recall him being tired looking and wanting to go off to join the elves fleeing middle earth.

I agree. The Ring affecting him didn't make him evolve as a person/character. It was his pinnacle involvement in very worldly events that did. To me, he embodied the entire evolution of insular Hobbit to worldly one. He's got the ear of the Kings of Gondor and Rohan. The most celebrated Hobbit before him merely gets strange visitations from Dwarves. And even Bilbo actually did move back home. So he left, wierd for a Hobbit, but moved back home and re-integrated, becoming a "normal" Hobbit as an extension of a "don't bother me with the world" culture. Frodo never did that. He came back, squared his affairs, and left (in the movie. He was home for much longer in the books, but never re-integrated there either).

Oh, and something else that did piss me off from the Harry Potter book: the Horcrux making him abnormally angry, private and less effective at fighting evil? Come on. Just remembered this part in the context of takling about the One Ring...

If I can veer back to Potter for a second:


Not if they cut it down as much as they cut down the potentially-cinematically-awesome-but-ultimately-disappointing Weasley rebellion in OotP.  It went from this awesome campaign of magical guerilla prank warfare (Fred and George's finest moment in the entire series) to a lame fireworks show.  If they give the same treatment to the Battle of Hogwarts it'll be cut down to a single shot of the armor walking around, a cut away to some lame dialogue, and a cut back to show half the cast lying dead on the floor.

Cutting the Weaseley rebellion was probably the single most disappointing thing about the last Potter film. That said it would be tricky to find a director capable of walking and breathing simultaneously that would cut down the battle of Hogwarts, especially in favour of lots of camping in the woods. Unless they really are retarded and eschew big battle in favour of clumsy romance.

I quite enjoyed the book but I'd also read it and the previous two in fairly quick succession (I read HBP right before it and OotP a couple of weeks previously) so the plot threads were all fresh and I wasn't really treating it as self-contained at all. I think that helped quite a bit as frankly it followed on so immediately that it really felt more like a continuation than some of the others. The camping stuff was overdone and dragged quite a bit, I could see Rowling was trying to establish the characters more, to show some sort of maturation under stress. While I think there's a definite difference between the three of them from the first book to the end, it doesn't really strike me as any kind of maturation more a solidifying of what they were before with a dash of falling in love with others. Ron and Hermione' romance hardly struck me as one of the great love stories of our age but then that would have been far less believable considering the characters and the fact that they're 17.

Probably the worst bit of the book for me was the Gringotts break in. The fact that the Goblin seemed unprepared for some of the traps they got hit with struck me as unlikely and the casual response to the losing the sword of Gryffindor also irked me. Never once do they suggest trying to get it back (as far as I recall), they just stoically accept that it's gone and try to figure out some other way of destroying the Horcruxes. The deaths in the battle struck me more as Rowling trying to show some level of the reality of war. As much as killing off 6 or 7 known characters reduced their impact, simply telling us the floor was littered with corpses doesn't have a huge impact. Kill of a character that people know brings it home a bit more and if she really had given us a decent death scene for all of them Harry would have had to have been at pretty much every part of the battle and it would have probably been another hundred pages. I can see that it wasn't done perfectly but I'm not exactly unhappy with her for it.