Harry Potter 7

[Kekvit Irae]

Also,@ Kekvit Irae- wtf is that pink thing in your first post?

Slowpoke. Wiki it

[Warluster]

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Yeah, that did seem a bit odd. The ironic thing was that they didn't even need the basilisk fang anyway, as that mystical fire took care of the ravenclaw horcrux. I suppose there was still the need for them to have a way of destroying it, barring that odd coincidence.

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Ron didn't speak Parselmouth, he imitated it. Quite confusing.

[Somebody Else]

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Ron didn't speak Parselmouth, he imitated it. Quite confusing.

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And the basilisk tooth was quite handy for mangling the cup from the vault...

I got... uh... emailed... the book, read it in one sitting (when I read, I read)

She's getting been getting more and more arrogant as a writer, you can tell - the books keep getting thicker and, though the plots are undeniably good, the quality of writing is actually pretty poor. Editors generally prune quite a lot of the manuscripts authors churn out - author's are generally too self-invloved to be able to filter out the good from the bad. The cheesiness is, of course, expected in a book aimed at a young audience.

I have a feeling that there were a few plot holes, and/or unsubstantiated leaps of logic, or I may have blanked out every now and then whilst reading - 6.30am is not a time to be finishing a book.

[ShadesPanther]

My only gripe with the deaths was

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they weren't really to any of the main characters. Basically to very minor characters and a few secondary.

As for her writing.
I'd say she is more like Dan Brown, who is an awful author but a very good storyteller.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

Ah, I don't like JKR's writing, so I just watch the movies.

[Bijo]

Harry Potter. Harry Potter? Harry PÓTTER? These books and films are to be collected and placed into a gigantic barrel filled with oil whereafter it is all set ablaze by the staccato of a fighter jet's gun.

*runs off*

Harry Pótter. Hah.

[Lord Winter]

Rowling hates her characters and have some weird death fetish. How else would you explain 12 deaths in one book?

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Ever read A Song of Fire and Ice. Rowling only killed off a ton of secondaries and non of the golden trio. :(

I have to agree with Sapi the fire was just way to convient.

[GeneralHankerchief]

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I would have preferred the fire over the basilisk fangs, actually. Just to show that the Dark Arts are self-destructive, etc. But it was stupid to use them both. One or the other.

[Marshal Murat]

I was really disappointed in some parts.



Snape...
Snape...
Snape...

[GeneralHankerchief]

You might wanna put that under spoiler tags.

[seireikhaan]

My only gripe with the deaths was

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they weren't really to any of the main characters. Basically to very minor characters and a few secondary.

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Hmm, I dunno, I would consider Voldemort a pretty main character, in addition to Snape. So yeah, the trio didn't perish, but some main characters did die, at least imo. Also, as a sidenote, I never imagined feeling sorry for Snape. Guess I was wrong on that one.

My biggest gripes:

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Ron being able to imitate Parseltongue(just seems way too unlikely, even for a story based around magic) and the fact that the end still has me a tad confused(as to how the 'mechanics' of the whole thing worked with Harry and Dumbledore)

[edyzmedieval]

Going to get it today. Was a big fan, but now I lost interest.

[English assassin]

Is it just me, or are people going to look back at Harry Potter and ask, what the **** was that all about?

As a series it just doesn't seem to work. Books 1-3 are sort of sub Jennings boarding school japes for fairly young children. OK writing but not great. Books 4-5 suddenly take themselves seriously, with, you know EVIL, and civil servants (but I repeat myself). Poor writing, great length. Not really suitable for young children.

Books 6 and 7 I have no idea as I have not read them but I imagine more of the same.

Who is the series aimed at? Narnia, or LotR, have one target audience for the whole series. If you enjoy one, you can read all the others. This series, you can give the first three books to a 7-8 year old, but the last ones need an older reader if only for sheer stamina, not to mention deaths and stuff. On the other hand the first three are too twee for anyone over 10 to enjoy.

IMHO its two mini-series. She got lucky by the time she was writing book 4, readised that adults were, inexplicably, reading her kids' books and she was hot stuff publishing-wise, and went off on a turgid prose mega-bender.

Good luck to her, but I can't see the books having lasting appeal.

[Marius Dynamite]

Who is the series aimed at? Narnia, or LotR, have one target audience for the whole series. If you enjoy one, you can read all the others. This series, you can give the first three books to a 7-8 year old, but the last ones need an older reader if only for sheer stamina, not to mention deaths and stuff. On the other hand the first three are too twee for anyone over 10 to enjoy.

I started when I was 9 or something and now I'm 15 and I enjoyed reading them as I grew up.

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I didn't like the Ron does Parseltongue bit either, seemed a bit convienent. If Parseltongue can be imitated, why can it not be learned like any other language?

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The other thing that bugged me throughout was the fact Harry never once decided to train or even read a spellbook on his 6 months or so of camping. I mean, your being hunted by most of the world, you always knew you would be hunted and now you have weeks to do nothing out in the countryside and what does he do? Sits and bitches like hes in the Big brother house. Even Crabbe done some training and practice and learned some stuff.

[edyzmedieval]

Bought it now, I'm on page 35.
By tomorrow I'll finish it for sure...

[ShadesPanther]

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Hmm, I dunno, I would consider Voldemort a pretty main character, in addition to Snape. So yeah, the trio didn't perish, but some main characters did die, at least imo. Also, as a sidenote, I never imagined feeling sorry for Snape. Guess I was wrong on that one.

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Voldemort was always gonna die though. It was either him or Harry, and while i woulda loved Harry to be killed off in the final fight, being the tragic herio he is, I thought it was highly unlikely.
Snape was also a dead cert to die as well. Although the whole plot with Snape was there if you looked closely enough at the previous books.

Though I did hate

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the whole convenience of Ron speaking parseltongue.
While it would be simple enough to imitate in theory. It's just way to cheesy.

[naut]

Gripes:

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Ron's ability to remember snake tongue he heard over 5 years ago.
The convenient fire and fangs.
How did Malfoy become master of the wand? Wouldn't he have to beat Snape?
The fighting scenes where horribly written, and half of the plot explaination during them was appalling.

Otherwise I enjoyed it.

[edyzmedieval]

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The book is too dark, totally unsuited for kids as young as 10-12 years old. The scene where Voldemort "violates" Dumbledore's tomb to take the Elder Wand, that is waaay off the mark.

Plus, I did find some things really sad, like the death of Hedwig and Dobby.

[Don Corleone]

Spoiler tags, Edz?

[edyzmedieval]

They won't quite be necessary here.

[ShadesPanther]

Gripes:

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Ron's ability to remember snake tongue he heard over 5 years ago.
The convenient fire and fangs.
How did Malfoy become master of the wand? Wouldn't he have to beat Snape?
The fighting scenes where horribly written, and half of the plot explaination during them was appalling.

Otherwise I enjoyed it.

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Well He said it to open the locket (which btw was so obvious was the way to open it when he got it)

Malfoy became master because he disarmed dumbledore when he entered the tower in book 6.

I agree some of the fight scenes were poorly done

[Marshal Murat]

Anyone here go to Mugglenet forums?

[doc_bean]

Just finished it, reread the first five books over the weekend and stated the sixth on monday.

Overall I feel I've been overly critical of the series and that it is indeed a very good series. Not many fantasy series maintain a decent level of quality throughout 7 books (wheel of time .... ugh). The latter books are somewhat darker than the first few and aimed more at adults I'd say, though having reread the second and third book, they aren't exactly 'nice' books either.

The one big gripe I have with the series (I have several smaller ones too) is how one dimensional the 'houses' are portrayed, Slytherin=bad, Griffindor=good, Ravenclaw:okay, Huffledepuff=means well. Otherwise I feel most characters really grew throughout the series and the general plot really deepened (I didn't realize how much of a turning point the fourth book has been).

I didn't think there were too many deaths, considering the circumstances.

[King Henry V]

Good grief, this Potter mania is beginning to leach into my dreams, even though I haven't read the book yet, or seen the film. It basically involved me accompanying Harry Potter to the cinema, where he had his last fight with Voldemort and was killed. However, Voldemort didn't turn out to be such a bad chap in the end, so I decided to live out the rest of my days in BKS's and Beirut's Kingdom of Peace and Love, where I knew I would find sanctuary. Man, I visit this forum too much.

[edyzmedieval]

No you don't. You're as sane as we are all.
Half through it, I'm at the Gringotts chapter.

[edyzmedieval]

Anyone here go to Mugglenet forums?

I think more people visited that in the past 72 hours than the number of people who visited the Org in an entire year.

[ShadesPanther]

I think more people visited that in the past 72 hours than the number of people who visited the Org in an entire year.

5 years...

[edyzmedieval]

My BIG gripes.

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- Ron speaking Parseltongue...cheesy
- Ron marries Hermione... that is waaay off the mark
- In the ending, Voldemort fires an Avada Kedavra to Harry, but he doesn't die, and instead, goes to visit Dumbledore
- the epilogue is weird really
- the book is TOTALLY unsuited for kids

And the biggest one of all

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- the sad thing which is called ENDING. I started reading HP when I was 9 years old, and all this time I really liked the books, and now it's over.

Plus, some characters die, like Fred, Tonks, Remus and even Hedwig and especially Dobby.

[Marshal Murat]

Now comes the flood of fan fiction with

1. Poor writing
2. Bad plots
3. Made-up spells

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

- In the ending, Voldemort fires an Avada Kedavra to Harry, but he doesn't die, and instead, goes to visit Dumbledore

That was actually fairly well explained, and I could understand that happening. My biggest gripe with the whole Voldemort-Harry thing was:

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The duel at the end! Both of them only fired a single spell, and Harry's just happens to hit Voldemort's and rebound it directly at him. A longer and better-written duel would have added some depth and would have been much more realistic. Also, this way Harry doesn't even have to kill Voldemort, Voldemort essentially kills himself, though it was by accident. Honestly, just because Rowling wants her hero to be a saint doesn't mean he can't use Avada Kedavra on someone who deserves it.