+ Dollah. Even had she wanted to she wouldn't have been ableto.

 

HBP was where the story truly degenerated into a yawn inducing bunch of words with no direction. It cant be done well

 

I don't understand this. Please explain.

 

HBP was where the story truly degenerated into a yawn inducing bunch of words with no direction.


The problems I personally have with the two books are very similar to what most people in DLP do


Up to OOTP Harry showed some promise.
He tried to learn more magic in an effort to survive the Triwizard tournament and when faced with Dementors. He taught defense to other students when their teacher would not, was not afraid to take help from the Weasley twins to cause mayhem if it worked in his favor, went to the DOM in an effort to help Sirius and made an honest effort to get a girl.


In HBP, even though he knows the prophecy, he makes no effort to improve himself. He takes history lessons from Dumbledore, is obsessed about Draco Malfoy, feels like there is a scaly beast in his chest, etc, etc…..


In DH, the cloak that Dumbledore and Moody could see through hides him from death, there is an unbeatable wand whose master always looses in the end and a stone that can let you talk to the dead. The trio robs Gringotts, Ron opens the chamber of secrets, Harry suddenly becomes proficient in casting unforgivables, dies once and then comes back to life…..


The last two books are about the people of the wizarding world running around like headless chickens. Most people seem to be just winging it most of the time.


It can’t be done well.

3domfields asks if it would have been possible for JKR to finish the HP series in six books.


There was a lot of information in the last two books. I’d be surprised if someone would have been able to include all that in fifth and sixth books and still keep the word count reasonable enough that everyone would be able to complete the books without getting tired of reading.


After all, the publishers wanted the books to be read by all age groups. Not really sure if the books would have been interesting with so much info crammed into them without proper explanation. Even with the seventh book, it was not enough.


Hope my points are sufficiently explained.

 

@ metal.v2 or whatever your handle is: I think you, like a lot of people, are mistaking the myth-slash-fairy-tale of the Deathly Hallows with what's actually shown to be their traits in HP canon. Plus, I don't know where you read that Harry's invisibility cloak hid him "from Death" - unless you mean figuratively and metaphorically, 'cause that's what it did for all seven books, even if the "death" he was hidden from was more of an exaggeration of "get caught and have to serve detention" in early books.

The wand is and has always been "beatable", just as the cloak is not infallible or perfect (its real claim to fame being the fact it hasn't lost its power of invisibility despite being so old and having been passed down for generations.)

That leaves the Resurrection Stone, which would be hard to explain but for one little tidbit: No one - and I mean NO ONE - other than Harry ever sees the Stone's supposed power, and as the books are written almost entirely from Harry's POV, the possibility of the Stone actually allowing Harry to speak with the dead is suspect at best.

Think about it: What, exactly, do Lily, James, Sirius and Remus *actually tell Harry*? Anything new, anything he didn't already know or suspect? No, all those "spirits" told him was *what he wanted/needed to hear to allow him the courage to keep walking to his imminent death.* Nothing more, nothing less. It's been my contention since I first read DH that the Resurrection Stone does nothing more than does the Sorting Hat: it reads your mind, for simplicity's sake, and shows you who you desire to see, whereas the Hat makes a snap judgement about your character. After all, Harry didn't call up any spirits of people he didn't already know and have a mental image of, as well as have a good idea what they'd say to him.

So you might say, "Well, he sure met with D'dore in the Waystation of the Afterlife, so non-ghost spirits /can/ be called up or at least can access the mortal coil somewhat." Again, not so fast.

Did Dumbledore in the misty King's Cross scene tell Harry anything new? Did he impart vast heretofore unknown knowledge to Harry? No, the Dumbledore Harry supposedly meets only serves to rehash items Harry had already sussed out, whether Harry consciously /knew/ those things or not. Arianna killed? Yeah, Harry already knew there was a fight between Albus and Aberforth at her funeral, so it doesn't matter if there was a 3-way fight or whatever - Albus' douchiness was the cause in Abe's eyes, and Grindelwald was also to blame. Again, nothing new here.

So while your points about HBP being chock full of nothing but drivel that could've been tucked into either OotP or DH itself are somewhat valid, it's all about the pacing, as others have said, and the fact that 7 is an important number for JKR, etc.