What epilogue?

 

At the risk of having stones thrown at me, I personally didn't mind the epilogue at all.

Though I do think that Harry condemned his child to being bullied forever and ever by giving him two first names. Then again, his dad is like the wizard savior of mankind so those two probably balance each other out as far as bullying goes.

 

Regardless of how much you like it, I don't really see how it can be anything other than expected. We all knew "they all live happily ever after" H/G R/Hr was on the table.

 

That was one of my main problems with DH: it ended too happily. I'm not saying one of the trio should have died, but I do feel that there was not enough lost. I know, I know, it's YA, but still. To quote my grandfather, "War is hell."

 

HBP was my favorite as well. It introduced a darker overall theme to the whole series with the horcruxes and the twist ending really surprised me (in a good way). Voldemort's past, the pressures of being a death eater (both malfoy and snape), the magic itself (non-verbal spells, enchantments like at the cave, etc) and all of these things made it a really pleasurable read. I know DLP likes to think Harry (or any protagonist) should have the biggest dick but that's not a requirement for a story to be good.

 

It wasn't that he didn't have the biggest dick, it was that he had one of the tiniest brains.

EDIT: I know she was trying to make a point by having him be so mediocre but...it was frustrating to read.

 

So you'd rather read a story about a Mary Sue character?

I mean, okay, that's going too far, but Harry is actually one of the most realistic characters in the series.

 

Eh, what I find odd is that Harry was supposed to be the Dark Lord's equal, yet if you compare his scholastic achievements to Riddle's when he was at Hogwarts, Harry falls far short. Although, Riddle and Dumbledore didn't have to contend with being an unwilling celebrity and who knows to what degree the horcrux in Harry effected him, especially after Voldemort was reborn.

The epilogue itself was highly disappointing, without even bringing up shipping. Except for the name "Hugo", the kids' names were either unoriginal (James, Lily) or highly questionable. The fact that Harry went on to being a ministry drone as an Auror was also lame in my opinion. As several stories posted here have highlighted, Harry and blind obedience to authority have never gotten along well.

 

The prophecy said he would mark him as his equal, which he did by acknowledging his danger enough to attempt killing him while still a child, as he would only do this if he believed the grown up Harry would be capable of defeating him.

It never said he actually was his equal.

 

What's the issue here? He didn't like the ministry and went into it to supposedly change it from the inside, which if I recall correctly JK said he accomplished. He didn't like the people with authority behaved and went in there to change it. That seems pretty natural to me.

 

No he isn't. Most anyone in that situation would begin to work harder, make friends in high places, trying their best to stay alive by staying one step ahead. That's what he did in PoA, and that's why PoA was so good compared to the rest.

Think of Dresden. He's not the biggest badass on the block, but he doesn't wait around to get stomped each time either. He's always improving, always learning, always trying harder to succeed. It's far more compelling than a character whose greatest desire is to be average. The difference between Harry and LV should have been the difference between being born great/achieving greatness and having it thrust upon you. But both should have been great.

 

Then why did he become an auror?

 

He became Head Auror, with the authority to rework the system, and WOJK says he did indeed restructure it from the ground up. I'd rather he had showed that kind of competence more often in the actual books.

 

I disagree. There was a darker undertone with Malfoy but the la-de-da attitude of everyone except Harry ruined it. And what twist? That Snape killed D'dore or that D'dore died? You cannot have expected D'dore to survive the book, and Snape being an enigma was only to be expected after five prior books. And it's not as if the question of evil/not-evil wasn't still completely ambiguous.

The Cave scene, along with Harry coming within a cunt hair of killing Malfoy are the only two really bright spots in the book - in hindsight. With the other books in the series - most notably PoA - it baffles me that anyone could say HBP ranks out of their bottom third.

Maybe it's been touched on already in this thread but I know it's been addressed before. Harry being "his equal" is more of the vague wording you Always get with so-called prophecies. They're ambiguous, nebulous, layered, have multiple meanings - whatever you want to call it, it's always the same, and surprise! it's the reason they never fail to help out and/or fuck over the people involved in them.

Look at Oedipus Rex and Achilles in the old tales, Macbeth and Captain Ahab in more recent classics, and of course Harry and Voldemort here. The list goes on and on, but the meaning is never clear, except MAYBE after the fact.

I don't have it memorized but the HP prophecy mentions "he will mark him as his equal," which of course Voldemort unwittingly does, as he didn't get that part of the message. The "marking" could be the scar - an obvious choice but not complete. What it does NOT mean is LV's equal in terms of magical talent or prowess, and anyone who thinks that is just flat wrong or perhaps penning a shitty "time-turner training" fic.

No, what I think the "marking" means is the pseudo-Horcrux, with the added bits like being a Parselmouth and the front-and-center view inside a crazy fucker's brain. Oh, and the part where LV very kindly supplies Harry with his own quasi-immortality thru the Horcrux-y resurrection circlejerk in the graveyard.

And Harry IS great in his own way - a way that, as D'dore said, LV had always failed to understand. Harry, thru his loyalty, his determination, his stubbornness and finally his resourcefulness, brought together enough fed-up people to take on LV's powerful and crazy (but ultimately smallish) group of Death Eaters, and kick their asses.

It's all about perspective. Do I wish Harry had kicked some more ass himself along the way? Hell yes. I wish he'd wiped out Greyback and half of the DEs while he was at it, and I wish he'd displayed less numbskull attributes during the last three books, but I'm overall very pleased with the completed *arc* of the series, and feel it ended the only way JKR could have ended it given the set-up from very early on.

Again, hindsight.

Heh. Dresden is such a badass. He's essentially everything turned up to 11.

 

I disagree. Ron is a more realistic product of his environment than Harry ever is.

---------- Post automerged at 05:48 ---------- Previous post was at 05:32 ----------

I think the relevant part of prophecy isn't really the marking as equal which we can explain away but that he should be the only one which can vanquish Riddle. Even if we assume that should mean that he can only beat Riddle because he was master of his wand it still should require Harry to be able to survive to even meet Riddle.
Unfortunately here the books at least after OOTP are just a disappointment. Making it through by luck can be a plot device you can use once or twice but basing everything on that is just lazy.

If you look back to DH there are only 2 actual planned operations by Harry going into the Ministry and Gringotts. The rest were just chaotic scenes glued together with no planning at all. Personally I still feel that DH was written partly by ghost writers. It has so many flaws and doesn't even match to the end of the mess in HBP without a given explanation. Around that time she got her baby so having enough time to complete the series would be a problem.

 

Thumbs up for a post I can wholeheartedly agree with... despite use of that dreaded non-word, "thru".

If nothing else, Harry became Voldemort's equal in a way that he never wanted, and probably helped him very little: Fame/Infamy.

And, yes, it would have been nice seeing Harry kick a little more ass... With Purpose. Frankly, I'd have rather had Harry's near execution of Draco in the bathroom be a bit more "He fired an Unforgivable, so I have no regrets." than "Despite the fact he tried to use a life-sentence-inducing curse on me, I'm going to run and hide."

Though, in all fairness, McGonagall kind of taught Harry that the authorities would never be on his side or back him up, even/especially if he's in the right.

The Unforgivables Harry starts slinging in the last few chapters of DH are kind of out of place. They're too much, considering how... soft Harry's been on the bad guys up to that point. If you aren't a giant snake or a quidditch player, then Harry usually only defeats you accidentally. Then, all of a sudden, Harry's dishing out the Cruciatus just because someone insulted his teacher. That he managed to do a better job of it than when he zapped Bellatrix doesn't exactly reflect well on his growth, since it's for such a petty reason.

But, it's also too little and too late. In the last little bit of the last book, Harry finally takes the gloves off and... and all he really does is use an Unforgivable in a fit of pique, before he puts the brakes right back on again to go and sacrifice himself.

His approach to dealing with his enemies is just all over the map, completely inconsistent.

 

A friend of mine told me, and keep in mind that I'm not 100% sure about it, that HBP was checked and corrected at the publisher's office. That's why, despite being crap, it was well written and smooth crap. As to DH, Rowling said no to major changes, only spellcheck - which would explain the erratic nature of the book.

And it's not just Harry. If I remember correctly, Mcgonagall used Imperio as casually as if she was changing a matchstick into a needle. It's as if a switch was used and suddenly everyone casts spells that get you a lifetime holiday in Azkaban for. When I was finishing the book, my bullshit-o-meter was going up to 11.

DH being written partially by ghost writers? I wouldn't be that surprised if it was the situation - it certainly would explain the patchworkish feeling of the book. However I believe that Rowling wanted to tie all the lose ends and she simply put as many of her ideas as she had - hence their halfway-done feeling. That, or she did some fanservice - why pay when you have whole internet of fans, today on the menu: copypasta (I swear, I've read some of the DH stuff in fanfiction shortly after HBP hit the stores)

 

In all fairness, if I had a dollar for every idea I dreamed up that turned up in a fic (or even a dozen), within the next few months (without me ever breathing a word of it to anyone), I'd have a new computer on my desk.

When you have thousands of people all racking their brains to come up with stories based on your material, odds are better than even that some of them will stumble upon what you planned to do next.

Or, perhaps less kind, when you have a room full of monkeys with typewriters...

That's not even taking into account the stuff that JKR telegraphed by writing in elements that played into existing tropes or made use of fairly well-known concepts, like her horcruxes. Sure, she came up with the name, but one need look no further than Lord of The Rings to find a sorcerer who bound his life force to an artifact, in order to ensure his immortality. And, anyone who has played a little D&D has heard of a phylactery and what it does.

"Ah may not be a smart man, but ah know what a lich is."

As a result, some of the stuff that fic authors came up with was right on the money, but it was bound to happen with at least a few plot elements.

 

I'm compelled to disagree with you on the second part of that, Taure. In spite of what some people obviously hoped, I never saw or thought of Voldemort as an enemy that Harry could actually defeat conventionally. Harry was never pitched by any reliable source as being in any way equal to Voldemort in anything practical. The prophecy said Voldemort would "mark him as his equal," but then again, Dumbledore-playing-the-exposition-fairy very clearly noted that the prophecy was hogwash, and the only reason it mattered was because Voldemort believed it, and would, thus, never stop trying to kill Harry, a kid who in reality did not and should not have mattered to Voldemort at all.

Do note that Harry was stated to have things like a "pure heart," a "noble soul," "the mind of a true wizard," and "an incredible capacity to love."

All of those are wonderful traits to have as a person. But they aren't so good in a fight, not even a magical one. At least, not any magical fight that's going to involve fireballs and death lasers. In my mind, any legitimate fight between Harry and a Voldemort that's taking it seriously is going to end with Harry being transfigured into a walrus and then set on fire.

Harry was never, in my mind, the conquering hero who would ultimately stand up and defeat the evil overlord. Harry was Frodo, the small child (who became a boy who became a man) that was, by virtue of his pure heart, able to bare a burden that no one else could. And you would never expect Frodo to run up to Sauron and kick his ass.

I think, and this is just my opinion, that DH would have been much more thematically satisfying if the Horcruxes themselves proved to be the final challenge. Have Voldemort show some Slytherin cunning, and fling them to far-forgotten places like the sunken remains of Atlantis, the empty ruins of Avalon, and an island in the magical subterranean "sunless" sea mentioned in Kubla Khan.

After may trials and tribulations, and a long string of action-adventure sequences of the sort that are normally reserved for the end of a Harry Potter book, they destroy the last one, only for Voldemort to not spontaneously combust, at which point Dumbledore's portrait, who has been helping, advising, and teaching them all along, reveals his theory that Harry is, in fact, the last, accidental, Horcrux, and that Voldemort cannot actually be destroyed a-la Sauron so long as Harry is alive.

Cue "suicide is for losers, let's take a third option," and a battle in the center of his mind for all the poker chips on the table, at which point the virtues that Harry actually does have (pure heart, noble soul, great capacity for love, traits that all of the Founders would have admired, ect) actually do come into play, and Voldemort loses, because he spent so much time trying to escape death and grow magically powerful that he wound up sacrificing the things that really mattered without even noticing. Lord Voldemort is unquestionably the more powerful, skilled, and experienced of the two, but Harry is the better wizard and the better man, and in the end, that's what wins the day.

So Frodo kicks Sauron's ass in a contest of Purity versus Corruption, the Darkness is broken, and everyone lived happily ever after and the prologue has Harry become a freelance Dark Wizard hunter with no confirmed pairings so as to provoke all sorts of fan speculation and debate, the end. And maybe end on a note about a stone in Atlantis glowing with silver phoenix fire or something, just to be a tease.

 

Yeah. Someone better than me needs to write this.