So I finally decided to read the review after the threads name was changed. Lol. This guy is pretty full of himself for someone critiquing a book that came out years ago. Also, his points on Dumbledore were bs, some people were actually interested in the magical world of HP, the history, the world building, etc. I see no problem with Rowling writing about that, hell people liked it so much she made a website devoted to it. So eh.

 

He was specifically talking about Dumbledore's past here, which serves no purpose really. Other than Harry's "oh my mentor is so flawed but I'll still follow on the path he set for me towards my eventual death."

Errr, self-sacrifice to weaken an enemy is pretty much as glorifying death as it gets. No one was even thinking about alternatives, or whatnot. It's all like, well this was Dumbledore's plan, there's no other alternative because wandering around in the forest has given me so much knowledge, here goes nothing: get AK'ed.

There's a very big over-arching theme that Harry is more noble than others. That that is somehow the reason he's the chosen one (or the other way around).

I admit, there were so many other fails in the epilogue he could have capitalized on.

You're not getting it. The point isn't the outcome. The point is that Harry thought he was going to die. That his going towards death in the face of that knowledge is the big "noble" thing he did. That it was the bravest thing of all, etc.

 

This is my biggest gripe with the series and why I only managed to read DH fully just once: that Harry peacefully chose to go to his death (as far as he knew).

After seven goddamn years of fighting tooth and nail for his life, his friends, the fucking school. That's just not fucking kosher; at that point he should have been going mad with the thought of annihilating the fucker. I mean it would've been an entirely different thing if he'd have gone on to die taking Voldemort with him. That would've been a noble death. Instead he was cut down thinking, "yay I took down the last horcrux, now someone else can kill him!". Yeah? Who's going to do that, you asshole? Every other magic user in Britain shit their pants at the mention of his fucking name, Dumbledore was dead and the few that had the courage to fight were butchered. Maybe a mysterious stranger from the far east would suddenly appear and slice him in half with his magical katana.

Ultimately, I used to believe that the series' strongest point was about the sheer tenacity of the human spirit; that no matter how difficult the odds, you hold your fucking ground and fight back against the motherfucker that's trying to kill you.

Then Harry willingly gave up. And was revived by a poorly constructed plot device.

 

Well, the way I've said, it does make it very stupid. what I should have said is that after the first three books Harry personality stop being changed. After the fourth book all we see is old Harry with wangst, and his personality becomes much more malleable according to JK's necessity, that's why the OOC comment. His coming of age stops halfway. I am insulting JK ability to write male characters? Never.

Look at Dumbledore, he is amazing, if Harry had one tenth the growth we saw in Dumbledore story in book 7, i would be really happy. book 7 isn't shit, but I just loved because I saw who Dumbledore is, and I thought it was incredible. I just thought that Harry growth was very weak compared to what she could do. You can argue the Dumbledore is almost 10 times older than Harry, and of course he should a much more complex personality, but I think that shouldn't be used as an excuse.

Your comment about the bread crumbs is my opinion too, but WalkingDisaster comment about and abused girl, does ring true to me.

And yes, the guy is full of himself and prety arrogant, but he makes excellent points.

 

You guys are taking the thing far too seriously. It's clearly a work of humour, not serious criticism, with just about enough truth to be funny. The guy doesn't quite understand the mechanics of what happened at the end of DH or the subtitles of Dumbledore's character, but the way he lays into Harry's passivity -- something people on DLP have done a lot -- is amusing.

That said, regarding the new title, speculation on authorial motivations and intent is a pretty standard part of literary criticism and JKR has come out and said that the HP books are very strongly influenced by the death of her mother several times.

 

It was written in 2007.

 

Which was 7 years ago.

 

The article was written in 2007.

 

I just like that a discussion involving differing opinions on a book series that, regardless of how it turned out, still drew us all together enough that we've been frequenting this website for many years descended into personal attacks just cause, ya know. Opinions differed.

"Failed writer" to some I may be, and I'll eat that as their opinion, which they have a right to. And while I disagree, I'll just say that at least I still write, because I love to do it. And I can easily admit that I've been inspired in many ways by JKR. Which isn't to say I put my fingers in my ears and ignore anything that could be seen as 'negative' about the series.

What I find kinda comical is, if one considers my actual response, it was somewhat awed at Rowling's ability to make something interesting out of a formula that would be utterly terrible in 99% of other stories. A protagonist that is reactive to such a degree wouldn't work most times. But here, it did. And it's kept the whole fandom alive long after the series itself ended - which can't be said about most other fandoms. Debates like this help that. People writing for whatever their reason is. An ode to Harry's selfless heroism or a desire to make him more proactive in his own existence. Whatever it is, it's all contributing, somehow.

(P.S.: I like to hear myself talk so much I have under 300 posts in 7 years. Damn. Failed writer indeed. I gotta get on that.)

 

I'd post long answers to many comments, I find DLPs thoughts here quite interesting, more so then the actual article; but it's pretty late here. Maybe I'll come back to it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Just one for now:

The problem with that is that they don't use their power at all! Dumbledore as a prominent example refused to become minister for magic because he was scared he'd become corrupted by power, forfeiting all the good he could have done. He didn't try to do good so much as prevent evil.

I think the Stone is a good example too, actually. Harry didn't want it for greed, but neither did he want to save the deathly ill with it's elixir of life or fund multiple charities. Besides, what's wrong with wanting to live longer? Life is good, right?

If the good guys never use their power, they don't become a force of good so much as an equalizer against evil. Power corrupts and can be used for terrible things, yes, but if the guy holding it exerts it well, he can do much good too.*

There's nothing wrong with being passive or a leaf in the wind, but I expect my protagonists or heroes to be more. Rowling did a terrific job showing us Harrys normal life turned abnormal and the dept of regular joe turned heroes emotions. It's just that I expect my protagonist to be more then normal, they do have a story written after them for a reason after all and my heroes to be heroes for a reason, right, not just circumstance.

Yes, I realize I'm exaggerating.

*Speaking of stories here. I don't want to start a political argument.

 

No, he doesn't. The Stone is the Gaunt family ring, which he only acquires between OotP and HBP - the curse on it is what kills his arm. Even if he had had it, DH makes it pretty clear that the most the Stone can do is bring back people's spirits/ghosts/memories/whatever they actually are.

Although equally, there's probably a good basis for a story in Dumbledore getting cursed, and deciding that since he's dying anyway, and he can easily get the Cloak back - because there's no way Harry would be anything other than willing to lend it to him - that he's going to use whatever power the Hallows do have to make some serious inroads into improving the situation in Wizarding Britain.

 

He didn't have the Resurrection Stone; he acquired that one before the events of Half-Blood Prince when he found it at the Gaunts' house. Voldemort had cursed it so that when Dumbledore gave into temptation and put it on, it turned his hand into the withered thing we see in the book.

 

The stone doesn't bring people back from the dead? When Harry used it, they were basically shades he brought back, immaterial, right? It's not like you could actually use it to resurrect people. From my understanding, one of the major themes of HP was that no matter how powerful magic was, nothing could ever bring back the dead.

 

That's because Rowling can't write teenage personalities for shit from the get-go. She just turns Harry into a pussy who has no motivation to get better in life and follows child abusers blindly to his death. To me, HP is an absolutely boring character in the books. Probably why I haven't read the books for 4+ years, because I don't like them anymore.

 

Harry as a protagonist was never spectacularly written; it's why this forum exists. I think it's fair to say the article's analysis has some merit, even if it is not entirely correct.

Harry was a passive hero for much of the series. He did not take enough iniative, he let those older and supposedly wiser decide the course of his life. But then again, maybe this is realistic - I can think of many children acting this way in the same situation, just 'existing'; being swept up in the concept of their alleged destiny. Realistically, Harry should have died, given his choices in the story. He only got a happy ending because the author wanted it that way.

 

Like so many 'childrens' books the HP books have some rather strange morals and themes when examined in any depth.

For a child the book is about the triumph of friendship, courage and self-sacrifice over ambition and violence. Because these themes are not aimed at the adult audience (the adult audience already having learned these themes in their own childhood) they can be made rather heavy handed.

This means we end up with obsessiveness rather than determination, universal forgiveness rather than rational forgiveness and complete avoidance of power rather than responsibility.

The lesson Dumbledore (contrasted with Voldemort/Grindelwald) is meant to teach is one of responsibility, of not abusing power no matter how right or easy it may seem. When an adult reads it, however, they see that the absolutist philosophy of Dumbledore's hands-off approach is naive and even troubling. We have learned that with power comes responsibility, but more than the simple responsibility not to abuse that power, but also the duty to see it is not wasted.

We have learned the old quote "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." We see Dumbledore's lack of action not as a laudible restraint, but as criminal negligence.

Harry's rather aimless meandering through the plot is meant to teach another lesson, one touched on by the op link. That acting out of duty and nothing more is the highest form of moral act. This is, in itself, not unreasonable. It is, on the surface, similar to Kantian ethics, but as it is not in a book called something like "A Treatise on the Necessity of Ethical Duty in Relatavistic Moral Conflict" (That sounds nebulous enough to be a Kant essay) it gets dumbed down to a point of incomprehensibility.

In rationalism the duty we should act upon are universal laws; not just a list of things Dumbledore says. As adults we can see that actually Harry is not morally equivalent to the Death Eaters. Both accept a set of moral values without question, Harry is simply lucky that his values are not abhorrent to the reader.

And finally we have the portrayal of relationships in Harry Potter, a personal bugbear of mine. For the younger reader the moral is basically the ancient romantic one of 'two people made for eachother'. This is generally fine for younger audiences who are too busy fawning over the idea of soul mates (soul mates alleviating the adolescent fear of never finding love by saying that someone will come along and magically love will happen) but adults know that relationships are both more complicated and more simple.

Of course many adults still ascribe to the ol' 'soul mates' schtick, possibly because it's pretty much omnipresent across our media. This may be partially responsible for the rising rates of divorce, but I digress. A relationship is between two people, not souls. People have good traits and bad traits, good days and bad days; no-one is perfect. For a relationship to work people have to remember this, they must remain cognizant of their own failings while forgiving others for theirs. The aim when dating is to find someone who is willing to forgive your failings while you overlook theirs, no destiny or anything like that, just two people with healthy mutual respect and attraction.

The unrealistic potrayal of relationships in fiction is entirely understandable, though. It's pretty much guaranteed by the method in which fiction is made. Though people often complain, the truth is that characters are created to fit the plot, not the other way around. Why? Because we think in stories, not in people; people merely inhabit stories.

And so characters get made to fit the plot. Harry was made to be the Hero. Dumbledore was made to be the Mentor. Ginny was made to be the Love Interest. Their personalities came later, and were constructed the fit the role given to them, hence JK's assertion that Ginny is Harry's perfect mate.

But worse than Harry/Ginny is Ron/Hermione. Ron was made to be the Plucky Comic Relief, while Hermione was made to be Exposition Girl and as a result these two clashed constantly, as those character archetypes always do. Then JK decided that they should be paired up, resulting in one of the most unhealthy 'good' relationships in literature. I'm just going to say this, an old married couple that argue like Ron and Hermione (y know, insults, belittling, tears) should probably have divorced a long time ago. I mentioned mutual respect earlier, this is obviously missing here.


...What was I talking about again?

 

I'd like to point out that, while the argument for Harry's personal passivity doesn't really hold much water (HBP excepted because that book is an absolute mess) the idea that the "good guys" don't do anything proactive certainly has merit. It's never pre-emptive strikes, or trying to strengthen the defenses around the school filled with children, or constantly looking around for possible dangers. It's always "wait and see what Voldemort does and maybe we'll react to it before the teenagers do." They just gather intelligence and do nothing with it, because if they can't beat Voldemort there's no point in trying to stop his most-certainly-not-immortal followers from terrorizing the entire country, right?

The problem with the series is that everyone is incompetent until they suddenly aren't.

 

Anne Rice has frequently referenced the fact that the death of her daughter had a large impact on the writing of The Vampire Chronicles. This surfaces most notably in the character of Claudia, who was at least in part a coping mechanism for the author.

It's far from unthinkable that some of the approach toward/philosophy on death that is presented in HP was, to some degree, affected by JKR's personal experience with loss.

While there's no need to be outright insulting about it, such speculation is fair game.