How anxious are you for Harry Potter 6 to be published?

Cafe Society
21

Is he now aware that he hasn’t got a lick of common sense in his head?

The only way that Book six could possibly redeem itself is that when Harry gets yet another one of his bone-headed wild hairs, Hermione slaps him silly and yells, “Listen to me, you egotistical bastard! Do you remember what happened last time, you stupid son of a bitch? I don’t care how fucking infallible you think you are, you’re going to follow my lead this time or I’ll break your goddamn legs!”

Rowling is a mediocre author. Worse, she’s a mediocre author that no editor can control. Book five was terrible. I’m all for suspending reality when I read fiction but many of the premises of Phoenix were so ridiculous – and unnecesarily so – that I would have had to be acutely schizophrenic to properly enjoy the book. It was also full of stupid errors that even a cursory edit would have corrected. Some of these errors take place from one sentence to the next.

It was also managed to be both way too long and lacking in detail, which is a neat trick. Some plot lines are just dropped. For example, the whole thing about SPEW ended up going nowhere. Hermione didn’t even make a comment when she saw Dobbie wearing every piece of clothing she made. There are suggestions that this may become a theme in book six but the way she handled it was unforgivably sloppy.

My biggest complaint was that Phoenix was only loosely tied together. The Umbridge plot really has nothing to do with the Voldemort plot. As a result, the whole thing just felt bloated.

It will probably only get worse, since every book has been substantially longer than the last. At the current rate of growth, Harry Potter 7 will be something like 3000 pages long.

22

Oh, I’ve got to step in and defend my Order of the Phoenix. My rankings of the books goes in reverse order, with Phoenix my favorite and Stone my least favorite. (Although the only reason I rank Chamber above Stone is because I’m an adamant H/G shipper and that book is chock-full of symbolism and foreshadowing.)

Maybe the book was too long and “bloated,” but you know what? I didn’t notice, and I didn’t care. The fact is that I love the world and the characters Rowling has created so much, that I’m just happy to get as much of it as I can. So if there are minor plot holes, etc., it doesn’t really matter to me ‘cause I still get to hang out with my buddies Harry, Ron, and Hermione. (And the twins, and Ginny, and Remus, and Arthur…and on and on…) It’s impossible to have too much Harry Potter.

As an aside, I don’t get the people who say this book wasn’t funny…in parts it was hilarious. But it was a darker humor, so maybe that doesn’t appeal to some people. But I found the sarcasm of Harry and the…McGonagallness…of McGonagall just great. Some of my favorites:

“Listening to the news! Again??”—Uncle Vernon
“Well, it changes every day, you see.”—Harry

“God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs”

“It unscrews the other way,”—McGonagall to Peeves

“Wooly Bladders”

The entire Lockhart scene (Until Neville shows up, of course)

“Notorious mass murderer or singing sensation?”

“Are you that bad at kissing?”

“Professer Trelawney broke into hysterical sobs during Divination and announced to the whole class, and a very disapproving Umbridge, that Harry was not going to suffer an early death after all, but would live to a ripe old age, become Ministeer for Magic and have twelve children.”

More snarky!Harry:
“What are you doing, Potter?" said Snape coldly as ever, as he strode over to the four of them.

“I’m trying to decide what curse to use on Malfoy, sir,” said Harry fiercely.”
I could go on and on, but I won’t. (Wait…why are you all cheering?) Anyway, you’ll never convince me this wasn’t a very funny book, and to combine that with an equal amount of angst takes some skill, IMHO.

In other words, yeah, I can’t wait to get my hands on Book 6.

23

I didn’t buy book five, and I certainly won’t buy book six either. I finally got around to borrowing five from the library six months after it was published. Ouch. I have no problem with the character development, I agree that it is a realistic portrait of a 15-year-old boy. The problem, rather, is that the entire book is filler. Umbridge is a totally pathetic villain, by far the weakest in the series so far, and I couldn’t care less about the storyline involving her. Many conversations in the book are too drawn out and could have been compressed by fifty percent or more. And all the relevant plot advancement could have been compressed into a single sentence from Dumbledore. And lastly, it just doesn’t make any sense. Any one of those Death Eaters could just have pointed their wand at Harry and killed him. And if Voldermort is so insistant on getting the prophecy, why did he try to kill Harry in the previous book?

24

I’ll be anxious to read it, if only because I’m holding out hope that the next one will continue the trend of the earlier books. I definitely think Azkaban was the best, but I thoroughly enjoyed all of them until OOTP. I read OOTP all in one go, and at one point, I saw that there were only 50 or so pages left and said to myself “Holy shit, nothing’s going to happen. All that book and so little story.” I’m really hoping #6 pulls it back together- one bad book out of five, I can stomach. If #6 is OOTP continued, I might not even bother with #7.

Yes, yes I will.

25

I don’t like Book 3. Never have, and after re-reading it recently, still don’t. I think Sirius Black is an extremely unlikeable character, and I cannot fathom his appeal.

My favourite is Book 4, because it seemed the most fun. The Hagrid subplot annoyed me a bit, but otherwise I really liked it.

Angry Harry in Book 5 isn’t as pervasive as you might think. I reread it recently and it turns out he pretty much gets over that around a third of the way in. The only other thing I didn’t like about Book 5 was the ending, where Harry got all emotional over the loss of Sirius, when I thought of Sirius as being an ineffectual, selfish, horrible guy. The other characters, especially the OOTP members, observations of his character as being a bad influence on Harry and of his potentially troublesome nature I think was spot on.

My favourite characters are Hermione and the Weasley twins, each of whom have been consistently good characters from the start, and are why I look forward to each book.

26

Huh? Snarling at the other members of “Dumbledore’s Army” when they offer to go on the rescue mission is in the first third? Telling Cho “Don’t start crying again…I’ve got enough to cope with”? Trashing Dumbledore’s office?

27

In the first third he is constantly angry. The first few chapters it is burning in him. After that it comes out only in small bursts.

28

Well, it was still more than I cared to read about, but YMMV.

And the whole Cho subplot aggravated me, too. Okay, first of all, I know a lot of 15y/o guys are clueless jerks, but I don’t see why it was necessary for Rowling to illustrate this; I don’t see what it added to the story. So Harry has a crush on the prettiest girl in school, then gets a date with her (I won’t say “gets to know her”, since he never really does), and ends up putting her in the “out” file because, gosh, dating involves all this listening and stuff that’s not all about him! If he really cared for her as a person, he’d take it upon himself to try to coax a smile from her, not just shift uncomfortably and wish she’d stop so they can get to the smooching part.

And again, I know not every 15y/o guy is equipped to do that. But as others have said, you’d think Harry would have matured more by now. Remember at the end of book 4, when he found out what had happened to Neville’s parents, and he felt so guilty because it had never occurred to him to wonder why Neville lived with his grandmother? Shouldn’t he have carried that over, thinking, “Gee, the next time I meet someone who’s obviously grieving, I should let them know that I care”? No, he just wants everyone else to cater to his needs, and doesn’t want to hear about anyone else’s.

29

Stop crying, I meant. Again, I realize that she cried practically every time they were together. But hell’s sake, if he’d spent more time with her, the ratio of crying to non-crying incidents might have decreased! That’s what I mean: when you’re courting a girl, you’re not supposed to ignore her for six weeks and then go on one date. So they were in different houses; so what? So were Percy and his sweetie in book 2. Send her a note via Hedwig or something.

30

Oh, Jesus. I am going to scream. I just spent 20 minutes composing a post, only to lose it when the Board decided I was not logged on. (I was.) I’ll try again tomorrow. (Sorry for the digression, but I am FRUSTRATED!)

Sigh.

31

Tenar, always C&P a post before you hit send! The first of my last two post would also have disappeared, had I not done that!

Now I hope you remember what you were going to say, because I’d like to read it.

32

I don’t think you are being fair, Rilchiam.
Harry is not exactly in an enviable situation.
His parents were murdered, he grew up with abusive relatives, some of the teachers at his school are constantly humiliating and attacking him, he is tortured by a teacher, he has the most powerful evil wizard ever trying to kill him, the government is out to get him, lies are spread about him, he becomes hated by his peers with the exception of his closest friends…

It goes on.
And what does he get in return:

  1. He’s “special”. Except, it turns out he didn’t do anything to Voldemort through his own power - it was his mother. The only thing “special” about him is that either he or Voldemort will kill each other, this is hardly something to celebrate over.

It actually belongs up with the other bad things.
2. People cater to him.

Well… not really. The people who try to help Harry are greatly outnumbered by those who hate him or want to kill him. And even some of those who apparently are on his side have to mask that fact by being mean to him, or are too immature to help properly, or have to stay behind the scenes so to Harry it feels like the entire world is out to get him.

I just find it weird that you think people are catering to Harry, when all they really do is help him out a little after he has been unjustly tortured, abused, cheated, etc by someone else.

I’m sure he would give up the catering in a heartbeat if it meant he would also get rid of the persecution.

To be honest, it is surprising that someone going through what Harry is going through wouldn’t get more angry.

On the other hand, I do agree with you that I didn’t really enjoy reading about angry Harry as much. But the solution is not to make Harry some inhumanly laid back kid, but rather to cut back just a little on the persecution he goes through.

33

Not quite, Nightime. I didn’t say everyone was catering to him, just that he has a real me-me-me attitude with his friends and classmates. Not adults, just other kids. And, yeah, you make some valid points. But all in all, I’m wondering if maybe Rowling has simply bitten off more than she can chew.

I’ll elaborate later; Mr. Rilch just got home.

34

I’ll probably preorder it and pick it up the day it comes out. Some of the plot in OotP really dragged by, and I was frustrated that not more was explained of the actual Order, but I liked the story. There was more than a few occasions when I wanted to smack Harry, but that’s pretty normal for any 15 year old boy.

Rowling does stretch out some plot points, but she’s funny, she foreshadows (something I personally love looking for), and she’s amazingly creative. I enjoy reading the books just to see what she has thought of next.

35

Rowling has said in an interview that she is thinking of reediting all of the books after she’s finished with book 7. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she released shortened versions for younger readers. Those would probably be the versions that 4th graders will eat up, with the longer version saved for the big fans when they grow up. Sort of like “Gulliver’s Travels,” with the kiddie versions and the college version.

By the way, I’ll eat up #6 at midnight in the bookstore, just like I did the last two. And my sister is even a bigger HP nut than I am. I just don’t mind long, rambling books if I enjoy the process of reading them and being in that world.

I have to admit, though, that I have been reading fantasy books since about 4th grade (in the 70’s), so I would have liked HP even if it hadn’t been a big “thing.”

36

Personally, my heart starts thumping everytime I think about it. I loved the 4th and 5th books. Harry is really turning into a teenager. Sure the books are longer, but I love a nice long book to stick my nose into all day (or night). I don’t think I will wait in line for 3 hours in the middle of the night like I did for the 4th book, but I will still get it as soon as I can.

Ditch the hobbit freaks, be a potter freak!

37

Oh oh, i forgot to mention that JKR might be continuing the series after Book 7. I don’t know what to feel about this now. If she does do it after all, and we all know about it, it ruins an ending if like say… Harry and Voldemort battle and one of them HAS to die right there and then. You know by default it will be Voldemort since Harry has to live to graduate from Hogwarts. Still though, she still has 2 more books she must make.

38

All she has actually said is that she knows “never to say Never”. Journalists leapt on this and twisted it to say the series may continue.

If anything, I think she might do a spinoff series in the same universe, but with new characters. But more likely she’ll leave that world altogether and do completely unrelated stories.

39

The DE’s couldn’t kill Harry without killing Voldemort. Remember the prophecy? And remember the final battle with Voldemort’s pain transfering to Harry? And the reason Voldemort got the prophecy NOW, is because he hasn’t been able to kill Harry and wants to find out how he is supposed to do it.

40

My attitude has certainly changed since the last time. I was really looking forward to book 5, and while I didn’t hate it, it left me unexcited about the next book. I felt let down, mostly over the turnaround in Black’s character, I could see what was coming right away. I did like Black, but not after book 5, and now we’re stuck with poor orphan Harry again, it’s tough for me to stomach.

I think the books will continue to do well, though. A timely example for me, as to why I think so. I just started reading the Wheel Of Time series, and had never even noticed Robert Jordan books before. Thanks to this board, when I saw one of his books at a used books store, I grabbed it along with a few others. Turned out, it was the first book in the series, so I read it straight off. I’ve read threads without spoilers about this series, and so realize that the majority of people think the series falls apart later on. Hasn’t stopped me from being hooked, and so far enjoying the first three books. Book 4 is my next book on my shopping list, right up there with tp. Oh, The Horse And His Boy is my favorite of the Narnian books, just needed more Tumnus.