Hey, it's me

I've updated (downdated?) my HP Recs page, removing or fixing dead links and removing stories that haven't been updated since 2006. I do save the old pages, so if a story you remember that you saw on my site is no longer there, email me and I'll dig up the link. I marked the few stories that haven't been updated since 2007, which will be removed in Jan 2010 if there's been no new chapter posting for them.

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In other news, my poor dog has blown up like a balloon from her vet shots and is going itchy crazy. Gave her some benadril and now I just gotta wait for it to take effect. Poor Lupe.

The superwand itself doesn't play as much of a role as I originally thought. It's only the concentration for about four chapters before the gang goes back to the Horcruxes. When you read Snape's flashback, you realize several things about the wand:

1. The wand was Plan B. Dumbledore left the Trio the stuff as a backup if they couldn't destroy the horcruxes. All else fails, there's a wand that will kill Voldie, only you'll have to use it on his every regenerated body if you haven't destroyed the horcruxes. It seems, to me, that Dumbledore wasn't sure if the wand would even be valid when he left it in his will, with his plan with Snape. Which leads to number...

2. Saving Draco was incidental. Dumbledore planned for his death with Snape, according to Snape's pensive, for the superwand's powers to die with him. Snape posits why not just let Draco kill Dumbledore then, and Dumbledore says that they might as well not destroy Draco's soul any further by having him commit murder. Thus, Dumbledore's sacrifice wasn't a sacrifice at all, and so Draco's lack of character change from book six to seven is explainable.

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Snape doesn't do a very good job at protecting the students as he promised Dumbledore as headmaster. If students can be tortured as punishment by the two death eaters or other students, and Michael Corner gets it so bad the DA tone down their rebellion...

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The epilogue makes me think that Draco and Harry are having an affair. If you dislike someone, do you nod to them on a train platform, or do you do your best to ignore them?

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The Malfoys get tortured a lot in this book. It is understandable why Narcissa helps Harry at the end.

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Overall, DH is better on the second read, as it's much smoother than I'd thought. The superwand isn't as jarring, Snape's death sucks without a Harry/Snape confrontation but the layout of what happened wasn't as coincidental as originally thought, and the epilogue only kind of wants to make me gouge my eyes out.

My parents asked me, while I was in the midst of book five griping, if I would let my children ever read the books. I told them yes, but only if I give them a huge helping of fanfiction, too, to counter the negative messages in the books. I think that books one through four are pretty decent, but five through seven take a downturn in quality and follow through. Still, with all my complaining, I enjoyed re-reading the series and getting involved with the characters again.

More on Draco's wand -

Interesting that Harry got it completely by accident. There was no grand scheme of him obtaining the Elder Wand. Since Dumbledore didn't leave any clues as to the wand itself, it never would've been figured out.

Kinda makes me wonder what would've happened if Harry hadn't gotten the wand and Draco used his innocence-saving to switch sides. Or how powerful his spells were during the school year until the wand was taken at Easter holidays...

[Harry] then felt in his pocket for a wand. There were two in there. He had forgotten, lost track; he could not now remember whose wands these were; he seemed to remember wrenching them out of someone's hand. He selected the shorter of the two, which felt friendlier in his hand, and pointed it at the rock.


Draco's wand feels friendlier in Harry's hand? All those years of crushing, Draco, have rubbed off on your wand. *teeheehee*

I have to admit JKR introduces the Deathly Hallows well enough by saying through Xenophilius: "You haven't heard of them? I'm not surprized." So though I think they should've had some presence since the beginning of the series, she covers her tracks enough with Xeno's line to only bring them in now.

Foo. One less thing to gripe about.

And the entire series falls apart with a single paragraph in DH -

[Voldemort] raised the wand. She screamed. Two young children came running into the hall. She tried to sheild them with her arms. There was a flash of green light--


Oh, look! A mother protecting her children with her love! Just like every other mother who loves her children would do, or their fathers, if they are all present together when Voldemort struck. So why isn't Voldemort down one soul and missing a body again?

Granted, Voldemort most likely left the prior killings to his minions, but it's a hard stretch of belief that he didn't go after any family during his long reign of terror. Still, I might have let it lie if this paragraph hadn't appeared. Sloppy, sloppy writing.

There's a lot of porn in chapter seven of DH. Ron with his ways to charm women, "It's not all about wandwork," and Ginny nearly giving herself to Harry for his birthday.

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One thing I really loved about all seven books is, even when either Harry or Ron were being asses, their friendship shines through. This is what I imagine best friends are supposed to be like. They complement each other, support each other, rib each other, and forgive each other after fighting. To me, it's one of the reasons these books are gold (stupid plotting notwithstanding).

I'm only 47 pages in and I've already found a "This is stupid." While moving Harry from his home to safety is exciting and all, never once does anyone say "We're doing this because we're assuming you're going to school in the fall and don't want your wand broken/be expelled for doing underage magic," which makes sense. Instead, it comes across as they're moving him this way to avoid Ministry and DE dectection. However, who the hell cares if they know? If there's no way to detect where Harry ends up, side-along apparition, or even illegal apparition, would protect Harry much better! He's done it more than once in book six with Dumbledore and know one knew where he'd been.

/scowl

I'm trying to keep an open mind with this book. It's been a year since I read it, and I read it only once, so I'm hoping that it doesn't make me as angry and disappointed as it did the first go around. We'll see.

It drives me barmy that Harry says, on the second to last page of the book, what he's going to do in book seven and how it builds such anticipation and purpose... and then we get superwand. Harry also vows to seek vengeance on Snape with such purpose and anticipation... and then we get superwand.

*smacks JKR upside the head with a superwand*

And one more thing - the Half-Blood Prince stuff never goes anywhere, either, other than by serving to make Harry feel like a fool. Which, props for that, but still.



I wish I had DH in paperback. The hardcover is heavy and unwieldy and goes on too long.

You know what else really annoys me about the whole lack of follow through with Draco from six to seven? Draco's never really 'saved', is he? Sure, he's not a killer, but he's still in the midst of evil and seen as evil by the Trio (albiet evil lite). In the epilogue, except for Harry's benign acknowledgement, he's sneered at by the Triofamily on the platform. Even if Draco's characterization did not change, something should've happened to better protect him - that was mentioned* - as a result of Snape's actions and Dumbledore's death.

*I say mentioned because you can infer that Snape protected him by being headmaster at Hogwarts while Draco was at school during the year. But that's so round about and we don't get much of anything that's happened at Hogwarts, we don't know for sure if that's really true.

I think that JKR never re-read her previous books before writing the last one, or else there'd be a heck of a lot less dangling threads. That doesn't mean we'd necessarily like her resolution to them, but they'd be tied off!

Voldemort's seven-part soul, according to HBP and from what I remember in DH:

1. Riddle's Diary
2. Marvolo's Ring
3. Slytherin's Locket
4. Hufflepuff's Cup
5. Gryffindor's Sword
6. Ravenclaw's Diadem
7. Voldemort himself
8. Nagini
9. Harry


We have two too many there, but Harry's was accidental and the key. Still, Nagini - plot hole or greedy Voldy? Or did he not get Gryffindor's sword? It looks like he didn't, but then why would Harry need the sword. Argh, am confused. Only rereading book seven will tell the answer.

Such a big deal is made of whether or not Draco has the dark mark. Do we ever find out if he does or doesn't? Or is this yet another thing that went nowhere?

You know, as much as I enjoy the Voldemort flashbacks-via-pensive, it would've been much easier and made much more sense for Dumbledore to say: "I think Voldemort divided his soul into pieces with horcruxes. I'm not sure what items the horcruxes would be and we should spend this book researching them, researching Voldemort via my pensives, and oh, by the way, Voldemort is looking for a superwand, which you also should do research on. Here's a Andy Capp- er, Beetle Bailey- er, Beetle Bard book to get you started." Then the trio could've spent book six in the library or making illicit excursions off campus (with Harry still chasing Malfoy around) and figured out what the Bard puzzle meant and that the diary, the ring, the locket, and even the sword are all horcruxes, and spend book seven on the run arguing about and trying to find the last few horcruxes - and trying to figure out a way to get back to the sword, since they'd assumed it was safe at Hogwarts for later disposal but now Hogwarts is under DE control; but then the sword shows up with the Lady of the Lake, why? how? inside Hogwarts help? who? - and tracking down the superwand's location. Same information, different plot layout, better books.

But that would make sense.

The younger Albus Dumbeldore's long hair and beard were auburn. Having reached their side of the street, he strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing.

We should've known Dumbledore was gay just from that. *g*

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Snape really is marvelously smart, with all the stuff written in the 6th yr. Potions book. I bet he was a real bookworm, rivaling Hermione. The inventive jinxes and hexes are great, but I like the changes to the potions directions more; shows a real caring for the subject.

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One of the reasons I like book six so much - and one of the reasons many others hate it as equally much - is the forays into the pensive to see Voldemort growing up. I think it adds a marvelous layer to the overall story, giving us a three-dimensional villain, putting his childhood up as a kind of mirror to Harry to see how they were different and simliar.

On the other hand, I really, really dislike book six now because Draco gets such a build up that goes absolutely nowhere. It's like dropping a brick off the side of the building after having carried it all the way up there with you. Draco's characterization stays level with books 1-5 in book seven, instead of him making a definitive choice that book six built him up to make. This non-choice not only screws Dumbledore's sacrifice, it makes Snape's worthless, as well.

Do I think Draco should've said no when asked if Harry was Harry in the Malfoy manner? No. Draco actually acted in character there, and it took a lot of bravery for him not to answer in the face of the other Death Eaters. But Draco had ample opportunity when he was back at school to make those sacrifices mean something substantial, even something as little as finding out about the rebellion and not saying anything. Instead, we get two dead wizards with nothing to show for it.

Hrmph.

I love how Snape says how he can help Draco with such a pause that we, the reader, know what he truly meant at that moment, and how it all got cocked up at the end.

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JKR both does romance right and horribly wrong in these books, it makes me want to smack her. Harry/Cho = Right, slow, awkward build up of cute. Harry/Ginny = Out of nowhere Eh?! Fleur/Bill = Right, they've been dating since the end of book four. Tonks/Lupin = Since when, huh, WTF?!

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STOMP. Bwahahahahahahaha!

Harry hates Snape suddenly, loathes him to a kill-you rage, at the end of book five for no good reason whatsoever. He's blaming Snape for Sirius' death, when it's established that it's Harry and Dumbeldore's faults. This little loathing line makes me want to haul off and hit Harry once again, especially because Snape ends up less of a prick as the school year goes on, and it was Snape who did convey the message immediately about Sirius to the Order.

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The second half of the book is much better than the first - save for the Umbridge parts in pt1, those were all swell - and if I were an editor, I'd excise a lot of angry-Harry crap and keep the meat.

Luna grew on me, becoming less intrusive the more she appeared and was just there, not doing much of anything. Therefore, by the end, when she tells Harry that they'll see their loved ones again 'beyond the veil', it resonates well.

Weirdly, I did not see any plot holes in this book. Plot stupidity, yes, but not actual holes. Point them out to me, if you please?

Finally, sadly, the Draco > Harry comes to an end with this book. The only direct subtext in book five that may be counted as such, if you turn your head and squint real hard, is when Draco makes pointed comments Sirius and Hagrid to Harry. Sure, Draco's still got the whole "Pay attention to me!" thing going on, but it's not as blatant as it was in books 2-4. And thus why we get Harry > Draco in book six. *g*

I do like how the whole vision from Voledmort torturing Sirius to get Harry to the Dept of Mysteries ran. It is quite tension wratching, with reason thrown in there via Hermione, and then Kreacher goes and puts the final nail in Harry's emotional coffin. I think, even if Dumbledore *did* tell Harry that Voldemort was trying to lure him to the DoM via dreams, Harry would still have ended up going because of the Sirius/Kreacher combination. It would've made a better book had Harry been told, then we wouldn't know what to believe (because of Kreacher), rather than being frustrated and angry over Harry's frustration and anger.

I really like Harry's reality check about his father and friends when he views Snape's pensive. Too bad it never actually goes anywhere. Kind of like a lot of the things in these books.

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Harry did occlumency for four months, three times a week, and continued to be made of fail.

Snape is made of win. He met with Harry for four months, three times a week, and never killed him.

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Book five, like book two, is full of fanfiction prompts, especially the opening up of the mauraders school life. There's enough characterization in book five's pensive and then Snape's pensive in book seven to create volumes upon volumes of schoolage fic about them. Now I see why they were so popular to fanfic authors.

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From the attack on Mr. Weasley and on, Harry is a lot less angry, thank god. I'm finding about one anger-related remark a chapter, after Ginny has given Harry the smackdown. Harry seems to me more concerned about his link with Voldemort and the door at the end of his head.

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Weasley is my king. Until he's turned into a prat again in book seven for no good reason, other than to use Dumbledore's gift.

I think what Harry really needs in OotP is a good buggering.

Okay, okay, I forgive JKR a tiny bit for the mirror thing Sirius gave Harry not being opened until the end. Here's the Sirius/Harry convo about it, and JKR does, I admit, cover her tracks. Underlined bit is what I mean.


"I want you to take this," [Sirius] said quietly, thrusting a badly wrapped package roughly the size of a paperback book into Harry's hands.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"A way of letting me know if Snape's giving you a hard time. No, don't open it in here!" said Sirius, with a wary look at Mrs. Weasley, who was trying to persuade the twins to wear hand-knitted mittens. "I doubt Molly would approve - but I want you to use it if you need me, all right?"

"Okay," said Harry, stowing the package away in the inside pocket of his jacket, but he knew he would never use it whatever it was. It would not be he, Harry, who lured Sirius from his place of safety, no matter how foully Snape treated him in their forthcoming Occlumency classes.



I don't think Harry would've forgotten about the gift, but this gives reason as to why he put it out of his mind.