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mmoa_writes at 03:55pm on 21/07/2007
mmoa_writes at 03:55pm on 21/07/2007I don't think I'll be able to post up a proper discussion of the last HP book in a single entry. I'll just write it all out in bits and pieces.
Suffice to say, it was both quite awesome and full of flaws. Which is the usual standard, to be honest, so I'm not too concerned about that: I just like to nit-pick as it generates interesting discussions.
Overall I quite enjoyed it: there were moments when her writing was both beautiful and proof of what skill she has. I actually felt like I was reading a proper novel than the hyped up beautifully bound scribblings that the hype often makes it seem.
Of course, I find Harry a far more satisfying character than I ever did, but then, he's grown up now. I always loved Dumbledore, and thus my affections remain, if not deepened. Snape... well. If I thought that I could be any more fascinated and entranced and basically in love with that character, I was hopelessly wrong. Completely and utterly.
The first thing that comes to my head though, when I think of Snape, is what on earth JKR was getting at. In interviews, she makes out that he is a genuinely nasty, despicable person (it is a 'horrible' idea, to quote, that someone should ever be in love with him) which makes me wonder if this isn't a case of an author who creates a character they think they know, only to find the character being all too real and just not co operating with how the author wants to see them. After all, the man is capable of love, clever, honourable and brave. Now what's so wrong with falling for a guy like that?
Ah, well.
The book also made me think about people who do enjoy the HP series but cannot stand fanfiction. Many of the conceits, the twists and turns, the style in the books are so reminiscent of even average fanfiction that it also begs the question what such people make of the books themselves. Again, ah well. There's no pleasing everybody I suppose.
Reading the book, the main problem I had was that if I really stopped to think about it, the influx of new information seemed all too improbable. Not because the subjects themselves were implausible, but because it just felt as if she had tacked new ideas on in a hurry. Clearly, we know JKR hasn't - she's had these ideas and plotlines in her head for a very long time. I suspect that along with motivation, another problem she has is being able to convincingly provide new information without making it seem too convenient that a main character should think or learn of something, just when they need it. Maybe if she'd done more to spread the information out more evenly over the series, I wouldn't feel so suspicious. Nevertheless, if you stop thinking about these things, you just get sucked into the story.
Frankly, I can't wait to write some more fanfiction: I had a couple of plots that I needed to have the complete canon in order to write as fics, so I'm looking forward to that... and the movie should be quite something...
There will be more to come. I think an adequate summation for tDH would be Snapledore=OTP. Oh yes. You know it's true.
Suffice to say, it was both quite awesome and full of flaws. Which is the usual standard, to be honest, so I'm not too concerned about that: I just like to nit-pick as it generates interesting discussions.
Overall I quite enjoyed it: there were moments when her writing was both beautiful and proof of what skill she has. I actually felt like I was reading a proper novel than the hyped up beautifully bound scribblings that the hype often makes it seem.
Of course, I find Harry a far more satisfying character than I ever did, but then, he's grown up now. I always loved Dumbledore, and thus my affections remain, if not deepened. Snape... well. If I thought that I could be any more fascinated and entranced and basically in love with that character, I was hopelessly wrong. Completely and utterly.
The first thing that comes to my head though, when I think of Snape, is what on earth JKR was getting at. In interviews, she makes out that he is a genuinely nasty, despicable person (it is a 'horrible' idea, to quote, that someone should ever be in love with him) which makes me wonder if this isn't a case of an author who creates a character they think they know, only to find the character being all too real and just not co operating with how the author wants to see them. After all, the man is capable of love, clever, honourable and brave. Now what's so wrong with falling for a guy like that?
Ah, well.
The book also made me think about people who do enjoy the HP series but cannot stand fanfiction. Many of the conceits, the twists and turns, the style in the books are so reminiscent of even average fanfiction that it also begs the question what such people make of the books themselves. Again, ah well. There's no pleasing everybody I suppose.
Reading the book, the main problem I had was that if I really stopped to think about it, the influx of new information seemed all too improbable. Not because the subjects themselves were implausible, but because it just felt as if she had tacked new ideas on in a hurry. Clearly, we know JKR hasn't - she's had these ideas and plotlines in her head for a very long time. I suspect that along with motivation, another problem she has is being able to convincingly provide new information without making it seem too convenient that a main character should think or learn of something, just when they need it. Maybe if she'd done more to spread the information out more evenly over the series, I wouldn't feel so suspicious. Nevertheless, if you stop thinking about these things, you just get sucked into the story.
Frankly, I can't wait to write some more fanfiction: I had a couple of plots that I needed to have the complete canon in order to write as fics, so I'm looking forward to that... and the movie should be quite something...
There will be more to come. I think an adequate summation for tDH would be Snapledore=OTP. Oh yes. You know it's true.
giddy
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I don't know...
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Like you said, though, his love for Lily never seemed quite as redeeming as it perhaps should have been, because we don't really know the reasons for his joining. Along with the other backstories, however, I suspect that we are to take Dumbledore's own development in regard to his beliefs as the standard model for all and any wizards, varying in degrees of evils that they are willing to perpetrate, who go on to become anti-Muggle Drak Arts users.
However, I think the love of Lily helped Snape actually want to be a good person (although technically, I suppose he wnated to be before but he was subscribing to a different idea of what good was...? whatevs. I'm tired...). Note his reaction to Dumbledore's 'you disgust me' line. The man doesn't try to defend himself or deny it, he flinches. That to me suggests remorse and realisation that he is truly despicable and that he is wanting to be a 'good man' (ooooh, it really doesn't help talking in such black and white terms about good and evil; I feel so stupid. That's another gripe I have with JKR, but we'll leave that for another day...).
Basically, in the JKR world love=good, so Snape loving Lily=es bon.
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