Pottery

[grendel317]

[Edit: Sorry if the title and "spoiler" reference weren't clear enough. To make it more explicit, this is a post about the Harry Potter book, and there are some spoilers in it.]

Comments

[rosindust]

Admittedly, the whole getting lost in the woods was slow, but I think this falls in line with Rowling's tendancy to strip tools away from Harry as he continues to solve more challenging problems. Lose your public credibility, godfather, teacher, and now he's on the run with no food, no answers, no sense of security, and eventually no wand.

The Malfoys couldn't have been all bad, Narcissa had taken major risks in order to save Draco's life.

My favorite character change was Neville, how he grew into himself. And pulling the sword of the hat was way cool.

[grendel317]

I don't have a problem that the lost in the woods thing happened - in fact I rather like it from a plot perspective. I just think that, in terms of actual writing, that same sense of frustration and lack of direction could - and should! - have been conveyed without taking three hundred pages (or however many it was). There are entire books that contain fewer words than were devoted to the trio wandering through the woods not doing much.

I guess the Malfoys weren't all bad. I specifically mentioned that Draco was more of a weenie than a villain, now that I look at it. I don't think any of them really came very close to "not bad" though.

And yeah, Neville rocked. I think Neville's time at Hogwarts would have made a great book, and been a lot more entertaining than HRH lost in the woods. :-)

[delathi]

I also thought that with everything else, she might have at least gave a mention to how Fred's death affected George...

I'm also waiting for the companion series, similar to Orson Scott Card's Ender/Bean series.

"The Chronicles of Justin Finch-Fetchley"

[champignon]

GAH! you tricked me into clicking on something Harry Potter related!

I was all expecting photos of your experiments fresh out of the kiln or something.

Then I was all like, Wait. Book? What book. ooooooooh.

[grendel317]

Doh. Sorry about that. Hope I didn't spoil anything for you, if you care. (It looks like most of the spoilers come after the point where it gets pretty obvious what I'm talking about.)

[champignon]

Heh, no worries. I don't really care at all. I've never read any of that series and don't plan to.

I just kind of irrationally try to avoid it (as I do lots of things with lots of hype), but you lured me in with visions of raku or something. ;-p I'll survive.

[lorigami]

I'm so out of it, I actually expected to hear something about ceramics when I clicked that.
0_o

[grendel317]

You are not alone! I'm sorry about that; the ambiguity didn't even occur to me. Hope you weren't exposed to any unwanted spoilers.

[lorigami]

naw, I haven't read any of them, don't plan to. =)

[grendel317]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually think the movies are better, anyway. Time constraints force a lot of the chaff to be cut away, and most of the action scenes are very kinetic and cinematic to begin with. They're very visual books, and translate well to the big screen.

Hater.

[aesthetic]

Don't hate the player, hate the game...

Re: Hater.

[grendel317]

Dude, I liked the books. Obviously I cared enough to write a big post in my LJ, at any rate. And anyway, wouldn't "hating the player" in this context be more like attacking JKR personally? Or is the book itself the player in this metaphor, in which case the game is... what? Low expectations that fantasy novels should be reasonably well thought out?

Hey, sounds like I am hating the game! ;-)

[thehobbit]

*stands, applauds, sits back down*

Thank you for making this make way more sense than I did. I agree whole heartedly.

And yes, I enjoyed them too and felt this was a fine end. It was just a touch too long.