It has been obvious to me from the start that the entire Remus/Tonks arc in DH is stuck in there to create a war orphan. But if JKR actually was planning this before she wrote Book #6, she did a really poor and strange job writing it. At the end of HBP Lupin is relunctant to have a relationship with Tonks, yet at the start of DH they are already married. Remus never seems to be very happy to be married, and he certainly isn't pleased to find out Tonks is pregnant. And there isn't any build-up of emotion regarding the baby. Lupin shows up, announces it's a boy, gets a bit drunk, and that's the end of that. Then they drop the baby off at grandma's and go out and get killed. Harry doesn't even think about Teddy being an orphan.
I swear, it feels like JKR finished the rough draft of DH, then realized 'Oh, I've forgotten about having a war orphan!' and stuck those bits in!
I was just ranting about that myself... there's a way to *craft* a story so that it fits one's necessary plotline *and* feels believable to the reader. And JK is normally quite good at it, which is why the deaths of Lupin and Tonks stick out so much... because they *read* like "oh, wait, I was gonna do the war orphan thing, okay, dead, also dead, moving on..." There were at least five ways to keep that same plot but present it in a way that didn't scream deus ex machina, and she didn't bother.
I also love how she couldn't bear to kill Arthur Weasley because Harry had already lost too many father figures, but apparently Lupin, as Harry's last living link to his parents and the best friend of his godfather, does not count as a father figure to Harry. Argh.
Indeed, it doesn't read as if she'd planned to kill him and Tonks from as early as OotP. If she was going to do that, she indeed should have made the development of the story much, much gentler. Move the 'but I don't care!' scene way up in HBP (the Christmas chapter?) so they can get married near the end of HBP instead of early in TDH. That way, Teddy also doesn't seem so rushed.
Oh, and nice how you dumped Remus in the 'bad father' category, Jo. >_> 's not like you ever gave him a chance anyway...
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I swear, it feels like JKR finished the rough draft of DH, then realized 'Oh, I've forgotten about having a war orphan!' and stuck those bits in!
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I also love how she couldn't bear to kill Arthur Weasley because Harry had already lost too many father figures, but apparently Lupin, as Harry's last living link to his parents and the best friend of his godfather, does not count as a father figure to Harry. Argh.
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Oh, and nice how you dumped Remus in the 'bad father' category, Jo. >_> 's not like you ever gave him a chance anyway...
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