(no subject)

[hpraremod]

Discussion Question #4
Here is a tough one for you. If you could change one thing in the Harry Potter books, what would it be and why?

Comments

[silentauror.livejournal.com]

A lot of my thoughts have already been expressed, or partially so, but here goes anyway:

1. The damned epilogue. BARF.

2. Harry/Ginny. I realize I'm a slasher and therefore biased, but there is absolutey no basis for H/G and so many reasons why it doesn't work, including: 1) she had a crush on him since before she knew him. That childhood obsession just developed into whiny-left-out-little-sister-who-had-no-place-in-the-trio. A childhood crush/hero complex is not grounds for a marriage! 2) She is exactly like miniature Mrs. Weasley, who drives Harry bananas with her micro-management and mother-henning, except she's also more demanding and less understanding. Wtf! And 3) the similarities to Lily (only less cool) are uncomfortably Freudian. I don't see Harry as being particularly gifted at relationships in general and see him as staying on his own or else going in a new direction (a gay new direction, that is), but if he was ever going to be with a Hogwarts character that we all knew and loved, and who was female, it was obviously Luna. Luna always understood Harry, gave him space when he needed space, was there when he needed a friend and no one else noticed that he did, and can relate to Harry's frequent sense of being the odd one who isn't like other people, in a way that Ginny (aka Ms. Popular) could never understand. Harry also isn't a particularly empathetic character (only under extreme duress!) and yet he empathizes with Luna in a way that he doesn't with most other people.

3) The deaths, as other people said. Remus and Tonks were pointless deaths and so glossed over that I frequently forget they even happened. That's not fair. Snape's. Not cool. A character as cool as Snape should have lived. Hedwig was just plain cruel. And Fred? WHY? Percy's death, particularly just after his final redemption, would have been far more poignant and frankly, stronger writing. To kill Fred and leave George alive? Heartbreaking. Unnecessarily so.

There is so much more. GRAWP and all of the space, literally and literarily, that he wasted. Much of the meandering backstory in places. The last-minute planning feel to so much of the series. The lack of editing. But those points were my main beefs.