Harry Potter Discussion [warning: spoilers]

what the??? My post got deleted for some reason!!

oh well

I said ‘woo’ pretty much.

I loved reading that press release.
I think it is kind of her way of sticking it to the people against her book.
Plus, there is somebody that everybody (well most everybody if you include the last book) respects that is homosexual. I think that is a good thing for younger children who are not yet socialized into thinking that it is a bad thing (which happens to the majority of the youth).

I think it was brilliant! :razz: Dumbledore is gay… Ofcourse… And he “liked” Grindewald- Ofcourse…

I’m a bit chocked… Ofcourse… But in a good way… Ofcourse.

GO ROWLING!!! WOHO!

Well, when it comes to harry potter, I really feel that it went downhill. I started reading it years ago when the 1st-4th books came out, and I was basically entertained. As the books progressed though, it started to lose it’s luster. I barely survived reading the fifth book, and waited a while before undertaking another book. So after a while I decided ‘well, everyone is hyping this thing, so I might as well take another look, maybe it will be better’. Man, was I sadly mistaken, the sixth book was so full of drama, whining, teen angst, and all the rest of that kind of crap. Really, I’m trying to read a fantasy novel about witches and wizards, not ‘chicken soup for the teenage (wizard) soul’. I mean, once you get into the book, you have to wade through a couple hundred pages of this mindless prattle…In the end, I never finished this book, far from it, in fact(maybe made it to 200, or so).

I have to agree with what Alvin said earlier, there are probably much better fantasy novels on the market, living in Harry Potter’s shadow, but none of them get a second of the media coverage. So they flounder, despite superior storytelling, and we get an over-hyped, cliche, drama-filled, nearly mediocre novel.

Now maybe I’m being too harsh here, but I think this book had plenty of potential to be great, yet the opportunity was squandered. Allow me to explain:

First of all, the concept was good, the main character was likable, and I’m sure plenty of teens and pre-teens could relate(this is good). Along the way harry acquires enemies and a band of loyal friends in his journey to save the world from Voldermort(a little overused, but workable nonetheless). The real problem is that only a few of the characters get the proper amount of attention and character development. Everyone else, well…they don’t get jack(bad for longevity). Also, the story doesn’t really take the genre in a different direction, it’s just the same old recycled plot about the innocent kid destined to save the world from his evil arch nemesis(wow, that plot hasn’t been done a million times already). During his journey, our hero will seek to be good yet be tempted by evil and have to walk a fine line between the two. Ultimately, he will lose a few friends, yet will still save the world, get the girl, and have a cliche ending that ties up all the other under-developed character’s loose ends…I mean, this formula has already been beaten to death. Couldn’t we see any original concepts, maybe a twist? Also, what is the deal with the muggles? None of them ever notice this kind of shit going on around them? They really never see owls carrying messages, or kids flying around on brooms, or a million other things? Perhaps they should have said, OK the wizard world is another dimension, one that is on the same plane as the muggle world and occasionally overlaps(and maybe magic doesn’t work in the muggle world). See? That wasn’t hard, yet it would open up all kinds of what-if scenarios. Or maybe, McGonigal has always been working for the death eaters(there’s a twist for ya).

The other problem I have with this series is that EVERYTHING(and I mean everything) happens to Harry Potter. The entire universe, heavens and all that inhabits the two revolves around Harry. I mean, if I were a student at Hogwarts, I would be thinking “Well, I’m starting another year here, I wonder what kind of weird shit is going to happen. I bet it will involve Harry Potter. Man, that guy should have a newspaper devoted entirely to him.” Why can’t another character have anything interesting going on, what about Ron? His only purpose is to be the comic relief(as someone mentioned), and play the token bumbling sidekick. Then you have Hermione, the bookworm(ooh, clever JK, very clever). Why can’t she have anything special going on, she just exists to play the clever, down-to-earth, never-noticed-how-attractive-she-really-was bookworm stereotype. Dump on a heaping, steaming pile of drama, and you have Harry Potter. :yuck:

SPOILER - Click to view

Oh, don’t even get me started on the ending, lol. What was Rowling thinking? Was she imagining a montage ending with a beetles song playing in the background while wedding pictures stack on screen? Oh well, Harry Potter settled down and became the soccer dad, had plenty of kids with Ginny. Ron and Hermione got together also, had some kids, and Ron was arrested after savagely beating his wife during a drunken stupor brought on by too much butterbeer (lol, I couldn’t resist). That is so stock, it is the laziest way to end a story. One of the three should have died, plain and simple. It’s a war, war is hell and rarely ends with a beetles montage lol. When the story ends this way it makes Voldermort and his followers look like raging incompetent dipshits. One wonders how they became so feared in the first place, just give them a simon says and they will be distracted for a year or two. I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even want Harry dead. Let’s see, hmm…Wand isn’t working, try a knife, better yet buy a gun from wal-mart and shoot him, or just strangle him with a pillow–I don’t care, just kill the whiny little bastard lol. :rofl:

Whew, sorry for that rant, but I think you get the point(haha I could go on all day complaining about Harry Potter). :tongue:

I bet you loved the last book Rad.

[spoiler]All that wondering around looking for nothing, because no one had a clue what they were doing. It’s was a few hundred pages of a freaking camping trip!

I mean Harry Potter’s horcrux search was beyond incompetence and blind luck, which makes Voldemort look ever worse, hell his whole “must kill Harry” vendetta was school play ground stuff in it’s self.

Voldemort and his gang can’t touch Harry at the Dursleys, here’s a solution. Hire a muggle hit man. Novel idea, get the impure to kill the impure. Voldy has been around, he could have done what ever he wanted. Hell, Pettigrew slept in the same room as potter in Hogwarts. He could have smothered him to death in his first NIGHT there, then Voldemort would have risen at the end of the year. But no he just squeaks around and Voldy is left thinking “And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids”.

The series got darker and darker, but Jo just had to cheap out on the ending and go back to the fairytale ending: And they all lived happily ever after, even Draco. In reality at least one of the couples should have divorced, at least 50% of the kids would have been brats and Cissy would not have told Voldy Harry was dead if he wasn’t, because lets face it, the fighting stopped when Harry was “dead” she could have gotten her son anyway after “really” killing Harry. But no she faked it so he could come back and let Voldy kill himself… Uninspiring, good always wins BS is how it ended, but I don’t think anyone can really say it came as a surprise. I feel sorry for those people who followed these novels for the full 10yrs start to finish. [/spoiler]

I’ve never been a Harry Potter fan, but I do have the first four or five books in the series. I don’t want to read them though.

haha Mohegan, you make a lot of sense in a way. I have to say that the whole Dumbeldore is gay thing is really stupid. I mean why is everyone making such a big deal out of it! He’s just a character! And I don’t think it will help homophoic people to get past their fear , I mean we don’t look at the characters in terms of their sexual orientation, just simply their personalities.

So Dumbeldore could be a transexual for all I care, the matter of the fact is, he was the headmaster at hogwarts and wanted to do the right thing and help potter, blah blah blah.

Exactly, therefore equating homosexuals and heterosexuals.
I think it was either a brilliant move on her part, her revealing one of her thousands of facts that we don’t know but she does, or just her having a bit of fun.

:grrr: She messed up the last book, then after I finished it she anounce Dumbldore was gay, it was deffinatly her just having fun and trying to make people mad. There is no hints to dumbldore being gay in the earlier books. She is just tring to get more people mad at her, and the timing is wierd, maybe she did that so the movies would fail

Whoa, man! Get ahold of yourself! First off, there are no hints to old Albus being gay because there are no hints to anything whatsoever: Jo is a lame writer, her books work on a deus ex machina basis. Second: seriously, what’s with the homophobia? :eh:

I couldn’t care less if Dumbledore is gay, its just that JK Rowling timed that on purpose, to get people mad, maybe so the movies fail.

And what is Duex ex Machina

Whoa, Dumbledore is gay? Did I miss something?

Or maybe it’s just been too long since I’ve read Deathly Hallows.

JK said that she thought of Dumbledore in a homosexual way at a book reading in the states.

Not going to lie, I thought her declaration of Dumbledore was pretty funny. Unsuspected and completely out of left field. There wasn’t much point in it I thought. I mean, if she was going to do it, she should’ve included into the books as well. Slow on replying to this topic, but there’s my thoughts on it, hahaha.

I think it was brave of her to announce dumbledore was gay :wink: … after she made her sales and leaving the people making the movies in the crossfire.

Why is it leaving the people involved in the movies in the crossfire? You keep saying that, but I don’t really get what you mean.

Ugh, the last movie by them was terrible anyways.

all the movies are terrible. Book > to > film usually are.

Dumbledore being gay isn’t exactly a surprise anyway, it makes the whole Grindelwald thing make a lot more sense.

There is a set of movies.

Now here is my explaniation

JK Rowling announces Dumbledore is gay. now there is plenty of people ready to boycott the books and everything (trust me there are a lot of people who are mad considering it is pretty much a children’s book) But whats this!!! She is done writing books so she has all the money she wants because she gets paid before the movie series was made anyway. Now, a high percentage of people who go to movies are children. Now a lot of those children won’t be going, so now the the movies will do horribal and they probaly won’t find it is worth it to continue making movies.

All I was saying was I thought that was cowardly to announce Dumbledore was gay after she has made all the money she wants.

Chuck, I don’t know how it is where you live, it sure seems different from down here in Brazil… but my thoughts were quite the opposite: that she raised the new polemics just so as to rise her book sales! :tongue: And, indeed, most of what I heard all around was people either giving her huzzahs or otherwise compelled to buy the last book.

I didn’t see anyone mad, or wanting to boycott her, I seriously didn’t. :eh: In fact, when I first read your messages, I didn’t understand you were talking about other people, and thought you were the one acting homophobic — and one person being homophobic was already one too much in my head, I didn’t think there still were places in the West with lynching homophobic mobs… I mean, that sounds so 60 years ago.

1 out of 30 kids are prevented by there parents from reading the books or watching the movies as it is where I live. I can only imagine what it is like now. And all I was saying was that I think it is cowardly to announce Dumbledore is gay after she has made all the money