The main problem I have regarding Rowling’s style is that she seems unsure about her chosen genre. She throws in her fair share of mystery, thriller, horror, morals, romance and fantasy, and eggs us on regarding certain aspect, and then changes ship all of a sudden, jumping to another genre.

Let’s start with the most controversial aspect of all fandom-related art: Romance. Or as we know it; shipping. It’s obvious that romance does not have the first priority in HP series. But character growth at times does, so romance sometimes does take the front seat, which would be cool, if it were merely a tool to serve other purposes. On the other hand, we have a ton of romance-related drama, arguably serving no useful purpose at all. Harry and Cho, for example. Yeah, I understand that as a somewhat healthy 15 year old teenager, Harry would start having less-than-pure feelings for the opposite sex. But did it have to be Cho Chang, whose ex happened to be murdered right in front of Harry’s eyes? What purpose did it serve? Harry could simply have fancied Susan or Luna or Parvati or whatever… And if character-growth was what JKR indeed worried about, mission would be accomplished. Every single romance concerning the major characters have some sort of day time soap opera quality to them, what with implied 3rd and 4th parties, sub-romances and implied possibilities. Such as, Cho likes Cedric or Michael or maybe Roger or Harry, who might like Cho, Ginny or Hermione, who might like Viktor or maybe Harry or Ron, who might like Hermione, Fleur or Luna, who might like Neville. Not to mention the Snape-Lily-James triangle.

My point is, every single aspect of the books at one point had to be sacrificed for the sake of another.

The more obvious example would be the shift of dramatic style between the first four books and OotP, whereas with the former, it was about “who done it”, and with OotP it was “Will Harry lose it completely”, a more of a character driven book more than detective novel / mystery.

My second problem with the books was the moral aspect, which is almost always problematic. Two of the most important sales-pitches of the series were “good vs. evil” and “redemption”. Pretty much everybody has a different understanding of those concepts, depending on their background, culture, religion, life experiences etc. so it was a risky move to introduce them. But if Rowling had taken a stand and defended it, it would be less problematic, IMHO. Whereas it seemed JKR has little understanding of those philosophical dilemmas, or took the easy way out and chose the “kid story” approach, like that of Walt Disney’s cartoon characters. Voldemort: Ugly, demonic, incapable of feeling empathy, resembled the villains in child stories we loved to read and listen to as a child, as did his Death Eaters, with a demonic name and demonic looking black cloaks. And the only DEs who got away or sort of redeemed were the somewhat good looking ones: Malfoys and Regulus. The fact that Snape’s ugliness was used as an indicator that he was evil in earlier books, suggests a lot.

Then we had our “redemption” heroes: Snape and Pettigrew. After reading the ever lovely safakus’s essay concerning Pettigrew, I was worried that Peter would do something heroic to save Harry’s life and would lose his in the process and therefore be redeemed, but we would never know if his actions were a result of deeply felt remorse or a magical contract he couldn’t get out of (life debt). Well, JKR didn’t disappoint me in that regard. Peter was not redeemed and I was fine with it.

I assume many of you have written loads of essays concerning Snape’s redemption, so I won’t say much about that, except the fact that we never got to know if Snape ever disagreed with Voldemort’s ideals. What motivated Snape seems to be his love (obsession?) with Lily Potter, and the fact that he confirmed this in the Pensieve scene did not sit well with me. I was harshly reminded of the Buffy-Spike relationship in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Spike helps, because Buffy would approve. But Spike didn’t have a soul. Snape did.

What I always liked about the books though, was the plot. It never failed to delight me, even in OotP. I remember laughing out loud after finding out that Quirrel was sharing his body with Voldemort, literally giving him head. I loved the Tom Riddle – Lucius Malfoy storyline in CoS, the ever-handsome Marauders (minus Peter) and not to mention, the best Quiditch we ever got: Slytherin vs. Gryffindor Dream Team for the last time. GoF is still my favorite: I applauded Voldemort’s plan, except for that last part. OotP filled a great void by answering a good deal of questions regarding Potter-verse politics and backstory of Harry’s parents and Snape, and I was thrilled with the Horcrux storyline in HBP, not to mention the additional Snape feedback.

Which brings us to Deathly Hollows.

To be honest, I didn’t understand the majority of what was going on. That wands-engagement-rules thingy is still kinda a mystery to me. I think DH was either full of inconsistencies or JKR didn’t do a good job of explaining them. Or I’m stupid, but for the sake of this essay let’s assume I’m not.

The fact that I wasn’t expecting much in romance and morals departments allowed me to enjoy this book as much as possible, but the massive info-dump at times left me frustrated and mighty confused. First six books every witch and wizard had been disarming each other left and right and nothing ever happened with the wands. Then we got this puzzle, who pwnd who, when, why, and WHOSE WAND IS IT! The way I figure it, Harry didn’t have to go through all that trouble solving that puzzle, since he managed to pwn Voldy at the end of GoF, thus should be a master of any wand he owns… But what do I know.

I was also a bit disappointed for, that we didn’t get much resolution concerning political issues. Werewolves? Dementors? Goblins? Other magical creatures? And what about that veil thingy?

AND HOW COME LUCIUS GOT OFF? The way I see it, he was a major bastard in his day, he conspired to kill Harry many times (including in DH), acted as Voldemort under-boss and treasurer for a period of time, bribed and controlled ministry officials and those are the things we know for sure. It’s just unrealistic that he should get off. The first time he did because he had support. Now either that the ministry is still mighty corrupt even under Shacklebolt’s rule, or he was tried objectively and found innocent, which I don’t think is possible. Whatever.

I loved the action though, especially the Gringotts heist and the Battle of Hogwarts. Neville was awesome, I was cheering the whole time. And the deaths… Well I would be more disappointed if there were no deaths. This is war and random people die for no good reason in wars.

And the epilogue… Say what you will. I just can NOT get past the whole “Albus Severus” thing. No matter what purpose it served, no kid should be subjected to that kind of cruelty. Oh my God! Albus Severus! If my parents named me something equally stupid, I swear I’d chop off their brains. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO! asdflkjhergvn

Other than that cruel bit of idiocy, not to mention Hugo (Jesus Christ I say!), it was pretty much ordinary, boring and not awe-inspiring in the least. I expected something more climatic.

All in all, I liked all the books, DH was okay, GoF was my favorite, and you people seem to have had good time dissecting it, reading fanfiction and whatnot. So I guess we should take our wins and move on to the next fandom… In my case, His Dark Materials.