Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

[rowyn]

So, just about two years after everyone else, I finally finished reading book five in the Harry Potter series. I was talking to tuftears about it, and I've decided, what the heck, I'll post my rant about it.

And some additional spoiler-warning space for anyone surfing by clicking the forward button in my journal.














All right, that should be good.

Like just about everyone else I know who read this book, I was disappointed by it. Two main reasons:

1) 800 pages of torturing the main characters. In previous Harry Potter books, you got 50-100 pages of Dursley-torture that ended when Harry got to Hogwarts. In this thing, it's like the spirit of the Dursleys never leaves. It's not just that bad things happen, or even that bad things happen for wholly unjust reasons. It's that plus the total inability of the main characters to fight back effectively. They cannot rebel, and virtually every act of resistance they do make serves to worsen their situation.

This is partially alleviated by the occassional effective acts of rebellion. After all that's happened, it's utterly delightful to read the sections where Fred and George's fury has been unleashed upon the headmistress.

Still, this goal could've been accomplished in way fewer pages. I don't mind reading 880 page of delight and wonder interspersed with spots of great struggle and danger. Heck, even 880 page of struggle and danger would've been fine. Fore example, the sequence where Harry and his friends are fighting Death Eaters was not torturous: they were tense and interesting. But most of this novel wasn't struggle, it was torture, and it definitely exceeded my levels of masochism.

2) No sign the Harry learned anything from all of this. OK, Harry ignores a string of warnings, makes several serious mistakes, and winds up needing to be rescued and inadvertantly causing Sirius's death. Well, that stinks, but at least he'll realize the importance of keeping his head and listening to the advice of those around him, right?

Right?

Well, I can hope that's the case, but I don't have a lot to prove it by in the text. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad that Dumbledore did his confession thing and admitted his mistakes. (Which, let's face it, were pretty egregious. At any point he or Snape could've said plainly, "Look, we think Voldemort is trying to manipulate you RIGHT NOW so don't trust those visions! That last one was only right because he's trying to leave you with a false sense of confidence in them." And maybe if they'd been clearer, Harry would've been less cocky.)

But Dumbledore's "It was all my fault" seems to have absolved Harry from any reason to consider "Gee, perhaps I should control my temper better" or "Hmm, maybe I'm not always right about everything and can run roughshod over any hints that I might be mistaken".

So I'm left with the feeling that book six is going to be more of hot-headed, cocky Harry, and frankly whether he's right or wrong I don't expect to enjoy that much.

According to Amazon, book six is due out July 16 and will be 672 pages. I'm not going to be in any rush to pre-order it. I figure I'll wait and see what my friends have to say: if this gets another lukewarm "meh" reception, I'll pass. There are plenty of good books to read out there; I don't need to slog through the mediocre ones.

Comments

[rowyn]

It's really a combination of "too long" and "too painful". There's a lot of extraneous detail in all of the Potter books (more so in the last two), but in the first three, especially, it's what makes the books fun.

Had the continual torturing of the characters been shorter, then the whole book would've been more enjoyable. But as it is, it's too much slog for the catharsis.

I'll agree that angry-cocky Harry is perfectly realistic. However, there's a difference between "realistic" and "readable". Again, you're right that if the book were shorter, then the failings of the protagonist would be less annoying. Now, maybe teens are going to relate so well to angry-cocky Harry that they'll just love it, in which case they can buy book 6 & 7 and I'll stay out of it. I recall my angsty teenage years revolving a lot more around depression than yelling at my friends, but hey, that's just me.

And I will admit that I didn't mind Harry's outbursts the first couple of times; they seemed reasonable at the outset. It's only after mutliple iterations of it that I started to think "Get a grip on yourself, or at least recognize that you could USE a grip on yourself even if you're not competent to actually do it." So maybe just being shorter so that it wasn't so repeatedly in-my-face would've solved that entirely.

Still, my main point is that Rowling could get away with writing 600-900 page doorstoppers if they were fun. A torturous slog with characters I don't much like who aren't going to learn form their mistakes is not cutting it for me.

[sandratayler.livejournal.com]

All good points. The books are definitely not about fun adventures any more.

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

Has it really been two years since it came out?

At this point, I'm a little uncertain exactly why I'm not recalling much from the book. It's probably either A) that it was two years ago, or B) that I was sufficiently disappointed in it that I pushed much of it out of my mind.

But, both of your comments on the book resonate with my impressions of it: Too much angst, too much torture, too many pages, and not enough fun to justify it.

While I realize that the characters are aging, and yes, teenagers do tend to act a bit angsty and cock sure, that is not what made the character appeal to me in the first place. I like to see characters grow, not regress. It may be an accurate portrayal of average teenage behavior, but, on the other hand, I can't say I was an average teenager. Or at least I wasn't an average teenager who was the star athlete, and the star pupil and the star witness in various forms of governmental intrigue...

But, then there's the torture sequences. In two years, I *have* pushed most of those out of my head, because they were unpleasant. I don't find torture to be entertaining. When it comes up in various forms of fiction, I find it quite unpleasant and tend to either start skipping pages, or hitting the fast forward button.

This actually reminded me of another incident where I tried to get into something my friends were raving about at the time: A science fiction show called "Farscape". Now, the premise sounded interesting to me: Space ships, aliens, travelling far from home, and blue alien women in tight costumes. Sounds like fun!

I was warned that, as a serial, it would be difficult to get into the middle of the storyline. So, when I saw that a marathon of episodes was going to be on, I plopped a tape in and nabbed it.

The trouble came when I sat down to try to watch it.

I can only conclude that they selected episodes for the marathon based on a single theme. That theme was torture.

I sat through 2 or 3 episodes that all had a similar plot:
The main characters are captured by some alien organization or aliens and are tortured for information, or for no reason that they can discern for no apparent reason.

Rightly or wrongly, I got the impression that the show was the characters escaping from one torture chamber to the next, only to be caught by yet more mysterious aliens with no apparent motive next week. No one seemed to know what was going on, and no one seemed to have the slightest idea how to go about finding out what was going on, and the main character just came off as being cocky, even though he didn't have any idea what was going on either.

I'm sorry to say that it left such a bad taste in my mouth, I've no interest in going back to find out what really went on in the show.

I felt much the same about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I'm afraid the next book will have to get some pretty good reviews from people who's taste I trust before I'll read it.

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

That was my problem with Star Wars Episode 2, actually, and I've gone around in circles with most of my friends on this. If a movie character is sufficiently obnoxious, the fact that people his age are often that way doesn't matter. I'll still feel schadenfreude instead of sympathy.

What Order of the Phoenix reminded me the most of was seasons 5-6 of Buffy. Lots and lots of problems, not very many solutions, characters who we've learned to love experiencing great suffering with no end in sight, and angst as a replacement for character development.

I'm hoping it's a fluke. Harry was kinda obnoxious in Goblet of Fire, too, but not so much that I lost interest in him. Maybe Order was his wake-up call.

Must... control... rant reflex... oops, there it went.

[krud42.livejournal.com]

>"there's a difference between "realistic" and "readable".

Exactly! (<-- which makes it sound as though you were confirming something I said, which technically isn't true.)

I've read on numerous occasions that if you write a character who accurately depicts your average person, warts and all, they're not very readable. (Except in short bursts a la blog, but that's not what this is.)

>Rowling could get away with writing 600-900 page doorstoppers if they were fun.

They don't even have to be "Fun"... I'd settle for well developed.

To me, there wasn't a significant enough plot progression between pages 1 and 650 (or whatever the last page was).

Actually, I was surprised at how few spoilers you actually had in here. I for one was sorely disappointed in the actual "secret" that everyone was trying to keep from Harry (or Voldemort, or whoever). I mean, where was the revelation there? Was it really anything we didn't already know, or at the very least suspect? How did it change anything?I don't think I'm that good at predicting things, so I don't think it's me.

Okay, I've got it under control now. I'll leave you in piece. But yeah, I'm in no hurry for book six.

(Tangent: I actually recently enjoyed the movie version of book three, even though it was still nowhere nearly as good as the book. I almost feel guilty saying that I like their new Dumbledore better. Okay, there's no "almost". I do feel guilty. ':P)