Having finished HP & the Half-Blood Prince

[classicdrogn]

I have to say, that it is better than OotP, but then around a third to a half of OotP should really have been edited out entirely, for pacing if not for being repetetive, so that's damning with faint praise. The main plot leaves me feeling vaguely dissappointed at how contrived it is, with some critical evidence or idea presented exactly as needed for the next checkpoint.
Further, maybe it's just too many angry-Harry-post-OotP fics, but the relationship between him and Dumbledore seemed to be restored far too quickly, and the bursts of temper Harry did have to come almost out of nowhere. And, of course, no adult wizard ever listens to Harry until it's tragically after the fact, despite five years of he and his freinds being right where everyone else was blind, misguided, or flat-out wrong.
I have to wonder how many more Severitus Challenge fics we'll be seeing now, and how many will be tearfully abandoned... and how many Snapes will be summarily killed off in fics where he can be written out. An Evil Snape (We Told You So!) does make for more apt Star Wars comparisons for a Severitus, though. Heh, doing one that takes HBP into account would truly be a challenge given that it specifically states that Sev despised mudbloods as much as Malfoy.
Now, Slytherin-Harry stories, those are still possible, but require even more of a HP-vs-the-world mentality than if Sevvie had been Dumbledore's man in truth. The post CoS meme of making Harry a descendent of Slytherin in some way, though, is pretty much ruled out, as are inheriting massive Potter or Black vaults with goodies from any or all of the other Founders.
Didn't the Sorting Hat say it was Godric's at one point, too? And yet Albus says that the sword is the only known item of his.
Overall: Meh. I've read better fanfic.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Kokuten]

---

Overall: Meh. I've read better fanfic.

---

God help me, I cruised by my roomate's workstation, I read some HbP on his monitor, and I says to him, I says "Dave, that looks like some pretty good fanfic there"
And he says to me, "Well, yeah, it's the first 30 chapters of the new HP book"
*sigh*Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[jpub]

I find it highly disturbing that I find Rowling's work and HBP in particular to be somewhat inferior to a large quantity of the HP fanfiction out there.
TO be brutally honest, Rowling's not that great a writer. It's clear her muse started to flag sometime around GoF.
--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel

[Bob Schroeck]

It's also that the collective creative ability of X-thousand HP fans by simple math has to outweigh that of a single British housewife, even when averaged across the total. Too many of the possibilities that she choses not to explore are just as intriguing and no few are more so.

-- Bob
---------
It's a "magical" land. I think "magical" is ancient Greek for "pain in the butt". -- Bun-Bun, Sluggy Freelance, 11/9/03

[Angryoptimist]

I'm not sure it's that, she just isn't a very good writer.
My favorite example:
From Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 2

---

Privet Drive looked exactly as a respectable suburban street would be expected to look in the early hours of Saturday morning. All the curtains were closed. As far as Harry could see through the darkness, there wasn't a living creature in sight, not even a cat. [emphasis mine, of course]

---

This, one must admit, is pretty not-good. What is that even supposed to mean, not even a cat? Is that some sort of crack against cats or something?
I didn't get too many chapters after that second one; I really tried but, contrary to my hopes, it just refused get good enough, quickly enough for my tastes and I went back to re-reading Callahan's Key. The things like that were just too distracting; it certainly wasn't as bad as, say, the Worlds of Power novelization of Castlevania ("'I will drink your spirit like cherry pop!' said the count, flapping his cape and showing his fangs.") but it continually put me in mind of it and that was Not Helping. Just couldn't read it.
So, before this gets too much longer: She's no [awesome author here].
(A friend and I turned "not even a cat" into a sort of break trigger and now use it periodically.
PROTIP: I find that the best reaction is achieved if one says it as though it was in tags and all caps and one is attempting to enunciate the formatting)-----------------
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- Chris Knight, Real Genius

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[Custos Sophiae]

... not even a cat. What is that even supposed to mean, not even a cat? Is that some sort of crack against cats or something?
Cats can be found where no other living creature will venture? It doesn't matter whether you're half way up Everest, or in the middle of the Gobi desert, if you pour some cream into a saucer then within five minutes there will be three cats at your feet, demanding a second helping.
That's not true, of course, but it might feel true, sometimes.
However, mice are a better known standard of ubiquity (all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a ...) and there are better ways to describe the surface banality of Privet Drive.

[Disruptor]

She's starting to suffer from Jordanitis(Robert Jordan) and becoming too wordy.
Harry Potter is a good series to start children reading, but it is not put together as well as Pelludicar, Myth-series(Ahhz and Skeeve). Harpercraft Hall trilogy, or Skylark.
I'm getting more enjoyment out of the translated and spartan Slayers novels than I have from the Harry Potter books.
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor

[ECSNorway]

Translated Slayers novels? Where?--
"Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of General Zod has been approved."
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Disruptor]

Go to Amazon and type "Slayers Text Hajime Kanzaka" into the search engine.
The first five have been translated. The sixth is due out in a few months. I really hope they bring out the remaining nine in that paticular series. Afterwards, they can go after Special, Delicous, and the short stories.
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor

[Duane Peters]

"...not even a cat."
In the first scene set on Privet Drive in the "Sorceror's Stone", Professor McGonnagal is watching the goings-on in Little Whinging in her Animagus cat-form.

[WengFook]

Heheh, yeah I was thinking of exactly that same bit when I read that line...
*small eeeentsy bitsy spoiler about the book*

just curious but did anybody else go nuts because that JKR didn't explain dumbledore's hand? she kept noticing that dumbledore has a shriveled hand but didn't elaborate on it at all? >_<
_____________________________
HK-47: "Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds"
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[VladimirTherin]

Uhm. about the hand...
It's because of the ring, that he had evidently tried to use ( misuse?) in some way.

[classicdrogn]

He outright says that a hand for 1/7th of Voldie's life force seems a fair trade near the end there. I figured it was backlash from the act of breaking the stone.
I'd like to note that the apparent contention that souls are NOT infinite is one of the thngs I dislike about the book, as well... and there's some dodgy math involved too. If creating a horcrux rips one's finite soul in half, then after making six Voldielocks is down to 1/64th of a soul, and fully half of it was disposed of with the diary. If only a fragment is torn off, each one could be 1% or less, not an even seventh.
The finite/infinite souls thing may sound a bit hypocritical coming from me, when I have written an assasin buma as havng 'less soul than an animal' and hence being utterly rigid in following its programming, without sembalnce of a conscience, and not worth angsting over killing, but that is more properly referring to the type, or strength, or soul involved - somehow cutting off a piece would give you two souls, equal in all ways to the original once they stabilised again and connected to the same fate like two cherries. CF Kami Piccolo/Piccolo Dai Ma Oh. The guilt or lack thereof over killing, well, that's for the character in question to decide.
As for spoilers... I don't think anyone who wants to avoid being spoiled is going to be reading a thread with this title, and if they are they should have known better.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[WengFook]

---

I'd like to note that the apparent contention that souls are NOT infinite is one of the thngs I dislike about the book, as well... and there's some dodgy math involved too. If creating a horcrux rips one's finite soul in half, then after making six Voldielocks is down to 1/64th of a soul, and fully half of it was disposed of with the diary. If only a fragment is torn off, each one could be 1% or less, not an even seventh.

---

I can't quite remember... that bit about Dumbledore using the ring.. about all I recall is that he managed to destroy it as a horcrux... maybe I shouldn't have rushed to finish the book..
as for the splitting the soul... is there any text which says he did it over a period of time or did he do them all at once?
mmmm on second thoguht maybe i'll just read through the book again. I must have read it to fast. _____________________________
HK-47: "Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds"
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[classicdrogn]

It was done over a considerable period of time, yes. Dumbledore's supposition was that he'd intended to make the final one the night he attacked the Potters, with the murder of the one he'd decided was prphesied to destroy him. Too bad for him, it didn't quite go as planned. My own theory is that the soul damage from murder didn't heal while he was bodiless, and Peter's silver hand is the final horcrux, but as mystery stories generally just annoy me, I ignore most of those aspects and hence my guess is merely that.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Star Ranger4]

Doubt it CD.
1) we see Moldiemort conjor that hand at the end of 4. all other factors being considered; he wouldnt have had the time/power to turn it into a horocrux first
2) even if he had, he'd be a FOOL to place such a powerfull object in the hands of a rat like Pettigrew, even if said rat didnt even know what it really was.
3) its rather hinted at by D that Nagani is the final horocrux, but an emergency one used after things went wrong at the potters."I was an Otaku before those kids came along and changed the meaning of the word."
-- HM "Howling Mad" Wilson to more than one team-mate.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children