Friday, January 11, 2008

Truly Juvenile Fiction

The boys have been reading the Harry Potter books and keep asking me questions about details I don’t remember (which would be most of the storyline and characters, actually). So I’ve spent the week re-reading the series, and just finished up Book 6. Can’t wait to finish it up; I want to move on to better reading. Yes, I make no bones about the fact that I don’t like HP; I think they’re entertaining, somewhat creative, and that’s about it. I’m picky about my fantasy and want something more engaging than a bunch of typical teenagers living out typical teenager lives in a world of wizardry, Dark Lord thrown in to give the whole thing some sort of point. Which is…love conquers all? Prejudice is bad? Good always triumphs? Alan Rickman rocks?
BTW, I always knew- from book 1 through book 7- that Snape was a good guy. And if he wasn’t, I was ready to throw in my lot with the Death Eaters, since he was my favorite character and I wanted to be on whatever side he was on.
Other Characters I Like:

Hermione and the Whole Weasley Crew
Professor McGonagell
Luna and Neville
Tonks & Lupin
Mad-Eye Moody
Shacklebolt
Peeves and Nearly-headless Nick
Grawp
Aragog


Main Characters I Detest:

Harry Potter (I’m sorry, I just never sympathized, etc.)
Sirius
Hagrid
Dumbledore

Characters who are too flat to feel anything about:

Filch
Voldemort
The Malfoy Clan
Crabbe and Goyle
The Dursleys

1 comment:

On a fools hope said...

I loved the books but I agree they were flat in many areas and I felt like Rowling tried to buy time by making Harry's character really whiny and "misunderstood". For being a "great" wizard he didn't really do anything great until te very end. Maybe it was more about his potential? One patronis charm isn't proof enough for me.
I am also with you about Snape. He is my favorite character and I knew he was good as well. He played a good villian though and I would have loved him even if he had turned out bad. The only reason sirius was fun was that he was played by Gary Oldman in the movie. I like me some Gary.

Ok I need to get motivated to school, I have been very unmotivated lately.