Finished Harry Potter in the wee hours last night

[40cakes]

Well.

Hunch was wrong about who was gonna die. Keep finding more and more evidence that I don't have a soul, and am planning a trip to Africa to get one. Or maybe I'll just kill a gypsy girl or something. Whatever. But everyone else seems to be really broken up about SB heading to the big dog house in the sky. My reaction can be best summed up by "Oh. Wait, he's dead? Huh. Whatever, what's happening next?"

While I wasn't really big on the plot of this one, I really liked the tone. I like the direction the books are taking, and that as Harry starts to grow up, the books feel like they're aimed at an older audience, too. I certainly laughed more in this one than ever before. But in SS, people were pretty much divided into "good" or "bad" categories. Harry had friends and enemies. The end. That's fine - an 11 year old is only just beginning to grasp abstract concepts and seeing the grey area between black and white.

Here, it changes. Umbridge is evil, but she's not in league with Voldemort. In fact, she's with the government, which until GoF had been portrayed as good guys. And how evil is she, really? Harry Potter et al. should have been expelled by now, and she's the first to follow the rules and not use favoritism. She's a bit misguided. And psychotic. Cornelius Fudge isn't bad because he's possessed by Voldemort or because he's become a Death Eater; power has corrupted him and he became weak and paranoid. Harry finds out he's been wrong to deify his parents - James is an ass to Snape for no good reason. And Dumbledore screws up.

My favourite part of the book? Harry is a teenager.

Until now, I was worried about his Gary Stu-ism. He's always the hero, all the good things happen to him, yada yada yada. Ron and Hermione become prefects. Not Harry. Ron and Ginny win the last Quidditch game after Harry is kicked off the team. He's not as bright as Hermione, and has to work really hard to do homework and study for his O.W.L.s. Stress is getting to him. He throws temper tantrums where he's wrong. He's grown a hero complex ("I was the one who saved the Sorceror's Stone, and beat Riddle in the CoS" etc). He gets jealous over petty things. He gets the girl of his dreams to find out she's God-awful. He messes up, he doesn't save the day, and really, nothing has been solved by the end of OotP that wasn't solved at GoF.

I LOVE it.

That being said, I'm waiting for the series to have a really attractive nemesis for Mr. Potter. Tom Riddle doesn't count, because he turns into big ugly snakeman.

>^..^