Half-Blood Prince... WTF?!

Now I have to wonder if anyone has asked this question now I think that JKR while writing this sh*t was on crack because she killed Hermione Granger the fighter that she was and change into worry little girl who cares about Ron wtf?

Do you know what today is?

Hello. Two things. First, pimpage for my anti-R/Hr community: http://community.livejournal.com/anti_rhr/

You're all welcome to come and join.

Second, to be on topic, a HBP rant.

You know, I think my biggest problem with the book was characterization. While I destested most of the romances and how all of them were written, the characters were what bothered me the most. Almost none of them seemed like themselves. They changed with little or no explaination.

Harry goes from being angsty over Cedric's death to not caring at all about Sirius', someone who mattered a whole lot more to him. Hermione goes from being a somewhat emotional but level headed girl who cares about school, her friends and about the rights of others to someone who only cared about Ron and her feelings for him and completely lost control of her emotions. She went from someone who, though she loved rules, would put her friends first to someone who put rules before everything else. Ron went from someone who was totally aqward with girls to someone who dated a random girl to make another girl jelous. Harry also became good with girls all of a sudden. Ginny went from a girl who had spunk but was nice and who had finally gotten over Harry to someone who was just plain nasty and who really had never gotten over Harry and was not above using others to get what she wanted and who was basically a little brat. Luna and Neville went from interesting, maturing characters, to people who were not there at all and in Neville's case were back to where they were before OOtP.

It felt like all the gains the characters had achieved in GOF and OOtP were lost and they had new, romantic, gains that seemed pointless and out of the blue.

Don't things seem to be just a little too easy in the HP world? Maybe I've been reading too much George Martin, but in the last book there hasn't really been much along the lines of plot tension. It's being taken for granted that the world will roll over backwards for the characters. Take Quidditch for example, hands up who thought that Gryffindor would lose that last game?

*crickets chirp*

No one? No, I didn't either.

Same with when Ron was poisoned, did anyone actually think he was going to die (despite the fact that this would be a great 'Red Wedding'-esq twist)? Not really. Perhaps it's because most of the Wizarding world seems to revolve around Harry. Ron's poisoning was just a way to show that Harry had learnt for the HBP's book, rather than a tragic occurance.

I don't know, but I think the tension in the books is fading, the only real question left is if Harry'll die when fighting Voldemort (who's dead meat anyway). To continue the GRRM comparisons (it's like comparing dust to diamonds, I know), in his books we honestly don't know how things are goign to end, it's entirely possible that the Others (main bad guys) will freeze the world and kill everyone! With JKR... I think there's only one plausable ending.

It reminds me a bit of a RPG game I was playing with some friends, when their characters had gotten so powerful I'd run out of things to throw at them, it was boring, and the tension was gone.

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to inform everyone of a new essay posted at HarmonyForever in those last days, that is quite interesting as it deals with an issue that has been debated a lot in fandom especially after HBP:

Does Ginny's dislike come from your shipping preferences or is there something else?
The Veela Connection - Ginny vs Fleur by Vanceone 

An interesting perspective on Ginny's character. Enjoy!

-- Mirty

x-posted

I wrote this for Fictionalley (can't let those canon whores get too uppity), and just wondered what you thought of it.

The main character I though JKR did a number on, and the reason I no longer write HP fanfiction, is Lord Voldemort.

I've always been a Death Eater fangirl, and while I know perfectly well that Voldemort'll die at the end of the series and wasn't expecting anything nice about him, I was gutted at the way JKR portrayed him in HBP. For all her words on how 'nobody is born evil', she appears to have forgotten them where Tom Riddle is concerned. From a young age he was traumatising children, hanging bunnies, etc. Nowhere was it shown that he ever had a choice in becoming what he did, that he conscously decided to become a Dark Lord. It all looked pre-destained, which ruins the 'choice vs ability/destiny' message of the books.

An argument can be made that Tom Riddle was a sociopath, but again, this derails the message, and anyway, how can a sociopath be evil when they can't comprehend the concept? In that situation, Voldemort is mad, not evil, and I'd like to see how someone like Lucius Malfoy would think of following someone more than a few sticks short of the full bundle.
And if that's the case, then the blame of what Tom Riddle became falls squarely on Dumbledore's shoulders. You might not be able to change a sociopath, but by the gods you can give them help, not throw them into a completely new world and teach them deadly powers and expect them to change immediatly. Give the pyromaniac the matches, why don't you?
And if the blame is Dumbledore's then why doesn't he behave like it is? The man's good at seeing his flaws, and this is much bigger than just 'caring too much'! Shouldn't be be somewhat ashamed at what he had allowed to happen? But no, instead we hear him blaming Tom Riddle for what he became, when we do not have one shread of evidence that he ever had a choice in the matter.

So yeah, JKR really dropped the ball with that one, and I for one will comtinue calling the Dark Lord: Voldemort Salamair Slytherin and looking up to Nemesis for writing a fic that beat JKR's flashbacks into the floorboards.

*gets down off soapbox*

Show the LiveJournal world what's wrong with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! Sign up, take a chapter (or several) from the book, and SPORK THE HELL OUT OF IT!

@ hbpspork

Sporkings will be posted around April 18th (after sporkhbpmovie has finished sporking GoF). There isn't much time! Yet there are eleven unclaimed chapters, and we can't let the canon rape in these get by!

Even if you don't decide to join in, you can follow the community and read the sporks once they've been posted. Roll in the snark! Just follow the rules, please. They're in the User Info.

Have fun. :)

This is hilarious.

I am in total, total agreement.

A piss-take of truely biblical propotions.

Yeah, I'm a fanficcer, but I've signed off the HP fandom after HBP, I tried to keep writing, but it was just too dreadful and my muses are still on indefinate strike, so that was the end of that.

I was not a H/Hr shipper, I do not ship, and if I read any pairing it's almost always slash, so I wasn't expecting anything in book 6. So that's shot down one potential argument.

Anyway, her's my very concise rant, I wrote it just after having finished HBP. By the last page, I was crying, and not because Dumbledore had died (after how he treated Tom Riddle, I was cheering).

Very glad to have found this community, now I can vent to my heart's delight.

Anyone else want to find JKR and inform her that not everyone finds her book the best thing since sliced bread?

( A journalistic take on HBP )

Hello!

I haven't posted here, but I was going to comment on a recent entry that asked if there was anything JKR could do to redeem her writing in Book 7. Most comments were along the lines of "No way, her writing has gone down the privy", that I felt like a minority of one ;D in thinking that the whole purpose of HBP is to be subverted in the next book.

Of course I'm not completely sure, and I admit part of my motivation is so that I don't waste two years of fandom being disillusioned and dreading Book 7, but I don't think it's that far out there. Anyway, since I've made quite a few posts here and there on the subject, my comment turned into an essay:

The Point of HBP

Thought some of the members here might be interested.

subolescoA new Post-Hogwarts Roleplay.
 Players needed!

I have a question for my fellows in being-disappointed-by-HBP.

What, if anything, could JKR do in book seven to redeem herself?

I think the ships are in a rather insoluble situation. Even if Harry does get with Luna in book 7, the HG in six will still be just baad. But I'm hoping Snape will be proved to have not been evil all along. Because if he was, I may well chuck the books in the fire.

I've decided to join here, because, although there were things I liked about HBP (it was a JKR, after all) overall much about the book left me shaking my head, hitting my forehead with my palm, or, at one point, wanting to throw the book across the room.

That would have been when Harry kissed Ginny. I just sort of set the book down in despair and exasperation. I'm sorry Jo, but what the heck was that supposed to be? I hope for your sake not a convincingly written romance. So many of the H/G related lines were so cheesy they made my eyes water. The thing about Harry's insides doing the hokey-pokey, or whatever it was, was just plain bewildering, and all the stomach swooping and angry monsters in Harry's chest were painful to read.

Yes, I am a Harry/Luna shipper. But seriously, can H/G shippers really claim to enjoy this stuff? Is their delirium at winning the shipping war clouding their better judgement or something?

Other things made me mad, like how Ginny still doesn't seem like a convincing character after all this time, and Jo is pouring positive attributes and power on her to make up for her inherent dullness. Snape's betrayal bothered me, and I hope Jo isn't going to make him evil, but part of me, the part that read the H/G scenes in HBP, fears she might.

*Sigh*

Ok, I decided to post my short essay about Love Potions. I will be glad if you read and say something.

( I'll pretend like this cut is real. )

( Short Ginny rant ahead )

I wonder how people would have reacted if Dean Thomas has used Hermione similar to the Ron used Lavender before realizing that Susan Bones is the person he really cared about. And, afterwards, Hermione shrugged it off and Dean was painted as more mature for using Hermione for his right of passage?

No one would believe it. No one. It’s true that Lavender gave him stupid gifts for Christmas, but that doesn’t excuse what Ron did to her. Lavender clearly wanted a relationship with him – she even bugged Harry about it.

( cut for the rant )

Inspired by one of my friends' thoughts about shipping and ship wars, I decided to get to the bottom of JKR's view of romance in HP series. See, prior to the release of HBP, I asked a question in IMDb board. It was titled "A question for H-Hr and R-Hr shippers". And the question was "Has any of you changed your view on which ship will end up canon after reading the opposition's arguments". Needless to say, I was surprised to see that EVERYBODY was 100% sure about their predictions.

( read more )

I've avoided ship wars since the beginning, and not because I'm a wise and mature person, but my favorite ships (the reasonable ones, anyway ... seriously, I know Remus-Snape is a no-no) would never come to be. Though I have to say, I never thought Ron-Hermione or Harry-Ginny was that obvious, I certainly didn't see it coming a mile away.</p>

( read more )

I'm not sure if this was mentioned but I didn't see it and it makes me very happy so I have to share...

One of the songs listed in the GoF soundtrack is called "Harry Potter's Love" and that same music is the music that swells dramatically up when Harry turns around and sees Hermione on the stairs walking down and smiling at him....with that LOOK they exchange....at the Yule Ball.

I know that the music is playing while Harry is watching Cho enter and he comments on how beautiful she looks, but the music actually STARTS with Hermione coming out from the room at the top of the stairs and the dramatic upswing of the music occurs when Harry and Hermione see each other with both of them looking at each other with besotted and very lingering looks...well it's rather delusional. (:wink:)

I'm loving it.