The end of this series was a bit of a let down for me. Having never read the books I thoroughly enjoyed the first four books, yet found the last three painfully boring- despite whatever interesting secrets were revealed. Order of the Pheonix and The Halfblood Prince were too long for their own good. I can remember reading them and wishing that every time I turned the page it was to the last. The editor could have slashed half the content from each book and combined the two. With all that Rowling skips over, do we really need to know every question and answer on the OWLS or have another lengthy conversation that goes nowhere?
I always liked Snape. I wasn’t one of the diehard fans but I always thought him a practical man who had his own purposes for his actions, just as Harry did. Maybe its because I liked his portrayal in the movies or because Harry wasn’t the type of kid I’d have been friends with. Once it became obvious that Dumbledore was running the show and pulling the strings it was not too far off that Snape was part of his plan, especially after what Harry caught a glimpse of on the astronomy tower. I don’t know how pleasurable of a person Snape really is to be around, but based on his CHOICES he his a good man. He played the role that no one else would take and did his best to limit the damage done by Voldemort from within.
Dumbledore, however…I mean, really? If this were real life I feel that someone like Dumbledore would have just taken care of it on his own as fast as he could for the greater good. Though, as someone said in class, it’d make a much less interesting series- and shorter. I really feel that the loss that occurred in this series is a direct result of Dumbledore sitting, waiting, and playing games rather than taking action- even if it was just acting on hunches. I really wish, though, that Rowling had used all those pages for Dumbledores horcrux hunts rather than boring stuff about the kids at Hogwarts. That would’ve been interesting!
My feelings still are the same for the main three. I never really found myself particularly drawn to them. Always to other characters, wanting to know more about these people that had longer, deeper histories and who had made their decisions (both good and bad); Like Snape, Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin, Mr Malfoy. the Peveralls. I feel the series would have been 100x better if the story stayed in the same universe but concentrated on what happened in the time of Dumbledore’s youth through James and Lily’s deaths rather than a bunch of kids running around.
As far as social/cultural context, I feel that it’s too dumbed down (being for children) to be taken too serious. While there are SERIOUS social issues at hand, they’re not really explained or thoroughly addressed. If you’re trying to teach kids lessons about such things you need to be a bit more graphic or up front with your depictions. I think that most of the social/cultural themes we discussed would have gone completely over the heads of most young readers until an adult pointed them out or that child re-read the series as an adult. Again, I feel if this series was written for adults it would have been amazing and these issues would have been properly addressed.
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