Blog post 3

This is just the latest of many re-reads of the Harry Potter series for me, yet my original thoughts and opinions remain roughly the same now as they did the first time I read the series. The series is no great work of literature, metaphor is not layered subtlety throughout the series, but the series was certainly, and most importantly a good story and enjoyable read, which is what all authors should aim for when writing a book. My biggest quibble with the whole series is that it is obvious to me that (even though Rowling denies it) it is obvious to me that while Rowling had a very limited idea of where the story was going, she had no idea about the sub-plots, side characters or the journey that the story would take. There are far too many continuity errors in the series for the story to have been well thought out before each book was written. The example that is most fresh in my mind is the whole wand lore idea that was created for book 7. Throughout the whole series Harry disarms many witches and wizards and yet the wands never changed allegiance and every one could use their wands fine. In earlier books character use other characters wands without noticing any difference in ability. For each book you can always predict what components are going to be important for the conclusion simply by looking at small details which are suddenly thrust into the books. The Harry Potter series lacks the cohesion of the true epics. It is always easy to tell when a author has the whole story thought out, or if they are simply writing book by book, in this case I think it is the latter.

As far as the characters go, all of the characters pretty much followed the paths I thought they would. Dumbledore was still dead, but continued to influence events (also he was made into a real person that makes mistakes, which I liked). Snape was on the side I thought he was (the circumstances of why were a pleasant surprise however). Harry’s forgiveness of Snape was heart touching. However I did not like the fact that Harry survived. I was really expecting Harry to die, and follow the ultimate sacrifice story line. I really felt like the circumstances at the end of the book were a little childish. The conversation with Dumbledore was intended to tie up loose ends and everything that wasn’t explained was explained by “we are delving into depths of magic we cannot understand”. Overall impression- fun read, good story, no great work of literature, not an epic on the scale of LOTR, Game of Thrones, the epics of Brandon Sanderson, or Brent Weeks. By far they are not the best books I have read. But I will continue to revisit the series in the years to come.