First Thoughts on HBP!
Jul. 16th, 2005 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snorkackcatcherWow. Bloody. Hell.
Marginally more articulate and SPOILER LADEN random first impressions below the cut - not neessarily that much more articulate though as they come after a sleepless night.
Brief notes on the actual getting of the book: I'd estimate there were maybe 150 people there in Torquay to get the book at midnight. Most of them seemed to be adults (18+), although as far as I could see only the bookshop staff were actually dressing up!
HBP Quote guaranteed not to reveal anything you hadn't already guessed:
'Where did you get this, anyway?'
'The library,' said Hermione, predictably.
JKR? I think I love that woman. Or hate her. One or t'other. :)
Because right from Chapter One she knocked down loads of favourite theories, including practically all of mine. I'd been hoping for something like that, but hey, she didn't disappoint. Did anyone envisage a first chapter like that? After hearing of Amelia Bones being murdered, Scrimgeour being the nw Minister, and Spinner's End being Snape's house, I just abandoned thoughts of predictions and sat back to enjoy the ride.
Not to say that there wasn't a certain amount of disjointedness about the book. It sounds odd to say about a 600-page book, but a lot of the time it felt shorter than it had to be - in OotP things developed slowly and new developments were introduced with leisurely writing - here they seemed to come thick and fast, in a sparser style than before. Most of the minor characters we really wanted to know more about got very little screentime - there was very little Remus, Percy, Luna, Tonks, bella, or Narcissa, and not even too much from most of the Weasleys. And the mian Dumbledore-Harry plot was such that it seemed to crowd out a lot of the other developments that we all wanted to see get more exposition (such as mourning for Sirius - treated very briefly - or the inheritance of 12GP). Or maybe that's just that we didn't get the leisurely development due to the tenseness of the war situation? Still, I reckon the book could really have done with being as long as OotP to fit more of this in and to elaborate the scenes a bit.
Interesting to see the continuing development in tone. I have to applaud JKR on this one - the tone seems to be changing as Harry gets older to match his age - PS/SS really was a children's book, the current one was dark from the start. I like that. And I approve of the way lots of people got killed off or vanished - it being a war and all. Although I expect one or two of the vanished to pop up again - Ollivander, for example (hope he isn't making Voldemort a new non-Fawkes-core wand).
Snape both the HBP and prophecy hearer? Damn, I really didn't expect either of those. JKR's comment about the HBP storyline not really fitting in CoS now makes perfect sense. What's the recipe for humble pie again?
No Voldy! Well, except as a memory. Not even a vision. Wasn't expecting that either. No Sirius either!
It was good to see JKR's comment about this being a time for answers really being followed through. The Horcruxes idea ties together a lot of the plot strands from previous books. The Gaunt backstory seemed a bit cliched and overdone at first read though. Good explanation though about prophecies and why Harry is special. Indeed, a number of things came into play here that had seemed like throwaway scenes before - Borgin and Burkes, for example. Props to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lazy_neutrino for the Glass Mountain type idea and to hannahmarder for the idea that Lily might be a Potions whiz.
Dumbledore was still being annoyingly cryptic a lot of the time, and Harry was still not asking as many questions as he should have been. Lots of unanswered questions left. ::grumble::
Was it just me, or was anybody else completely gobsmacked by the amount of shipping-related stuff in this book? From being a minor subplot before, suddenly it started reading like ... well, Year 6 fanfics actually, from Draco with his head in Pansy's lap to the Ron/Hermione shenanigans and Harry/Ginny actually happening now and then splitting up. And the diversions with Lavender and Luna and whoever it was brewing the love potions - hmm, a lighter version of the "who is she going to kill off?" in OotP. That woman is a teaae - in a good way, but a definite tease. :)
Oh yeah. Remus/Tonks - YES!!!! I was totally wrong to say that wouldn't happen, and very glad to be so!
We got the Draco development a lot of people had been hoping for - I'm sure Conflicted!Trilogy!Draco fans will like it especially. Some might say that this didn't fit with his personality, but I think it's pretty consistent - he's never been as cowardly or as talentless as he's occasionally been criticised for, and here he really becomes more than just an annoyance. Good idea. And the one prediction I got right - Draco's Detour was indeed the Trio following him and seeing him involved in an Evil Plot.
Crabbe and Goyle polyjuiced as girls. ::snort::
Snape. Oh damn. I had hoped that he wasn't really dark - there's still a chance that he confided all in Dumbledore, and that Dumbledore was pleading for him to kill him rather than forcing Draco to do it, knowing about the Unbreakable Vow. I didn't expect him to be DADA teacher either, or to leave at the end. Wow. That final fight scene was definitely confusing.
Interesting werewolf developments, eh?
A lot of things rang bells from fanfic. Maybe I've just read too much of the stuff?
One good thing from my point of view - with minor resolvable problems, NTLJ and indeed my other fics actually survived without going wildly AU. I even lucked out on Ted and Andromeda, on the grounds that they didn't even appear. But Bella is the oldest sister? JKR really didn't do the math, did she? Still, I can now go back to my original idea for that. Did I mention that I love JKR? :)
Scrimgeour I'm annoyed about, because when I reread the OotP mention of him closely, long after I'd used the name, he did sound more like the Autor Head than what I made him, making me wish I'd written him as "Claymore" (in which case I'd have come fairly close to how he appears here). If I do a HBP-compliant revision I might just switch the names of Scrimgeour and claymore and leave it at that.
Right, running out of energy here. One last totally unexpected, almost fanficcy bit: Harry planning at the end to not come back to Hogwarts, and Ron and Hermione planning to join him. Wow. JKR continues to pull out many unexpected developments (unexpected to me, anyway). I like that!
Whew. :)
Marginally more articulate and SPOILER LADEN random first impressions below the cut - not neessarily that much more articulate though as they come after a sleepless night.
Brief notes on the actual getting of the book: I'd estimate there were maybe 150 people there in Torquay to get the book at midnight. Most of them seemed to be adults (18+), although as far as I could see only the bookshop staff were actually dressing up!
HBP Quote guaranteed not to reveal anything you hadn't already guessed:
'Where did you get this, anyway?'
'The library,' said Hermione, predictably.
JKR? I think I love that woman. Or hate her. One or t'other. :)
Because right from Chapter One she knocked down loads of favourite theories, including practically all of mine. I'd been hoping for something like that, but hey, she didn't disappoint. Did anyone envisage a first chapter like that? After hearing of Amelia Bones being murdered, Scrimgeour being the nw Minister, and Spinner's End being Snape's house, I just abandoned thoughts of predictions and sat back to enjoy the ride.
Not to say that there wasn't a certain amount of disjointedness about the book. It sounds odd to say about a 600-page book, but a lot of the time it felt shorter than it had to be - in OotP things developed slowly and new developments were introduced with leisurely writing - here they seemed to come thick and fast, in a sparser style than before. Most of the minor characters we really wanted to know more about got very little screentime - there was very little Remus, Percy, Luna, Tonks, bella, or Narcissa, and not even too much from most of the Weasleys. And the mian Dumbledore-Harry plot was such that it seemed to crowd out a lot of the other developments that we all wanted to see get more exposition (such as mourning for Sirius - treated very briefly - or the inheritance of 12GP). Or maybe that's just that we didn't get the leisurely development due to the tenseness of the war situation? Still, I reckon the book could really have done with being as long as OotP to fit more of this in and to elaborate the scenes a bit.
Interesting to see the continuing development in tone. I have to applaud JKR on this one - the tone seems to be changing as Harry gets older to match his age - PS/SS really was a children's book, the current one was dark from the start. I like that. And I approve of the way lots of people got killed off or vanished - it being a war and all. Although I expect one or two of the vanished to pop up again - Ollivander, for example (hope he isn't making Voldemort a new non-Fawkes-core wand).
Snape both the HBP and prophecy hearer? Damn, I really didn't expect either of those. JKR's comment about the HBP storyline not really fitting in CoS now makes perfect sense. What's the recipe for humble pie again?
No Voldy! Well, except as a memory. Not even a vision. Wasn't expecting that either. No Sirius either!
It was good to see JKR's comment about this being a time for answers really being followed through. The Horcruxes idea ties together a lot of the plot strands from previous books. The Gaunt backstory seemed a bit cliched and overdone at first read though. Good explanation though about prophecies and why Harry is special. Indeed, a number of things came into play here that had seemed like throwaway scenes before - Borgin and Burkes, for example. Props to
lazy_neutrino for the Glass Mountain type idea and to hannahmarder for the idea that Lily might be a Potions whiz.Dumbledore was still being annoyingly cryptic a lot of the time, and Harry was still not asking as many questions as he should have been. Lots of unanswered questions left. ::grumble::
Was it just me, or was anybody else completely gobsmacked by the amount of shipping-related stuff in this book? From being a minor subplot before, suddenly it started reading like ... well, Year 6 fanfics actually, from Draco with his head in Pansy's lap to the Ron/Hermione shenanigans and Harry/Ginny actually happening now and then splitting up. And the diversions with Lavender and Luna and whoever it was brewing the love potions - hmm, a lighter version of the "who is she going to kill off?" in OotP. That woman is a teaae - in a good way, but a definite tease. :)
Oh yeah. Remus/Tonks - YES!!!! I was totally wrong to say that wouldn't happen, and very glad to be so!
We got the Draco development a lot of people had been hoping for - I'm sure Conflicted!Trilogy!Draco fans will like it especially. Some might say that this didn't fit with his personality, but I think it's pretty consistent - he's never been as cowardly or as talentless as he's occasionally been criticised for, and here he really becomes more than just an annoyance. Good idea. And the one prediction I got right - Draco's Detour was indeed the Trio following him and seeing him involved in an Evil Plot.
Crabbe and Goyle polyjuiced as girls. ::snort::
Snape. Oh damn. I had hoped that he wasn't really dark - there's still a chance that he confided all in Dumbledore, and that Dumbledore was pleading for him to kill him rather than forcing Draco to do it, knowing about the Unbreakable Vow. I didn't expect him to be DADA teacher either, or to leave at the end. Wow. That final fight scene was definitely confusing.
Interesting werewolf developments, eh?
A lot of things rang bells from fanfic. Maybe I've just read too much of the stuff?
One good thing from my point of view - with minor resolvable problems, NTLJ and indeed my other fics actually survived without going wildly AU. I even lucked out on Ted and Andromeda, on the grounds that they didn't even appear. But Bella is the oldest sister? JKR really didn't do the math, did she? Still, I can now go back to my original idea for that. Did I mention that I love JKR? :)
Scrimgeour I'm annoyed about, because when I reread the OotP mention of him closely, long after I'd used the name, he did sound more like the Autor Head than what I made him, making me wish I'd written him as "Claymore" (in which case I'd have come fairly close to how he appears here). If I do a HBP-compliant revision I might just switch the names of Scrimgeour and claymore and leave it at that.
Right, running out of energy here. One last totally unexpected, almost fanficcy bit: Harry planning at the end to not come back to Hogwarts, and Ron and Hermione planning to join him. Wow. JKR continues to pull out many unexpected developments (unexpected to me, anyway). I like that!
Whew. :)
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 02:06 pm (UTC)Well, she's the oldest unless Andromeda is dead. But I guess you'd prefer for her to be the oldest :)
Maybe your Cassius can be a relative of Rufus? There's nothing to say there's only one Scrimgeour in the Ministry.
And I'm inclined to agree about this one feeling a bit rushed -- I'd be just as happy if the book were 200 pages longer and had more character development. Oh well, it seems churlish to complain when she's just given us such a brilliant roller coaster ride...
no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 03:40 pm (UTC)JKR didn't say Andromeda was dead. so I'm defnitely assuming she isn't. :)
Maybe your Cassius can be a relative of Rufus? There's nothing to say there's only one Scrimgeour in the Ministry.
I actually slipped a brief mention that there were other Scrimgeours in the Auror Corps into an earlier chapter of the FA version of NTLJ, in order to allow for a scenario like this, so that's exactly what he'll be. I think I can get away with Dawlish. It's just really annoying that I actually realised Scrimegeour sounded more like what he turned out to be on a reread of OotP (sometime around February), at which point it was way too late to change. My extensive Seer powers foresee Claymore unexpectedly retiring at some point over the next year and a half ...
The perils of not reading carefully, eh? I only just noticed Ron's comment in HBP about Tonks' and Sirius' families not meeting on a second look - I'm going to assume there that he didn't know the details and got that slightly wrong. Actually, Tonks is still worrying me - that changed Patronus and lack of morphing ability seemed really odd, and all the way through I was thinking "Polyjuice" or "Imperius". (And Metamorphmagus abilities still haven't come up, so Metamorphmagus!Harry is looking a bit more possible.) But I'm still not entirely convinced she's OK and that it was all down to, um, mooning over Moony. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 04:59 pm (UTC)Actually, Tonks is still worrying me - that changed Patronus and lack of morphing ability seemed really odd, and all the way through I was thinking "Polyjuice" or "Imperius".
I have a feeling that's what we were supposed to think, and it was a deliberate red herring (slightly less successful if you've got an American edition, since it's clear from Mary GrandPre's drawing at the beginning of Chapter 8 that her new Patronus looks suspiciously lupine).
no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 02:42 pm (UTC)I too felt that we didn't see very much of... well, anyone. It was still a great book, though. But I was surprised by the lack of Remus, the lack of Sirius, the lack of many of the Order members... But I must say, I'm pretty impressed and I think this is one of my favourite HP books. Though there were so many times when I found myself thinking 'ha! like this will happen in canon' before realising that it was canon. Too much fanfic!
And no more Hogwarts - that was a shock. Does she mean it, or will they all be back there after all? So much to discuss... should keep us all going for the next four years or however long it will be!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-16 03:47 pm (UTC)Thanks ... but as I said above, it's not even bad luck, just insufficiently careful reading. Still, I dodged so many potential bullets I can't really complain - either my setup wasn't as bad as all that, or I must have drunk literary Felix Felicis when setting it up. :)
Though there were so many times when I found myself thinking 'ha! like this will happen in canon' before realising that it was canon. Too much fanfic!
You know, that was pretty much exactly what I was thinking at a number of points, especially with the shippy stuff! Glad it wasn't just me.