(no subject)

[a_t_rain]

-- Pretty much everything about the Black family, from Bellatrix being the eldest (though I still think JKR's math is off, as usual), to all of them being Slytherins (I had Regulus pegged as a Gryffindor and Andromeda as a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff), to Tonks' natural hair color.

-- Amelia Bones' death. I was expecting her to be the new Minister. Too bad. She was cool :(

-- I'd been expecting Dumbledore's death, but not until Book Seven. (Well, until a couple of days before the book release, when I stumbled across a spoiler post to the effect that the fandom had been predicting the death for months. That pretty much gave the game away.)

-- The deaths I did have pegged for Book Six were Penelope Clearwater and Peter Pettigrew. No mention of Penelope, and barely a cameo from Peter. (Waiting for the other shoe to drop. That life-debt has to play somehow.)

-- I didn't expect Snape to get the DADA job until Book Seven, nor to survive his tenure.

-- Percy never really reconciled with his family. Such a shame.

-- I didn't expect much character development for Draco, but did have high hopes for Theodore Nott (who barely registers on Harry's radar, and when he does, he's sniggering at Draco's jokes). I'm glad that we get a somewhat less one-note view of Slytherin, with the introduction of Horace Slughorn and the revelation that Regulus seems to have acted out of principle rather than cowardice, but I was hoping at least one of the current generation would break ranks.

-- I thought the DE who had "left Voldemort's service forever" was Karkaroff, not Snape. (Still not 100% convinced I was wrong -- Karkaroff was the one killed, after all.)

-- I was convinced that the first chapter would be a flashback to Godric's Hollow, Halloween '81. I would NEVER in a million years have expected it to be from the Muggle Prime Minister's PoV.

-- I was expecting major backstory on the Founders, and thought the HBP would turn out to be either Godric or Salazar. (Actually pleased to be wrong about this, as it means my femgenficathon plot bunny is good to go.)

-- Probably wishful thinking on my part, but I was really hoping to see more Harry-Remus interaction and MWPP backstory. (Loved the "furry little problem" bit, though.)

-- Apparently, werewolves aren't required by law to take Wolfsbane. It sounds like Remus doesn't even have access to it now that he's no longer at Hogwarts. Huh, you'd think St. Mungo's would have something set up, or somebody in the Order could brew it.

-- No journeys to the Underworld, and indeed, almost no wider ripples from Sirius' death. From stuff that JKR has said in interviews, I think there must be more to come in the next book.

-- I didn't think we'd see BOTH Harry / Ginny and Ron / Hermione, especially in the same book. Still deciding how I feel about this -- I'm fine with either of these ships, but everybody neatly pairing off seems a shade too pat.

-- The ending. I was completely thrown by everything about it.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Tell me if I've got this wrong, but ... Harry's been taught by Snape for five years up to HBP. So you would have thought he would be familiar with Snape's handwriting. Yet neither Harry nor the others recognise the handwriting in the Advanced Potions book. Presumably Snape would have been using it when he was 16 too, and by that age people's handwriting is pretty well fixed. And the writing is small, neat, and precise - in other words not immature. So why does Harry et al recognise the writing as Snape's?

Easleywealey

[maple-clef.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not sure that Snape was ever the sort of teacher to offer much constructive criticism. I have the feeling the most of his handwriting they'd have seen was the grade they'd received...

[(Anonymous)]

But in an earlier book [?PoA?], there something along the lines of Snape saying: "The instructions for this potions are up on the board ..."

It's difficult in five years to get away with writing nothing on the board. Unless the chalk was charmed to write by itself - but would it write in the person's onw handwriting.

And he has to do some marking. In fact, in GoF Harry gets an essay back marked 'T'.

Easleyweasley

[maple-clef.livejournal.com]

It's difficult in five years to get away with writing nothing on the board

Very true... I suppose we could put it down to Harry's lack of enthusiasm for Snape's lesson, in general! But granted, I'd have thought that Hermione at least might have picked up on it.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Well, my "blackboard" handwriting looks nothing like my normal writing, and I'd imagine all the Hogwarts professors have automatic-homework-marking quills, with 280 students' worth of essays to work through. So I don't find it too unbelievable, all things considered.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

I actually thought of Snape when the writer was really good at Potions and had small, crabbed/cramped handwriting. And then I forgot. :)

[hannahmarder.livejournal.com]

In OotP, it is described as 'spikey' (on his 'dreadful' essay) and there are references to comments he has written on Harry's work. So Harry would have been familiar with the writing. Perhaps Harry just doesn't make the connection. He can be very unobservant, and he has a tendancy to refuse to see things that he doesn't want to.

[dizzy-chisel.livejournal.com]

My mid-thirties handwriting has totally changed several times. A handwriting expert could see how it developed from my teenager handwriting, but I doubt my students (lower secondary school) could infer from my annotations on their test that I ever owned a particular book I added marginal notes to at age 16.

[maple-clef.livejournal.com]

you'd think St. Mungo's would have something set up, or somebody in the Order could brew it

That is odd. I don't see why Snape couldn't have continued to brew it, to be honest, just because Lupin wasn't a member of staff any longer (in fact, he still was on staff, in a way, albeit no longer as a teacher)... I'm equally surprised that, as you say, St. Mungos doesn't have a scheme. No wonder Remus has his work cut out with the disaffected werewolves...

everybody neatly pairing off seems a shade too pat
True enough. It was all a bit out of the blue, after five books of nothing but subtext! Of course, it has a lot to do with the kids maturing, but it did all sort of happen at once. So much shippy goodness to be had, fandom will be weeping for months!

[riibu.livejournal.com]

Pretty much everything about the Black family, from Bellatrix being the eldest

Ah, but what if they don't count Andromeda because she was cut from the family tree? I know it's a lame excuse, because Sirius himself was cut from the same family tree... but I'm not pleased with the idea of Andromeda the teen mom. ;)

What a book!

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like that thought. It's probably not what JKR intended, but it works for me.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

I am such a pathetic romantic. The shippiness was a major happypoint with me. OMG R/T ISSO CANON!!!

I was wondering how she'd handle H/G (if she were to), and I think she did it really, really well.

And you know what? Contrary to the expectations of many ficwriters, Harry (I am thankful) did not start off the book lying on his bed thinking of Sirius and Angst and Sadness. YES!

[crazysexy-cool.livejournal.com]

I was hoping to see more Remus, too; I think JKR has a way of letting characters fade away after she introduces them, i.e., the very limited roles Neville and Luna had in HBP (after we saw so much of them in OotP) and that Remus has been hardly in the books since PoA.

Snape really surprised me, and I'm not sure of what to think of him at the moment; I definitely find him more interesting than I did before.

And I hope to hell that RAB is Regulus.

[sprite6.livejournal.com]

-- I was convinced that the first chapter would be a flashback to Godric's Hollow, Halloween '81. I would NEVER in a million years have expected it to be from the Muggle Prime Minister's PoV.

I know! I got a real kick out of this chapter. The PM's observations about Fudge's harassed look and his irritation about being treated as an ignorant school were pretty amusing, and it was good to know Kingsley was outside the PM's office. I hadn't thought about the risks for the Muggle gov't with Voldemort back.

[snorkackcatcher]

The deaths I did have pegged for Book Six were Penelope Clearwater and Peter Pettigrew. No mention of Penelope, and barely a cameo from Peter. (Waiting for the other shoe to drop. That life-debt has to play somehow.)

I suspect that Penelope will never appear again now (though I thought all the Borgin and Burkes stuff wouldn't come into play again either ...). JKR does seem to drop or seriously downgrade secondary characters after they've played their main role in the overall story arc though, doesn't she? - Remus being the most obvious example, and Luna, Cho, Fudge, Umbridge etc in this book.

I've never been convinced that the "life debt" was more than a feeling of magically enhanced obligation, you know? Although many people seem to think of it as more akin to the Unbreakable Vow. Hopefully the people from Mugglenet/TLC will have asked about that in the interview.

No journeys to the Underworld, and indeed, almost no wider ripples from Sirius' death. From stuff that JKR has said in interviews, I think there must be more to come in the next book.

Wasn't expecting a journey to the Underworld, so that bit didn't surprise me (I don't know if anyone guessed what that back cover with the boat really was). Was the "interview stuff" the comment about "you'll understand why I had to kill him off"? I sort of got the idea that the bit at the end of HBP about having lost all his parent-figures one by one was probably what she had in mind?

The ending. I was completely thrown by everything about it.

Likewise. Incidentally, was it just me who thought that Harry, when planning to set off on his own, not return to school if it's open, and not tell even the Order what he's up to, is being really, really dumb? (Well, I suppose he's being Harry, but ...) After all, he's no idea where to go to look for Horcruxes, and although he's good in a fight, Snape pretty much kicked his arse by using Legilimency(?), so he's not in great shape to fight Voldemort unless he can get that brother wands thing working again.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I've never been convinced that the "life debt" was more than a feeling of magically enhanced obligation, you know?

That may well be the case, but it doesn't change the fact that JKR made a point of mentioning it, and had Dumbledore tell Harry that he may be glad that he saved Pettigrew's life in the future. So I'm expecting it to play somehow.

... was it just me who thought that Harry, when planning to set off on his own, not return to school if it's open, and not tell even the Order what he's up to, is being really, really dumb?

It's not just you. I hope McGonagall, or Lupin, or somebody, will give Harry a good telling-off about that, and I'm sure he'll end up back at Hogwarts one way or another.

[dizzy-chisel.livejournal.com]

It's not just you. I hope McGonagall, or Lupin, or somebody, will give Harry a good telling-off about that, and I'm sure he'll end up back at Hogwarts one way or another.

I'm not sure about that -- JKR could go for the "great solitary hero" quest in the end. His friends will be there some way or other, I think. (I'm getting LotR flashbacks.)

On the other hand, he needs to learn more magic, and hasn't a snowball's chance in hell to track down the missing four Horocruxes all alone.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

It's not just you. I hope McGonagall, or Lupin, or somebody, will give Harry a good telling-off about that, and I'm sure he'll end up back at Hogwarts one way or another.

I certainly hope so. Though Dizzy Chisel has a point too, about Harry being Destined to be a Lone Hero.

I also wonder how Hermione will react if forced once and for all to make the choice between abandoning the Hero and being a high-school dropout... And let's face it, if he's seriously considering going it alone in Book 7, he's going to need Hermione's knowledge like he's never done before.

[catkind.livejournal.com]

I'd find it very strange if Harry turns into a Lone Hero at this late stage. Up to now everything he's achieved has been due to his friends' help. Even when he's left alone - the CoS, the Graveyard, the Triwizard tournament itself - it's other people's help that saves him. And isn't that the main advantage he has over LV - that he works with his followers and doesn't just use them as minions?

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- up until HBP, my take on the entire series was that it was very cleverly subverting the Lone Hero paradigm, and that was part of its appeal. I'm still not entirely convinced I was wrong, but some of the elements in this latest book do give me pause.

[dizzy-chisel.livejournal.com]

Wasn't expecting a journey to the Underworld, so that bit didn't surprise me (I don't know if anyone guessed what that back cover with the boat really was).

No, but in a weird way it made us all expect a major Pensive scene, and boy, did we get rewarded.

Was the "interview stuff" the comment about "you'll understand why I had to kill him off"? I sort of got the idea that the bit at the end of HBP about having lost all his parent-figures one by one was probably what she had in mind?

I can't help thinking that Harry has now TWO major parent figures in the realm beyond the veil.

[hannahmarder.livejournal.com]

You're not alone in getting stuff wrong - I thought the same as you about a lot of the things on your list, and was likewise proved wrong. I just hope that words don't contain too many calories, the number I've had to eat over the past two days.

From stuff that JKR has said in interviews, I think there must be more to come in the next book.
I'm starting to wonder a bit about JKR's interviews. I mean, a few things she's said just aren't true. I don't think it's that she's lying (maybe being a little misleading at times) but I do think sometimes she changes things a later date, edits bits out, or answers questions hastily without really thinking. We know that from the Colin's camera answer on her website.

I'm not criticising her, she's a busy woman and I wouldn't like answering too many questions about later chapters of my fics before I've written them. But I'm going to stop taking every word she says in interviews as absolute fact, particularly when it's concerning who/ what will be revealed in certain books (even though there's only one left now).

Sometimes it's a case of interpreting it wrongly. I always took her 'parts of the HBP storyline could have been in COS' statements to refer to the identity of the HBP, as I think did many fans, whereas now I think she meant the Riddle backstory.

I'm going to take more care with what she says in interviews from now on. Though saying that, I keep checking the interviews website feverishly in case there's a transcript of another one appeared. And no doubt I'll be hanging on every word when one does. I just never learn :-)

[yma2.livejournal.com]

Still, I thought it was a really good book. It is a shame about Percy, I hope we see some reconcilliation from him at the end. On the other hand I did love Draco's character development, and Horacde Slughorn was good. I think this, pluss the fact I don't recon Snape is still evil, AND the possibility of Reguls being good means the'll be some good Slytherins to come, I think. And you have to admit, even though Remus wasn't in it much, when he was in it hwe had some top notch stuff. I LOVED his reaction to Dumbledore's death.