Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Harry Potter 6: SPOILERS!!!!!

Just about everything I wanted to say has been said, but this summed it up for me:

As I read the story, I kept looking at the cover to remind myself I wasn't reading something I'd stumbled across on the net.

I was a little surprised Dumbledore was killed, and I'm not sure if Snape is a goody or a baddy. I don't understand the reason for having Harry "carry on by himself." I've read an interview where JKR said it was more interesting for Harry to move forward alone than with Dumbledore as backup. If Harry's "power he knows not" is love, then does it make any sense to kill off everyone he loves? Also, he's not really alone, if Ron and Hermione are there with him. Snape was right when he said Harry has been lucky and surrounded by others more talented. Harry was pretty ineffective in those last chapters.

Anyone else find it strange that so many people in the books, by this age (ie sixteen) are experimenting with new spells, potions, exploring the limits of magic, etc... EXCEPT for Harry?

I was most disappointed in Hermione's character. Seemed a bit off somehow. In previous books, even if she didn't agree with Harry or what he was doing, she would always back him up. She didn't back him in anything in this book. Even about Draco. I found that extreamly odd. Her behavior in other instances was off as well. It was like another person all together.

Ships: Didn't really know what this term meant until a while ago, but I have to say, none of them made any sense to me.

Harry and Ginny? Of course, Ginny has had a thing for Harry for a while, but when has Harry ever seen anything in her? This seemed out of nowhere to me. I understand he's sixteen now, and the whole "raging hormones" thing. It still seemed out of the blue.

Ron and Hermione? They never actually hooked up, but I find the pairing questionable. Again, it's been easy to see that Ron has liked her for awhile now. I just don't see what Hermione would see in him? I took the time to re-read all the previous books before this one came out and by the end of OotP I was thinking "Wow - Harry and Hermione sure spend a lot of time together." and "Ron and Hermione don't do much except fight." Ron is about as opposite of Hermione as you can get. She sure came across as being jealous, though. I don't have anything against it, but it seems very strange to me that Hermione likes Ron in that way.

Lupin and Tonks. HUH? Gosh, I hate to go back and read OotP for a third time, but this one came out of nowhere and blind sided me.

Actually, all the pairings seem to come out of nowhere for me.

Also, where was Luna and Neville? We got a bit of Luna but not nearly enough. In OotP, Luna sort of seemed like she liked Ron, but that was almost non-existant in this book.

I don't know. This book is setting record sales, but I don't think it's that good. I think people are so anxious to see what happens next that they are buying it. (I checked my copy out of the library, and didn't have to purchase it). I'll probably read the seventh book, but I'm like many others, and not looking forward to it as much as I was the other books.

I'm still processing things, and I'm tempted to re-read it. It's not due back to the library until 8/6. I'm a bit troubled, and I don't really know why.

Jeff said: Yes. That's what I was getting at in my aside in my previous post. Fred and George are very creative; look at all the products they've made. But Harry learns things he is given to learn as, indeed, does Hermione. She's very clever, yes. But I don't see the creative flair in her, at least as yet.

Remus and Tonks: I was actually very happy about that one.

I came away from the book unhappy(ish), but it has stayed with me. And I have got some theories about what is going to happen in Book 7 now...

BTW: I also wondered about RAB being Regulus Black, and even went to check in OOTP to find out if we knew what his middle initial was. We weren't told.

Chris

Jeff, I'll agree with you 100% about Hermione. There are times where I wanted to hit her. Especially when she said (more or less) "I told you so" to Harry.

Compared to the last five books, she was very out of character.

Okay, I've never read a single HP fanfic. But all of you saying how much that HBP reminds you of a fanfic - and I've read this on reviews as well - makes me want to read some for comparison sake.

So, can someone please recommend me some EXCEPTIONALLY good HP fanfic? I mean, the best ever stuff, so good it seems almost professional? And I'm not remotely into Harry/Ron slash, so I'd want to skip that sort of stuff.

Thanks!
Lynn

Fanfiction.net has TONS of HP fics.

Many many good ones.

You can do a search for some with "complete" in the summary, or "finished" if you don't want to wait for some still in progress. Also, they normally state if they are slash, so you can avoid them.

Hem Hem Hem:

The good stuff:

http://fanfiction.portkey.org/index.php?act=newupdated
http://www.fictionalley.org/

My most favorite HP Author:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/silverbookworm/
http://www.livejournal.com/community/pgw_industries/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/madlorivoldmort/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/avonlea_dreamer/

http://www.livejournal.com/community/erotic_elves/

y'know, thinking back, I seem to recall reading a pretty good one that was set after Voldemort's death... way, way after. I got the link from an article that you'd scanned, Annette. I just don't remember much anymore, and I have no clue where to find it. <shrug> It was a couple of years and a different computer ago.

Laura

My assessment of the book.

Am I seriously the only one who noticed that Harry did a CLARK!?!

When Clark tells Lois that he's breaking up with her for her own good, he is an IDIOT. And she promptly gets exposed to poison gas, and kidnapped to be offered as a ritual sacrifice to activate a magical Celtic mask.

When Harry tells Ginny he is breaking up with her for her own good, he is an IDIOT. I hope she doesn't end up dead, killed at Hogwarts while the Trio are off battling evil. :p

LOL, rivka! I thought of that last night when I was watching Spider-Man 2. What is it with guys and their stupid oh-so-noble sacrifices? Clark, Harry, and Peter, all of them need to be beaten about the head.

Going back to fanfic I forgot the best HP fanfic of them all!

Nekkid Quidditch!!!!!!

http://www.nodignity.com/freaks/nqm/nqm1.html

Don't drink or eat while reading this!

I read a few posts on that link you gave, Rivka - fun to see all the discussion, and I'm definitely with you on Snape. He can't be evil. I just don't believe it, and it makes no logical sense whatsoever.

But what made me grind my teeth a bit is this:

Haven't some North American readers seen by now that 'graduation' isn't something that happens at Hogwarts??? In British/European schools, kids don't 'graduate' from school. They leave school. In Hogwarts' case, the kids will sit their NEWTS, leave, then get their results some time the following August. In the UK and Ireland, graduation is something that happens on completion of a university degree. (Kaethel tells me that in France there isn't even a graduating ceremony for university graduates! )

Which reminds me - do we know what the university for witches and wizards is?


Wendy

I believe Jo said there weren't any wizarding universities.

No doubt so that she wouldn't get badgered to write about Harry's university years... another three books!


Wendy

Wow, Wendy, I didn't know that about UK/European schools. So you mean that at the end of the 12 or 13 years of education that are considered pre-university (what we call grade/grammar school, junior high, and then high school) there is no graduation ceremony? No handing out of diplomas and wearing of caps and gowns? For us it is so much a right of passage, a formal moving into adult-hood. And since getting a job is so dependent on having at the very minimum a high school diploma, graduating is indeed an accomplishment that people strive for.

If a person "leaves" school, which at age 16 they are legally allowed to do, it is considered a very bad thing. So even though I know the context is different for how you use it, in the case of Harry leaving Hogwarts, I see it as him not having finished his formal education and not being qualified for whatever comes next. For example, he couldn't go to wizarding university without having completed his 7th year at Hogwarts. In the US, he'd be called a high school drop-out and he'd be looking at a job where he'd have to wear a polyester uniform and ask "Do you want fries with that?"

So interesting!

And thanks for the Fanfic recommendations! I can't wait to dive into some of them.

Lynn

Lynn,

Here's what happens in England and Wales (Scotland is different again ). I know that it is different in other places in Europe.

Some schools do stuff like have a Day of Celebration (which is what my school called it), where they hand out your exam result certificates. But because those don't arrive until sometime after the results are out in August, by that time people are off in the real world. Our Day of Celebration (it's one of those nice inclusive terms, it probably was once called Prize Giving Day or something) didn't happen until the next Easter, almost a year after you sat the exams. I don't know of any schools that have a graduation ceremony like the ones you guys have.

Education is compulsary until you're 16, but when you are 16 you sit your GCSEs (OWLs ). So even if you do leave at 16, you have completed your formal, compulsary education, and possibly have some qualifications too. There's a miriad choices of what you do next, that I won't try to really explain, because otherwise we will be here for a while, and this post is long enough.

One option is to study for A'Levels (NEWTs) and these are the traditional entry route to university (but you can get to university with a whole range of other qualifications now as well). These are often taught in the same school that you did your GCSEs at, but, like I said, there are lots of other options as well!

I think that the majority of people who leave school at 16 go onto study or work for a further qualification of some sort. But the ones that don't go on to further study post-16 are more likely to be the ones who didn't pass many of their GCSEs in the first place, and although we don't call them High School drop-outs, people do end up in the dead end jobs. If they get a job at all.

Nowadays, it's hard to get any where with out having some form of post-16 qualification, so yes, Harry is possibly setting himself up for a difficult time career-wise in the future. However, I think that he has other issues on his mind right now.

Plus, he does have the advantage of his reputation. I don't think he needs to worry too much

And it's different in our Muggle world, I'm sure Wizard papers don't spend so much time discussing the thousands of 16 year olds who leave school every year with no qualifications and no job and just disappear off the map...

I'll stop now. In summary, our education system is complicated.

Helga

And at the schools I went to, we didn't even have that.

Chris

Lynn, you're confusing a graduation ceremony with the acquisition of qualifications. Just as in the HP books, kids sit examinations and gain qualifications as a result. In England and Wales, they sit GCSEs at 16 and some will continue to sit A-Levels at 18 (if you really want to know what those stand for, I can tell you! :rolleyes: ). In Scotland, the school-leaving qualification is Highers. In Ireland, kids sit the Junior Certificate and then most will continue to the Leaving Certificate. In France it's the Baccalaureat. Other countries have their own qualifications.

So, unless a child leaves school at 16 - as they are legally entitled to do in the UK the April after their 16th birthday - before sitting GCSEs they're not 'dropouts' without qualifications. But, yes, there is a problem with kids leaving school with no qualifications; one big problem for the English/Welsh (not Scottish) labour market is the lower average staying-on rate in full-time education as opposed to kids in other countries.

Edit: Just read Helga's post - she says it so much better than I did. But the 'day of celebration' is pretty rare - I'd never heard of it before. As she says, the fact that exam results, in the UK and Ireland at any rate, don't appear until August, when kids have already finished school and may even have started their first jobs, makes it difficult to do anything like that. So no cap and gown - in fact, because there's no ceremony like that below university graduate level, that makes the university graduation ceremony all the more special.

Oh, and how do employers make hiring decisions if the results aren't out until August? There's such a thing as mock exams - they're a practice session for the real thing, conducted under the same conditions and marked at the same standard. Employers can ask how a school-leaver performed in the mocks and, of course, will get references from the school.


Wendy

I knew a bit about A-levels and O-levels before today.

But I never knew there's no high school graduation in the UK!

Consider me edumacated!

It seems like their post-Hogwarts education is largely apprenticeship-type training. I wonder if any of the muggle-born students have gone to a traditional university?

They aren't polyester anymore. <g>

I did it for 10 years, the last half was *with* a College Degree.