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[phineasjones]

it would be too absolutely, horrifically ridiculous for me to have just stubbed my toe again. so let's just say i didn't. yes, we'll say that.

my dad suggested snow shoes. that seems like a pretty good idea to me at this point.

but i'm not here for a pity party. i want to talk HBP. well, really, i want you to talk HBP. i haven't read anyone's thoughts yet and now i'm dying to. i'll go a-trolling for them, but if you were inclined to link me to anything you've typed up, or anything you've read and found particularly eloquent or interesting, i'd be eternally grateful.

i'm still a little dumbfounded myself, but i'll try to scrape up some initial reactions...

FUCK YOU, JKR!!!!

i don't know exactly why, but this book has left me feeling intensely angry. OotP felt awfully, inevitably painful and infuriating but this one feels like a sudden slap in the face. it stings and it makes me fume.

possible reasons for the anger... snape being evil. i feel so manipulated. so abused. and i don't know what the fandom's thoughts on this are yet... on the extent of his eviltude, but... i feel like my heart's been ripped out and tossed around for sport. i was ready to give snape so much benefit of the doubt. damnit.

and dumbledore's death, of course. not so much because i adore him or whatever. i actually thought he was kind of jerky in a lot of this book. more because she set him up as harry's closest adult and then killed him off, aggravatingly like sirius. and he died begging. i don't know how exactly i feel about that, but not good.

and, possibly this is predictable, but the most upsetting thing by far to me is the remus/tonks. i wouldn't deny him happiness. i wouldn't want him to just mourn and waste away forever. i don't think tonks is a bad choice for him. i just hate the way it shook down. i hate that lupin was almost absent from the book and then gets tossed in for such a pointless romantic moment there at the end. pointless? yes. what was the point? we were a little curious about what was going on with tonks, sure, but... there was no reason to be think about lupin that way. that was just thrown in there. i feel like it was a slap in the face to all of us so pleased that s/r was so close to being canon. like she couldn't let even the possibility of homos in the story linger out there. and not like i think that dating tonks makes him insta-straight, but it feels like jkr might think so.

it just... coming to that part after snape killing dumbledore and bill being maimed and... i thought i might need the plane's sick bag.

i didn't mind harry/ginny all that much. at least she has a personality, a likable one at that. but the peter parker moment at the end was a bit much.

the one truly redeeming feature of the book for me, right now, is the harry/draco epic-ness of it. there were SO many times as i read that i though, huh, i think i've read this one before. and she even left it open for future h/d goodness. not that it wouldn't have been open... but i'm with camillafarfalla and her undying love for the redeemed!draco/harry plot. and that can still happen.

so maybe that's my answer. avoid all the inevitable remus/tonks stories by delving back into h/d and reading the same story over and over. hey man, whatever works.

now, your thoughts? please?

Comments

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

I have ended up having a Very Bad Cold which came on suddenly today, so I'm not up to rambling here like I planned, but I will add one thing to what I said before:

I actually think it is genius, what JKR has done with Snape, even though I don't know how it will play out. But I think that deciding to trust Snape on his own will end up being crucial to Harry's success in the end. Of course nobody in the Order came forward to defend Snape after Dumbledore's death. Nobody liked him, and the only reason any of them trusted him in the first place was on Dumbledore's word, which has just died with him, as far as they're concerned. They are as quick to believe the worst of Snape as Harry is, now that Dumbledore is gone. I think it has to be Harry who figures this out. He is the only witness to the final moments between Dumbledore and Draco. He is the only witness on his side to the final moments with Snape. I think he has to figure it out, and I think it will be important.

[madmadharri.livejournal.com]

deciding to trust Snape on his own will end up being crucial to Harry's success in the end

i'm completely with dorrie on this one. i also had another question, which is why would dumbledore freeze harry if the only one coming up the stairs was draco? harry could have totally taken him on... swooped off with dumbledore on his broom, etc. before any badness needed to happen. but yeah, the couple of death eaters at the gate who wanted to kill harry? stopped by snape. who didn't suggest that they knock him out and bring him on over to the dark lord's house. he just told them to leave him be. not a very convincing bad guy there.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Well, I think Ddore also needed Harry to see that Draco could be turned away from the, er, dark side, that there was still the possibility that Draco isn't a killer, even if he is a racist bully.