Book 5: when "Harry Potter" nuked the fridge

[Gaith]

As I mentioned in my thread on the godawful epilogue, "neither the HP books or films have been any good since GoF." OotP nuked the fridge, jumped the shark, killed the series dead: while HBP was a better book, it failed to repair the faults of 5, and DH was a train wreck, plain and simple.

What exactly made OotP so damaging, you ask? Let's take a look...


- It totally blows Rowling's last chance at describing Wizard Britain's government. Okay, so Fudge doesn't believe that Voldy's back. Are there no opposition political parties to challenge that view? Are there no parliamentary inquiries? Hell, is there even a legislature, or in the magical community an elected permanent dictatorship? (I grudgingly gave Rowling a pass for not describing the political structure of Wizarding Britain up until the end of GoF, but not do so in OotP was just asinine beyond toleration.) Besides, can't Harry be truth-potioned, and his memories examined?


- Other countries? What name so?

The series pays lip service to the fact that... there are supposed to be other wizard governments in other countries. But the way it's actually treated (particularly in book 7) is that the British Ministry is pretty much all there is. Once Voldy takes it over, that's it for the wizard infrastructure. There is zero discussion of calling in the wizard governments of other countries to fight Voldy. Either every one of the characters has forgotten about this concept, or there aren't any other wizard governments out there.

Remember that speech Dumby gave at the end of GoF? Where he urged the students of all three schools to band together, regardless of nationality and background, and fight evil together? Turns out he was talking out of his ass. Harry doesn't leave the British Isles once in the whole series, for crying out loud. It'd be like Luke defeating Vader without ever leaving Tatooine.


- Worst. Prophecy. Ever. "Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives." Uh, what? Don't Harry and Voldy both survive for nearly three years before Voldy essentially kills himself by accident? Is there any kind of time frame here? Did Rowling just say "aw, screw it, I'll make a billion dollars more off this series whether I put any effort into it or not"?


Now maybe, just maybe, if Rowling had started furiously fixing the above first two items (and ignoring the third) in 6, she could still have brought the series to a satisfying conclusion. As it is, the first four books and movies are the only ones I can still derive any pleasure from; the rest are best forgotten.

 

[Small White Car]

At a certain point you just have to accept that you can't spend time describing EVERYTHING in a given universe. Just because we don't hear about all these things going on doesn't mean they don't exist.

Hell, how many hundreds of hours have we spent in the Star Trek universe? Besides punishing Captain Kirk, how much do we really know about what the Federation Council does? The president? At a certain point you have to focus on the main characters and not make it into an encyclopedia of the world.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Besides, even though probably as many adults have read the series as children, the Potter series were originally intended to be children's books. The only reason Rowling would have wanted to delve into the politics of the wizarding world would be if she wanted to drag the series into terminal sales-killing boredom.

P.S.: I'd vote in your poll, except the answers are so slanted there's no possible way for it to reflect my actual opinion.

 

[Gaith]

Ah, yes, the "it's just a children's book" thing. Funny, I don't recall children tuning out of the Star Wars sequels for giving a clearer sense of its universe, or from Trek when they started publishing maps of the various universal empires, or from Twilight when Bella went to Italy, or from His Dark Materials when Lyra went to parallel worlds... nor did they storm out of The Lion King when Simba left Pride Rock, or Toy Story 2 when the toys left the suburban block... it's almost as if exploring fictional worlds can be fun as well as informative...

But after the first four books, Rowling was clearly nowhere rich enough, so let's just excuse all the series' failures from then on out, artistic merit be damned. Whatever swells her checkbook is both best for the kids and beyond others' reproach.

 

[Silvercrest]

The series pays lip service to the fact that... there are supposed to be other wizard governments in other countries. But the way it's actually treated (particularly in book 7) is that the British Ministry is pretty much all there is. Once Voldy takes it over, that's it for the wizard infrastructure. There is zero discussion of calling in the wizard governments of other countries to fight Voldy. Either every one of the characters has forgotten about this concept, or there aren't any other wizard governments out there.

Remember that speech Dumby gave at the end of GoF? Where he urged the students of all three schools to band together, regardless of nationality and background, and fight evil together? Turns out he was talking out of his ass. Harry doesn't leave the British Isles once in the whole series, for crying out loud. It'd be like Luke defeating Vader without ever leaving Tatooine.

Wow, I was waiting for a reply in the other thread, and in the meantime I'm being quoted here!

- Worst. Prophecy. Ever. "Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives." Uh, what? Don't Harry and Voldy both survive for nearly three years before Voldy essentially kills himself by accident? Is there any kind of time frame here?

I give her some credit for this one. She went out of her way to explain that this is not one of these "this is going to happen whether you want it to or not, and you are so screwed" prophecies. It's more like the prophecy was anticipating the characters' reactions. Voldy couldn't stand to have Harry alive because Harry threatened him. Harry couldn't stand to have Voldy alive because... well, because he was good and Voldy was evil. Okay, a little simplistic there. Anyway, the prophecy did not drive the characters' actions, it was driven by their choices. You can like it or not, but it did have more thought put into it than, say, the Jedi prophecy.

At a certain point you just have to accept that you can't spend time describing EVERYTHING in a given universe. Just because we don't hear about all these things going on doesn't mean they don't exist.

That's not the problem. The problem is that the characters themselves forgot there was anything outside their own little world. Earlier in the books, there was a whole Wizarding World out there. You saw schools of French wizards and Russian (I think) wizards, and Irish quidditch teams, and you hear discussions about wizarding events in Romania.

By the time of the last book, the Wizarding World has become Wizarding Britain. It's the only thing discussed, or featured, or even threatened by the villain.

No one considers leaving Britain to hide elsewhere in the world. Or recruiting the students of Durmstrang as fighters. Or mobilizing Charlie Weasley and his handlers in Romania, with an army of dragons to roast Voldemort. Heck, we can't be sure that Voldy ever threatened anything outside of Britain. I admit taking over Britain is not a good thing, but suddenly Voldy appears something less than a world-class threat.

I think it might have been simpler if Rowling hadn't established the larger Wizarding World in the first place. That would have been better than ignoring it later.

Besides, even though probably as many adults have read the series as children, the Potter series were originally intended to be children's books.

I'm not sure the later books were intended for the same audience as the earlier ones. I've heard it said that the books were meant to become darker and more mature as the original audience grew up. Whether that succeeded is another matter.

 

[Shazam!]

Harry doesn't leave the British Isles once in the whole series, for crying out loud. It'd be like Luke defeating Vader without ever leaving Tatooine.

LOL Why are you so obsessed with Harry going abroad?

Ah, yes, the "it's just a children's book" thing. Funny, I don't recall children tuning out of the Star Wars sequels

No, but I remember everyone tuning out of the Star Wars prequels for going too far with its mythology and taking itself way too seriously.

 

[CaptainCanada]

- It totally blows Rowling's last chance at describing Wizard Britain's government. Okay, so Fudge doesn't believe that Voldy's back. Are there no opposition political parties to challenge that view? Are there no parliamentary inquiries? Hell, is there even a legislature, or in the magical community an elected permanent dictatorship?

Everybody of real importance believes Fudge, apart from the clutch of people around Harry and Dumbledore. That's all that's important to the story; if there are opposition parties, whatever, they wouldn't have been involved in the story beyond saying that they believe Fudge.

As a nerdy fan, I'd totally love more specifics on how wizarding government works, but it's not plot-relevant.

Turns out he was talking out of his ass. Harry doesn't leave the British Isles once in the whole series, for crying out loud. It'd be like Luke defeating Vader without ever leaving Tatooine.

Not really. The series has always been set in Britain and revolves around Britain. I agree there's a certain amount of telescoping going on, but it's not out of the ordinary in most stories.

Worst. Prophecy. Ever. "Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives." Uh, what? Don't Harry and Voldy both survive for nearly three years before Voldy essentially kills himself by accident? Is there any kind of time frame here? Did Rowling just say "aw, screw it, I'll make a billion dollars more off this series whether I put any effort into it or not"?

It's not literal; most prophecies aren't; the point is that the two will be in conflict with each other so long as they're alive, and one will kill the other.

And the whole point of the prophecy is that it's fulfilled more or less entirely because Voldemort (and then Harry, in the "King's Cross" chapter) chooses to fulfill it, not because it's actually inevitable.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Ah, yes, the "it's just a children's book" thing. Funny, I don't recall children tuning out of the Star Wars sequels

No, but I remember everyone tuning out of the Star Wars prequels for going too far with its mythology and taking itself way too seriously.

That's not entirely accurate. While the Star Wars prequels did bring fanboy bitching to the mainstream, people didn't tune out of them. Despite the numerous faults cited with them, they still made bajillions of dollars.

At a certain point you just have to accept that you can't spend time describing EVERYTHING in a given universe. Just because we don't hear about all these things going on doesn't mean they don't exist.

Hell, how many hundreds of hours have we spent in the Star Trek universe? Besides punishing Captain Kirk, how much do we really know about what the Federation Council does? The president? At a certain point you have to focus on the main characters and not make it into an encyclopedia of the world.

While we may not know a lot of specifics about how the Federation's government works, what we do know about how it works generally makes sense. There aren't a whole lot of big, macro stories that make you ask, "Wait a minute? Why doesn't (x?) come in and help out with this crisis?"

Of course, the telescoping nature of these sorts of stories is common. There were a lot of times on Buffy/Angel where it would have made sense for the Scooby Gang to go to Los Angeles or Angel Investigations to go to Sunnydale to help out with some Apocalypse, but they didn't. On Doctor Who/Torchwood, I often wonder where are all the other Torchwood branches we've been told of. Of course, the real narrative reason is because they want to focus on the main heroes saving the day and not dilute the story with a bunch of outsiders. Of course, the best versions of these stories at least include a throw-away line to explain why our heroes can't count on any outside help. (Even if it's a vague reason, like in Torchwood: Children of Earth, when Gwen speculates that the reason why the Doctor isn't showing up to save them is because he's "ashamed" of how humanity is reacting to the 456 crisis.)

 

[Starbreaker]

Nobody else read Harry Potter for politics. It's about a boy wizard.

 

[Checkmate]

You sure spend an exuberant amount of time researching something you so obviously hate. Pretty sad.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Harry doesn't leave the British Isles once in the whole series, for crying out loud. It'd be like Luke defeating Vader without ever leaving Tatooine.

It would have been fun to see the cultural variations on wizardry. What are wizards like in China and New Orleans? How about Aboriginal wizards? Let's not forget Massachussetts, the original hotbed of witchcraft. The problem is, all those places are probably more interesting than Britain. Maybe Rowling was right not to make her original milieu look bad by comparison.

A truly international cosmos of wizardry is a great topic for some enterprising writer to snap up. It's not like Rowling ever did anything that wasn't a rip off of other stuff, so she'd have no right to bitch.

You sure spend an exuberant amount of time researching something you so obviously hate.

Welcome to the internet.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^And yet, Rowling is so rich now that her lawyers are probably 10 times more powerful than the lawyers representing the people she ripped off.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Rowling didn't rip off anybody. She made use of a body of general fantasy tropes, and put her own spin on them, in a way that people found fresh and compelling.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I've always been really uncomfortable about the movies for some reason. I've wanted to like them, but they've always rubbed me the wrong way. The last one I saw in the theatre was the one where Dumbledore "accosted" Harry by slamming him against the wall, which I felt was really out of character for Dumbledore and I haven't felt the need to see any of the movies after that. I like the books so much more.

 

[Mr Light]

Aside from Book 6, I thought every book was better than the one that came before it. I loved 5... I loved 7 even more. The entire series was completely satisfying to me.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Aside from Book 6, I thought every book was better than the one that came before it. I loved 5... I loved 7 even more. The entire series was completely satisfying to me.

That's pretty much my position.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Ah, yes, the "it's just a children's book" thing. Funny, I don't recall children tuning out of the Star Wars sequels for giving a clearer sense of its universe,

No, but the prequels did get ragged on for some of the more ridiculous ways they tried to define the universe (e.g., midi-chlorians).

or from Trek when they started publishing maps of the various universal empires,

Not necessary for your enjoyment of the TV shows or movies.

or from Twilight when Bella went to Italy,

Part of the story.

or from His Dark Materials when Lyra went to parallel worlds...

Part of the story.

nor did they storm out of The Lion King when Simba left Pride Rock,

Part of the story.

or Toy Story 2 when the toys left the suburban block...

Part of the story.

it's almost as if exploring fictional worlds can be fun as well as informative...

But after the first four books, Rowling was clearly nowhere rich enough, so let's just excuse all the series' failures from then on out, artistic merit be damned. Whatever swells her checkbook is both best for the kids and beyond others' reproach.

It's her story. If you don't like how she told it, fine. Write your own damned multi-billion-dollar franchise. She told the story she wanted to tell. If that didn't meet with your expectations, guess what, nobody was holding a gun to your head forcing you to keep reading, nor are they doing so now to force you to keep complaining on the internet about it.

 

[Kelthaz]

What exactly made OotP so damaging, you ask? Let's take a look...

- It totally blows Rowling's last chance at describing Wizard Britain's government.

Oh, who cares? Harry Potter was a coming of age story set in a fantastical world. A chapter on the inner workings of the British government and its politics with the rest of the world would hardly be essential or even appropriate.

 

[David cgc]

On Doctor Who/Torchwood, I often wonder where are all the other Torchwood branches we've been told of.

Well, One got blown up, Four vanished, and Two is apparently one guy operating out of a broom closet in Scotland.

 

[Thestral]

Personally, Book Five's my favorite.

By the time of the last book, the Wizarding World has become Wizarding Britain. It's the only thing discussed, or featured, or even threatened by the villain.

In fairness, they were under an oppressive Big-Brother style dictatorship for half the book; makes it hard for people on the ground to worry about what's going on elsewhere.

No one considers leaving Britain to hide elsewhere in the world. Or recruiting the students of Durmstrang as fighters. Or mobilizing Charlie Weasley and his handlers in Romania, with an army of dragons to roast Voldemort. Heck, we can't be sure that Voldy ever threatened anything outside of Britain. I admit taking over Britain is not a good thing, but suddenly Voldy appears something less than a world-class threat.

Wasn't Durmstraing even more compromised than Hogwarts? Or was that just their Headmaster?

As I recall, Charlie at least did show up at the end; it's possible dragons would be turned to Voldy's side, much as the Dementors were.