LOL. Looks like people are going on a trip.

Brown's a good color for you, Seiki. xD

I WANNA SEE THE KNIGHT BUS! :gonk:
That was probably my favorite movie... :ninja: The, um, third one? :gonk: I DON'T REMEMBER!
My favorite book was the third. :lol: Of course, I still haven't read the seventh... But I got the 5th and 6th at the midnight parties! :squee:

I kind of fell out of the HP loop. It felt less literary to me, and more... Market-y. I hate feeling like a blatant target market, because that loses the artistic quality of the work. I'd rather not feel like a pawn in a marketing executive's game, I guess. -shrug-
(Although I know that that mindset is inevitably loophole-y. :rofl: Because that'd be like trying to avoid Disney, or Google, or... :insane: )

I love you for your descriptions, CK. :heart: And being the Virgo I am, I'd probably have to make do with Ravenclaw. :P ... Although, I really wouldn't mind being in Hufflepuff, all the same. :ninja: Definitely my second choice, there! I feel like Gryffindor would be the most clique-y, and then Ravenclaw would have its fair share of cliques... And by default, Hufflepuff will be its own "leftovers" clique that just thrives on... well, whoever's left over. :rofl:

I don't mind being the underdog, as long as there are knowledgeable people on my side. ;) I always pictured Hufflepuff kids as the quiet, timid, opinionless kid who's submissive enough to follow the latest trends/gossip, but mindless enough to not really have any opinion or self-worth to go against the grain... Which just doesn't settle well with me. :|

The seventh book is very mixed bag. There are parts of it that are awesome. And there parts of it that are just... lead balloon. Monotonous and depressing and unsatisfying. You could probably delete about four or five chapters in the book and not miss anything important because it's the same theme: THIS PART IS STRESSFUL FOR THESE CHARACTERS.

Sometimes I feel like Cedric Diggory was the fun of Hogwarts. When he got popped, the fun of the series just sort of deflated. Harry became an insufferable pain in the ass. I know it's all a theme of "innocence lost" and "growing up" but the point was more than driven into the ground. It was buried and possibly peed upon.

The last three books weren't all dreary, of course. But I think JKR got too attached to the idea that her target demographic loves angst.

I've read book seven twice (gulped down the first two days I got the book and then about a month later read again to make sure I 'got' everything). After that, I haven't touched the series since. The aftermath chapter made me seriously wtf. (Not spoilering, tho.)

The temptation for people in charge of popular series is that if they have enough popularity - if they have the popularity it takes that what they produce will sell in large numbers no matter what - the creators/writers tend to want more control and less editing. In some cases, giving over that control will produce a purer result. They can take risks they couldn't before they were successful. They don't have to worry about The Bottom Line because whatever they do will make enough profit to keep their publishers/distributors happy. But sometimes that lack of editing doesn't work out well. There are writers like Mercedes Lackey whose published works are utterly freaking littered with typos and inconsistencies (ie: forgetting that something happened in book one and then thinking that in book two this is the first time they've ever done this before! and it's SUCH A BIG DEAL that they're doing it now. Or forgetting which sister is which!).

Anyway. I (personally) don't think that JKR got too markety. I just think she needed a brave editor that would ask her, "Do you really need six chapters to establish that Harry is really torn up about this? Can we cut it down some? Because this isn't really a guy I want to see succeed anymore. I kind of want to let him die already and focus more on some of the more appealing background characters."

I'm sure it's more realistic that Harry acted the way he did since he wasn't dealing with the traumas in his life very well. But I just wanted to drop him in a hole for a few years and take him back out only when he'd stop being such a troll to his father figures and friends.

That picture was taken so long ago! I think it was from a promotional thing for the sixth book release haha! And it was taken at a bad angle which made me look so huge. Boo.

But I like brown as well. I only have one brown shirt. The one in the picture got lost shortly after that picture was taken somehow and I never really thought about it again. I like to wear a lot of red now though. I think a good portion of my shirts are red or blue. And I don't even like blue : (

:o You don't like blue!? You're... abnormal Seiki!

But seriously, you should look up some more brown if your skin tone/hair tone haven't changed by much. I'm surprised you only have one IRL since you wear a fair bit of brown on your avatar. xD

Blue is my favorite color. lol
I wear teal all the time, too. In fact, its probably what I wear most often.

Oops, live update didn't work for me so I missed that whole thing DX

I've read Deathly Hallows probably six times. There's nothing that JK Rowling could write that I wouldn't want to read over and over again. I will admit that in the end it got a little cheesy, and she definitely needed to tone down the angst a little bit, but if that angst weren't there, what would we really have gotten from it? A boy and his friend on a quest to save the world? I think we needed to have all the fighting between the trio and the losses that they had to deal with along the way for them to get to the big picture at the end. Needless to say, I think the whole Harry/Voldemort ending was lame and I don't think it was a very good way to end the story, but I found closure in it knowing what would happen in the end since I read the very first book way back in 1999.

My favorites from the series are definitely all the odd numbered books. The even ones were just a little slow for me and I found it difficult to like how they were thrown into the mix. Chamber of Secrets is the worst book in the series. Order of the Phoenix is probably my all time favorite.

CK, I'm just not really a fan of blue clothing in general. I find it ultimately boring compared to other colors and because I only really wear jeans and a tshirt, I don't want to be wearing blue from neck to ankle. Its weird.

And I do love brown for my avatar. I would wear it in every single outfit if I could make it work properly. Same would go with my real clothing as well, but I just haven't really found a lot of brown pieces that I particularly like when I go shopping. The one brown shirt that I have is a cotton jersey tshirt with white paint all over it because I wore it when I painted my room white so I mainly use it as kind of an undershirt now. Like I said, red is kind of my favorite. I would say maybe 30-40% of my shirts are red in comparison to the other colors.

Slytherin is my favorite house nonetheless. Even though I would probably be a Hufflepuff (Least favorite house and color) or Ravenclaw in real life. I just love to pretend to be evil. ^_^

I hated the ending too since what Dumbledore said about death in one of the other books - the 4th I think. (not going to spoil).

I read the last page or two of book seven, actually, I lied. :P I hijacked it from some girl in summer school of my freshman year ('07... The year I joined Mene, the year I failed Algebra I, and the year I ended my freshman year! What a terrible year.). Anyway, I know what happens in the end, I just don't know anything leading up to that. :rofl:

Ultimately, Harry Potter wasn't interesting. But I agree, Order of the Phoenix was AMAZING. My second favorite, after Prisoner of Azkhaban (hope I got that right, too lazy to turn around and look on my bookshelf!). Of course, I'd have to buy the 7th book, reread the whole series sequentially, and THEN redetermine which is my favorite. :lol: I've been a HP fan since I was nine, although I've owned the first HP book since I was six. My mom would read the book to me and always pronounce Hermione's name as "Her-moyne". :rofl:

The first movie came out when I was nine, by the way. :) As did Shrek (I believe? ... I just remember watching it in class), and a slew of other fun stuff. I loved fourth grade. :) A year later, I discovered Neopets, and my love-hate relationship with the web began! :P

---

OMG, I also hate blue! :squee: I use it on my avatars, but I only like certain blue shades/with certain designs on the shirts, etc. I buy blue shirts for what's on them, not for the color. xP

I love green, though! :D And brown... :drool: And gray!

I'm a hardcore HP fan. I got this done of my avi on gaia awhile back for my profile. :P

http://www.menewsha.com/forum/member...icture8608.jpg

I feel quite embarrassed cause i'm too old to be liking it as much as i do hahaha.
Oh and nivvy did this one last year for my bday i think? It's of snape and his patronus.
I <3 Snape lol.

http://www.menewsha.com/forum/member...cture18370.jpg

Originally Posted by Seiki Nova

Chamber of Secrets is the worst book in the series.

YES.

THANK YOU.

It's JKR's absolute favorite book in the series, last I heard. Which I don't understand at all, even with her explanation about something like it being the turning point for the series or where the key bit of information was given or something like that.

Often I find that my 'favorite' of anything is the first exposure I had to something. Like, my favorite book in the series is the first one, or my favorite character is the first one I got attached to, or whatever. But Chamber of Secrets was the first Harry Potter book I read due to my picking up the wrong book by mistake and not realizing it until several chapters in (but by that point I was like, "oh well, screw it. I might not read the series anyway."). After having read the entire series, I'm a little surprised that I liked it enough to read the others. Every time I read it, I like it a little less.

I'm not saying all the angst needed to be taken out of Deathly Hollows in particular. But to me it still felt like it was a chore to make my way through some chapters. (By which I mean the middle "hiding" chapters, if you know which I mean without me having to take it to spoiler bars.) I wonder if the book wouldn't have worked better with some streamlining of some of those chapters, where you would still understand how hard it was on them and what strain it put on the relationships, without feeling trampled yourself.

But maybe I'd feel differently if I read it now? It's been awhile after all. xD And I'm not saying she's a bad author as I think she's one of the best popular authors of this generation. It's no joke to take a seven-novel epic series (plus, what... three or four supplementary texts) and make sure to plant clues throughout the books without giving the ending on a plate and to appeal across so many age groups. For her first published effort, it's pretty masterful.

I'm surprised that you made it through the series as well, starting off with the CoS. If it weren't for the fact that I was 11, I don't think I would have made it through the series either.

If I had to say one thing, it would be that all of the books are really able to stand on their own. Even though I don't like the Chamber of Secrets, I do think that it was necessary for it to be included into the series as background. Granted, it could have been a subplot in one of the other books as opposed to it being an entire store in and of itself, but that's not what happened is it. I just think that the whole thing is a little contrived and I don't particularly like the way the story worked as a whole. It was just really random. Kind of like the 9 chapters of angst that you're so against in the Deathly Hallows haha.

And yes, I do know which chapters you were talking about. I have to agree that they could have condensed that more, but there was some good stuff in it.

My copies of the series started to fall apart several years ago from overusing them. I had to throw a bunch of them away because they were literally in pieces and I never got around to replacing them or I would love to reread them yet again.

I want to read that series she's apparently cooking up... :insane:
I'll bet you hands down that it's BETTER than HP, in more ways than one. :lol: Of course, it'll be a mystery novel/series, right? D: Different genres tend to produce different results, so... Perhaps it wouldn't be "better" to hardcore HP fans, but still! :illgetu:

I love JK for who she is (honestly, when I was, oh, seven, and read her name at the bottom, I imagined her as a black man who played a smooth saxophone in a jazz quartet... :oops: I really don't know how else to explain it, but her name didn't shout "HEY, IT'S A LADY!" to me... Which I quite like in an author :)). I remember reading she hates her first name (Joann, I think?), and, well... I just love the romantic notion of writing such a killer bestseller on napkins in a cafe. :ninja:

If I ever become rich from the written word, I'm making up a story like that. :gonk: Instead of, "Yeah, I didn't pay for heating/AC for a whole six months just so I could buy a new computer!" :lol:

Roachi - I don't think there's anything embarrassing about being any age and liking Harry Potter. Maybe that's just me, though. I want to write young adult fiction for a living, so I'm probably not the average person to get an opinion from. xD But there is some "young adult" fiction where you go, "yeah... totally not admitting to reading this... >_>" and then there's others that are just great reads no matter what age you are. xD I'm pretty certain I'm certain numbers of years older than you and I would still say that I'm a "fan" of the series. It's been awhile since I've read it. And yonks since I've drawn fanart. And even longer since I'd written fic for it. But still I'd have to say, "Yeah, I enjoy the series, so you could call me a fan. :)"

Facade: ::pings you to be annoying like she said she would:: Yes! I'm super looking forward to whatever she writes next. But I do hope it's fantasy and/or mystery. I'd probably be let down if she wrote too far away from one or the other. (I mean, I might still love it after I got over the disappointment. But I'd still be let down if she wrote something like Sweet Valley High or Baby Sitter's Club.)

It's fun to watch an author develop as a writer.

Seiki - Yeah. CoS was necessary for the series. It wouldn't be the same without it. xD I don't know how I'd tackle it to make it more interesting because I'm not even certain what bit about it I find so distasteful. Maybe I should read through the entire series again and that'd help me figure it out.

I keep trying to figure out what my favorite book is, but I can't choose one, I don't think. I like both three and four a lot. And there are elements of each book in the series that I really, really like. But they're usually subplots and not the entire book. (For example - most of the scenes with "Dumbledore's Army" are fantastic. I loved that aspect of that book so much. And I adored the twins in that book. But there were big chunks in the book that didn't have that sense of fun.) ((As a side note, I'm not sure what aspect of book two I would point out as my highlight for that book, which may be my problem with it...))

The thing with the Chamber of Secrets that bothered me was that it showed how easily people are willing to turn on a person because of fear. As humans, I find that we take the little things and turn them into infinitely greater issues than they actually are. When the school found out that Harry could talk to snakes during the dueling lesson when Draco conjured the snake and it tried to attack the kid from Hufflepuff, the whole school turned on him. The same thing happened in the Order of the Phoenix after Harry and Dumbledore had announced the return of Voldemort. People used their fear and instead of facing that fear, they found someone to blame to make it easier for them to continue to live their lives. I find it odd that I can draw comparisons between Chamber of Secrets and Order of the Phoenix because I'm using both my least favorite and my favorite book as references. They both have aspects of human arrogance in them. The only reason OotP is any better is that there's just more oomph involved.

And Dumbledore's Army was part of the fifth book, not the fourth. The fourth was the Goblet of Fire. Dumbledore's Army was created when Fudge put Umbridge as a teacher at Hogwarts in year 5 because Dumbledore failed to find a teacher for the Dark Arts position and then instigated rules to prevent the children from learning to use magic in defensive methods so they revolted and started to teach themselves instead. Holy run on sentence, sorry.

In regards to what she writes next, I can only say that I hope it's just as good, if not better than anything she's written so far. I would like to see her do more fantasy, just because that's what I've come to expect from her, though now that you all bring up mystery, I can see it happening. And I hate to draw the comparison, but when Stephenie Meyer stopped writing her Twilight fluff to work on The Host, she produced a book that was really well written and thought out that far surpassed anything I could have expected from her. If she wrote Twilight like she wrote The Host, it would be an entirely different series that would have had a much better appeal with critics who chastise it for being so clean and corny.

@CK - Hehe, well least i know i'm not the only one ^^. I get into it far to much for a 25 year old xD.
Ahh well that's pretty cool that you want to write young adult fiction for a living :). I wish i could be a writer, but the only stuff i'm good at writing is the emotional stuff that goes in my diary lol. The world will never see it! :P

Originally Posted by Seiki Nova

The thing with the Chamber of Secrets that bothered me was that it showed how easily people are willing to turn on a person because of fear.

I suppose I thought the thing with the snake was pretty wtf myself. Because if they're all, "D: omg he must be a DARK WIZARD" because he can talk to snakes, why isn't everyone freaking out about Slytherin students? Nothing was established that said that Slytherin turned out tons of honestly, genuinely respectable and good people. Not even one throw-away character illustrated a "good" Slytherin. They were all either evil or jerks or sympathetic to acts of evil or jerkiness.

I don't actually have a problem with the instances you refer to in both books. I mean, other than me just kind of losing respect for some of the characters because they're so easily influenced. It's human nature and kind of interesting/troubling.

And Dumbledore's Army was part of the fifth book, not the fourth. The fourth was the Goblet of Fire.

I couldn't remember if it was the fifth or sixth book. xD And because I was too lazy to look it up I think I gave the impression I thought it was the fourth. xD Sorry about that. xD;

I was more meaning, "The reason I don't like (the fifth book) as much as I do the third and fourth books is because the book as a whole wasn't as rewarding as those scenes I did like." I found three and four both good fun. Sort of bridging the line between the darker elements of the series and the more fun elements of the series in the perfect way for my tastes.

Originally Posted by Roachi

I wish i could be a writer, but the only stuff i'm good at writing is the emotional stuff that goes in my diary lol. The world will never see it! :P

You never know! Maybe 100 years from now, it will be read. This is an interesting time in history. Personal written accounts are at an all-time low because of the emphasis and infatuation with blogging. I'm sure 100 years from now, most electronic forms of writing will have been purged for one reason or another. But hand-written accounts should have survived more easily because it's not susceptible to the hundreds of ways electronic data can be destroyed past recovery.

That's very true CK. I hope someday my kids will read these and have a good laugh about how silly mum was lol. xD

Facade: The target audience in this case being... everyone in the world? XD

Seiki: I think that fear of what is different is not only an extremely accurate portrayal of humanity, but also an huge theme in the books. That's part of how Voldemort got so many species on his side... Because they were hated and cast aside, and Voldemort promised them a place in the world.

That reminds me of something... /looks/



Re Harry Potter Discussion General: I'd have to reread the last book to really say what I think. My opinions of the 5th and 6th books pretty much reversed the second time I read them. I know I enjoyed reading the end of the series, and that I disliked the last three pages or so.

The third and fourth books were my favorite of Harry Potter. Personally, I think the 4th book is one of the best in the series, despite being an even numbered book. I think the 3rd is my favorite though.

The first two books are most definitely children's books. I remember reading the 1st book and thinking, "This is good enough, but I doubt I'll read any further." And then I was completely surprised by the ending (I'd expected it to be a completely straight forward book and was surprised when it wasn't). So I read on. Was surprised by the ending of book two as well, and then really loved books 3 and 4. The others I picked up as they came out, with varying opinions.

I loved the first four Harry Potter books, but then hated the last three. I think J.K. Rowling just stopped trying. :(

And I agree with Cami that the third and fourth HP books were the best. The third one masterfully moved the series from a kids-only thing to something that people of all ages could enjoy. The fourth one was just so well-written and the ending was amazing. Every line sent chills down my spine.

With book five onwards, her writing wasn't as good and there were too many subplots. Some of them seemed like fanfiction stories that Rowling read online and decided to include in her actual books. : /

I agree with Siri in that the first four are the best, but I re-read the 5th after watching the movie and I liked a lot more than when I was younger... still don't care much for the 6th or 7th, tho.
Also, I agree, those subplots got insane. Dx

Honestly, I've read each of the seven books once, but I can only remember what happens in the first four clearly.. the rest is like all jumbled up. D:

I wonder why that is, and if it has anything to do with the quality of the writing..

Siri looks amazin'
o 3o

@Ari: I do think that has something to do with the quality of the writing. Every time that I reread the series, I would go through the first four books effortlessly, but the first page of the 5th book gets 'wordy'. Afterwards, it's on and off--some scenes flow perfectly while others are a pain to read. It just feels like there's something 'off' about the writing at times.

@Suona: Hehe, thanks. You too! ;)

Yeah, if it gets hard to read the writing, then I get discouraged to read and tend to read a LOT slower. Sometimes I'd even stop for a couple days before I continue again..