Here goes...

[evilhippo]

All right... here goes. This is obviously not going to be in any sort of order, probably just rambling. My first wild accusation is that J.K. Rowling's been reading too much fanfiction. The soap-opera relationships? Oh my goodness. Harry and Ginny? Lupin and Tonks?? What the heck? I mean... okay, Ron and Hermione sure. I dunno... maybe it's been too long since I read Order of the Phoenix, but I really don't remember a whole lot of what lead up to all of this. (Note to self: Re-read OotP). Probably a bit too scarred by Sirius dying, I guess. Since that's about the only thing I remember from the book. Hehe. And I'd still like to bash whoever it was that posted the scan of the one page in chuunin of all places, letting me know several days ago that Dumbledore was indeed going to die (not that I wouldn't have guessed, by the way he suddenly existed so much more in this book). I was sort of hoping for someone more traumatic, though. For some reason I never got properly attached to Dumbledore, despite the fact that he was eccentric enough.

My biggest complaint, though? Snape. Oh my god, Snape. Five books spent with Harry, Ron, and Herminone going "zomgah he's ebil!" and they turn out to be right? Ditching someone who could have been one of the most awesome double-agents? Tsk tsk. Of course there's no way that would've worked out properly if he'd managed to prevent Dumbleydoor's death, but Malfoy could've done it. I enjoy disliking Malfoy. But if Harry Potter continues to be right about everything he wildly suspects, he's going to end up dead. It's not like he's smart, he's not thinking things through, he's just waving his fist at the sky shouting about evil people. Plus it takes away from Dumbledore's awesomeness that he was foolish enough to trust Snape. And, well, I still can't bring myself to like someone who's working as a double agent for the side that suspects him of being a traitor. Too many people trust/trusted Snape. I can't bring myself to believe that.

Hmm... what else. At least the book kept me guessing. Especially on the blasted Half-Blood Prince. Snape though? Once again, can't say I believe it. And no, I do not fangirl Snape that much. Yes, he is a dirty, evil little man. But... I dunno. Something is just off somewhere in my idea of his character development, I guess. I've seen theories that Snape did it on Dumbledore's orders. I dunno... that's rather convoluted for these plans, isn't it? I guess since it felt so much like fanfic, I'm not sure I can accept that much of a plottwist, even if it would be a total cop-out for Snape to actually be evil. I can still see him dying to save Harry somehow, though. Perhaps Dumbledore realized, when Harry told him that Snape had made the unbreakable vow, that Snape would have to kill him, because he couldn't afford to sacrfice Snape, being the important double agent his is and... oh, heck, I've really got no idea anymore. No idea how to judge where Rowling's going with this. Darn her.

I'm not sure some of these people are even the same characters anymore. Well, at least Harry's annoyingness makes sense this time. In fact, he's downright tolerable. OotP Harry reminded me a bit too much of Anakin a bit before turning to the dark side.

I think I'm going to be quite interested to see how the seventh book turns out. I should have seen it coming... and abandoning the Hogwarts schoolyear format's going to make things a bit more interesting. No more yearly attacks just before finals! Gasp! Big risk, there... uncharted territories. It's going to be weird to have a free-form almost adventure-type book with the trio, though. I'm not sure how that's going to work out, and the more I think about it the more it's turning into Indiana Jones in my mind, since they'll be searching for lost artifacts. And all those mentions of Gryffindor's sword, well... I dunno. I'm pretty worried about that. Sort of odd, the way they're ignoring it like that, and if it hadn't been mentioned yet again when Harry went back to the office, I'd totally overlook it.

So... looking forward to the next book. I'll let the bits I saw as fanfiction-y pass. Especially since, the way I saw it, quite a few Sues were rather mercilessly mocked as well. Not that that ever stops them...