HarryPotter/Book5Spoilers

All in all quite a good book but I really think JKRowling should have been a bit more careful with some of her choices.

Blowing up Hogwarts that early in the book certainly added impact to the story line, especially with the tragic deaths of Ron and Hermione (although the comic aspect was certainly well written). I can't help but think she may have limited her options with the future books though. Depicting Harry's sixth and seventh school-years could be problematic.

I also think that she may have taken the content to levels perhaps unsuitable for the target audience. I realise children in this day and age may not be shocked by the relationship between Harry and Cho, although I still feel the descriptions in some chapters could only be described as torrid, but the introduction of Draco for the three-some in chapter 24 is surely beyond the acceptable?

Finally, I would question the need for the introduction of a new villain into the storyline. After working so hard to build up Voldemort reducing him to Harry's sidekick as Tom Riddle Jr just seems a little bizarre. The 'team song' didn't help in the slightest, although I have to admit that the scene where Dudley acquires his new powers was extremely well written.

Now, don't you think you should actually read the book before clicking on a spoilers link?

 --Kazuhiko

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She actually managed to write a book that introduced quite dark elements. I'm impressed. The Dursleys have actually acquired something resembling personalities, unpleasantness which doesn't fit neatly into the ComicBook? superhero mould is occurring, the death was handled moderately well (although it still left me with the feeling that JK just needed to get rid of him) and the romance was reduced to an endurable level...

: Are the dark elements really that much darker than the earlier books? I'm not convinced. However, the white elements have really got a lot greyer, which I like. I particularly liked the few pages in which Snape's memory is shown. --Angoel

I am really glad I finished it when I did though as the news is now full of people making what they think are cryptic comments about the story. As it was I was waiting for someone to be killed off, since JK had already dropped that hint. I would much rather such things be left completely secret *sigh*

Speaking of the death though, that was, when I first read it, the thing that annoyed me most throughout the book. It just seemed to be tacked on, without much meaning, and the portal was just confusing. It wasn't until Luna's comments right near the end that I realised the connection between "Passing beyond the veil" being a euphemism for death... The DepartmentOfMysteries? has a, one way, portal to the land of the dead... That's quite cool, although you would think they would put a security barrier around it.

: Department of Mysteries worker: "Where's that new cleaner? I haven't seen him in ages..."

The romance was rather shallow, but that can really only be a good thing at this stage. I think more could have been made of Harry's attitude of wanting to go out with a happy Cho, rather than Cho herself, but it's over now. I've become even more certain that Harry is going to end up with Ginny, especially with Ron's slip at the end, but then I had the residents of Gryffindor Tower in my head alternately cheering or booing depending on how close Harry and Ginny were :)

Luna, I reckon. At least in the next book. Which will be published in 2006 and will be 1500 pages long. ;) - MoonShadow

Apparently (can't remember where I heard this now) book 6 is going to be shorter but 7 is going to be even worse than 5... --Kazuhiko

: And is going to be called 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' which, as probably a lot of people know, was the working title for the Chamber of Secrets. Apparently JK decided to pull a load of plot out of book 2, so she's transplanting it into book 6. --FR

Can't think of anything else off hand.

 --Kazuhiko

I preferred this to the fourth book, because there was sensible direction to the plot, as opposed to Now we've done all those Triwizard Tournament tests, let's render them all irrelevant by revealing Harry was nursemaided through them all, and teleporting him to Voldemort. A step up in my opinion.

Problems included the fight in the DepartmentOfMysteries?, which was written far too clutteredly for its length (I hadn't a clue what was going on, so I skim read to the end, and worked out what had happened by what happened next), the romance, where you would have thought that both sides would have made slightly more effort to build bridges, Umbridge's detentions, which seemed to want to go somewhere, but fizzled out rather uselessly, and the fact that the bit on the back cover in which Dumbledore tells Harry stuff only happens right at the end of the book, so you're wondering when he'll get round to telling Harry for the rest of the book.

But, yes. Not bad. --Angoel

PeterTaylor laughed out loud at Hermione telling the others yet again that you can't Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts. But really, those decrees were getting silly. Wizards may not be entirely in touch with the Muggle world, but you'd have thought they'd see echoes of familiar totalitarian dictatorships. I agree that the mega-fight was confused. But two things about it look wrong: firstly, how did a load of kids who've declared to the entrance system that they're on a rescue mission walk into the /DepartmentOfMysteries? unchallenged?

The /DeathEaters? had already cleared the way (no guard on front desk and door to /DepartmentOfMysteries? already open) --Kazuhiko

Automated system for printing badges; actual security check is done by live guard, who the /DeathEaters? had got rid of already. - MoonShadow

: I really liked the idea of a security badge with a stated purpose of "Rescue Mission" :) --Kazuhiko

And what's Voldemort doing turning up there when the reason he hasn't gone to fetch the prophecy himself is that it's too dangerous for him to be there?

: Trying to salvage the situation? --Kazuhiko

Oh, another one. How come Harry couldn't see the Thestrals in the first year? He saw his mother die...

Conscious understanding or recollection of having seen death perhaps? Do we actually know that Harry saw his mother die or just that he was around at the time? Maybe he was looking the other way? *shrug*

: I'd have to look it up. Book 2, I think.

Another question though, might be why did Colin never mention them in the past? --Kazuhiko

: Because he assumed everyone else could see them?

There were a lot of loose ends, and bits that never went anywhere. Off the top of my head:

The evil engraving quill detention thing (I mean... he wasn't telling lies, you'd expect having it engraved into his hand would help...)
The 'free the house elves' campaign.

: ... has been going on for ages and will be a running joke until someone knocks some sense into Hermione...

Why didn't Dumbledore just escort Harry to the Prophecy at the start of term, and have him destroy it?

: I thought he covered that one pretty well in his "why I didn't tell you five years ago" speech, actually. - MoonShadow

The entire points system is so, so blatantly a joke by now that the first years probably couldn't care less about it, never mind the fifth years. And why the teachers care I don't know.
Announcing the final scores each year seems redundant if they're on display.

: Everyone needs a rewards ceremony, otherwise, what's the point? I note, however, that we didn't get one this year and no indication that Gryffindor actually won, despite the many points granted at the end.

The castle has other fireplaces, surely. Why not use one of them? (Floo network connection, I guess - but certainly popping over to Hogsmead would help).

Communications were being monitored (Umbridge makes a point of saying so) from all but her fireplace. I'm not sure you can use fireplaces to transport into and out of Hogwarts.

Why she didn't monitor her own fireplace I don't know.

: Because she wants to say things to the Minister of Magic that she doesn't want others, even those trusted with monitoring duty, to hear... Standard EvilPerson? practice

The Marauders Map. Great way to spot Umbridge, right? Better than, say, lookouts?

''Harry does use it, at least on the initial visit to the DA room. Do you have a particular time in mind?

When using Umbridge's fireplace to talk to Kreacher.

: I think they decided they had to rush and hence didn't have time to go back to the tower for it. Can't say for sure though, I can't recall.

The Room of Requirement. I need a back exit - where is it?

:) I think you have to have the requirement before you enter... I like the idea though

The whistle he found on a shelf?

: Good point. I will admit I'm sort of clutching at straws now but two possible explanations are, 1) big difference between a whistle and a door to another part of the castle, 2) a whistle is standard for a 'training room' and Harry just hadn't noticed it before.

He never did ask Snape about those lessons - problems aren't supposed to go away if you ignore them.

: It didn't. That's why Sirius is dead and he nearly killed off his friends by going to the DoM?

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It could actually be the case that some of these are being set up for the next book, in which case, fair enough - but...

FWIW, MoonShadow enjoyed it; the dark bits were good, as was the plot, although Harry's inability to keep his moods to himself got quite annoying (he was acting like a real idiot for much of the first half of the book, IMO), and the Dursleys are becoming quite utterly pointless. But on the whole, worth the read ^-^

: Oh, I don't know. Aunt P. was given a second dimension, and I'm quite interested to see what happens next. --Angoel
: Harry was acting like an idiot - moody, nervy, generally depressed - like your average fifteen-year-old boy, I reckon. At least, that's what I thought - SunKitten