Harry Potter and the Implausible Plot Device

About “The Dreams”: another lame point is Harry’s failure to eliminate the dreams by practicing his Oculmency as directed. I would think that being told the he could be taken over by Voldemort if he didn’t would be more than enough motivation, feelings about Snape notwithstanding.
My tastes being as debased as they are, I still enjoyed it.

Good heavens you’re right. I think I’ll never listen to another Harry Potter book on CD. Heaven forbid the next one is as long, I’ll probably not read one either.

I must say that I spent so much time in a fury over the evil Ms. Umbridge that I enjoyed listening (too long) to all 23 odd disks. Nevertheless, I too was quite annoyed by Harry’s ridiculous hatred and distrust of Snape, and Snape’s continuing childish behavior. As well, I found it rather foolish that someone hadn’t bothered to paint several portraits of Sirius and place them all ’round.

For a league of extraordinary wizards, the Order of the Phoenix seem a remarkably inept bunch. What did they do all day besides skulk around secretly guarding His Angry Majesty? And how is it that Black, having outsmarted everyone for a dozen years suddenly finds himself unable to do anything constructive?

Finally, what is up with Elf Liberation? This has gone nowhere for a book and a half. Have Hermione set up an Underground Railroad or something more constructive than knitting hats fer chrissake, or we’re all going to spew.

I agree completely. You’re right on the mark about the most painful part of the book (Harry being dumber than a box of rocks), and actually mention several of the times I was forced to put down the book in disgust. In JKR’s defense, however, kids are very stupid. Not Harry stupid, but stupid.

nick: Who knows, that might make him more friendly with Draco.

You’re missing the point: if the characters weren’t stupid, then there wouldn’t be a book. All the time in movies, tv shows, books, you name it, you watch a character choose to do the stupidest thing possible. Rather it’s Harry letting Draco work him up or Romeo being too dumb to check for a pulse, the characters’ stupidity drives the plots forward.

That said, I agree with you wholly – Harry is a complete idiot. Nonetheless, I loved the book. But then, I like Godzilla movies, so don’t trust me too much. :-)

Additional questions:

1. Why are Malfoy, et al. still allowed to walk the halls of Hogwarts, when it is clear they act as spies for Voldemort and the Death Eaters?

2. Why does everyone have such a great opinion of Harry’s parents? Yes, many of those saying nice things were part of their circle at school, but others who were adults at the time seem to think they were perfection, rather than flawed people who gave their lives on the side of good.

3. Why hasn’t anyone else (especially Dumbledore or McGonigle) told Harry that there is a lot of basis for Snape’s opinion of Harry?

4. And, what about Naomi? (sorry, Electric Company moment)

I agree that Grawp was stuck in this one in order to come into play in one of the couple remaining books. Ditto for that shape-changing wizardess.

My biggest complaint about TOotP was that whereas the previous book ended with Death Eaters unmasked and a war against Voldemort imminent, JKR slammed the brakes on all that and spent a whole book establishing and undoing everyone’s disbelief in Harry’s account. It gave me the sense that JKR looked ahead, saw that she had three more books to write, realized she didn’t have all that many ideas, and decided to tread water for at least one of those three.

That said, I don’t feel like my time or money was wasted.

Well, nicely put. It is heartening to hear someone else give reasonable analysis on this heinous book. Why is it that I knew what a three toed sloth was at the age of ten and most every major dinosaur speices, but these kids don’t know anything about magical creatures at the age of 15? Wouldn’t tales of horses that pulled the carriages only seen by those that had seen death be exciting enough news to spread around and become common knowledge. No, Rowling it was not melancholy and deep. It was just silly.

In addition to the lousy plot and crontrived plot devices that range from the bomb dropping Mary Sue named Hermione to mysterious creatures that most every kid should have known exsisted, the themes of this novel are also overplayed and uninsightfully drawn.

For all its much touted darkness and depth, Order of the the Phoenix has no real insights or opinions on adolesence except to say that teenagers are often angry and yes developing an understanding of themselves. Hardly the stuff to rival Salinger or Plath or even better children’s authors like Michael Bedard. Yes teenagers need to learn self control. Most have some, others learn to control themsleves eventually. Yes overt officious government control is bad. So what then? What else does the book have to provide beyond this with its charicatures. Rowling gives us nothing more sophisticated than a cartoonish distopia world that could be shared by the Scooby Doo gang.

So no, Phoenix is not a deep sophisticated epic. It is nothing more than a wordy, poorly written novel given to an audience that is happy to drink up garbage and praise it because they aren’t willing to admit what it really going on. The bubble has burst. This is a bad novel. Pure and simple.

Boring, laborous, uninsightful, derivative and just plain badly written. Never once did Rowling make you feel you could taste or smell or touch Potter’s paper thin secondary world.

So bring on Harry Potter, Christ figure. Bring on a Judas named Ron and St. Peter-Hermione. I can’t wait to see Potter enthusiast proclaiming Rowling’s brilliance when Potter dies and rises from the ashes.

But I say, I can do without it. If I wanted that story, I would read the New Testament. It is more exciting and better written.

I’m off to read all those authors long touted to be better than Rowling. And you know what… They are. Shame on me for not being willing to read them earlier. The best thing to come out of HP is that Diana Wynne Jones’ books are now on my shelf and I am reading some Mark Twain after a long delay.

So what to do with OOTP? It will make for nice bonfire kindling. I can’t even stand to give it away. Seems too cruel.

DeeDee

Well, yes. This 5th book sucked but I still liked it. Harry Potter had a lot of temper tantrums but I quote from Sirius ‘a lot of people are idiots at the age of 15’. Anyways, I believe the other books were good and when she was writing this book, I imagine the stress put on her to get her done in a hurry, not letting her write the book as thoroughly. Alsooo, I don’t think Hermione would have said that Snape was in the order because she knows that Ron and Harry never trusted him and Harry trusted him at that one last moment because he was on the verge of bursting from not being able to save his god father.

Though many have excused Order of the Phoenix and its author because of her stressful life or lack of time, I cannot. Firstly, time is infinite. Rowling had as much as she could desire and the ability to demand more – she’s that powerful! Who could make her do anything? Secondly, millions of dollars ought to reduce the pressures in her life enough to promote an environment where she can write something acceptable. (Money can’t buy happiness but it buys a rather nice desk and whole lot of notebooks and pencils.) If now was not the right time to finish the series, goodness me – stop writing until it is. I doubt that was the case here. Clearly, Rowling is happy with her work. I, however, am not. I may just be one tiny voice and it may be heresy to criticize J.K. Rowling, saviour of the written word and holy saint of single mothers, but I never liked organized mobs anyway.

Many writers never gain the pleasure of having fiction serve as a full time job. Many have to hold other jobs and manage to turn out very good stuff. (And no, I am not one of those struggling masses with a manuscript on my desk. I just like to read.) As paying customer all I ask is that, what I purchase is good, or at least decent. Order of the Phoenix is so far from that I hardly know what to say. I can say I paid 43.00 dollars for the privilege of having it sit on my shelf and gather dust. As a reader, I can only sit in awe of the struggle to create something new and wonderful for me to read, but I don’t see why I should shell out if the writer can’t do her job decently. If you go to a play and your actor passes out in the middle, you may have sympathy on a human level, but you don’t say “WOW. That was dramatic. If I come back I hope she does that again!” In addition, most would hope to get some money back. Do you think the publishers would give my money back? It wasn’t my local bookseller’s fault this novel was bad. Their buyers didn’t get to review it beforehand.

Were she my friend, I would console Rowling for whatever made her incapable of writing a decent novel. As a customer, I don’t presume to speculate on her private life. Besides, I really don’t care how she gets through life, so long as what she puts on the market is a quality product. This book should have never made it past the editor’s desk much less into print. The fact that the public is praising her shallow (and worse – DULL) treatment of teenage life, government power and social ills is truly sad. Maybe Byatt was right. Maybe we have all lost our minds and more importantly our sense of taste.

It is back to adult reading for me. I need a cleansing of my palate. Frankly, I feel ashamed I even liked the series. Maybe I will finally get around to a Discworld book.

I am sorry Ms. Byatt, I’ll try to do better next time. Would reading Virkam Seth’s A Suitable Boy do as penance? (It would be a pleasant penance from what I hear.)

I agree with some of the analysis, but I have to admit:

While it was OBVIOUS Voldemort was luring Harry out of the castle, I actually didn’t remember Snape was in the Order. He’s not a character they have depended on for help, so he wouldn’t occur to them. In retrospect, he was the obvious choice, but I understand why Harry didn’t think to run to him for help.

There’s also the irritating question of why the time machine thing Hermione used earlier to save Sirius and the animal who was killed could not have been used to save Sirius this book (or last book, or Lily and James . . . )

Most writers on time machines deny that they can be used to change the past. A time machine can only take you somewhere if it is true that you were there, and you can only use it to do something in the past if you did it. So once they know that Sirius has been killed, no time machine will help them.

The plot line concerning the time machine in _Azkaban_ is actually quite well done in that it has a relatively complicated story that (a) adheres to this constraint and (b) is psychologically plausible.

My comments are mainly related to the idea that Rowling’s newest is “nourishing” because it takes on themes like political ill and dissallusionment of youth.

I read Plath’s Bell Jar at 15. I read Catcher in the Rye at 14. At the time I approached the books from a particular angle and I got from them what I could take at the time. Since then I have re-read The Bell Jar and Catcher. Catcher I’ve re-read several times. (Love Salinger – but who doesn’t?! That hardly makes me insightful.).

My point was that two things are going on with the all the Potter praising….

Firstly Rowling is being praised as an excellent children’s author. My comment to that is there are better books than OOTP. MUCH better ones. Books with complex characters and insight into the human experience whether that includes sex or racism or just growing up white in the suburbs. In a way writing for kids depends on what you think a kid might experience.

Is Kids a teen movie? – I hope not. But it nonetheless (unfortunately) reflect the behaviour of some teens and thus was watched and enjoyed by them. Teenagers are at a sticky stage where some of the really good material about them, isn’t always seen as appropriate for them.

However, even compared with its own ilk, Order of the Phoenix fails miserably to impress in my opinion. It has nothing to say despite its increasing darkness and emphasis on social themes. It never scratches beneath the surface of any of its presented themes or explores what they mean for the characters. For example, Arthur nearly dies and his children seem rather unchanged by that experience. Rowling doesn’t even bother to address how the children might change after such a confrontation with their parents’ mortality and the growing danger of being Harry Potter’s supporter.

The second part of the Potter trend, is that OOTP is ludicriously being praised as great literature and being lumped with the works of Mark Twain and JD Salinger because their heroes were of a similar age to Harry. And I have seen readers [enough to make me think there are more out there] suggest that OOTP might one day surpass Catcher in the Rye as a commentary on teen angst and growing up.

And there are those readers and critics who are claiming it “isn’t just for kids” anymore. I suggest they try and back up those claims. (Though for me it doesn’t matter. I agree with Eberhart’s article that said whether you are writing for adults or children you owe your reader craft and conscision. Rowling unfortunately feels no need to provide either.)

So yes, Potter is being read by 9 year olds, but each book previous has been aimed at the age Harry is. Rowling is clearly trying to write a book for 14/15 year olds. It was one of the quirks of the series. The reason many kids don’t seem to age in other series is because marrying the growing complexity of the aging characters with the lack of growth in the target reader base is difficult and so many writers didn’t bother to try.

However, 15 remains a problematic age to write for since many of those kids can already read at close to an adult level and are reading adult novels in school and taking on Shakespeare, even if they aren’t fully comprehending the works as an adult. Heck, I’m an adult and still learning how to read.

I think the comparison was apt both because I read Catcher at that age (and got much out of it, however shallow my interpretation at the time was) and because critics are calling Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ‘literature’ and saying it will last an age. This installment most certainly can be filed only under the category of ‘Bad Literature’ child or adult. But they don’t have sections for that in bookstores.

Thanks for reading anything I write. I can’t believe anyone actually read my posted comment!

BTW Kieran Healy – Great blog on Harry. I’ve been showing it to all my friends!

Malfoy Jr. I have no idea why Harry is now even remotely afraid of or even irritated by Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, all garden-variety school bullies who have never displayed much in the way of special magical talents

More to the point, why does Malfoy even CARE what happens to Harry if his Daddy is going to take care of it all? Seems to me Malfoy would have figured out by this time he’d have more success standing back and letting Harry do things to himself. My impatience with Rowlings is that she has excellent characters that, given a bit more developement, might give her more plot. But then, her reliance on adverbs keeps getting in the way.

Im reserving final judgement for when I read the final book. If certain characters have not changed and grown (aside from Harry) from what they were to start out with, and that includes the ‘bullies’, I will probably then write it completely off as pap.

Until then, I rather enjoy reading the books. The afterdinner peppermint to heavy tomes like Lord of the Rings and the Rule of Life as Developed by Saint Benedict.

Oh, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. All of your points are exactly what I’ve been saying about Harry Potter since book 1. The “magic” of Rowling’s books is in the details – the names of textbooks, the accidents the students have as they learn their spells, the mysteries of Hogwarts castle. The characters, however, are for the most part one-dimensional and plot-driven. The dialog is clumsy. And there is far too much of what Roger Ebert calls the “idiot plot” – where people have to behave stupidly and studiously avoid common sense in order for the plot – such as it is – to progress.

While I’m prepared to accept that children’s books need simplistic plot devices and 2-dimensional characters to keep the attention of the audience, particularly today’s television-driven kids, I agree that there are too many discrepencies in the books to satisfy the more discerning reader. I have still enjoyed them though and have found many more fans than detractors even among the adults I know who’ve read them. And I’ve certainly read worse, Robert Jordan’s latest ‘Wheel of Time’ novel for instance. At least something happens in OOTP even if is all a bit contrived.

My biggest sticking point with the series doesn’t actually come from OOTP. In ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, it is said that there isn’t a wizard who’s gone bad who wasn’t in Slytherin, and yet at this point it is thought that Sirius Black betrayed Harry’s parents to Voldemort. As it turns out, he didn’t, but another of James Potter’s friends, Peter Pettigrew did. Now, I assume that they were all in the same house as no one seems to make friends outside of their own houses, so does that mean they were in Slytherin? Well, certainly their antics in Snape’s memory are most Slytherin-like, and it could be that is why no one ever seems to mention what house Harry’s parents were in, but Snape was Slytherin so they surely would have been on the same ‘side’ then, so to speak.

And as to Snape hating Harry so much, even to quietly supporting Malfoy’s taunts and bullying. I would have thought that given the treatment he received at school, he would have been dead against Malfoy’s antics even if he has a chip on his shoulder about Harry and all. And since he seems to enjoy bursting Harry’s bubble about his father, why did he try to keep Harry from seeing the memory in which James was acting like a real jerk? I mean, it should have given him a certain pleasure to see him so discomforted about it all, not sent him into a rage.

But I have to say one thing about Harry being so dense. It is a classic adolescent trait to think you know everything. I know I can look back and wince at my own 15 year old antics just as much as at Harry’s (admittedly no one was actively trying to kill me) and I certainly thought my parents were being way too overprotective, so I wouldn’t have, and didn’t, talk to anyone or confide in them if I had a problem. So Harry is only a little bit exaggerated in that respect. And while I remembered Snape was a member of the Order, I certainly didn’t think of Sirius’ package and I wasn’t in a blind panic at the time, unlike Harry.

Yes, okay i agree with you in some of what you say. People have their own opinions on novels. Novels aren’t about being critisized by you sour people, but by expanding your imagination. Maybe kids may see something in the books that you people can’t see. HARRY POTTER RULES YOU WEIRDOS

I’m no literary scholar. I can only think of one book I’ve really hated in all the books I’ve read over the years. I love the Harry Potter books and I’m unashamed to admit it. I think they’re clever and I refuse to pass judgment on series when it is only slightly more than half finished.

So, what of the plot devices? JK Rowling’s use of polyjuice potion was a mere plot device in Book 2 and it came back to nip us in the behind in Book 4. We can all Monday Morning quarterback from the comfort of an anonymous blog. If her book is fit only for us simpletons, then count me among them!

I guess I think that trying to cut down an author before she’s done is a waste of time. It’s almost as if naysayers are deliberately trying NOT to like it. I’ve never seen such a collective of people who clearly can’t suspend their disbelief. And that’s fine, I guess, but I have to wonder why read fiction at all.

And the argument that because something is wildly popular then it must be garbage is patently offensive.

While, I will agree it’s a bit premature to compare these books to “great children’s literature,” the jury is still out on this one because it isn’t done. The end may justify it.

And please, ENOUGH with the adverb-bashing. Hermione waited for the newspaper eagerly. SO WHAT!? When did the adverb become public enemy No. 1? Of all the complaints to have about a book — she uses too many adverbs? Give me a break. Frankly, I thought it was a breath of fresh air from other authors who insist on cramming laborious adjectives to convey a thought to its nano-detail. Eagerly! Hermione waited eagerly. That works for me.

I, for one, will campaign unceasingly to restore its reputation.

–Lynne

You idiots!!!!!!!!!!!
Being adults i`d think some of you at least would understand that if harry had used the mirror there would be no book! Once again I say; you stupid idiots! Harry Potter and reading is my way of escaping from my boring little life into a world full of moving pictures, flying broomsticks spells,curses,hexes,potions &charms!With out J.K Rowling I coudn`t get through the day,and i`d also like to say that if all of ya`ll stupid closed minded adults don`t like the books then i suggest you dont read them and shut up with your complaints!!!!!!!
(written by an eleven year old)

I’ve assembled a collection of serious criticism of the Harry Potter books, which may be of interest.