Harry Potter Series [General Discussion Thread]

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Marluxia55, May 30, 2007.

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Did The Last Book Of Harry Potter Satisfy you or not ?

  1. Yes it did

    42 vote(s)
    54.5%
  2. Maybe

    18 vote(s)
    23.4%
  3. No

    8 vote(s)
    10.4%
  4. havent read it

    9 vote(s)
    11.7%
  1. SpazticFantaztic >:3 Kingdom Keeper

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    they don't look like they should be actual covers for anything, let alone our beloved Harry Potter. plus, assuming the illustrations for the chapters are still the same, now the artwork for the covers and the chapters won't be in the same style.

    i am definitely dissapointed with this.
     
  2. Flamedancer Twilight Town Denizen

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    Mm...it kinda looks like some lame Roald Dahl covers/fairy tale covers I've seen...Y'know, when they make them colorful to get kids to read? Yah...not cool.
     
  3. Juicy Chaser

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    Whaaat this is so disappointing. :/8D:

    The current UK editions are so beautiful, I'd hate to see them replaced.

    @ Kay- and yeah you'll get some idiots who think it's an entirely new story. xD
     
  4. Clawtooth Keelah se'lai!

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    I don't think that they're replacing the old covers though. I though tat they were just a sort of special edition cover but ... there isn't really anything special about them. Being someone who always prefered the original coverarts on the british books to anything else, I can say that I am very disappoint.
     
  5. SoraUchiha Traverse Town Homebody

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    In my opinion I9 think the new cover are c-r-a-p,Seriously they look like clipart that you would find on an old computer!-It seems to take intellect out of the books =[
     
  6. Midnight Star Master of Physics

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    I really don't like the new covers, they seem too bland and childish. The old ones were quite good anyway, why do they feel the need to replace them with these?
     
  7. venster You never heard of me, but I pop in time to time

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    I actually think they're nice. Though I don't think that the sorcerer's stone cover fits much.
     
  8. Mr. Pumpkin Hollow Bastion Committee

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    I don't mind them. I liked the old ones better, but this simplistic style actually appeals to me.
    It's funny how opinions can be so different.
    I don't like the Order of the Phoenix cover though.
     
  9. Gobolo Traverse Town Homebody

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    Can somebody please tell me an intellectually challenging part of the series please? I must of missed those parts - the books were okay but I didn't have to think too hard when reading them...

    My opinion of the new covers is that it has a good consistency in the art style - whereas previous covers neither compliment eachother or extend the style. So it's good that they have decided to do that however there isn't enough action.
     
  10. Mr. Van Whippy ♥ Biscuits and cookies

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    Harry Potter has many interesting themes and some of them are pretty obvious actually. Maybe there's nothing too hard to get but considering the fact that the books are being taught at universities says something. I could name a few but i would go off topic.
     
  11. Cyanide King's Apprentice

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    I don't mind the more minimalist approach they're taking here, but the UK covers are still top-tier.
     
  12. Clawtooth Keelah se'lai!

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    Well let's see: many characters die, so berevement is a big theme and dealing with grief. Inaddition, a lot of my volcabulary came from some of the latter books, words like Euphoria, Iridescent and many more became part of my vocabulary. Also, there are a lot of interesting sub-themes such as Self-Sacrifice, and one of the lessons I have learned from it is something that I think everyone should learn is the difference between "What is right, and what is easy".

    In other news, the Artist who made the covers was on Scottish chat show "The Hour" the other day. She makes the art using Linolium prints. Linolium is like a floor covering like Vinyl, before Vinyl was invented. The only place in the world where linolium is made and indeed was invented, just so happens to be my home town ^_^.
     
  13. Sara Tea Drinker

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    One thing that kept on popping in my head when I looked at them was that it was one scene. Yes, DH was one scene cover. But basically except for maybe two, it was showing only one part of the book. Harry Potter is many aspects put together in my POV and the covers don't fit into the whole world of Harry Potter. ESPECIALLY SS, when I saw that, I was dumbfounded they took a few pages of the book for the whole cover.

    I like the artistry, but overall doesn't define the books. I don't like them.
     
  14. Patman Bof

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    Oh boy, I' d better react piece by piece. I' m so happy to have a broken keyboard at the moment, it really helps a lot in lengthy conversations ... u_u

    I' m not sure she wanted to harden the reader' s heart, only real life death can do that and yes, real life death is pointless, especially in a war. Pointless killings on a whim, random accidental deaths and unashamed looting (mad-eye' s eye) ? Yeah, there was plenty of that during WW2 alright, ask my grandma. I for one was satisfied to see people falling here and there like flies, a single well-thought symbolical death by book just wasn' t enough to convey the horrors of war to me.

    It was an excuse to get Harry out of his comfort zone and to finally reveal Voldemort and Dumbledore back-stories, but then maybe you would rather have Dumbledore' s arc left unexplained ? ^^
    I was puzzled with Voldemort condition from starters, this Horcrux story explained a lot of things, and it also made a good dictator metaphor. Voldemort is supposed to be a parallel to Hitler right ? The paranoid little nazi who searched everywhere for a magical or scientific way to ensure victory ? Isn' t a racist ultimately driven by his own fears and insecurities ?
    I also liked to see Harry get out in the real world and having no adults doing the dirty work for him anymore. No more food magically appearing on the table at lunch time, you go get it yourself, you' re a grown man now. Goodbye childhood, hello gloom and doom, war just wasn' t war when it was conveyed through a newspaper comfortably read in the common room while sipping tea.

    He most certainly bested his opponent, it just wasn' t your average comic book "see who' s got the biggest" contest. I don' t know who expected this kind of ending exactly but I certainly didn' t. Not that I don' t enjoy shonen stories, it' s just that up to this point the Potter stories were layered and I didn' t expect a basic unlayered final epic fight in the last book, that' s what the movies are here for. Sure, the Potter books aren' t bordering Victor Hugo level either, but for kids books they' re quite clever.

    At the end of the sixth book Harry was at the exact same point as in the first one, he was good at riding a broom and knew how to cast expelliarmus, those aren' t exactly über lethal assets. Sure, Harry also learned sectumsempra, but seeing the "power is a dangerous drug" metaphor woven into the whole sixth book I didn' t expect Harry to ultimately rely on that kind of power. At that point I had already figured out that Harry himself was a horcrux, I knew he was going to sacrifice himself one way or another in the end.

    Harry spent six books lowering to his opponent' s level (slitherin = evil, Harry had quite a big blind zone when it came to slitherin waters) so I was glad to see him mature in the last book. He left the black and white realm and discovered the grey area. Between the stand for what he believed in and the hollow race to power (the hallows) he made the "right" choice.

    While Harry magically resurrecting and besting his opponent thanks to love doesn' t make much sense on a literal level and probably seems incredibly corny to quite a lot of people I thought it was a nice metaphor. Wars aren' t necessarily won thanks to a single über warrior mice firing a bazooka at the lion, they' re won because a lot of mice stood for what they believed in and decided they were gonna risk their lives to "bite" the lion, as tiny as their bite might seem to be.

    http://www.longlongtimeago.com/llta_fables_lionmouse.html

    To this day my grandma just can' t bring herself to talk to any German or any known collaborator' s child. When I explained to her the overall morale of the books and how Harry would never have had his way if he had exerted basic revenge on the Malfoys or Snape I nearly brought her to tears. I think she knows her "Germans are evil" attitude is wrong, it' s just a stance.

    Harry now has children who go to Hogwarts, another cycle begins, hopefully a happier one. He now also raises Ted which brings the story full circle. In short it' s a "they had children and probably lived happily ever after" ending, isn' t that how every fairy tale ends ? I don' t know what you expected exactly, a full fledged "what' s next" summary for every character ?

    Fred (or was it George ?) lost his twin brother, that' s something you just never entirely come to terms with. I couldn' t care less what job he chose or which woman he possibly married afterwards, Harry story came full circle and I don' t expect each character story to do so to consider the end of the tale has been properly reached.

    Overall Harry Potter has quite a lot of similarities with The Lord Of The Ring, I wonder if you felt cheated with its ending as well. It' s also the story of a nobody who makes a stand for the sake of love and friendship in an anti-climatic final fight, and ends up happy ever after while we barely know what any other character became (I' m talking about Sam, not Frodo). Everything else was just super-powered filler battles. Entertaining, sure, but filler nonetheless. Plus horcruxes-rings of power, Dumbledore-Gandalf, Snape-Malfoy-Gollum ...