Order of the Phoenix
Jun. 27th, 2003 03:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
LJ-cut for spoilers. My opinion of the book, after a few days of consideration. Replies encouraged.
I was reading
epicyclical's journal today, her responses to OotP, and I'm glad that she addressed something in her "critical" post that I was going to address in this post: it seems to me that Harry is following a general archetypical path through The Hero's Journey. Sooner or later, given the character of the books, the age of the characters, the nature of the plot, at least one book was going to have to be awfully dark, especially when compared to its immediate predecessor. Here's the general layout of the path - from this site.
Separation (from the known)
-The Call
-The Threshold (with guardians, helpers, and mentor)
Initiation and Transformation
-The Challenges
-The Abyss
-The Transformation
-The Revelation
-The Atonement
The Return (to the known world)
-The Return (with a Gift)
And at this point, you better believe that Harry is somewhere around Abyss. He may be verging on Transformation - only the first half of the next book will tell where he's at for sure.
There's no question that Goblet of Fire had dark moments, especially in its denouement. But it didn't have a bleak atmosphere, or a stifled one, in any way. Prisoner of Azkaban felt more bleak and stifled in many ways, given the presence of the dementors at Hogwarts and the continuing threat to Buckbeak the Hippogriff. In Goblet of Fire, events went from the Quidditch World Cup to the Triwizard Tournament, having the many extra students around the school, having relationship drama, crushes, parties, competition, gossip, happy excitement, etc; the book had a very bright, open, hectic atmosphere. Cedric died, Voldemort came back, Muggles were tortured, Moody spent the book locked in a trunk, but the kids managed to still have fun throughout the book. In Order of the Phoenix, their world slams shut like a venus flytrap and becomes intensely dark and claustrophobic. This threat doesn't come from Voldemort, as it turns out, though he turns up. It comes from the corruption at the Ministry of Magic, where you find that even a lot of the supposedly-good-guys aren't particularly "good." It shows how fallible and fragile the authority figures in Harry's life actually are, and how easily the happiness and fun and belonging of being at Hogwarts can be shattered.
(and now a day has passed since I started writing this.)
Curiously enough, while all these traumatic personal events were going on for the main character in the book, what really got to me was Umbridge, how a character can be created who isn't Big Evil like Voldemort, but almost seems like more of a threat. For the most part, what Voldemort can do to the main characters in these books is scare them. The attacks are few and far between, and while they are serious attacks that will kill the heroes if they are successful, they don't manage to ruin day-to-day living. Umbridge, on the other hand, can think of dozens of ways to torture Harry, and puts several of these plans into action. In her own way she is as power-hungry as Voldemort, but she's the sort of evil that works within the established system instead of in opposition to it. The scenes with the pen were truly ghastly. A lot of this book was ghastly. Every few pages, I cringed at something that happened, and thought to myself, "Could things possibly get any worse?" - and then they would go and get worse. I
I think Harry is thinking this along with the reader - the reader is so much in his head in these books - and then he figures out that, as bad as things have been at school, it's nothing compared to losing Sirius. You get the feeling that at that point, he would have kept his lifetime Quidditch ban and gotten an "I will not tell lies" tattoo on the back of his hand in a second, if given the alternative between losing Sirius and having a really awful year at school (a moot point anyway, since they're so closely tied together). However, what struck me was how much Harry and Sirius really didn't know each other that well. I do not think that Harry's mourning at the end of the book is completely about Sirius-as-a-person, but about what he represented: a father figure, a link to the past, someone left for him by his parents to take care of him. I think that on some larger symbolic level, this is the first time Harry has actually had to mourn his family... and much of what he feels is related to his parents' deaths. If his parents had been alive, Sirius (and what he represented in Harry's life) would not have been so important to H.
In a larger sense, all of his potential father figures are somehow tarnished in this book. Dumbledore has sheltered him too much, Sirius gets killed, Mr Weasley almost gets killed, Harry finds out that Snape has not been particularly unfair about James, Lupin can't get a job, Hagrid is MIA for most of the book in one way or another, etc etc. Kid's gonna have to learn to stand on his own.
To be honest, I had a plan of what I was going to say when I sat down to write this, and now I can't remember a lot of what it was.
Neville kicks so much ass in this one. Everyone should be a Neville fan.
Harry's attempt to use the Cruciatus Curse is particularly wrenching.
I didn't find New Vocal Ginny as annoying as everyone else seems to. But, I've never particularly liked Ginny, or wanted her crush on Harry to work out, or had a behind-the-scenes personality worked out for her like some of the ppl who are heavily into fandom do. So I had nothing invested in her, was not surprised or annoyed by her characterization, was vaguely amused with her love life.
I LOVE TONKS. Luna and Kingsley are cool, too, but Tonks is the coolest. Yay for clumsy punk rock aurors.
If I think of anything else to say... I'll say it.
Basically, I thought the book was good, possibly the best one of the series, but not a fun or happy read, and not, I think, really a kids' book at all anymore. It's hard to make predictions of what will come next, and unsettling to know that there are only two books to go. (sob.)
I was reading
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Separation (from the known)
-The Call
-The Threshold (with guardians, helpers, and mentor)
Initiation and Transformation
-The Challenges
-The Abyss
-The Transformation
-The Revelation
-The Atonement
The Return (to the known world)
-The Return (with a Gift)
And at this point, you better believe that Harry is somewhere around Abyss. He may be verging on Transformation - only the first half of the next book will tell where he's at for sure.
There's no question that Goblet of Fire had dark moments, especially in its denouement. But it didn't have a bleak atmosphere, or a stifled one, in any way. Prisoner of Azkaban felt more bleak and stifled in many ways, given the presence of the dementors at Hogwarts and the continuing threat to Buckbeak the Hippogriff. In Goblet of Fire, events went from the Quidditch World Cup to the Triwizard Tournament, having the many extra students around the school, having relationship drama, crushes, parties, competition, gossip, happy excitement, etc; the book had a very bright, open, hectic atmosphere. Cedric died, Voldemort came back, Muggles were tortured, Moody spent the book locked in a trunk, but the kids managed to still have fun throughout the book. In Order of the Phoenix, their world slams shut like a venus flytrap and becomes intensely dark and claustrophobic. This threat doesn't come from Voldemort, as it turns out, though he turns up. It comes from the corruption at the Ministry of Magic, where you find that even a lot of the supposedly-good-guys aren't particularly "good." It shows how fallible and fragile the authority figures in Harry's life actually are, and how easily the happiness and fun and belonging of being at Hogwarts can be shattered.
(and now a day has passed since I started writing this.)
Curiously enough, while all these traumatic personal events were going on for the main character in the book, what really got to me was Umbridge, how a character can be created who isn't Big Evil like Voldemort, but almost seems like more of a threat. For the most part, what Voldemort can do to the main characters in these books is scare them. The attacks are few and far between, and while they are serious attacks that will kill the heroes if they are successful, they don't manage to ruin day-to-day living. Umbridge, on the other hand, can think of dozens of ways to torture Harry, and puts several of these plans into action. In her own way she is as power-hungry as Voldemort, but she's the sort of evil that works within the established system instead of in opposition to it. The scenes with the pen were truly ghastly. A lot of this book was ghastly. Every few pages, I cringed at something that happened, and thought to myself, "Could things possibly get any worse?" - and then they would go and get worse. I
I think Harry is thinking this along with the reader - the reader is so much in his head in these books - and then he figures out that, as bad as things have been at school, it's nothing compared to losing Sirius. You get the feeling that at that point, he would have kept his lifetime Quidditch ban and gotten an "I will not tell lies" tattoo on the back of his hand in a second, if given the alternative between losing Sirius and having a really awful year at school (a moot point anyway, since they're so closely tied together). However, what struck me was how much Harry and Sirius really didn't know each other that well. I do not think that Harry's mourning at the end of the book is completely about Sirius-as-a-person, but about what he represented: a father figure, a link to the past, someone left for him by his parents to take care of him. I think that on some larger symbolic level, this is the first time Harry has actually had to mourn his family... and much of what he feels is related to his parents' deaths. If his parents had been alive, Sirius (and what he represented in Harry's life) would not have been so important to H.
In a larger sense, all of his potential father figures are somehow tarnished in this book. Dumbledore has sheltered him too much, Sirius gets killed, Mr Weasley almost gets killed, Harry finds out that Snape has not been particularly unfair about James, Lupin can't get a job, Hagrid is MIA for most of the book in one way or another, etc etc. Kid's gonna have to learn to stand on his own.
To be honest, I had a plan of what I was going to say when I sat down to write this, and now I can't remember a lot of what it was.
Neville kicks so much ass in this one. Everyone should be a Neville fan.
Harry's attempt to use the Cruciatus Curse is particularly wrenching.
I didn't find New Vocal Ginny as annoying as everyone else seems to. But, I've never particularly liked Ginny, or wanted her crush on Harry to work out, or had a behind-the-scenes personality worked out for her like some of the ppl who are heavily into fandom do. So I had nothing invested in her, was not surprised or annoyed by her characterization, was vaguely amused with her love life.
I LOVE TONKS. Luna and Kingsley are cool, too, but Tonks is the coolest. Yay for clumsy punk rock aurors.
If I think of anything else to say... I'll say it.
Basically, I thought the book was good, possibly the best one of the series, but not a fun or happy read, and not, I think, really a kids' book at all anymore. It's hard to make predictions of what will come next, and unsettling to know that there are only two books to go. (sob.)
Nice
Date: 2003-06-27 06:00 am (UTC)I also thought it was interesting the way she's paralelling our lives, with the governement leaning on the media. Mainly, though, she didn't get bogged down in that, or overly concerned with maintaining a metaphor - it's still a great novel.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 08:41 am (UTC)I can totally agree with you on all points. I also agree with
And y'know -- with Harry revealing that he wants to be an Auror, and its three extra years of training...I wonder if there won't be more books....?
Tonks is my new hero, too, btw. I want hair I can change at will, without possiblity of frying it. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 09:38 pm (UTC)