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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9723311" data-attributes="member: 7035894">I started re-reading the Harry Potter series - I was in Porto on vacation a few weeks ago, wanted an easy vacation read, and it was the obvious choice given that Rowling started work on it while she lived there, and there are all kinds of nods to the books throughout the city. Anyway, I just finished book 7 last night.It's still a fun read - Rowling's formula of taking the old Tom Brown's Schooldays template and adding magic works a treat...for the first six books. But, man, Book 7 really goes downhill without the Hogwarts school year to give it structure. It's way over-stuffed, so much so that the climactic final battle of the entire series is constantly interrupted by pages upon pages of exposition to elaborate on all the plot contrivances (meanwhile, a key plot point such as Ron and Hermione figuring out how to destroy one of the horcruxes happens entirely off stage, though the film adaptation wisely decided to develop it). I'd forgotten that Harry's ultimate confrotnation with Voldemort is 90% the two of them playing twenty questions as Harry goes through the dubious technicalities of wand ownership. It's very strange that his final victory feels a bit like "Aha - you should have read the fine print, Dark Lord!"Also...what is with mega-popular fantasy settings playing footsie with slavery? Harry, like Luke Skywalker before him, is a slave owner - Kreacher the house elf (who of course has come to love him by the end). Why on earth did Rowling introduce the whole "house elves are slaves" subplot...what point is she trying to make, since it really goes nowhere? Anyway, it feels weird to be rooting for a protagonist who owns another sentient being.Edit: I suspect that her editors knew it was kind of a mess but also knew it didn't matter.</blockquote>

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