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Draco isn't the one who ultimate kills Dumbledore. But I do mean "waiting around for Draco to kill him" literally. There was a waiting period and I think it was supposed to be dramatic but after a bit I was starting to think "Oh please, this is getting embarassing for all of us."

Dumbledore's actual moment of death is kinda cool. It's just the time and context leading immediately up to it that could have been more impressive.

I had read one or two brief analyses on Ginny/Harry stuff before book 6 came out (really they were more like anti-H/Hermione essays that used Ginny as a backdrop), but I didn't think they'd been given enough lead up to be a pairing unless something new happened that sparked it. But, without getting into too much detail... nothing new happens. It's like Harry wakes up one day and randomly decides this girl that he hasn't paid attention to for 6 books (including the current book, which would have been a time to build them up if they were going to get together) except as his best friend's sister is all of a sudden the focus of his undying love. Except then he pulls an Angel/Peter Parker, which just kind of makes it seem like JKR put them together because she thought Harry deserved to make out with someone before he battles Voldemort, not because there's a great romance there that's been building for ages.

The whole Ginny/Harry would have been okay if I hadn't thought it was dropped on us out of nowhere with some emotional ret-conning on Harry's part. The apparent need to give Harry someone and then to give him a girl who's "really the perfect girl for him" (as JKR has said in interviews) felt amateurish to me. Like a Mary-Sue or something... not a self-insertion, just trying too much.

This post belies the fact that I did like most of HBP. There were definitely things I liked about it. I enjoyed it as much as book 5 and book 3, which I had considered the better books of the series. But I was thinking that instead of just liking it, if someone else had done the actual writing I could have loved it. As much as I enjoy the story and the verse she invented, I am constantly disappointed in her actual prose and delivery.

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herongale

I'd like to mention that if David Eddings had written the Harry Potter series, Harry would have gotten a hold of the Philosopher's Stone and would discover that it is actually instrumental in making him a Child of Light, and then later on he'd find out after killing Voldemort, he's only just killed ONE Child of the Dark, and... eventually... a badass EVIL Philosopher's Stone would crop up (called, who knows, maybe the "Swindler's Stone?") and Harry would be married to Ginny and then their child would be abducted by the NEW Child of the Dark (Draco!) and there would be an ultimate battle somewhere in another country (like China) off the coast of a remote island where people all speak like throwback knights.

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I was thinking more in terms of retaining the same HP plot (because overall story is the reason I read the HP books), but with better character development and better dialogue.

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klytaimnestra.livejournal.com

As much as I enjoy the story and the verse she invented, I am constantly disappointed in her actual prose and delivery.

That's it in a nutshell. Let's b fair, though - at least she's not George Lucas. :)

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herongale

I know, I know. But Eddings really falls down when it comes to plot, so I thought it would be humourous to imagine what he'd do with Harry Potter if the plotting were up to him.

*is kind of in love with Sparhawk, BTW*

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so I thought it would be humourous to imagine what he'd do with Harry Potter if the plotting were up to him.

Well, that's not really what you did either-- you just did the Mallorean plot with the HP names, not the HP plot as retouched by another author. But still I know what you're getting at. Actually, that was my problem with the Sparhawk books. I read the two Belgariad series first, and by the time I got around to the books with Sparhawk I was just tired of it. It felt exactly the same to me right down to the sentient glowy blue stone and god-like powers. And I liked the bloody battles less and the world he created less (I'm not so much into the heavy dark-ages style fantasy with religious themes and crusades) than in the other series.

So can't exactly say I share the love. :) But I should add that I *did* read all three of those books, which means I've read 15 books by Eddings, which all in all is a hell of a lot more than I plan to give JKR. She'll get me for HP 7 and if she ever writes again afterward I'll try that to see if she's gotten better by being freed from the constraints of her first series, but if it's just mediocre then chances are low that I'd commit myself to another 7-book series.

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What I really want to know is, what would have happened if Diane Duane wrote HP?

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I've only read one book by Diane Duane that I remember (I think it was "So you want to be a wisard"), and it was so long ago I don't even remember much of what it was about, much less the writing or plot style.

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There's eight books in the series now, and it's just... wow. I adore it, but mostly because I'm more scifi geek than fantasy geek, so the scifi-elements appeal to me ;)

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Who is NOT in love with Sparhawk? Tasteless people, that's who. He is snarky and competent and hot and the concept of the Anakha is fucking awesome if a little shaky upon close examination.

Sometimes when I am bored I make lists in my head of plot/characterization points cannibalized from the Belgariad/Mallorean for the Elenium/Tamuli. I love both series but DAMN. I couldn't stand The Redemption of Althalus, though; an entire doubly cannibalized series stuffed into one book, with added pseudobestiality!

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Harry and company would end up in New York, and someone would go "Oh, look, the Twin Towers!" and they'd all take pictures. And then cats and computers would talk to them and they'd end up in the sewer fighting giant evil subway trains.

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It's scary and wonderful how you've seen or read or listened to, like, everything that I have seen or read or listened to. Neat.

the concept of the Anakha is fucking awesome

I remember thinking the name was pretty cool, along wiht the whole godly powers thing. Even if repetitive, godly powers can never really not be cool. Then when SW episode 1 came out I kept trying to remember if the name was the same as Anakin.

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Who is NOT in love with Sparhawk? Tasteless people, that's who.

Now that I think about it, I remember more being in love with the thief boy who was gonna be a knight and an emperor of thieves and then get trapped into marriage by the goddess child.

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Not EVERYTHING; I've somehow managed to escape the Stephen King Dark Tower books. (Though I owe you enormous thanks for the Ender's Game rec, 'cause that book was awesome.) But oh, man, I went through all the Garion books in about a week when I was nine, and they've been my favorite high fantasy books ever since (my favorite of all is King of the Murgos, because I adore Silk and his family and Sadi and Salmissra).

The enormous appeal of Sparhawk-as-Anakha for me wasn't the whole godly powers thing, which honestly made him less interesting and much more Generic Hero than I liked. It was the idea that the gods fear Anakha because he's the one being whose actions can't be predicted by fate or destiny, which makes him a total wildcard/chaotic neutral, and the gods fear what they can't control. Unfortunately that didn't get a lot of play in the series, as the wacky godly powers got precedence.

The Belgariad/Mallorean is still the stronger series, but the Elenium/Tamuli gets love from me for having cranky old Sparhawk as the protagonist. And even though it cribs every plot and character element from the Belgariad, it sort of gets love from me for making the character elements really fucked up--only 'sort of' because, man, some of that stuff is REALLY REALLY MESSED UP. (Aphrael as Sparhawk's daughter and setting her sights on the queenship and Talen as prince consort? That is not happy. All the characters are like, "Oh, we love Aphrael 'cause she's so sweet and cute", but she's the scariest effing control freak goddess ever, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that that was never addressed seriously in the series.)

And since your icon reminds me, some Fruits Basket doujinshi, including a slightly Shigure/Rin one.

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Oh, left out the other Messed Up Yo from the Elenium: Sparhawk/Ehlana, which is about seventeen kinds of badwrongnoooo. Sparhawk basically raised her until she was eight, and while we never get an exact measure of his age it's implied he wasn't a young man while doing this. Then he comes back ten years later and she's like "I've loved you and wanted to jump your bones since I was eight" and he's like "Okay", and they get married, the 18-year-old bride and her not-a-young-man-plus-10-years husband. That's just beautiful.

But I was totally okay with it when I was nine, which makes me kick myself in amusement when I react badly now to scary age differences in series. (Realistically scary age differences--I'm not counting, say, the vampire lovers on "Buffy", who look/act late 20s as they woo Buffy even if they're really in their 100s.)

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Talen! Who has the Silly High Fantasy Name and is basically Silk Lite but so cute anyway that I love him. I loved his relationship with his older half-brother Khalad (even though Khalad is by FAR Eddings' most blatant example of "Insert Character Type Here" Characterization).

When I'm re-reading the books and caught up in the story, I think it's cute that he's going to be trapped into marriage by the goddess child. When I have time between re-readings of the books to think about it, I want him to run like hell ~~even though there is nowhere he would be able to escape~~.

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I vaguely remember the age difference bothering me when I was young and reading it, but I honestly don't think I'd ever thought it through or understood the implications that I'd instantly think about now. From my viewpoint 18 was way old and thus adult.

It was the idea that the gods fear Anakha because he's the one being whose actions can't be predicted by fate or destiny, which makes him a total wildcard/chaotic neutral, and the gods fear what they can't control.

YES! YES! I was trying to remember what I had liked about it and THAT was it, not the godly powers. It was the idea of him being the only person in the world without a destiny.

(Though I owe you enormous thanks for the Ender's Game rec, 'cause that book was awesome.)

I'm glad you loved it. That book is in my top 4 favs (see also LOTR, Dark Tower, tHHGttG.) I rec it to everyone.

Someday you'll read the Dark Tower books, and I think you'll love them too.

Silk, I think, was my favorite Eddings character. I loved them all, but I think I loved Silk the most.

but she's the scariest effing control freak goddess ever, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that that was never addressed seriously in the series

That always left me unsettled too-- glad to know I wasn't the only reader who thought so. The whole thing seemed like some twisted violation somehow... though exactly a violation of what I don't know. Their privacy? Their destiny? Ehlana's right to control her own body?

I remember thinking I wouldn't be happy about it at all if it were me, but at the time I couldn't articulate why. Didn't have the words.

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So You Want to Be a Wizard is one of my favorite books ever; I stopped reading the rest of the series after High Wizardry, although I read the two side books about the cat-wizards. I am the only geekgirl in the world who remains unmoved by Dairine.

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OT: Did you watch The Rats of Nihm movie when you were a kid?

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Now that I think about it, I was reading books as a kid that had a lot worse content than the movies I was allowed to watch. I remember this series being rather bloody. And other fantasy books I've read have had various bloody or subversive themes.

And they wouldn't let me watch R-rated movies. HAH! I read fantasy books and horror books that were plenty R-rated enough. And my parents would just let me wander willy-nilly around a library for hours. ::happy nostalgic sigh:: I'm going to let my kids do that. I'll make them book addicts then unleash them upon libraries to corrupt or teach themselves as they see fit.

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I used to obsess over the idea of Spike from "Buffy" being a kind of Anakha. Its niftiness as an idea was outshone only by its incredibly dorkiness.

I was so jealous of Velvet ending up with Silk. But at the same time they were darling together, a snarky Boris and Natasha.

The whole thing seemed like some twisted violation somehow... though exactly a violation of what I don't know. Their privacy? Their destiny? Ehlana's right to control her own body?

Ehlana didn't work for me as a character in a lot of ways that were highlighted by this whole thing with Aphrael-as-her-daughter-Danae: either Ehlana's an incredibly emotionally fragile and delicate creature whose soul would be destroyed by the revelation that she could never naturally have children, in which case why the hell are you letting her run an entire country; or she's a strong and intelligent independent monarch, in which case why the hell are you keeping from her the state secret that there's a divine cuckoo in her nest? (And how stupid would she--and the rest of the court--have to be to not notice that Princess Danae is a different ethnicity from her parents?) It also pretty much burned me that the ability to have children was being presented as something without which Ehlana's life as a woman had no meaning. Ce'Nedra was a superficially flightier character, and I wasn't crazy about how she went crazy over her missing baby in the second series, but she's ultimately a much stronger personality than Ehlana.

I have this vision of Aphrael instating herself as eternal Goddess-Queen of Elenia, turning her royal soldiers to stamp out worship of the Elene God, and then using those forces combined with the Church Knights to conquer the world and rule forever--with Talen at her side as an eternally young consort who she regularly mindwipes to keep him docile and in love with her.

We're supposed to think Aphrael is cute, and when I'm reading I always do--but whenever I've got some space from the books she scares the hell out of me. She spends enough time with humans to be able to snark with them and adopt many of their practices, but she's not human and she's not trying to be, and she only believes in free will when it's serving her purposes. Give me the friendly but distant Santa-like gods from the Belgariad any day. Was anyone else annoyed that Eriond made the other gods go away at the end of The Seeress of Kell?

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I did, and I read the book(s), and I loved them all. :)

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re: Nimh

I only read the one book, but I mostly remember the movie. Anyway, did you fangirl the one rat? The clevery charming one who was friends with Mrs. Bisby's late husband when they broke out of the lab? The one that was helping her and her family.

I wanted them to get together every time I watched the movie, even though they were two different species and stuff. Equal marriage rights for all rodents, I say!

We're supposed to think Aphrael is cute, and when I'm reading I always do--but whenever I've got some space from the books she scares the hell out of me.

Word.

Heh. Santa-like gods.

Was anyone else annoyed that Eriond made the other gods go away at the end of The Seeress of Kell?

I was disappointed. It seemed to be a move toward Christianity, like monotheism is the destiny of all cultures, and since at that point I was already a young atheist at heart (though not quite self-realized yet), it bothered me that all these fabulous diverse gods that had made this world I loved were being replaced by a single God who would make everything a little bit better through peace and love.

Though I liked the character himself. It's just I liked the other gods better story-wise.

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The other books go back to focusing on Nita and Kit, as is proper ;) Well, okay, the last two are definitely "ensemble cast" books... but yeah.

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Did I mention the HUGE GIANT SPOILER FOR WIZARD'S DILEMMA: I don't want to see Nita's mommy die!!!!!!!!! [/spoiler]

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Well, yes, there is that... but there's also PONCH! And grenfelzing! Come on, everyone loves grenfelzing!

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Just realized I hadn't thanked you for the random doujinshi links. YAY FB DOUJINSHI!

I made the icon after deciding that recently volumes were making Shigure a complete pimpmeister instead of the horny loner hermit we all thought he was.

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I know not Ponch, but sie can't hold a candle to Fred (ha ha pun).

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