Rowling has taken "inspiration" from more fantasy books than LotR. I am just reading two series, and I have seen more than one reference to those series. The obvious ones are He Who Must Not Be Named vs. The Dark One (Wheel of Time) and "evil"/mad families breeding with relatives (A Song of Ice and Fire). I am sure I could name a lot more than those if I was more into fantasy. But hey, HP is an exciting series anyway. Well worth the time for one of my literal calibre, at least.

I can't seem to decide whether Snape is bad or good. I have been wrong in every assumption I have made when reading Harry Potter, so I think it would be wiser not to make any more of them.

Looking forward to nr. 7. [Double Helix: Could you please spoiler warn the post about that TV interview you saw? That isn't a book 6 spoiler, it is a book 7 spoiler. Sorry for sounding like an ***, but I thought I knew what I was dealing with here.]

Sorry, I just don't see the similarities between Voldemort and the Dark One. Voldy is a dark wizard and the Dark One is basically Satan.

And it's fairly common in fantasy not to say the name of the big bad enemy.

JKR has said she doesn't like fantasy at all. So I doubt she consciously borrowed ideas from other fantasy works.

[QUOTE=Gandalv the Gray] [Double Helix: Could you please spoiler warn the post about that TV interview you saw? That isn't a book 6 spoiler, it is a book 7 spoiler. Sorry for sounding like an ***, but I thought I knew what I was dealing with here.] [/QUOTE]
My bad.

Are house elves bound to their masters by a spell, or is it just custom (does giving clothing break the spell or does it just symbolize freedom?)

There's some thing about house elves being bound by magic, but not necessarily by a spell, and house elves use a "different breed" of magic anyway (hence how they can disapparate inside of Hogwarts.)

P.S. wasn't this thread old?

Dammit I was just going to make a brilliant post about how Snape was under that unbreakable vow so he had no choice but to kill dumbledore (he was supposed to do it if malfoy faltered remember) but someone mentioned something similar already

I think, knowing rowling, that there is a huge, ambiguous plot device that could go both ways .. (= dumbledore knew / directed snape to make this vow n knew he would die, or snape made the vow without dumbledore knowing to take a step to rejoining voldemort's service in its entirety)

I just want to figure out where all the Phoenix imagery connected to Dumbledore is going. Plus he's all like "there are worse things than death," almost like his death was going to HELP Harry defeat Voldemort.

Eh, we'll see.

hmm, sicne this thread seems to be abck alive again, iw anted to put a theory i recently concocted here. I just (read: an hour ago) finished re-reading the entire series,and i've picked up a few interesting things. the most important being: the location of syltherin's locket.

i'm going to put my theory in spoiler tags, even though its not a poiler, in case someone doesn't want to spoil...stuff.. or whatever.

Ok, so, here it goes: Sytherin's locket is at Number 12, Grimmauld Place. In 'Order of the Phoenix', during the cleaning of the house by harry ron, etc, they empty out a drawer and find, amoung other things, "a heavy locket no one could open". This is all that was said. but wait, there's more. First of all is the initials in the letter from the fake Horcrux: R.A.B. this could stand for Regulus Black, Sirius' brother. Sirius says in 'Order' that Regulus got to a very high position with voldmort before he lsot his nerve, ran, and was killed. Now, voldmort told the death eaters on his return that he had 'gone further then anyone on the path to immortality', and he seems to suggest that many of them know how he did this. Therefore, its possibl,e the high level ones know about the horcruxes. So, either regulus was told or he found out from someone else about the horcruxes, and when he turned away from voldmort he attempted to take and damage one before he was inevitably killed. This again fits with the letter, for, not only does he refer to voldmort as 'The dark lord', a title that only death eaters used (harry accuses snape with this in book 5), but he knew he was going to die, for he ran from the deaht eaters. Regulus was always welcome in the black household while sirius' momw as around, so he could have easily stowed it away there, perhaps hopinf for a better look and attept at destruction before he was killed. this failed, but the locket still ended up at number 12, grimmauld place.

soo.. if anyone wants to read all that, let me know what you think.

Edit: to BV: i think most of the phoenix imagry related to dumbledore simply has to do with fawks. I also think it has a lot to do with loyalty, fawks represents the loyalty of potter to dumbledore, and of hargid and the rest of the order to dumbledore. but i'm not entirely sure on that, it could be much more.

Intersting theory. I don't have the the 5 previous books fresh in my mind, but that sounds quite plausible. Thanks for sharing.

I think you're half right... I bet Dung stole it and sold it.

I've provided my theory in spoiler tags as well.

The woman has absolutelly no plan at all and just does a line of crack mixed with pure gold filings before she writes with her pure gold pen with gold ink in her gold castle inside of her pure gold 24000 acres of pure gold-paved estate. The books are all, but the first, written like this. The first was 5 dollar crack off of her pimp's [genki] with her stolen church pencil on the back of a "Will work for Fewd" cardboard cutout. In either case, hallucinagents were used, and I simply cannot purchase a book with drug influences. Especially a demonic one. And if all that wasn't enough, I would NEVER read or purchase a book that was so pseudo fantasy, semi poor/good writing, and had so many cliche fantasy pieces twisted in for fun that the books themselves smell of toilet-logs.

That is all.

Amusing, and generally false, but with elements of truth.

to you sir i say 'bah'.

Edit: also, how cna you write for the NeSand then say all that about cliche bit and psudo fantasy? i don't think that's true of rowling, but really come on now. the nes has more of that stuff then you'd ever fit in a book. well, except the bad writing bit, most of our stuff is really good, imo.

NeS is just a fun little group effort. If you extrapolated NeS into a book, it'd probably be one of the worst books ever written. not writing wise, but the story is so choppy, so mismatched, so random, and so, as you mentioned, pseudo fantasy that in reality it's more annoying than interesting. But post by post from several different writers? That's just good writing PRACTICE.

The write must have done something right with HP, or else she wouldn't be so freaking rich, but I still can't believe our youth are reading THIS and calling it FANTASY!? There's much more high-fantasy that's worth a read than this pseudo fantasy bull. Dumbledorf? Weasley? That'd be like calling Hitchhiker an engaging and interesting space-fantasy. It isn't. It's a comedy that uses random elements of space. Kids read HP and try to make it out to be some elaborate world full of fantasy and lore that can be had fun with. No, it's a copy off of every other fantasy element from any other book with the intention of COMEDY. I think her books have been sorelly misunderstood, and far too overhyped.

On top of all of that, the writing style is one of the worst I've ever read, at some parts, and fantastic at others. She's got no consistancy to her writing ability, and it annoyingly shows. I spend half of the books being confused because I missed a key point in some poorly worded and overly flowery statement. The other half I spend wondering how the same human being wrote the bad half.

JediKirby

She has caught "English Author of Kid's Books Disease" where she exaggerates things like crazy. Not all the time but some of the time. The fourth book was an unorganized mess I have to say.

Ok, point conceded about the NeS. but the other stuff:

the next thing.. i really don't think its supposed to be a comedy. funny a points, certaintly, but not a comedy. and sicne you bring up hitchhikers, i guess you think its supposed to be a satire? that, i think is really wrong. maybe the thing isn't that everyone else misunderstand, but that you don't like the books because you're looking at it the wrong way? just a thought.

About the psudo-fantasy thing, jsut to ask, what do you mean by this? yeah, its not high fantasy, that much is obvious, although it has some elements, mostly shown in voldmort and dumbledore's incredible power. But jsut becuase its not high fantasy doesn't mean it is psudo-fantasy. high fantasy isn't the only 'real' fantasy genre.

Oh, and aboiut the world not being elaborate. I tlaked to geb recently, and even though he doesn't quite like the books either, he does agree with me that the world is done very well.

Lastly, i've never noticed the lack of consistency. Obviosuly, she's not all that great in the first books but becomes, IMO, very good at the last three books, but i'm pretty sure that's not how you mean. i dunno, could you point out some point that she does it for me, or somehting? i've jsut never really seen it.

That's just the thing. She attempts to use pieces of high fantasy in her work, yet the work itself isn't HALF serious. And that's what I mean, it's got elements of funny in it, but it's still fantasy, yet it's not a satire. That really doesn't quite work when in the end you're trying to take it seriously. People sit and try to analyse all of the little plot twists; that's ok, that's a book. But when people write fanfiction and have RPGs in this world, then I start to ask WHY our youth is so interested in this book. Honestly, even high fantasy barelly roleplays. You can't get INTO a world that in itself isn't very consistant, doesn't have any rules [Everything just sort of happens as it needs to happen for the story to progress] or whatnot. I'm actually having a reall hard time, and always have, describing why I don't like the books, and the entire hype surrounding them.

It seems to me like people would read NeS and laugh, then pass over it. Instead, people are DELVING into it, thinking it's got rules and paths to follow. NeS happens as it will, and everything changes to bend towards the story, rather than the story towards the world. That's why anyone can write for NeS. That's why anyone can write Harry Potter. She just seems to toss things in randomly to maintain a sense of fantasy, rather than a truly fantasy world. And things just seem to work for the characters, rather than the characters working towards any one thing. There's no suspense or question about anything because when the characters get in a fix, one of them whips out some never-before-mentioned spell or whatever and saves the day. That's fancy and all, but it's not at all a world one could take seriously and consider true fantasy, or the high fantasy that a lot of people seem to take it for.

Basically, I don't see why there's such a following and such when there are SO many other great fantasy books that offer that deep world. And so many more that are just fun (lion which and wardrobe, and some other childrens novels.) for the not so fantasy books.

Basically, what I'm saying, is HIGH COMEDIC FANTASY shouldn't be a genre.

And, you could flatten whole people with the book if it ever made it to paper

Uh...kirby...have you read the books? And if so, which?

I hated 1 and 2, kinda liked 3, but 4, 5, and 6 are all excellent novels. It takes time to come together. At first it started out a lot more childish, and now it's taking a lot more serious air. It's a novel that's in a fantasy setting, not a fantasy novel. After you realize that, you enjoy the books much more. For the record, I'm an avid high fantasy reader (Sword of Truth, Shannara, Dragonlance), so I think, based on the fact that I've read all the books along with a lot of high fantasy, you should take my opinion into consideration.

Best. Shirt. Ever.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Uh...kirby...have you read the books? And if so, which?[/QUOTE]

Admittedly, I read 1-4, and skimmed through 5 and 6 [I read them, but speed read in an hour or so to get the gist.] So you could argue that my opinion is only on 1-4. But still, I can't exactly get back into it when I don't initially take the storyline seriously. It seems things just happen and rules are made just to compliment the story. [And of course, that's true with all fantasy, but much less apparent, and usually based on some sort of logic or science]

JediKirby

In the chapter Horcruxes, how Dumbledore explains to Harry that love is his only power the Dark Lord knows not... I'm really confused. Well, not confused, but I can't see the deeper significance or the symbolisim in his whole explanation at the end of the chapter. Dumbledore words it complicated, so I think I'm missing the gist of the whole thing. Anybody else get it and mind explaining it in detail? Any cool symbolisim points I'm misssing/overlooked?

I hate it when story authors say love is useful in combat. Its not. JKR should have said the P-90's are harry's power.

Love in combat will only get you killed.

No it won't. Indeed love is blinding but love and compassion can help drive someone while in combat.

Now love FOR combat...

Harry lives. Not because he himself is special, but because of his mother's love.

i jsut remebered. in book five, dumblore sheds a lot of light on the whole love thing, i think, and it has a lot to do with your first statement. voldmort wats harry dead because he's a threat. Harry, on the other hand, is driven by love, love for his parents, for sirius, for dumbledore, for ginny, ron, and hermoine, etc etc etc. Dumbledore says in book five, "If you ahd never heard the prophecy, how would you fell now? would you still want to go after voldmort?" and harry's answer is yes, because of what i jsut said above. i think that may be what is going to be the 'power of love' in the end. i dunno, but maybe.

Noble, I've never read any of the books and have no intention to. That's just something I said.

Then what the hell are you doing in this thread, other than trolling?

well, ok, i was just expanding on it in relation to the books. someone who reads the books may find it interesting.

hmmm... I find the heavy, unopenable locket theory very, very interesting... I dunno about mundungus stealing it though... I can't remember, did they throw away the locket with the rest of the rubbish? If so, that sucks for Harry. It will be hard to find.

Anyway, I have a very interesting observation to make. When you kill someone who has made a horocrux, you have destroyed the part of the soul living in the body, right? So... What I don't get is why when harry destroys two pieces of voldemorts soul by killing him twice, how come there is only the locket and one other horocrux to find, instead of the locket and three more?

No, helix, i think the horcrux basically makes the final bit of soul in the person immortal, it reinforces it so that if the bpdy is destroyed, that bit of soul stays alive. Its like that spell that shows up in fantasy alot, hwere you remove the heart from a person and they can't be killed. you may attempt to destroy thier body, but because their heart iss till fine it reinforces them and you can't do diddly. The only bits of soul that are voulnerable are those out of the body, in the horcruxes. Until they are destoryed, personally, the soul in his body will remain alive, no matter how battered it becomes.