thistlechaser | The day after (HP and FFXI)

While writing up my HP post last night, I had forgotten that I put a bunch of my comments in

hbp_chapters instead of my own LJ, so many people didn't get to see them. While last night's post had mostly negative stuff, this one is mostly positive. Too bad I wasn't able to put both into one post, since it would have been more balanced that way.

First off, if you think even for a second that Snape is evil, please take a moment to read this post by

fabularasa. She wrote it up better than I ever could.

So, the things I liked in the book: Voldemort's past. I really enjoyed seeing him as a child, and I'd love to see more. I love the whole psychopathic (yet human) child he was. I liked it a lot better than the snake-in-human-form thing that he is now.

I liked the whole mystery of who the Prince was, even though I had known in advance. While I loved the explanation for "Prince", it seemed like it was covered too fast and too easily in the book.

While I very much liked the changes in Harry (evil!Harry anyone?), the book never explained the changes in his character well enough. His godfather had just died, but there was so very little grief. And in one of the early chapters Harry says something like "I know I'm going to die, but I'll take as many of them, and Lord Voldemort if I can, with me". WHEN did Harry become a tool? A weapon with no feelings? *boggle* I enjoyed (and was made slightly sick by) the scene in the cave where Harry was lying to Dumbledore to keep him drinking the potions.

But my favorite thing about the book? That I'm done with it and can now read everything that everyone is saying about it. The book hasn't changed anything for me: It's the fans who make the fandom someplace I want to be, not the book itself. Without looking a single title up, I could name 10 fanfics I loved tons more than HBP. Fanfics (good fanfics) give these characters a depth that JKR never, ever has. They inject logic and reason into her world. They explain things that she never does. They fill in the holes. Heck, they find new holes and fill those in, too! And now I get to read all the great stuff they've been writing in the past couple days.

FFXI: This morning I was able to download the patch in one single try! Yay! Of course I wasn't able to log on after that, but hey. Hopefully by tonight I'll be able to! And hopefully enough others will be be successful so we'll be able to go Eco'ing!