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Ah, differing opinions labelled as ridiculous and a waste of time – I see that JKR’s message of tolerance is in action.

About Harry using the Unforgiveable curses: Look what he’s been through his whole life – almost murdered as a baby, parents dead, raised by people who imprisoned and abused him, almost killed again by Voldy 1st year of school, hated by a teacher from age 11 without ever really knowing why, lost all his arm bones, almost killed 2nd year by a basilisk, attacked by dementors several times in his 3rd year, met and lost his godfather within a few hours (didn’t see him again in person for two years), 4th year – put into triwizard tournament and almost dies several times, captured by Wormtail and Voldy – friend dies, blood taken, tortured; back at Hogwarts almost killed again by Fake Moody, no communication over the Summer, painful scar episodes, mentally possesed by Voldy, tortured by Umbridge, sees godfather killed – Finally – first attempt at unforgiveable curse and fails, then actually possesed and almost killed by Voldy at Ministry. We still have two books to go – after seeing yet another parent figure killed in Dumbledore he tries to use the curses again (and fails). Final book – on the run after the wedding, months apparating in and out of villages to search for horcruxes, locket seared to chest, almost drowns, attacked by Nagini, captured to Malfoy Manor, people killed all around, WAR – and I know I haven’t got all of the pain, torture and loss listed – it’s a wonder he never used the curses before! He’s not supposed to be perfect, and in the end, he’ll do anything to end it.

that’s fine, harry doesn’t have to be god-like perfect- but mcgonagal PRAISING him for it sends a negative message. id have no complaint on this topic is harry cast the curse and McG warned him not to slip into the ways of his enemies.

(and my family having lived through war, i will say that the experience provides explanation for such bad behaviour, but it is not an excuse or justification for it)

Na, I was not going to get involved here, but I cannot help myself. You seem very young dear, with a major chip on your shoulder. You have to realize that many people have suffered losses – of family members, children (has to be the worst), parents, friends, suicides; countless have lived through wars and conflict; people get sick, this is what happens in life, and unless you are very lucky, you will eventually suffer from something that brings you pain and sadness. But – that’s why we have things like books to take us away from the real world. It’s a book, a fantasy, it was first and foremost written as entertainment. It’s not meant to be a moral compass such as the Bible. Religion works for some, but not all. You have to also learn the art of when to end an argument, otherwise, people start to get defensive and just tune you out. And your argument style is combative, you are attacking people because you think that they are wrong and you are right. You will understand more as you get older.

You don’t know my age, or what experiences i’ve lived through, but the examples you gave probably would have been a walk in the park. In fact, this was the first time in this conversation that i chuckled.

JKR didn’t say she wrote this first and foremost for entertainment- she did say she intended a message with it, and it is fair to critique if she succeeded or failed at that.

Further, i didn’t set out to attack anyone… i stated my opinions on JKR/HP and other’s took personal offense and attacked me. It’s not my fault if people can’t tell the difference between a criticism about a book and an attack on their own person.

I began with: “jkr is so bloody full of herself. for a supposed very important character, she sure treated him like crap, wrote him crapily and treats her fans that don’t hate him like crap. That all her “good characters” we’re supposed to admire didn’t emotionally mature, are good only because of how they were sorted, are ‘good’ even though they are often worse bullies than nasty ol snape- really it is just sickening….”

And I got replies like this:

“Your comments are so rubbish they’re laughable…” doodle

“Snape isn’t really a good guy… Get over him please (and yourselves).” -Snapesajerk

“You are totally contradicting yourself and yes your comments are laughable. Oh and if you really hate Harry Potter so much why are you on this website?!” -tintanktonks

The loss of a child is never a “walk in the park” and if you can chuckle at that I agree with the person who said communicating with you is a waste of time.

i was chuckling at your ignorance to my life/experience. And there are, to borrow a phrase from HP, things worse than death. Sometimes the death of a loved oneis a huge relief- perhaps you have some growing up to do if you don’t understand that.

ETA: acceptance and healing from death is a ‘walk in the park’ in a literal sense to my spirituality because after burial, the soul is absorbed and reincarnated to worms, grass, trees, birds, etc. my family has a large plot at a cemetery that is essentially a wildlife preserve/park and its quite uplifting to visit

na clearly you’re a person who has an opinion and no matter what you won’t change it, or consider the other side of an arguement. So like Sue said trying to communicate with you is a waste of time.

clearly those here who praise JKR like the next best thing to the mother mary are people with an opinion and no matter they won’t change it, nor can they consider any sort of opinion of the HP series that is not praise

But you got accept people disagree with you, which you have so far been unable to do. Which is way some have got a bit heated with you.

^^EDIT: Which is why some have got a bit heated with you.

I disagree with the books and JKR, and the general public response to the books when that response is the result of what the media or jkr has spoonfed them to think.

if someone genuinely thinks the message in HP is positive, and they show their proof for it, so be it. A calvinist in another forum did so on certain points such as the house system- I disagree with their beliefs but accept the opinion as accurate to them, and recognise that it was thought out after literally analysis and spiritual application.

It seems that people here refuse to accept my criticism of the books, simply because it is criticism, but i haven’t seen literally analysis as to how for example, McG’s praising harry for torturing someone for spitting or the hero of the story idly wondering when his slave will serve him provide positive moral messages to today’s audience.

I don’t know if JKR’s books have a message or not…....but whenevr i read it i feel positive and if Im depressed or anything it always brings a smile on my face. =))

I think Snape’s a great character I love him…...he’s my fav after the trio(Ron-Hermy are No.1) and Neville and Ginny…...

hey na,I think Ron/Hermione show charitable, selfless, altruistic, and unconditional love…....sry dont mind me im a R/Hr freak but i think they show true love

actually, I ship RW/HG, but I think their relationship needs A LOT of work. But they are very young, so it is to be expected.

Na na na na na na hey hey-yey good-bye.

Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.

Anyhooo—I don’t know why, but after recently re-reading DH, I got the notion to read the series backwards. I’m just finishing HBP tonight and will start OoTP this weekend. We’ll see.

Rhiannon said: “Eeyore It is good to see you again. I thought you had left us.”

Thank you and no, I haven’t left. I actually check for news here every day. I don’t comment much anymore, but sometimes read through the comments. In reading through the comments on this one, I’m reminded of the reason that I am not active on the forum any longer. After I finished Deathly Hallows, it was so complete for me, and I found the ending so satisfying, that I had to stop reading all the criticisms from others. Yes, I had my little nitpicks, but they weren’t important enough for me to ruin the feelings I had at the end of my favorite series of books. And I read all the time, and have all my life.

I think that one of the things that bothered me the most was Harry’s use of the Unforgivables toward the end of DH. But when I started thinking about it, it was a vivid picture of the horror of war. They were fighting for their lives and watched others being tortured or senselessly killed, and they reacted in whatever way they could think of. War has a way of dehumanizing even the best of people. Was the use of Unforgivables right? No. But that does happen in war; good, moral people make bad choices that they would ordinarily never consider. At the very end, though, in facing Voldemort, Harry did not use an Unforgivable Curse. Instead he didn’t even use a curse that was intended to harm, but used a defensive spell. A spell that would protect him, and interestingly enough, it was a spell that he had first learned from Snape. Nice touch, that one.

I found Snape to be one of the most fascinating of Rowling’s characters, because he was the most complex and his story unfolded so slowly for us. But the clues were there from the beginning. If there wasn’t something hidden in Snape’s past concerning Harry, why would Snape hate him from the first book. It was in rereading POA, though, and especially in OP that I started to see that people who saw that Snape loved Lily were right. Snape always raged against James and Sirius, sometimes against Lupin by association, but never once said a word against Lily. Harry was the one who made those jumps, assuming that Snape also hated his mother.

Snape very much resembles the character of Sydney Carton in “A Tale of Two Cities” by Dickens (another literary character who is rather nasty to others and not very likeable), and once I saw that, I knew that Snape was on some sort of sacrificial path because of his love for Lily, just as Carton willingly sacrificed himself to save Lucy and her family. That book has the best redemptive ending of any book I’ve ever read.

Lily befriended Snape when he was younger and looked a bit odd, when Petunia saw him as “that awful boy” (the other thing that convinced me that Snape loved Lily). I was glad to see that Lily returned his friendship, and that it wasn’t completely one-sided. She tried to stand up for him, and was called a horrific name (the wizarding version of a racial slur), and she did listen to him later. But in the end, she chose her own path in life just as Snape did. She saw her childhood friend getting in deeper and deeper with dark wizards that she saw as being on an evil path, and even after she talked to Snape and tried to warn him , he refused to veer from his own chosen path.

It was one of the saddest things in the books for me. Snape, with his unhappy childhood, ended up being influenced by those in his house who were happy to use his considerable talent to their own purposes. I can’t imagine that they really liked him as a person, given that he was from a poor family and was not a pure-blood. But people who have been bullied for so long and pushed out sometimes will follow anyone who gives them the promise of power. And those who are bullied sometimes become the bully, which is just what we saw with Snape. Like Dumbledore, I have to wonder, would Snape have turned out differently had he been sorted into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw? (yeah, I can’t see him in Hufflepuff at all. LOL) I think it could have made the difference because he might have been more influenced by Lily and wouldn’t have had the opportunity to spend so much time with the Lestranges and future Death Eaters.

Once he knew that he was the one responsible for Lily’s death, he did repent (just as Sydney Carton did), and then Snape spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his part in the death of the only person he ever loved or respected. But he was still the solitary soul he had been as a child and he’d never learned how to reach out to others. He still saw any emotional vulnerability as a weakness because he knew how Voldemort would use it.

And what does Snape have every day of the term for seven years (well, six really)? He sees the face of the student who bullied him just because he could, and the eyes of the one person he loved. Instead of seeing that Harry was much more like Lily than like James, Snape is stuck in that adolescent hatred. Sirius was no better, as he was never able to let go of his hatred against Snape. Neither of them had the chance to “grow up” because of the circumstances surrounding the death of Lily and James. Because of that one tragedy, Sirius ends up in Azkaban for twelve years and then in hiding for two more; Snape ends up truly regretting the part he played and repents and does what is right in trying to protect Harry. But Snape was never really able to forgive himself.

Are there any perfect characters in Harry Potter? No. That is the brilliance of the books. Jo gave us heroes and villains who are all flawed and so very human. Just as we are all flawed and very human. Jo gave us something much better than cardboard cut-outs of good guys and bad guys. In giving us realistic characters, she has also given us the opportunity to explore how people in real life interact. And she has pointed the way for seeing the wrongs in our own world through not resolving all the issues in hers.

Sorry to run on so long. I promise I won’t do it again. Well, I’ll try to refrain from it anyway. ;-)