TheOnlyOneHeEverFeared
Member
Erm no.
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Why exactly is the Harry Potter epilogue so despised?
- Thread starter Uzumaki Goku
- Start date
Erm no.
IT's like you just have terrible opinions on almost everything
More than how she's characterized, it simply felt like there was no build up to it, no interactions suggesting that things were moving in that direction between them (or much of anything more platonic between them before then that I could really remember). By the time it happened, it was pretty much, "okay, these two are a couple now".
It all comes down to personal perspective obviously, but for me? Yes.
A writer over at Ferretbrain perfectly encapsulated my many, many problems with the later installments through his summary of Deathly Hallows.
Damn, dude. What else do I have terrible opinions on?
jack_package_200
Banned
Was so heroic bullying Neville all those years
Same. In fact at first I thought this was about Cursed Child, which is bat-shit insane.
Crimson_Echidna
Banned
What gets me is the weakass justifications for Snape being a dick to his students. Like somehow, Harry and Ron not being the best students justifies Snape being an asshole.
Like, if that were the case, why was he such a prick to Hermione too?
It doesn't help that Harry has a boring personality and Ginny is even more boring. He needs someone like Hermione to make his life a tiny bit more exciting.
TheSkullPrince
Member
Harry should have named one of his sons after Fred; what a greedy mother fucker!
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Geroge named his kid Fred.
jack_package_200
Banned
Literally anyone would have been a more interesting choice than Ginny for Harry to end up with. Hermonie, Cho, Luna, Ron, or even Pavarti would have been better.
The only Potter book I ever read was the one where Harry gets with Cho Chang, and it was pretty much the only story thread I enjoyed, and felt like it was the start of a great relationship.
I wasn't compelled to read any more of the books/watch the movies but someone told me years later than Harry ends up with Ginny and I was like "oh, Rowling fucked up".
cj_iwakura
Member
In the movies, it was so dumb that they just didn't recast some older actors as them but instead tried to make these young kids look old:
Hey, they have adults playing kids all the time, why not the opposite.
I enjoyed the epilogue in both.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
Oh yeah I forgot he was like that to everyone who wasn't in Slytherin, it was just he was extra mean to Harry. I wonder if the 7th Years would have put up with his bullshit.
The Snape shit is the biggest bit of stupidity in the franchise.
The dude was a Death Eater. He's responsible, wittingly or not, for Harry's parents being dead. Can you imagine being a big enough dick to get somebody killed and then bully his kid for having the gall to look like him? He's basically the second most evil character in the franchise.
All you needed to do was leave his legacy as complicated and it would be good. But noooooo, you just have to pretend like he was a hero.
The dude was a Death Eater. He's responsible, wittingly or not, for Harry's parents being dead. Can you imagine being a big enough dick to get somebody killed and then bully his kid for having the gall to look like him? He's basically the second most evil character in the franchise.
All you needed to do was leave his legacy as complicated and it would be good. But noooooo, you just have to pretend like he was a hero.
entremet
Member
Redemptive themes aren't new in fiction.
old
Member
The book series is ~ 5000 pages. The climax was somewhere around page 4995. 5000 pages of getting to know these characters and this world. 5000 pages read over many years. Thus many years and many books spent with these characters.
And we get like 5 pages of closure.
"Voldemort died. Harry and friends rejoiced. They shacked up and had kids. THE END."
That's basically what we got. I like that GRRM has said he's a fan of Tolkien's style of a longer resolution. When he writes the final chapters of ASOIF he's said he's going to follow the LOTR style instead of the Harry Potter style. I'm very glad for that. I've spent too many books and too many years growing attached to the characters in ASOIF to say goodbye in just 5 pages.
And we get like 5 pages of closure.
"Voldemort died. Harry and friends rejoiced. They shacked up and had kids. THE END."
That's basically what we got. I like that GRRM has said he's a fan of Tolkien's style of a longer resolution. When he writes the final chapters of ASOIF he's said he's going to follow the LOTR style instead of the Harry Potter style. I'm very glad for that. I've spent too many books and too many years growing attached to the characters in ASOIF to say goodbye in just 5 pages.
This is possibly the least earned one in existence.
Maybe the ghost of Darth Vader celebrating to Yub-Nub is up there, too.
Chuck Norris
Banned
I don't think that is correct at all. Ron & Hermione were being played up as a potential thing all the way since the 4th book when they started getting petty about eachother's dating choices. They just didn't know how to transfer their friendship into a relationship. Rowling did a decent job building them up, but she gave nothing to them once they were established in the last moments of the book
That said, Ron was always an asshole to her. And Harry was a bit of an asshole to Ginny, at least as far as completely ignoring her existence till she got a bit hot (book). I don't think Rowling expressed the healthiest female protagonist choices
I don't mind Ginny as a character. But she was given almost no time to stand out in the books after she became relevant. Even Luna and Neville had more relevance in the last book
The cringe was so real, jesus.
Then again the series was always on the cringe side the moment it tried to turn a simple kids story into some gritty and edgy 'mature' nonsense.
That was in the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Because shippers which were a huge part of the fandom.
It destroyed the possibility of post-game pairings and the entire fanfiction market behind it. So the shippers got absolutely destroyed by it.
It's also not the best thought out part of the series, but it doesn't deserve the amount of hate it gets.
It destroyed the possibility of post-game pairings and the entire fanfiction market behind it. So the shippers got absolutely destroyed by it.
It's also not the best thought out part of the series, but it doesn't deserve the amount of hate it gets.
Exactly
I could understand Harry naming his kid for Snape.
But Dumbledore? Dumbledore was practically a villain by the time you got all the details about him. He admitted to completely screwing up Harry's life from more or less day 1, and Harry knew that Dumbledore blackmailed Snape into being a spy by using Harry's life as a bargaining chip.
Why the hell would you name your son for someone like that? Albus got screwed up enough as is when he got older. Can you imagine if he knew the truth about the guy he's named after?
But Dumbledore? Dumbledore was practically a villain by the time you got all the details about him. He admitted to completely screwing up Harry's life from more or less day 1, and Harry knew that Dumbledore blackmailed Snape into being a spy by using Harry's life as a bargaining chip.
Why the hell would you name your son for someone like that? Albus got screwed up enough as is when he got older. Can you imagine if he knew the truth about the guy he's named after?
JoJoShabadoo
Member
yanipheonu
Member
Eh, it was fine.
She's an author who loves her characters and likes to see how their relationships end up. Seemed to make sense to have an epilogue.
She's an author who loves her characters and likes to see how their relationships end up. Seemed to make sense to have an epilogue.
I think personally it bothers me because it fails to actually grapple with some of the major themes from the book. The "Albus Severus Potter" line is just the encapsulation of thatwe learn that basically Dumbledore never stopped lying and manipulating Harry, even past his death, and Severus Snape really only turned good because he was pissed Voldemort killed the woman he had a crush on. This is, in and of itself, finebut Harry treats them both like they were the Best Damn Wizards Ever.
I think it also was a conceptually poor idea because it gives the impression Potter and co. did nothing of much interest in all those years after the rest of the book.
It doesn't sink the book or the series in any way (the Cursed Child certainly tries) but it's a lackluster finish to a great book series.
I think it also was a conceptually poor idea because it gives the impression Potter and co. did nothing of much interest in all those years after the rest of the book.
It doesn't sink the book or the series in any way (the Cursed Child certainly tries) but it's a lackluster finish to a great book series.
Chuck Norris
Banned
A villain?
He had flaws, which revealed him as human rather than the saint like image he had built up, but that doesn't make him a villain
Lazy vs Crazy
Member
It's been a while since I've read them but wasn't Ginny all "Nah dude, I'm over you," to Harry until he took the super potion?
Their whole relationship is due to that, which is kinda weird.
Their whole relationship is due to that, which is kinda weird.
I once did an indepth analysis on Dumbledore's decisionmaking throughout the series, and in every book he shits the bed in some way or another, though I forget where I put it down so I can't recall too many specifics. Jokingly, I said he's either evil or the midst of some very well covered up senility. But what he actually is is kinda badly written.
Completely agree on the Dumbledore point. By the end of the seventh book, he was pretty explicitly portrayed as massively selfish and as having used other people against their will for his own ends. I actually liked that he turned out to not be this perfectly good character they portrayed him as in earlier books, but it seems like Rowling didn't even realize how she wrote him and continued to have all the characters worship him until the end. By the end of the series, Harry should have been disgusted with Dumbledore.
Uzumaki Goku
Junior Member
Yeah that was weird.
BetterThanNothing
Member
Wait wait wait
I'm a huge fan of HP and all...read the books at least 3 times through, the movies more than I can remember.
But, are there actual adults who believe JK Rowling is a good writer? A good story teller? Yes. Someone who possesses an incredible imagination? Yes.
But the books are not very well written. She has a very shallow vocabulary, although that improves a bit later on. However, the scenarios in her books are ridiculously contrived(and things just work out way too well; murdering a bunch of people doesn't make it 'realistic'), and she is prone to using dialogue as a vehicle to plainly explain mysteries and plot points that would be better expressed through the actual proceedings of the plot. ie She doesn't show; she tells.
She does come up with some very iconic phrases, though. Usually something Dumbledore says after Harry has another wild and crazy adventure that could have been thoroughly prevented by the most powerful wizard alive. Doesn't he have some spell to check up on Harry to see if he's about to fucking die?
And the end of the first book; goddamn a bunch of first years got through a series of defenses designed by some of the greatest wizards of their time? lol. There are a ton of instances but it's obviously not that type of universe. She can explain anything away with magic, and people being people.
I'm a huge fan of HP and all...read the books at least 3 times through, the movies more than I can remember.
But, are there actual adults who believe JK Rowling is a good writer? A good story teller? Yes. Someone who possesses an incredible imagination? Yes.
But the books are not very well written. She has a very shallow vocabulary, although that improves a bit later on. However, the scenarios in her books are ridiculously contrived(and things just work out way too well; murdering a bunch of people doesn't make it 'realistic'), and she is prone to using dialogue as a vehicle to plainly explain mysteries and plot points that would be better expressed through the actual proceedings of the plot. ie She doesn't show; she tells.
She does come up with some very iconic phrases, though. Usually something Dumbledore says after Harry has another wild and crazy adventure that could have been thoroughly prevented by the most powerful wizard alive. Doesn't he have some spell to check up on Harry to see if he's about to fucking die?
And the end of the first book; goddamn a bunch of first years got through a series of defenses designed by some of the greatest wizards of their time? lol. There are a ton of instances but it's obviously not that type of universe. She can explain anything away with magic, and people being people.
brownfedora
Member
You really think you're ever getting that epilogue?
Back on topic, the HP epilogue was awful.
LinkAndEpona
Banned
I liked it just fine : /
The epilogue theater play though, wow that was beyond stupid.
The epilogue theater play though, wow that was beyond stupid.
Just like half of the wizards and witches in the books?
Chuck Norris
Banned
Book 1 - almost definitely. That said, Harry probably didn't even have to show up because Voldemort never would have gotten the stone out of the mirror. Dumbledore's defence was the only good one applied
Book 2 - he was kicked out of the school at the crucial moment. And it's pretty reasonable he had no clue how to deal with the Heir of Slytherin considering you needed parselmouth and access to Riddle's diary to make it happen. Harry was actually at fault for not confiding more of what he knew in Dumbledore
Book 3 - Dumbledore's actions saved Sirius and Buckbeak. And it only happened because he was intelligent enough to believe the story. If anybody screwed up that night it was Lupin. Fancy not knowing when the full moon was, and forgetting to take your potion
Book 4 - he really should have been a lot more alert after Harry's name went into the Goblet. Why have two tasks where nobody could see anything that was happening knowing that somebody was targeting Harry. Though it may have been the Ministry of Magic who designed the tasks.
Book 5 - he was rendered pretty powerless by the Ministry's interference and couldn't even interact with Harry because of the connection with Voldemort. Harry was also an impulsive idiot who refused to practice occlumency which would have prevented everything
Book 6 - he didn't screw up anything. Pretty much all the actions that happened in the book unfolded as he planned
Book 7 - he was dead. Harry blamed him for not leaving any clues, but Dumbledore did pretty much leave him everything he had gathered until that point, except destroying the horcrux. Although he did the best he could do as a dead guy in trying to give him the sword. Even still, alot of what he had planned to happen unfolded the way he had hoped
I still can't get over DH pre epilogue ending with Harry wondering if Kreacher will make him a sandwich. The epilogue itself felt really off tone and added more questions to ones that were left unanswered as it was. The cursed child is undoubtedly worse in nearly every way but that doesn't mean the epilogue is salvageable as what was meant to be the closing scene of a long grand journey.
I will always have a fondess for the harry potter series and it's massive if at times bizzare fandom but I can't deny that the books seemed to get worse as things went on and the epilogue did not feel like the payoff it should have for reaching the end of this tale.
Could be worse though, could the pants on head "wtf were they thinking" epilogue in digimon 02.
I will always have a fondess for the harry potter series and it's massive if at times bizzare fandom but I can't deny that the books seemed to get worse as things went on and the epilogue did not feel like the payoff it should have for reaching the end of this tale.
Could be worse though, could the pants on head "wtf were they thinking" epilogue in digimon 02.
butzopower
proud of his butz
Literally just got back from seeing The Cursed Child (both parts in one day wooof, zzzzzzz) and I had never read the books or seen the movies. Just felt relevant to this thread and oddly topical.
Chuck Norris
Banned
I don't agree they got worse. OOTP was a snag in the series, but still decent enough. HBP was as good as any. DH was also good, but felt the least like a Harry Potter book for obvious reasons. Having re-read it a few times, it's as good as any other but just feels different because of the lack of the Hogwarts structure
Epilogue was weak but the rest of the book was good. I've even come to like the way that Voldemort died. He didn't get a chance to monologue or shine, Harry was steps ahead of him and he died as a frail looking man
Granted, if he had been better at Occlumency Arthur Weasley would have died.
And regarding Book 6, his plan wouldn't have had to include dying if he hadn't allowed himself to get cursed by that ring.
Having seen the play I found a new fondness for The Cursed Child. It definitely works a lot better seeing it acted out than it does just reading the script, and essentially salvaged the entire Deathly Hallows epilogue really.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
it reads like bad fanfic but I'm late to the party with that opinion.
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