Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Spoilers Ahead)

[heavenly_pearl]

Well, I finished OofP last night. It was pretty good, but not as good as Goblet of Fire. I thought it lost quite a bit of steam once George and Fred made their dramatic exit from Hogwarts. Up until then, it was difficult sometimes for me to finally put the book down and go to sleep at night, but the last few chapters I had to push myself to finish. And again, what I thought should have been the main plot was treated like a subplot, but I'm not too upset about that this time because the whole Prophecy thing was boring. It was pretty weak even for a subplot. A few (rather dull) dreams, some occlumancy lessons with Snape, and a battle at the Department of Mysteries with no real build-up at all... Who really cared if Voldemort got his hands on the Prophecy, anyway? It's not like the rest of the Prophecy would have given him any clues on how to defeat Harry. All it said was that Harry has some power Voldemort doesn't understand and that one of them is destined to kill the other. Not exactly startling information. (Although it is interesting that Neville could have been the one Voldemort went after instead of Harry.) Voldemort should have just risked exposure and gotten the Prophecy himself if he wanted it so badly. Sure, it would have been a stupid move on his part, but it would have allowed the story to move onto more interesting things. (Besides, with Fudge and the others burying their heads in the sand over Voldemort's return, they probably still would have insisted he was dead even if he had turned up in the Department of Mysteries and stolen the Prophesy.)

Likes
- Luna and Tonks, two very cool new characters
- More Neville, who I always liked
- The battle between Umbridge and the school
- Fred and George and their wonderful inventions
- D.A.
- Learning about Snape's history with Harry's parents
- Harry/Cho

Dislikes
- The Prophecy subplot (see above)
- Umbridge (the b***h)
- A little too much gore for my taste (especially concerning Umbridge's special quill)
- Hagrid's subplot with his half-brother *yawn*
- Lee Jordan's Quidditch commentary -- he just wasn't at his best (I did crack up at the part when he talked about Angelina how kept rejecting him, though, and it made me think, "Ooo! Lee/Angelina!")
- Harry's anger. Sure, it was understandable, but it was a little much at times.
- Harry's stupidity. Dumbledore might have tried to take most of the blame for Sirius' death, but really, if only Harry had opened that two-way mirror Sirius gave him to contact him about Snape, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble. Not only would Sirius probably still be alive, but he wouldn't have had to sneak into Umbridge's office twice to use her fire.