Whilst Sparkledammerung goes on around me, I am taken back to last year, when it was Potterdammerung.
And then there came The Epilogue. Aka That Bit We All Tried to Exacto Knife Out And Pretend Never Happened.
I give S credit because she tried valiantly to like and justify the Epilogue. This lasted one week. I give Trouble credit because she called me in a state of pure WTF from her family's place off in Nowheresland. Kitty was still near sobbing about it that fall.
But, you know, a year goes by. You think... it's over. I don't care about silly childish fandoms like Harry Potter.
And then, sitting out on Trouble's deck with a glass of Capt and Coke at 2am, Sansa sighs dramatically and says she fears all her series shall end the way Potter did. Immediately we're back on the many countless ways which we hate Deathly Hallows.
The Neverending Camping Trip has become the standard by which we all judge boring sequences. It has become a source of amusement to debate how we shall divide the 7th book- will it be Camp Out Part 1 and 2 or will the Camping Trip take up the entirety of the 2nd movie until the last 15 minutes?
When Sansa says she hated the latest Stephanie Plum book, and alleges it was written by someone other than JEvanovich, I have to ask "Like, Deathly Hallows bad?" I don't think Deathly Hallows deserves the hatred we heap on it. ... but I can't bear to read again and find out. It's just become the by-word for "disappointing sequel" for us. It's nearly a verb: "Oh god, they're going to Deathly Hallows us."
So while I wait for Trouble and Sansa to finish Breaking Dawn, I sit here wondering: "how long will this take to live down?" I' m beginning to think the best thing to happen to a series is maybe to never be finished. Leave it one book away from completion and never look back.
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summersdream- the dream girl
- A Midsummer's Dream
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Voldemort's death was awful. Death by loophole WHUT? nonono. In my personal endings, there are many choices. Harry dies and Voldemort wins but is destroyed by a vengeance-wreaking Hermione. Harry dies but takes Voldemort with him. Harry revives and eats Voldemort's brain as a zombiemonster and msut be in turn killed by Ron (or alternately he eats Ron. I like this idea better because my antipathy toward Ron just won't go away).
I want nothing that came from that epilogue. NOTHING. ... okay, maybe Bill and Fleur's kids were cool. ... but not cool enough to make up for Scorpius. Or the fact that everyone married exactly who they were with and is the same person they were when they started. All that crap and Draco is still exactly the same? NO.
I just wish there had been more bite to it. Then again, I'm a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire and Joss Whedon so my idea of bite is "tear out my heart and leave me weeping broken emo tears on the cold hard floor" And also I like Harry/Hermione. Hermione/Krum. Hermione/Fred. Hermione/Anyone Who Is Not Ron Weasley.
Another good idea would have been to write the marauders' story instead of book 7. Lily and Snape are awesome. Let's have more of them.
In answer to the series conundrum, plan the whole arc, and write the last book first. That way your best work, your fresh ideas, all go into book #last. Then start the series and write towards the end. I am extrapolating this from the old chestnut that (especially for mysteries) you should write the last chapter first, then work backwards.
Is the latest Stephanie really bad then? I haven't read the last couple due to lack of time!
... Although they did say she did a lot of rewriting on Book 7. So perhaps it would after all have been better had she left it alone. I for one would like to read the previous version. Just so I could choose which one to ignore.
I love Harry Potter 3 and 4. Those are the whole point of the series to me. The rest? Eh. 1 and 2 are good cause they led me to 3 and 4. 5-7? Blech.
Uh, I haven't read the latest Stephanie but
If, like me, you read it for Ranger and some splashes of humor, I'm guessing it's a skip. Apparently if you like Joe you might not mind it.
I'm very sad at the state of that book series though. It was so brilliant for the first few 7? 8? books, but now they are boring and predictable. *sad face*
I wish she had let herself get darker with them. Dark but keep the humor. That or .. I don't know. God, they need help though. The last two I've literally picked up and skimmed through in search of Ranger's name. I'll read it if he's on the page, any other page I will not bother with.
It's sad to see them not be as fun when I really thought she could salvage some stuff. ... and then she did NASCAR Girl and I had to run screaming and hide behind a margarita.
I also liked HBP. I thought it was much more exciting than GoF. Maybe it was just because of Dumbledore and Harry working as a team, which I thought was really cool.
"I' m beginning to think the best thing to happen to a series is maybe to never be finished. Leave it one book away from completion and never look back."
Please, DO NOT let GRRM hear this. XD
I... can't remember much about HBP. Ginny got boobs and Snape finally got some backstory. Also, there were zombies. I loved the zombies. And Dumbledore. And Harry and Dumbledore. I just think I spent more time wondering if Hermione had always been awful and why I hadn't noticed... and how big Ginnys boobs must be. I think. I've never reread it though. Maybe I should. Eventually.
Honestly, if GRRM was like "I can finish it and end this series with a book you will appreciate as much as Deathly Hallows... or as much as the teasers you might have seen for the long-awaited next LJ Smith Night World novel." I would vote for his never finishing it ever. That's okay. I'll just suffer the pangs of unfinished plots.
Yeah, the zombies were cool. But wait, do you mean Ginny's boobs were mentioned, or were you wondering by yourself? I should have remembered that.
Noooo, don't say that! D: I need endings! Pretend that DwD never comes out, and GRRM says that it's because it was crap no matter how much he rewrote it, so he gave up and decided to only write sci-fi from now on. Would you be able to handle it? I would probably never read any unfinished book series ever again. XD
If GRRM was seriously all "DwD just sucked sorry." I would freak out and probably want to lock him in a room so he could work on it til it stopped sucking... although granted I have that urge right now and I know it wouldn't help so... yeah. But it's still better than getting a DwD and it sucking. I will sob emo tears for months if that happens. Please, it couldnt' happen. Not to ASoIaF. Of course all this supposes that I have enough sane non-fangirly brainbits left to actually notice if any part of ASoIaF sucks. Which I doubt I do.
"Of course all this supposes that I have enough sane non-fangirly brainbits left to actually notice if any part of ASoIaF sucks. Which I doubt I do."
Maybe this is the reason I liked DH. XD But I do understand your point. I wish Douglas Adams had never written the last chapter of Mostly Harmless (though I liked the rest of it).
But if you take out the whole last book, you are left with all this cliffhangers (like the current ones from FfC) that I can't deal with. I would rather have a DwD that ends with "dragons go havoc, everybody dies, dragons dance" than no book at all. I would get pissed at GRRM
and listen to Simple Plantoo, but not as much as if it never came out.Trouble decided she liked it. Although she had to do some deep-breathing and letting-go when it came to Jacob... but she says if you keep reminding yourself you are reading something like cotton candy it helps...?