Harry Potter and the Disorder of the Phoenix, by Draco Malfoy
Written: Jul 17 '05 (Updated Jul 17 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Sirius, Lupin, Luna Lovegood.
Cons: Dumbledore.
The Bottom Line: Well, you can't really skip it, can you? So read the first four books, then keep going. It has some redeeming qualities, but I was disappointed.
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| Jellyn's Full Review: J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Order of the ... |
This book is the best of the lot! Potter acts like a royal prat and the annoying git that he is. He bullies his Muggle cousin, he yells at everyone, he flies into a rage at every little thing. It's great! If Potter acted like this all the time, I might actually like the halfbreed. Wait, I didn't just say that. Obliviate!
This book is full of more lies, of course. Potter hangs around with some of Dumbledore's friends who seem to think they're a secret society who's going to lead to the Dark Lord's downfall. Then he gathers more people around him who fawn and kiss his feet if he so much as sneezes. The Quidditch bits are good though. I'm quite the song-writer, you know.
I think you're okay buying this book. Just be aware it's full of the same old lies of the previous four.
--Draco Malfoy
Introduction
I have the same mixed feelings about this book as Draco has. Parts of it are really, really good. Parts of it are not so great, but explainable. Other parts... just don't hold together. I was hoping the sixth book would explain some things better, but without spoiling that one, well.. it didn't help as much as I'd hoped. So I'm still not sure what I think of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Plot
Harry is again at the Dursleys. His summer isn't going terribly well. He's still recovering from seeing a friend die (see Goblet of Fire), and agonizing about the lack of information he's receiving about what You Know Who is up to. It's quick to see that Harry doesn't seem quite 'in-character' as the other books. He starts off by bullying Dudley, but then he does save him from some Dementors, so he's not a hopeless cause.
Some members of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix, a secret group set up to fight Voldemort about twenty years ago and now revived, show up at the Dursleys to snatch Harry and take him to a safe location. Harry finds himself at Sirius's family's home where Sirius is being kept prisoner by Dumbledore (for his own good, of course). The Weasleys are all there, and Lupin, and a mad house elf named Kreacher who doesn't like serving Sirius. Sirius being a traitor to the Black name by consorting with part-Muggles and werewolves and all sorts of other bad folk.
I won't go into everything, but most of the Order refuse to tell Harry very much, which only frustrates him further. He has to attend a hearing for breaking the Underage Use of Magic law while he was saving his cousin from the Dementors. Eventually he gets to school and has to contend with not being a Prefect while his two friends both are. Dumbledore's refusing to have much to do with him and the other adults still aren't telling him much. And there's a new teacher, appointed by the Ministry instead of by Dumbledore, named Dolores Umbridge. She's the worst teacher yet, and quite more evil than Snape's ever shown himself to be. The Ministry gives her progressively more authority at the school and the faculty and students chafe under it.
And then lots of cool and not-so-cool stuff happens, which you can find out by reading the book.
Bad Bits
Harry felt 'off' for this entire book, but that's actually somewhat explained by the end. What I have trouble getting over is how stupid he is and especially how stupid the adults around him are. Does this come down to plot holes, or to some sort of Stupidity Potion? There are just so many circumstances of people not thinking or being pigheaded, that I have trouble liking this book.
Good Bits
We see more of Sirius and more of Lupin. Yay! Apart from Harry being angry all the time, we do get to see him doing something really cool. He may actually make a really good teacher some day. He began to remind me of Ender Wiggin from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Oh, and we meet some new characters; some of them are cool, most of them are interesting. We also get to see inside the Ministry and inside St. Mungo's. For people interested in seeing more of the Harry Potter world, these are definite bonuses.
Summary
So, again, I don't know what to think. I'm going to give this three stars to express my total ambiguity toward it all. Five for the good bits, one for the bad bits.
Details
I read the hardcover American edition, ISBN 043935806X. What's really interesting to me is that quite a lot of British terms weren't Americanized. There are hosepipes, lifts, and jumpers and people keep 'taking the mickey' out of people. It's like the publisher has slowly grown more confident of American children's ability to figure out unfamiliar terms.
But it hasn't totally escaped Americanization, because it's the Minister of Magic instead of the Minister for Magic. One interesting translation is Neville getting the name Philosopher's Stone wrong. He calls it 'philological stone' in the British and 'sorcerous stone' in the American.
My Other HP Book Reviews
Series: 1: SS/PS, 2: CoS, 3: PoA, 4: GoF
Harry's Schoolbooks: Fantastic Beasts,Quidditch
Books about HP: J. K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Jellyn
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Location: New Hampshire
Reviews written: 210
Trusted by: 47 members
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