Taking you in and out of life's crazy scenarios

So, I decided to call this summer my re-reading summer. I had planned to get through Harry Potter, Twilight (don’t judge), and The Hunger Games. I got started a lot later, as in like just a couple of weeks ago, so I only just finished the fifth Harry Potter–The Order of the Phoenix.

Anyway, for Harry Potter fans, you know what lies within the fifth book. Terrible, terrible sadness, basically, which is not unlike the other six, but this one ranks about the most depressing other than the last book.

This is only my second time reading through the series. I have seen the movies probably 50 times each and my sister read most of the books, so up until the sixth book/fourth movie, she was my informant of what was going on and so I pretty much knew everything without reading it, because of her play-by-play.

(I would also like to say that my sister unfortunately died before she could read the last book, but she told me all about how Snape wasn’t really evil even though he killed Dumbledore, which you don’t find out until the last book, so I would like to point out that my sister was apparently psychic which is awesome.)

Back to my point–Throughout the series, the plot thickens and the storyline develops and it becomes much more sirius. In the first and second, the books weren’t nearly as dark, and even the third isn’t really dark, but when you get to the fourth–that’s the book that changes it all.

In the Goblet of Fire, when Harry meets Voldemort again at the end, and Cedric dies, and Harry sees the ghostly versions of his mom and dad, etc. that is a huge moment. It’s the biggest turning point in the whole series, to me. Up until that point Voldemort was just kind of a being with limited power, but now he had risen again so it’s kind of a big deal.

That book is a lot darker and by the time you get to the fifth, it’s less like a happy walk through a magical park with an occasional troll, and more like a siriusly morbid drag through a graveyard while it’s raining.

After I read the series the first time, the fourth, fifth, and seventh were my favorites, and now I’m not sure why the fifth was on my list.

Sure, it’s the longest and has tons of little secrets and mysteries, but one of my favorite characters die, which is just sad.

Unfortunately and reluctantly, I will let it retain its spot in my favorites since it still is the book that changes everything and explains loads of unanswered questions from the first four.

Basically, though, I’m just angry at Harry most of the time, while being super depressed for him, as well.

He’s a hormonal brat, not to be harsh, in the first 100 pages and then he seems to improve, but has angry outbursts at his friends constantly, like it’s their fault. Then he tries and fails miserably to connect with a girl he likes. Then he has the worst teacher in the entire universe who uses torture as a form of detention. Then he gets kicked off the Quidditch team, forms a secret organization, gets squealed on, feels abandoned by Dumbledore, has to spend way too much time with Snape, gets emotionally abused throughout the whole thing, and really, he just needs a good therapy session. Shall I go on?

Plus, the whole Sirius death-thing could have been completely avoided at he not been so hard-headed, listened to his trusted professor, and learned to shut off his mind like he was supposed to. Just saying. It’s really all his fault.

The only time I’m applauding him in this book are the times when he is being rude and angry toward Umbridge, which is perfectly acceptable.

Now, I want to be fair, so I will say that he redeems himself in the end with his long blow-up about grief in front of Dumbledore, which is my favorite passage in the book.

Anyway, Harry is acting like a normal human-being even though the dramatic irony makes it annoying, so I will leave him alone.

I will move onto more sirius matters. (That’s my last one, I promise.) So Sirius Black is one of my favorite characters in the entire series, at a very close second to Professor McGonagall. He is the only remaining thing Harry has that is like family.

He knew Harry’s parents, he could tell stories, and he genuinely cared about Harry and can share in his feelings of grief about his parents.

There are so many deaths throughout the series–Hedwig, Dobby, Lupin, Tonks, Mad-Eye, Cedric, Fred, I could go on and on. All of them are sad to me for different reasons.

But my top three would probably be Fred, Dobby, and Sirius although Lupin, Tonks, and Hedwig are pretty darn close.

I’m not going to rant on all of them, so don’t worry.

There were just so many missed opportunities with Sirius. There was a glimmer of hope in the third book, when Harry’s life could have turned around. He could have gone to live with Sirius and been happy for a while, had Peter Pettigrew not gotten away.

Then in the fourth they could have focused on their friendship and swapping stories, except they were focused on the drama of the tournament.

Then, in the fifth, Voldemort’s back so they had to focus on that. So Harry never got to hear stories about his mom and dad, or what trouble they got into, or how he was like him. He got nothing. I mean, he got a great godfather who cared about him a lot for two years until he died. There’s just a lot of stuff they never got to share. That’s probably why it’s the saddest to me. And it’s not like I don’t know it’s coming. I’ve seen the movie plenty of times and it’s my second time through the book, so I should be prepared.

But since my mother walked in the house yesterday to me bawling my eyes out–I think she can attest that I was not prepared enough.

So the main point to this whole little rant I just typed out is….

Harry just can’t ever catch a break. Although, if you’re like my friend Sydney–she told me she was disappointed with the series’ ending because it didn’t make sense for Harry to live through all that and make it out fine. I told her he was emotionally scarred and she said, and I quote,

“Yea, but, I don’t know, he should have lost an arm or something.”

Siriusly, Sydney? Give the kid a break.