Snitch Staff Writer
“Hermione dies, doesn’t she?” she asked.
I had just told a friend of mine Saturday morning how I’d been waiting in line at midnight with the rest of the mad throng trying to get my hands on the latest installment of J.K. Rowling’s money machine: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
So taken aback by the thought of having a three-year wait for the book ruined by such a flippant comment, I left without a word, incensed and a bit surprised at my own reaction.
But such is the appeal of Rowling’s simple story. When the fourth book in the series — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — had been properly digested, readers were left breathless.
The now-familiar themes are of a boy coming of age struggling with the burden of fame, the judgments of his peers and elders and a ravenous media obsessed with his every action. Sounds vaguely like the obsession surrounding Rowling herself as she struggled to write Order of the Phoenix while managing to play a role in the production of film versions of the first two books, get married, have a child, deal with persistent rumors of writer’s block, rewrites due to 9/11 and a bevy of other rumors relating somehow to her perceived inability to deliver another structurally tight, passionate story.
Of course, the fact that Rowling has recently become the richest woman in England probably helped her situation somewhat.
Goblet of Fire was a great read, but ended as a downer. Harry had just witnessed the worst possible turn of events. Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, solemnly gave students the news before shipping them home for the summer. The End.
Easily the least formulaic of the series, Goblet of Fire made me realize that it indeed was possible Rowling plotted the course of her seven-book series with a rock-steady hand, merchandising, movies and product tie-ins be damned.
While Order of the Phoenix does little to resolve issues raised in Goblet of Fire — Rowling does have two more books to write — it shifts gears considerably as Harry finally begins to act like a normal teen-ager.
Harry must question much more about himself and his place in the world than ever before. He takes on an almost Holden Caulfield persona, a cynical self-absorbed teen-ager. Harry becomes uncharacteristically brazen and angry with his closest friends. His friends, also uncharacteristically, suffer Harry’s bursts of verbal abuse with relative kindness. And for a good portion of the book, I wondered if that would be Ron and Hermione’s only role: Sit back and suffer Harry’s angry jeremiads.
Thankfully, the book does fall back into Rowling’s pattern of making the story focus on the three: Harry, Ron and Hermione and their secretive battles with authority.
Authority, in Order of the Phoenix, takes a new name: Dolores Umbridge. A character almost worthy of Atlas Shrugged, she worms her way into Hogwarts, seizing the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position. Then, she simply seizes as much authority as she can over every aspect of the school, to the dismay of students and teaching staff. She does it all with the assistance of the compromised, corrupted Ministry of Magic.
Umbridge’s solution to virtually every problem in Hogwarts is greater central authority. Namely, hers. And never one to let a Latin name be meaningless, Rowling uses the woman’s name as another clever indicator. Rough English translation for Dolores: pain, cause of sorrow.
On her first day teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts (no practical self-defense allowed, mind you), she’s quizzed by Harry about what use a book of theory will be when wizards must actually defend themselves against dark magic.
Umbridge responds softly, “This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world.”
Umbridge serves as the wedge that begins to divide the wizarding world into two camps: those who are willing to fight to live free and peacefully, and those who simply want to maintain their institutional authority at all costs, even if it means clamping down on the right of self-defense and the press, keeping the wizarding world in the dark about a terrible, looming danger.
The death of a “major character” seems tacked on and unnecessary. What ends up being the thing that has protected Harry on Privet Drive all these long years also seems an afterthought. And Rowling’s incredible knack for misdirecting the reader, keeping a dozen or more balls in the air and still driving different stories forward is a bit off in this installment.
Despite its minor faults, Order of the Phoenix does not disappoint. The story is well-crafted and introduces characters with great potential. We’ll have to wait again to discover if Rowling’s magical juggling routine can dazzle for two more acts.
