Also, general curiosity.

[featherynscale]

It seems to me that just about everybody is more rabid about not being told plot points in works they haven't yet read or seen than I am. I don't mind at all if you tell me what's going to happen, as long as you don't tell me the whole plot of the story. In other words, the Internet did not ruin Harry Potter and the Half-Blod Prince for me. By the time I got to the Big Awful Event, I had actually forgotten that I'd been told about it.

So anyway, what do you think?

[Poll #592415]

Comments

[zylch.livejournal.com]

Being a kids' book is no excuse for shoddy workmanship. Foreshadowing is a great plot device, I agree. Especially when an author plays with it and gives you something completely other than what you expect. Take Philosopher's Stone, for instance. Nearly all of the foreshadowing was for Snape to be the villain, but it turns out to be Quirrel. This is part of the reason I started reading the series in the first place -- I thought to myself, "Oh, it's just a kids' book," and she completely got me with the switch.

But in HBP, she pretty much wrapped page 923 around a brick and beat the audience about the head with it from page 3 onwards. No reversals, no surprises, until it got to be a point of boredom, an "Oh, just get on with it already, will you? Sheesh!" What makes it really disappointing to me is that I know she can do better work, because I've read it.