Much of the problem with this scene, and this book, and the whole back half of the series is that Rowling was clearly no longer writing it for fun, or having fun with it. And neither do we.
She may have found herself out of her depth and was unable to cope, or she may just have convinced herself that now the story was supposed to become "serious" and just isn't competent at writing serious (or what she identifies as serious). Because it just doesn't work. The first half of the story was exaggerated symbols and silly jokes. In the back half she still is making jokes, but they no longer fit, because the story is no longer being written in fun.
And there is no real transition between the over-the-top cartoon abuse of the first half -- which no one ever *really* took seriously, because it clearly wasn't *meant* seriously, and the retaliation was just as exaggerated and implausible as the provocation -- and the overblown trashy melodrama of the last, which is no fun, and not supposed to be.
Or, at any rate, I cannot believe that she ever regarded any of the stuff packed into the back half of this series as being *fun*.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-02-11 09:52 pm (UTC)She may have found herself out of her depth and was unable to cope, or she may just have convinced herself that now the story was supposed to become "serious" and just isn't competent at writing serious (or what she identifies as serious). Because it just doesn't work. The first half of the story was exaggerated symbols and silly jokes. In the back half she still is making jokes, but they no longer fit, because the story is no longer being written in fun.
And there is no real transition between the over-the-top cartoon abuse of the first half -- which no one ever *really* took seriously, because it clearly wasn't *meant* seriously, and the retaliation was just as exaggerated and implausible as the provocation -- and the overblown trashy melodrama of the last, which is no fun, and not supposed to be.
Or, at any rate, I cannot believe that she ever regarded any of the stuff packed into the back half of this series as being *fun*.