J.K. Rowling has stated on her website that she's begun work on the Potter encyclopedia (and that all the proceeds will go to charity, which is awesome)! I had lost hope for this after Pottermore, but it appears that it is still going to happen. Also, her new book's The Casual Vacancy, which is interesting.

That's cool! I really liked some of the other books that was published, like the Beetle and the Bard. It's nice that she is giving the proceeds to charity.

I'm so happy I'm not alone in supporting Snape/Lily. My support just got upped to the max in Deathly Hallows part 2. The Snape/Lily moments were the only good so to speak "romantic" moments in the movie.

I'm not a big fan of Harry, so what the heck, he could cease to exist for all I care. We'd probably end up with Neville being the Chosen One. I'm sure Neville didn't cease to exist with Harry ceasing to exist. Unless the James-Lily marriage impacted Frank and Alice's marriage somehow.
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Word of God says that Snape went to become a Death Eater because he thinks it'll impress Lily somehow. Ergh.

I'm going to assume that his Slytherin peers somehow managed to convince him into thinking that. He isn't in the best state of mind to make a good choice. I mean, he's been treated badly at home, and James constantly bullies him. It's no surprise that he is drawn to the idea of having power. And maybe he doesn't know better. It's not like we know how Snape interacts with his Slytherin buddies.

I'm not going to trust Rowling on how she construct her characters. She has this huge, HUGE Gryffindor bias, and I really don't trust how she portrays any Gryffindor vs Slytherin situations. ESPECIALLY when it comes to Slytherins who are a little more prominent than flat cardboard cutouts or space-fillers. Blargh. Of COURSE she's going to condone James' behaviour and make excuses for it no matter how bad his behaviour actually ended up coming across as. In her head it's okay.

@d_a: But... it's her story. So whether she has Gryffindor biases or not (she obviously does), the way she presents things is the way it "happened." XD Although, she seems to think she treated them pretty badly herself, considering the Pottermore description of Slytherin and how she apparently "forgot" to put the Slytherins coming back in the Battle of Hogwarts to help out. She also forgot to bring back the flying Ford Anglia, which is way more disappointing to me.

I agree that the Snape/Lily scenes were the only romantic scenes that really "worked" in DHP2 (except for the two hints of Neville/Luna, which just makes it more annoying that she was stuck with somebody off-page), but I don't think they should have gotten together. Snape was incredibly cruel to her even as she tried to defend him, and the impression I got was that he never really tried to mend their relationship, only that he continued to be in love with her.

Also, I am TIRED of people making excuses for Snape going Death Eater and acting simultaneously as if James's behavior is the worst thing in the world. What Snape ended up doing was worse, and he did it by himself, and James didn't make him do it. He's a great character, but he's done some horrible things.

I don't think she ever wrote James's behavior as easily forgivable either; she just treated it as something very bad that happened a very long time ago, and that did not change all of the good things about James. One of the themes of HP, I feel, is the idea of not dwelling on the past, and how fruitless that can be. James was HORRIBLE to Snape. That certainly doesn't excuse Snape's actions.

James/Lily/Snape: I could have sworn this was talked about about 10? pages ago. Dejavu moment lol.

Sides, who cares bout Gry/Sly: Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw gets no love compared to those two who are pretty much the basis of every friggin House rivalry in the books.

Apparently, being a nerd means nothing when Gry's Hermy beats you in the nerd department and fair play will always get beaten by Sly's dirty ambitions. Factoring their general suckiness in Quidditch against either team, hmmm yep doomed to obscurity.

I think only Luna and Cho (both ravenclaws) were the only non-Gry/Sly to get any large role in the books. And Cho's totally demolished in the movies.

@KTC

There was a lengthy discussion about it pages ago.

I wish there was a little more on those from the other houses. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are only mentioned in passing. I understand the trio is in Gryfindor so not much can be said about the other houses, but they can at least have friends with those in the other houses.

@d_a

I didn't really like those scenes in DH2. I preferred the book when it came to that scene. The movie just added memories that didn't happen, or just didn't make sense.

@KTC: And Cedric. He was only in two books (he was barely in PoA), but he was a pretty major character in GoF. There were a couple of other characters that the trio spoke with pretty often, like Hannah Abbott or Justin Finch-Fletchley, but they were really small parts.

@Mopiece: The first time I saw the movie the Lily/Snape scenes didn't really work for me, but the second time, months later, I nearly cried. I'm not really sure what changed.

Anyway, what do you people think are the saddest scenes in the books? I think the saddest part is the scene with Neville in the hospital, where his mother gives him the bubblegum wrapper and he keeps it. I actually DID cry when I read that last...

@iPink

Maybe I should give it another try then.

Anyways, to me the saddest moment wasn't all the deaths or what you mentioned above, but Hermione erasing her parent's memory. I mean if something happened to Hermione, then her parents would keep living not knowing they had a daughter.

@ipink: Forgot about Cedric. I don't consider ppl like Hannah or Justin worth mentioning cuz they had insignificant roles.

The only non-gry/sly members to have any thing even resembling a large part was cedric, luna, and Cho. The rest were just there to take up space to prove "Yes there's more than 2 schools. But we'll concentrate on the Gry/Sly drama because it's way more interesting than nerdy fair players."

As for saddest parts: Ginny/Harry lol. Reading that made me facepalm a lot.

@Mopiece: I'm talking from a generic standpoint. The Snape/Lily moments were by far more romantic than any of the other "romance" moments in the movie. Maybe the movie didn't get it right, or maybe they put in pointless crap, but by that time I've already forgotten what was in the book, so I let the mistakes slide

@iPink: No, I can still claim that so-and-so makes no sense even if it's how the writer makes it to be. That is called "character derailment". The characters act in ways that make no sense to the audience because the author forces the story to happen in the way the want it to be. James/Lily boggles the heck out of me. It's "given because it's canon". We never get to see how much he changed and what made him change. She's been hating him for, what, five years because of him being a jerk? Then we're TOLD, instead of being shown in-narrative, by Sirius and Lupin that James "got better" and then Lily agreed to go out with him. And with the other elements of the story put in perspective? James and Lily makes about as much sense as Gyendal and Mel getting together in canon.

@KTC: Yeah, I've been thinking that way in the later books, now that I've gotten older and become more aware about storytelling issues, LOL. Students from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw are pretty much just space-fillers. They get name-dropped a lot, but you can insert any other name in their place, and it wouldn't matter the slightest.

@d_a

In that case, I'd have to agree with you. But then again, there really weren't a whole lot of romance moments in the movies anyway.

As for James/Lily, think of this way, JK really didn't have many opportunities to add much to their story. I'm sure she'd have liked to, it's just there was no way to do so.

How would Harry have learned about his parents? From relatives and friends. However, Lily's sister won't speak about them. And James's family seems to be dead. That leaves the friends.

Sirius? Harry thought he was a murderer until the end of his third year. He couldn't really talk to him during his fourth or fifth year, because of Sirius being on the run and because of the Order. Then Sirius dies.

Then there is Lupin. Harry could have talked to him, but he didn't really find out Lupin really knew his parents until the end of the third year. And I mean, really knew them. Then he never had the time to talk about his parents because of Voldemort.

How'd we find out that Snape liked Lily? Through his memories. We wouldn't even known that Snape was bullied by James if it wasn't for his memories.

Well, to be fair, the book is (kind of) written in Harry's point-of-view. Of course there's going to be biases, and we don't see what Harry doesn't. And since he never saw his father getting character development and becomes so responsible he gets to become Head Boy (aside from what Sirius and Lupin told him), we don't see it either.

Harry is from Gryffindor, and Gryffindor seemed to have the most prominent rivalry with Slytherin (for some reason), so of course that one is going to be highlighted more.

Either way, I think the series, although good in almost every aspect, fails at the romance department

Yeah, and maybe I'm just out of the loop about the Word of God infos because I'm sure fans bring up this question sometimes

Still, James would still have to do a whole LOAD of things to convince Lily he isn't bad, since Sirius said James only got better around the seventh year. Iunno.

So yeah. Rowling's romance is "because I said so" romances, and I stand by my opinion that with the lack of real evidence given, James/Lily makes as much sense as Gy/Mel.

@d_a


And maybe James did do a load of thing to convince Lily. But as I explained above, Harry had no way of finding out.

Everyone who knew James well conveniently died lol.

If I didn't know better, I'd say he was inflicted with Cartwright Curse except it extended to everyone close to him. Or would it be Friendly Target? hmmm

In short, none of the 'Official Couple' makes sense, though I couldn't care less. Most fans prefers other couples because they seem to have more chemistry/interactions.

But, well, I think the whole series' premise is a very good way to represent real life. Things happen without you, as the main character, realizing it.

I wouldn't say none of them make sense. Ron x Hermione is very strongly supported, even though I don't agree with it. Harry x Ginny is extremely stupid, but it's also not unlikely. The problem is the way it, and Ginny, are written. It makes sense that Harry might be attracted to Ginny, the character she was meant to be. Luna and Rolf is annoying and Neville and Hannah don't make any sense, however.

I think it's silly to complain about Lily and James. It's different to Gy and Mel because, while in Aveyond Gy begins as the villain, in HP James and Lily are together before we ever knew anything else about them. The information about any other struggles in the relationship came later, and all we hear is that YEARS before they get together, Lily hated him. As opposed to Mel and Gy: YEARS before they got together, Gyendal tried to kill Mel and plunge the world into everlasting darkness. See the difference?

Gy didn't try to kill Mel. He's trying to use her to do evil things and then enslave her. Considering Te'ijal's idea of "romantic" is eternal torment, I can interpret that "enslavement" thing as Gy's twisted idea of romance and you can't say I'm wrong because there's no evidence to disprove my claim.

Still, that is beside the point. What matters is that there's hatred involved between the two people in both pairings. James had to make Lily not hate him first before there's any chance of them getting together.

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Hahahahahaha, no THIS is precisely why the two is just as bad. Because it's canon that James and Lily are together, Rowling has to climb her way out of the hole that she made for herself when she wrote the James-Lily-Snape situation. It's like if Amanda first made a story about Uma and Nox, and made it canon that their parents are Gyendal and Mel. Then she published the story of AV3 afterwards. Then there's gonna be trouble trying to reconcile the OMG I HATE YOU and them being happily married years after.

You make canon, then introduce something that breaks the canon, then you'll have trouble trying to make excuses to somehow make the two fit together. Ret-con is baaaaaad.

But James never tried to enslave Lily or destroy her. Also, we learn from Lupin that James liked Lily from the start, he was only mean to Snape.
@iPink- Ginny X Harry is horribly written. But that's understandable since it starts in Book 6 and much bigger things are going on in Harry's Life. But even then, it's just like Harry suddenly sees Ginny as beautiful

Gyendal/Mel is an extreme/crazy example, but I still think it holds. Lily hates James' guts. There's bound to be this huge mountain of issues between them that needs to be resolved for Lily to reciprocate James' advances. Even Harry had to question how his parents, well, became his parents instead of going off their own ways and marrying other people.

Whether or not James' feelings for Lily is true isn't even part of the equation here. That's the same kind of biased logic my crack pairings have. To continue on the G/M comparison:
"Gy LOVES Mel like for realzzzzz!! Enslavement is just his weird of idea of roamnce, just like how eternal torment is Te'ijal's!!! He totally got better off-screen!! You just didn't see it!"

*shrug* Exact same thing IMO. I have my bias, so I force the story to happen the way I want it whether or not it makes sense. Same with HP. And Twilight, for that matter.

I have the excuse of it being fanfics and I'm allowed to pull nonsense out of thin air to justify them (I try not to, but I'm still technically allowed) Original fiction should not do that. It's canon and character derailment. Canon/character derailment to force something the author wanted to happen is precisely why Breaking Dawn is an epic fail, even to the fans.