The two biggest flaws in Harry Potter

[lavivi]

I love the Harry Potter series.  I sincerely do.  I perhaps wouldn't call them my favorite series, but I've certainly obsessed over them far more than I have over any other book or movie.  I think J.K. Rowling is a fabulous, fabulous writer, one of the best of our day.

But despite this, I am forced to acknowledge flaws.  Not the Flints - the real, plot flaws, which make me very sad.  In my mind, there are really only two glaring ones.

1. Lord Voldemort.  It's so sad.  But at this stage, I, and many others, have to admit he has no depth.  Ms. Rowling grounded this when she said somewhere that he's never loved anyone.  That was a mistake.
   But the bigger issue is that his motivation for a pureblood world is cardboard.  He's more of a halfblood than Harry is!  I have difficulty, no matter how much else Voldemort has acomplished, seeing Lucius Malfoy truly respect him.  But his evil plan to kill everyone because his Muggle father was a bad man is a cliche and just doesn't fit with the rest of Ms. Rowling's well-rounded world
2. Peter Pettigrew, as seen in the fifth book.  Before the fifth book was published, I read a fanfic called There Is No Such Place by Liz Barr*.  In short, it's a Marauder-era fic.  And in it, Peter is an equal.  He banters with the rest of the Marauders, they don't mock him.  Yes, he has problems with schoolwork, that's canon, but he's part of the Marauders.  You may argue that McGonagall, who knew them for seven years, called him a "tag-along" - but isn't Colin Creevey Harry's tag-along, and if Harry, Ron, and Hermione made something, would they put Colin's name on it?
   But canon is canon, and what we saw in the Pensieve is how things were - with Peter's applause and Sirius' derision.  I accept it - but I have trouble believing that they would really trust him with James and Lily's life.  Unless he went under the miraculous personality change James allegedly suffered, too. 

But what do you think?  Am I crazy, did I miss even bigger ones?

* No Such Place is an abandoned WIP, so investigate at your own emotional risk. ;-)

Comments

from the <lj user_="daily_snitch">

[queenofzan.livejournal.com]

I donno, I'm not quite happy with JKR's Peter--but then, it doesn't cause me as much of a problem, because I have a friend very similar to that--I mean, he's funny, and he's our friend, but he does get annoying sometimes and we make fun of him constantly--but we make fun of pretty much everyone. Remember, at this point, MWPP are just four fifteen--or maybe sixteen--year-old boys. They tease each other and probably don't have the most apparent friendship that's close to an outsider.

And we do see that scene from Snape's memories--and how much of an outsider to them was Snape?

Also: as someone pointed out, Harry's not the most observant of boys, and we do see things from his perspective. Through teenaged eyes, which means he's still figuring out the world in the first place. He's not the most reliable eyes. I mean, how much more would we know about everything if we saw things through Hermione's eyes?