On humor in the books (sorry about the, er...Non-U spelling, folks, but I'm one of them Murricans and incapable of shaking off my upbringing), Devin wrote:
To me, the books are relatively constant smile-bringers, and occasionally they make me burst into laughter. It's very refreshing to read something I can get a REALLY good laugh out of (although the title for most real laughs from a book goes to Catch-22 where I was almost hysterical on several occasions).
::great big smile::
Ah, a reader after my own heart!
Catch-22 is my all-time favorite novel.
But I do find myself wondering: if Catch-22 gets your vote for "most laffs for the buck," then why would the darkening tone of the HP books worry you so? Catch-22's humor is pretty black.
Is anyone worried about the tone of the future books being SEVERELY affected by the darker subject matter?....Can the humor really stay in the same league with the foreboding over everything?
Ah, yes. Okay. I think that I see what you mean. The humor that you've enjoyed in the past in the HP books is not black humor—it's fairly whimsical humor—and so you're worried that JKR won't be able to maintain that tone in the face of a steadily-darkening plotline. Is that it?
Hmmm. Well, I think that Rowling has proven herself more than capable of dark humor as well as the lighter, more whimsical variety, so I don't worry too much that future books will lack for humor. Whether it's the sort of humor that her readers particularly enjoy, however, is another matter.
It's an interesting topic, IMO, because humor is always so very subjective. Me, I found GoF by far the funniest of the books to date. The previous books, while they raised smiles in places and even a few "mental chuckles," never actually made me laugh out loud. GoF's the only one that's done that for me.
But then, my sense of humor is very black (and also at times just plain weird), so I don't know how typical my own experience might be. Did anyone else out there find GoF the funniest of the four books? Or am I alone in this?
Some of the brands of humor that JKR favors have never amused me, frankly. I absolutely hate most varieties of "comeuppance" humor, for example—I always have, ever since very early childhood—and there's a lot of that in these books. It doesn't ruin them for me or anything (when I reach those scenes, I merely wince in irritation and then move on), but I can't say that I'd exactly mind it if we started seeing less and less of that sort of thing as the tone of the series darkens.
One thing I've been longing to discuss with others is the future of Voldemort vs. Harry, in direct conflict, that is. How many more times can Harry face Voldemort and maintain realism?
They're already straining the leash, IMO. PoA is my favorite of the books, and I often suspect that part of the reason for that might be that it contains no direct confrontation with Voldie.
Personally, I'm hoping that we won't see another face-to-face Harry-Voldemort confrontation in Book Five. In fact, I'd be perfectly content with no further direct conflict until Book Seven. But I don't really think that's going to happen.
So the question is once again, how many more times will they come into direct conflict before the series ends? Personally, I think two.
I like the scenarios you propose, and I'd be happy with them. So, okay. I'll go for two. Hell, I'll even go for three, if two of them both fall within Book Seven.
But I'm still hoping we'll get at least one more book that doesn't end on an H/V confrontation.
—Elkins
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