God I love babb_chronicles - there are some seriously BAD fics in HP fandom. LOL
I think the problem with the epilogue - in my mind anyway - is that it's very jarring to go from all of that emotion of DH to the 'and they all lived happily ever after' feel of it without some sort of bridge for the reader to make the leap from one to the other. I also think there really needed to be some sort of memorial/funeral scene so the readers could say 'goodbye' to their favorite characters who died in DH. There needed to be some sort of closure there before making that leap to the 'happily ever after' of the epilogue.
I think people would still bitch about it if there had been something like that because HP fans sure do know how to bitch but for this reader that sure would have made the epilogue feel less jarring.
The other problem, again in my reading of it, is that it feels so obvious she wrote it back when she was first starting to write the entire series (I think she's confirmed this in an interview but it's been a while so don't quote me on that) and as such the style of DH goes from a style that is aimed for at least an older teenaged reader (as each book progresses so does her writing style) to one of a book aimed at children. It's also a jarring transition.
That said - I think she was more than likely a bit too close to the project and probably didn't really see that from a readers perspective. I can't fault her for that because all writers do this but I really think an editor should have realized the epilogue needed some sort of re-write.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-11-09 06:53 am (UTC)I think the problem with the epilogue - in my mind anyway - is that it's very jarring to go from all of that emotion of DH to the 'and they all lived happily ever after' feel of it without some sort of bridge for the reader to make the leap from one to the other. I also think there really needed to be some sort of memorial/funeral scene so the readers could say 'goodbye' to their favorite characters who died in DH. There needed to be some sort of closure there before making that leap to the 'happily ever after' of the epilogue.
I think people would still bitch about it if there had been something like that because HP fans sure do know how to bitch but for this reader that sure would have made the epilogue feel less jarring.
The other problem, again in my reading of it, is that it feels so obvious she wrote it back when she was first starting to write the entire series (I think she's confirmed this in an interview but it's been a while so don't quote me on that) and as such the style of DH goes from a style that is aimed for at least an older teenaged reader (as each book progresses so does her writing style) to one of a book aimed at children. It's also a jarring transition.
That said - I think she was more than likely a bit too close to the project and probably didn't really see that from a readers perspective. I can't fault her for that because all writers do this but I really think an editor should have realized the epilogue needed some sort of re-write.
But that's just my take on the whole thing. :)