It's only been two short years since we were waiting breathlessly for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to be released.
On July 7, 2009, Book #7 will come out in paperback, and the entire series will finally be available in both hardcover and paperback.
To celebrate, I'm announcing my first ever book giveaway! What am I giving away? Harry Potter books, naturally.
5 winners will receive a prize pack of 3 Harry Potter books in paperback.
The three books are:
#5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
#6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
#7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Official lingo: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a breathtaking finish to a remarkable series. The final chapter to Harry Potter’s adventures will be releases in paperback July 7th! It all comes down to this - a final face off between good and evil. You plan to pull out all the stops, but every time you solve one mystery, three more evolve. For more information and fun and games, check out Scholastic's Harry Potter website.
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If you could change any single event in Harry Potter books 2-7, what would it be?
(Sorry, you can't change an event from Book 1, because if you did, the series wouldn't exist.)
Contest rules :
You can leave a comment on any of my giveaway posts until the contest ends on July 7, 2009.
Winners will be chosen at random. If you don't leave me a way to contact you, your entry is invalid. U.S. Residents only, please.
Spoiler warning: If you haven't finished the series, don't read anything after this point. And definitely don't read the comments.
What would I change? It's mentioned several times that the prophecy could have applied to either Neville or Harry. There's a moment towards the end of the seventh book where Harry is preparing to meet his death and he tells Neville to kill the snake. When I read the book the first time, I believed that Harry was going to die. And I thought, what if this is what she intended all along? What if it's really going to be Neville who kills Voldemort in the end?
So, my change would be to have Neville finish off Voldemort. Harry would still live, but Neville would get all the glory.
What change would you make? I'd love to know.
such an interesting question. i think i would go back and convince harry to NOT say voldemort when they're in the tent and thus they're captured and it's all downhill from there.
ReplyDeletethen again, if that hadn't happened, who knows what would have happened next!? hard to rewrite a story like that....
I must say I was terribly disappointed that Snape died in book 7. After all we learned about him and what he'd done, I wanted so much for him to find happiness and love. (I'm such a terrible romantic, but there it is.)
ReplyDeleteHarry says: It would be neat if there had been a relationship between Tom Riddle and Minerva McGonagall before he became Voldemort. Instead of Voldemort being the enemy at the end, he turns good again to try to marry McGonagall. Lucius Malfoy takes over the Death Eaters, and Voldemort dies helping Harry and his friends beat them.
ReplyDeleteI hated losing Dumbledore so much- but I think that he was ready and prepared. Losing Sirius was actually a sadder loss in ORDER because his life had been so tragic, and at the time of his death he was finally free. He would have also been a big support in the coming war with Voldemort.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting change, Susan. Can my change be more writing oriented, and less plot oriented? I'd make Harry less pissed off in book 5; it would make it easier to read if he wasn't so dang angry all the time. :)
ReplyDeleteI would have had Sirius live. It would have been nice for Harry not to have to lose someone else in his life. He was also such a misunderstood character for so long. It would have been nice for him to have some happiness. Also as Marie says he would have been helpful in the fight.
ReplyDeleteI would have saved Sirius. I really wanted to see more of the Harry/Sirius dynamic.
ReplyDeleteAlso i've kinda got a literary crush on him, i'm not gonna lie...
Hm, that's a good question. I wouldn't really change anything...I love it as it is. But hm, I think I would change the death of Sirius. J.K Rowling was just constantly taking people away from Harry.
ReplyDeletebehapppppppy(at)hotmail(dot)com
Sirius alive for me too. I think it was overkill (bad pun, sorry).
ReplyDeleteAck.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to bring people back to life, too. I agree with the Sirius and Snape people, but I think my son will have a super hard time when he finds out Dobby dies, so I'll bring back Dobby for him... Part of me wants to throw in Fred Weasley, just because I felt like Rowling felt the need to kill off a Weasley, as there were so many of them, and so she needlessly sacrificed poor Fred. And I still have an issue with the whole epilogue, so maybe I'd ditch that. (Said with the upmost amount of love and respect.)
I would change the part where Dobby dies. I didn't want him to die!! :( I was seriously fighting back tears there. :'(
ReplyDeletelc_worlddomination[at]hotmail[dot]com
I don't want to enter the contest, I just want to answer the question.
ReplyDelete1. I would have killed Sirius later, or had more of him in Book 4. I wasn't attached to him enough yet so when he was killed, it wasn't nearly as heartbreaking as it should have been.
2. I wouldn't have let Ron interrupt when Ginny was giving Harry his birthday present.
I would eliminate the epilogue entirely (does that count as a single event, the scene at the train station?).
ReplyDeleteI also hated losing Dumbledore - I wish he had survived the whole series.
ReplyDeletemegalon22[at]yahoo[dot]com
In GoF, I would have eliminated the whole Barty Crouch, Jr. impersonation as Mad-Eye. I know the deception was central to the endgame of the book, but it would have been easy enough to switch the "bad things" BCJ/Moody did around without disturbing the plot too much.
ReplyDeleteAs it stood, I felt somewhat ripped off -- that the grizzled, curmudgeonly Prof. Moody that I grew to know, admire and actually like over the course of GoF was NEVER ACTUALLY HIM. It diluted the character's regrettably brief appearances in the remaining books, because he never actually had any history with Harry or any of the other young protagonists.
Frankly, I always had a bit of a problem with this sociopathic and impulsive young death eater so effectively impersonating (let alone subdueing) one of the wizarding world's most accomplished Aurors. How on earth was he able to fool the other members of the OotP, who'd known him for years? If you were able to become an exact replica of a famous lawman ... say Elliot Ness ... and even if you did years of research on him, would you feel comfortable passing yourself off to his closest friends?
Finally, to address the "devious" things that BCJ did as Moody that helped Harry make his way to the GoF, and attempt to explain them away to other causes, leaving Moody's character otherwise intact:
1. Entering Harry in the tournament. Could have been done by Karkarov.
2. Telling Hagrid to tell Harry about the dragons. That's something that would have been perfectly in character for Hagrid to do independantly.
3. BCJ/Moody telling Cedric about listening to the egg underwater. Cedric was among the best and brightest -- not a stretch to imagine he could have figured it on his own.
4. BCJ/Moody giving Neville the herbology book, enabling to tell Harry about gillyweed. One of the most touching parts of the book (and about who I thought was Moody), was when "Moody" realizes what he'd put Neville through when demonstrating the cruciatous curse. Inviting him for tea, recognizing his strength in herbology, and nurturing it by passing along a book (besides, if BCJ thought Neville was such an idiot, why would he think that Neville would have ever been bright enough to connect the dots for Harry in the library and suggest gillyweed in the first place?)
5. Turning the Goblet into a Portkey. Again, could have been done by Karkarov as one of the GoF judges.
6. Spiriting Harry away after his return to kill him. Wouldn't have been needed at all, if Moody hadn't been impersonated.
I'd change the duel between Harry and Voldemort. The whole expelliarmus thing was too weak for me, especially since we spent most of the series waiting for that moment. It was a let down, in my opinion. It's not like Harry didn't know other spells...
ReplyDeleteBut that's me. Email in profile. Thanks!
I would want Sirius and Dumbledore to live!!!
ReplyDeleteparadoxrevealed (at) aim (dot) com
Ok i would have to say that Sirius would live and be there for Harry when he graduated from Hogworts!!!!
ReplyDeleteMy name is Shawna Lewis
My e-mail: weloveourdogs@juno.com
I am following you and a big fan of your page keep up the good work
Dumbledore was a favorite and should have lived!
ReplyDelete