Ok so...

I'm being a really sad person and reading all the HP books through. I said it was something I would do when they all came out, and right now I'm reading Goblet of Fire, but it's slow work.

When I think of the series, I tend to think of the first three books being a kinda 'story' and the last three books kinda being a 'story' and Goblet of fire is just the crummy book in the middle that I don't really have much of a love for.

I mean, IMHO the first three books are all about Harry's introduction into the wizarding world, and him finding out who he is and why he is, where he is (woah... that was a confusing and awful sentence). And the general message of the books is kinda like a child's view of the world

'some adults are bad/annoying, some adults are good/cool. The adults that are cool are the ones that 'let you get away with stuff'. There's some bad stuff happening in the world but it doesn't matter because the grown ups take care of it all'

But the last three books are all about what Harry -does- about his situation. Now that he knows who he is, he set out to do something... about it? And I think the message of the last three books is;

'adults have flaws; even the good ones. The bad ones are bad for a reason, just as the good ones all have skeletons in the closet. There's some bad stuff happening in the world and we can't expect the adults to deal with it by themselves.'

At least, that's the kinda message I got. The fourth book, to me, is just a fun diversion. It's pointless, ok, so Voldemort comes back. SO WHAT. You could have had him coming back in the 3rd book, or at the beginning of the 5th. *shrug* aah well, time to go read through another four chapters of Spew.