Finishing an order of this Phoenix leaves a taste in your mouth most unlike the previous four Potter books. Whereas gulping the potent brews of Sorcerer, Chamber, Azkaban, and Goblet brings a light, fuzzy feeling akin to that of a glass of butterbeer, devouring the 890 pages of this Phoenix is more like sampling the Polyjuice Potion. Afterwards, you just look – and feel – different.
Could it really be that the alchemist of the Greatest Story Ever Sold, our beloved J.K. Rowling, has (gasp!) lost her touch and mixed her ingredients wrong? After all, she seems to have chucked most of her usual tricks out of Harry’s Privet Drive window: no more head-scratching whodunit to anchor the plot, only a sprinkle – instead of a satisfying shower – of Quidditch, and the heroic Harry of yore gives way to… dirty Harry.
And the changes are by no means simply cosmetic, mind you; even the composition of this serum has been modified. The extra time Rowling enjoyed to stir her creation to her liking may have actually been spent cutting down on the international twist that Goblet of Fire brought. As Goblet can be credited for expanding Harry’s world in terms of scope and scale – with the promise of a full-scale war precipitated by the dramatic return of Lord Voldemort – this book bravely takes a step back to peer into Harry’s troubled, uncontrollable emotions before the series charges forward to the "second war" that Books Six and Seven will undoubtedly highlight. In essence, Order of the Phoenix is really just the calm before the storm in the grand scheme of things in the Potterverse. But this is also where the boy who lived marks his transition to manhood, as he takes a trip to the past and sneaks a peek at his destiny. Though less a rollicking adventure than before, Phoenix is the series’ most psychological and emotionally haunting book yet. And that’s outside The Big Death.
Ironically, the tale begins predictably enough. As in every book, Rowling starts by painting Harry as the misfit-underdog stuck in the drab Dursley household. But a Dementor attack in his own neighborhood quickly signals that things have changed – the wall separating the Muggle and magical worlds have been breached. And throughout the book, dichotomies of good and evil, friend and foe, love and hate, hero and house-elf, pureblood and Mudblood continue to be explored, with a confused and frustrated Harry beginning to see the in-betweens and their thorny ramifications. Even his erstwhile feeling of resentment towards the Dursleys is put into question, as he discovers their pivotal role in his safety.
The first few hundred pages race by quickly, as Harry takes an excursion to his on-the-run-from-Azkaban grandfather Sirius Black’s ancestral home – and official headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, the titular secret society that aims to topple the Dark Lord. There, he reunites with Ron and Hermione and discovers that he and Albus Dumbledore have been the targets of a smear campaign orchestrated by the Ministry of Magic, which still refuses to believe that Voldemort and his Death Eaters have come back and may have even infiltrated the very halls of the Ministry. The media-savvy Ministry deftly uses The Daily Prophet to portray old Albus as a senile crackpot and young Harry as a good-for-nothing media whore (Comm majors, how’s that for hegemony?) in their proclamation that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is really He-Who-Is-Back-From-The-Dead.
Soon, Harry finds that even his darling school cum sanctuary Hogwarts is not the haven he thought it was, as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor-slash-school inspector, the cardigan-clad party-pooper Dolores Umbridge exists solely to increase the Ministry’s presence in the "rogue" school, where Dumbledore is suspected of training an army against the inept Ministry. Political allegories aside, the true triumph here is Umbridge, a (hem, hem) passive-aggressive power maniac who has zero tolerance for insubordination of students and teachers alike. Like a hawkish PAASCU accreditor, the aptly-named Umbridge swoops down on every flaw and transgression, doling out detention to students and suspension to teachers with a schoolgirl glee. Though the cycle of student mischief-angry Umbridge-detention is repeated almost ad nauseam for some 400 pages of the book, Rowling keeps us laughing in between Harry’s own fits of rage. One outburst of particular interest to readers will most definitely be his exclamation, "Women!" after his date banishes him from their Valentine’s Day tryst.
But more ambitiously, Rowling successfully embarks upon a journey into the mind of our reluctant hero. As Harry and Voldemort come to establish a telepathic link, Harry gains access to – and grows to share – Voldemort’s innermost thoughts and desires. Factor in raging hormones (watch out for a wet kiss) and the typical teenager’s wild impulses and Harry’s got a major case of mood disorder.
Continuing this motif of introspection, probably the most disconcerting – and effective – scene in the book is when he takes a trip back in time to visit Snape’s memory in the Pensieve. Initially excited at the prospect of seeing the people he dotingly adores, his father and Sirius, Harry’s world comes crashing down upon witnessing Snape’s complete humiliation at the hands of his father. Years ago, he learns, his father played the role of Dudley to Snape’s Harry in the very grounds of Hogwarts. Indeed, Harry’s journey in the Pensieve succinctly sums up the new direction taken by this Phoenix: As Harry grows to be a full-fledged wizard, the blacks and whites of yesterday have all turned a hazy shade of gray. This novel, an escapist yarn no more, skillfully adds texture and layer to the Potter formula criticized by others for lacking the emotional heft of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, among other "children’s" classics. In fact, it seems to be quite clear that the difficult questions Rowling raised regarding house elf-slavery and racial purity seem to be at the very heart of where Harry – and the series – is headed.
Though groundbreaking, Phoenix has its share of ungainly feathers. For one, the unsatisfying climax reads like a teaser to Book 6 (Think Matrix Reloaded to Matrix Revolutions), with a wizards vs wizards duel that Hollywood will definitely have to choreograph more fluidly for the film version. And some fans will surely long for the carefree days of Mandrakes, hippogriffs, and bubotuber pus in this most somber entry to the Potter series. Heck, even the token magical creature featured is a scaly, winged horse only visible to those who have seen death (*shudder*).
Rowling has conjured a true Gryffindor here: an unquestionably bold and fearless Phoenix so achingly ambitious in its desire to soar higher, much higher, than its predecessors. Whether it swoops down to touch the hearts of all Potterfans like the others did… only time will tell.