Rating: WORTHY!
The Prisoner of Azkaban represents the point in this series where Rowling really hit her stride. The novel was - in overall general terms - smart, tight and very active, and also very readable. Having said all that, it was still replete with plot holes and problems. None of that, though, prevented it from contributing to the run-away best-seller aura that Rowling was in process of creating, which would really take off after this edition came out. Again she shows us that you can have a Swiss cheese of a novel plot-wise if you write engagingly and offer enough freshness and action to keep young minds entertained. That and the fact that kids are far less critical and less demanding than are adults about things like this.
The Harry Potter movies recognized this sea-change in ways both intentional and unintentional. There was a major shift between the first two movies which very much had the look and feel of a Home Alone movie, and the third one (and those beyond that), which were far more serious and grown-up in their attitude, and significantly darker. I don't believe that the studio planned it this way, however! It was merely a change in director.
The three main actors were also allowed to be more themselves (while still the characters they portrayed, of course!). It was like the movies had a growth spurt and were now maturing fast. The change was even more marked because, in order to actually match the action in the novels, there had to be some major and very noticeable changes on the layout of Hogwarts grounds, particularly with regard to Hagrid's residence, and the location of the whomping willow.
The first issue here was that once again Harry inadvertently does magic - without a wand, and without the requisite vocalization of two Latin words. This is can a of worms which I'll open when I discuss Harry's learning of the patronus charm. The point for now is that Harry was never censured for this!
And yes, Rowling has an out - she explains it by having the minister of magic himself take charge, and presumably quash all complaints, but the problem with the writing is that none of this showed up. In other instances, there were repercussions almost immediately, with snotty letters from the ministry popping up, yet here, he has the time to go to his room, pack his trunk, drag it downstairs, have an altercation with his uncle and leave, and not a single letter arrives! Inconsistent at best.
The next incident follows immediately afterwards. While he's sitting moping and bemoaning what's to become of him, right before the Knight Bus arrives, he sees Sirius Black. The two of them are alone. This is before Harry comes to believe that Sirius has any beef with him. Sirius is in Padfoot form, but he could have quite simply transformed and told Harry everything right there, yet he did not. Why? Because if he had, that would have been the end of the story - or start of different story (and actually one which might have been more interesting).
Rowling was writing to a formula however, and she couldn't have that up-ended, so instead we get this gigantic failure. The interesting thing is that Rowling could have written this in a different way. She could have had Harry see the dog after he got onto the bus right before it zoomed off, or she could have left the dog out altogether. This was bad writing, and her audience was reaching the age, with this volume, where they would start to notice things like that.
There were several failures of magic in this volume. The first I noticed was when Harry and the Weasleys were clunking their trunks down the stairs of the Leaky Cauldron to head out to catch the train. Why? Why not use the locomotor spell to make them levitate? Another instance is when Harry gets his new Firebolt, courtesy of Sirius, and he has a broom care kit from Hermione. At one point he's left holding the polish for his broom in his hand after McGonagall confiscates the broom to check it for curses.
Let's not even get into the question of exactly how Sirius ordered it and paid for it, because a more interesting question is, why is he manually polishing it when he has magic? Maybe he's obsessed and prefers to do this by hand, but this excuse fails to deflate the bigger question as to why there are broom care kits at all when there's magic?
It makes no sense, but once again it does fit neatly into Rowling's world, where there's all sorts of magic, and wizards appear at a loss to understand the pedestrian ways of Muggles, yet they follow these very ways themselves with great faithfulness! It's not really a magical world, you see, not at its roots. That was simultaneously Rowling's biggest failing and her greatest guarantor of commercial success.
The next issue is on the Hogwarts Express where the three main characters find themselves removed to the very back of the train where the only empty berth is to be found - empty that is except for a shabbily dressed guy who's apparently sleeping. Again this is a world of magic, so why would anyone be shabbily dressed? This goes back to what I was saying about the Weasleys being poor. Why would a magical family be poor? OTOH, why would a magical family value gold when they have magic?
At school we discover that once again the Defense Against the Dark Arts class is in need of a teacher, and once again Snape does not get appointed to the post - for no reason whatsoever. It's going to be two more volumes before he gets the job and then, suddenly, he's the DAtDA teacher and that's it - no explanation for why, at that point after god knows how long, Snape is suddenly perfect for the job whereas he never was before?! Can you say nonsensical plot hole? But it did allow Rowling to introduce a new and interesting character for each volume. In one, it was Quirrell, who was a central character. In two, it was Lockhart, who offered comic relief. In three it was a werewolf. In four it was Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, in five, Dolores Umbridge.
The really interesting thing about these teachers is that not a single one of them - aside from Moody (who actually wasn't Moody!) - ever taught a single thing about actual defense against the dark arts! I don't think Rowling ever said what Quirrell taught specifically, but if she did, I'm guessing it didn't amount to much. Lockhart was useless as a wizard, and in the only lesson we read about where he teaches, it's about magical creatures, not about dark arts defense, but out of all the teachers, he is in the end the only one who started the dueling club so wizards and witches could actually learn defense against the dark arts! How ironic is that?!
This magical creature study is a trend which Lupin continues when he teaches about magical creatures, not about dark arts defense. Harry does get privileged lessons about the patronus charm which is, I think the sole time any student gets a lesson about dark arts defense in the entire seven volume series - that is until Harry himself starts teaching (in secret) in volume five, but this is a complete joke, because Hermione is far more qualified in spells than ever Harry is, and Ginny is a more powerful spell caster, but the girls are given a back seat yet again by a female author of a young adult novel! Shame on Rowling!
About that patronus charm! Lupin is hesitant to teach and doubtful of Harry's ability to learn because, as he keeps repeating, this is extraordinarily advanced magic! But how is it advanced? In what way? The only 'secret' to doing magic that we ever learn in Rowling's books is that you need two things: utter a very short Latin phrase, and give a twitch of a stick! What's to learn, exactly?
Now we are told that the swish and flick are important, as is the pronunciation, but the lie to this claim is given repeatedly. Even Harry, even before he had any magical training or even knowledge that he was a wizard, could work magic without saying Latin, and without waving a stick as we saw during his trip to the zoo in volume one, and at the beginning of this volume where he inflates his uncle's sister. For neither of those events did he get a reprimand from the ministry.
In the books, we see wizards repeatedly perform magic without a wand and without vocalization, so clearly neither of those two activities is important. You can argue that pronunciation and focus are important even when the spell is spoken in your own mind, but Harry's experience denies this. It makes it look like anyone can do magic - even a non-magical person - which is what Umbridge seems to be claiming in volume seven when she's examining a Muggle witch right before HRH break into the ministry.
So I don't get what's advanced about the patronus charm. Lupin fails to actually teach Harry anything. He just tells him the almost obligatory two Latin words, reminds him to think of a good memory (but fails to tell him it has to be really good) and doesn't even say a word about how to swish and flick! When Harry fails twice in a row he's ready to give up. He offers no further advice on technique or pronunciation or anything except to urge the need to find a good memory (which begs the question as to which one Lupin uses if he's so miserable).
So I really honestly don't get any idea at all from Rowling as to how this is supposed to be advanced. We're expected to take it on faith, which is poor writing. It's odd, because she does such am amazing job of writing in other regards: such as in setting an atmosphere and in bringing scenes to life, yet when it comes to the central theme of the series - that of magic - she fails utterly to develop her world.
Harry's monkey on the back for this volume is, of course the dementors, which I openly admit are a pretty cool invention and another great name (Dudley Demented is a great chapter title in volume five!). What I don't get is how Harry's fainting on the train got to be school-wide news and an endless source of joking, yet Draco's farcical injury from Buckbeak got to be a real tragedy. Obviously Rowling wrote it that way, but it made no sense and bordered on the usual caricature - too much black and white and nowhere near enough gray.
Who even told the story? The only people in the cabin (in the novel) with Harry were Lupin, Ginny, Neville, Ron, and Hermione. One of them must have blabbed the story in order for it to have got out, but I find it hard to believe that any of those people would do so. And once again neither Dumbledore nor any other teacher came to Harry's rescue by addressing just what the dementors could do and how they did it, and why it affected some people so badly - to head off teasing and bullying. Once again the school staff is bordering on being outright abusive toward its students.
Harry's rule-breaking and sneaking around again pays off as he gets some inside info, and learns that not only is Sirius his godfather, but he's also the man who betrayed his parents to Voldemort - so it's believed. Of course, a simple dose of veritaserum would have cleared all of this up a dozen years ago, yet no one thought to administer it? Sirius cared so little for his godson that he was willing to do ten years in Azkaban rather than fight to gain his freedom so he could take care of Harry? Poor writing, Rowling!
Yet again the stupidity of the wizard world is revealed as they hand down the verdict - Buckbeak must die! How weird is it that no one thought to use the time-turner to go back and witness what actually happened? Instead they have a court case where they give evidence? This was just plainly stupid, yet this is the kind of fly-trap you set up for yourself when you write about these topics, and when you create a world where anything is possible, including time-travel. If you're not extremely careful, it traps you more effectively than any Devil's Snare could do!
Thinking that Buckbeak has now joined the headless hunt, the three kids wander off, and arrive at the whomping willow in time for Ron to be grabbed by the dog and launched into the tunnel. Here again, the plot hole is astoundingly large. Why did Sirius do that? Why did he not simply pull a petrificus totalus on Scabbers and then explain everything? Because the drama has to be drawn out! Rowling is nowhere near done making Harry a victim, and making him suffer and feel threatened in this novel yet, but this is an enormous fault in the writing.
Even in the Shrieking Shack, Sirius still fails to identify who it is he's after. Despite having everything to prove Sirius innocent, they manage to still blow it, and Scabbers escapes. Not a one of them seems to be able to pull out the petrificus totalus spell for no other reason than that Rowling chose to write it this way. The same goes for failing to reuse the time-turner to go back and grab the Scab.
The time-travel was fun, though. It's always a good time when people have to avoid themselves. And once again, despite all the holes and problems, Rowling told a gripping story which drew in her audience and locked them in for another four volumes!
