The Gaming Den

I was glad Dobby bought it, but it was five books overdue.

# First is the Plotdevicium Wand. It's wielder cannot be defeated in wand duel.

This really is not true at all. The wielder most certainly can be defeated in a wand duel, even if they are wielding the wand. Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald in a duel where Grindelwald wielded the Elder Wand, with the Wand fully under his control, and thus the wand's ownership passed to Dumbledore as he won the duel. It's powerful, yes, but it doesn't make you invincible even in a duel.

# Then we have the Amulet Of Immortality which imperfectly resurrects people unless your name is Harry Potter

I'm not sure what this refers to...Slytherin's locket? That was pretty much the exact same thing as a phylactery with a different name and rather cooler flavor.

# The we have Death's Invisibility Cloak (yes, Death. Black robe, scythe, speaks in gothic letters?)

I'd stress to point out that it's really not Death's cloak, just like the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone were not created by Death. That was a fairy tale. An unusually prescient fairy tale, but still a fairy tale.

# Various people die as the book progresses, including half the fvcking cast.
# Remus and Tonks die off-camera and their death is basically unexplained. A total WTF?! moment if I ever saw one

This is one thing that I'm having a hard time understanding why people are complaining about. It is literally a war, and in a war, a lot of people die. A lot of people die pretty randomly, at that. And a lot of awfully heroic people die too (see: Snape). If anything I commend J.K. Rowling for actually understanding this and doing it. The deaths did seem pretty random, because they were supposed to!

What the hell did book six have to do with *anything*? Setting aside the absence of plot, it's in a totally different place thematically from book seven.

Mostly, changing Voldemort from some mindless, faceless villain into a pretty damn interesting character. There were some other assorted things (introducing the Good Slytherin and the Bad Gryffindor, if Harry's father wasn't enough of that), but it was mostly about Tom.

And also, like you said, the absolute failure of Sectumsempra to ever help Harry. This was thrown away in the final book, though.

Why, if Harry's power is the Power of Love, is he such a hateful little bugger?

One of the series's more interesting points here. As we all know, The Big Bad Villain falling down because the pathetic hero has The Great And Limitless Power of Love is a horribly, horribly stupid fantasy cliche. That's why I was really impressed by the way J.K. Rowling did this. That Power of Love is not some sort of magical power (well, it was, but that only happened once, when Harry's mom took the killing curse for him when Harry was a baby). Rather it's just that: love. It's the force capable of making people do things they otherwise wouldn't do, the force that makes heroes out of ordinary folk and makes them continue forward when they would otherwise fall behind. Harry may have been a hateful bugger at times, but he had an awful lot of people around him who loved -- and did not necessarily love him. It was this Power of Love that drove Snape to be basically the biggest fvcking hero in the entire series, drove Dobby to save Harry and his friends at the cost of his own life, and so many more people and actions. And don't forget, it was Harry's love and sense of duty for the wizarding world that led him to confront fvcking Voldemort in the first place instead of running away and hiding somewhere, which he easily could have done. There's nothing magical about this Power, it's just love.