I agree, 005: that problem is especially evident in the last book. Things that did seem to be foreshadowed earlier turn out to amount to nothing, and the actually important plot elements spring up out of nowhere. Certain comments JKR made in interviews and such over the years do hint at some of the things that happen later, in retrospect, but she would have done well to include such hints in the actual books themselves to a greater degree, because as it is they fall flat and conflict with previously established facts.

She did bring up in the first one that the wand chooses the wizard, and that using someone else's wand isn't nearly as good as your own, but nowhere did it ever hint that disarming someone was enough to force their wand to your ownership. Apparently this works even if you just grab it out of their hand rather than using a spell, and works for a wand that the person didn't even know they owned, which happens to be over 400 miles away. And this in turn is the key to winning everything. I'm sorry, but how the F#$% does that make any sense at all?!?! *head-desk*

If in the movie they end up changing it so that the Elder Wand chooses Harry because he displays some sort of magical prowess, I'll be very happy indeed. It would really help if he, you know, had actually physically touched it at some point . . .

I'm glad to hear that the 50,000 pages of sitting around wiping their asses with leaves in the middle of the book is more interesting in the movie. Good lord, reading that part was so boring.

Still, even with all my grievances towards the last book, I'm looking forward to seeing the movies considerably, because they are always fun to watch and it's kind of sad that something that's been going on for so long is coming to an end. I really did adore the early books, especially Prisoner of Azkaban.