The Deathly Hallows (Mark Spoilers!)

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

It was an enjoyable book, not the best book I've ever written by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels good to have completed the series.

The middle parts were more tedious, but the finale was fairly nice.

I can understand Miriel's complaint about how all the stuff went down as it did, but I'm not terribly surprised. I've had trouble taking the Harry Potter universe's magic seriously, being a fan of fantasy books based on the D&D universes I'm used to well-defined magic system with a myriad of spells that I know the precise effect of.

While Harry Potter has many spells we know what they do, it still has a lot of, for lack of a better term, "really weird crap" that is never explained. I don't think the convolution didn't work so much as I came in knowing that explanation made sense in Rowling's head but will forever be beyond the rest of us unless she writes down exactly how her magic system works in intricate detail.

I didn't mind the epilogue, I don't know why you're all so upset about it. It could have said more, but it was a nice little conclusion piece to wrap it up and it worked.

I enjoyed the book, overall.

[Garnie]

yah gotta rember that its pure evil everyone was dealing with. some people had to die. there deaths helped the motivation and i think that if they didnt die it would have been a big let down if not

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

Ah, right, on the deaths. I thought they seemed fairly extraneous. As I've been saying, it seems like JKR had a dart board and threw a few darts to see who else to kill off for dramatic effect.

[Araciel]

yah gotta rember that its pure evil everyone was dealing with. some people had to die. there deaths helped the motivation and i think that if they didnt die it would have been a big let down if not

and also she was writing a war, and a war is cruel and does not care about who dies, the nature in which they die, or what circumstance their dying leaves the living in afterward.

as for the dartboard thing...i pictured her more rolling dice to see who died in the war, it's as good a method as any with such an event.

[fire_of_avalon]

Well, here's my take. Everything is under a spoiler. (SPOILER)
The Ugly:
-- The complete lack of Snape in this book wounds me. I am dead serious. Snape is Rowling's best character. His drives, his inner conflict, everything about Snape is flawlessly crafted. She took that, threw it out the window and gave him a little chapter to explain. There was no unraveling his mystery, there was no pause for his death, and there was absolutely, positively no smurfing redemption. Snape deserved Harry's forgiveness, but I don't feel he actually got it. And his death was so cheap.

-- Speaking of cheap-shot deaths, FRED? TONKS AND LUPIN? No. The deaths weren't necessary. We didn't learn anything from them, and we weren't even given the chance to grieve them. We were just propelled onward without pause. I don't have to have a happy ending, but I demand something real. We grieved for Sirius, we grieved for Dumbledore, but we were given no shot at grieving for some of the most important and best written of her characters.

-- The Epilogue. WTF. I honestly expected something out of the movies, one of those things where they just give us bullet points on what the characters did with their lives. That's all I wanted. I didn't want something so childish and out of place. I hadn't heard anything about the epiloge before I read it, but my instant reaction to it was that it read like really, really bad fanfiction.

The Bad:

-- I felt like the Deathly Hallows were more of an afterthought than anything really important. The discovery of the story, and the talk with Xenophilius Lovegood was very interesting, and I felt gave us an interesting view into wizarding culture. But they just ended up not meaning a whole lot.

-- I don't like the fact that all the good guys were using illegal curses and no one was bothered. I understand that many times they were in between a rock and a hard place, but there was no question of regret that they would have to go against their morals in order to do this.

-- I didn't like the fact that Dumbledore had planned out EVERYTHING for Snape. I felt like some things would have made more sense had Snape worked them out for himself.

-- Percy just jumps back into the family at the end? Nah. He should've shown up at the wedding.

The Good:

-- Albus Dumbledore's story was brilliant. I feel as if it could've been better if we had been able to pick up some of the truths about him in some of the other books. I like how human Rowling made him. He wasn't a marty stu anymore. Knowing a character's pain makes them relatable. He was a weak person, he fell to temptation on at least one occasion, and he manipulated the people he cared about. But he was never, ever a bad guy. He was a good guy with problems.

-- Hogwarts as the final battle was the right move, I think. I don't think it would have meant as much to me if it had been elsewhere.

-- Xenophilius Lovegood was pretty wonderful, I thought.

-- The invasion of the Ministry was very well done. I thought all three kids shined there.

The Beautiful:

-- Ron and Hermione's relationship was the best part of this book, I think. It tore my guts up when they treated each other poorly as a result of the horcrux, and I died when Ron left. I thought it was very real.

-- Neville! There should have been much more Neville (and more Luna, for that matter), but his actions were very exceptional, I felt. I especially enjoyed that he was able to produce Godric Gryffindor's sword. In my eyes, Neville has always been the embodiment of what it meant to be a Gryffindor.

-- All of the cultural references, from wandlore to wizarding racism were written excellently. I especially liked Griphook.

-- Harry's revelation in limbo was very moving to me. Dumbledore's honesty and shame, Harry's awareness of self and his completeness as a person, coming full circle as a wizard were very well crafted.

-- The final showdown with Voldemort was good. I especially liked that the characters were so true until the end. Harry never took a killing swipe at Voldemort, he just disarmed him. Voldemort brought about his own end. I do wonder what they did with the body.

-- Dudley shaking Harry's hand. Even though he was spoiled, slightly stupid, and violent, he understood more than most how truly important Harry was, not because he was the Boy Who Lived, but because he was a brave human being. I was very touched by that.

Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed with the book. I did like the ending (not the epilogue), and I felt everything up til Malfoy Manor was beautifully done. It was captivating, engaging and very moving. I kept mentioning to my boyfriend that the book really tore me up inside as I read the first half in the wee hours of Saturday morning. I took a break for Saturday to celebrate my birthday, and polished the book off this morning. It may have been the speed at which I was reading, or perhaps the fact that I took a break, but I sincerely felt like I read two completely different books by different authors. The beginning to the escape from Malfoy Manor was excellent. Everything after that kind of fell apart. The pacing was bad, the characters stopped making sense, and I started losing my connection to so many of them not because they behaved out of character, but because we never got to see their reactions. I think Rowling made a mistake in going forward with this book. I saw at least another year of editing, re-writing and re-thinking when I finished it. I don't hurt that it's over, though. I am happy that they've made their world safe; I'm happy that they finally get to live in peace.

EDIT: Oh! I remember reading something about JKR saying at least ONE of the deaths was something she didn't plan for, and was actually surprised by, but she wouldn't say who. Who do you think it was?

[Heath]

(SPOILER)
-- Speaking of cheap-shot deaths, FRED? TONKS AND LUPIN? No. The deaths weren't necessary. We didn't learn anything from them, and we weren't even given the chance to grieve them. We were just propelled onward without pause. I don't have to have a happy ending, but I demand something real. We grieved for Sirius, we grieved for Dumbledore, but we were given no shot at grieving for some of the most important and best written of her characters.

EDIT: Oh! I remember reading something about JKR saying at least ONE of the deaths was something she didn't plan for, and was actually surprised by, but she wouldn't say who. Who do you think it was?

(SPOILER)In a way, I think the fact that we weren't given time to grieve added to the drama of the whole battle. There wasn't time to grieve because the war was still going around them and they simply weren't given the opportunity to at the time. I do think it would've been better if there'd at least been some grieving for them afterwards, but I can see it was left out. Given that You-Know-Who being dead is certainly a cause for celebration. We were given a glimpse of the Weasley's grieving though, weren't we? I seem to remember them all gathered around Fred's body towards te end, though I might be wrong.

As for the death she didn't plan on, for some reason I think that might've been either Tonks or Dobby. While I certainly thought Lupin would die, I was honestly really surprised when we learnt of Tonks' death, likewise with Dobby. I don't really have any reasoning apart from my own personal gut instinct, but I imagine people will find seventy million reasons why I'm probably wrong.

[Spawn of Sephiroth]

EDIT: Oh! I remember reading something about JKR saying at least ONE of the deaths was something she didn't plan for, and was actually surprised by, but she wouldn't say who. Who do you think it was?

(SPOILER)I honestly think it was Remus and Tonks. Come on, their deaths didn't really have any impact on the story I just think she wanted to create another orphan in which sometime in the future will do something bad like Voldy did, maybe he inherited some of Remus werewolf and he turns into another Greyback.

Anyway, I kinda agree the book at first was really decent, then in the middle I was confused a little and caught myself reading several pages over 2 or 3 times to try to understand but simply moved on and then the ending was spectacular but then the epilogue screwed it up. I will in a couple of weeks, when I begin to miss the Potter series, and have time off work, to re-read it again slowly, take some side notes and try to understand it better. Like I stated before, I read rumors that J.K. was going to write another series. Oh, I wish that she wouldn't have rushed everything. I also saw on G4's the feed on TV just moments ago said something about rowling was releasing another book about snape this weekend. Im not sure what thats about because I didn't catch it all, but anyone know what that's about. Anyway, I do agree that more time should have been put into this book. I mean come on, she wrote it, published and did the whole ten yards in like a year and a half. I am sad that this is the end of Harry, but all I can hope now is that they don't smurf up the final two movies.

[Psychotic]

(SPOILER)-- I don't like the fact that all the good guys were using illegal curses and no one was bothered. I understand that many times they were in between a rock and a hard place, but there was no question of regret that they would have to go against their morals in order to do this.

(SPOILER)Yeah this was a big issue for me too, actually. I was a bit miffed that Harry went around idly performing the Imperius and Cruciatus curses. He's tried to use the Cruciatus curse before, but in those circumstances it was understandable...I don't get why he had to use it on the Carrow.

[McLovin']

Can someone explain to me why (SPOILER)Harry came back to life or whatever?

[Araciel]

because he's (SPOILER) jesus...duh?

[Heath]

(SPOILER)-- I don't like the fact that all the good guys were using illegal curses and no one was bothered. I understand that many times they were in between a rock and a hard place, but there was no question of regret that they would have to go against their morals in order to do this.

(SPOILER)Yeah this was a big issue for me too, actually. I was a bit miffed that Harry went around idly performing the Imperius and Cruciatus curses. He's tried to use the Cruciatus curse before, but in those circumstances it was understandable...I don't get why he had to use it on the Carrow.

Yes, it bothered me a bit too. I was really quite surprised to see people just using them. I suppose I can understand it in (SPOILER)Gringotts, because they absolutely had no choice in the matter, but it did strike me when I was reading it. I don't think there was a reason to use it on Carrow. Not a dead certain reason anyway. Perhaps it was just to get back at Carrow for being part of Voldemort's control of Hogwarts?

[scrumpleberry]

Can someone explain to me why (SPOILER)Harry came back to life or whatever?

Yeah, that was fairly contrived.

(SPOILER)Voldie's killing curse destroyed the part of his own soul within Harry, destroying horcrux #7.

Voldie took some of Harry's blood in GoF, tethering Harry to life through Voldie, so he has the option to let go or return.

As Harry no longer has Voldie's soul in him, if Voldie was killed he would no longer be tethered to life through Harry.



I think I got that right.

[Araciel]

yeah you got it right....just as it was written in the ruddy book

[rubah]

Foa I think it was (SPOILER)Dobby. She probably hit on him as one of those 'omg' moments and thought it was too perfect to pass up. At least, I could see myself doing that xD

[Zeromus_X]

I'm only on Page 200. :/ I feel like a slow reader compared to the rest of you...

As soon as I finish I am going to devour this thread.