Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows (spoilers allowed)

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

I agree, but it also seems like she at least could have explained more of what happened in the epilogue.
And why oh why did Snape, after risking his life for so long and having to be the one to finish off Dumbledore, not get some sort of heroic death? Couldn't he at least have attempted to kill the snake or something?

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

that is my point on snape. he wasn;t killed for being heroic or standing up. he was killed because voldy wanted the wand. then harry had to find out snape's role through the pensieve. i thought that could have happened more dramatically.

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

but there were interviews between the 6th and 7th book where she said these things would be addressed. I understand that stuff is going to get cut, it's just frustrating.

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

I read the book in one setting and liked it.

However, there was one thing that disappointed me. I thought JKR really copped out with Wormtail's death. Simply hesitating causing the silver arm to strangle him? It seemed forced to me.

I really thought Wormtail would use the silver arm to kill Greyback (as in Norse mythology, Fenrir is a werewolf killed by a silver arm) and that would be how he saved Harry and repayed his life debt. It seemed there was way too much time involved with Harry in hiding and not enough resolving issues like Wormtail, glancing completely over the deaths of Moody, Lupin and Tonks and Snapes death seemed a little forced, as well. For him not to die fighting? I'm not incredibly excited about that. And I thought the part of Mrs. Weasley shouting "NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH" was awesome, but I was a little disappointed that Neville wasn't the one to do Bellatrix in.

Other than that, I was okay. I thought Dobby's death and Kreacher's story about Regulus moved me more than anything, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that JKR had dropped hints about the final Horcrux (I had caught hte locket in Order of the Phoenix, but not the diadem in Half-Blood Prince.)

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

I agree with you on Neville, but I understand the whole family love thing.

With Wormtail, that's what I thought from the moment he got his pure silver hand. But I guess at some point before this book she said it wasn't going to happen. I still think it shoulda happened that way, though.

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

I finished late last night. I preface my analysis by reminding myself that it's written mainly for kids, and though it does, at times, transcend its genre, it's still a kids' book, so I'm not going to hold it up to the same standard I might "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

WHAT I LIKED...

1. The battle scene at the end. All of it was good stuff. You could see and hear the roar as the wizards and witches clashed, the giants wrestled, the spiders, centaurs, thestrals, hippagriffs and house elves dueled. It was a worthy finish.

2. The evolution of Neville. When he takes down Nagini, it's a great moment. His courage throughout was pretty cool. When Hagrid has Harry in his arms, and Neville, walks out to meet Voldemort and gets burned by the Sorting Hat, then whips out the Gryffindor Sword and fucks up Nagini, it reminded me of Braveheart. Him shouting "Dumbledore's Army!" was cool too.

3. Doby's death and Harry digging his grave by hand. I'm not sure if it says more about me, or more about Rowling, but I was affected more, emotionally, but Doby's death than I was Fred's, Lupin's, Tonks' or Snape.

4. Kreacher leading the House Elves into battle. Good stuff. I laughed and thought it was very fitting.

5. Percey's redemption. I think we all probably saw it coming before we cracked the book, but I completely forgot about him after that scene in the elevator with Arthur. I was glad he came back and that he didn't then suddenly die because that would have been cheap.

6. Ron's and Hermione's big kiss, but mostly because Harry was cracking jokes during it, about "You two do realize there's a war going on, right?" That was funny. And after all the build up, it was good to see them together. I knew Ron wasn't dying at that point.

7. Hermione. You have to love Hermione. Time and time again throughout the series, she bailed Harry's and Ron's asses out of trouble, saved the day, knew the secret code, reminded Harry of what was important, and stood by his ungrateful ass when he threw a snit fit. Bravo to Rowling, who, I'm certain, made nerdy girls everywhere feel pretty cool.

8. Harry's long march when he knew he had to die. Good stuff.

WHAT I HAVE SOME RESERVATIONS ABOUT:

1. Ginny's non-existent character. I really thought this book was going to flush her out a bit, but in the end, she's just the pretty red-headed girl who pops out a few Potters after Harry's days of grandeur are over. All we know about Ginny is that she wanted to get it on with Harry on his 17th birthday, and that she wanted to fight at the end, but ultimately didn't do much. I still liked her much better than Cho Chang, but she deserved a little better if she was going to end up married to HP.

2. The camping. And camping. And camping. Which was interrupted by several "No shit, really?" moments, like when Harry, Ron and Hermione just so happened to camp out near Ted Tonks, Dean Thomas and a couple of goblins, who just so happened to talk loud enough to move the plot forward.

3. Snape's fairly unremarkable death, followed by Voldemort's "You Have One Hour!" timeline, which allowed Harry time, in the middle of a war, to watch the pensive and see all Snape's memories.

4. All the Deathly Hallows stuff. I didn't hate it, but it felt a little forced. I suppose every book needed its own "mystery" but I sort of think of Book 7 as an extension of Book 6. I think the Horcrux stuff was enough. Obviously, to map out a 600,000 word series in advance would have been nearly an impossible task, and either way, Rowling did a splendid job. But the Hallows stuff seemed a bit like it came out of nowhere.

5. Hagrid. I think he should have died. Not because I didn't like him -- in fact, he was awesome -- but because it would have been a worthy sacrifice and a punch in the stomach. I liked the scene where he had to carry HP back to Hogwarts when everyone thought he was dead, but I think if she was going to kill a major character, one that would have really had an emotional impact, it should have been Hagrid. And then Luna could have become a teacher at Hogwarts, teaching Care of Magical Creatures. Tonks and Lupin and Fred and Mad-Eye and Hedwig aren't major characters. A statue of Hagrid out by his house, reminding everyone of the sacrifices we make out of love, would have been appropriate.

STUFF I CAN'T MAKE UP MY MIND ABOUT:

-The epilogue. On one hand, it seemed clunky and that it didn't quite fit with the previous 755 pages. On the other hand, I love the idea that it all comes back to kids. That this is essentially a story about kids through the eyes of their parents, and how to prepare them for the adventures of life, and that you have to put them on the train, send them away, and they have to figure stuff out for themselves. You're scared to do it, and they're scared, but you do it anyway because that's life. And that story goes on and on. Yeah, it would have been nice to get more answers, or a bit more about the toll the war had taken, or what Harry and Ron did on weekends besides drink Butterbeer and watch Quiddich, or how Hermione managed to conceal her steamy affair with Viktor Krum by using a memory erase charm. But I liked too that it was left up to your own interpretation. Maybe Harry is an Auror, maybe not. The point is, he's happy and at peace.

One last thing I'll add: Not to offend anyone, but I think it's silly when people say "Rowling promised we'd learn this and this and this, and said people can't be Horcruxes, etc.," in interviews between books, and "we didn't get all the answers she promised."

Um, it's a story. What happens outside the pages is irrelevant.

I'll be interested to see what she writes about next. I wonder if she'll write a different story about the Wizarding World, or make up another world, or if she'll try her hand at something more serious (that would be a bad idea, JK. Stick to what you're good at).

In the end, I'm glad I read them.

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

"or what Harry and Ron did on weekends besides drink Butterbeer and watch Quiddich"

My wife and I agree that Harry is the seeker for the Chudley Cannons, mostly because that was Dumbledore's favorite team.

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

I disagree. I'm not saying I hated the story because it didn't provide all the answers. I enjoyed it, and that's all you can ask for.
However, when an author writes such an intricate tale and presents it as though they had planned it all out well in advance, and then starts promising that this will be resolved, and that will be explained, etc., it's pretty lame not to follow through on that.
She could simply have said, "You will know everything you need to by the end of Book 7."

Also, in hindsight, Snape wasn't exactly good. I also wonder just how useful he really was to the Order. He saved Harry a bunch of times, but did he actually provide any valuable information on Voldemort? I'm trying to remember such an instance...

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

JKR was really careful when she debunked the rumor saying Wormtail wouldn't kill Lupin with the silver arm. She didn't say anything about Greyback.

To me, both the life debt and silver hand stories seem pointless with the way he died.

Snape's death definitely should have been a lot more dramatic. I don't see why he and Voldemort couldn't have dueled there.

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

I think that, regardless of what my criticisms are/were, or anyone else's here, if I were 12 and I read this book, it probably would feel like the greatest fucking book of all time. And that's truly what counts.

Also, if you want more info on what happened to everybody, it looks like you'll get your chance....

Rowling says she'll probably write "A History of Hogwarts"-esq encyclopedia in time.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/19935372/

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

Everything with Snape seemed weak.

I loved it, and really liked the ending, but there was a little too much explaining. I say that, but still I liked how Harry rubbed it in a little and was a little cocky about the whole thing, but as someone else said, if it takes that much explaining, it could have been done better.

The same goes for Snape's role in the whole book. That was set up to be the second biggest question in this book (after Harry, alive or dead): will Snape be good or bad. And after a spine tingling opening scene, Snape is pretty much out of it until the very, very end. When he finally comes back, we get his entire story compressed into just a few pages. It was cool learning for sure he was good (and if you predicted that, stop bragging because nearly everyone did), but it could have been a much more emotional experience for the reader if Snape's tale had somehow been woven throughout the book, and you only finding out the last and most important piece of his puzzle as he's dying. As it was it felt a little like the final scene: way too much explaining.

I didn't like that there kept being levels on top of levels on top of levels of magic no one had ever heard of, but that didn't ruin it for me. I was terrified it would. That, in my mind, did in the Matrix movies. The first Matrix was a cool idea I could understand, then they just kept adding shit and adding shit and going deeper and deeper and deeper into crap the characters didn't even understand, until finally it just sucked. I felt Potter approached that ledge for a second, but never went flying over it like the Matrix.

In the end, it was damn good. I probably won't read it again very soon. I haven't read any of them twice yet. Maybe in a few years.

 

Re: Harry Potter, Deathly Hollows (spoilers allowed)

I haven't re-read them since finishing this one, but I did re-read them all last year in preparation for this one coming out. There is a lot in there that you will notice the second time around, like Sirius' motorcycle in 1, the locket in 5, Dumbledore's look of triumph after finding out about Voldemort using Harry's blood in 4, the careful wording in almost every scene involving Snape in 6, etc.

As for the Snape stuff, I wonder if Rowling had any idea that people would so readily figure out he was good. I know she left clues on a lot of her stuff, but almost every other question it seemed like people were split pretty evenly. The vast majority of people seemed to know that Snape was good, though. I'll bet if she had it to do over again, she would have made that a little less clear.
Will people only watching the movies see all the clues the rest of us did? I'll bet not.