Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

(I posted this on my site already, but wanted to put it here as well because we're always talking about Harry in this group.)

NO SPOILERS (in this section):
I finished Book 7 a couple of days ago and really wanted time to let it sink in. The book is 600 pages long, and there’s just something about the Harry Potter books — they FLY. I read them so quickly, and yet I always feel like I’m not reading them quickly enough. I remember the climax of Prisoner of Azkaban, in the Shrieking Shack, where I was willing my eyes to move more quickly, wishing I knew how to skim (I don’t skim; I read very carefully and slowly, always have. It truly sucked when I was taking Victorian lit). By the time I got to the climax of this book, I had that same feeling.

The book has its slow moments; by page 450 I was starting to stress out that certain key things weren’t going to be resolved, but I was being silly. Just as I never lost faith in Joss Whedon even when Angel and Buffy weren’t quite going the way I wanted them to, I shouldn’t have lost faith in J.K. Rowling. The ending was spectacular. I always say writers have a horrible time of it when it comes to series — whether it’s books or TV — and they’ll never satisfy everyone when it comes to the end. But even though my bets were on it finishing completely differently, I loved it. She satisfied me.

Now, SPOILERS AHEAD. Please don’t read on if you haven’t finished the book.

What I LOVED about the book:
So many people speculated that Harry was going to die in Book 7, to the extent that psychologists were making LOTS of money selling their advice to anyone who would listen on how parents would be able to help their child deal with the grief. Stephen King and John Irving begged Rowling last year at a charity event NOT to kill Harry. Yet when I thought it through, it seemed like the only way it could end. Good can triumph, but sometimes major sacrifices have to be made. I thought anything less than Harry’s death would be a cop-out. And then… she didn’t kill him. He survives at the end of the book. And it worked. Yet Rowling still gave us the scene of what would have happened if Harry had died, for Voldemort hits him and he appears to die to all around him, even though he’s conscious and only pretending. We read about poor Hagrid picking him up and sobbing his giant tears all over him, carrying him back to Hogwarts. We see Voldemort proclaim victory, and feel the dread fall over everyone that not only is Harry dead, but the world has suddenly become a dark and awful place. All of the death that happens at the end of the book seems like a horrible waste to everyone, and they stand there, shocked at what has happened, losing faith by the second. In including this scene, it was like Rowling was saying, “See? This is why I couldn’t have killed him. It wouldn’t have worked.” Of course, in my vision, both of them died, but I was much happier having Harry live.

The huge battle scene at the end. It is EPIC. You can just imagine it on the movie screens, as the former members of Dumbledore’s Army show up in the Room of Requirement one by one, followed by the Order of the Phoenix. Then the battle raging on while Harry is trying to maintain his focus, with the portraits on the wall screaming their encouragement, McGonagall enchanting everything she can — including the desks — and screams and sparks from wands flying everywhere. The battle was amazing, and we can feel Harry’s dread as he realizes what he must do, and walks quietly away from this incredible war to his own inevitable death.

When I read Half-Blood Prince, there were two things I predicted for this book, and they both came true (so I don’t feel too badly about being wrong on the Harry dying thing). I believed that Harry MUST be the final Horcrux, and I believed that when Dumbledore said, “Snape, PLEASE” that he was begging him to kill him, and Snape did it against his will. By about halfway through the book, I began to lose hope on the latter, at least. But it all turned around in the end. Snape’s final act is to pull out his memories for Harry so he can see what really happened over the past several decades, showing how Snape was actually with the good guys all along, just as Dumbledore had been letting on. (It also seems clear now that the reason Dumbledore kept refusing to let Snape become the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was that he knew Voldemort had levied a curse on the position so no one could hold it for more than a year, and he didn’t want to risk anything happening to Snape.) Snape was a good person, but he was also an angry and resentful person because he’d been bullied by the person most like Harry — Harry’s father, James. So his resentment of Harry and his bad treatment of him make sense, yet it also makes sense that we’ve been seeing him protect Harry all along, because for as much as he hated James, he loved Lily with all his heart. When the doe Patronus appeared in the snow, I was convinced it was Lily (if James was a stag, she must be the doe) and it was so perfect to discover the twist that it was actually Snape’s.

Neville being a hero. I’ve always loved Neville, especially since we found out in Goblet of Fire what had happened to his parents (one of the movie’s omissions that I thought was a terrible shame) and why he lives with his grandmother. Suddenly he went from being this bumbling bit of slapstick to a serious character who felt deep pain and had been through a fate that was probably worse than Harry’s. Neither one had parents they could actually talk to, but where the deaths of the Potters had been quick, the Longbottoms had suffered greatly. I LOVED that of all the people around, Harry tells Neville to destroy the last Horcrux. (Also the scene of him rushing through the halls carrying screeching mandrakes was pretty funny.)

Harry finally getting a hold of the stone, and his parents appearing. I cried. That scene was SO beautiful, with Sirius looking so young, his parents telling him how proud they are of him… it was SUCH an amazing scene and finally brought all the sadness of the previous six books to a different conclusion, I was very sad when they suddenly disappeared as Harry faced Voldemort. Why make these people go away when he needed them most? But I suppose Harry had his reasons.

Mrs. Weasley being the one to take out Bellatrix. WICKED. (Though I could have done without her calling her a bitch, as much as the moniker fits.) Loved that scene.


What I didn’t like about the book:
The loooooooooong section of them wandering aimlessly trying to remain unseen, Apparating and Disapparating and Ron and Hermione having a lover’s quarrel and Harry starving and moping and on and on. While I’ll admit my attention never wavered, it was in this section that I REALLY missed Hogwarts and all of the other people in the book. It was here I began to worry that Snape really was a horrible person who’d taken over Hogwarts and was being awful to the students in the name of Voldemort, that we’d never see Neville and Ginny again, that this was going to end in a forest and not on the school grounds. But then again, having been through that doubt, it made the ending all that much sweeter.

Dumbledore not telling Harry about most of the stuff and making him figure it out. Yes, it was character-building and blah blah blah, but come on, the fate of the wizarding world rests in Harry saving it, couldn’t Albus have given him a little bit of help?

Dudley showing remorse and Harry suddenly thinking he’s a good guy. Readers LOVE to hate Duddikins, so please let us continue to despise him. Don’t make it all lovey-dovey when it comes down to it. Saving him from the Dementors or no, it doesn’t make sense that Duddy would wait until the moment he’s saying goodbye to act all in love with Harry, when he’s had all summer to do it, even if it were in a subtle sort of way.

The quick deaths. I know that’s the reality of war, but we find out Lupin dies when he appears to Harry, and then there’s a line near the end where the narrator says that Harry was sad about Lupin and Tonks, and until then I don’t remember reading anywhere that Tonks was dead. (I could have missed it, though.) It felt a little too much like Anya’s death in “Chosen.” Quick, with no chance to mourn it, even though we were very close to these characters.

The Epilogue. It was vague and weak and all happy-happy-joy-joy look at how lovely we all turned out… yet it told us pretty much NOTHING. We don’t know where they all ended up working, we don’t really know anything about them at all. JKR has said she wanted it that way, but I would have preferred the book ending before it. Until then, it was gorgeous. It’s not nearly as bad, but reminiscent of that movie A.I., which was a perfect perfect film right up until Osment’s character goes underwater and stares at the Blue Fairy, and you imagine this little boy staring at her for eternity. The screen goes dark, and I was in tears thinking, “What an awesome ending.” And then… the movie comes back up and we have to suffer through another 40 minutes of robots and aliens and CRAZY stuff that completely ruined the movie. The epilogue didn’t ruin the book for me, not by a long shot, but it was just entirely unnecessary.

NOW… if the epilogue disappointed you as much as it did me, then check out this article, where JK Rowling talked to a bunch of kids on The Today Show and revealed what, in her mind, actually happened to the characters. It’s WAY more interesting than what she wrote in the epilogue, making you wonder, Geez, Lady, why didn’t you just write this stuff out in the epilogue instead? Luna and Neville possibly being together? Harry and Ron as Aurors?

So what did you think? Let's talk about it openly in the comments, so if you haven't read the book, don't read the comments. :)

I’m dying to hear what everyone else thought!