the deathly hallows (spoilers)

[kitty]

As people have said, going around in a tent for a long time = boring, but it also makes the exciting bits more exciting. A really cheesy part of me made me want the doe to belong to Ginny. But the snape thing was good too.

The Snape chapter was actually probably my favourite part of the book. I always suspected that Snape was good, but never like him anyways. He was always so unfair to non-Slytherins. So for him to die the way he did but also be good worked for me.

I wish that we could have seen more between Harry and Ginny. Harry never actually lets her help him save the world and that disappointed me. Why couldn't she have destroyed one of the horcruxes or even gone along on the journey with them. I know, I know, she's just too distracting for him, but of what little you see of her I like her character and would like to see more of it.

The 19 years later bit struck me as being cheesy and not the perfect way to do things. Also, I wanted to know what they all end up doing. Are we just to assume that they're all aurors except maybe hermione? I liked knowing that Neville is teaching at Hogwarts. I too was disappointed that they still have the houses and haven't united. Plus it seemed like Malfoy and Harry were starting to get closer/potentially understanding each other (or malfoy at least owes Harry many times over for his life) so to see them still be quite against each other 19 years later was disappointing.

[bdw]

Quoting novium from 19:34, 25th Jul 2007
You know, did anyone else think that towards the end, in the final confrontation bit that JK rowling was channeling 'dirty harry' a bit?

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quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquaum du suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.

Probably on a double bill with Aliens for the Mrs Weasley/Sigourney Weaver vs Bellatrix rumpus at the end.

[Pan]

I really liked all the characters in the books before I started reading this last one. By the end of it, I kind of didn't really care if Ron, Hermione or Harry died or lived. In fact, I was willing one of them to die just to liven things up a bit.


I was upset by Dobby's death though.

And Neville was great in it!


The epilogue was a bit rubbish though, wasn't it? And I thought it didn't read very well either, like it was written in a hurry or something.


I also agree about the Sirius and his curtain death. I was hoping there'd be some mystery around that and we'd hear more from him!



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"Last time you gave me a pie, I cut into it, and birds flew out of it, hitting me in the face and chin. I was confused. It was a trick pie"

[Icarus]

Everything you ever wanted to know about what was missing from the epilogue but were afraid to ask:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/

Personally I quite liked the epilogue as it was. The last couple of chapters of the book built to such a crescendo that to fill the last dozen pages with an account of 'what happened next' would have completely sapped the power from the ending. While the epilogue didn't give you a whole bunch of information, at least you got a sense of closure for the characters themselves in that you knew all ended well for them. Harry married Ginny and got the family that'd been denied him. Ron and Hermione end up together. Hogwarts continues, and while the different houses remain, there's a better degree of understanding and acceptence of the different houses, as Harry's conversation with his son about Slytherin showed. Even Malfoy and Harry had that perfect amount of acknowledgement of each other, given their past animosity. All in all the perfect note to end it on. The characters are meant to be the main focus after all.

... but having said that I'm a big Harry Potter geek, so JK Rowling could have finished the book with another hundred chapters on what happened next and I'd have read it voraciously.

[oddly familiar]

I was kind of dissapointed with Draco's story in this - I remember the first book where it was made very clear that whilst the main war was between Harry and Voldemort, Draco was such a strong adversary to harry - his equal in so many ways - a leader of a house, a seeker in quidditch, etc.. He seems to have faded away quite a lot in the last two books. It's almost as though JKR kind of forgot about the harry-draco character dynamic (one which was very important in the beginning) in favour of all the other stuff that was going on. I was hoping that he would undergo some sort of redemption and help harry in the final battle. instead he just limped around being scared and ineffective.

[hr]

saru mo ki kara ochiru

[pea]

Quoting Colleen from 14:19, 22nd Jul 2007
Apart from that, I liked it, although I could have done without 'in a tent, in a tent, have a mission, in a tent' for two thirds of the book.

I haven't been able to bring myself to read the rest because I've been so disappointed with this first bit. I felt like I was reading it just to know what happened, so it wasn't spoilerized by everyone for me, but now I've got someone to tell me what happens (and read this thread), I just don't feel the need to read it for myself yet.

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I'm a little pea, I love the sky and the trees...

[mardoneth]

Regarding Draco i think it was appropriate he became a weaker character because he was predominantly a bully and also a coward as most bullies are. Also think Percy should have died and not Fred,preferably saving a member of his family.

Quoting oddly familiar from 22:31, 28th Jul 2007
I was kind of dissapointed with Draco's story in this - I remember the first book where it was made very clear that whilst the main war was between Harry and Voldemort, Draco was such a strong adversary to harry - his equal in so many ways - a leader of a house, a seeker in quidditch, etc.. He seems to have faded away quite a lot in the last two books. It's almost as though JKR kind of forgot about the harry-draco character dynamic (one which was very important in the beginning) in favour of all the other stuff that was going on. I was hoping that he would undergo some sort of redemption and help harry in the final battle. instead he just limped around being scared and ineffective.

[hr]

saru mo ki kara ochiru

[thePontificator]

Did anyone else feel that, considering he's meant to be the Uber-dark Lord of Utmost Scariness, Voldemort's actually not entirely blessed with the ol' grey matter?

Name any other major villain who can be defeated by exposition.

And sod it, I liked the epilogue. But then I'm a sucker for everyone lives happily ever after endings.

And if JKR had put in all the 'So, the house elves union is meeting me on Thursday to discuss terms...' stuff we'd probably still be reading it.

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Just in case you're reading this tomorrow, remember that I wrote it yesterday.

[Bonnie]

very true, according to JKR, exposition's a bitch.

This is why her books never truly adapt well to screen.

[novium]

i think the movies tend not to be easy to adapt, plot-wise, because of that. But other characteristics of her books make them easy to adapt visually/for casting purposesit's just that, for every other movie version of a book I've seen, the settings, the way the characters look and sound...all of that, always seems somewhat *wrong*. I think it is probably because JKR is prone to *telling* the readers things as opposed to *showing* them, which leaves the film makers a lot of room, creatively speaking, without going against the books.

[hr]

quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquaum du suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.

[Starla]

I really, really enjoyed the book, and there's not much else to say

I thought Snape died in a good way, at least there was no awkward conversation with Harry which would have just been cringy. I got very sniffly when I realised he looked at Harry so he could see Lily's eyes again before he died...

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"We all live in our Fantasy and only endure our Reality..." - R.A.Wilson

[Paranoid]

When JKR said she was crying her eyes out as she wrote the last few pages of the book, I totally believe her now! The epilogue was really trashily written! I was so lost with all the names being thrown around with us having to work out who was who's child and who was who's sibling etc.

Otherwise, good all round book. I came into reading it without any expectations or assumptions and found the story neatly summed up. I did start to snigger at times as it read as if JKR was trying to make a movie conversion an impossible task (can you imagine the Special FX required for all the stuff they went through? And they couldn't even create a decent Grawp in the latest movie from what I hear!)

My only wish would have been to see Harry die as I hate Daniel Radcliffe, and a movie ending without him in it would be nice )

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..I've got this pain down all the diodes on my left side...

[beeny]

Hedwig's death was the only bit that made me cry and I normally cry at Harry Potter deaths (sirius, dumbledore etc). I just didnt care about any of the characters that died - Fred was comic relief nothing more in the other books(and of the worst most cringy kind), Snape was a dick and Lupin was again a sideline character (and also not a very nice guy in this book what with planing to abandon his pregnant wife). Also, Harry didnt dwell on the deaths like he did with Dumbledore and Sirius which was half of the sadness.

Hedwig's death however was completely unnecessary. I hate when animals die in things :'(

The book was a complete let down. I only read it for a sense of completion and now it's done, I almost wish she'd write another (even though sitting through another of her 1000 page, badly-written opuses would probably numb me forever).

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'But what do I know? I'm a bear; I suck the heads off fish.'

[Frank]

Quoting beeny from 15:17, 7th Aug 2007

Dobby?

Frank = :'(

I do agree though, the deaths (other than Dobby) weren't tremendous in the book. Indeed, all the 'excellent' portions of the other books (Dumbledore's wit, Sirius' Death, Dumbledore explaining things, Ron-Hermione interaction, Neville getting 10 points for Gryffindor) were evidently absent, but even the quality of these were also absent. Of course, I feel that it almost had to go this way, it was the end of the story and they were all 'growing up' and things were changing...but still.

Deathly Hallows, at least on my first reading, wasn't as ... enjoyable as the other books.

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"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."