Posted on 07/21/2007 5:18:11 PM PDT by JenB
So you finally know what happens to Harry. All our questions are answered. Or not. What are your reactions? Whose death hurt the most? Do you want more, and about whom?
SPOILERS are ok on this thread! You have been warned!
Wow. It's over.
Agreed.
That's the one drawback to the series ... new readers to the series can pick them up back to back. A seven-year-old reading Sorceror's Stone is wonderful. I'd encourage them to read a few other things in between each book, however, so that would put off some of the worse stuff for a year or two. Even then, well, it still might be read along time.
Someone else has already pointed out all of the neat things that Ron does in this book (I'll just add, figuring out how to use the Deluminator to find Harry and Hermione, all on his own). Ron was never going to outshine Harry or Hermione when it comes to spellcasting; his best qualities are in other areas. And its for those *other* qualities that Hermione falls for him: he's brave, he's faithful to his friends (mostly), he cares about what happens to innocent bystanders (remember the look Hermione gives Ron when he worries about the wizard he impersonated in the Ministry, and his wife), and he does come up with the occasional good idea (like getting into the Chamber of Secrets).
I was very struck by the scene of Ron overcoming his fears to destroy the locket; we see that not only is he jealous of Harry, and worries about losing Hermione to him (as would be expected) but he is also resentful of Ginny's place in the family, which is a brilliant bit of characterization on Ms. Rowling's part, I thought. And two little lines in the Epilogue show that Ron has overcome his anxieties: first, where he tells young Rose "Thank God you inherited your mother's brains", and later, when he says "I'm extremely famous", to explain why everyone on the train is staring.
I'm very impressed with Ms. Rowling's writing on this one, can you tell? :-)
Which is why I've maintained that if anyone other than Harry killed Voldemort, then the wrong person's name would have been on all of the books.
Snape's final words should've been, "Yippy kay-yay, Harry Potter!", which extra spit on the "Pot".
Oh, I see where you’re going. Never mind...
LMAO!
Well, he did get to enable the death of the only thing Bellatrix loved - Voldy
It was probably better that way. Killing the snake was heroic and didn't involve either murder or a second duel with Trixie.
Cut from "Order of the Phoenix":
"STUBEFY!! STUBEFY!!"
"Neville! Why are you transfiguring everyone into cruise ship captains??"
I would've liked one that was a little sooner.
Maybe Harry standing as best man at Ron's wedding and telling him, "No, you can't borrow the cloak ..." as Hermione is about to walk down the aisle. "Blimey" (and imagine the explanations that would have to be made to the Muggle half of the family)
Or Ron standing as Best Man as Harry's wedding, but then I couldn't see Hermione as Ginny's Maid of Honor.
One prediction I had that panned out was that the “awful” boy that Petunia talked about in OOtP would be Snape and not James. That turned out to be right. Poor, pitiful Snape
Why not? It was Hermione after all who advised Ginny on how to relax around Harry, so that he could actually get to know her as more than just Ron's star-struck little sister.
You know, I was thinking about it this morning, and it seems to me that Ginny really set out to catch Harry, right from the start. For example, practicing her broom-flying so that she could try out for Quidditch... and have an excuse to be around Harry. Also, her involvement in the D.A. I imagine Ginny practicing her spell-casting in secret, determined to get good enough at it that Harry would notice her...
For Ron and Hermione's wedding, you have the three of them there regardless of maid of honor. OTOH, Hermione doesn't seem to have any other female friends other than Ginny and Luna.
Actually, I might borrow that Egyptian mythology bit for some unwritten story idea to be named later.
Maybe on some of them, but Hagrid brought Harry to the Dursley's riding the motorcycle he borrowed from "Young Sirius Black."
You're right. She probably broke with tradition and asked Hagrid :o)
Ms. Rowling wrote the epilogue very early--maybe even before book 2, and apparently felt that 'artistic integrity' required that she publish it as it was written then. Although she'd decided on a few things that needed to happen between Book 1 and the epilogue, most of the intervening characters and plot were thought of later and thus played no role in her eplilogue.
Frankly, I would have liked her to at least have filled in a few blanks before publication, such as kids' middle names. I think James Sirius Potter would have had a nice sound, wouldn't it? His daughter could perhaps be Lily Tonks Potter. Who cares if Sirius and Nymphadora hadn't been invented when the epilogue was first written? I'd suggest Rose Grainger Weasley and Hugo Remus Weasley for Ronald and Hermione's kids.
Okay, mea culpa on that one. Still, there many people and things in the previous stories that the epilogue simply ignored for no clear reason.
True, we don’t get the wrapup for all of the characters. But we do for the main ones we lived with for seven books. Harry, Ron and Hermione, with Neville and Ginny thrown in.
Upthread it talks about an encyclopedia that Rowling is working on. It’s supposed to give much of the backstory.
Wrapping up all the loose ends would have added another 100 pages or more.
They’ll have to do it slo mo.
Half the people reading the book didn’t pick up on where Longbottom got the sword from.
So, they’ll have to make a point of emphasizing that in the movie for us all to enjoy Nevil’s triumph.
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