[Grendel9]

Kudos. Good summation of the Horcruxes’ destruction.

Yes, that crying baby is definitely a key image.
I’ve reread the King’s Cross chapter twice
more just to focus on the specifics of the scene.
Rowling is surely describing Harry as waking at the
gates of Heaven. He accepts the place as another
Room of Requirement. He and that flayed baby
are alone there until he is about to touch it...
VOILA! Dumbledore appears. How indeed? IMO
Rowling is recalling Milton’s oft used quote:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself,
can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.”
Even more, p. 709 alludes to a Christian image
with the blood being used to rebuild the body
and the mother’s blessing being carried in that
blood. And how fitting that for the whimpering baby
(Voldemort) ‘there is no help possible.’
Harry repeatedly turns to view it until the
moment HE becomes the mentor of the self-doubting Dumbledore (was I any better than V.? I too tried
to master Death) by reminding him that Dumbledore
chose HALLOWS not HORCRUXES.
So much for the critics who claim the HP series
is dangerou for kids to read: the real message is
there...Good conquers Evil; piety supercedes
self-inflicted ignorance and sacrilege.
But I still don’t buy the claim that JKR wrote
this book FIRST and the others later. I’ll give
her the EPILOGUE as the early write, of course, but
that’s the extent of it. That said, she did a
wonderful job in the series.

[r9etb]

But I still don’t buy the claim that JKR wrote this book FIRST and the others later

I've never seen that claim -- I've only seen the one where she had written and saved the last chapter (most likely the epilogue, but maybe the final duel as well).

[IDontLikeToPayTaxes]

But I still don’t buy the claim that JKR wrote this book FIRST and the others later. I’ll give her the EPILOGUE as the early write, of course, but that’s the extent of it. That said, she did a wonderful job in the series.

I read Sorcerer's Stone yesterday, after I had read Deathly Hallows and Half Blood Prince last week.

The last 2 books in the series compared to the first book is like comparing Filet Mignon to hamburger steak. Not that the first book is necessarily bad, but it's certainly a children's book with a very simple story and writing style. The first book has 309 pages, the last book has 759.

I don't think JK Rowling ever expected the series to become such a cultural phenomenon. I think she originally intended to write a series of simple children's books in the model of the first book. The first book is like the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew with magic. I think that was her original intent. As the series got more popular, she made the story vastly more complex, giving us an epic series instead of a string of magical kiddie mysteries.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Thank you! And yours was a very good summation of the moral themes and allegories in the book.