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.
Hadn't JK said she'd written the last chapter years ago, perhaps when writing the first book? Since that would be the epilog she'd meant those who survived to do so back when her first printings were for 500 copies, not 12 million. She just had to figure out how to get there. That also might explain the sparseness of the epilog, as a whole lot of details we now consider important hadn't been imagined yet.
My first thought seeing the 19 years thing was “what she didn’t want to portray the 20th Hogwarts re-union?” Of course I thought that in large part because I’m working with people and planning our own 20th high school re-union right now so it’s kind of on the brain. But that also gets me thinking the reason to go that far is that you really find out what happened to the people and how they turned out. 3 to 6 months after I got out of high school you really wouldn’t have been able to tell how any of us were going to turn out. 5 years out maybe the over the achievers were on detectable paths, at the very least in grad school or with their first post college “real” job, but that would only cover about 10%. Even at the 10 year re-union it was a little sketchy, probably half the class was on path and the rest were dead-eyeing 30 and panicing. But now getting set for 20 it’s all pretty well cemented, we’ve got our careers, we’ve got as much family as we want to have, we know how we’ve turned out.
I don’t know if any of that ran through her head, I just know that after my experience of the last few months if I wrote a series of books about high school aged kids then wanted an epilogue to tell the audience how they turned out 19 or 20 years into the future sounds about right.
Her sister Bella is played by a 5'4" actress.
She's a crier, she's easily scared spitless, but she NEVER breaks under pressure. Ron's a lucky guy.
It was not published with book 1, but Ms. Rowling wrote the epilogue long before writing most of the books in the series. Although a few details of later books were made to fit the epilogue, and of course a few major plot elements (like who lives, Snape being good, etc.) had to fit as well, but the epilogue does not in any way consider any characters, plot, or concepts that Ms. Rowling developed later.
Precisely. I would have liked to have seen her original epilogue published either as an appendix (with a note explaining its history) or on her web site, but not as the 'official' ending for the story. I would have much rather seen Ms. Rowling add some more details to the epilogue based upon the characters, plotlines, and concepts which she invented after she initially wrote it.
Let's see. Ron saves Harry from drowning, fishes out the sword, destroys the locket, mimics Parseltongue to enter the Chamber of Secrets for the tooth so Hermione can destroy the cup, generally does well in battle including when separated from the others. He also learns how to treat witches well (the world needs a muggle version of THAT book!), learns to listen to Hermione and to support SPEW, earning what Rupert Grint hopes is the scene with the most retakes in the eventual movie. Ron came along great!
Yes, all that is true. However, Hermione is constantly performing miracles, from everything to her magic handbag to swelling Harry's face when the Snatchers found them.
I'm just saying that Rowling never let Ron shine with his magical abilities and instead used him as comic relief or moral support for Harry.
Ah, but the Potter novels already *have* flying motorcycles.
Voldemort was down and needed aid (which he waved away because he never wants help). He probably couldn’t tell who was lying. He’d have to look into her eyes, wouldn’t he, if he wanted to use Occlumency? If he were at full strength, he could’ve/should’ve been able to detect Harry’s life signs from a distance.
I was right there with you up until she died and Voldemort screamed. There had to be some kind of bond in there or at least a little bit of feeling. Or maybe he was p*ssed that he wasn't going to get his 3am nookie.
And now that I say that, I don’t know what kind of feeling that that could have been ... couldn’t have been love.
LOL!!
I was actually thinking of the current series, which (so far) has avoided those.
Well, I propose Lupin for the role of the black guy, and Tonks for the role of the guy from Brooklyn. Lupin was the token outsider, fighting the good fight for a society he wasn't really comfortable in, and Tonks' accent ("Wotcher, Harry!") can stand in as the British equivalent of Brooklynese.
I have no idea who took the role of the blind French girl, though. Fleur survived, and I don't know who else would fit... unless I'm just stretching the metaphor too far! :-P
The Naomi Watts, etc. casting rumors for HBP are now being retracted on Muggle.net
A very good summary!
First thing that got me was that everyone's theories were so totally wrong outside of possible deaths and the final horcrux (although it wasn't necessarily his scar, so much as it was Harry himself).
I'm going to have fun reading the mugglenet.com book with predictions on Book 7. (I got it from the library. It's on my shelf right now!)
I was afraid that he'd get a 1-on-1 showdown like GoF instead of big battle like OotP, and the plotting (or was it "plodding"??) through the woods gave me a bad feeling. I wanted to know where everyone else was and I didn't care about these new (or at least unimportant) people that kept showing up in the middle of the book.
Anyway, we got an ending that not only made OotP look like a playground scuffle at recess, but it was reminiscent (I tired, I know I spelled it wrong) of The Battle of Five Armies in the Hobbit (or were there Six? Oh, who could keep track -- there were so many!)
On the deaths, I predicted Snape, but for the wrong reason, and either Fred or George, but not both. I figured that a Weasley would die and it wouldn't be one that Harry had already saved. That left Fred, George, Percy, Bill and Charlie and the mother. Bill's already been damaged, so scratch him. The readers really only had a vested interest in Fred or George, so it had to be one of those two. Percy's death wouldn't have meant as much.
I would have liked to have seen an epilogue that let us know what happened to more of the characters, particularly some of the minor ones, in the aftermath of the big battle, but I guess we should be happy with what we got. Maybe Jo could be convinced to write a novella for some charity.
I knew that Dumbledore wasn't a dupe and we finally found out why he trusted Snape so much. Lots of other cool stuff that I'm sure has already been mentioned.
But in the end, at its core, it remained a children's fantasy story, when love conquers all. Not only that, but a Mother's love: Lily, Mrs. Weasley, and even Narcissa.
And here's one other tidbit that I looked up because I was curious:
Weasels are mammals in the genus Mustela of the Mustelidae family.
The otter (lutrinae) is a carnivorous aquatic or marine mammal part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels...
Should've been obvious.
I can already picture the slo-mo swing beheading the snake.
Actually, the final battle will probably be about 30-40 minutes long. The whole forest thing will have to be condensed, and the Dursleys will probably be disposed of very quickly. The first chapter, if it's there at all, will be about 2 minutes tops. It'll be there only to show the downfall of the Malfoys and the horror in Draco's eyes.
On the other hand, I'd love to say a reaction shot cut in to the line:
"The rightful owner of the Eldar Wand is ... Draco Malfoy!"
(Come on down! You're the next contestant on Beat the Dark Lord!)
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