Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Reaction Thread - SPOILERS!!!!

me | 7/21/2007 | me

[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.

[null and void]

And I walking by said, "You really want to be spoiled? Harry doesn't die." And she was so relieved, hehehe.

I would have said: "He does and doesn't die"...

[BibChr]

I would have said, “I won’t insult the author by spoiling her meticulous plot.”

[Maigrey]

Hmmmmm. I'll have to ponder on this concept while I go to the doctor this afternoon.

It is a fascinating thought, tho...

[null and void]

I was disappointed, too, that nothing was said about the Muggle government at all

Vernon saw Shacklebolt guarding the PM on the telly...

[null and void]

It’s still inconsistent ... like when characters in “Star Trek” say, “Oh my God!”

Yes, but Star Trek is set in the future. There are no møøslimbs...

[null and void]

So this morning on the way out the door Jr. says to me “why did Hedwig have to die?”

Just curious, what did you tell him?

[null and void]

Not a bad list. Thanks.

[grellis]

...another great argument for an Ignore feature...

A year or two ago, I began keeping a handwritten list next to the pc. Just can't trust my memory anymore. It's grown by a name as a result of this thread.

How did you like the book?

[Corin Stormhands]

Just curious, what did you tell him?

I just said "you'll see."

[null and void]

Why do they have radios, but not televisions or telephones?

No telephones because they can talk via floo powder. No television? What good has having television done us?

[null and void]

I'm betting she never really even considered having "non-locals" come to help.

The problem with the non-locals is that they are over sexed, over paid and over here...

[JenB]

I think Voldemort went out of his way to avoid Dumbledore, don’t you? Even when he wanted Dumbledore dead, Voldemort used other people to do it. I don’t think they ever met in battle before that confrontation at the Ministry.

[Maigrey]

What it is showing is that, even with the "ends justifying the means" is that there are failings of the main characters, breaking their own personal moral standards to achieve the ultimate goal of stopping Moldy Voldy.

Personally, I would call that the basest form of integrity: doing what is necessary to achieve yout goal, regardless of personal cost.

Harry was willing to go to Azkaban, and as he showed, willing to die, to achieve his goal, regardless of personal cost. And, when he did use the unforgiviable curses, he was, if you could do such, gentle with them, until he came across The Carrows insulting Prof. Minerva. Then, he did what was needed to stop them against her.

[Tax-chick]

they can talk via floo powder

Only if they're near a fireplace that's connected to the network.

What good has having television done us?

That wasn't the point. The point is that the wizards use arbitrarily-selected pieces of modern-day Muggle technology. The stuff that's really good - like indoor plumbing :-).

[Tax-chick]

Vernon saw Shacklebolt guarding the PM on the telly...

Oh, that's right. (Not fun, though ...)

[null and void]

So.... you think Harry should have been left to die in the end. Must you continue to say it, time and time and time again?

Rowling wrote what she wrote. You don't like the final chapters. So rip them out of your copy of the book and be done with it.

Yah, know, if "Rowlings" was really clever, she would have written two book sevens.

The one we have in hand, and one with a dead Harry in the end.

You know we'd all have to buy them both...

[Tax-chick]

Maybe ... but I don’t think it would have been that easy.

A moot point, anyway, since the author zotted them.

[Maigrey]

I personally think that it would have been a question of him being too much in awe of using it. (I don't have the time of looking it up right now; maybe later..)

He said that he was only good for having power, but not weilding powers, since he was too arrogant and ambitious for weilding power.

That was also why he understood Tom Riddle so easily - Riddle was the ambitions, power hungry side of Dumbledore, and he also saw the end result of what happens when you don't trust others, let your ambitions and lust for power superscede your desire to weild that ambition responsibly, and allow the power to corrupt you abolutely.

[grellis]

If Dumbledore possessed the Elder wand, presumably since 1945 (his defeat of Grindelwald as stated in the Chocolate Frog card), why do you all think he didn't use it to defeat Voldemort the first time - before he killed the Potters?

I don't know when he would have had the chance. Slughorn commented in HBP that Voldemort "had never sought an open confrontation with Dumbledore," or something to that effect. I think the last time Dumbledore was face to face with Voldemort was the job non-interview.

I do think that James Potter showing, and lending, the Invisibility Cloak to Dumbledore provided a horrifically timed distraction. If he had not been engrossed with the Cloak, and the possibility that it was a Hallow, he may have noticed that something was amiss--not with the Potters, but with Peter Pettigrew. Lily herself mentioned it in the letter to Sirius.

[Maigrey]

Yea, but they also have the old-fashioned chamber pots. As a modern child, ewwwwwwww.