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.
Maybe the final cost of such is too high?
Oh, good idea!
(Agree with you on the chamber pots. EEEEW.)
Speaking of which, Bathilda had a chamber pot.
(I'm reminded of book 10 of the Robert Jordan World of Time series, where one of the primary characters is pregnant, and she has a hard time controling her abilty to weild "magic" due to the change in the hormones. It's pretty interesting...)
Dangit, Now I’ve got to clean Dr. Pepper off my screen!
She was a snake.
My grandmother had a thunder-box in 1990’s. She didn’t like to climb the stairs to the bathroom at night.
I was amazed at how well and how clearly she brought together all the main conundrums, mysteries and themes, and resolved them. I love the Lord of the Rings, and have read it over and over and over, but I'd even say this is a more satisfying conclusion than that — and that's saying something, for me.
Plus, I choked up a lot.
And I should say that my estimation of Rowling went from about a 1 to a 9 or so. Wife and I were mocking her somewhat amateurish writing in book 1, not a lot better in 2 -- but each book got better. Then at the end of 6, we were breathless. First read: Snape definitely evil. Then Valerie says, "But what if...?" And then we were off.
This book shows what a brilliant and complex structure she had in her head from the very beginning. Really amazing.
In short: loved it.
You?
Yea, but why did she have to kill off Tonks? That I don’t understand... besides plot expediency?
Voldemort made a habit of avoiding getting into duels with Dumbledore. Notice he tended to work through expendable intermediaries whenever possible?
As well a Cujo would go if the family was armed...
I agree with your comments. And I found the HP books MORE enjoyable than the LOTR, since (IMHO) Tolkein couldn’t write a sympathetic female character no matter how hard he tried. They also don’t have the cutesy, “look at how clever I am” asides that you find in the Narnia books.
Look at how beautifully JKR created likeable and/or interesting women: her Hermoine, Luna, Mrs. Weasley, Winky, Ginny, Minerva M, Fleur, and Sybill Trelawney are each distinctive and, in their own ways, likeable. And her secondary male characters, like the twins, Neville, Draco, etc., all touch something within each of us as well.
Was anyone else hoping that Neville’s parents were released from their maladies upon the death of Bellatrix, as Harry was released from the paralyzing charm when DD died?
She didn’t “have to” kill Hedwig, or Fred, or Colin Creevey, or blahblahblah ... only really “had to” kill Voldemort.
Really amazing -- I happened to re-finish Book 1 the evening before started reading Deathly Hallows. I was stunned: the whole story of Book 7 is set up in Book 1.
Rowling has said that the whole story just sort of unfolded for her over the space of a few days, and it's taken her this long to write it down. I believe her.
Bathilda wasn’t a snake. She was killed by the snake.
I think, in spite of other's comments about it not being the "best written" or "classic literature" that is one of the amazing things about the whole series.
Okay, so help me out here.
I forget which of the last books had the letter from Dumbledore(?) reminding Petunia of his last letter. Somewhere upthread someone mentioned that might have been the letter that came with Harry, but I’m not so sure.
Was that just thrown in there to throw us off? I don’t think Snape’s memory answered that question.
Me.
I was also hoping that Hermione would develop a potion to cure werewolfs. (Obviously you need the hair of the dog that bit you)...
Even things that are seemingly “throw away” scenes come back. Sirius’ flying motorbike is the most obvious. Fred and George play the, “I’m not Fred! He is!” gag on Moody that they played on Molly at King’s Cross in SS.
Well yes and no. One of the reasons authors kill off character is to maintain the apparent risk level. If you create a story filled with dangerous situation and nobody dies by the time you get to the final show down most of your audience has lost their belief in the risk. You have to kill character periodically to keep the risk present in the audience’s mind. Joss Whedon talks about this in the commentary of Serenity, he killed Shepherd Book near the middle to establish that this plot was playing for keeps, he kills Wash near the end so that when the characters setup for their last stand the audience believes it really could be the last stand; in order to get the audience thinking that way he had to kill characters. JKR had to do it here, and because of how the series started (until Cedric byes it in Goblet death is something that doesn’t happen to good guys) she needed a serious bloodletting, she had to establish that this wasn’t the beginning where nobody died, nor the middle of the series where one character would die, this is the end of the series they could all die.
I would have enjoyed seeing that chapter in the Potter Extraverse: Seeing Gran Longbottom, along with Neville, walking into St. Mungos along with The Gryffindor Sword, and seeing his parents healed. Tho, that might have been too much, and not enough hankies to do it right. They might not have been healed, but they could have had a moment of lucidity to know that Neville had avenged them in their sacrifice.
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