Harry Potter #7: (SPOILERS APLENTY): Now that you've read it...

Cafe Society
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All right, my thoughts on Deathly Hallows:

Like dannyness, I think that the middle third of the book dragged on a bit. When I finished the first few chapters, I was amazed at how fast and furious the story was moving along in just a few days. The first chapter in particular was the darkest opening of a book yet. I was thinking “damn! Snape is evil after all!” I thought the camping trip portion of the story was taking too long - for weeks at a time the characters are doing nothing?!? Though of course when she says “weeks” it could be as short as two weeks, and two weeks can go by pretty fast.

I was in the camp of the believers that Snape turned from Voldemort because of his love for Lily Potter, but I was glad that we were given more than a 16-year-old’s crush - she was his best (and only?) friend even before they went to Hogwarts: a stronger relationship than just the girl you wanted to take to the prom.

At least one Slytherin did join in the battle of Hogwarts: Slughorn. And of course Snape was a herioc Slytherin. But I did hope for more reconciliation between the houses. You can even spin it into the Slytherin mentality: might as well get on the side of the winning team because I think that Voldemort might have had it this time, he’s never beaten Harry yet, and killing even your followers whenever you’re in a bad mood is a piss-poor system of management, it’s a smarter thing to follow the Dumbledore crowd rather than the Dark Lord.

I will have to re-read the King’s Cross chapter and Harry’s return from “death” to understand exactly what is going on, but as was said earlier in the thread Harry must not have been really dead, only having a Near-Death Experience or something, and could choose to go on into the next plane and not have to struggle anymore, or else return in his body and finish the good fight. If I were him, I would have told Albus “you know what? I think I’ll just check out now, I’ve done enough” and after Dumbledore’s jaw drops say “just kidding!”

The touching points for me: Snape’s memories and the Pensieve scenes showing his unrequited love; Harry Potter bringing back his father, mother, Sirius and Lupin using the resurrection stone and his mother devouring him with her eyes and telling him “We are so so proud of you”; Hermione’s sadness in telling of the forced exile in which she sends her parents; Dobby’s murder, Fred’s death. I wish Umbridge could have suffered a little more.

All in all, I don’t think the book was perfect, and it hade such high expectations from many people (including me) that a large crowd of people will be disappointed in one or several aspects, but I think it’s a good conclusion to an excellent series that kept me interested even as an adult. Though I confess to feeling a little sad that there will be no more Potter tales.

My little continuity error nerd moment: Voldemort uses Kreacher to test his potion trap protecting the horcrux in a stone basin in the middle of the lake in the cave. He then puts the horcrux in, refills the stone basin with more of the potion and leaves. Kreacher, using house-elf magic overlooked by Voldemort, returns to the Black house. Regulus gets the story from Kreacher, they go back to the cave, Regulus drinks the potion and dies, Kreacher swaps an ordinary locket for the horcrux and leaves.
Question: who refilled the stone basin with the deadly potion before Harry and Dumbledore show up years later?

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More thoughts upon reading the thread: I agree that I didn’t like Ron’s fight with Harry and his departure. Keeping the locket close to each person made sense to me - it was something that you definitely did not want to lose, so you want to keep it close to yourself at all times, and putting it in Harry’s moleskin pouch might not be the greatest idea, seeing as how if something happens to Harry you might not be able to get it back out of the pouch (only the owner of the object can get something out of a moleskin bag), but at least try a few things to break it! And when Harry and Ron have their argument that causes Ron to leave, I was just pulling my hair out for one of them to sit down and admit “this argument is stupid. what are we fighting about? are we nuts?” But then again, think about some stupid arguments you very probably have had in the past with a very close friend or significant other, where you thought they were wrong and said to yourself that they are the ones that need to make the first step to apologize. As happens to me in such cases, Ron almost immediately regrets it, but he can’t get back to his friends to make amends.

Ron and Hermione kiss when he has a thought for the house-elves before the battle of Hogwarts: you mean Ron has never kissed Hermione yet? Sorry Ron but 100 lashes with a wet noodle to punish you for that! Can you be any more clueless?

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Maybe Voldemort put an Ever-Refill charm on it, so that if the potion was drained the basin would magically replenish itself?

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OK, color me clueless, but…

I get the cover of the UK edition. But what exactly is on the cover of the US edition? Is that supposed to be inside Hogwarts, with the roof blown out? Wasn’t the final confrontation inside? (Or do I need to reread?) What is Harry lifting his hand for, to catch the wand, or what? (I love Mugglecast’s take on this, with Harry holding up an iPod. Maybe that’s what he’s really doing on the cover.)

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Except that Voldemort is described as manually refilling it after Kreacher empties the basin in the “quality assurance” test. ETA: actually that might be a plausible explanation and anyway it’s a very minor point not crucial to the plot.

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Arnold, it must be a refilling spell. You’ll notice that neither Harry nor Dumbledore refilled the basin, either, but when Voldemort goes to check on his Horcrux the basin is mysteriously full again. He changes the color of the liquid to clear, so he can see through to the bottom.

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How was Ron able to tell Dobby where Bill and Fleur’s house was, when Bill says just a few pages later that he’s the Secret Keeper for his house?

Whoever suggested upthread that Rowling should have had the epilogue consist of chocolate frog cards, describing where each character is and what they’re doing now - that’s brilliant. Maybe if enough of us beg she’ll create a set of cards that do just that.

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It looks as if they’re in the oft-mentioned great hall, whose ceiling is enchanted to look like god-knows-what. I can’t think of another time in the book when Harry is fighting Voldemort on the ground with onlookers in the background. I’d assume he’s reaching for the wand, as Voldemort is empty-handed.

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One other comment: I found both the scene at the historian’s house and the scene at the Lovegood’s house very frustrating… you’d think Harry and Hermione would be paranoid enough that when they go into a house that smells like corpses, they’d be on their guard.

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Not explained in detail, but it is mentioned that after Harry “dies”, and the Death Eaters go back to Hogwarts to show the people in the castle the corpose of their hero, they pass some centaurs and mock them.
My explanation: the centaurs have turned out in force, as observers, because they know that world-changing events are afoot. They are irresolute but mostly determined to stay neutral. However, when they see that the Death Eaters are making fun of them, they realize that life under the Death Eaters would be worse than any other outcome, and so the anti-Voldemort camp in the centaur world gets enough votes to declare war, allying themselves with the Dumbledore followers.

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Well, the book had to cover roughly a year’s time in order to be consistent with the rest of the series.

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My thoughts

Lots of subtle “late teen to adult” jokes - pretty funny.

I disliked the Cloak reveal - Harry might not know much Invisibility Cloaks when he got it, but Ron (and probably Hermione) should have realised that Harry’s cloak was off the scale. And others had seen it too - someone should have passed comment.

A little too much borrowing (mythic, fantasy and movie) -
the sword in the lake,
the doe (in other stories, a deer or stag) guide,
the silver hand,
the Tolkien line (they are coming),
Molly going all Ripley on Bellatrix (LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU BITCH) and who would have thought that Molly (whose magic was always pretty erratic) could take out Bellatrix in a standup fight…

I have to say that as a Christ allegory, HP works pretty well - and I am pretty sure that it was always intended to be. A single line in TPS sets the scene - When someone dies for you, it leaves a mark (or something like that) - a wonderful summary of what Christianity is about (IMHO, no GD here please). I feel that JK had to bite her tongue for a long time, endure a lot of invective and criticism from some christian sources, and the reveal is that the story was always a tale of a Christ-like figure with sacrifice/resurrection and redemption as the major themes (which is what I thought all along).

A good read, a nice wrap up. The Epilogue was a bit trite, but showed that Harry had got what he wanted - family, and was at peace with the past.

Si

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My guess had been that it would be Petunia, possibly in a plan that involved the Durleys still being at home when Harry was moved out of the house. The Death Eaters show up, and Petunia manages one magic act to hold them off long enough for Harry to escape. I think this would have been especially emotional in light of how envious she was of Lily. At some point in the series it is mentioned that Muggle-born wizards might be that way because of a distant wizard relative way back in the family tree, so I would believe that Lily would have gotten all the magic, while Petunia was left with one tiny sliver that she tapped into in a time of dire threat.

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I thought so too, but I went back and read that passage, and it said Harry caught Voldemort’s wand “in his free hand” (and doesn’t mention Harry dropping his own wand) – but in the cover art both of Harry’s hands are empty. Continuity error?

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A lot of people are mentioning that they enjoyed Mrs. Weasley telling off Bellatrix. However, when I got a look at an electronic version on Thursday (and skipped to the end because I’m a bad person who can’t delay gratification, or whatever) that was a bit that made me think I didn’t have an authentic copy. It just didn’t sound like Rowling’s voice.

The resolution with the Elder Wand business and Voldemort killing himself were other parts that made me doubt.

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Not good enough.

Not a single Slytherin student stayed to fight back. Not one. Even after all that stuff about uniting the houses, after McGonnagal actually saying that “it was time for Slytherin to choose a side”.

I was sure that there’d be some Slytherin students who finally realized that hey - Voldemort IS evil and wrong. Blaise Zabini. Somebody.

But no. Apparently Slytherin house really is the house of petty evil twits.

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The front cover is a dance-off! Voldy and Harry in a no-holds-barred dancing competition to determine the fate of the world.

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I always thought Molly was a pretty powerful witch, even though it’s mostly out of sight. The only time I can remember her failing in a spell is when she tries to get rid of the boggart in OotP, and that’s not really a failure of magic but a failure of nerve.

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I don’t have the book with me at the moment, but I don’t think they were given the chance to stay. After Pansy made her comment suggesting turning Harry over to Voldemont, McGonagall tells all the Slytherins to head out. She tells the rest of the houses that students that are of age can stay.

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So? Draco and his goons managed to stick around and be assholes.