[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
I do wish there wasn’t the 19 years later bit–why 19? Why not just end with Harry and Ginny getting married? (or is that too trite and stale?).
[/QUOTE]
So that we can see Harry with his family. Up until now, he’s been an orphan with a dreadful pseudo-family. The book ends with him and a real family–wife, children, brother and sister (-in-law), nieces, and nephews. If we remember back to the Mirror of Erised back in Book 1, having a family is what Harry wanted most of all.
[QUOTE=manx]
We can talk about the book now, right? It’s been on sale for half a day.
First, Mrs Weasley’s ‘NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH’ was so damned awesome that I had to put my book down and cheer. Percy’s return was nicely played, too.
[/QUOTEOh my gosh, yes.
This woman is a genius, pure and simple. I’m not kidding when I mention her in the same breath as Tolkein and Lewis in the fantasy genre. If you want a satisfying fantasy story that can make you fearful, suspensful, hopeful, humorous, prideful, at the same time, read HP 7.
I think it was only the second time I’d be actually tearfully proud of fictional characters as I read the part about the crown in The Room of Requirement gathering and then rushing toward the fight. The other one is the speech of Theodin to his horse riders on the ridge in The Return of the King (IIRC).
How many books can make you feel so many emotions at once? People who call this a children’s book have not read it, I think. This overall series got better and more brazen as it went, and I think that JKR did not shrink from many points of pain. The Christ imagery is very pointed, if a bit obscure.
whew! what a read!
hedwig, ah boy. that got me. right off the bat kill off his first real birthday gift.
and fred, in the middle of a laugh. sigh.
it seems like harry and tonk’s mom share teddy. harry would have to have contact, andromeda would only have her grandson after hubby, daughter and son-in-law were killed. at 17 harry would still be a bit youngish to be raising a kid on his own.
i’m about as good at maths as rowling were harry and ginny’s boys 13ish and 11ish? figuring that harry and ginny would wait till ginny was 18ish to marry. harry was 23ish when the first was born?
i am disappointed as we don’t know what the jobs are of anyone except neville. if any of the main 4 had jobs at hogwarts they wouldn’t have to send their love to neville.
sniffle
I’m so happy she redeemed Snape. I was in tears when Harry called up the ghosts of his family to give him the strength to die.
Well done, Rowling, well done.
nearly forgot…
my favourite bit—when harry called him tom riddle. not quite tommy boy, really good though. showed him that he didn’t think him a threat at all, and upped the rage factor in mr riddle.
Oh, and my favorite laugh in the book was Ron’s response to Peeves singing about Harry’s victory over Voldemort.
Oh, that was good.
Hedwig! Fred! Lupin! Tonks!
But the deaths that had me bawling were Dobby’s and Snape’s. Damn you, Severus Snape. His anger at Dumbledore for fattening Harry for the slaughter was so perfect. And learning that his patronus was a doe. Damn.
And the aforementioned scene with Ron and Hermione when Ron finally considers the fate of the house elves.
I’m sad the series is over. It’s been too much fun.
I just finished reading the book and loved it. Now that I don’t have to be afraid of spoilers I came back to this thread and I’m deeply ashamed of my post from the first page. I apologise to everyone, especially Mahaloth. Even though the Subject Line said Spoilers I knew the book wasn’t going to be released for a few days and just wanted to read the ground rules. I was shocked that someone was reading it already and I went a bit looney. It was wrong of me to even open the thread. It was wrong of me to read past the first post. It was very very wrong of me to imply that Mahaloth was doing something either criminal or unethical. I don’t know what came over me and all I can do is ask for forgiveness. Anyone who thinks I’m an absolute dumbass, you’re absolutely right. I’m sorry.
In any case, great book! I agree with all the high points and sad points everyone else has mentioned. I was sorry not to see Neville finish off Bellatrix, but I too cheered at Molly. I wouldn’t have wanted anything cut out, but it could have been longer, especially the epologue. I too wanted to know what Harry was doing for a living, and what became of some of the other characters (like Luna).
I want to re-read it at a slower pace, and read the whole series from the beginning again. I had re-read OOTP right after the movie came out, and then HBP last week. Still itching for a Harry Potter fix I re-readvv Sorcerer’s Stone and was halfway through COS. Now I think I’m going to read SS once more since I know there were a lot of clues in it, and work my way through them all. After that, I can see myself re-visiting the series every couples of years.
The only thing that really confused me was that I thought Marvolo Gaunt was an ancestor to Salazar Slytherin, but this seemed to indicate that he (and therefore Tom Riddle) was a descendant of Ignotus Peverell. But so was Harry, so Tom Riddle and Harry were related somehow? Ah, never mind, my brain got fuzzy at some point, so I must have misunderstood. A re-reading will take care of it.
[QUOTE=Equipoise]
-snip-
The only thing that really confused me was that I thought Marvolo Gaunt was an ancestor to Salazar Slytherin, but this seemed to indicate that he (and therefore Tom Riddle) was a descendant of Ignotus Peverell. But so was Harry, so Tom Riddle and Harry were related somehow? Ah, never mind, my brain got fuzzy at some point, so I must have misunderstood. A re-reading will take care of it.
[/QUOTE]
The Peverell brothers created the ring, wand and cloak. The line from one brother that Harry decended from passed along the cloak. Another brother begat the the Riddle family who passed along the ring.
Yes Harry and Voldy were related far enough back through the centuries. This is no real surprise. As Sirius said when they were looking at the Black family tree every pure blood family was eventually related to everybody else.
Jess, I also found it a bit sad that not a single Slytherin joined the fight, beyond Slughorn (Slug was fighting, right?). Was it Dumbledore who tells Harry there is light and dark in everyone? Gryffindors are courageous and loyal, but sometimes foolhardy and hotheaded, Ravenclaws seem to be brilliant, but somewhat cynical and aloof, Hufflepuffs (don’t know what their downside is), Slytherins are overly proud and fond of superiority, but can also be good like Slughorn.
It was one of the very few downsides of the whole series, I thought, though she made a very good start with Slughorn.
I have been thinking about the book all day. I do want to go back and reread it, after my kids are done with it (my 17 year old daughter has gone to meet her friends, 5 of them, at a local coffee shop–they’re all bringing their Harry Potter books and plan to read it there).
Thoughts, idle ruminations.
Lots of high points. Luna’s dad was a complete surprise, as was the doe patronus (loved that about Snape and makes his snideness to Tonks much more poignant).
AD sure was deep. I liked his brother Aberforth. Rowling was able to bring minor characters into the foreground in a plausible way. At first I kept thinking, why is Dean suddenly thrust into the limelight, but then I realized that like all struggles, complete randomness happens, and Dean has his talents. ( I was sad about Tonk’s dad, though).
I can’t believe we didn’t get a reaction or a future of George’s re Fred’s death. I did so want Percy to die–think she killed off the wrong Weasley, but then again, one of her major themes is redemption.
Loved, loved, loved Molly. Also noted more swearing in this book (perfectly natural, not fussed by it). Molly’s outburst does stand out. 
Found the Deathly Hallows plot convoluted and intricate, but in good ways. So much more there then just Good v Evil.
Liked very much how Riddle was brought down in the end.
So much to think about. Kudos to Rowling-she kept her pact with her readers–this book is one of the best ones and makes for a nice ending.
easy e–I see what you’re saying, but 19 years seems quite a jump. Perhaps just an epilogue with Harry and Ginny expecting or something.
And why Hugo and Rose? (is Rose carrying on the Evans bit of naming girls after flowers?). I loved that one of the kids is named Albus Severus.
I really admire Snape now–in a twisted, dark way.
I can’t help feeling that I’ve read Fred’s death scene elsewhere: the fight where Sirius died.
Bloody hell. Hooray, and all that.
I too am a little confused by the wand thing, but then I realised the point was not taking the wand, but defeating the owner. Draco defeated Dumbledore - he didn’t take the wand, but he was its owner. Then Harry defeats Draco, and he is now the owner of the wand, even though he doesn’t have it either. And just to say, the final scene of Harry vs. Voldemort was pretty damn cool. Harry was just totally (well, mostly) in control of that situation. Calling him Tom was fantastic, though I thought he’d start talking about Merope.
[QUOTE=Kythereia]
Even though I’m still not entirely certain how Harry managed to come back?
[/QUOTE]
It’s all wrapped up in the dying to save someone, which is pretty damn confusing (especially when it got to the “i’m protecting everyone in here!” part). I think the idea is this; Harry was protected from death from Voldemort because Lily died to save him. That protection was then shared with Voldemort, who also now carries it. But this doesn’t mean Voldemort carries Lily’s protection for his own body - it means he himself also carries the protection for Harry. So when Voldemort tries to kill Harry, he can’t - because the protection is there again, saving Harry, but this time in his own person. Harry can’t die while Voldemort is alive because the magical protection of Harry is built into Voldemort’s very being.
Hence the gleam of triumph ever so many books ago. The horrible blurky thing would be the part of Voldemort’s soul that was in Harry - which *wasn’t * protected, and so did die, leaving Nagini the last Horcrux.
Just finished reading it. Took me about 6-7 hours.
First, I really enjoyed it. The pace was much faster and tighter, and the tension was a killer.
JKR’s plotting really shows through here. The cloak was one of the hallows, and Harry is descended from one of the Perevell brothers. Wow. Ollivander, Gregorovitch, Griphook, and Grindelwald are all indispensible to the plot? Cool beans.
Dumbledore’s past highlights one of the greatest parts of the HP theme, that it is our choices which define us. Who Dumbledore was to begin with and what he became and what he was capable of are both terrifying and awe inspiring.
Professor McGonagall leading a charge with an infantry of desks will stay with me until my dying day. Same with Mrs. Weasley taking out Bellatrix. Big grins all around.
The death toll hurt. Both Lupin and Tonks? Yet, there were more than a few left orphaned or practically so from Voldemort’s first go around. It is fitting.
Neville taking up the sword and killing Nagini was a scene equal to Eowyn killing the witch king’s mount. Harry’s showdown with Voldemort was perfect. The epilogue was a bit maudlin, but I’m not sorry it was there.
Hang on a tick… Something just occurred to me. The magical protection from Lily was supposed to expire when Harry turned 17 - in fact, that was a rather major plot point. How could it have then acted in that convoluted way in the final scene?
I think the 19 year jump was meant, at least in part, to close the series with some finality, while also showing how certain things are circular, generation after generation, again and again.
I did think it sparse, but the timing was good.
True enough.
I am left puzzled by the sword, which I thought that bastard goblin had, coming out of the Sorting Hat.
I think the “protection” that ended when Harry turned 17 was the charm that Lily placed on him (sealed by Petunia agreeing to take him in). Her love for him, and his father’s love as well, continued to “do its magic”.
Harry knew love and knew how to love–his compassion, kindness etc (I could go all Victorian and start to talk about Purity and Innocence) are what overcame Voldemort in the end.
I’m not so sure how I liked this book.
Overall, compared to all literature everywhere, of all time, yeah, it was a great book. I think that from Rowling I’ve just come to expect . . . more. Also, this was the book for which I read the most predictions and spoilers on the internet, so I’m sure that biased my opinion, because very little that happened in the book seemed to surprise me. Including the fact that Snape hearted Lily, which, had I not read about it on these very boards, I probably never would have guessed.
In addition, I felt like the pacing of the book was too fast. I would have preferred less plot, including the endless pages of them wandering around with no idea what to do, and getting captured all the time. I would have preferred more exposition and character development. I would have like it if Petunia turned out to be important, for example. Furthermore, I really liked the revelations about Dumbledore’s character.
I think that what I disliked most about the book was its conventionality and triteness. Some have been pointed out before . . . Dumbledore is technically"still dead," but Harry still gets to talk to him and he’s still a source of back history, like in every other book. Every friggin person ends up with the love of their life. That really annoyed me. I really hate Ginny and Harry together, (and to a lesser extent Ron and Hermione), because in general Rowling seems to handle the nuances of interpersonal relationships better than most fantasy writers, and yet their romance is soooo unrealistic. And contrived. It just seems incestous to me, that Harry would of course date his best friend’s sister. And his other two best friends would also end up together. Of course, the canny epilogue bothered me for these exact same reasons. I was actually hoping that Ginny would die and that Harry would end up with Luna, as ridiculous as that may seem, because it would at least be unexpected.
I also disliked the lack of plot twists. In fact, I was most excited during Harry’s penseive trip, where it seemed like it might be revealed that Dumbledore was a cold-blooded plotter with a very utilitarian view of life after all. And Snape looked like he would actually be the ultimate true hero of the series. However, in the end, Dumbledore still gets put back on his pedestal. In fact, I’m still not sure how he escaped so (relatively) untainted . . . he did send Harry to what he thought was Harry’s death without even explaining to him first
And, like others, I wanted more significant deaths. And maybe more on their life after Voldemort.
So yeah, overall, I was underwhelmed. I don’t want to get all Comic Book Guy on this, so I will say that I LOVED the series and that I thought this book was okay, and as any other book but the last one, I would have thought better of it. It was just a tad disappointing to me as a series concluder.
Gestalt.
[QUOTE=Mr. Goob]
The Peverell brothers created the ring, wand and cloak. The line from one brother that Harry decended from passed along the cloak. Another brother begat the the Riddle family who passed along the ring.
Yes Harry and Voldy were related far enough back through the centuries. This is no real surprise. As Sirius said when they were looking at the Black family tree every pure blood family was eventually related to everybody else.
[/QUOTE]
Thank you. Then that must mean that the Peverell brothers and Salazar Slytherin are related, if Gaunt is descended from both of them. I can’t wait to see a final character list/family tree. I’m sure there are fans working on it right now.
The pace was perfect, everything worked for me, except for one minor thing. It seemed a little too convenient that Ted Tonks, Dean Thomas and the others got close enough to where the Trio were camping/hiding so that their conversation could be heard via Hermione’s Extendable Ears (pg 294), and of course they talked about important things too. I thought the Trio might show themselves, at least to Dean, since they could immediately find another hiding place, but it wasn’t even discussed. I wanted to find out how Tonks was, and to have a Dean reunion, but it was not to be. Speaking of convenient coincidences, the sword in the lake (nice Arthur imagry), the doe Patronus and Ron showing back up also seemed WAY too convenient, but at least they were all explained to my satisfaction.
Goosebump moment #487:
Besides goosebumps, I had a Gandalf/Mines of Moria moment there too.
[QUOTE=Smeghead]
Hang on a tick… Something just occurred to me. The magical protection from Lily was supposed to expire when Harry turned 17 - in fact, that was a rather major plot point. How could it have then acted in that convoluted way in the final scene?
[/QUOTE]
that was house protection. harry was safe at his aunt’s house until he was of age. he could not be touched there due to the blood relationship between him, lily, and petunia.
when one becomes “of age” you become your own “head of house”.
the sacrifice of her life for his held.