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

Cafe Society
81

I dont’ see AD as being back on a pedestal for Harry. I think he sees AD as human for the first time (except in OotP when AD is weakened).

The clunky bits for me were the eavesdropping as mentioned upthread; Ron up and leaving (although his return was even clunkier), the purgatory-like inbetween that Harry enters (but I would have to reread that bit to finally call it clunky-I’m still pondering that), and the epilogue.

It did seem to me to have so much just thrown in it, but I felt that way about GoF and OotP until I could go back and reread them slowly.

I’m sure there are more–Rowling was good at creating a world and characters we care about–she is not so skilled in moving a plot forward seamlessly.

82

I finished it around 5 this afternoon. I thought it was fantastic. I truly loved the final battle, and the way she brought about Voldy’s death. The wand thing could be confusing, but it simply made sense to me for some reason, and rereading made even more sense (as it’s mentioned with Harry in the headmaster’s office when he gives up the Elder Wand): as mentioned above…the Elder Wand chooses the person who defeats its current master. Period.

So many great moments. I thought Snape’s story was well done. The Pensieve wasn’t perfect, but it allowed Harry to get full truth and have him BELIEVE it in his heart. If Harry had been told by Snape what the truth was, or if Snape had turned on Voldemort, Harry wouldn’t have realized just how much Snape fought for him through his whole life. I thought it was very well done.

The book was just a page turner…from about page 200 on, I simply couldn’t put it down. Eating lunch was annoying for me today. :slight_smile: I’m so glad the book didn’t turn into “first horcrux, check… Next…” which it could have.

Overall, I’m really pleased. Now I want to read it again!

83

On a re-read, I’ve come across a minor canon error. Hermione’s middle name is given as “Jean” in Dumbledore’s will, when it’s really “Jane”.

84

typo?

And I loved McGonagall’s leadership. Retrospectively, I feel sorrier than ever for Snape. To be so hated and misunderstood…<sigh> (I don’t think he’s dreamy or crush worthy, but he is probably Rowling’s most complex character and he is a tragic figure)

85

As last words, “Look at me” is pretty damned poignant.

But it’s also sad that Snape never managed to look, really look, at Harry. All he could see was James and the end of his hope, not an outsider boy who had no real family.

86

Just finished, and all in all I’m pleased. I felt she did a much better job of building suspense and excitement with the capers, rather than trying to describe lots of fighting action as in OoP, which was just tedious.

I thought it was intimated in King’s Cross that Dumbledore may have known that Harry could survive being “killed” by Voldemort, but only if he believed he was going to die and still went willingly, so obviously Dumbledore couldn’t tell Snape/Harry.

Who was it here who called the last horcrux being the tiara from HBP? That was amazing.

When you think about it, Voldie’s lack of understanding of love was truly the linchpin of Harry’s victory - if he’d had an ounce of sympathy for the Malfoy’s concern for their boy, Harry probably would have wound up as a smoking crater in the forest, instead of playing possum back at the school.

I disliked the treatment of Snape. He was ignored for so long, I figured he must actually just be evil, and then, as stated above, the magical exposition fairy comes. I mean, I’m glad I was exactly right in my prediction and all :wink: but the storytelling lacked grace.

That said, lots of cool stuff - Dumbledore’s checkered past, burning, multiplying treasure and escape by dragon, the Hogwarts revolution, and Neville and Molly totally kicking ass. Very fun, overall.

So I sure hope Harry never gets disarmed in a practice duel or whatever, since then that person would evidently be the Death Stick owner, and it would not lose power on Harry’s death!

87

Mebbe 'cuz Voldemort took the blood from Harry while he was still under its protection (before the age of 17)?

88

Yes, I think that’s right. I’d have to go back and reread it, but AD mentions that since Voldemort had joined Harry’s blood with his own, that there was some good in Voldy…wait, I might be getting it muddled. It’s been a long day and I’m tired.

But Harry had the protection of having been loved by his parents, no matter his age. That’s not the same as the charm Lily placed on him (and Petunia sealed), but it did help him, in the end. Probably not with wizarding world magic, but with Muggle “magic” (by that I mean that Harry could feel and show compassion etc)

jsgoddess --and to think Snape looked into “Lily’s eyes” for 6 years and only saw James. (hey, why were Lily’s eyes so damned important? It was never mentioned). Or was it because the eye is the window into the soul? (could it be that obvious?)

89

I think that is the reason; Lily’s eyes being important is that’s Snape’s reason for disliking Harry. Every time he looks at him, he sees a mix of James and Lily, and is reminded that he failed.

90

My plot headscratcher question is this: if the Elder Wand were so powerful, and Grindelwald a Dark Wizard so much nearly Dumbledore’s equal who had no qualms using killing spells, then how did Dumbledore defeat him in a duel to take the wand without killing him, so that Voldemort gets to go look for (and find) Grindy in his prison fifty or so years later?

And yeah, how’d Gryffindor’s sword end up in the Sorting Hat again at the end?

I liked the book, but it did rather play out more or less exactly as I thought it would. As RickJay put it:

Yeppers except for the Hogwarts staff bit (unless you include the Muggle Studies professor that we’d never seen before who’s killed at the beginning of the book).

Another possible ending I thought might happen was like the one from that Jim Henson fantasy movie, The Dark Crystal,

where the bad guys (“Skeksis”) are defeated by dint of their “merging” with their good guy counterparts to form balanced whole beings.

That would have been really interesting too.

91

Okay, done.

I loved it when Ron came back and Hermione let him have it. “Rack your brains, Ron…it shouldn’t take more than a couple seconds!” I am so stealing that insult.

I too would have liked to see George post-Fred. Twins have a special bond, they defied Umbridge together, they opened a shop together, I would have liked to see how George carried on.

I knew, somehow, that Snape was loyal. Dumbledore was too good a wizard not to have seen past Snape if he was acting on Voldemort’s behalf. Funny how it all comes down to love, isn’t it? Harry lived because of his mother’s love, Snape acted as a spy because of his love for Lily, and Voldemort died because he couldn’t love.

I thought I had the Resurrection Stone all figured out. “I open at the close.” I thought that meant it would open at Harry’s death, then it would revive him. Then when he used it to summon his dead friends and family on his “final mile” as it were I began to fear she really meant to kill him off, and I started to cry.

Lots of cheers, giggles, gasps, sorrow. Well done, JK. Well done. Thank you for letting me into the Wizarding World, and I feel nothing but sadness that the door is closed forever.

So, is Harry an Auror?

92

I also expected to see Draco more front and center. He was clearly already struggling with the enormity of actually serving The Dark Lord and doing his dirty work, instead of just being aligned with his general philosophy on How The World Should Be, in The Half-Blood Prince, and a couple of scenes in Deathly Hallows indicated that this had continued (where he declines to clearly confirm Hermione and Harry’s identities when brought in by Fenrir Greyback).

When he confronts Harry in the Room of Requirement, I thought we might see some kind of moral crisis point for Draco, but no, not even after Harry saves his life from the “fiendfyre”. Kind of a let down, though I guess it leaves Draco as a realistically ambiguous character. And clearly Draco’s not put away in Azkaban for any significant length of time, as he has children the same age as Harry’s are nineteen years later and is free to see them off to Hogwarts.

93

Oh, I meant to add, I wish we had seen what happened to Rita Skeeter and Umbridge. Those are two witches I would have loved to see publically flogged. I did like the sly nod Rowling gave herself, with all the “hype” about The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.

I agree Alan Rickman is going to have a ball in the movie version of book 7, and I hope Kreacher goes to live with Ginny and Harry.

Going back to the love thing…even Draco’s mother lied to Voldermort out of love for her son, and Molly Weasley went all Mama Bear with Bellatrix out of love for Ginny. That’s one battle scene I’ll be anxious to see… I’m sure as I reread the book, I’ll see more instances of love being the One Thing, Maybe the Only Thing.

Do you think Harry ever visited the Dursleys again? Maybe not Uncle Vernon, but Dudley seemed to come around, and Petunia seemed liked she wanted to say something, but couldn’t.

94

Re: Lily’s protection

It’s my understanding that there are two charms protecting Harry. The first was created when his mother died to save his life, and was enduring. The second was created by Dumbledore, and protected Harry so long as he calls any of Lily’s blood relatives’ house home. The second one would expire when Harry came of age, but the first one would last for Harry’s entire life.

95

Sort of, but not really. A tragic figure is a character who is undone by his or her tragic flaw; Othello’s temper, for instance. Snape isn’t undone by his tragic flaw - he doesn’t have one, really - he dies a hero. In a sense, Snape’s death is a purely heroic one, since he doesn’t do what he does for recognition.

Snape’s death is lonely and sad, but noble. His sacrifice is remembered by the person most important to it, so it wasn’t lost.

96

Sniff To Severus Snape!

97

Chiming in with a few thoughts… overall, loved it, have no serious criticisms (in the context of the canon). Thoroughly enjoyable, I especially like the way all the characters were developed, and I’m happy with the ending. Random thoughts…

  • OK, I get it, the series is maturing. People have to die. But fucking EVERYBODY had to die? I mean, DOBBY, for fuck’s sakes. No love for Dobby? That’s just wrong.

  • We were due for another traitor story in the Order of the Phoenix, I think. Too much shit went wrong. Somebody should have turned traitor for complex reasons.

  • Kudos on having a little redemption for Kreacher.

  • Draco Malfoy got off too easily. We should have seen him turn totally evil and pay dearly for it, or end up having to apologize to Harry and serve some good purpose in the end. Tired of seeing Harry take stupid chances for dickheads like Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

  • Why inexplicably give all these super ninja wizard powers to house-elves? Don’t get me wrong, I like me some house-elves, but how can they be the boss? That’s like having a lawn chair get up and kick some serious ass. It makes no sense.

  • Good job on making Dumbledore a bit fallible. I was getting tired of the halo.

  • The Goblin subplot was uncomfortably stereotypical. Oh look, we have to make a difficult bargain to get the magic thing from the bank, but you’d better be careful, they’re a tight-knit lot who only care about money, those scheming Jews… err… Goblins… watch out for Azrael…

  • Snape deserved better. He was working for Harry the whole time. He pulled off some hardcore deception and had to endure everybody thinking he was a traitorous asshole. And then we found out he’s been holding a torch for a stupid schoolboy crush for a girl who got knocked up by his worst nemesis and has been dead for 17 years? Fuck that. If I had written it, I would have had a battle between Harry and Snape in which Snape lost an eye, both testicles, and his legs damaged so bad they would have to be replaced by robot legs. And then he would reveal to harry “See Potter, you thought I was a dickhead, but I have been SAVING YOUR SORRY ASS THE WHOLE TIME.” Then he would have been made headmaster, and everybody would say “now that is one hardcore motherfucker”. And he’d just shrug it off like man, that’s just what you have to do when you’re a badass undercover wizard.

Generic complaints about the whole series, continued:

  • Too much exposition about why you can’t use magic to solve a certain problem. Yes, we know it’s Wizard World, we know it would ruin the book if you conjured up some tactical nukes or an Ecto-Containment Unit whenever it’s convenient. (I mean, any more than you’ve already been doing for the past 6 books). No need to keep explaining why you can’t conjure up a plate of fish and chips when someone’s hungry. We get it.

  • Slytherin house… oh, for fuck’s sake. Who knew all the Slytherins would turn out to be a bunch of backstabbing assholes? I mean, every scheming, spiteful jerk at Hogwarts is a Slytherin, all the death eaters are Slytherins, and Voldemort himself is a Slytherin. They’re like snakes, see, because their name sounds like slithering and stuff? But do we nuke them from orbit just to be sure? Oh, hell no, let’s educate them in advanced magic, keep their own house in Hogwarts where they can keep close tabs on the good guys. Seriously Rowling, this is my biggest beef. If you’re going to have a house that has an uncanny knack for turning out assholes, could we at least have some internal struggle? Could we see some Slytherin struggling with an idea like, hey, maybe I’m tired of everybody assuming I’m a Satan-worshiper, I’ll show everybody how ambition and cunning can actually serve GOOD? Maybe we’ve gone wrong being dickheads to everybody? No, all 2D cardboard cutouts from black-hat westerns. Poorly handled throughout the entire series.

That’s all I can think of for now…

98

lily’s eyes are the keys to slughorn and snape. he got the memory from slughorn and snape due to what his mother passed on to him.

jsgoddess --and to think Snape looked into “Lily’s eyes” for 6 years and only saw James. (hey, why were Lily’s eyes so damned important? It was never mentioned). Or was it because the eye is the window into the soul? (could it be that obvious?)
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this was exactly my thought as i read. snape wanted to look at lily’s eyes when he passed.

he saw that harry was more lily’s in his soul. that harry’s eyes were the windows to his soul. he got past the face that james gave him.

sometimes children truely are the best of both parents.

99

Well, in the epilogue, Harry told his son it would be okay if he ended up in Slytherin House.

100

Honestly…I meant it as a way of saying that Snape was alone (and I think lonely) most, if not all of his life; he had no real friends except Lily as a child. He came from an unhappy home and lived a double life, complicated by his unresolved issues surrounding love*. I didn’t mean “tragic figure” as in a role so designated in a Quest tale. But that said, I think he was undone–he chose, as did Harry, his path. Harry chose to struggle and risk for love and closeness, Snape didn’t dare after “losing” Lily. So, his entire life is tragic in several ways.

*this is teetering into psychobabble territory. :slight_smile: