Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows - POTENTIAL SPOILERS

[buzzard]

I finished the book yesterday morning. It was a quite quick read. I enjoyed it, though the camping stuff was overly drug out for my taste. As others have mentioned, this will likely help with a movie adaptation since that stuff can be chopped right off to no loss.

One plot gripe which I haven't seen mentioned is why was Voldemort a moron? He knew who all the Order of the Phoenix people were, and where they lived. Why weren't they dead or at least in Azkahban? Voldemort wasn't exactly known for merciful tendencies. People were dropping like flies and mudbloods were all getting sent to Azkahban, and yet the core opposition is allowed to run free. That just didn't work for me.

buzzard

 

[wolff96]

I have to say that I really enjoyed it and saw it as a fitting conclusion to the series.

I liked the bodycount -- there were several major conflicts throughout the storyline and it would have felt really odd not to see named characters getting dropped. I was kind of amazed at how many threads from previous books got included and tied up here in the last book.

And does anyone else think that Snape mastered Occlumency precisely because 'opening his mouth when he should have kept it shut' is what cost him the love of his life? Lily obviously cared -- a lot -- for Snape. And yet, his inability to hold his tongue was the final nail in the coffin for that relationship. (She hated his friends and such, but hadn't given up on him until he called her a 'mudblood'.)

And I really enjoyed the redemption of Kreacher.

Final thought: Go Neville! I would have liked to see him off Bellatrix for his parents, but he impressed his grandmother, led the resistance at Hogwarts all year in the face of some horrific punishments, organized the DA and ran the Room of Requirement, and even destroyed the final Horcrux. Considering that he had no spine and very little talent throughout most of the books, I loved seeing him finally come into his own.

 

[Desdichado]

Huh. I disagree with most of your points; I think my reading experience was very different from yours.

I need to chew on it a bit longer before analyzing it, though.

Yup. I had started re-reading the whole series (again) but got distracted by the release of Monsternomicon 2 so I was still in the middle of Goblet of Fire when the new book came out. I read it right away, of course, but now I'm back to my re-read and I'll cap it off by re-reading the last book to see how it all fits together.

For the most part, I really liked this book. However, I think the ending needed to be a little bit more fleshed out. We've been with these characters for many years and many books now, and I find them almost all likeable. Given that, I think it was extremely disappointing that:

1. The Harry/Ginny subplot is resolved off screen. WTF? That's been one of the major subplots for (at least) the last two books, and depending on how you count it, all the way from the beginning of the series. Lame. We needed to actually see some resolution there, not just find out from the epilogue that it was resolved.

2. Fred's death was robbed of a lot of it's potential gravitas because there was no on-screen mourning to speak of. Even Lupin's death meant more, which I thought was a little odd. Fred was a more significant character in terms of screen time.

3. Since the kids blew off their last year and I presume didn't take NEWTS, their career options are probably somewhat limited (although then again, folks like Dean and others who had their schooling interrupted are no doubt in the same boat.) No doubt the ministry and new headmaster made some kind of accomodation, but I'd have liked to at least know what happened here. And why is there never any talk of Harry becoming a professional Quidditch player? He loves Quidditch; has said it over and over again, and is in the same league as the best players ever. To me, a career path in the professional Quidditch circuit seems obvious, but it's never been mentioned. Instead we get Auror and DADA teacher. Hermione could probably ace her NEWTS even without having gone to school all year.

 

[Desdichado]

I can't believe I'm the only one that sees this.

The Epilogue is titles "19 years later", yet, Ted, who was born in 1998, would be 19 years old, two years too old to be snogging Victoire in the back of the train.

IF it was 16 years later, I could understand, even 17 years later, with Ted coming to Hogwarts a bit later, but not 19, that's just too old for Ted to be on the Train and still attending Hogwarts.

He wasn't, he was saying goodbye.

We don't know how old Victoire is, since we don't know when she was born, but I'm guessing this is her last year and she's 17 (and no longer a minor.) :shrug:

 

[Wolfwood2]

I really think the epilogue was just the right length.

Once you get past the big climax of a book (Voldemort's defeat), the story needs to end fast. Dragging things on and on afterwards is usually pretty painful. The epilogue tells us that Harry, Ron, and Hermione have been rewarded with peaceful lives and families and they're happy.

The exact details of Harry's courtship of Ginny, or what everybody ended up doing as a career, or even who is headmaster of Hogwarts don't really matter, because life goes on and there would always be more questions than answers. Let the reader decide those things for themselves.

 

[Ace32]

Let the reader decide those things for themselves.

This just comes as a surprise considering how possessive JKL is over her characters. I suppose it does leave her room to expand where and when she chooses to. For example, a book on Hogwarts might mention Professor Longbottom, the future headmaster, and other such details.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And even if the sword of Gryffindor has been described as appearing for any Gryffindor in need, I do agree that having it suddenly pop out of the sorting hat for Neville did make the whole deal with the goblin turncoat rather pointless...

Harry was the first person to ever do that. I think it was assumed that Gryffindor was sufficiently impressed with him and his need to hand it over in Chamber of Secrets. Neville doing the same five years later, in an hour of even greater need, just goes to show how big a moment this was.

It's not popping out of the hat every time a Gryffindor needs to cut a cake.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And why is there never any talk of Harry becoming a professional Quidditch player? He loves Quidditch; has said it over and over again, and is in the same league as the best players ever. To me, a career path in the professional Quidditch circuit seems obvious, but it's never been mentioned. Instead we get Auror and DADA teacher.

It's never stated what happens to them. The Auror and DADA stuff are things that people guessed, but until the next charity books come out (and even after, if they don't cover famous wizards or anything), it's in the realm of fanfic. All we know is that Neville, arguably the second greatest wizarding hero of the modern age, goes onto be Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts.

 

[Ambrus]

It's not popping out of the hat every time a Gryffindor needs to cut a cake.

I'm not saying that the need wasn't present, it's simply that it popping out of the hat after it had been removed from school grounds and returned to a goblin by its wizard-wielder as part of an agreed upon deal seems rather odd to me. It kind of made the goblin's deal a rather moot point. :\

 

[Ambrus]

I had the same reaction regarding Draco initially, but somewhere in book 7 it states explicitly that Voldemort's plot to have Draco attempt to kill Dumbledore was mostly a punishment for his father's missteps in previous books, so it's very likely that the Dark Lord didn't follow Draco's progress closely, if at all.

I can see your point, but after Draco did succeed, and Voldermort learnt of the successful Death-Eater surge through the Room of Requirement why wouldn't he, being the great mastermind he claims to be, take note that pretty much anyone present at Hogwarts during the attack was then after aware of the Room's existence? A little sidetrip following the attack for Voldermort to pick and move the diadem would have been advisable I'd think.

For that matter, why was Malfoy's cabinet still in the room a year after the attack when Harry entered it?!? Shouldn't it have likewise been moved, destroyed or at least secured somehow?