Deathly Hallows **SPOILERS**

[housemouse]

I loved the epilogue. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I loved the whole thing. We MUST talk about this book!!!

[matilda]

Hi

I'm not a huge fan (nothing against Harry, mind you) but saw this today and thought of you all:

The Verdict

Go to: www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lm/

Great story.

Cheers

Matilda

[shmeep]

I loved it too, Mouse. I think I loved it most because so many of my predictions were correct.

I said Harry was a horcrux and he was. I said RAB was Regulus Black and he was (although most people guessed that). I said Harry would "die" but would still live and that happened. I said Snape was doing everything he was doing for good but with the appearance of evil and that's exactly what happened.

That said, I still found each of these events surprising as they took place because I was so thrown off the scent throughout that by the time each of my predictions came to pass, it gave me great satisfaction. The Snape thing, for example, really came as a shock because JKR did such a masterful job of making him evil in this book that I had all but decided I had been completely wrong about him and that he was bad through and through right up until Harry captured his memory at the very end.

I thought the first half of the book dragged a bit--or could have been much condensed. It was bleak and dark and hopeless and it went on like that for far too long. I don't mean the beginning, which was exciting and heartbreaking. I mean all the moving from place to place without a plan. I know it was necessary, but it was particularly frustrating to read over 400 pages of the last book with so little learned in them. I had thought the last book would be tying up mysteries throughout, since the other book had left so many dangling before us. Many of the mysteries w ere tied up in the end, but by the middle, I had started to despair of this happening at all.

The final showdown was brilliant! Dumbledore set Harry up for death all along, knowing it had to happen in order for Voldemort to die. Even Snape was let in on that part of the plan, but only so Harry could see it in his memory and meet Voldemort with the intention of dying. I am re-reading this carefully right now and haven't quite reached that part yet so I'm not entirely clear on what happened, but I think Voldemort's wand didn't work on Harry because he wasn't the true Master of the Eldar wand--Harry was. Then Harry "died" and offered the same protection for all the others as Lily had given him and rendered Voldemort powerless--only he didn't know it. Then Neville somehow got the sword back (I'm assuming it was when the sorting hat was put on his head--because Neville was a true Gryffindor like Harry) and killed Nagini and Harry then had his final duel with Voldemort. Did I understand the events correctly? I was going at such a pace as I read that I fear I may have missed some important events along the way so I really need that slower perusal now.

I absolutely loved the victorious final battle and the conversation between Harry and Voldemort as Harry defeated him in front of everyone. This part was disappointing for my husband. He had believed all along that Harry would end up defeating Voldemort by using more powerful magic and that the final showdown would be grander in scale. He also believed Fawkes would play some part and that Harry would somehow end up at the Department of Mysteries at some point and/or would use a time turner for something. He also thought that Harry's scar would disappear once Voldemort was detached from his soul. I think he needs a lot more time to digest the ending in order to appreciate what it means.

I thought it was brilliant. A completely loyal Kreacher leading a charge of the house elves, the Centaurs joining in, Molly killing Bellatrix, Harry being the greatest hero of all in front of everyone...and all because Harry had a better soul than Voldemort, not better magic or intelligence. That point was well made with Dumbledore's back story and how he realized he was the smartest and most talented wizard of his time and yet that he was not worthy of power because he was so easily corrupted. Harry was given the Deathly Hallows (a concept I loved, by the way) because he was one of the only people who could handle the responsibility without wishing to exploit it for his own personal gain. What he did with the Hallows was also characteristic and made a lot of sense.

I also loved the epilogue but...I wanted a few more answers. We spent the first six books watching the main characters contemplating their futures and their careers and working hard to get there (especially Hermione) so...what did they do? Was Ron's crack about being famous a joke or was he really famous? It killed me not to get closure on that one minor point. Oh well. I'm sure that was intentional. I'm glad Harry got to marry Ginny and Ron got to marry Hermione and that Harry was obviously a good godfather to Ted Lupin. It was a nice glimpse of the future. One of the most touching parts was that the son who had Lily's eyes was named Albus Severus Potter. Very nice.

[bump]

I've been dying to discuss the book with someone! I finished it late last night. I need to re-read the end because I was dead tired by then (after reading all day on Sunday), but it didn't disappoint.

The epilogue was awesome! I liked its lightheartedness after so many chapters of excitement and tension.

I wasn't expecting so many casualties through the entire book. Through spoilers I'd heard that two major characters would die, so I'd assumed that those would be the only two deaths. When Hedwig died, I almost cried. Ok, so I love animals.

I think the biggest shocker for me was the relationship between Snape and Lily and the fact that Snape wasn't a bad guy after all.

I was happy that my prediction didn't come true. I thought that both Voldemort and Harry would die (based on the prophecy in the Half Blood Prince), but I'm glad it didn't work out that way.

I need to go over the Deathly Hallows vs. Horcruxes discussion between Dumbledore and Harry as well as how Harry died then came back to life.

Shmeep: I, too, would've liked a little more in the epilogue. Actually, I would've loved to know what became of the Dursleys. I think Ron's comment was meant to be a joke. I interpreted that section to mean that everyone was looking at Harry or at Harry's son (the one that looked like him).

I'm sad to see the series come to an end, but JKR did it wonderfully.

[housemouse]

I am nearing the end of the World's Biggest Pain in the Butt Accounting Class, so I zipped through the book yesterday. As soon as the class is over I am going to re-read the book more slowly in order to take it all in.

For some reason I was not disappointed with how slowly the first 400 pages unfolded. That just felt right to me. I cried when Hedwig died, I cried when Fred died, I cried when Molly killed Bellatrix, I cried when Tonks and Lupin died (although I did see it coming - as soon as they asked Harry to be godfather). I cheered when Teddy was born and when Percy joined the fight.

I had not done nearly as much thinking about what might happen as many have, so the only thing I thought going in was that Neville would die. I was so happy when he didn't - and of course he teaches herbology!

She did do a masterful job presenting Snape as evil and when she turned it around it was perfect. I LOVE that he was best friends with Lily. I also love how Rowling managed to tell us why Petunia was so bitter about having Harry come live with them.

I could go on and on but I really have to get back to accounting...

[krissie]

I know that this thread has 'spoiler' in its title, but I'm going to add in some spoiler space in case anyone has stumbled across this by reading the twenty most recent posts.

BEWARE.

This post contains massive spoilers for HP and the Deathly Hallows.

Proceed at your own risk.

You have been warned.


I remember being quite disappointed by HP6 because I felt that it was almost 'filler', a way for JKR to move all her players into the right places for the end game that would be book seven. Thankfully, book seven more than matched my expectations!

What did I get right? That Harry was a horcrux. Check. I also had a sneaky suspicion thought that Harry would have to sacrifice himself and hoped that he'd come back to life again... somehow. (Mind you, I could see ways that JKR could have killed him and have him stay dead, and let him be reunited with all his loved ones in death). I also thought that RAB was going to be Regulus Black. And I had a sneaky feeling that Harry would go alone to meet his destiny (which he sort of did), leaving Hermione and Ron behind, echoing the first book.

So, broadly speaking, I got a lot of things right(ish).

However, what I got wrong was the journey that would be taken to get to these points.

Like Shmeep's husband, I thought that time-turners would play a role somewhere along the line. I thought we'd end up going back in time and seeing Voldemort going after Harry's parents.

The thing is, I still think there is a missing day. In the first book, we are told that Voldemort killed Harry's parents at Hallowe'en. Then a day passes during which the wizarding world celebrates the downfall of You- Know-Who and Minerva sits on the wall at Privet Drive. Only the next night do Hagrid and Dumbledore arrive to leave Harry on the doorstep of number four.

Now, surely it doesn't take a whole day to remove a baby from the rubble of a destroyed house... so what happened during the rest of that twenty-four hours?

That's why I thought we'd see the actual confrontation play out. And I wondered whether Harry would end up telling Dumbledore everything that had happened to him, which would be how Dumbledore seemed to know everything in the earlier books. Plus, if I'm completely honest, I wondered whether Harry would get stranded in the past, so that he'd live on... but tragically separated from his friends.

So, yeah... There were some things I was very wrong about.

And, hey, if you're reading this and thinking that I've given this way too much thought, I should point out that I've had two years to think about this, so that's really only a few minutes here and there.

Ah, well...

Snape. Well, I'm delighted with the way his story was dealt with. (Poor bloke. I think he's going to go down in history as one of literature's most tragic heroes. I couldn't see any way that he was going to survive book seven anyway, so... <shrugs> Hey, that's another thing I got right!)

After book six I was hoping that Snape would turn out to be a good guy, but at the same time I thought I'd feel cheated if he did, because I thought I would feel manipulated as a reader. As it turned out, I didn't feel manipulated at all. I just felt ridiculously happy.

So sue me. I like Snape. Well, I like the characterisation, anyway -- a very not nice good guy. Very clever.

I was surprised about Hedwig, but didn't tear up... as I did for some of the other deaths.

Kreacher! Ah, what a wonderful surprise that was!

The four hundred pages of... nothing: I wasn't too bothered by travelling around, but I did get the sense of a lot of time passing without much being achieved. Then again, maybe that was the point... for things to get worse and worse in the world beyond Grimmauld Place and the tent, and for our heroes to be isolated from all that. Yes, the first half of the book moved along much more slowly than the second, but I felt that was less true of this book than of the previous two.

Shmeep, you suggested that Neville pulled Griffyndor's sword out of the sorting hat... I'll have to reread that bit, because I wondered where he'd got it from. Wouldn't that be wonderful if it were true? But didn't the text say something about him using a dagger? (I can't check, because I've already lent my copy to a work colleague.)

I found it interesting that Harry managed to get out of killing Voldemort, who was killed by his own rebounding killing curse, thus keeping his soul intact.

Now, while I don't like the idea of Harry actually killing anyone, I did wonder if this wasn't a bit of a cop out? After all, Harry has killed fragments of soul. Where is the difference between killing fragments of soul and killing the body that houses part of the soul? Is the body the most valuable part of a living being? Is that what this is suggesting?

The epilogue: on the one hand, it did have an upbeat atmosphere about it that was probably needed to lift the dark mood of the rest of the book. On the other, I was disappointed by it.

Okay, so the epilogue does a decent job of showing us that life goes on... or reverts back to the wizarding idea of normal... but does it tell us enough? And does it tell us what we want to know?

Plus, I thought seeing all those kids... Well, quite frankly, I thought that aspect of the epilogue reeked of cheese. I didn't want to drown in schmaltz as we saw the next generation going off to school. I wanted to know what happened to the people I'd come to know and love over the years. I'd rather have seen the epilogue taking place one year after the battle ... or five years later. But not nineteen years later.

But, hey, that's just my opinion, and a minor gripe, given how much I liked the rest of the book.

Another thing that occurred to me: where were Crookshanks and Fawkes in this book? I can understand the absence of Fawkes; after all, he flew away at the end of HP6, but I had rather expected him to reappear. But I am puzzled about the absence of Crookshanks. Ideas, anyone?

I wonder how long it will take my colleague to get through the book, and get it back to me?

Right. I've spent far too long on this post, and I really need to mow the lawn.

Krissie

[mlm828]

admin said:

The final showdown was brilliant! Dumbledore set Harry up for death all along, knowing it had to happen in order for Voldemort to die. Even Snape was let in on that part of the plan, but only so Harry could see it in his memory and meet Voldemort with the intention of dying. I am re-reading this carefully right now and haven't quite reached that part yet so I'm not entirely clear on what happened, but I think Voldemort's wand didn't work on Harry because he wasn't the true Master of the Eldar wand--Harry was. Then Harry "died" and offered the same protection for all the others as Lily had given him and rendered Voldemort powerless--only he didn't know it. . .Did I understand the events correctly? I was going at such a pace as I read that I fear I may have missed some important events along the way so I really need that slower perusal now.

I read it pretty quickly, too, and am now re-reading. After re-reading the conversation between Harry and Dumbledore at "King's Cross," this is my theory. I am basically reasoning backward from what happened when Voldemort ultimately was killed.

I think Voldemort's killing curse rebounded and came back at him for the same reason it did when he tried to kill Harry the first time, when he was a year old -- Lily's protection. It killed him this time, because his Horcruxes had all been destroyed. I think the curse didn't rebound and kill him when he attempted to kill Harry in the forest, because there was something in Harry which didn't have Lily's protection -- the part of Voldemort's soul which was in Harry. Even though Voldemort may have received a small part of that protection when he regenerated using Harry's blood, that part of his soul had already been detached from him. Therefore the curse didn't rebound when Voldemort attempted to kill Harry in the forest, because there was something it could, and did, kill. That part of Voldemort's soul was the suffering creature Harry and Voldemort see in "King's Cross," and that, I believe, is what the remnant of Voldemort's soul which remained in Voldemort's body also became after he was killed.

I suppose if you accept this theory, it means that Voldemort could never have killed Harry. So his insistence that he had to be the one to kill Harry was one of the many ways in which he was wrong, all of which come down to thinking the power of his magic could overcome the power of love.

There's much, much more that could be said, but it will have to wait for another time.

[carl1951]

I have heard there may be another Potter book in the works. The author said she's working on a book RIGHT now! Could it be true?

Later, Carl

[maggiethecat]

According to the extremely brief interview I saw on our local (NYC) news with the head of Scholastic Books, J. K. Rowling "has another children's book in the works." But not a Harry Potter, Carl -- she has said from the very beginning that when the series was ended, that was that since she had the entire opus plotted out years ago.

[mlm828]

According to this interview, J.K. Rowling may publish an "encyclopedia" giving more information about the characters and the wizarding world.

[mlm828]

What happened to all the people who wanted to discuss the book? Come out, wherever you are!

I'll start. I think the story J.K. Rowling came up with for Snape was absolutely brilliant. It explained so many things, not the least of which was Dumbledore's trust in him. As has already been pointed out, he turned out to be a classic tragic figure, undone by his own fatal flaw -- in his case, his attraction to the Dark Arts. And even though he was on the "right" side, he wasn't really a "good guy." He lost Lily's friendship after he referred to her as a "Mudblood." He treated Harry horribly throughout the series, and I don't think it was simply for the purpose of maintaining his "cover." I think he truly disliked Harry, because Harry reminded him of James. In addition, Harry was a living reminder of what he had done. He probably re-lived his guilt and revulsion at his betrayal of Lily, every time he saw Harry. And we know his last thoughts were of Lily, because he asked Harry to look at him -- with Lily's eyes.

I didn't have a lot of strongly-held theories about what would happen in the last book, but I thought there was a pretty good chance Snape would die. However, I certainly didn't see it happening the way it did. Again, I thought it was brilliant that, after Snape had worked against Voldemort for all those years, his death contributed to his downfall, after all, because killing Snape did not give Voldemort mastery over the wand. At first, I thought his death was in vain, because it seemed so unnecessary, but then I realized it was necessary, because Voldemort was misled into thinking he was the master of the wand after he killed Snape.

I, too, would have liked to see more of an epilogue, and not only about the subsequent lives of more characters (For example, what about Luna? And how did George Weasley cope with the death of Fred?), but also about the wizarding world as a whole. What happened to the surviving Death Eaters? Were any steps taken -- could anything be done -- to prevent the rise of another Dark wizard like Voldemort, or at least to stop such a wizard before he became as powerful as Voldemort? Perhaps we'll get the answers to some of these questions if Rowling publishes the "encyclopedia" she mentioned in a recent interview.

krissie said:

I found it interesting that Harry managed to get out of killing Voldemort, who was killed by his own rebounding killing curse, thus keeping his soul intact.

I have a slightly different interpretation of this. Based on the way it was explained in Half-Blood Prince, I think only a cold-blooded murder splits the soul. So I think Harry's soul would have remained intact, even if he had killed Voldemort in this kill-or-be-killed situation. For the same reason, I'm pretty sure Mrs. Weasley didn't split her soul when she killed Bellatrix.

[mlm828]

J.K. Rowling has answered many questions, including questions about the characters' lives and the Wizarding world after Deathly Hallows, in an online chat. You can read the transcript here.

Edited to add: A few of the questions and answers seem to be out of order, but you can get the general idea of what JKR said.

[inuvik]

I'm about halfway through and was SHOCKED by the Muggle registration. It was just like the Jewish registration. I wonder if Rowling made that parallel deliberately?

[mlm828]

inuvik said:

I'm about halfway through and was SHOCKED by the Muggle registration. It was just like the Jewish registration. I wonder if Rowling made that parallel deliberately?

I'm sure it was deliberate. I certainly thought the scapegoating of Muggle-borns was reminiscent of the Nazi era. There are a lot of historical allusions in the books. For example, I'm sure it's no accident that Dumbledore, an English wizard, defeated Grindelwald, who only became powerful in Europe, in 1945. And I suspect the choice of "Pius Thicknesse" as the name of the unfortunate wizard who was put under the Imperius Curse and became Minister of Magic may be an allusion to the World War II-era Pope Pius XII.

[inuvik]

mlm828 said:

inuvik said:

I'm about halfway through and was SHOCKED by the Muggle registration. It was just like the Jewish registration. I wonder if Rowling made that parallel deliberately?

I'm sure it was deliberate. I certainly thought the scapegoating of Muggle-borns was reminiscent of the Nazi era. There are a lot of historical allusions in the books. For example, I'm sure it's no accident that Dumbledore, an English wizard, defeated Grindelwald, who only became powerful in Europe, in 1945. And I suspect the choice of "Pius Thicknesse" as the name of the unfortunate wizard who was put under the Imperius Curse and became Minister of Magic may be an allusion to the World War II-era Pope Pius XII.

I missed that 1945 date. You're right, I'm sure it's related too.