July 23rd, 2007 - 9:10 am
» HP & the Deathly Hallows
So I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows shortly before 2 a.m. on Sunday. Jo and her sister and sister’s friend and I went to the party at the Calhoun Barnes & Noble, which I think was less fun in itself than the Minnetonka Border’s has been in the past. Probably down partly to the size of the store; much smaller than Border’s, and just not set up very well for mobs of people. Still, I had a blast with Jo & company — we got Thai at Thanh Do and ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s, then spent an interminably long time wandering around Barnes hunting for trivia questions and waiting impatiently for midnight.
We headed to bed around 1:45 Saturday morning, since we had to be up at a respectable hour to head out for Alex’s birthday party. I’ve just looked back for my Half-Blood Prince post, wanting to double-check those predictions, and funnily enough when that one came out I spent most of that Saturday at a baby shower for Mel, back when Alex was just an alarmingly large watermelonish belly that we were all hoping would become a proper baby soon. He’s running around and babbling like crazy now, and loves the water — last year he refused to have anything to do with his new pool, and this year he dashed back and forth between the new new (and improved — pirate-ship-shaped!) pool and his new climber/slide set, spoiled for choice. I know everyone thinks their kids are the cutest, but Alex clearly excels in the adorableness department.
So, the book. Loved it. And I remembered right after finishing the last book I’d predicted Snape was good and had killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore’s own wishes, but I forgot that I’d also speculated we’d find out about Dumbledore’s hand by Harry taking another trip in the pensieve. Anyway, it was the Snape bit that I cared most about, and the resolution of that was probably my favorite bit in the book — straight through the moment we find out Harry’s son is Albus Severus, which I cried about more than anyone’s death (though I guess that counts as crying over Snape’s death, really).
I — am inclined to just mumble half-coherently about all the things I liked, as I’m exhausted and at work, but that seems rather pointless. And more importantly, I can’t think of anything I really didn’t like, so. Assume I was delighted over it all. (Particularly Kreacher, and J.K. Rowling putting paid to all the insane Harry/Hermione shippers, and Percy, and Neville’s grandmother, and Shell Cottage where I would like to live immediately please.)
bryce said: July 23rd, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Geez, spoiler alert! ;-)
rachel! said: July 23rd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
All spoilers are behind the cut! And I made sure not to say anything remotely spoilery in the first two (quite long!) paragraphs, for anyone seeing the first few lines of text with a feed reader. I figure anyone who clicks through for a whole post titled ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ knows very well what they’re getting. So nyah.
bryce said: July 23rd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Whatever, spoiler-maker!
sansreves said: July 23rd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
H/G, R/H atw!
Kim said: July 23rd, 2007 at 4:31 pm
You know, I have very mixed feelings on the book. Parts of it I truly adored. Parts of it I was so frustrated with (namely the end, because it felt like, “And after NINE MONTHS OF FOREST, uh… oh shit. I told my editors I’d keep it around 750 pages! Let’s cram as many possible characters popping up for two seconds as Harry runs through the halls of Hogwarts as I can fit, and wrap it all up!”)
I think I need to re-read it. Because while I realize that realistically, it was spot on that Hogwarts got taken over and thusly we spent the majority of the book outside of its walls, it seriously left me feeling like the whole book was slightly un-Harry Potterish. I wasn’t big on NINE MONTHS OF FOREST.
But I dunno. Like I said, very mixed feelings. I do think it would, rather ironically, play out much better as a movie, where the NINE MONTHS OF FOREST can be condensed down a bit.
And don’t get me started on the Epilogue. While I did seriously love learning what Harry’s kids were named, and laughing at the big fuck you to the H/H shippers, I was left very much wondering what the hell happened to everyone else. I didn’t like that much. I didn’t agree with the idea of doing an epilogue and focusing only on the trio, since there were so many other cherished characters that I was interested to see the fates of as well. I think it would have been better to leave the epilogue off, because it was pretty obvious to me that she’d set up H/R and that Harry would go back to Ginny now that the danger was gone.
And what of Teddy Lupin’s upbringing?! /anguish
bryce said: July 23rd, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Really? I thought the forest stuff was awesome. For it to be all Hogwarts, all the time would be weird. I thought the Horcrux hunt at the HBP was really fresh and exciting, and I was glad to see more new adventures outside of the castle walls. With Dumbledore gone, Hogwarts doesn’t offer Harry any additional protection anyway. I didn’t feel like things were rushed until the epilogue, which felt was awkward.
Kim said: July 23rd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Well, not all of the forest stuff was bad, at all. That’s not what I meant, though it really came off like it, huh.
I was fine with it until like… we were reaching page 200 of IN THE FOREST and I started to get itchy.
And I didn’t mean that I wanted it to be like, just a normal school yeat at Hogwarts. I realize that it does make sense for them not to have gone this year, especially since they were looking for the horcruxes. I do get that. I just think I’d have been happier getting to see some perspective from how it did change Hogwarts. All this really interesting stuff was apparently going on with Snape as the new headmaster, and all we got was some tantalizing tidbits about Ginny getting into trouble for carrying on the DA. I just would have liked to have seen some of that first hand. I really, really missed the presence of a lot of the supporting characters in this book.
And I wasn’t pleased what she did with Lupin. I mean, really. He shows up, “Hi! I’m married!” Disappears. Shows up. “Um, yeah, so about Tonks and that whole responsibility thing…” Gets yelled at. Disappears. Shows up. “Okay, I’m done being a bastard.” Disappears. Shows up. “Corpseified goodness!” I dunno. The more I think about the things I disliked, the more I really hate them, but then again the more I think about the things I liked, the more I loved them.
And for the record, I was a bit sad that I’d read that interview with J.K. where some kid asked her what form Snape’s patronus takes, and she said that she couldn’t say. It was a bit of a buzzkill pretty much knowing for almost certain that Snape was good throughout most of the book when I’m supposed to be questioning it. Maybe I’ve just gotten better at reading her hints, too, because I thought it also exceedingly obvious when we found out the pretty laughable punishment that he gave Ginny and Neville. The lack of cruelty shown there gave it away even if you didn’t have suspicions about the doe patronus.
Same thing with Harry as the seventh horcrux, and Aberforth working at the Hog’s Head. I’m a bit sad that she didn’t manage to yank my chain a bit more and leave me guessing what was going on, it probably also detracted a bit and made me more impatient since I felt like a lot of the stuff I pretty much already knew.
rachel! said: July 24th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I did feel like they spent an awful lot of time in the forest, and the part after Ron leaves and it’s just Harry and Hermione in particular is weird — but I liked that. It’s more realistic — the whole ‘war is hell’ thing where you have long periods of frustration and waiting, and then short, intense bursts of combat. Not that it wasn’t serious for them before too, but they can’t just nip down for a butterbeer now, you know? I also think it was important that they do it on their own. I think that’s part of the reason Harry had to fight with Lupin — he was too powerful of a protector.
Not that I don’t wonder what went on in the school and all that, but I love that she gives just these tantalizing hints. We’ve always seen the series through Harry’s eyes whenever possible (there are only a few exceptions — crucial scenes he couldn’t've witnessed, like the pact between Narcissa and Sirius, and that one scene with Voldemort and that muggle, etc), so it would’ve been totally weird to break from Harry for a big Hogwarts Interlude. For me, it’s just part of being sad that the series is over, and loving Rowling’s writing and wishing we could just see every detail and happening in that world — while at the same time knowing it’s much better the way she did it.
The Lupin thing actually reminds me in a lot of ways of Joss Whedon’s storytelling — a commitment to realism, in a way? Characters don’t get spared or granted elaborate death scenes just because they’re people we’ve met. It — actually reminds me of something specific, but we can’t talk about that because Bryce is only midway through Buffy S2, so shh. But you might guess what I mean. I love that kind of thing, the abruptness of it. It feels more real for me — the tragedy of a life cut short with no reason or time to see it coming, etc. (Well, not with no reason, since he died fighting Voledmort which is how I think he’d've wanted to go down, but — you get where I’m going. It’s so very early and I’m still working my way through my morning tea, so — incoherent blah blah.) It’s back to the whole Charlie’s-stupid-not-death in Lost, and y’all know how I felt about that (or, you know, for anyone who doesn’t — when they didn’t kill Charlie, which would have been So Awesome, I stopped watching).
This’ll teach you to quit reading interviews and message boards. ;) I had no idea about that Rowling interview about Snape’s patronus, so I didn’t guess the doe was him at all. (Which, that whole thing, with the Lily and Snape and etc — I SO loved. Loved. And I so so so can’t wait for Alan Rickman’s performance — makes me very sad we don’t see more of Snape in the book, as important as he is.) Also, I knew about Aberforth but had completely forgotten, so that was an awesome moment for me. You just need to be less on top of things if you want to be surprised!
bryce said: July 24th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
To the Lupin point, someone on a message board I was reading said something like “I don’t understand why she felt the need to kill Fred. It seemed unnecessary.” I do love that everyone in this book was at risk. I would not have been surprised (well, that’s not true, but you know what I mean) if she’d killed Ron, Hermione, or even Harry. In this book, it was full-on and all bets are off. It was the same suddenness as the death in Serenity. I also was going to point out Harry’s perspective being dominant, and I think that’s why I didn’t mind the school stuff being excluded. I’m sure there’s a ton of fic to be written on it. ;-)
Oops, I’m late for a meeting.
taintedidealist said: July 28th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I was very happy with it.. I know since you commented on my Fawn post Rach that we pretty much jive on Harry Potter stuff. I saw the Fred death as something I knew was coming from the whole Joss Whedon school of thought. Mostly because I knew that the twins wouldn’t both survive and how humorous it was at that point. It rang of Whedon fear that lives in me now anytime I state someone being my favorite.
And I think that’s why Tonks got what she got. Even though that’s the one I’m horribly upset about. I understand the mirroring of Harry’s life that Teddy lived through… and I know I’ll get to read the backstory in the promised Encyclopedia of HP that will come out with the backstory and epilouges of everyone.
Any grudge I have I know that JK thought over and did as Rach said made that awesome decision of being real.
Also I would like to point out that Molly Weasley kicks so much butt.
I think I’m going to re-read the book now. So I can slowly feast over every syllable.