![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Spoilery thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
I have to say that overall I enjoyed this book. Honestly I think the series took kind of a down turn after the fourth book in quality (although overall still entertaining to read). Still, it was cool to see the resolution of JK Rowling’s vision of her universe.
Stuff I loved:
Character Deaths and lots of them.
I really hate it when I read gigantic battles and huge wars upon the fate of humanity rests and no one gets hurt, maimed or killed. I think it takes some brass balls to have this much death in a kid’s book, and even better the deaths in this book were done extremely well. It’s very clear after the opening sequence that the stakes of what’s going on are huge. While some of the deaths were expected (Snape for instance), some of them definitely weren’t. Fred’s, Dobby’s, Snape’s and Colin Creevy’s were the absolute worst for me. I almost think though that Ron, Harry, Heromine or Hagrid should have died – but that’s a nitpick, and really maybe that would have made the ending too depressing.
(And if she’d killed Neville or Luna… I would have never forgiven Rowling.)
Neville, Granny Longbottom and Luna.
I love all three of these characters, so anytime they showed up it was awesome. I admit that there was a moment I was sure Neville was going to bite it (right at the very end in front of Voldemort). I would have liked to see much, much more of them. In fact, I’d love to see a series with just them because I find them far more interesting characters than Harry, Hermione or Ron.
Interesting themes that you don’t see in kids books.
I love that she touches on some interesting issues like Dumbledore’s pragmatism. While he obviously does love Harry, the dude turned out to be scarily pragmatic – which is something that is necessary to win wars, but not necessarily so awesome for the people you’re using to do it. Snape’s unrequited love with Lily Potter was also really interesting, and I really wish we could have seen more of it.
Stuff I didn’t love so much.
Hermione, Harry and Ron (and by extension Ginny).
While I don’t have anything against those characters, I do find them kind of boring. Usually that’s okay because they’re surrounded by more interesting characters, but in this book they were on their own a lot. Anytime the three of them were alone and bickering for the four hundredth time, it felt like the story slowed to a crawl. And while at one point I did think that Hermione and Ron’s romance was sweet (about three books ago), really I think that Rowling should never, ever try to write romances between characters again.
Evil Snape.
Okay. Did anyone believe that Snape was going to turn out to be really evil? No. So going on for pages and pages of Harry hating Snape blah blah blah got really old.
The Epilogue
Honestly I thought this was completely unnecessary and rather hokey really. I can see why she did it, but I think the book would have been better off if she’d just ended it with the three friends together and the future uncertain. I can’t stand the Harry/Ginny romance so to see the future of them was kind of annoying really. On the plus side though I could practically hear the screams of outraged potter fanfic nerds as the fates of their favorite characters are now canon.
Anyway I did enjoy it. I’m almost tempted to go looking for some good Neville/Luna stories or Snape/Lily prequels but I’m terrified what I’d find in that batshit crazy fandom.
I have to say that overall I enjoyed this book. Honestly I think the series took kind of a down turn after the fourth book in quality (although overall still entertaining to read). Still, it was cool to see the resolution of JK Rowling’s vision of her universe.
Stuff I loved:
Character Deaths and lots of them.
I really hate it when I read gigantic battles and huge wars upon the fate of humanity rests and no one gets hurt, maimed or killed. I think it takes some brass balls to have this much death in a kid’s book, and even better the deaths in this book were done extremely well. It’s very clear after the opening sequence that the stakes of what’s going on are huge. While some of the deaths were expected (Snape for instance), some of them definitely weren’t. Fred’s, Dobby’s, Snape’s and Colin Creevy’s were the absolute worst for me. I almost think though that Ron, Harry, Heromine or Hagrid should have died – but that’s a nitpick, and really maybe that would have made the ending too depressing.
(And if she’d killed Neville or Luna… I would have never forgiven Rowling.)
Neville, Granny Longbottom and Luna.
I love all three of these characters, so anytime they showed up it was awesome. I admit that there was a moment I was sure Neville was going to bite it (right at the very end in front of Voldemort). I would have liked to see much, much more of them. In fact, I’d love to see a series with just them because I find them far more interesting characters than Harry, Hermione or Ron.
Interesting themes that you don’t see in kids books.
I love that she touches on some interesting issues like Dumbledore’s pragmatism. While he obviously does love Harry, the dude turned out to be scarily pragmatic – which is something that is necessary to win wars, but not necessarily so awesome for the people you’re using to do it. Snape’s unrequited love with Lily Potter was also really interesting, and I really wish we could have seen more of it.
Stuff I didn’t love so much.
Hermione, Harry and Ron (and by extension Ginny).
While I don’t have anything against those characters, I do find them kind of boring. Usually that’s okay because they’re surrounded by more interesting characters, but in this book they were on their own a lot. Anytime the three of them were alone and bickering for the four hundredth time, it felt like the story slowed to a crawl. And while at one point I did think that Hermione and Ron’s romance was sweet (about three books ago), really I think that Rowling should never, ever try to write romances between characters again.
Evil Snape.
Okay. Did anyone believe that Snape was going to turn out to be really evil? No. So going on for pages and pages of Harry hating Snape blah blah blah got really old.
The Epilogue
Honestly I thought this was completely unnecessary and rather hokey really. I can see why she did it, but I think the book would have been better off if she’d just ended it with the three friends together and the future uncertain. I can’t stand the Harry/Ginny romance so to see the future of them was kind of annoying really. On the plus side though I could practically hear the screams of outraged potter fanfic nerds as the fates of their favorite characters are now canon.
Anyway I did enjoy it. I’m almost tempted to go looking for some good Neville/Luna stories or Snape/Lily prequels but I’m terrified what I’d find in that batshit crazy fandom.
Tags: