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The one post on Deathly Hallows
Yes, at 2:45am. I just finished not half an hour ago. You can rest assured that there are spoilers inside, but nothing in the way of substantive commentary.
YAY YAY YAY RON DIDN'T DIE!
I just had to say that. Cough.
Anyway, I got the book and began reading not really expecting to like it much. HBP had been a disappointment for me, and anyway, my interest in the series had really peaked somewhere between GoF and OotP. I picked up HBP mostly because my sister demanded that I do so, so we could talk about it, and I did pretty much the same thing with DH.
That said, I quite liked it. Mostly because Ron didn't die.
No, really. Taken as a whole, as something that addresses the bulk of the mysteries that have haunted the series--the nature of Harry's relationship to Voldemort, Snape, what Dumbledore's really like behind the nice old man, Aberforth, the importance of wands (*cough*)--I found it satisfying. Sad, in the way most endings are sad, but satisfying. I wouldn't set it next to LotR for the kind of ending that makes me want to simultaneously curl up and cry and sing for happiness, but it sent me away thinking, Yes, this was a good thing to live in for a while.
Highlights: Ron not dying, MRS. WEASLEY PWNING BELLATRIX, the trip down into the Gringott's vaults, the battle, which was absolutely marvelous, Dean!!!! Dean and Seamus!!!!1!eleven! Lee Jordan's wizarding radio underground! Neville! Luna! Snape's role in everything, which I and a zillion other people had figured out but it's nice to be right, Xenophilius Lovegood's name (lover of strange things indeed), Ron saving Harry from a frozen, watery grave and finally managing to conquer his insecurities, Narcissa deciding her son is more important than Death Eater loyalties, which I liked very much.
Not so much: Remus and Tonks's marriage--seriously, where did it come from? I wonder if JKR wasn't trying to set up some parallel between Remus/Tonks and James/Lilly, with Ted being, like Ron, Harry, and Hermione, born at a time when the entire Wizarding world is in peril, but still... Much of the endless wandering around got tedious, though a lot of it set up characters and circumstances that become crucial later (Dean, Snape's Patronus [Patrona?], the sword)... The last chapter, which felt extremely tacked on and last-minute, and closes off the future too much for my taste--I like endings open, after the conclusion of the main action so I can stay and imagine a bit more... Hedwig dying... Fred dying... Lupin dying... Draco's bizarre importance/nonimportance at the end. He's there and yet he isn't.
Going back to the good things, the philosophy of death and love is something interesting, and that I like. Human history has spent a significant amount of energy trying to control death or overcome it, and the idea that love and death and life are all kind of the same thing, and to violate the terms of one is to violate those of the others... It's kind of shopworn, but it's always worth saying again.
So, yeah. Good stuff. Chaucer seal of approval.
It's over now, though :/
YAY YAY YAY RON DIDN'T DIE!
I just had to say that. Cough.
Anyway, I got the book and began reading not really expecting to like it much. HBP had been a disappointment for me, and anyway, my interest in the series had really peaked somewhere between GoF and OotP. I picked up HBP mostly because my sister demanded that I do so, so we could talk about it, and I did pretty much the same thing with DH.
That said, I quite liked it. Mostly because Ron didn't die.
No, really. Taken as a whole, as something that addresses the bulk of the mysteries that have haunted the series--the nature of Harry's relationship to Voldemort, Snape, what Dumbledore's really like behind the nice old man, Aberforth, the importance of wands (*cough*)--I found it satisfying. Sad, in the way most endings are sad, but satisfying. I wouldn't set it next to LotR for the kind of ending that makes me want to simultaneously curl up and cry and sing for happiness, but it sent me away thinking, Yes, this was a good thing to live in for a while.
Highlights: Ron not dying, MRS. WEASLEY PWNING BELLATRIX, the trip down into the Gringott's vaults, the battle, which was absolutely marvelous, Dean!!!! Dean and Seamus!!!!1!eleven! Lee Jordan's wizarding radio underground! Neville! Luna! Snape's role in everything, which I and a zillion other people had figured out but it's nice to be right, Xenophilius Lovegood's name (lover of strange things indeed), Ron saving Harry from a frozen, watery grave and finally managing to conquer his insecurities, Narcissa deciding her son is more important than Death Eater loyalties, which I liked very much.
Not so much: Remus and Tonks's marriage--seriously, where did it come from? I wonder if JKR wasn't trying to set up some parallel between Remus/Tonks and James/Lilly, with Ted being, like Ron, Harry, and Hermione, born at a time when the entire Wizarding world is in peril, but still... Much of the endless wandering around got tedious, though a lot of it set up characters and circumstances that become crucial later (Dean, Snape's Patronus [Patrona?], the sword)... The last chapter, which felt extremely tacked on and last-minute, and closes off the future too much for my taste--I like endings open, after the conclusion of the main action so I can stay and imagine a bit more... Hedwig dying... Fred dying... Lupin dying... Draco's bizarre importance/nonimportance at the end. He's there and yet he isn't.
Going back to the good things, the philosophy of death and love is something interesting, and that I like. Human history has spent a significant amount of energy trying to control death or overcome it, and the idea that love and death and life are all kind of the same thing, and to violate the terms of one is to violate those of the others... It's kind of shopworn, but it's always worth saying again.
So, yeah. Good stuff. Chaucer seal of approval.
It's over now, though :/
no subject
Ted seemed more like Neville Longbottom to me - his grandmother was still alive; his parents heroically fighting Voldemort and paying the price for it, etc.