Susan Hated Literature

Jul 21 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

17 Responses to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”

1. On 21 Jul 2007 at 7:28 pm Evan Klondar said

   Thanks for linking me.

   This book is going to be exceptionally interesting to analyze…I’m anxious to see how the general fandom reacts.

2. On 21 Jul 2007 at 8:30 pm Fence said

   Okay, my spoilerific thoughts:
   Show Spoilers ▼

   I totally knew that Snape wasn’t a baddie. Sorry Heather Anne And the doe, awww. He loved Lily all that time. And Dumbledore’s past; nicely done I thought to show that there really is “light and dark in everyone”. Final battle was well cool. Centaurs, house elves and everything.
   But poor Fred! And Tonks and Lupin! awww. But the epilogue, and Harry and Ginny calling their kid Albus Severus. Awww.
   I also really liked Ron’s reaction to having the horocrux (sp?), and the thoughts it made surface in him, about his mammy loving Harry more. And maybe Hermione loving him more too. And Neville keeping DA going all that time.

   Thumbs up all around.

3. On 22 Jul 2007 at 12:52 pm Fence said

   Hi Evan, sorry bout the delay in approving your comment. But better late than never
   I’m not a huge ginormous Potter fan, so I’m missing out on a lot of the debate, but there is LOADS there to talk about. Interesting is bang on.

4. On 22 Jul 2007 at 2:43 pm Evan Klondar said

   SnapeShow Spoilers ▼

   “turned into a bat-like creature” or something like that when he escaped from the Headmaster’s office…and they said that it appeared as if Voldy ‘taught him a few tricks.’

   But yeah, his Patronus was a doe.

5. On 22 Jul 2007 at 6:50 pm Ann said

   Good review, especially the point about the writing. (Although I think #7 was the best in that department - a lot less -ly words than in the past few books.) there’s a big difference between being a good writer and being a good storyteller. J.K. is an astounding storyteller and has been able to create a compelling and imaginitve world, which is part of what people have responded to.

   The other thing about the characters is that they are immensely likeable - the goodies are the sort of people you’d want to have as friends and some of the baddies (like Delores Umbridge) are just over-the-top love-to-hate-em types. I enjoyed the series, loved the last book, and found the ending very satisfying. Endings are a tough feat to pull off, so I’m well-impressed on this one.

6. On 22 Jul 2007 at 7:13 pm Nymeth said

   I completely agree with you about the writing not being outstanding, but doing its job perfectly. It’s not good in a “wow, she has such a way with words” sort of way, but it’s also not so bad that it calls attention to itself. It’s invisible - you forget you’re reading a book. And I agree that she is a master when it comes to plot. I’ve always thought that was her greatest strength.

   Expectations for this book were high, and she still managed to finish the series in a very satisfying manner. I’m impressed.

7. On 22 Jul 2007 at 8:36 pm Fence said

   Ann I think that is what I was trying to say, she may not write great literature, but she tells damn fine stories

   Me too Nymeth. I really must get around to rereading the whole series though. Haven’t reread any of the last few and I know there is loads I probably would have picked up on had I not speed read.

8. On 24 Jul 2007 at 1:12 pm gloria said

   I don’t get it. Having finished the book in one sitting I was left feeling so very cheated. I’ve read review after review since, and they all come up with ’satisfying ending’ or some such pap.
   Show Spoilers ▼

   It’s NOT! Harry, the boy who lived, the only one who could save them all, the one who had to relinquish his own life to save the others….grows up, gets married and has kids.
   Shame on Jo. Not enough to plagiarise the ideas of Tolkien and the words of Dickens…she now gives us a nice, tidy, Warner Brothers movie ending.

   I’m devastated. And thank god it’s over.

9. On 24 Jul 2007 at 1:35 pm Fence said

   Hi Gloria,
   I’ll have to disagree with you regarding Rowling plagiarising Tolkien and/or Dickens. HP is very different in many ways to those, although there are similarities.
   But it is a children’s series, and while that doesn’t mean that everything has to end happily ever after, it does mean that the readers deserve some closure, which is what they got. Not that it was happy ever after, what with all the deaths. As for the Show Spoilers ▼

   marriage. Well, what is wrong with that? This was the boy who grew up without a normal life and a normal family, don’t you think it fitting that after all he has been through he is rewarded with that.
10. On 24 Jul 2007 at 5:03 pm Nymeth said

    I agree with you, Fence - Show Spoilers ▼

    I don’t think the end was at all too sugar-coated. After all, people died. People Harry cared about died. The war had real costs. But at the same time, Harry and his two best friends managed to survive and built themselves normal, calm lives. I think that’s the reward they would want to have, and I think it was very fitting.
11. On 24 Jul 2007 at 5:31 pm Fence said

    Yup Nymeth every Show Spoilers ▼

    Hero deserves a reward, and Harry deserved his bit of happiness. Plus it was only really happy ever after for those readers who want to believe that. The kids aren’t that old, plenty of time for more evilness to appear
12. On 25 Jul 2007 at 11:07 am jean pierre said

    i’m glad you liked it. in the light that i have only read the first two that seems a strange comment - but i like the idea of the series and i’m glad that rowling has rewarded the loyalty her readers showed her.

13. On 26 Jul 2007 at 12:51 pm weenie said

    After surviving on 4 hours sleep over the last two nights, I have just finished the book - I really didn’t want it to end!

    Show Spoilers ▼

    Sure, the ending was a bit twee but it was an ending and whilst not of the ‘wow’ variety, is the normal ending befitting our heroes/heroine who had less than normal-childhoods.

    I knew Snape was a good guy but as I got towards the end of the book and good-guy-Snape still hadn’t appeared, I started to have doubts!

    At some point, I think I will re-read the whole series!

14. On 26 Jul 2007 at 12:58 pm Fence said

    I think the ending, by which I Show Spoilers ▼

    mean the epilogue could be seen as twee, and immature in relation to the rest, because 1)it is all happy ever after and, 2) I heard that she wrote that ages and ages ago, so might not have wanted to change it all that much.
15. On 27 Jul 2007 at 2:13 pm Harlequin said

    Book arrived in the post yesterday at lunchtime. I vaguely considered calling in sick and staying home to read it but I was good and waited til the end of the day. Should have waited for it to be Friday - was up til two in the morning finishing it!! Could have stopped at one point, but once I passed that point, there was no stopping me! I agree that the Show Spoilers ▼

    happy ending for Harry was well-deserved. He lost his parents, his beloved godfather, Dumbledore and all the other friends and helpers who died along the way, endured a decade of childhood abuse, risked his life and happiness time and again and finally was willing to go to his death to save the world. He deserved a normal life and he got it - friends, a wife, children. It wasn’t all happy-clappy by any stretch of the imagination - having seen the repercussions of Voldemort’s previous rampage echoing down through the years for so many of the characters in the books, it’s easy to imagine the difficulties of the previous nineteen years. Most obviously, poor Teddy Lupin who lost both parents and grandfather before he ever had a chance to know them but also the family and friends of anyone who died. And because we saw that the evil that rose wasn’t just Voldemort, but all the people who went along with him, so it doesn’t mean there aren’t fights to come. It’s never over and just because people marry and have children and raise them and send them off to Hogwarts doesn’t mean that nothing evil will ever rise again. So I didn’t see it as a happy ending because of that.

    I enjoyed this book far more than any of her others apart perhaps from Goblet of Fire. It dragged a bit for the first half but that wonderful feeling of discomfort that’s been there since Order of the Phoenix (anyone might die! Aieee!) kept me turning the pages. It was exciting, well (if not tightly) plotted and lots of satisfying ends tied up. Show Spoilers ▼

    Even Oliver Wood turned up, however briefly!

    The deaths that made me sad were Show Spoilers ▼

    Hedwig *sniff*, Fred (felt so bad for poor one-eared George left behind without his other half) and of course Lupin and Tonks. And since I believed Snape was a good guy all along, I was saddened by his death - not that he was dead, but because I didn’t know if people would believe he was actually a Big Damn Hero. But then in the end they did, so not so bad.

    God, I hope these spoiler tags work!!

16. On 27 Jul 2007 at 2:20 pm Fence said

    And they do. They being spoiler tags, and do being work

17. On 27 Jul 2007 at 6:47 pm Harlequin said

    Well, you know I’ve utterly shite luck with spoiler tags. And it’d be pretty big spoilage if they didn’t work! Since I remained ENTIRELY unspoiled despite the whole 6 days between the book coming out and me getting my copy, I would hate to do it to anyone else.

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