Deathly Hallows
Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:08![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
Actually finished Harry Potter yesterday but have been v. busy catching up on the interwebs due to not looking at them much after Carpet Book appeared. Was a wee bit spoiled but not really, so it was worth it!
I really enjoyed it, in fact it may be my favourite of the lot. I thought it was exciting and pacy and did a great job of tying up all the plotlines in a way that felt logical and satisfying. Some nice fleshing out of things like how wands work which was shiny.
Am quite smug about being right re. a lot of the deaths (though I've had money on Hagrid dying since before book four came out so make of that what you will) - I was fairly certain Snape and Lupin were for it, also I thought we'd lose at least one Weasley, it might very well be a twin and if so it would probably be Fred. I didn't predict Tonks though. She's never been my favourite character (though film!Tonks is great), I always felt that she never really had enough character development and she probably caught a lot of my annoyance at Order of the Phoenix. Really she never quite gelled with me and her relationship with Lupin seemed to come out of nowhere and be a case of "make sure all the important bits get mentioned before they're killed!" It didn't quite convince me. The point of all this is that I am least happy with her death because I don't think she got a fair throw as a character in her own right. In some ways she just seemed to be there as a plot function and to set up her son as Harry mark two. There just wasn't enough time spent on her or her relationship. Admittedly this would have made the books even huger and I'd have probably broken my wrists reading them, but especially in Order of the Phoenix a lot of stuff could have been cut to make room for her.
Loved the idea of Neville, Luna and Ginny at Hogwarts taking on the trio's role in their absence. Actually I would quite like to see an alternate book seven from their point of view but I doubt this will happen. Oh well I'm sure someone will write fanfic of it.
So glad Snape turned out to be good in the end, for a moment I thought he wouldn't. I was expecting to be annoyed if JKR went with the idea that he was in love with Lily, but I actually liked the way it worked out - I'd never predicted that they might have been friends first.
Was kind of hoping for at least one of the other Slytherin characters to turn good in the end, if only because I'd like slightly more evidence as to why they don't send them all straight to Azkaban and have done with it. This was touched on now and then with lines like "I think maybe we sort too early" and so on, but I would have maybe liked more. The Malfoy bits worked out pretty well and were plausible too - "not technically evil" is probably progress for them and really the best we could hope for from Draco. (Maybe little Scorpius (HAH) will add "occasionally helps old ladies with their shopping, if he's going that way anyway" to their repertoire.) And it tied in very nicely with the emphasis on the importance of family (blood or made) throughout the series. Speaking of I liked the epilogue, yes it was cheesy but it was nice. And it left a lot of things open ended like what exactly they all do with their lives so there is plenty of room for speculation and whatnot.
As always there were lots of little moments that I liked, like the radio station bit and many little details that I can't quite remember at the moment. And because I am twelve I sniggered a lot whenever the word "wand" was used in a slightly suspect context. (Izzy and I also did this in the cinema at OotP the other week when Mrs Weasley told the twins that there was no need for them to whip their wands out all the time or words to that effect. We got scandalised looks from the rest of our party.) Hurray!
I really enjoyed it, in fact it may be my favourite of the lot. I thought it was exciting and pacy and did a great job of tying up all the plotlines in a way that felt logical and satisfying. Some nice fleshing out of things like how wands work which was shiny.
Am quite smug about being right re. a lot of the deaths (though I've had money on Hagrid dying since before book four came out so make of that what you will) - I was fairly certain Snape and Lupin were for it, also I thought we'd lose at least one Weasley, it might very well be a twin and if so it would probably be Fred. I didn't predict Tonks though. She's never been my favourite character (though film!Tonks is great), I always felt that she never really had enough character development and she probably caught a lot of my annoyance at Order of the Phoenix. Really she never quite gelled with me and her relationship with Lupin seemed to come out of nowhere and be a case of "make sure all the important bits get mentioned before they're killed!" It didn't quite convince me. The point of all this is that I am least happy with her death because I don't think she got a fair throw as a character in her own right. In some ways she just seemed to be there as a plot function and to set up her son as Harry mark two. There just wasn't enough time spent on her or her relationship. Admittedly this would have made the books even huger and I'd have probably broken my wrists reading them, but especially in Order of the Phoenix a lot of stuff could have been cut to make room for her.
Loved the idea of Neville, Luna and Ginny at Hogwarts taking on the trio's role in their absence. Actually I would quite like to see an alternate book seven from their point of view but I doubt this will happen. Oh well I'm sure someone will write fanfic of it.
So glad Snape turned out to be good in the end, for a moment I thought he wouldn't. I was expecting to be annoyed if JKR went with the idea that he was in love with Lily, but I actually liked the way it worked out - I'd never predicted that they might have been friends first.
Was kind of hoping for at least one of the other Slytherin characters to turn good in the end, if only because I'd like slightly more evidence as to why they don't send them all straight to Azkaban and have done with it. This was touched on now and then with lines like "I think maybe we sort too early" and so on, but I would have maybe liked more. The Malfoy bits worked out pretty well and were plausible too - "not technically evil" is probably progress for them and really the best we could hope for from Draco. (Maybe little Scorpius (HAH) will add "occasionally helps old ladies with their shopping, if he's going that way anyway" to their repertoire.) And it tied in very nicely with the emphasis on the importance of family (blood or made) throughout the series. Speaking of I liked the epilogue, yes it was cheesy but it was nice. And it left a lot of things open ended like what exactly they all do with their lives so there is plenty of room for speculation and whatnot.
As always there were lots of little moments that I liked, like the radio station bit and many little details that I can't quite remember at the moment. And because I am twelve I sniggered a lot whenever the word "wand" was used in a slightly suspect context. (Izzy and I also did this in the cinema at OotP the other week when Mrs Weasley told the twins that there was no need for them to whip their wands out all the time or words to that effect. We got scandalised looks from the rest of our party.) Hurray!