summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2007-07-22 03:02 am
summercomfort) wrote2007-07-22 03:02 am
Deathly Hallows
Just reporting that today I finished my Chinese essay and turned it in, and then hopped on a bus downtown, where I bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, among other things (British adult edition, 170 rmb), and am now done with the book. Better written than her previous 2, I'd say.
- A little deus-ex-machina near the end, what with the whole ultimate sacrifice thing and the whole wand thing, but overall decent. (What's with Dumbledore knowing everything that happened after his death? Sooooo convenient)
- What's with the picture-perfect epilogue? That was so unnecessary
- I wanted more about changes in the wizarding world in regard to house elves and other non-wizard folks.
- I love love love last battles where everyone shows up. <3 This one was decent, but there was a moment in the middle where I was like, "oh god, Harry's pulling a Frodo, McGonagall* is pulling an Aragorn, except that it's all collapsed into 1 chapter." Come to think of it, a lot of the book felt like a Frodo moment.
- um, yay Snape? Very odd place to stuff his whole life story, but at least he ... gets honored?
- I felt that so many more characters needed solid character development. Partly I blame book 5 and 6. For example: Remus and Tonks. I'm sorry, I know it's a cute pairing, but JK Rowling kinda needed to develop it more in book 6. At the moment, I'm like, "it's sad, but I don't really care that much". I feel the same about Ginny. Like, so much of the character growth happened off-camera that I'm just like, okay.... Fred, now, *that* hurt.
- Harry's magical growing up in the 1 page as he buried Dobby -- wtf? Suddenly, no more irrational anger, no more mood swings, no more indecision, no more inexperience....
- is it just me, or has Rowling's style become much more movie-like? In terms of descriptions of visuals and scene cuts, I mean.
*favorite scene: her herding transfigured desks into the fray.
Well, at least I'm done with the book. Now on to serious work tomorrow. :)
- A little deus-ex-machina near the end, what with the whole ultimate sacrifice thing and the whole wand thing, but overall decent. (What's with Dumbledore knowing everything that happened after his death? Sooooo convenient)
- What's with the picture-perfect epilogue? That was so unnecessary
- I wanted more about changes in the wizarding world in regard to house elves and other non-wizard folks.
- I love love love last battles where everyone shows up. <3 This one was decent, but there was a moment in the middle where I was like, "oh god, Harry's pulling a Frodo, McGonagall* is pulling an Aragorn, except that it's all collapsed into 1 chapter." Come to think of it, a lot of the book felt like a Frodo moment.
- um, yay Snape? Very odd place to stuff his whole life story, but at least he ... gets honored?
- I felt that so many more characters needed solid character development. Partly I blame book 5 and 6. For example: Remus and Tonks. I'm sorry, I know it's a cute pairing, but JK Rowling kinda needed to develop it more in book 6. At the moment, I'm like, "it's sad, but I don't really care that much". I feel the same about Ginny. Like, so much of the character growth happened off-camera that I'm just like, okay.... Fred, now, *that* hurt.
- Harry's magical growing up in the 1 page as he buried Dobby -- wtf? Suddenly, no more irrational anger, no more mood swings, no more indecision, no more inexperience....
- is it just me, or has Rowling's style become much more movie-like? In terms of descriptions of visuals and scene cuts, I mean.
*favorite scene: her herding transfigured desks into the fray.
Well, at least I'm done with the book. Now on to serious work tomorrow. :)
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Anyways, I have my copy somewhere if you want to borrow it. (Btw, when do are you moving? Or have you moved? How's your leg? How's your life?)
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Definitely got the Frodo vibes. As soon as they were like "We should wear the horocrux" I was like "NO NO NO I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT NEITHER OF YOU TWO READ LORD OF THE RINGS AS A MUGGLE CHILD THINK DAMMIT" but it was okay because that didn't last the whole book.
I always had a platonic crush on Tonks and a nonplatonic crush on Remus, so that hurt me quite a bit, but agreed, they didn't get enough screen time. They were both such great characters. And she was pretty brutal about the deaths too. Not Joss Whedon brutal, but cursory.
Fred DID hurt.
I'm really glad about Snape. She was starting to make me angry when I thought she wasn't going to have him redeemed.
And agreed, the epilogue was... insubstantial. Especially after such a cathartic ending. I couldn't keep any of the kids straight. I would've preferred 'nineteen days later'.
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I think it's something I've had a problem with with the last few books -- lack of character *growth*. Characters change, and potentially cool new characters are introduced, but we don't see them growing. I think Ron and Neville are perhaps the best done of the last few books. But otherwise: Ginny? Harry? It's like JK Rowling decided, "okay, they need to be mature now", and suddenly they are. Also, Hermione deserves to be more than the rational bookish sidekick. Seriously, it's like her character development ended with her slapping Draco in Book 3. Her and Viktor Krum felt perfunctory. Her and Ron felt like JK Rowling looked at her Big Plot Chart and said, "Oh, time for them to like each other now!"
Don't get me wrong. I loved Remus as a character (well, I loved Book 3 in general), and Tonks seems to be set up to be pretty excellent character, as well. My problem is that
1) I really needed Tonks to be more fleshed out. I kept feeling like, "Who's this Tonks who's suddenly a main character on par with Lupin? I thought she's on par with that Kingsley fellow." I didn't really see her doing anything outside of the Order of the Phoenix, whereas Lupin had so much more screen time in Book 3 to develop.
And 2) There was totally not enough explanation of *why* and *how* they fell in love, etc etc. I think it was like "he saved her!" "Her patronus is now a wolf!" "They love each other!" And I'm like, "Wtf? Who's Tonks again? Why does she deserve Remus?"
Yeah, the epilogue was total ick. I mean, if it's 19 years later, I would at least like to know what Harry's doing now. Is he living in the Grimault Place with a happy Kreacher? Where is he working? Has Ron followed the other Weasleys into the Ministry? And what's this with Ron and Hermione waiting 8 years to have their first child? I want to know more about what happened to Teddy Lupin! Well, at least we know Neville is now the Professor of Herbology.
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The Ron and Hermione romance I never took seriously. I didn't really think of them any differently after the 'announcement' than before it, and since they behaved more or less similarly, Rowling didn't really give me cause to.
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Honestly, I thought the epilogue was sweet. Gratuitious, sure. Strained belief, sure -- how many of us end up married to our high school sweethearts? And I do think that both relationships felt forced. But sweet. Mostly, I'm glad everyone was happy. I also liked seeing where Draco ended up; it looks like he still hasn't really having come to terms with what happened, but he's sort of done a Dudley and given Harry his grudging tolerance (respect?)
The only death that made me tear up immediately was Dobby. Poor li'l guy may have the only heart in the book that's purer than Harry's. :) But Snape... when I realized, after seeing his memories, why his last request was for Harry to look into his eyes, I cried.
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Oddly, I've never really liked Dobby. I think I like Kreacher more, actually. Maybe because Dobby behaves so slavishly when Harry Potter is involved. Since the get-go. I do admit his death almost made up for my dislike of him during his life. I think it's the only good death in the book. Fred, Lupin, and Tonks are so arbitrary. Yes yes, death is arbitrary, and people just die randomly like that, but at least tell us how Lupin and Tonks went?
I didn't see much of Narcissa's growth in Book 7. She seemed to spend most of the book pale-faced, staring forward. I *do* wish Draco grew up a bit, though. I can't believe he stayed the same childish, bullying Draco at the end that he was in Book 1. You'd think that after all the oppression of Voldemort, after running around with death eaters, etc, he'd actually mature into a person!
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I'm not sure I agree that Draco didn't grow. The problem is that he refuses to accept his growth, because Harry catalyzed it and he hates Harry. If Voldemort were somehow to come back (OMG U GUYZ I JUST HAD THE BEST FANFIC IDEA!!!11), Draco wouldn't join up -- not because he metamorphosed into a good guy, but because Harry psychologically ejected him from that world. If he works, I imagine he works somewhere far away, where he doesn't have to think about his ancestors or Hogwarts or Voldemort.
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How did Harry catalyze his growth? If anything, I'd say that Voldemort catalyzes his growth. In fact, that would have been a nice parallel: Harry and Draco, one "good", one "bad", both confronting the reality of the adult world as brought on by Voldemort, and how they both mature into complicated human beings as hero/anti-hero. I guess I kinda sorta see your point. As in, Draco actually chose to be childish as a safe haven/nostalgia thing?
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(Jono here)
(Anonymous) 2007-07-24 04:49 am (UTC)(link)No, seriously now, the one thing I was looking forward to all through the book that didn't happen was Draco redeeming himself. It seemed like he was being set up for it with all the moments in books 6 and 7 where he hesitates before being evil. I thought he was having second thoughts about the whole Death Eaters thing and would -- not neccessarily start liking Harry or anything, but just provide some crucial bit of aid to the resistance. Actually what I was really hoping for was that Draco would use the Elder Wand to strike the death blow on Voldemort. That would have been sweet.
But the other thing I was hoping for all through the book -- the fact that Harry was the seventh Horcrux -- that came true and made me lots of happy. I just wished that either he had died for real, or else that the epilogue showed grown-up Harry becoming Hogwarts' permanent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, which was the ending I'd been hoping for since book 5. Well, it didn't say that he's not, so I guess I can just imagine that he is.
Loved the book on the whole. It elevated the whole series to a higher level for me. I wrote some stuff about it on evilbrainjono.net if anybody wants to take a read.
Re: (Jono here)
Harry as a 7th Horcrux was pretty much a given, so I wasn't really moved by that relevation. I did like Harry's walk to death, though. That was very well executed (no pun intended). All in all, there were some *great* scenes in the final chapters of the book.
I think the book definitely tied the series together, and is a worthy conclusion to the series. As far as elevating it to another level? I'm not sure. Writing-wise, no. Thematically, maybe. The themes of love/courage/sacrifice for friends and family were definitely there, as well as distrust of power/institutions/human nature. But I feel that these were there before. Book 7 just pulled all the previous themes into a neat package. I especially loved the Totalitarian regime bits. (The newspapers, the Wandless, the investigators and the Mudblood accusations, etc.)
Favorite character cameos: Umbrage, Krum, and Lee Jordan.
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I thought that the epilogue was unnecessary as well. I couldn't get the names straight, everyone was acting like idiots—--it was all around crappy. In my mind, the epilogue is not cannon. ;-)
I also wanted more about what happened to the beings who do not bear wands. Was Voldemort's destruction only good for the Wizards and Muggles? Does it just go back to the status quo? Or are things better for the goblins and elves and giants...
JK doesn't really do romance very well, imo. That's cool by me, because I don't like reading romance. I like to see them kiss, (maybe a little groping), and then on to more drama.
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I feel like the romantic tension between Harry and Cho was quite well-done. I feel a lot of the later romances fall under the same Plot Development problem as many things in the later books. It felt like JK looked at her Master Outline and said, "oop! They're supposed to be in love now!" And suddenly the relationship appears, fully formed. Like before book 6, there was totally no hint of a relationship between *any* of the major pairings. Just like, "oop! Harry's supposed to save the day now!" And he suddenly matures for the next 2 hours/days/weeks. And "opp! They're supposed to die now!" And they just kinda ... die.
But really, I'm just quibbling over minor stuff. Overall, I felt it a worthy end to the series.
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Pissy-Harry is better than Frodo-Harry, I figured its the Voldemort in him :P I always felt insta-maturity was Harry's trademark, like he goes takes a shot of speed and he's an adult. I think its supposed to be that "power is thrust upon you" speech which I find cheesy, but then its all about the cheese. Speaking of which, there was waaaaaay too much implied in the white room, and I kinda wanted Harry to pull a Vanyel :P I guess he's too young for that.
Epilogue felt like it was there to say, "NO MORE BOOKS!" without revealing anything.
oh and I super<3 Snape (I'm such a sucker for the evil ones with soft hearts)
<3 Grawp, house-elves being random, muggle world, and Neville (was always rooting for him to be the real chosen one)
Overall good book, I was worried it was going to be a bit like 4 with so many horcruxes, but being outside of hogwarts gave it a breath of fresh air. and yes it does seem more cinematic.
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- Book 4 Goblet of Fire, totally had Invisibility Cloak as a major element, and that cloak was *the same* has Harry's, and was used to hide Bartius Croach?? Jr for, 15 years. And now Harry's is suddenly speshul?
- Elder Wand. "If Harry dies a natural death no one can take it"? wtf? He just proved that you only needed to *defeat* the wizard to claim their wand, not kill them. Instead you have wands magically knowing who defeated whom?
Hahahahaha, the whole Dumbledore "Power" Speech was absolutely hilarious. It was one of those moments where I was like, "Oh wait, I'm reading a kids book." And then "But wait, I've read other young adult fiction with a much more complex messages about power and heroism and the role of individual action and the power of love and courage."
The white room? You mean King's Cross? Mmm... thanks for reminding me of Vanyel. He was hawt. And his angst was hawt, too. Mmmm mmmm mmm... (Even if I go back and I'm like, omg the writing is so melodramatic it pains me)
Much Snape-love. I think my fav characters in the series were probably Snape and Neville. Although Ron comes a close third. Maybe because they have led hard lives, and yet struggle through and come out stronger in the end. I really really wish that Snape got more screen-time, though. I wanted to see him in action more!! Ah, the Snape-angst of being so good while having to appear so evil! <3
I was so happy for Neville when he pulled out the Sword of Gryffindor. I was like, you go, Neville!! You totally deserve it! Also felt the same when Ron saved Harry and stabbed the locket.
Being outside Hogwarts was good, but I felt it also lagged in the middle where they were wandering in the wild for, like, 100 pages. Seriously. I could have flipped to the middle of the book and not missed much. (I feel the same about book 5 and 6, as well.) I guess there's the point to be made that adventuring can often be boring and full of dead-ends, but surely there was a way to make it better? (I started wondering how Hermione managed to know so many desolate places to hide. I thought you could only apparate to places you've seen?)
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