It’s Time to Ponder Potter…
I’m sure that some of you must have finished the final Harry Potter book by now, and I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I devoured it on Saturday. I’m ready to talk about it and start discussing what I liked, didn’t like, and what I’d have rather seen. Obviously, spoilers abound.
Also: speaking of spoiled discussions, I thought I’d set up some links to other HP discussions:
Thinking Girl’s discussion of book 7 as well as her discussion of the books in general and of the fifth movie
My discussion of species in the books
Mark, at Kaedrin, is liveblogging his way through the book. Here’s part one. Part’s two and three are up, too.
Feministe readers discussing the book.
Now, onward!
As I said, I read the book on Saturday- I started in the morning and finished sometime after dinner. Generally speaking, I’m very pleased with the book. I think that it does a good job wrapping a lot of the story threads up, and I got a strong sense that she had a lot of these things planned out from the first or second book, which is nice. This is a long story, and she’s been working on it a long time, so it’s nice to feel like there’s a strong sense of continuity there- that she wasn’t just ad-libbing the whole thing.
I do think that the book sort of falters at a few points. In particularly, the initial journey, where they’re looking for the horcruxes, felt really awkwardly paced, to me. It was sort of the low point of the book, and while I appreciate what she was trying to get across, it didn’t really work for me. It felt… well… awkward. Still, following so closely on the heels of Harry’s escape from the Dursey home and the wedding, it can be forgiven. Both of those two scenes were fantastic. The Seven Potters thing was a fantastic burst of excitement, and was quite a surprise- to lose Hedwig and Madeye so soon into the story was both surprising and exciting. It definitely gave me a sense of “Wow, she’s not holding anything back here!”
I’m not going to rail on about my disappointment with her treatment of magical being here- I linked to that above. Suffice to say, I was unhappy with the lack of closure regarding the treatment of goblins, centaurs, and house elves. Very disappointed.
One thing I really liked, was how well this book fleshed out Snape and Dumbledore. It was nice to see other sides to their characters. It also makes a lot of things from the ealier books make more sense. I appreciate seeing a murkier side of Dumbledore, who just seemed too kind and pure before, and to see a less evil side of Snape (who I knew couldn’t really be evil). Also, the details surrounding the death of Dumbledore was even more excellently explained than I could have hoped. Honestly, that might be one of my favorite moments in the book- what a brilliant explanation.
I, like many others, found the epilogue really unsatisfying. Ultimately, I would rather have had the book end with, say, Harry and Ginny embracing after the battle, or perhaps after a funeral scene for their fallen friends and loved ones. The deaths that happened during the final showdown seemed… well… really rushed. Lupin and Tonks deaths didn’t really hit me at all, which was particularly disappointing, given how wonderfully done Dobbie’s death was. The whole “Oh, look, they lived happily ever after” bit was just… meh. Annoying and unnecessary. I know that it was supposed to bring us full circle back to the first book, but it didn’t work for me.
Another thing that I was a little annoyed with was the lack of closure regarding Harry’s aunt. Several times throughout the books, there have been moments where it seemed like Petunia had something she wanted to say to Harry. Whatever it was, it’s never said, and we’re left with this feeling that Harry’s aunt had deeper feelings for him than she let on in front of her husband.
I had a few other quibbles with the book, but, lest you get the impression that I didn’t like it, I feel like I should reiterate- it was awesome. I devoured it, and I’m a little sad to see that it’s all over now. I thought that the HP books were a lot of fun. I’m interested ot hear what other people are thinking of this one.
