HP7: Not spoilerable

I read HP7 last night. I liked it.

One thing I did not like about it had to do with Lily, Harry’s mother. I wished for more from Draco, but recognize that his role became a lot smaller and less pivotal as of HP6. [Edit to add: I re-read it, and my complaint is not as serious as I had thought.]

It had a mostly-satisfying conclusion. It mapped easily to the archetype epic story, and wrapped up nicely.

Dumbledore made mistakes, and that was a nice change from the infallible mentor archetype. Voldemort delivers on his promise of being the super bad baddie. A lot of the worst violence and abuse takes place off-screen (very important in a children’s/YA book), but the book doesn’t pull a lot of punches. There is humor in it– appropriate humor, and much needed. I love the Weasleys, for they are unselfish in their gifts. I love Neville Longbottom, for he is, in some ways, the most courageous person in the book. I love Granny Longbottom, because you can see where Neville gets it– heavens, why wasn’t she the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts for all those years?

I can, still, rather do without Ginny. No offense to all the Ginny shippers and lovers, but I just don’t see the appeal.

I still love Harry, the way all of us who fell in love with that lost, bespectacled eleven year old boy will always love him and ache for him and his desperate wish to have a real family that loves him.

I was surprised by the epilogue chapter. I did not expect that. I suspect it was largely there to help the fanficcers.

I don’t want to post more here, because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who actually plans to read it. It’s worth reading, very much so, and I wish I had time right now to go and re-read the whole series. But I will get to that some other time, I suspect.

2 thoughts on “HP7: Not spoilerable

  1. Enjoyed HP&DH too.

    I was impressed that she could sustain that long of an action sequence at the end and that the endings rang true for each character (on the whole).

    I think I was most impressed in the end by both Harry and Snape. Snape just impressed me as being a complex character who’s internal contradictions made him into what he was. And, as Dumbledore likes to say, it’s Harry’s choices that make him remarkable.

    My only complaints:
    * Was it just me, or did things get just a bit too confusing at the end?
    * The evil characters stopped being interesting. Tom Riddle was fascinating; Voldemort wasn’t in the end. The Malfoys just stopped making sense to me. And why would anyone follow Voldemort anyway?
    * Harry, Ron, and Hermione sure seemed to have convenient exits from all their pickles, didn’t they? (Butcha gotta love the escape from Gringotts!)
    * Unlike in earlier books, where characters were properly mourned (and the mourning added great depth to the books), lots of key figures and pets die with very little commentary or reaction. Whoops there goes an other dead character…
    * The epilog really stinks. Worse than the Battle of the Shire in LOTR.

    But having complained, I really have to hand it to JKR. Imagine if she had chosen the Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys routine–dozens of variations on the earliest novels, no character development, no attempt to examine all the different forms of good and evil, no sustained character development, and, as much as anything else, none of the humor. WOW!

  2. I have to agree with Tim, it got a little too confusing at the end. Likely my own faul t since I haven’t reread any of the books, but I had trouble keeping the minor characters straight.

    And the epilogue, yeech. As I defined to a friend, “yeech” is worse than “yuck”. I’ve advised friends still reading to skip it since to me, that tainted Potter.

    JKR did do a wonderful job with it. I wasn’t obsessed, but I’ll miss Potter.

Comments are closed.