Okay, I’ve waited long enough!! Time to detail some of my thoughts on the conclusion to Harry Potter. So, first, a warning: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED THE BOOK!!! This is an excellent book and I would hate it if I spoiled it for you. So consider yourself warned. That said, it isn’t the point of this blog entry to spoil the ending – but I have to spoil some things in order to give my opinion.
Also, before I go on, I’d just like to point out that I am NOT familiar with all the details behind the making of Harry Potter since I purposely avoided them so I wouldn’t spoil the ending for myself in any way. Now that the books are over, of course, I may go back and read about the mythology that influenced aspects of HP and how Rowling came to write it. As of now, I only know what I’ve heard from my friends.
Okay, and here we go:
I think it is interesting that so many online theories were right, yet none to my (limited) knowledge had quite grasped the scope of what the last Harry Potter book would be. The way love and friendship formed this book is incredible, as so many things seemed to come together because of those themes.
Harry was the last Horcrux indeed, but what implications did that have? Well, that resulted in one chapter that I cried my way through as he marched to his death – I wanted to hope that he would live, I wanted him to use the Hallows to conquer death, but I knew he shouldn’t – and love saved him…
As for the Horcruxes, let’s see… Dumbledore destroyed the ring. Ron destroyed the locket. Crabbe indirectly destroyed the diadem. Hermione destroyed the goblet. Neville killed Nagini. Harry got rid of the diary. And Voldemort obliterated the piece that was inside Harry. Theme: Teamwork! Even Voldemort lended a hand in his own destruction.
SNAPE. I knew it! I knew that if I just had faith in him, he would turn out to be all right. This, of course, returns to the theme of love as an all-conquering force. Without love, Snape might have ended up like Voldemort – a cruel, twisted being. The irony, though, is that fanfiction was right – Snape DID love Lily! How amazing is that? Also, I feel that Harry’s dad in the end did turn out to be rather arrogant. I’m still interested in learning what Lily saw in him (I know he was also an awesome Gryffindor guy), but I suppose it was like how Ron and Hermione ended up together. And Sirius, ah, Sirius…I wish they had picked a more compelling actor to play him in the movies…I always thought he was HOT and turns out he was cool even as a child…but back to Snape.
What a horrible way for Snape to die, although it did seem quick. I suppose he was on the verge of going off to find Harry in the battle and deliver Dumbledore’s message when Voldemort decided to kill him. I wonder how that would have turned out – if Snape had tried to help Harry in the midst of battle, Harry would probably not have listened… I was never a Snape-lover but I think he was one of the series’ most compelling characters – a traitor to Voldemort (which was awesome) yet misunderstood – on purpose, since he didn’t want others to know the “good” parts about him, as Dumbledore realized.
NEVILLE. Although this was not in my previously-posted prediction, my friends and I had agreed that Neville would be playing a larger part this time around, and he most certainly did! Heading Dumbledore’s Army as part of a mini triumvirate, and then slaying Nagini – Neville’s the man! The fact that his grandmother turned up was too good to be true; I’m really fond of her.
Okay, and the heartbreaking deaths. That Dobby died – that had me on the verge of tears, especially the sweet message Harry wrote on his “tombstone.” (Also, I nearly cried when Harry was reading the messages of encouragement on the sign outside his parents’ former house.) Hedwig died, which was sad, but…well, Hedwig is a bird. Mad-Eye Moody’s death didn’t bother me too much – he was a battle-hardened, badass kind of guy, and I figured he wouldn’t mind dying that way, though it made me sick that Umbridge had his eyeball placed in her office door. But Fred…ah, Fred! George wasn’t even mentioned in the epilogue – how did he cope with his twin dying? That had me in tears as well – it’s hard when happy people die – and once again, Fred died like Sirius and Cedric did – suddenly and irreversibly. Tonks and Lupin – that was a little hard to believe since we didn’t see them die, but it was also hard to swallow because they’d just had a son. If Harry had died, I imagined little Teddy growing up like Harry – without parents…and without even his godfather to protect him.
That said, the epilogue… Unnecessary, I’d say. I enjoyed the closure and having it confirmed that HarryXGinny and RonXHermione would work out, but I think that if some hints had been thrown into the main section of the book, the epilogue would have been unnecessary. And come on, “All was well”? As I said before – what happened to George – earless and without his best friend/twin brother? And what of Mrs. Weasley – having lost her son? At least Percy came back to the family before Fred died; I was very glad for that.
Several times, I could sense the tide changing. I would reach a certain paragraph and be overcome by the certainty that something was going to change in the plot, and everything I had believed before would be framed differently. For example, when Snape’s past was revealed. And when it became clear that Harry had to die. I think that was the most excellently written part of the book – Harry’s “last moments.” I felt like Rowling was telling us to value life without being didactic. And boy, did I cry through that. Even though I’ve insisted for so long that Ron was my favorite, despite his temper tantrums, I realized that if Harry died, I wouldn’t be able to bear it (and neither would Rowling, I’m sure). And it isn’t just because he’s the “hero” – it’s because after seven books, Harry’s become like someone I know. We’ve been with Harry through so many hardships, it seemed a shame to have to say goodbye to him before Voldemort had died. The chapter following his “death” reminded me of Advent Children – after Cloud “dies” he finds himself in a white space, with Aerith and Kadaj speaking to him, and then he’s sent back to the world.
Some parts of this book also reminded me of other fantasy stories. For example, Garth Nix’s Sabriel. At the end of Sabriel, the battle goes to her school, where she loses classmates and teachers. Similarly, HP’s battle goes to Hogwarts. I don’t remember any teachers dying, but we do lose classmates, and the pain is even greater since we’ve seen these kids for longer – I mean, come on, Colin dies! In addition, the mention of Spaghetti bolognese in the early chapters reminded me of Uglies (SpagBol!) but I don’t think that was intentional. Eew…SpagBol… And when Hagrid carries the supposedly-dead Harry, I remembered Aragorn carrying Frodo in the LOTR books, thinking he had died.
Also, a note on Expelliarmus. I am so glad Harry used it again! Already he’d used Unforgivable Curses like Imperio and Crucio (which I think was used at EXACTLY the right moment), and I was worried that he’d do Avada Kedavra but he did not – Voldemort totally killed himself. That was quite brilliant, even though Harry had been warned not to make Expelliarmus his trademark. And hadn’t he used it in the cemetary after Cedric died?
There were a few things I didn’t quite believe. For example, although it was magic, I couldn’t quite understand how the Deluminator worked; it seemed to do far too many things for just one “lighter,” and I wished Ron had used that walkie-talkie-like function again so it would be easier to believe (and he couldn’t use it to escape the cellar at Malfoys’ and go to Hermione?). Also, the storming of Gringotts seemed much too simple. So much time was spent planning it, but it didn’t seem like they needed that much time to pull off such a short raid on the vault, especially since they never planned an escape. I did like the way the gold multiplied and burned, though – thieves are killed by their own greed! Though what good is a blind dragon for guarding your gold? I don’t think Smaug was blind, was he? Lastly, Hermione was tortured, but later she seemed fine. No mention was made of it later at all. Even Ollivander seemed all right, or at least getting there. I think, all in all, wizards’ idea of torture is a lot milder than the United States’. Even Avada Kedavra provides a nice, instant death.
Those are my thoughts for now. Feel free to comment. I will probably update this entry in the future as more things occur to me. After all, I loved this book!! (Snape forever! And Sirius! But most importantly, Harry Potter!!)
