I really enjoyed it. I thought she did a nice job of pacing, and the section with Harry marching to his death flanked by the ghosts of the people who had given up their lives for him was very touching, very well written. I thought it was a very fitting conclusion to the series.

Rowling is no Shakespeare. That's for sure.

In general, I wasn't offended by the book as you were. The biggest problem for me was that the final outcome of the book was determined not by bravery, not by superior wit, intelligence, or planning, not by the ability to love (or the lack thereof), but by pure dumb luck.

Geez, PaulB, I have to wonder what you WOULD consider brave?

re: quantity of writing -
I'm troubled that she's pretty much on track to be the next L. Ron Hubbard. (if you've read Battlefield Earth, you know what I mean).

I mean, given the level of hype, and the supernatural overtones, and the sheer numbers of potential initial converts, it's kind of scary when you think about it.

All the books have the same structure -- Harry stumbling around not really knowing what's going on, then some big action and revelations at the end. Basically, Harry is either "lucky" or is "the chosen one".

I kind of liked it. I wish Hermione's incredibly superior knowledge actually meant something crucial to the story, though, instead of just being one of those personality quirks. Shouldn't she be a professor at Hogwarts afterwards?

I think you're missing the subtle points.

The book makes clear that Harry could not have gotten into Gringotts without a goblin's help. Normally this would not have been available, but Voldemort had pissed them off.

Likewise, the whole series takes pains to point out that Voldemort is very overconfident and makes stupid mistakes - pissing off goblins, not putting alarms on his Horcruxes, believing Snape, etc.

And Dumbledore is contemptible - he himself admits it at the end.

Harry did use his wits. He deduced two of the Horcrux locations, how to get the Resurrection Stone, and why he had mastered the Elder Wand. In any case, the book's whole theme is that Harry is no match for Voldemort in magical ability. It is his integrity and courage, not his power, that wins.

In any case, the judge of a book for most people isn't its plausibility, but on how feverishly it makes you turn its pages. I stayed up till 4 am to finish the book, something I haven't done in many years (and not for any previous Harry Potter title). I'd judge it the best of the seven books.

I'd agree that books 5 and 6 were too long, but not 7 - if anything, I thought the epilogue too short, and more what-happens-to details would have been nice. What happened to Luna, for instance, or Kreacher? Why weren't the Malfoys punished in any way? I guess you can't have everything.

The other thing that niggled at me about the book was that the subject of whether Snape was good or evil was a major plot point in every single book in the series. I had assumed that the outcome of the final book would hinge on this plot point in some way -- e.g., Harry would have to defeat Snape in order to get the weapon to defeat Voldemort or Snape would give his life so that Harry could defeat Voldemort or some such thing. Instead, the point just kind of got pissed away in a disappointing anti-climax.

Don't you think that the final showdown was kind of, oh, legalistic? Voldemort's wand didn't work against Harry because V. had mistaken the true chain of possession and provenance?

Admittedly, that got around the problem that Harry was still a pretty junior wizard with limited skills.

[Enough already. Even if parody it is soooo stale.]

"Geez, PaulB, I have to wonder what you WOULD consider brave?"

You missed my point. Yes, it was brave that Harry showed up for the final battle, but the outcome of the battle was still determined by pure dumb luck alone.

Somewhat OT. We took the kids to see Order of the Phoenix yesterday. While I like bits, the movie was too short by at least 30 minutes (for a 700 page source, the movie was like a mad dash that would have left any non-readers completely in the dark), and I've decided that, though we've now actually had the same locations for the last two (three?) movies (except for the crappy foley they used for Hogsmead), they've gone all cheap on the "franchise" by relying too much on CGI and not enough of what they used to call "visual effects." For example, where in the book does it describe wizards whooshing around like so many ghosts as they do during the climatic battle in the Ministry of Mysteries?

. . . and as far as cutting Rowling slack because it's a kid's book?

Please.

Look at the engineering and technology and thought and planning that goes into simple "kid's entertainment" like a Disneyland attraction.

I didn't read #7 yet (and I'm not at all concerned about plot spoilers) - and; I didn't really expect a whole lot after #1, but I expected a lot more than I got. What I think I got was from an author that got paid in advance for a multi-book deal that sold based on hype and promotion, and she didn't put her whole effort into 2-6. In fact, I became really disappointed by 5, and 6, to the point of not giving a crap anymore.

"it's just a kid's book" and "look at all the kids she got to read" are cop outs.

And Dumbledore is contemptible - he himself admits it at the end.

Another reason to have had Peter O'Toole as the replacement movie Dumbledore. He did this bit in Lawrence, as a youngish man, and in My Favorite Year as an old man. In between, he did it in The Stunt Man.

No one does it better.

Wow, anyone who tries to compare Umbridge to the Democrats is really making a reach! Pro-fascist, anti-intellectual, pro-torture... That sounds like some party I'm familiar with, but it sure as all heck ain't the Democrats!

I'm a huge fan and was very disappointed for many of the same reasons you mention here. I thought the book chickened out and killed off a lot of relatively inconsequential people (I thought at least two of the three main characters would be offed). We saw or heard almost nothing of the doomed characters before their deaths, which meant it didn't really hit me emotionally. (Snape, for instance, has very few lines before he's killed. Fred and George, while great characters as a pair, are inherently interchangeable, and we won't miss one.)

The plot was thin, as you mention, Kevin, and Harry's resurrection made absolutely no sense to me. Suddenly, poof, the horcrux on Harry just disappears and he can come back to life?!? Wha??? That whole section is contrived beyond belief. There were several good parts, such as the battle at hogwarts prior to Harry's death. But too few of them if you ask me. Books four and five are still the best, IMO.

I'm with Kevin and others I think in rejecting the line that because--in real and important ways--there are better, nobler, finer, greater, what have you works of creative imagination than the Potter books (or other works of genre fiction) there is something wicked or bad about reading them. The idea that the time would be better better spent reading Rilke or something seems to me to reflect a completely mad view of what it's like to be a reader. There is nothing wicked about the pleasure the Harry Potter books give and nothing about it that will prevent people from reading other and in some ways better books. But the enormous success enjoyed by the books does raise the question whether their quality as examples of the form to which they belong is in proportion to that success. Though I haven't read as many as Kevin, I'm also with him about the somewhat windy, mechanical character that takes over as stock situations repeat and the language grows tired and repetitive. There are books in the same genre that are, in my judgment more magical, more artful, more memorable. Mind you, the complaint isn't that J.K. Rowling isn't Shakespeare, but rather that she isn't say Ursula LeGuin or Arthur Conan Doyle or or ... (which isn't to say that she isn't pretty good).

Harry Potter is a bunch of drivel-dravel. I prefer my literature to be randomly generated so that I may confound my critics and earn tenure because no one knows or cares what I talk about.

Sorry, Kevin, I don't agree. His plan was to find and destroy the Horcruxes. Tyrone was right--Harry was making it up as he went along, but did do a huge amount of sleuthing and figuring out along the way to find the Horcruxes. Furthermore, I totally disagree that Hermione's wits were wasted. If it weren't for her quick thinking and deep knowledge of witchcraft/wizardry (gained from tremendous study, and certainly "deep" for a 17-year-old), Harry would have been killed at least three separate times. But her brains pulled them all out of danger quite often.

But yeah, why isn't she Headmistress of Hogwarts at the end? That's a good question. Maybe she's Minister of Magic, or on track for it. (She'd be great in Arthur Weasley's job--she's Muggle-born.)

As for stealing into the Ministry without much of a plan, do you remember how you thought when you were 17? It's a rare, rare teenager who thinks that much ahead. Not all of Harry's personality is incredibly extraordinary; much of him is pretty normal. That is, in fact, why people identify with him so much: most of his personality is normal. So that he made it up as he went along...I buy it.

I found the book really, deeply satisfying. And I just didn't care about page length, the fact that most of it doesn't take place at Hogwarts, or any of the other cavils I've heard or read.

Kevin,

You missed the point about how arrogance can breed incompetence. Or perhaps Voldemort's hubris led to his downfall. Voldemort was an evil, powerful bastard- that didn't make him infallible. At the risk of invoking Godwin's law, let's look at the history's greatest monsters, they aren't necessarily super geniuses.

I thought Book 5 really caught adolescence the right way, but that didn't mean it was fun to read. Book 6 was much better than you give it credit for, and I agree with you that the squabbling in Book 7 was way overdone.

There can be lots of criticisms leveled at the books, but I think you have missed a lot of the little things. I compare the crazy escapades in the books (like the Gringott's robbery) to action movie-style "let's wing it!" plans- those scenes are very very Star Wars/bad western type adventure. Very appropriate for kid's books.

And finally, yes, the deaths just seemed to roll on by. I believe that she utilized many B-character deaths to enable survival of all the big three A characters.

Just to keep going... There seemed to be a lot of loose ends or plot gaps as well. I mean, why did Dumbledore leave Hermione the book of children's stories? Was that Rowling's homage to herself? Hermione didn't even use it-- Luna's dad ends up explaining everything anyway.

Or was the online version different than the book that arrived in my mailbox Saturday?

The main reason, I think, is that Harry himself is a complete nonentity in this book. He has no idea what to do, no plan for doing it, and is merely a prisoner of events throughout the whole thing.

Yes! That's what Hogwarts needs! A policy wonk.

I really enjoyed the last book (even though I only skimmed books 5&6). This one I read in one sitting. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the whole rip off of the CHronicles of Narnia though. At the end of The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe Aslan sacrifices himself to the witch willingly. Everyone thinks he is dead and a huge battle between good and evil erupts. Aslan then comes back to life because the witch was unaware of the "deep magic" that made sacrifice more powerful than evil. The whole Dumbledore line about Voldemort not understanding the "magic of elves, and children, and fairy tales" (paraphrase). Harry's faux death is an exact parallel to Aslan's.

So... what's a bookstop? Is it a doorstop used as a bookend, or a bookend used as a doorstop?

PaulB: I agree about the Snape ending. One way or another it should have been a big deal, but instead he just gets suddenly killed by a snake and that's that. It really needed more.

I thought you would reveal that reveal that the whole series turns out to be just a dream and that Harry is really just an 11-year old girl from Baltimore.

mattstan: Right you are. Doorstop. Not sure what I was thinking there.

I really liked the seventh book and think Jo Rawlings deserves every penny she's gotten (and quite a few from myself). I toiled in the fields of academic literature in the 70s and 80s and got out because those people really don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. Meanwhile the capitalists that run the publishing world have made Grisham into a god. But, god love em, the children of the world made Jo Rawlings the richest woman in the U.K. strictly because they liked the story. What else matters? What a world we live in. Whiners and enviers at every turn. Just be glad people like Rawlings still get published occasionally and make a few hundred million people happy, while still being literate and ethical. Jeez. I can't find my knees.

Teresa: I noticed the "deep magic" thing too, and didn't much care for it since it was just tossed off without even a pretense at explanation. Also, lots of Star Wars inspirations throughout the series, it seemed to me.

I really enjoyed it, but it takes some restraint to not pick it apart when there are so many flaws. I can't expect perfection, though, and nothing really threw me out of the experience.

Tyrone: A lot of stuff gets tied together in the book, and some of it is ingenious. Harry as the seventh horcrux was good, though I didn't really warm to the semi-dream sequence at the end.

But as for Harry et. al. using their wits, I dunno. Finding the locket was nothing more than a long series of astounding coincidences, and I still don't know how they deduced that the cup was in Bellatrix's vault. That just came out of nowhere.

Now, I'm not a billionaire book writer, so who cares what I think? But I think the whole thing would have been better if Dumbledore had left some plausible clues to the horcruxes and the kids had then tracked them down in some kind of more motivated way. As it was, they just flitted from place to place for several months and occasionally stumbled onto things.

I hope I'm not making it out as though I hated the book, though. I didn't. But I did find my interest flagging because the plot seemed so unmotivated and the reveals seemed a little too ordinary. Aside from Dumbledore turning out to be a bit of a dick, there wasn't much in the book that came as a surprise.

I'm switching sides. I'm now waiting for the Hobbits to kill Harry, et al. Better yet, how about Mutually Assured Destruction?

I was far more enthusiastic when Stephen King finished his Dark Tower Series. It's just better story...

I'm not saying that her books are horrible-bad; obviously, they're very popular. But, I'm just sick of people giving her a free pass on some obvious stuff on the basis that "they're just kids books".

I was surprised at how much of a bloodbath it was. Yes, no first line character was killed, but Fred and Mad-Eye made for fun reading and laughs. I have to admit my heart sank a bit when I thought Hagrid was finally going to succumb to his blind trust of the good will of animals.

I do agree with Kevin that a bit of fat could have been cut. Did they really need to spend months wandering the countryside?

"and I still don't know how they deduced that the cup was in Bellatrix's vault. That just came out of nowhere."

Not quite. They knew that one of the horcruxes had been entrusted to a lieutenant of Voldemort's (Lucius Malfoy, with the Riddle Diary), so it was not unreasonable to wonder whether Voldemort had placed another with one of his other lieutenants.

What got Harry's attention was Bellatrix's massive overreaction to the discovery that they had Gryffindor's sword -- telling Lucius to not summon Voldemort until they had investigated further. "STOP!" shrieked Bellatrix. "Do not touch [your mark]; we shall all perish if the Dark Lord comes now!" This was immediately after they had been fighting over just who was going to summon Voldemort first, so as to take credit for Potter's capture.

Other comments from Bellatrix in that scene included: "Be quiet! The situation is graver than you can possibly imagine, Cissy! We have a very serious problem." ... "But if he finds out ... I must ... I must know...." ... "What else did you take? What else have you got? Tell me the truth or, I swear, I shall run you through with this knife!"

Bellatrix assumed that her vault had been broken open when she saw the sword. And if Voldemort saw that, he'd be wondering about the safety of his horcrux and the trustworthiness of his lieutenant. Given Voldemort's dissatisfaction with the Malfoy family, in general, Bellatrix knew that he could quite easily just kill them all and then take the horcrux and hide it in a safer place.

Potter reasoned that the only thing that could possibly cause Bellatrix that much anguish was that she had the horcrux and that it was in her vault.

. .. in fact, yeah, I would have liked her to develop the character of Snape a lot more, because he occupied a very interesting dynamic in the main character's life. I would also have liked to have seen more hay made of the point that Riddle was a Mudblood, and was really just using the Purebloods' racism as a political tool - that would be a GREAT theme that I'd be really happy to have 100 million kids reading (and thinking) about.

I think most people who didn't like the book were disappointed more that it didn't conform to their expectations than that there were problems with the book. Not that there weren't problems...just that most of the complaints I've heard/read seem to be in that vein of "Now, if I had written it,..."

My only real problem with the book, oddly enough, is with the very last paragraph. It seems to me to be clearly inplying that something is soon to happen to change the wizarding world to some extent, the rise of another dark wizard (or, more ludicrously, given what happens in HPVII, the return of Lord V.). I find it a bit unsettling, and, given that they are the final words in the book, leave me with a bit of a sour aftertaste.

Just a bit, though. Apart from that, I found most of the resolutions appropriate, and I thought that Snape's end, in particular, was a nice twist from what most people would have expected. I'd give it a strong B+.

I agree that the sleuthing aspect wasn't the strongest. JKR just doesn't think that way I guess. Lots of overheard conversations and happening to choose the right person to polyjuice and improbable coincidences. But that has never been the strength of the series. E.g., the crux of The Goblet of Fire made no sense at all.

I also agree that once JKR got Too Big to Edit, her books lost something. They are too long and repetitive, and the logic doesn't quite work. In my opinion, her very best was the third book.

But still. I enjoyed the series immensely and this last book very much. I like to spend time in her world, with her characters. The story is fun and exciting. I can't think of all that many writers who have more going for them in those ways.

I mean, why did Dumbledore leave Hermione the book of children's stories?

Because she didn't know the story of the Deathly Hallows that all of the wizard children (like Ron) learned at their mother's knee. And the Deathly Hallows are vitally important to the plot -- that's why they're IN THE TITLE OF THE BOOK.

I'm really starting to wonder if a lot of people in this thread actually read the book or just skimmed it, because all of these "questions" are answered in the book. She doesn't sit down and say, "Now, Dumbledore gave Hermione the book BECAUSE ..." but if you need your hand held to that extent, children's literature may be a bit above your head.

I was really tempted to skim through parts but I wasn't really sure how. I had to groan when Harry started picking up newspapers and we had to read snippets of articles for five pages.

I do think the books are meant as an endurance exercize. Exciting enough to keep kids reading but lengthy enough to provide areobic exercize for their eyes, brains, and forearms.

Snape's death was abrupt, but I didn't find it pointless - here's one explanation.

Teresa and Kevin got it -- the battle of Hogwarts owes a lot to the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (which was the length of a chapter in Hallows).

But the deep magic that CS Lewis wrote was explicitly intended to BE the Christ story, all inverted and altered into the story of Aslan so that kids would read the sacrifice fresh, to get the Christian essence "past the watchful dragons" of a kid's consciousness -- which would necessarily see the actual Biblical story as Why We Have to Get Dressed Up on Sunday. Lewis wrote Narnia largely cuz he felt that kids all knew the Christ story and it bored and alienated them. Why not tell it as a fairy tale with talking animals?

Any number of people pointed out that Narnia looks remarkably like a view of the British vs. the Ottoman Empire (Calormen) and Islam (Tash), told from the perspective of a kid in the last days of its glory. Likewise, Star Wars was basically the fall of the Roman republic and old-fashioned Westerns (with the original weapons, Japanese swords) told in space. It's not like there are a lot of genuinely NEW characters or stories -- I bet Sigourney Weaver wasn't the first to say "get away from her you BITCH!", before Mrs. Weasley says much the same.

But, so what? There's plenty in the Potter books that's new and original and very good. (Who among us hasn't wanted a Pensieve?) It's got some wicked insights, too.

That's going to be part of the lasting charm of the Potter series, I predict: it's a magical version of life under occupation, told after the liberation but when the bad guys may (and do) return -- who collaborated, who resisted; the sacred FUN of a school -- within the whole Joseph Campbell shtick of a coming of age/lost prince/sacrifice and redemption saga.

Besides: who can doubt Bush got sorted to Slytherin?

Just two points to add to the general disagreement with Kevin (Sorry KD). First, the fact that Harry survived Voldemort's attack, free of the Horcrux is the payoff for a very carefully planted seed in book 4 - where Dumbledore is described as having a look of triumph or elation when Harry describes how Voldemort put some of Harry's Blood in the vile brew. Three books later, we learn that look was caused by the first glimmer of hope that Harry might actually survive. See Kevin, what you really needed was two youngish kids who could listen to you read the Harry Potter Books and listen to them on tape over and over and over until you know every single word. (Literally. I actually used to know the few spots in the first book where the reader, Jim Dale, accidently substituted a minor variation of a word or two.)

And second, the whole Snape ending was very satisfying. If he had died battling Voldemort or saving Harry it would have been melodramatic (this of course being a major concern in a book where giant spiders are used as weapons). Instead we span an arc from an eleven year old point of view (the incredibly mean teacher who endlessly picks on him for no reason) to the young teenage one (the teacher twisted by the fact that Harry's father humiliated and picked on him, and now, indefensibly, taking it out on the young son) to the final adult perspective (It wasn't just that Harry's father was hated, but that he had stolen away Snapes only love, and that Snape had caused that love's destruction by defects in his own character. It was that he knew those defects painfully well, and recognized and loathed them, and they were cast into brilliant relief by the agonizing reminder of James' physical love of Lilly: Harry.)

Harry had no plan? Sounds like a certain chief executive we all know....

I agree with your comments on brevity, Kevin. The front page of the Wall St. Journal summarizes all of the world's news in one three inch column. Many writers (e.g. Ms. Rowling), many bloggers and many commenters on blogs would do well to follow this example.

Economy in written word is a virtue.

Besides: who can doubt Bush got sorted to Slytherin?

Perfect!

Nah. Bush is Peter Pettigrew, slavishly serving the Dark Lord Cheney.

"As part of my ...blah...blah...into Amerika, ...."

You mean you actually read the comments?

The B- is underrated. That's a good letter grade, especially in challenging courses.

I agree with most of the minor complaints... like the last few books it needed an editor with guts, the plot was driven more by improbable coincidences than sleuthwork, the ending was a little too reminiscent of C.S. Lewis, the dialogue was occasionally cheese-tastic, and the epilogue was cringe-worthy. More Snape and less teenaged bickering would have been nice.

All that said, it was still one hell of a gripping and emotionally powerful story. There were lots of nice touches-- knocking Dumbledore off his pedestal was a particularly effective idea. Nearly all the complaints about "plot holes" that I've seen are the result of people not reading very closely.

I'd agree with the commenter who gave it a strong B+.

PaulB: I agree about the Snape ending. One way or another it should have been a big deal, but instead he just gets suddenly killed by a snake and that's that. It really needed more.

Both of you guys are forgetting something (and I doublechecked it): when Snape is killed, Harry is inside Voldemort's head. In other words, Harry gets exactly what he thinks he wants -- he gets to kill Snape.

And it's meant to be unsatisfying and anti-climactic, because that's what Harry learns about revenge throughout the series.

The elevation of Kingsley Shacklebolt to Minister of Magic was clearly Rowling's endorsement of Obama.

Clearly.

I'm avoiding reading either the post or the comments for fear of learning too much before I read the last book. But I would like to put in my two cents about what I didn't like in the Harry Potter series. What I didn't like was the relationship between wizards and muggles. Being a muggle myself, maybe I'm a little overly sensitive on this topic...

There is this whole hidden society of wizards who keep secret from the rest of the human race, and wield enormous mystical powers. And what do they use these formidable powers for? Making practical jokes. Helping out with household chores. Adding atmospheric effects to important occasions. The only serious applications of magic seem to be to battle against enemy magicians. Why aren't they using their magic to...I don't know, help out the poor muggles, stop wars, protect the environment, etc.? Isn't there some kind of great responsibility that comes with great power?

Second point: The wizards seem for the most part a fun-loving harmless bunch, but ultimately frivolous when not malevolent. But if my kid showed magical talent, the last place I would send him or her is to Hogwarts. They'd be safer going to public school in Bagdad. Kids are constantly dying in Quidditch matches, being threatened by ogres and giant snakes, being petrified, being attacked by dementors, etc.

Third point: I feel that the Dursley's were unfairly treated by the whole series. Yes they were portrayed as despicable and loathesome, but how do we know that's not just anti-muggle revisionism? Throughout the series, I was hoping to discover that the Dursley's actually loved Harry and were heroically working behind the scenes to keep him safe. But the books just don't allow anything good to be said about muggles.

Sure, the books are long, but nobody makes you read them in two days! I quite like good monster novels and long series. The Aubrey/Maturin books are great too. Same with Trollope.

As far as events propelling a character to an outcome, as I've gotten older I'm surprised by how often real life can be that phony. So I withhold judgment on that count.

You can't fight the greatest evil wizard of all time without staggering losses. It could have been worse. I hated to see Remus go, even more than Sirius. And Tonks too! And George without Fred, that's the worst.

This time Hermione stole the show. She cast about a dozen spells I hadn't heard of before. At Xeno's house, blasting a hole in the floor and revealing Harry, that was brilliant. I'm glad to see all that studying paid off.

I couldn't believe Harry, Ron, and Hermione were still getting crabby all the time. Enough! They've been through enough already. They should trust each other by now.

I can't look at the spoilers yet, I'm still reading the book.. but I love the tweaks of the stuffy elitist types who've been so dismayed by the popularity of the books.

It even has some angst. I have no idea what the problem is. I suspect it's the fun factor. They seem like the literary world's version of what H. L. Mencken said about Puritans... they're desperately afraid that somebody, somewhere might be having a good time.

As I mentioned in the previous thread Teresa is dead on about the Narnia connection, but Narnia was pulled from the Gospel. The Gospel story is essentially a retelling of the passover story which echoes the parallel story of human sacrifice is found in the story of Abraham and Isaac. The resurrection story goes back to a similar story in Egyptian mythology. The whole thing goes back to the very beginning of civilization.

In all of these stories the good must be offered up for sacrifice. If the sacrifice is noble the victim does not die.

The reason the story works is because it helps us answer some very, very deep questions about sacrificing for the greater good as opposed to the natural impulse which is self preservation. It is really the core myth that all of us must embrace as we transition from child to parent.

The hero myth is not the same as the coming of age myth in Star Wars. To talk about that myth I will need to channel Joseph Campbell.

Personally, I always envisioned Bush as Crabb or Goyle, a born follower, a stupid and inarticulate bully, just doing what he's told by those more malicious than he.

Wait a minute Kevin - you think Harry Potter gets a bit too much dumb luck, and you are a fan of 24?

Osama-best-forgotten - I didn't read #7 yet (and I'm not at all concerned about plot spoilers) - and; I didn't really expect a whole lot after #1, but I expected a lot more than I got. What I think I got was from an author that got paid in advance for a multi-book deal that sold based on hype and promotion, and she didn't put her whole effort into 2-6. In fact, I became really disappointed by 5, and 6, to the point of not giving a crap anymore.

I couldn't disagree with you more. I'm sorry that you didn't like the later books, but I found them were well-crafted and very long. They were most certainly not the work of a writer just going through the motions.

I found the scene with Snape in the Pensieve (book five) the best in the whole series.

But hey, YMMV. Your bad luck that you don't like strawberry cheesecake.

Daryl,

Why aren't they using their magic to...I don't know, help out the poor muggles, stop wars, protect the environment, etc.?

The wizards need to be there to protect Muggles from magical disturbances, to prevent them from living in a terrifying world of dementors and dark magic. But when they intervene "FOR THE GREATER GOOD," it always ends badly. Anyway, Dumbledore did kind of win World War II, which is sufficient for me.

Kids are constantly dying in Quidditch matches, being threatened by ogres and giant snakes, being petrified, being attacked by dementors, etc.

With magic, most physical damage is completely healable. The dementors aren't really supposed to be hanging out on street corners; that's Voldemort's doing.

Children want to be allowed to run more risks. If Rowling didn't already have enough gold to build a palace, she would deserve some kind of credit for sales of "The Dangerous Book for Boys."

I was hoping to discover that the Dursley's actually loved Harry and were heroically working behind the scenes to keep him safe.

Well, sort of. You'd better just read the last book.

Daryl,

Why aren't they using their magic to...I don't know, help out the poor muggles, stop wars, protect the environment, etc.?

The wizards need to be there to protect Muggles from magical disturbances, to prevent them from living in a terrifying world of dementors and dark magic. But when they intervene "FOR THE GREATER GOOD," it always ends badly. Anyway, Dumbledore did kind of win World War II, which is sufficient for me.

Kids are constantly dying in Quidditch matches, being threatened by ogres and giant snakes, being petrified, being attacked by dementors, etc.

With magic, most physical damage is completely healable. The dementors aren't really supposed to be hanging out on street corners; that's Voldemort's doing.

Children want to be allowed to run more risks. If Rowling didn't already have enough gold to build a palace, she would deserve some kind of credit for sales of "The Dangerous Book for Boys."

I was hoping to discover that the Dursley's actually loved Harry and were heroically working behind the scenes to keep him safe.

Well, sort of. You'd better just read the last book.

Actually, she is me.

And how did the sword get back in the sorting hat when the goblin snagged it back at Gringgots?

Let me clarify that last point. The self sacrifice (or hero) myth doesn't explain the transition from child to adult, it helps with the transition from adolescent to adult. The "journey" or "coming of age myth" is aimed the transition from child to adolescent. That she covered in a previous book.

I think the tale of the Deathly Hollows she introduces in the last book has a chance to become a classic fairy tale. It teaches some other life lessons.

One final thought, Rowling's wizarding world is pretty unaware of the chains of causation that give them their powers. They seem to be genetic. They seem to be utterly clueless about modern human technology. Left to their own devices at some point the humans, with their ever evolving genetic technology, are going to begin to catch up with the wizards. Some human is going to start wondering about the occasional mudblood kid.

It is entirely possible that the death eaters inherent fear of mudbloods has some sort of justification. Depending on the advance of genetics that might be the problem encountered by the next generation of the Potter family.

Damn that's too far into that story for my tastes.

The narrator's voice sounds like Martha Stewart in my mind. Granted she is someone I would want to make love to me, but she not someone I'd like to have talk at me for very long.

In the same vein, doesn't James Joyce sound like Thom York. And Faulkner like Billy Bob Thorton, and Steinbeck like Patrick Fitzgerald?

"And how did the sword get back in the sorting hat when the goblin snagged it back at Gringgots?"
Posted by: beb on July 23, 2007 at 10:26 PM |

Magic.

I don't expect HP to be Shakespeare--Shakespeare wrote poetry and drama. Whenever I read a novel written for the "Young Adult" market, I recall what Henry James said about the novels of Robert Louis Stevenson; that he had written adventure novels that were more than merely adventurous; novels that resonated even to an adult, and that could be expected to resonate deeply in an intelligent child.
Take a look, or another look, at "Kidnapped", or better yet, "David Balfour". You'll be entertained and you'll get a character study as well, and a snapshot of a society being born out of the death of another.

I don't have Book 2 with me, but I recall that a true hero of the House of Gryffindor could pull the sword out of the hat.

Harry found a way for both Neville and Ron to become heroes.

I am sorry that I ever said that Pottermaniacs are mostly morons and former crack babies. The database I was working with had been corrupted.

The rags to riches bit got tired about the time she made more than the Queen.

(I only made about five hundred bucks buying and selling Harry Potter first editions which won't pay my back taxes.)

But here you have this formerly poor woman whose last Harry Potter is going to be a publishing phenomenon almost no matter what she does with it.

I don't know what she has chosen to do with it.

But the measure of a person is what they do once they finally get power; is it at least dark, and understand the world - is it properly cynical? - like Combat Rock, like those Beethoven string quartets (dark applies here, perhaps not cynical).

In the end Ms. Rowling may be more of a publishing phenomenon, more of a businesswoman, more lucky than artist.

Why aren't they using their magic to...I don't know, help out the poor muggles, stop wars, protect the environment, etc.? Isn't there some kind of great responsibility that comes with great power?

One of the central points of the HP books is that having magical powers does not make wizards any less human. Their power is relatively limited (the last book explains why they can't just conjure food out of nowhere, for example), and they are as a group no more noble or farsighted than Muggles... besides, if wizards were busy saving Muggledom from themselves, they'd be more like superheroes than mere magical folk, and JKR would be writing in a completely different genre.

You may want to read Laura Miller's review at Salon (spoilers on second page)-- she really gets this point.

The unintentional (?) chemotherapy metaphor in the cave in book VI is pretty powerful (if you've ever had to feed poison to an incapacitated adult while they struggled to keep from vomiting). Don't see that in many children's books.

It was written after the actor Richard Harris died from Hodgkins disease.

Also, what *did* happen to the Dursleys? They were almost redeemed, then.... nothing.

Can't compete with the horror comics of my youth.

We think of PC as relatively modern, but come to think of it the Comics Code Authority and Eisenhower were of the same time period. Was this the beginning of PC censorship?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_code
The CCA was created in 1954 as part of the CMAA, in response to public concern about what was deemed inappropriate material in many comic books.

I just read the first Potter this winter, when I was bed-bound with the flu and a 102 degree fever. It was absolutely the perfect thing. Engaging but not demanding. I'm not reading any of this post or other comments because I'm getting old and expect to have lots of time available for engaging, but not demanding, books in the future. I don't want you guys to spoil it for me.

Sigh. I think the thing that makes the cover perfect is that Harry is reaching for an unseen Rolex watch against a super-heated atmosphere turned sulphur yellow by ozone decay and trapped sunlight. A new Colosseum ruin surrounds the young wizard as life on earth is reduced to rubble.

I like some of the critiques, and certainly you all have to placate your own taste. This is one commercial immersion that would not be denied. But yowza, what strange behavior does this pride exhibit when confronted by dissent. . .
: )

I, too, was convinced that the deaths were going to be Snape and Neville. Snape was in obvious need of redemption and I was pretty disappointed with the way his part of the story was wrapped up.

This is actually related to the biggest complaint I have about the entire series, namely that so much of the "action" is actually one of four things:
1) Overhearing important conversations that just happen to take place nearby for no good reason. (E.g., "Oh, and how is Ginny?" being asked by the group that just so happens to camp next door to where Harry and Hermione have pitched their tent.)
1a) Overhearing important conversations because you happen to be wearing an invisibility cloak.
2) Seeing through Voldemort's eyes.
3) Watching a recorded memory in the pensieve.
4) Having Dumbledore patiently explain things to you.

My non-scientific estimate is that at least 1000 pages of the entire series is made up of this. Pretty much all of Book 6, for example. And to have Snape's death be entirely comprised of 1, 2, and 3, with no action from Harry, was truly disappointing.

I agree with the poster who mentioned the clever seed planted in Book 4. But this actually makes my other point, which is that there are pretty clearly two separate series here. The one that includes Books 1-4 and the one which includes Books 4-7. And the second series isn't anywhere near as good as the first one. I can't think of a single clue or other significant event that happened in the first 3 books that had any bearing on the eventual conclusion (other than the obvious table-setting). For example, if Rowling really had this ending in mind all along it would have been trivial for her to have mentioned somewhere back in Book 1 or Book 2 that you only truly control a wand if you win it from another wizard. In fact, there could have been a very funny scene with Draco/Neville/whomever that illustrated this very point. Ditto for the whole Deathly Hallows. Book 7 should not need new wizarding rules and legends to be introduced in order to wrap up the series.

With that said, I must confess to have stood on line at midnight and having read the book in one long sitting on Saturday, so these are not criticisms that will stop me from recommending the series to my children.

And I should say that I really liked the fact that Harry managed to win with, yes, expelliarmus.

For me the whole conflation of Harry just muddling along and the Hero archetype is the oh so British retelling of the Magic Mountain story. A basically average guy tossed into a potentially transcendent situation, but destined to return. But not a soul wrenching literary yearning of soiled idealism collapsing into soulless mud, but a ripping good yarn of good lads sticking it out, standing by your friends, and returning to the cheerful squabbling of children in middle class middle age.

I suppose there's something of an inversion in that the struggle is with emerging evil in the face of good instead of the emerging beauty in the face of corruption. But given that, the final self inflicted destruction of evil reduced to a riddle is simply perfect.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Among the things I was pleased to find was Ron Weasly coming into his own, finally finding out who Dumbledore was (and how human he really was beneath that reputation - now we know why he never seemed to take it seriously), watching Harry find his own center, and seeing Hermione get the chance to act and not just be a walking library all the time.

If books 5 and 6 seemed a little unfocused, maybe even padded, I think a large part of that is because they were setting up for the last book. They still held my interest, and managed to move the story along despite the baggage they had to carry.

All in all, I think Rowling has pulled off a remarkable accomplishment. I'm thinking about some of the deeper themes of the book, and what I'm struck by is that, although Harry lives in a world of magic, it is not magic that carries him through as much as it is his own character and the choices he makes, because of who he is and the people around him. Voldemort meets his fate despite his mastery of the dark arts because of his own personal failings. Harry embraces those around him; Voldemort dies as he lived - alone, sealed away from the humanity he has denied.

If some people see political overtones in Harry Potter, well I don't blame Rowling as much as I do the political propagandists who have tried to create a mythic narrative which portrays fools and demagogues as defenders of freedom and heroes with good intent when the truth is all to the contrary. Listening to the pundits on the Sunday morning talk shows or in the papers, you'd swear they'd all been looking into the Mirror of Erised instead of at inconvenient truths, and Rita Skeeter is one of their dearest colleagues.

That's one of the great values of really good fantasy - it can make you give reality a hard looking-over where you might not bother otherwise.

Why can't J. K. Rowling buy the Wall Street Journal, instead of Murdoch?

The reason Dumbledore does not tell Harry that he has to die to kill Voldemort is that he is afraid that Harry will rush in and confront him before the other horcruxes are destroyed.

Voldemort has arranged things so that he has to be killed eight times. Seems rather unfair that Voldemort can swat Harry down with his wand alone, particularly when he stole the wand from Dumbledore.

Snape dies at Voldemort's hand but in a very particular way, he is betrayed by Voldemort who believes him to be his loyal servant. So the traitor is betrayed.

I didn't expect what happened to Snape at all. I never doubted, though, that Dumbledore was right to trust him. This was the consensus in our family.

I find his demise to be one of the most original things about the book. It kind of makes one gasp. I really didn't expect THAT!

His death shows us the character of Voldemort in full. Voldemort thought well of Snape, even at the end. But he did not hesitate a moment to kill Snape when he had concluded that he needed to.

Only then, through the Pensieve do we find out what Snape's story was. And he gives it to Harry, whom he both hates, for his father's sake, and loves, for his Mother's sake.

I didn't anticipate that Snape would have known Lily from early childhood. That was pretty breathtaking, too.

The point being that Snape doesn't need any redemption, because he's kept faith all along. It's Harry, and perhaps us, that needs to adjust his attitude. Snape did need redemption once, for taking the prophecy to Voldemort. But he's paid that back in full, I think.

Couple of comments:

1) I don't read HP because it's great literature. I read it because it is a rollicking good time. Does that mean I forgive minor faults that I might not in serious literature? Yeah.

2) I don't understand the complaint about Harry being buffeted around by events at all. I doubt you'll find a piece of literature, from Tolkien to Shakespeare, where the hero doesn't get buffeted around by events and saved by coincidences (think about what happened to Frodo, for instance). The most boring book in the world would be one where the hero carefully plans every step and everything works to perfection.

3) Compared to the rest of the HP books, Harry and pals do considerably more planning than they did in any of the other books. That the plans go awry ought to have been expected, not deplored. Throughout the series, Harry's strength has been improvisation. So he flies away on a dragon when his burglary plan falls apart. You expected robbing Gringott's to be easy? What was he supposed to do, stand around and get arrested? There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of the resources around you.

4) Having said that, the only real complaint I have about the book is where it gets bogged in the middle (yeah, the stupid bickering). Otherwise, I prefer not to nitpick books that I enjoy and not taking seriously.

Now, however, I think I'll read some Edith Wharton to do penance for my dalliance with Rowling.

I'd say one really big difference between the final battle and that in CS Lewis is the use of humor.

Would CS Lewis have had Professor Trelawney bonking people with crystal balls, and screaming "who else wants some?"

Fred's last words were, "Percy, you made a funny!" You wouldn't find that in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, either.

I'm not saying Lewis didn't use humor in places, he just didn't use it like that.

I read it all in one-go and enjoyed it. Great story.

The climax was a little confusing to me. Ha! Maybe I was tired. I also re-read 1-6 last week. (oof. book 5 is a bit of a flabby bookstop, isn't it?) So, Harry had to die. He didn't have to die?...

I love the story and wish JKR had told less and shown more when it really counted.

Well, and sometimes told rather than shown. (The grumpy teens in their tent could've been knocked down to a paragraph or two. And, I'm not a battle scene kinda gal.)

Snapes' death was pretty impressive, but it was just downright strange & ultimately unsatisfying that he and Harry don't directly confront each other here.

If Lupin and Tonks had to be sacrificed, I'd like to know how and why. (and, Harry was their baby's godfather, so did he raise him?) I liked Fred and want to know what happened to him, too.

There were some very frightening scenes throughout the book, weren't there? Poor dear Luna in the Malfoy's dungeon. I don't know why, but I love that girl. The Malfoys deserve to be punished severely for that. Nagini popping out of Bathilda Bagshot's head was pretty good.

And Bellatrix! (Helena Bonham Carter is gonna have a lot of scenery to chew on...)

Kevin, I think Griphook's goal all along was to double-cross so he could steal the sword. But, then Harry was also double-dealing there. Griphood knew the lame plan would end in chaos. Then he could steal the sword. Bill tried to warn Harry. Hell, Harry had a Gringott's code-breaker right there in Bill and he didn't use him! No, he had to go with the untrustworthy goblin.

But, that's the hero for you.

Harry used "Dumbledore told me not to tell anyone but Ron & Hermione" as an excuse and wasn't Snape right? Harry did have a bit of a "saving people thing".

Hmmm. Supper's ready. gotta go.

I'm going to re-read 7 (god, no! not all the books...) later this week. I think I missed somethings.

I thought the book was great and I'm amazed how many of you are giving Rowling a hard time. Most of you have admitted to reading a 750 page book within a couple of days of it's release. Now you're trying to convince me you didn't like it? You've got to give her credit for pacing if nothing more. Rowling, more than any modern author I know is a master of the page turner. There are plenty of books on my shelf that I happily take a leisurely time to read through. Not this one.

As for the complaint that none of the 3 major characters died: Now that would've been a hackneyed plotline, wouldn't it.

Here's something that I'm sort of curious about. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all missed their entire final year at Hogwarts, what with being on the lam and all. So after the events of this book - what happened? Did they - a) not graduate? b) have to repeat final year? or c) be credited with some sort of 'independent study' for the horcrux hunt and graduate with their year? I suppose we'll never know.

I'm sort of hoping the answer is b). Just think how relaxing it would be to have a nice senior year in school without all this Boy Of Dessssstiny stuff hanging over your head. Maybe it's the Hermione in me - I'd imagine that she would want to repeat the year rather than be handed the diploma as some sort of reward; she'd want to KNOW the stuff in the senior courses, not just be told 'never mind, here's your graduation certificate'.

Maybe it's the Hermione in me - I'd imagine that she would want to repeat the year rather than be handed the diploma as some sort of reward; she'd want to KNOW the stuff in the senior courses, not just be told 'never mind, here's your graduation certificate'.

That would've been a hilarious epilogue in itself. The picture of Harry and Ron miserably stuck cramming for exams after saving the wizarding world, while Hermione sits beaming at her chance to retake her missed year of classes.

Who knows, maybe book 8?

I'd like a little more comment on the epilogue. I agree with the poster above who said it sounded very much like a set-up for a whole new evil, a whole new set of problems. "All was well." Huh?

And Rowling did say she might like to revisit that world someday. Well, she sure left herself open to do that if she wants to.

Finally, lots and lots of comments about the writing. Yeah, whatever. What always grabbed me was the sheer imagination Rowling displayed; she created a new world, with its own rules. So she borrowed heavily from many stories--who doesn't? As another poster said, the same basic plot of sacrifice for the common good gets constantly re-used, over centuries. She set it in a newly imagined world. That's what good fantasy always does. She's not Ursula LeGuin--so?

I haven't read it, but this reminds me of a similar situation in adult fiction. Mitchard's Deep End of the Ocean, the first Oprah pick, stayed at the top of the bestseller list for months and months. When I finally read it, I was incredibly pissed off to see a huge coincidence had resolved the entire plot. As a writer, I've struggled to rid my plots of coincidences, and it isn't easy, so to see best selling authors get away with it is painful.

jinchi said: "The picture of Harry and Ron miserably stuck cramming for exams after saving the wizarding world, "

But look at the up-side - another year of Quidditch, before they have to go off and work for a living.

The only portion of the book I didn�t enjoy reading wholeheartedly (and it�s been mentioned before) was how the bickering bogged it down, but then I had to think about the circumstances. Here you have 3 teenagers trying to figure out in a couple of months - with basically no resources and on the run � what one of the greatest wizards of all time couldn�t figure out with literally all the resources of the magical world at his disposal PLUS having personally meet, known, and taught the person who made and hid the horcuxes. He had only discerned the location of 2 of them and suspected Nagini was another in how many years of searching? No way our hero�s figure out where the remaining ones are without dumb luck and a bit of help, and in a situation like that the stress and strain on the relationships was, I think, pretty well done � although an utterly fantastic writer undoubtedly could have made this portion of the book a better read.

Harry couldn�t duel Snape, Snape wouldn�t allow it � he couldn�t fight Harry and loose because he had to pass on some rather important info (death by wand seems to be pretty darn quick), and he couldn�t beat Harry because it would shatter his confidence (how can I beat Voldy if I can�t even beat his servant? We are talking about a 17 year old faced with a daunting task here). What a nice twist that the traitor was killed by the one he betrayed for the wrong reason, and in the process set the stage for Harry to gain a greater understanding of Snape, Dumbeldore, Harry�s mother, his aunt, his connection to Voldy, and what must be done to succeed the only way he�d believe it � with his own eyes using a medium he knows is unfiltered and true.

I think it was brilliant that it was the capacity to love of arguably one of the most despicable characters in the series (Snape) that was pivotal to Voldy�s downfall. How wonderful for Snape that he got to look into Harry�s (Lilly�s) eyes while he died. The entire series Dumbeldore kept saying that love was the greatest power of all, and the trip through Snapes memories showed why � it has the power to change you for the better, even against your will or your wants. And by bringing about that change in just one person an entire world can be made a better place (well, in fiction at least).

So yes, I liked it.

I knew I would find this here and it was so good. I loved all the comments and different thinking. I did not want to read the last book as a page turner but as the last of a fine wine to be savored. Taking all these thoughts with me will only enhance the depth of my experience.

Thanks so much.

I thought it was really excellent. Sometimes you just have to set your critical faculties aside and enjoy the moment. I thought Rawlings met the challenge. She did a super job bringing back all the characters, locations and themes, and I thought she kept faith with her readers. The pacing was designed for children--something terrifying (that initial escape from the Dursleys with the DeathEaters on them!) then a breather, repeat. The pace quickened as the story unfolded. Big apocalyptic fights scenes, each bigger than the previous, in all sorts of familiar places from the Ministry of Magic to Gringott's bank to Malfoy Manor to the climax at Hogwarts.

There was too much telling for my taste--now a dream, now a pensieve--but it was a complex story and the telling allowed us to make sense of everything.

I was disappointed by Snapes' death, but in some ways, he had become the most emotionally interesting character in the book, and, in terms of the story line, if the resolution of his story had too much drama, it would have distracted from Harry's story. This way all was understood. I found oddly affecting that Snapes was the one who brought the sword of Gryffendor and that his patronum was the doe, the same as Harry's mother.

I loved that it is motherly Molly Weasley, suddenly incredibly powerful, who destroys the evil, evil Bellatrix. I giggled childishly aloud at "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" I love that Neville is such a total hero at the end.

I assumed that the reason Harry survives Voldemort's first "Avada kedavra" in the forest was because when he, the heir of the Peverells, goes to meet death from Voldemort, he had the cloak of invisibility, the resurrection stone in his possession and that though the elder wand was held by Voldemort, it had selected Draco and become Harry's when he disarmed Draco. So when Voldemort "Avada kedavra's" him, it isn't just that Harry is protected by his blood in Voldemort, he was protected by the Deathly Hallows. By unwittingly possessing all three, Harry had become the master of death.

For some reason, I feel compelled to quote Bixby's old student: ""Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

By order of the Proprietor"

Still -- a further prediction, actually recapitulating one I made (belatedly) a few years ago: Before she wrote the Quidditch Through the Ages and that other companion book as throwaways, I had begun to wonder if Rowling might follow Barrie's example and give the Potter copyright to some refugee organization. (I say 'belatedly' cuz I had only a hunch, and never wrote it up. I DID write to her, and got a reply from her publicist... immediately after they announced she had given the copyright to both the companion books to, I think it's a battered women's shelter.)

But -- I still think she's going to do it, quietly, so that the zillions she's making from the 7 books and the movies (like Winnie the Pooh funding Save the Children) does good work for a very long time.

LOL -- which would be even better than buying the WSJ, don't ya think?

OK, can we all start talking about Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass? If you've read the profile of J.K.R. and P.R. in the New Yorker, you know there is a lot more to Pullman besides escapist fantasy. I'm looking to see how much his portrayal of an other-world dominated by the church is watered down to please US audiences. Will the US press go ape about his overt non-belief? FYI, this film is due for release at the end of the year with Nicole Kidman and what's-his-name James Bond in the leads. Oh, and all three of his books are very good reads.

My biggest concern, especially for a childrens book is how using the unforgivable curses became acceptable to the good guys.

If the curses are unforgivable then surely Harry should have been at the least wracked in guilt for using them rather than using them even on innocents like Gringotts staff.

a complete nonentity in this book. He has no idea what to do, no plan for doing it, and is merely a prisoner of events throughout the whole thing. Furthermore, on the few occasions when he does take action, his plans are absurdly moronic

I read something like this once--only the lead character wasn't a wizard, he was some kind of Danish prince . . .

Who would have thought that a series of books written specifically for children would generate this much discussion among adults?

Rajesh has a point -- I wondered about "unforgivable" curses myself. They get introduced in Goblet of Fire, but the only explanation of unforgiveable is that they'd give you a life sentence in Azkaban if you used any of 'em, not WHY.

Still -- using 'em on goblins, and the whole goblin/wizard conflict was an unexplored alley. When Gryffindor's sword pops out of the hat for Longbottom (cuz only a true hero could do it), that seemed to back up the wizard not the goblin theory of ownership, and yet...

There's a LONG history of some really ugly stuff in European folk tales that relates to other conflicts, including religions, after all: goblins, banking, irreconcilable differences...

"Alright, then, I'll go to hell."

Thomas Pynchon, she is not!

OMG, you've actually read the whole damn thing already???!!!

So when Voldemort "Avada kedavra's" him, it isn't just that Harry is protected by his blood in Voldemort, he was protected by the Deathly Hallows. By unwittingly possessing all three, Harry had become the master of death.

Exactly. Again, I think a lot of people skimmed it without really paying attention.

"If Lupin and Tonks had to be sacrificed, I'd like to know how and why. (and, Harry was their baby's godfather, so did he raise him?) I liked Fred and want to know what happened to him, too."

Lupin had to die for the same reason Sirius did, so he would be there at the close. Harry had to walk into that forest with all of the adults he trusted most supporting him in spirit, rather than in life, so he would have the courage to join them.

Tonks, like Fred, was just a casualty of war. Their deaths gave the post-battle scene sufficient weight. It was a war scene. It would have been a cop-out to have all the people we cared about survive and only side characters die. Fred and Tonks were not extremely important to the plot, but they were characters that readers cared about. Seeing them piled up at the end was tough.

I agree with Doctor Jay about the humor. Trelawney's battle scene was sheer brilliance.

I was also bothered by Harry's casual use of the crucio curse against Carrow. That was a mistake. It cut against the message of the book. (In Harry's defense, he stops torturing Carrow almost immediately, but I still didn't like it) I thought his use of the Imperius curse, under extreme duress, to save his own life and complete his mission, was more appropriate. That's clearly the most forgivable of the unforgvable curses, and he had a damn good reason to use it.

I enjoyed the book, but wish I hadn't been able to read it in 3 hours the first time through. It felt like every book got heavier in weight but lighter on content.

My biggest disappointments were probably that (1) nothing felt like a surprise and (2) it felt like there was a lot of wasted space hanging out in the woods, when those pages could have fleshed out what was going on with other characters if she'd switched POV occasionally.

the real challenge will be making this book into a pg-rated movie.

So when Voldemort "Avada kedavra's" him, it isn't just that Harry is protected by his blood in Voldemort, he was protected by the Deathly Hallows. By unwittingly possessing all three, Harry had become the master of death.

Not to mention that the wand just wasn't quite working up to snuff for Voldemort, for much the same reason.

Oh, and for the protection "deep magic" to work, Harry had to believe he was going to die. Intent is critical to magic in the world of the books. Which is why Dumbledore needed to keep any suspicions otherwise to himself.

Excellent book. The best of the lot. Just wish there had been more of an epilogue. Well, now I have to give myself a break and re-read it again. I always felt that Snape would come out on the right side. I wish his contribution was acknowledged better. He suffered more than anyone else it would seem. Anyway, this 49 yr old felt like a kid, staying up till 2:00 am last night to finish.

I believe that the lack of charms alerting Voldemort to the destruction of his Horcruxes is explained -- that the caster of a Horcrux should normally "feel" the destruction of one or more of their horcruxes, but Voldermort had created too many. As the wikipedia entry on horcruxes summarizes:

"Usually, the creator of a Horcrux will notice its destruction, but Dumbledore theorizes that Voldemort has split his soul too many times to notice destruction of his Horcruxes. Voldemort only fears for his security after Hufflepuff's cup was stolen."

Therefore, Voldermort should not have needed to cast a charm, but in his soullessness from creating so many, he was unable to "feel" the destruction and could only notice the disappearance of what he knew to be his Horcruxes.

I read some commentary somewhere that Rowling must have studied Joseph Campbell deeply, as she weaves in so many myths. Harry as the Christ-figure who rises from the dead is an obvious one (the same myth Lewis drew on with Aslan's resurrection in Narnia). George Lucas admitted that he drew on Campbell's work, so the Star Wars comparisons are justified--but both Lucas and Rowling drew on older, deeper human myths.

I liked the book. I think Rowling's writing is just fine. She may not be Shakespeare (or Patrick O'Brian, for that matter), but she's a hell of a lot better than the writing in a good deal of popular literature. (The DaVinci Code, anyone? Fun plot, but cardboard characters and mundane prose.)

When I think of the stories I read as a kid--Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, and all sorts of other mystery/adventure stuff--the Potter books are far superior in many ways to the vast majority of those. Better writing, better plotting, better character development and motivation, etc. Plus, the Potter books dispense quickly with the thematic sanitization that most children's books have. People die in the Potter books. People are tortured. There is evil, there is doubt, there are multiple sides to the characters.

Notable exceptions, of course, are C.S. Lewis and, particularly, Roald Dahl. Dahl was especially good at demanding more of young readers and bringing in darker, more mature themes.

So, in sum, it is as bad to call the Potter books merely "fine for kids' lit" as it is to fault Rowling for falling short of the Bard. I liked 'em and am going to miss waiting for a new one to come out.

Quick question for all those who remember the earlier books better than I do--given the many references to wizards from all over the world, are there ANY wizards mentioned as being from the USA? Or are Americans ipso facto all Muggles?

I have no intention of reading the books (I have seen all of the movies except for the latest). I don't want to wade through all of the comments to find out, but does Harry live or die?

Quick question for all those who remember the earlier books better than I do--given the many references to wizards from all over the world, are there ANY wizards mentioned as being from the USA? Or are Americans ipso facto all Muggles?

I think that all of the non-British wizards that we see are Europeans (Fleur is French, Viktor is German, etc.) There are a few mentions of going to the Middle East to study wizardry there, but not very much about the other continents. Plus all of the non-white wizards are British, not foreign (Kingsley, the Patel sisters, Cho Chang, etc.)

So I think she just left us out of it. ;-)

I think there was one passing mention of a school of wizardry in America. Oh, and Viktor was Bulgarian.

There were Americans at the Quidditch World Final; some from Salem, Mass.

Kevin, I'm sorry but you are a big old poopy-head on this subject! (Note my erudite Anglophile language).

The whole point all along about Harry is that he is not the most brilliant, or the most talented, wizard. He has lots of both, and he surrounds himself with people (e.g., Hermione) who fill in for his shortcomings. But he is the bravest, most valiant, most selfless person. He is, in short, a hero. And on top of that, an everyman's hero toppling the brutal regime of an elitist fascist murderer. What's not to like.

The WHOLE POINT of the book was that Harry had this impossible task (destroy all Horcruxes) and bloody little to go on, but through grim determination, tireless commitment and some luck (which is really help), he accomplishes it. In fact, Harry bemoans this outcast state repeatedly in the book. If the task had been easy, quick work for some strategic, detective mastermind, it wouldn't have been very suspenseful now, would it?

First, In Book 4 at the Quidditch World Cup they pass the "Salem Witches" who displayed the Stars and Stripes while walking around the campsite.

Second, I liked the book a lot. I think most of the criticism is just nitpicky.

Third, I liked Snape's redemption. Let's face it he is still generally a really bad guy - he was willing to kill Lupin and Sirius in Book 3 - but in the end even he could not escape the power of love. I think that illustrated Dumbledore's theme brilliantly.

She could have spared Tonks or Lupin - the death toll was a bit much.

To be honest, I found the death toll to be, if anything, unreasonably light. That was a BIG battle! It took place at Hogwarts, Harry's home for six years, and the defenders were the staff and students of Hogwarts, plus the Order of the Phoenix, who were also known to Harry. They were up against a large army of powerful and vicious wizards, and the death toll was going to have to be high - and if all the dead were redshirts that Harry didn't know, it just wouldn't have been reasonable. (I actually would have liked Slughorn to have a heroic battle death, wouldn't that have been a kicker?)

There were definitely more than a few plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. Why does Voldemort think he is the only one who knows about the Room of Requirement when "generations" of students have been hiding things there, and Harry was able to throw the diadem on top of a bunch of other junk in Half Blood Prince? Why is everybody Apparating all over the place when Harry cannot Apparate at the beginning of the book, because Death Eaters in the Ministry are tracking Apparations (and can also instantly appear when anyone says "Voldemort")? I'm reading it again more slowly this time, so maybe I'll catch a few things I missed when zooming through in 32 hours the first time--but I don't think these contradictions will be resolved, for me at least.

Yes, it definitely could have been better, particularly in how Snape's real story came out. I agree he should have played a bigger role, perhaps deceiving Harry (& Voldemort) right up to the moment when it was decided which would live or die. Sadly, there won't be much for Alan Rickman [sigh] to do in the last movie, except in flashbacks--always a clunky literary and cinematic mechanism.

There were many others, as well: way too much reliance on Polyjuice Potion, and suspicions of its use by the Order but never by Death Eaters. And escaping on a dragon?? Please--talk about a deus ex machina. I think even little kids will roll their eyes at that one. Cue the green screen and the CGI...

And the thought of Hermione and Ginny as child-rearing housewives from the age of 20 just bugs the hell out of me. (I know, it didn't say what Harry and Ron "grow up to be" either). Apparently at least some of the kids were conceived within a couple of years of the end of the book; "29 years later" would have suited me a lot better than 19.

Interesting how me saying I like both Shakespeare & Rowling set off a flurry of outraged comments that "there is no comparison." I never said there was. My point, which was so obvious and so grossly missed, was that each can be appreciated on their own merits, in their own context. Many of the "cluck-cluckers" seem utterly incapable of doing that. Insert your own political parallels here.

All in all, I feel much less of the sense of outrage that I did at the end of HBP, but I'm glad many assumptions, by both readers and characters, were proven wrong in the end. But I still feel strangely empty and unsatisfied. Has anyone else mulled over the question of whether Rowling finished the book/series in too big of a hurry, so the actors wouldn't be pushing 30 by the time the last movie is shot? Just a thought...

There were definitely more than a few plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. Why does Voldemort think he is the only one who knows about the Room of Requirement when "generations" of students have been hiding things there, and Harry was able to throw the diadem on top of a bunch of other junk in Half Blood Prince?"

This IS one of the weaker moments in the book, but the explanation is that Voldemort is so frickin' vain that he assumes nobody else has ever discovered the room, just as nobody else had ever discovered the chamber of secrets. I do think it strains credulity that there is no protective charm placed on the diadem, unlike the other horcruxes.

"Why is everybody Apparating all over the place when Harry cannot Apparate at the beginning of the book, because Death Eaters in the Ministry are tracking Apparations (and can also instantly appear when anyone says "Voldemort")?"

Harry can't apparate at the beginning of the book because the Ministry can trace acts of magic by underaged wizards. This is well-established in earlier books.

I agree about the over-reliance on deus ex machina devices, but it was mentioned in Book One that dragons guard the Gringott's vaults, and Harry does have more experience dealing with dragons than most wizards. The fact that the dragon is nearly blind and so thickly armored that it can't feel three teenagers clinging to its back is, of course, one of Rowling's trademark implausible plot devices.

"And the thought of Hermione and Ginny as child-rearing housewives from the age of 20 just bugs the hell out of me."

I didn't like the epilogue either, but it's not quite fair to assume that the women are housewives. They've got a (badass action-hero) grandmother to watch the kids.

But how good was Hermione's outrage when it turned out the Ministry might be ILLEGALLY "tracing" a wizard who was of age?

Why does Voldemort think he is the only one who knows about the Room of Requirement when "generations" of students have been hiding things there

Yeah, this is implausible, but remember that Voldemort's fatal flaw is his sense of superiority, so his mistakes involve underestimating others (which was also Sirius' big problem, incidentally).

Why is everybody Apparating all over the place when Harry cannot Apparate at the beginning of the book, because Death Eaters in the Ministry are tracking Apparations (and can also instantly appear when anyone says "Voldemort")?

Harry never got his Apparition license, because he went on the lam the day after he became eligible... I assumed that the tracking was just in the general vicinity of Privet Drive before his escape, not all Apparating all over England. The "taboo" on Voldemort's name was a bit of genius IMO, because they could make it basically into an incantation, and at the very least harass people who weren't as afraid of Voldemort.

And the thought of Hermione and Ginny as child-rearing housewives from the age of 20 just bugs the hell out of me. (I know, it didn't say what Harry and Ron "grow up to be" either). Apparently at least some of the kids were conceived within a couple of years of the end of the book; "29 years later" would have suited me a lot better than 19.

I don't think any of the trio's kids were conceived all that quickly; the older ones mentioned were from couples married before the end of the book. If Harry & Ginny's oldest kid is 13 (we know the younger two are 11 & 9), then Harry would have been 24 or so when he was born, and out of school for several years*. Ron & Hermione's oldest was 11, so she was born eight years after the end of the book. Sure, it would have been nice to know their professions, but there's no reason to believe that either Hermione or Ginny don't have professions at all.

*I do wish we knew whether they went back to Hogwarts for another year to do their NEWT levels; I can't imagine Hermione staying a dropout, or Ron being able to afford to go on with only lower levels.

The epilogue was fine. It was not revealed what any of the main characters except for Hagrid and Neville was doing for a living so I didn't assume anything - I always thought Hermione would be a teacher and Ron and Harry would be Aurors but none of that was in there. As for having kids - Harry, Ron and Hermione would be 36 years old in the epilogue (Ginny 35) - it is not unusual for 36 year olds to have 12 year old kids.

As to the Death Toll - I think the damage to known characters was heavy. I mean over the course of the novel Harry lost Hedwig, Mad Eye, Dobby, Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Colin Creevey and you can count Snape. George lost an ear, Luna, Seamus and Neville took beatings, Pavarti was attacked by Fenir Greyback and Firenze was badly wounded. I am not complaining and don't feel like it was forced - but I could have lived with a slightly happier ending.

On other boards, I've seen a lot of carping about the epilog, but I think the importance of the epilog is not in what it told us so much in what it didn't tell us. Harry was not crowned King Of All The Wizards, or even become a 17-year-old Minister of Magic. His reward was what he always said he wanted, a normal (well, normal for wizards) life.

Yes, it would have been nice to know what career tracks Harry and Hermione and all the rest chose, but it was almost enough to learn that they weren't wearing crowns.

And since Snape died with everyone still believing he was a bad guy, I liked the indication that at least someone grasped how difficult and heroic his life-long undercover op had been.

I just copied comments to print out & read on the porch. Caught one who said: "She's no Thomas Pynchon." And, thank god for that, I say!

One is more than enough.

Kevin, if you're still reading -- I also think editors should've tightened 4-5-6 by several hundred pages each. Trimmed the flab. But, I just realized that kids who enjoy a book want it to be long & crowded with details.

I'd thought her editors might've been cowed by her success, but perhaps they were just giving the kids what they wanted.

Oh, well. Back to my dry summer reading: George Simenon.

Just a word for the editors: I expect that it wasn't that no one dared to cut Rowling's prose after the runaway success of the first couple books, and it's hubris or worse to suppose so.

It seems a lot more likely that they finally figured out the phenomenon they had with the series, realizing that MORE sold more. We'll never know, but I bet she'd have sold fewer books if they were shorter.

LOL -- and my God, how on earth could she have sold MORE books if some knucklehead had cut the last four in half? There are, what, 17 English-literate people on the planet who didn't buy at least one of these 750 page things?

That Hallows is selling even faster than HBP shows that longer books was the smart editing move. It wouldn't surprise me if they started badgering her to write a Silmarillion sorta companion, "Oh, Jo, you could do 1,500 pages... with charts!"

And watch out for SOMEBODY to try to get her to write (or let them publish) every single book she mentions in the series, starting with Hogwarts: A History.

I bet they start the bidding with Belgium.

It's not just kids that like books 'long and crowded with detail'. These are boarding school books, they're going to have scenes about classes and team tryouts and cliques, and I liked that about the books. Harry's fiasco of a date with Cho certainly didn't advance the defeating-Voldemort overall plot arc, but does anyone think it should have been cut?

Yancy Ward: "... does Harry live or die?"

Yes, he dies. Yes, he lives. In that order. It's magic, you know.

I haven’t read all the previous entries, so forgive me if someone has already made this point.

I wanted to respond to Kevin’s point about the break-in at Gringott’s. I don’t know how many break-in conventions there in popular entertainment, books or movies, but three come to mind: the smash and grab, the inside job and the caper. The first is typified by overwhelming force, the second by betrayal and the third by elaborate, convaluted plot twists. And you can expect there to be disguises and subterfuge in all three.

The break-in at Gringotts was a variant of the inside job. They said it couldn’t be done because it hadn’t been done. Harry suborned a goblin to break in to Gringotts. The literary equivalent that comes to mind was Baron Harkonen suborning a Suk doctor to betray the Atreidies.

As for dead-and-resurrected Harry, I think not.

JKR's too aware of the trope not to play on our expectations, without also upending them. If he wasn't sure whether or not he was the master of death, and in full possession of all three Deathly Hallows before then, Harry was certain he was by the time he'd completed his conversation with Dumbledore. Harry was not dead and conversing with a fellow ghost. DD must have been resurrected by the stone Harry's body was probably lying upon where he dropped it as he removed his retconned cloak, and after being knocked down, but not out, by Voldie's second AK curse.

It wasn't only his mastery of the maguffins that saved Harry, but the Aslan-like ancient magic he was willing to perform by being willing to sacrifice his life for that of his friends. That was the explanation for the uselessness of Voldie's curses when aimed, later, at the likes of Slughorn and Shacklebolt. The only thing that died in that green flame was the scar-horcrux, taking the gratuitously creepy form of the state Harry would have been in had he not had his mother's protection when first cursed by Voldie.

Harry is the boy who lived, not the boy who lived, died, and came back to life. That would invite comparison to an even more preposterous story. Once the fundies sieze on this point, I expect JKR may take some heat for "turning Harry Potter into some sort of perversion of the Christ figure."

I may be the only one who has read all the comments up until now, and maybe no one will read further, but I have enjoyed all of them, thanks.

I wanted to address Kevin's remark that Harry made no decisions. I thought that the heroism of his character--a central theme of the book--was played out precisely in his personal decision not to pursue the Deathly Hallows, which gives mastery over death, but instead to pursue the Horcruxes--the more selfless goal of defeating Voldemort. Of course, in a Through the Looking Glass sort of way, he gets the Hallows anyway, which protects him from Voldemort, enabling him to defeat Voldemort. I found it wonderfully satisfying, as well as subtle and true.

I probably agree that the writing is not as strong as the imagination, but, on the other hand, I agree with people who notice how impressive it is that so many of us turned all of those pages so quickly. I don't know quite how she gets us to do that, and if it's not the same thing as excellent writing, it's still something amazing.

I like the Harry Potter series, but I'm not a massive fan. My biggest complaint has never been with the quality of the writing, which seems perfectly adequate for a children's book, but with the quantity of writing. I'm feeling this especially acutely right now because a week ago it occurred to me that I didn't really remember much of anything from the first six Harry Potter volumes, so I decided to reread them. As a result, I've read 4,000 pages of Harry Potter in the past week.

You reread the entire oevre the week before, but you're not a massive fan?

You're insane.

(Full disclosure: I could never get past page ten of a copy of the first HP book that was given to me by a friend, but I did take bother to take pictures of 8,000 of your fellow "not massive fans" at the world's biggest HP book release fest on Friday.)

Here's something I'm not clear on - I'm rereading to see if will become clearer. If Dumbledore wanted Harry to pursue the Horcruxes rather than the Deathly Hallows, why did he give Hermione that book with the story about the Hallows in it? Voldemort wasn't pursuing the Hallows per se, didn't even know what they were - he was exclusively after the Elder Wand. Maybe Dumbledore guessed that Voldemort would be after some mondo wand after the prior incantatum thing in Goblet, but Voldemort's wand hunt started after Dumbledore was already dead. Did he assume that was going to happen and that Harry should know that the Elder Wand was only one piece of a set that would be more powerful together? Or what?

I came back and read all the new comments from my previous post so I have read them all up to this point in time.

I have decided to reread all the books before finally finishing with the final. No I do not think they are great but they are hopeful in the sense that it is a new imagining that holds for the most part. Right now that is the gift of my summer to me.

Without this I have only the grinding of the acceptance of Gonzo as the head of justice making justice irrelevant and the last executive order making all property subject to Darkness of Deep Bushness disposal.

"If Dumbledore wanted Harry to pursue the Horcruxes rather than the Deathly Hallows, why did he give Hermione that book with the story about the Hallows in it?"

I think cuz of the prophecy. Tom Riddle knew that Harry was supposed to be the one who killed him (not Longbottom, although he also qualified, and did in fact kill a piece of the Dark Lord). So Dumbledore, being a good guesser, figured that it was Harry's job to kill all the piece of Riddle's soul that he'd left lying around: the Horcruxes.

But Dumbledore knew better than anybody the attraction of the Hallows -- AND he knew that neither Harry nor Hermione knew anything about 'em. He also knew that Harry had one of 'em (the Invisibility Cloak), and HE (Dumbledore) had one other: but Dumbledore also knew how hollow the Hallows were, as a life's goal: besides, D's goal wasn't "life", nor even "life after death", it was killing Riddle.

So he told Harry what he HAD to do, to kill Riddle and gave Hermione the key to understanding HOW -- though of course even Dumbledore didn't really see that. So he didn't give Harry enough to distract him, but he also trusted the kid wouldn't WANT the Hallows (mastery over death), cuz Harry was a better man than that. Giving Hermione the book was covering all the bases. (God only knows what that would be in British English.)

I know folks find lots of 'hey, she forgot THIS' stuff in a series like this -- but fwiw: it's typical that Rowling made a point of taking all seven books to let it grow on us that Neville Longbottom was a hero, then she threw in that HE could have been the boy in the prophecy -- and then, at the last, he not only defies Riddle, not knowing he was about to pull Gryffindor's sword out of the hat, he promptly kills a piece of Voldemort's soul with it: just like the prophecy said.

Not bad work, JKR. Not bad at all.

"If Dumbledore wanted Harry to pursue the Horcruxes rather than the Deathly Hallows, why did he give Hermione that book with the story about the Hallows in it?"

For several reasons I can think of
1. so that Harry would understand that his Invisability Cloak is not some arbitary thing that a few people have. It is, in fact, something very special.

2. so that Harry learns of his ancient family line

3. so that Harry and company understand that there is another weapon that could keep them from defeating Riddle - whether he knows what it is or not (if Harry is defeated by Riddle and he takes possession of the cloak, the wand and has the stone inside the snitch - he's now the master of death)

I think cuz of the prophecy. Tom Riddle knew that Harry was supposed to be the one who killed him (not Longbottom, although he also qualified,

I have to differ with you. Neville is not qaulified (though he was at birth) because Riddle chose who his executioner would be when he attacked the Potters. Albus had nothing to figure out.

This has always bothered me: all the Hogwarts students dress like trim little MBA candidates while their wizard teachers mostly have long scraggly hair and odd wizardy outfits. This implies that upon graduation, the kids will throw away their public school duds—in some kind of ceremony, I assume—and stop shaving and combing their hair. Does this finally happen in book seven?

Another bother: what is the purpose of all that wizardly fighting? The American super heroes usually save the city or the world, but the wizards don’t seem to have any purpose beyond self preservation. So why should we care in the wizards survive or get creamed.

One last bother: All that food wasted! The dining hall tables are sickeningly overstocked. If there were such a thing as wizard school, they would demand self discipline from the students, not gluttony.

never read any of the Harry Potter books.

Didn't need to see the same story again.

an orphan born from magical parents who goes off for training: I liked it the first time I saw it when it was called Star Wars.

sanfermin wrote: "never read any of the Harry Potter books.

Didn't need to see the same story again."

Same story again?

A guy wants to impress a girl.

Cyrano De Bergerac.

Taxi Driver.

Same story again. A traveler from a distant land tries to get home.

The Odyssey.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

Same story again. Kid wants to get married, but the parents are just so weird.

You Can't Take It With You.

The Birdcage.

LOL -- when I told him I was writing screenplays, an author friend told me the legend of the notebook found by F. Scott Fitzgerald when he died, after spending years failing to fulfil his promise as a writer. The story goes that Fitzgerald's pad was covered with notes for his latest story -- and all it read was:

Boy meets girl
Boy meets girl
Boy meets girl
Boy meets girl

Golly, give JKR credit where it's due.

Ken Cope: "As for dead-and-resurrected Harry, I think not...Harry is the boy who lived, not the boy who lived, died, and came back to life. "

Yes, that is a more precise way of putting it. Harry is not killed by Volemort. He is not dead when talking to DD, but in a place that is between life and death, where he can choose whether to go back or not. Harry is the master of death.

Here's my question: if Harry had not had the Deathly Hallows, would he have been killed by Voldemort's blast?

OK -- I haven't been able to plow through all this, but I agree with those who suggest that the complainers didn't bother to read the book -- everything is in there (& people too dim to figure it out complaining about teenagers not being very bright are going to give irony a new lease on life) -- AND claiming that Rowling stole from Lewis & Tolkein without knowing that they got their material from the Gospels is also pretty pitiful -- Aslan is a Christ figure -- Harry Potter is a Christ figure -- Frodo is a Christ figure (if you want to go all the way, I suppose that Christ is a Christ figure).
There are only two plots, "boy leaves home" and "a strangewr comes to town" . . . There is only one plot . . .

sanfermin on July 25, 2007 at 1:42 AM --

Er, I hate to shock you, but "Star Wars" is not exactly the first time that plot line has been used.

"Neville is not qualified (though he was at birth) because Riddle chose who his executioner would be when he attacked the Potters..."

Not quite, I think.

Characters have a way of acting on their own, in good fiction: they actually start to become oddly independent in the author's imagination. Rowling's image OF Longbottom is a bit more heavy handed than the way Harry Potter himself becomes a teenaged asshole every so often, because she wants Neville to be a hero more, I think, than she wanted Harry to be ONLY a hero.

But the welter of prophecies and spells and magical properties she created is so thick, it would be flat out wrong, I think for there to be no contradictions or inconsistencies: otherwise, the books would be as incredible as an eyewitness who seems to have thought of everything. Besides, the mark of a good writer (even one as prolix as Rowling) is what they leave out.

Neville Longbottom was the other boy qualified by birth to fulfill the prophecy and kill the Dark Lord. I don't think it's ever clear that Voldemort knew this, but he certainly knew Potter fit the prophecy. What he DIDN'T know is that the way his mom died to protect him (and his dad tried to protect them both) would not only keep Voldemort from kiling the kid, it would ALSO make Harry himself a Horcrux, carrying a piece of Voldemort's soul.

I think that's a curious insight: the whole point of the Horcrux thing is that Riddle was protecting himself by hiding his soul, in pieces, on purpose. But he didn't realize that he had made Harry Potter's unusual difficulties in life one of those pieces.

Voldemort obviously didn't know that Neville was dangerous to him, and he didn't realize that putting the Sorting Hat on the kid's head (to set him on fire, on purpose? where did THAT spell come from?) would give him Godric Gryffindor's sword, and thus the capacity to destroy a Horcrux.

But he did. Give Neville Longbottom credit -- he FULFILLED his part of the prophecy, too. (And if you like, his character is not entirely unlike Sam Gamgee, who was also a Ringbearer, however briefly.)

The way I figure it, Riddle didn't know a lot, precisely cuz he didn't care about what he didn't value -- as good a rule of thumb for decency as I can think of.

Besides, if you break your soul up into pieces on purpose, don't ya think that voids the warranty?

Here's my question: if Harry had not had the Deathly Hallows, would he have been killed by Voldemort's blast?

Not if I understand the nature of the willing sacrifice that protected Harry when Lilly died to protect him as an infant. Harry was still protected by that magic, and V's AK curse would still have destroyed only the horcrux, not Harry. Even without possession of the Hallows, Harry's willing sacrifice in facing an AK from V would have protected his friends from any further mayhem from V personally, although not, I think, from other Death Eaters' curses. If V tried to zap Harry again, after having destroyed his horcrux, there is still the matter of sharing Harry's blood containing some homeo-frakking-pathic essence of protection that now runs in V's veins as well, which must have some bearing on this. A second blast may or may not have killed him-- I'm not willing to work that hard to try and glean an answer from the text or from JKR's (properly legalistic, restricted and very carefully wrought rules of) magic. Harry defeats V not by cursing him, but by V's curse backfiring on himself in response to Harry's Expelliarmus. Oh, and also by exploiting Voldie's wand performance anxiety.

Harry knows about Voldie's issues, by virtue of his being a horcrux. Harry knew with certainty that Voldemort suffered from severe performance anxiety concerning his wand. He'd demanded that Lucius surrender his, rendering his host a eunuch in his own mansion. He kidnapped or murdered wand specialists to find out whether or not any performance enhancements could be obtained, and went so far as to pry one from a dead man and kill in the hope that it would perform even better.

Just before the moment portrayed on the book’s cover, Mr. Potter’s purpose was to exploit Voldie’s performance anxiety about his ability to make his wand erupt with sufficient force and distance. Planting the seeds of doubt with, “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” Dirty Harry made Voldie’s wand prematurely shoot out of his hand, without even having to use his own wand, but that of the emasculated Draco.

HEE, Ken! Golly, this is a fun thread!

"Here's my question: if Harry had not had the Deathly Hallows, would he have been killed by Voldemort's blast?"

Did he really have them all? He dropped the Resurrection Stone on the ground before confronting Voldemort - was it still his by default? Dumbledore suggested they weren't really "Deathly" Hallows anyway, just some really cool objects created by the original brothers which later had legend applied to them. Perhaps it was the self-sacrifice which takes all the fun out of it for the green bolt of lightning, but as the wand was apparently aware of the technicalities of its ownership (contrived and concealed in the thoughts of Snape though it may have been) it couldn't kill Harry anyway.

Am I the only one who snickered about the innuendos on page 415 about wand size, performance, and the skill of the wizard? Rowling doesn't have much innuendo in the books in spite of infinite opportunity, and this one would go over the heads of 10 year olds (I hope), but I thought it was rather obvious.

A nagging critique of mine regarding the series is that, for a society in which men and women have equal skills, it seems like it's the males who get all the prime roles. I know it's not "Hermione Granger and the...", but among the leading good guys, bad guys, Order of the Phoenix, and government the males always have the top jobs and females are supporting players.

A few of the commenters here have been going around and around on the question of whether the right to an object supersedes possession of it, (for example, was Gryffindor's sword Dumbledore's to bequeath, Bellatrix's to lock up in her vault, Harry's, Griphook's, or Neville's?) on another fine spoilery comments thread.

BTW, certain that I couldn't be the first to conflate Harry Potter with Dirty Harry, I googled the pair of names and found that some time ago, somebody had found all the quotes in most of the books containing the word wand and replaced the letter d with the letter g, which in some instances is even funnier than it sounds like it would be.

Neville Longbottom was the other boy qualified by birth to fulfill the prophecy and kill the Dark Lord.

I'll go grab my copy of OotP because as I remember the conversation between Dumbledore and Harry - about the prophecy after the battle in the ministry. Harry asked the same question as in "take this cup away from me" and Dumbledore said no, that since Voldemort chose to attack him and not Neville when they were tots the only person who could fulfill the prophecy was Harry.

I thought that when Harry turned 17, the maternal charm that had protected him became null and void. For example, in chapter 3, page 33, Harry tries to persuade the Dursley's to leave by pointing out that "Once I'm seventeen, the protective charm that keeps me safe will break..."

Or how about in chapter 4, page 45, where Mad-Eye Moody explains the plan, "We can't wait for the Trace to break because the moment you turn seventeen you'l lose all the protection your mother gave you."

So how can it be Lily's protection that keeps V from killing HP in the enchanted forest?

Beyond my habit of reading each of these once and setting 'em aside, but: I thought at the end, there were two moments when Riddle takes his shot at killing Harry. The first time, Riddle DOES kill him, so it would seem that he CAN.

That first time, there was no conflict between the wands, because Harry didn't use his. So isn't the reason Harry himself doesn't die only because he has a piece of Riddle's soul -- which is what Riddle killed.

I don't think it proves the Stone at all: why would it?

I'm not sure Harry actually chooses to return from the dead (which would prove the Stone), cuz Dumbledore confirms that it's all a dream, anyway, and what diff? Just cuz it's in his head doesn't mean it's not TRUE. (and a more CS Lewis moment in the series would be hard to find)

So they fight a second time.

And when there IS a conflict between the wands, Harry wins, and I see no doubt in him that he will win -- the rest is simply because, having been there (if only in his mind), Harry offers Riddle the chance to redeem himself from the fate that waits him after death.

Harry, for sure, had seen Neville do in Nagini (speaking of which, KIPLING reference!), so he knows that, at last, it was ONLY Riddle -- all the pieces of his soul had been killed.

I am not an expert on Joseph Campbell, but I can't think of any other final battle that was quite like this, for all the subtle and not so subtle references to other works.

Can anybody? Did Rowling really hide something profoundly original out in plain sight?

So how can it be Lily's protection that keeps V from killing HP in the enchanted forest?

Mad-Eye got it wrong. It wasn't the protection his mother gave him that expired upon Harry reaching his majority, it was the spell cast by Dumbledore that protected him so long as he returned at least once a year to a place he could call home, as he explained to Harry in chapter 3 of Book 6.

Dumbledore explains to Harry in King's Cross his theory about why he didn't die, but appears to think that his mother's protection still runs in Harry's blood and Voldie's, making it impossible? difficult? for Voldie to kill Harry while he still lives. DD seems to think it was Harry's willingness to die to protect his friends that put it all over the top. JKR, by adding all the Grindlewald's Spear^H^H^H^H^H wand of destiny business, may have felt that Harry probably needed all of those maguffins and spells and proper attitude of sacrifice and the like, so that if no one thing kept him alive, their cumulative effect would be to suspend our disbelief in his surviving yet another AK curse from Voldie, while destroying the scar horcrux. That was very cool as an explanation for the mental connection between them, and as an item that put Harry in mortal peril, forcing another one of those choices that DD says makes us what we are.

On rereading, a couple things I really liked - I liked that it was RON who got the idea to go to the Chamber of Secrets and plunder teeth from the body of the long-dead basilisk; that was clever! And I liked Harry in the final confrontation addressing Voldemort as Tom Riddle - really punctured that air of mystique Voldie had been building up all those years.

I think of Harry's "King's Cross" scene with Dumbledore as a near death experience. D seems to give Harry the choice of staying or returning to the world near the end of the scene. And while Harry is tempted to stay, he chooses to return to life and the battle.

The other aspect of that scene, that no one's talked about yet, is the wounded child, which they both ignore, and which Dumbledore says can't be helped. I can only assume that represents the fragment of Voldemort's soul which was inside Harry, and which is now dying.