Deathly Hallows: Unanswered Questions

[fire_everything]

Note: This post is made of pure 100% spoilers.

1. So Neville’s parents are just going to die in St. Mungo’s, still insane? What does it say about the literary conventions that have shaped my psyche that, right up till the last, I was expecting the death of Voldy to break some spell and return them to normal functioning and the Longbottom family to

Comments

[drinkingcocoa]

According to JKR interviews, Hermione goes back and takes her N.E.W.T.s. George gets Ron's help in running the shop. McGonagall is headmistress, at least for a while. The Longbottoms stay sick. As for why Molly Weasley kills Bellatrix, I think basically two reasons: it's JKR's statement on the unappreciated powers of the frumpy stay-at-home mom. And JKR doesn't want the student generation to dirty their souls with vengeance killings, which is why Neville proves his manhood by beheading a snake rather than avenging his parents. So Molly embodies the phenomenon of the mother animal killing to protect young. I'm not crazy about this or really about anything to do with Molly Weasley, but hey, it's not my book.

[fire_everything]

Yeah, I actually did read JKR's attempted justification of the Molly/Bellatrix deathmatch before posting this, but was so dissatisfied by her explanation that I left the question in. I'm all for frumpy stay-at-home moms having their moments of badassery, but I do kind of feel Neville was robbed. I suppose that if his buttkicking Gran was satisfied, I will have to be as well.

I'm sure it will make Snape's posthumous day to learn that he owes the joint avenging of his death to his two least favorite students, eh? :)

[shyfoxling]

5. Given that Harry, Ron and Hermione have become high school dropouts

Not so. I'm Californian, so take with grain of salt, but British informants tell me it's not unusual in the UK to leave school at age 16 -- that is, after OWLs. NEWTs is an extra qualification, not the equivalent of "dropping out" really not to have them (although still not something Hermione would possibly do!).

The return of the boring DADA teacher. Amycus Carrow, despite being a Death Eater, is such a nonentity I couldn't even find a picture of him.

You can see him best just after Snape kills Dumbledore, in the "posse" descending the stairs and leaving the castle:

[fire_everything]

Yes, you're right about O-levels and A-levels, or whatever it is the English Muggles call them. I was just jokily imposing my American frame of reference on DH (which I feel deserves to be imposed upon at every opportunity). It did surprise me that Rowling let the N.E.W.T. thing slide so completely, since Harry needed to take them for his Auror qualification and Hermione needed to take them on personal principle. Partly I think I was just disappointed that we didn't get to vicariously experience the N.E.W.T.s. I wanted to see if they were really as Nastily Exhausting as all that.

I don't know how to do that screen-capture thing you did! Do you have to own the source material yourself, or are there publicly available digital streams you can use? I should look for a tutorial on this, so I can break out of my Google Images dependency...

[shyfoxling]

I took the still frame shot from the HBP DVD with my computer's DVD player software. It's possible it's available on-demand from Netflix, but I wouldn't know. Posting an unauthorized video stream of the film somewhere would probably get one TOSed by the hosting provider or C&D'd by WB before you could say Quidditch (to quote Madam Hooch). Even fanvids often get taken down.