Comments | millefiori: Long, rambly thoughts about HP and the Deathly Hallows

millefiori

Long, rambly thoughts about HP and the Deathly Hallows

Jul 23, 2007 13:17

Honestly, I think I'm think still processing. I think there is a lot I haven't dealt with yet, simply because HP (the books, the fanfic, the meta, the fandom) have been such a big part of my life for so many years. Anyway, here are some random thoughts, based on my first, fast reading: ( DH SPOILERS AHOY!!! )

Comments 10

anonymous July 23 2007, 19:05:57 UTC

Absolutely about Harry wanting normal in his life, especially after the end of the war. And not wanting to change the world. Who knows what happened directly afterwards since we don't see it. One good thing, there is much to be put in those many years between the end and the epilogue.

millefiori July 23 2007, 22:30:49 UTC

Very true -- and not only is there a lot of time between, there's a lot the epilogue leaves open.

hedda62 July 23 2007, 19:23:52 UTC

Really good thoughts, and I agree with most of them, especially about Snape (and Snape&Lily). I'm going to have to think more about the Malfoys - I was disappointed at first, but am coming around to finding the arc more satisfactory.

Oh, I hadn't thought about Umbridge being influenced by the locket! Not that she wasn't evil enough on her own.

Dumbledore/Grindelwald forever!

millefiori July 23 2007, 22:39:52 UTC

I was reading some meta discussion about the Malfoys and Draco in particular and I'm coming to believe that in a very Slytherin, indirect and plausibly deniable way, Draco was actually actively trying to help Harry. I know I'm a Pollyanna, but book six and seven both seem to indicate a change in Draco, and I so want to see him redeem himself. I'm choosing to believe that the wary rapprochement at the train station indicates that somewhere along the way he has.

hedda62 July 24 2007, 00:24:04 UTC

I like that theory. It really seems a shame if Draco doesn't change at all, though a sudden and complete transformation would be unbelievable as well. But given nineteen years... something's gotta give.

mythdefied July 24 2007, 04:20:57 UTC

It hadn't occurred to me, although it should've, that Umbridge would be influenced by the locket. I wonder how much was influence and how much was her, though, because she was never a nice person. Still, by the time of this book, she was downright evil, and that may've been the locket's influence.

I understand that for Harry, that ending is perfect, everything he wanted, but there still should've been a little something else there to tell us what's going on in the wizarding world all that time later. It just felt way too insular to me.

millefiori July 25 2007, 15:18:51 UTC

Umbridge certainly was a nasty piece of work. I think it was probably that the potential was there all along, and the locket just encouraged her.

I saw someone post about the epilogue that they didn't like it because it didn't tell us anything we didn't know, and I think that's a fair point. With the exception of a few new names and the fact that Neville is now a professor, she might just as well have said 'and they all lived happily ever after' for all the info it gave us about the aftermath of the story.

netninny July 24 2007, 16:44:58 UTC

He's grown and changed, become more likeable, more compassionate, less judgmental.

Yes, I think that's why it feels, in this book, as if Harry's grown into his heroism at last rather than simply having had it thrust upon him. And, as you say, he's discovering--or, perhaps, finally allowing himself to recognize--all these parallels between himself and people with whom he never expected to sympathize.

It's really quite amazing, the way JKR establishes this whole compelling world of bright colours and clear moral lines through Harry's child's perspective, and then just as compellingly deconstructs and problematizes it as he matures.

millefiori July 25 2007, 15:31:38 UTC

I was just talking to someone last night about how neatly JKR managed to sort of "grow" the POV as Harry matures over the years ( ... )

Slytherin House in DH netninny July 26 2007, 17:54:57 UTC

No, I think you're absolutely right that that was one of the big disappointments in JKR's moral complication of the HPverse.

I think the murder of Charity Burbage in the first chapter is significant to JKR's conception of the Death Eaters, and by extension all Slytherins. We see Charity's advocation of diversity versus their insular wish to keep wizarding blood pure, and we see her very name advocating truly unselfish love for others, a level of redemption that even the Malfoys and Snape can't quite seem to achieve in their resistance to Voldemort (the Malfoys resist him with familial love, which is still fairly insular; and Snape gets as far as loving an individual Other, but can't bring himself to extend that compassion beyond her).

To be sure, Regulus shows caritas in his ultimate kindness to and protection of Kreacher, but again, that happens in the past.

So, I too would have liked to see even a few Slytherins of Harry's generation actively using their ambition and cunning against Voldemort (heck, with all the Quidditch ( ... )