Deathly Hallows Review

[modernorpheus]

Well, it was good, but not OMGW00T.  It wasn't the best of the series--I'd hold that to either Order or Prisoner.  Overall, two points:

-When the characters were bored and frustrated, the reader was bored and frustrated.  Merit or flaw?  You decide.
-Rowling has a talent for making you want to keep reading. That talent does her absolutely no good at

Comments

[celticqueen]

great big heaping tablespoons of WORD, brother

[modernorpheus]

And on top of that, the epilogue was 7 freaking pages long. She could have put a lot more info with a much longer ending and still avoid it from seeming crammed in. Here's how--

We continue to follow Al onto the train guided by his older brother. Here we meet friends and family of other characters, and through their conversations we get hints about their lives. We meet Teddy and his hair-colory weirdness. Al and Scorpius have a My-Daddy-Can-Beat-Up-Your-Daddy-off. Newspapers tell of new reforms in the Ministry and discovery of a crumple-horned snorkak. Al eventually dawns a nickname, Weird Al. Why not?? Al gets on a boat and sees the rebuilt Hogwarts, with new new wings and towers where there were once gaping holes, topped with statues of fallen warriors. We then get to the orientation dinner, where we see who's the new headmaster, the new permanent DAtDA professor, the new Herbology teacher, and so forth. Al's turn for sorting comes up, he puts the hat on, tension builds, and the hat screams, "HUFFLEPUFF!!!" The end.

[celticqueen]

or slytherin. That would make me LOL.

[cassielsander]

My theory on the sword, which I've spread far & wide and might even believe:

Because the goblin took the sword, rather than waiting for Harry to actually give it to him, the sword still belongs to Gryffindor and the Hat still has the authority to give it to a Gryffindor in need.

This of course means that the ownership rules for goblin-made magic swords are kind of the opposite of the rules for wands, but such is the caprice of magic.

[phoenix_seraph]

 
It makes me even more confused, though, why his familiar had to be a Pheonix and not... I don't know... a Roc or something.

Rowling's bird of fire is not an immortal creature so much as a creature of healing.   That is why its healing tears, its ability to carry someone, and even its ability to "swallow" a magical attack or curse are emphasized so much.   If you think of her fire bird as being a different species than the traditional phoenix, one focused on healing and helping rather than on rebirth and immortality, Dumbledore's fate makes a certain amount of sense.

Lord Voldemort fears death.   Dumbledore uses a familiar associated with immortality for healing in this life instead of seeking to escape death.

This also fits in with Rowling's own comments that the Potter series is about death (not about death and rebirth) and her refusal throughout the books to state whether or not there is a life after death.
 

[phoenix_seraph]

 
Is it any surprise that I would rather be in Ravenclaw with Luna Lovegood (maybe we grow up to marry, eh?) than be in Gryffindor with Harry Potter and the Weasleys?   (Although the actors playing the Weasley twins in the film . . . )

As for Hermione Granger . . . meh, we could find a way to recruit her over to Ravenclaw instead!

(I've already been able to sorting-hat many of our mutual friends into Slytherin and Hufflepuff, but to be honest, with Hermione in Gryffindor, I really have difficulty discerning what makes the difference between being in Gryffindor and being in Ravenclaw.   Particularly since our representative Ravenclaw is delightful but also falls for the Hogwarts equivalent of urban rumors far too often, which seems to defy the "clever" versus "courageous" differentiation set up in the books from the reverse angle from which Hermione defies it.   Harrrumph.

To be candid, if you subtract Hermione from the equation, the Gryffindor house seems to be the house of jocks and bullies more than the house of heroes.)