Thoughts at the End of DH *MAJOR SPOILERS*
I've not read any other reviews yet, and this may the hundredth one by now, but I wanted to express my initial thoughts on DH before being influenced by anyone else's. This is a long, but pretty damn fair review, at least imo. :)
The Entertaining:
Deathly Hallows was intense from the beginning and the action rarely let up. The first chapter was gripping and richly written--I liked watching the interaction between Voldy and the DEs.
Finally, some background information on Dumbledore, nice to find out that he may have been a lot more human than he appeared earlier in the series.
Harry's flight from the Dursleys was everything it should have been, from all the ones willing to sacrifice their lives, to Hagrid being the one to remove him using Sirius' motorbike. Full circle and nicely done, that. Lupin's behavior seemed interestingly explosive, especially as he's usually the level-headed one. I supposed spending so much time with "bad" werewolves in HBP might have affected his personality some.
I enjoyed meeting Fleur's parents during the wedding and was pleasantly surprised to like them.
Auntie Muriel was hilariously nasty. I was expecting someone much younger though, after Ginny taunted Ron about Auntie Muriel's kisses and it actually bothered him! Yuck. :)
Grimmauld Place is still as spooky and dank as ever. I thought the dust person that had to be told that you weren't its killer was creepy, but very humorous.
I really enjoyed Kreacher's arc in this story, and how he comes to like and respect Harry after he realizes that Harry actually cares about his well-being.
I loved the interchange between Harry and Remus, even if it made me cringe. This seemed to mark the beginning of Harry starting to function as an equal to his former mentors. My little boy's all grown up! *sniff*
I really enjoyed seeing the trio act like the TRIO for a bit instead of the strained relationships we received in HBP. The extended "camp-out" began to understandably take its toll, with the locket expectedly causing problems.
Harry and Hermione's visit to Godric's Hollow was one of the most affecting scenes for me, with the emotion and Hermione creating the ring of roses for James and Lily's graves. The meeting with Bathilda was just downright gross, but in a great way--mentions of the smell of rotting meat! Urgh... :D
Ron's return at just the right moment was quite fortunate. Thanks bunches, Severus, for putting that sword in the freezing water.
I thought the visit to the Lovegood home was well done, with the growing feeling that (although Mr. Lovegood was supposed to be a great supporter) something felt more and more wrong. Hermione's rescue was brilliant, just as the boys said. :) And friends, friends, friends... *hugs Luna*
I liked the idea of DD and Grindelwald having been friends before G started going terribly wrong. The back story of DD's sister and Aberforth was interesting as being the catalyst that turned DD from G's ideas.
The scenes from Malfoy Manor with Fenrir and Lucious and Bellatrix were nicely disturbing. Ron's crying out for Hermione was gut-wrenching, and I liked that. I was never so glad to see Luna.
I think Dobby's death was the most affecting scene for me in the book. It was the best-written death for sure. The processes that Harry went through as he dug the grave, then buried Dobby in such a tender way (loved Luna here again) brought me to tears.
I loved Bill's characterization and enjoyed watching the process he went through to finally accept Harry as an adult and leader. I think I want to live at Shell Cottage. It would be all right if Bill were there, too. ;)
I liked the idea of Ron and Hermione better in this book than I have in any other, but I still don't think it was properly built. I want to love them together as a couple, but the bickering is a real turn-off for me, as it is for Harry. :)
It was great to watch Harry include Ron and Hermione in everything! Again, TRIO!
Bellatrix!Hermione was hilarious! She had a little trouble at first ("Good morning!" hahaha), but then got used to it and seemed to channel Bellabitch very well. Maybe I'm naive, but Griphook's duplicity, after his conversations with Harry, caught me off guard even with Bill's warning.
Loved the escape scene with the dragon and how the trio helped the dragon blast it's way out of Gringotts. So cool.
Aberforth rocks! and so did the DA, along with the professors. Looooved the scene where the trio meets back up with Neville, who's obviously come into his own as a leader. Loved that!!!
McGonagall was every bit the leader of Hogwarts, and it was about time, after her namby-pambyness at the end of HBP about closing the school and whether or not DD should be buried at Hogwarts.
Laughed and laughed at Trelawny throwing crystal balls at people! Perfect.
Harry's acceptance of his fate after viewing the pensieve contents was breathtaking.
I loved that he learned from DD's mistakes and gave Neville the knowledge he needed to destroy Nagini.
His walk through the forest, becoming a willing sacrifice, was powerful. His cool handling of the situation, after returning to the land of the living, was wonderful. I loved that Voldy's power couldn't stand against Harry's supporters at the end.
I'm very glad that Harry lived. I'd been hoping for that ending.
The Dissatisfying and Downright Inexplicable:
The death in the first chapter would have been a lot more powerful, had it been someone we actually knew and cared about. Why not take Mad-Eye there, and pay his character the attention he deserved, as opposed to the short shrift his death received? And on that subject, Hedwig's death wasn't as respectable as it should have been either.
Dudley saying those nice things to Harry was from out of left field. When have we EVER been given any inkling that Dudley felt anything but contempt for Harry? I would have believed a conversation coming from Petunia more readily than Dudley.
I would liked to have found out about DD along the way, not from flashback-type newspaper stories or biographies. It would have lent more depth to his character as well as provided some mystery about DD's motives.
Is it me, or did the effects of the Polyjuice Potion last longer than an hour many times in this book?
JKR disregarded the Fidelius Charm rules from her own website.
There were too many throw-away characters in this book. Charity Burbage, Ted and Andromeda Tonks, Mr. Lovegood, even Umbridge. Even some of the main characters' appearances seemed gratuitous at times, as though they were there as scene dressing. They seemed tumbled into the books as wholly unnecessary additions to the plot, and it was because the plot expanded like a wet sponge, swollen and dripping. JKR had enough loose ends to be getting along with, but apparently couldn't stop with what she already had.
There was absolutley no need for the Deathly Hallows in this book.
What was she thinking, bringing this fairy tale into the plot? They made absolutely no difference in the end to Harry completing his mission and were only an unneeded diversion for Harry. I get that they might have been the *distraction for the hero* in Harry's journey, but their use made the plot too contrived and convoluted in the end. Why not use Ginny as the distraction--that's what she's called in previous books anyway. Why not build that relationship just a bit??? The DHs seemed to come out of nowhere, even though the objects were with us the entire time. If they were going to be so important to the last book, there should have been a few better clues along the way. If Harry's Invisibility Cloak was so powerful a protection, then why could Mad Eye see through it? JKR was too clever by half with this plotline.
Too much thrown together at the end, with Snape's needless death and memories (pouring out of him--when was that ever demonstrated in previous books???).
Although many had guessed that Severus loved Lily, we really had nothing to go on besides conjecture, and the Snape/Lily backstory seemed like conjecture in the book. I was expecting a lot more to Harry's eyes being green than that!
Many scenes came way too easily. Percy's last-minute appearance was laughable, as was Ron being able to imitate Harry's Pareseltongue to get into the CoS. Puh-leeeasse. A little more set up for those two scenes was needed--how about a furtive look from Percy at his father, or maybe that Percy looks like he wants to say something (but doesn't) when they're in the MoM lift together. And Parseltongue was supposed to be a special gift that only a few could use or understand. It seemed silly that Ron could somehow imitate it well enough to use it in the CoS.
What an anticlimax for Ron and Hermione's relationship and their "big moment". *rolls eyes* I would have accepted Dean/Whomping Willow, had it been properly built. You can't have love as your overriding theme and then create such shallow "soul-mate" relationships.
And let's talk about Ron's characterizaton for a minute. JKR did a real diservice to Ron's character (and Hermione's) by never letting him really prove himself on his own terms. Most, if not all, of what Ron did at the end of DH was an imitation of things that Harry had already done. Previous to that, Ron displayed patterns of egocentricity, disloyalty, abandonment, and jealousy that usually resulted in irrational behavior. Ron's character is never allowed to prove that he's overcome these pretty serious character flaws. In the epilogue, he doesn't seem to have matured much--he's cheated on his driver's test and been dishonest with Hermione about it. For Hermione to accept Ron as a husband, and subsequently a father to her children, the way that JKR has painted him seems inconsistent with Hermione's ideals as portrayed in the first five books. JKR herself said something along the lines that she was smarter than Hermione because she'd married Harry. O_o
Harry's willingness to sacrifice himself was cheapened when he summoned his parents, Remus, and Sirius in the forest before he faced Voldy, because he then had every reassurance that death was absolutely painless and wonderful. Those conversations should have occurred after Harry took the AK from Voldy. I take particular issue with this because JKR has been so vehement about representing death in a realistic way to children. I know that she'd like to represent death in a way that calms their fears, but Harry having access to his dead loved ones before he faces Voldy isn't at all realistic. Sure, Harry needed that comfort, who wouldn't? But people don't usually have that reasurrence before death. And telling kids that death is easy and painless--spend some time with me in the children's wing at the hospital, JKR. That doesn't match her apparent beliefs about the way she's said that writers should address death for children.
Neville should have killed Bellatrix, not Molly, and the foul language stood out like a sore thumb. Neville should have actively sought out Bellatrix and taken her on. That would have been a wonderful scene, and so satisfying. I don't care if no one would have been surprised by that. Some scenes that were unexpected seemed to be that way only because JKR preferred to write the unexpected as opposed to what would have been right. The only other person that should have killed Bellatrix was Ginny. If she's Harry's ideal and equal, then she should have bested Voldy's "ideal and equal". Instead, she needed her mummy to rescue her.
If (because Voldy had Harry's blood in his veins) Voldy couldn't kill Harry, then it doesn't make any sense that Harry goes to the netherworld to talk to DD. According to JKR's explanations about the blood ties in the book, Voldy was never going to be able to kill Harry. That would appear to undercut the words of the prophecy from the fifth book.
JKR paid too little attention to the character's deaths in the end, and in the process made Harry seem like a cad for not responding a bit more emotionally than he did. Fred, Tonks and Remus deserved more than she gave them and their deaths felt forced and hurried.
The epilogue is obviously crap and answered few questions about the survivors, but the thing that bothers me most (ignoring the pairings) is that Harry calls Severus the "bravest man he's ever known". O_o Severus, the man who turned his family in to Voldy? Severus isn't stupid; what did he think would come of that? The only reasons that Severus did what he did to help the Order stemmed from guilt and a thirst for revenge. His "love" for Lily was warped, in that he would sell out those she loved and mistreat her son. If you truly love someone, what's important to them becomes important to you. His relationship with Lily started out as stalking and progressed to a selfish sort of control, wanting to chase off others she was close to, such as Petunia, to begin with. Yeah, Harry. Name your son after him. Good idea.
Addressing the Pairings:
Good grief, could we have any more shallow relationships here? Wow, I wanted so much to experience the trio and the other kids learn to love and love well. All I got was attraction. I still don't know why Hermione loves Ron. I know Harry thinks Ginny's beautiful and likes to kiss her, and that Ginny thinks Harry's a hero, but there's not anything other than that. No deep, confiding conversations--even at the end, Harry thinks that he'll talk to Ginny later as he goes to Ron and Hermione. Wouldn't he at least want to comfort Ginny after Fred's death? She seemed to be close to the twins in the previous books, so I would think she would be in need of a shoulder and a hug. The epilogue certainly doesn't give us any closer relationships between the pairings other than to let us know they've shagged.
If Ginny is Harry's equal, does that make Hermione Ron's equal? *headdesk*
I don't buy Harry and Hermione spending weeks alone with no meaningful conversations or even temptations. Hermione's said that she thinks Harry's fanciable and Harry has thought Hermione pretty. Put two teens together with that close of a relationship (who are unrelated) for that length of time and not have *something* happen along romantic lines? Yeah, right.
JKR seems to continue slapping at Harmonians in this book like she did in HBP, only worse in DH as she turned H/Hr into something insidious and nasty from the locket Horcrux. She seems to dislike us, and it begs the question, "Why?" Is it because she knew we had something better and couldn't seem to attain it? Who knows? Whatever the case, it's her lack and not ours.
Unanswered Questions
What did James and Lily do for a living?
What's the deal with the Love/Mystery Room in the DoM?
Why weren't the Weasleys in the OotP the first time around?
What does Hermione see in Ron?
Who was the person that was supposed to have done magic unexpectedly later in life?
Why does Molly say, in book 5 when Ron gets his Prefect's Badge, "Oh, Ron, how wonderful!...That's everyone in the family!" What about Fred, George and Ginny?
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:
Why did Lily's sacrifice prevent the AK from working? How did that block the curse? If it was just the sacrificial love, didn't other parents try to protect their children just like that as Voldy and the DEs went on their killing sprees? Or were all the other parents selfish gits?
Why didn't James' sacrificial death mean anything? His sacrifice doesn't count? Why did he have to die and Lily didn't?
If Basilisk fangs can destroy the soul piece in a Horcrux, then why wasn't the soul piece in Harry destroyed when the Basilisk's fang pierced him in CoS? It was instantaneous destruction for the other soul pieces in the Horcruxes that were pierced by the fangs. The containers themselves were never destroyed (except for Ravenclaw's tiara and possibly Nagini), i.e., they never lost their true form or origninal use. The stone, although cracked, was still able to accomplish it's previous task, calling forth the dead. This is a question that needs answering by JKR, although I'm not sure there is a reasonable answer--at least not one that I can find.
I'm sure there are more, but these are enough.
In the end, JKR seems to have been more concerned with adding copious amounts of details to her stories without much thought for what they might actually mean. Much of the supposed imagery was window dressing, and nothing more, as little of it turned out to be important to the overall story. Even imagery that she borrowed from books like Goudge's The Little White Horse didn't pan out as it should have. The meaning of the imagery in TLWH of the animals circling the moon princess and sun prince, that was mirrored in the fifth book with Pigwidgeon circling Harry and Hermione as they hugged seemed lost on JKR. So did all the other circular imagery surrounding Harry and Hermione in the books. Is JKR so thick that she didn't understand what that imagery meant in TLWH or her own series? Why use that, if it means nothing? Or as in the use of perspective to confuse issues in Austen's Emma (which JKR so purportedly seemed to love and wanted to emmulate)? We see Harry's misunderstanding of relationship issues (same as Emma), such as Tonk's true feelings for Remus in HBP, which should have led to other revelations about relationships that he'd misread, but that never went anywhere as it should have.
I'm amazed by how much JKR set herself up to have, but then appeared absolutely oblivious to what she'd done for herself, and failed to use it to her and her readers' advantage.
What an oversight to never have anyone say, "I love you," to Harry in the final book.
The Entertaining:
Deathly Hallows was intense from the beginning and the action rarely let up. The first chapter was gripping and richly written--I liked watching the interaction between Voldy and the DEs.
Finally, some background information on Dumbledore, nice to find out that he may have been a lot more human than he appeared earlier in the series.
Harry's flight from the Dursleys was everything it should have been, from all the ones willing to sacrifice their lives, to Hagrid being the one to remove him using Sirius' motorbike. Full circle and nicely done, that. Lupin's behavior seemed interestingly explosive, especially as he's usually the level-headed one. I supposed spending so much time with "bad" werewolves in HBP might have affected his personality some.
I enjoyed meeting Fleur's parents during the wedding and was pleasantly surprised to like them.
Auntie Muriel was hilariously nasty. I was expecting someone much younger though, after Ginny taunted Ron about Auntie Muriel's kisses and it actually bothered him! Yuck. :)
Grimmauld Place is still as spooky and dank as ever. I thought the dust person that had to be told that you weren't its killer was creepy, but very humorous.
I really enjoyed Kreacher's arc in this story, and how he comes to like and respect Harry after he realizes that Harry actually cares about his well-being.
I loved the interchange between Harry and Remus, even if it made me cringe. This seemed to mark the beginning of Harry starting to function as an equal to his former mentors. My little boy's all grown up! *sniff*
I really enjoyed seeing the trio act like the TRIO for a bit instead of the strained relationships we received in HBP. The extended "camp-out" began to understandably take its toll, with the locket expectedly causing problems.
Harry and Hermione's visit to Godric's Hollow was one of the most affecting scenes for me, with the emotion and Hermione creating the ring of roses for James and Lily's graves. The meeting with Bathilda was just downright gross, but in a great way--mentions of the smell of rotting meat! Urgh... :D
Ron's return at just the right moment was quite fortunate. Thanks bunches, Severus, for putting that sword in the freezing water.
I thought the visit to the Lovegood home was well done, with the growing feeling that (although Mr. Lovegood was supposed to be a great supporter) something felt more and more wrong. Hermione's rescue was brilliant, just as the boys said. :) And friends, friends, friends... *hugs Luna*
I liked the idea of DD and Grindelwald having been friends before G started going terribly wrong. The back story of DD's sister and Aberforth was interesting as being the catalyst that turned DD from G's ideas.
The scenes from Malfoy Manor with Fenrir and Lucious and Bellatrix were nicely disturbing. Ron's crying out for Hermione was gut-wrenching, and I liked that. I was never so glad to see Luna.
I think Dobby's death was the most affecting scene for me in the book. It was the best-written death for sure. The processes that Harry went through as he dug the grave, then buried Dobby in such a tender way (loved Luna here again) brought me to tears.
I loved Bill's characterization and enjoyed watching the process he went through to finally accept Harry as an adult and leader. I think I want to live at Shell Cottage. It would be all right if Bill were there, too. ;)
I liked the idea of Ron and Hermione better in this book than I have in any other, but I still don't think it was properly built. I want to love them together as a couple, but the bickering is a real turn-off for me, as it is for Harry. :)
It was great to watch Harry include Ron and Hermione in everything! Again, TRIO!
Bellatrix!Hermione was hilarious! She had a little trouble at first ("Good morning!" hahaha), but then got used to it and seemed to channel Bellabitch very well. Maybe I'm naive, but Griphook's duplicity, after his conversations with Harry, caught me off guard even with Bill's warning.
Loved the escape scene with the dragon and how the trio helped the dragon blast it's way out of Gringotts. So cool.
Aberforth rocks! and so did the DA, along with the professors. Looooved the scene where the trio meets back up with Neville, who's obviously come into his own as a leader. Loved that!!!
McGonagall was every bit the leader of Hogwarts, and it was about time, after her namby-pambyness at the end of HBP about closing the school and whether or not DD should be buried at Hogwarts.
Laughed and laughed at Trelawny throwing crystal balls at people! Perfect.
Harry's acceptance of his fate after viewing the pensieve contents was breathtaking.
I loved that he learned from DD's mistakes and gave Neville the knowledge he needed to destroy Nagini.
His walk through the forest, becoming a willing sacrifice, was powerful. His cool handling of the situation, after returning to the land of the living, was wonderful. I loved that Voldy's power couldn't stand against Harry's supporters at the end.
I'm very glad that Harry lived. I'd been hoping for that ending.
The Dissatisfying and Downright Inexplicable:
The death in the first chapter would have been a lot more powerful, had it been someone we actually knew and cared about. Why not take Mad-Eye there, and pay his character the attention he deserved, as opposed to the short shrift his death received? And on that subject, Hedwig's death wasn't as respectable as it should have been either.
Dudley saying those nice things to Harry was from out of left field. When have we EVER been given any inkling that Dudley felt anything but contempt for Harry? I would have believed a conversation coming from Petunia more readily than Dudley.
I would liked to have found out about DD along the way, not from flashback-type newspaper stories or biographies. It would have lent more depth to his character as well as provided some mystery about DD's motives.
Is it me, or did the effects of the Polyjuice Potion last longer than an hour many times in this book?
JKR disregarded the Fidelius Charm rules from her own website.
There were too many throw-away characters in this book. Charity Burbage, Ted and Andromeda Tonks, Mr. Lovegood, even Umbridge. Even some of the main characters' appearances seemed gratuitous at times, as though they were there as scene dressing. They seemed tumbled into the books as wholly unnecessary additions to the plot, and it was because the plot expanded like a wet sponge, swollen and dripping. JKR had enough loose ends to be getting along with, but apparently couldn't stop with what she already had.
There was absolutley no need for the Deathly Hallows in this book.
What was she thinking, bringing this fairy tale into the plot? They made absolutely no difference in the end to Harry completing his mission and were only an unneeded diversion for Harry. I get that they might have been the *distraction for the hero* in Harry's journey, but their use made the plot too contrived and convoluted in the end. Why not use Ginny as the distraction--that's what she's called in previous books anyway. Why not build that relationship just a bit??? The DHs seemed to come out of nowhere, even though the objects were with us the entire time. If they were going to be so important to the last book, there should have been a few better clues along the way. If Harry's Invisibility Cloak was so powerful a protection, then why could Mad Eye see through it? JKR was too clever by half with this plotline.
Too much thrown together at the end, with Snape's needless death and memories (pouring out of him--when was that ever demonstrated in previous books???).
Although many had guessed that Severus loved Lily, we really had nothing to go on besides conjecture, and the Snape/Lily backstory seemed like conjecture in the book. I was expecting a lot more to Harry's eyes being green than that!
Many scenes came way too easily. Percy's last-minute appearance was laughable, as was Ron being able to imitate Harry's Pareseltongue to get into the CoS. Puh-leeeasse. A little more set up for those two scenes was needed--how about a furtive look from Percy at his father, or maybe that Percy looks like he wants to say something (but doesn't) when they're in the MoM lift together. And Parseltongue was supposed to be a special gift that only a few could use or understand. It seemed silly that Ron could somehow imitate it well enough to use it in the CoS.
What an anticlimax for Ron and Hermione's relationship and their "big moment". *rolls eyes* I would have accepted Dean/Whomping Willow, had it been properly built. You can't have love as your overriding theme and then create such shallow "soul-mate" relationships.
And let's talk about Ron's characterizaton for a minute. JKR did a real diservice to Ron's character (and Hermione's) by never letting him really prove himself on his own terms. Most, if not all, of what Ron did at the end of DH was an imitation of things that Harry had already done. Previous to that, Ron displayed patterns of egocentricity, disloyalty, abandonment, and jealousy that usually resulted in irrational behavior. Ron's character is never allowed to prove that he's overcome these pretty serious character flaws. In the epilogue, he doesn't seem to have matured much--he's cheated on his driver's test and been dishonest with Hermione about it. For Hermione to accept Ron as a husband, and subsequently a father to her children, the way that JKR has painted him seems inconsistent with Hermione's ideals as portrayed in the first five books. JKR herself said something along the lines that she was smarter than Hermione because she'd married Harry. O_o
Harry's willingness to sacrifice himself was cheapened when he summoned his parents, Remus, and Sirius in the forest before he faced Voldy, because he then had every reassurance that death was absolutely painless and wonderful. Those conversations should have occurred after Harry took the AK from Voldy. I take particular issue with this because JKR has been so vehement about representing death in a realistic way to children. I know that she'd like to represent death in a way that calms their fears, but Harry having access to his dead loved ones before he faces Voldy isn't at all realistic. Sure, Harry needed that comfort, who wouldn't? But people don't usually have that reasurrence before death. And telling kids that death is easy and painless--spend some time with me in the children's wing at the hospital, JKR. That doesn't match her apparent beliefs about the way she's said that writers should address death for children.
Neville should have killed Bellatrix, not Molly, and the foul language stood out like a sore thumb. Neville should have actively sought out Bellatrix and taken her on. That would have been a wonderful scene, and so satisfying. I don't care if no one would have been surprised by that. Some scenes that were unexpected seemed to be that way only because JKR preferred to write the unexpected as opposed to what would have been right. The only other person that should have killed Bellatrix was Ginny. If she's Harry's ideal and equal, then she should have bested Voldy's "ideal and equal". Instead, she needed her mummy to rescue her.
If (because Voldy had Harry's blood in his veins) Voldy couldn't kill Harry, then it doesn't make any sense that Harry goes to the netherworld to talk to DD. According to JKR's explanations about the blood ties in the book, Voldy was never going to be able to kill Harry. That would appear to undercut the words of the prophecy from the fifth book.
JKR paid too little attention to the character's deaths in the end, and in the process made Harry seem like a cad for not responding a bit more emotionally than he did. Fred, Tonks and Remus deserved more than she gave them and their deaths felt forced and hurried.
The epilogue is obviously crap and answered few questions about the survivors, but the thing that bothers me most (ignoring the pairings) is that Harry calls Severus the "bravest man he's ever known". O_o Severus, the man who turned his family in to Voldy? Severus isn't stupid; what did he think would come of that? The only reasons that Severus did what he did to help the Order stemmed from guilt and a thirst for revenge. His "love" for Lily was warped, in that he would sell out those she loved and mistreat her son. If you truly love someone, what's important to them becomes important to you. His relationship with Lily started out as stalking and progressed to a selfish sort of control, wanting to chase off others she was close to, such as Petunia, to begin with. Yeah, Harry. Name your son after him. Good idea.
Addressing the Pairings:
Good grief, could we have any more shallow relationships here? Wow, I wanted so much to experience the trio and the other kids learn to love and love well. All I got was attraction. I still don't know why Hermione loves Ron. I know Harry thinks Ginny's beautiful and likes to kiss her, and that Ginny thinks Harry's a hero, but there's not anything other than that. No deep, confiding conversations--even at the end, Harry thinks that he'll talk to Ginny later as he goes to Ron and Hermione. Wouldn't he at least want to comfort Ginny after Fred's death? She seemed to be close to the twins in the previous books, so I would think she would be in need of a shoulder and a hug. The epilogue certainly doesn't give us any closer relationships between the pairings other than to let us know they've shagged.
If Ginny is Harry's equal, does that make Hermione Ron's equal? *headdesk*
I don't buy Harry and Hermione spending weeks alone with no meaningful conversations or even temptations. Hermione's said that she thinks Harry's fanciable and Harry has thought Hermione pretty. Put two teens together with that close of a relationship (who are unrelated) for that length of time and not have *something* happen along romantic lines? Yeah, right.
JKR seems to continue slapping at Harmonians in this book like she did in HBP, only worse in DH as she turned H/Hr into something insidious and nasty from the locket Horcrux. She seems to dislike us, and it begs the question, "Why?" Is it because she knew we had something better and couldn't seem to attain it? Who knows? Whatever the case, it's her lack and not ours.
Unanswered Questions
What did James and Lily do for a living?
What's the deal with the Love/Mystery Room in the DoM?
Why weren't the Weasleys in the OotP the first time around?
What does Hermione see in Ron?
Who was the person that was supposed to have done magic unexpectedly later in life?
Why does Molly say, in book 5 when Ron gets his Prefect's Badge, "Oh, Ron, how wonderful!...That's everyone in the family!" What about Fred, George and Ginny?
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:
Why did Lily's sacrifice prevent the AK from working? How did that block the curse? If it was just the sacrificial love, didn't other parents try to protect their children just like that as Voldy and the DEs went on their killing sprees? Or were all the other parents selfish gits?
Why didn't James' sacrificial death mean anything? His sacrifice doesn't count? Why did he have to die and Lily didn't?
If Basilisk fangs can destroy the soul piece in a Horcrux, then why wasn't the soul piece in Harry destroyed when the Basilisk's fang pierced him in CoS? It was instantaneous destruction for the other soul pieces in the Horcruxes that were pierced by the fangs. The containers themselves were never destroyed (except for Ravenclaw's tiara and possibly Nagini), i.e., they never lost their true form or origninal use. The stone, although cracked, was still able to accomplish it's previous task, calling forth the dead. This is a question that needs answering by JKR, although I'm not sure there is a reasonable answer--at least not one that I can find.
I'm sure there are more, but these are enough.
In the end, JKR seems to have been more concerned with adding copious amounts of details to her stories without much thought for what they might actually mean. Much of the supposed imagery was window dressing, and nothing more, as little of it turned out to be important to the overall story. Even imagery that she borrowed from books like Goudge's The Little White Horse didn't pan out as it should have. The meaning of the imagery in TLWH of the animals circling the moon princess and sun prince, that was mirrored in the fifth book with Pigwidgeon circling Harry and Hermione as they hugged seemed lost on JKR. So did all the other circular imagery surrounding Harry and Hermione in the books. Is JKR so thick that she didn't understand what that imagery meant in TLWH or her own series? Why use that, if it means nothing? Or as in the use of perspective to confuse issues in Austen's Emma (which JKR so purportedly seemed to love and wanted to emmulate)? We see Harry's misunderstanding of relationship issues (same as Emma), such as Tonk's true feelings for Remus in HBP, which should have led to other revelations about relationships that he'd misread, but that never went anywhere as it should have.
I'm amazed by how much JKR set herself up to have, but then appeared absolutely oblivious to what she'd done for herself, and failed to use it to her and her readers' advantage.
What an oversight to never have anyone say, "I love you," to Harry in the final book.