Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

By J. K. Rowling
Well, it’s finally over.
Spoilers abound below. Be warned.

I’ve gotten really, really behind on my booklog because I have been putting off writing about this tome. I have very strong and very varied opinions on it. So, here’s an inelegant summary of what I thought:

• Snape – Oh, love love love for my favorite potions master! Even if Rowling did make him a bit of a romantic wet blanket (“Always!” Feh.). It made me very, very angry that she killed him off with so little respect (nary a mention after he died!) but her writing around death is a bullet-point of its own below, so I’ll let that be. I was pleased that she vindicated him entirely – one of the strengths of the Potter series is that even the good folks have flaws and (as someone has said, I forget whom) there is a marked difference in the books between being good and being nice. Snape is good. He is not nice. That’s actually one of the things I love about him. I sometimes wonder what I’d be like if I didn’t have the overwhelming urge to be so damn nice and desire for folks to like me. I bet I’d be a lot like him.
• Dumbledore – I was very, very happy to see Dumbledore finally get some depth, even posthumously. It’s wonderful to see that his wisdom is hard-won, that he isn’t always right, and that yes, he has hurt people. Yay.
• Voldie – Consummate villain to the end. Almost a tragic figure, really – absolutely brilliant, but with the tragic flaw of ambition not held in check by compassion.
• Character Deaths – I am planning to write a long, detailed essay someday about what constitutes a “good” death for a character (my classic example of a good death is Boromir’s in LotR). Very few of the characters in this book got “good” deaths – they happen offscreen (Tonks, Lupin) or are handled so badly that I wanted to punch something (Dobby – a truly heroic death, important to the concept of elves being persons, and she dashes it off with very little attention. WTF.).
  Then there’s George. As far as I can figure, Rowling killed George and spared Percy (who, if any of the Weasleys deserves to go, is the one – he spent the last several books betraying everything his family stands for, and gets to return with nothing but “sorry! Oh, and Minister, I quit!” OMGWTFBBQARGH!) because she thought her audience would expect the opposite. That is a terrible way to plot things. A stupid way to plot things. If characters have to die, I expect them to die for a good reason. “To redeem his honor” is a good reason (Boromir). “Because he’s the villain and deserves it” is a good reason (Voldie). “So he can rest in peace” is a good reason (Darth Vader). “Because you weren’t expecting it!” isn’t a good reason. It’s a cruel reason. Hell, even Joss Whedon, whose casual attitude toward character death has finally driven me away from his work for what I hope is the last time, can come up with better reasons for his characters to die most of the time. “It makes the plot work” is a WAY better reason than “you weren’t expecting it!”

• Camping – boy, howdy, did the pace drag while the trio were camping. And wtf was up with chapter after chapter containing next to nothing in terms of events? Ron being a twat, Hermione being sniffly… could’ve been done in fewer pages, imo.
• As an end to the series – I think this is a decent one. Ties everything up fairly well. Brings the video-game plot to a fairly good end. Finally explains wtf Dumbledore has been doing this whole time (and I love love love that he was basically using Harry. Heee!). Yay.

I think that about covers it. I’ll be intrigued to see what (if anything) Rowling does next – more books in the same world? Something new?