It's actually over...
Jul. 25th, 2007 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yours_trulyI guess somehow I didn't really think last weekend would ever come. It was just so completely surreal.
I know I said I'd have my reaction to the book up on Sunday, but I got started and just couldn't stop. This post is sixteen freaking pages long in Microsoft Word, so I'm going to do my best to break it up into smaller chunks with LJ cuts. It's really written mostly for myself, but if you want to read it to know how I felt about the book, then by all means go ahead.
I promised I would discuss the New York Times review and why I was so mad about it, but I’m going to be as brief as possible since there is so much other stuff to cover.
People have been claiming that the review didn’t actually give anything major away, just summarized the plot. I refused to read it before the book, but I finally gave it a look today at work, and I’m sorry, but revealing what the Deathly Hallows were seems like a pretty big effing spoiler to me. The fact is that this review was just plain mean. It’s not like the New York Times can say, “Whoops, our bad, we had no idea what a big deal this was to people. Sorry.” They know that the vast majority of fans have spent the last two weeks in perpetual fear of being spoiled. This had nothing to do with wanting to write an insightful and thought-provoking review, and everything to do with saying to the world, “Hah hah, we’ve already read it, nanny nanny boo boo. We will forever be one up on you because of this, and (just to prove it) here are a whole bunch of spoilers. Have fun, kiddies!”
Most fans of Harry Potter are kids. Those of us that have grown up with the books are probably 15-25 now, but I know a lot of elementary- and middle-schoolers that were looking forward to this. To write a spoiler-filled review two days early says to kids, “We do not value your excitement, we do not appreciate your enthusiasm for reading, and you’re all behaving like a bunch of fools.” The disdain for children is evident, and it infuriates me.
Also, there was a group of boys one street over from our line at the release party who ran up and down with a megaphone yelling spoilers. Luckily a fan attacked them and took their megaphone and smashed it before they reached my street (true story). They have a video they made on YouTube of it all, but I won’t be linking to it, as more views just makes them happier. From that video I found others of people doing similar stunts, all of them guys (and, surprise, so was the writer of the NYT review). For each and every one of you, I just have one message: I’m sorry about your penises.
Despite all of the spoilers running rampant, I managed to stay spoiler free through Friday, and even STAYED spoiler free throughout the concert and release party! And OMG, what a concert and what a party. Despite the fact that it took five hours to get there, despite the fact that I missed two thirds of the concert, and despite the fact that I had obnoxious boys next to me that kept hitting me, I got to see all of Harry and the Potters’ set, and it was freaking incredibleeeeee. I knew I loved wizard rock for good reasons: it’s moving, it’s funny, it builds connections between people, and it’s just awesome. Being surrounded by 20,000 Potter fans, jumping up and down, screaming lyrics, taking pictures, enjoying my last hours of not knowing… There’s no other way I would have wanted to spend that night. Nothing I write here could do justice to the incredible-ness that was that concert.
At the concert I got to meet Lizz finally, plus some of her friends and some other people I knew extremely loosely from the wrock community. I was so hyped and overwhelmed that I sort of just hugged everyone whether I knew who they were or not, and I handed out these bracelets that I made at work when I was bored, so I probably freaked people out, but oh well. =] Lizz had been there for several hours and snagged a spot right up at the front, off a bit to the right side of the stage, which facilitated some pretty sweet pictures and videos. This entry is going to be long enough without me posting them here, so you can find them on FaceBook and YouTube (and on the Wizrocklopedia, soon enough).
After the concert I took Rachel over to the merch table so she could hand in her book report and get a HatP toothbrush, and I bought a bunch of t-shirts, CDs, and other such things. After that I went and got my wristband so I could get in line with the other people who pre-ordered, and Mom and Rach went back to the hotel while I waited in line with Lizz, Tonks, Teresa, Ginny, and some others. We got in line around 10:15, so there were almost two hours to wait until the book, so we occupied ourselves by talking, taking pictures, doing HP crossword puzzles, and passing out Wizrocklopedia flyers.
There’s a big clock at the top of a bank in Harvard Square, and we all counted down the last minute to midnight. When the first people started coming out with the book, a bunch of us realized how in danger we were for spoilers, so we sort of stood there with our fingers in our ears for the rest of the wait, lol.
After we got the book, Lizz and Teresa walked me back to the hotel to make sure I didn’t get lost, and then they drove back to New Hampshire. I walked into the hotel room, changed into pajamas, and read straight through until 7 a.m., when I was finally so tired that I fell asleep, only to wake up ninety minutes later. I got in a couple more hours, and then Mom, Rach and I had to pack up and check out.
We wanted to see Harvard Square in daylight, though, so I put the book in the car, put on headphones with the volume all the way up, and we walked around Cambridge for about an hour. I read the book during the entire car ride home, then just locked myself in my room until I finished at exactly 10:34 p.m. Eight years of fandom were over in about seventeen hours’ worth of reading time.
So, now I guess it’s time to grade my predictions! Here is a breakdown of my thoughts on how I did with each prediction. My final percentage and grade follow.
LIVE OR DIE
1. Harry dies (wrong)
I actually intensely dislike how Harry’s fate was handled, and I’ll talk about it more later. It’s not that I hate Harry and wanted him to die; I simply saw no believable way he could survive, and I still don’t think Jo handled it satisfactorily.
2. Voldemort dies (correct)
Well, duhhh, Voldemort was gonna die. Anyone who predicted that he lived was just kooky.
3. Snape dies (correct)
To me, Snape’s fate was another “duh”. You don’t kill Albus Dumbledore and then get to go on with life as normal, no matter whether he asked you to do it or not. Society just won’t accept you back (and I have issues with how okay with all those memories Harry was).
4. Ron lives (correct)
5. Hermione lives (correct)
6. Ginny lives (correct)
All of my predictions on who lived or died were based on two things: whether I could envision a scenario in which their death would be necessary for the plot, and whether their death was necessary for the pathos that would need to be demonstrated to make the war believable. Since I was so convinced Harry was a goner, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all had to live (in my opinion) because it was actually sadder to have them go on without Harry than to have them die alongside him. Well, all four of them lived, I guess, and people got the sugary sweet ending they wanted.
7. Luna lives (correct)
Luna, for all her eccentricities, was a good fighter who stayed out of trouble. As the “truth teller”, I knew she’d make it through most of the book by necessity, but I was worried for her towards the end. Happily, she made it through everything.
8. Neville dies (wrong)
I thought a Neville/Bellatrix duel was a cert, and Neville was obviously going to come off worse in it. Although a lot of people thought his status as the “other Chosen One” meant he had important things to do, I didn’t really think so, so I figured he’d get bumped off for pathos. Guess I was wrong.
9. one twin lives (correct)
10. one twin dies (correct)
Many people told me I was awful for predicting this, but I felt like I had a good enough understanding of Jo to know that it’s just the kind of thing she’d do in order to mess with readers. And guess what? I was totally right. It hurt really badly though… I knew it was coming and I still cried buckets. =(
11. Arthur lives (correct)
12. Molly lives (correct)
13. Bill lives (correct)
14. Charlie lives (correct)
Another rule for my predictions is my assumption that once a character has been attacked once and lives, they’re safe for the rest of the series (the obvious exception being Harry, or so I thought). Arthur and Bill had both already faced their deaths and overcome them, so I figured they were okay. I didn’t actually expect Molly to be in the Final Battle, but she lived anyway. I considered predicting Charlie to die, but the fact that he’s such a minor character meant that his death would fulfill neither plot necessities nor pathos necessities, so I decided to list him as safe.
15. Percy dies (wrong)
I expected the reconciliation between Percy and the rest of the Weasleys (I know, I shoulda put it under the general predictions. There were a couple things I forgot to put there), but I thought that it would come earlier in the book and that there would be retribution from the Ministry for it. The reconciliation was actually one of my favorite bits of the book, though, so I’m glad that Percy lived.
16. Fleur lives (correct)
Again, her death would have fulfilled neither obligation, so she was safe.
17. McGonagall lives (correct)
I was Deeply Worried about McGonagall, because her death certainly could have fulfilled either of my criteria, but I felt more strongly that someone had to live who could carry on Hogwarts after the insanity was over, and Minerva was that person. She showed the true Badassery that I have always felt from her, and I loved loved loved it. I <3 McGonagall and I’m so glad she lived.
18. Wormtail dies (correct)
Plot necessity, what with the Life Debt to Harry and all. Wormtail, like Snape, did too many awful things to live through the series, even if he managed a bit of redemption before he died. I actually loved the way his death was handled, too, it made so much sense for Voldemort to create the hand so that it strangled Wormtail if he ever betrayed him.
19. Lupin dies (correct)
Lupin’s death was purely for pathos. All the Marauders had to go. I’m pissed, though, that he didn’t get to kick some Greyback ass before he went. I thought that that was a big cop-out.
20. Moody dies (correct)
By my rules, Moody should have been safe after being so injured in the Department of Mysteries, but his death was actually a plot necessity. Mad-Eye was too powerful, too good of an Auror; he had to die in order to make everyone else more vulnerable so that the plot could move forward.
21. Tonks lives (wrong)
Looking back, I should have realized this was wrong. I thought, again, that it would be sadder for Tonks to go on without Lupin, but I should have realized that we already had her period of “mourning” for Lupin, when he refused to let himself love her. Once he finally consented to them being together, their fates were tied. Silly me for not thinking about all that.
22. Hagrid lives (correct)
People have been betting on Hagrid to die pretty much since the fifth book, and I just never saw it. Hagrid, who can walk through the Forbidden Forest without fear, who has the protection of Giant blood, whose greatest injuries ever seen in the books came from a brother whom he refused to fight against rather than enemies? Nope. Jo sure loved messing with me though, between the fall from the motorbike and being carried off by Acromantulas.
23. Cho lives (correct)
Her death would have fulfilled neither obligation. She wasn’t important enough for a plot-necessary death, and everyone calls her Cho-Bag, so I don’t think there would be much pathos. XD
24. Kingsley lives (correct)
And ends up the next Minister for Magic! Huzzah!
25. Umbridge lives (correct)
Psycho-Bitch was loyal enough to escape the wrath of the Death Eaters, and cowardly enough to avoid a fight with the good guys which would have resulted in her death.
26. Lucius dies (wrong)
27. Narcissa dies (wrong)
I had this theory that Lucius and Narcissa were going to be killed by Voldy for some reason or another (either for getting something wrong or to intimidate Draco, or something), and that would enrage Draco to overcome his fear just enough to do something to help out the Order and Harry. Guess I was wrong.
28. Draco lives (correct)
But we did get a tiny redemption for Draco, anyway, which I loved.
29. Bellatrix GETS THE DEMENTOR'S KISS (wrong)
Okay, for me personally Bellatrix=more evil than Voldemort, and she always has. Voldemort is cruel, egomaniacal, ambitious, and sadistic, but his actions have a point: to bring him power. Bellatrix is all of the above, plus batshit insane, and she loves to torture people purely for the fun of it. Voldemort doesn’t get any kicks out of torturing people. I don’t think he gets kicks out of much of anything, really. But for me, Bella was the true supreme evil in the series, and as such I thought she deserved what Jo has said is worse than death: the Dementor’s Kiss. I guess I was wrong, and frankly Mrs. Weasley really had no right to Bella, although “NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” was one of my favorite lines in the whole thing. I’m disappointed in how Bella was handled.
30. Greyback dies (correct)
An obvious death, but as I said I wanted Lupin to kick Greyback’s ass. Trelawney??? Ugh. Cheap.
31. Uncle Vernon dies (wrong)
32. Aunt Petunia dies (wrong)
I expected the attack on Privet Drive to include the Dursleys, and that their deaths would force Dudley to use magic, fulfilling the hint that Jo had given about a character doing magic later in life.
33. Dudley lives (correct)
A death that would have completed neither condition, I was correct about Dudley surviving. (I mean, I guess. Not that we ever hear about the Dursleys again after the second chapter.)
Surely you’ll notice, though, that it never even occurred to me to include the various magical creatures (Hedwig, Dobby, Buckbeak, Crookshanks, etc) in my predictions, and I’m upset now that I didn’t think about it more. Hedwig’s demise was a plot necessity (Harry certainly couldn’t carry her around with them on the Horcrux hunt), but Dobby’s was pure pathos. Dobby actually got the first tears out of me in the book, and I actually felt guilty for not making a prediction about him. I felt as though Jo’s writing slipped a lot in this book, but the Dobby sequence was handled beautifully. *sniff* Here lies Dobby, a free elf. <3
GENERAL PREDICTIONS
34. Harry is a Horcrux. (correct)
I’ve been saying it for two years, and I was right. Cough up, Meta! ;] Knowing that Horcruxes would become so important, there was just no chance that Jo would have written the bit about Voldemort putting a bit of himself inside Harry in the second book unless Harrycrux was going to come true.
35. Hogwarts will re-open and (correct)
36. Harry will return, but (correct)
37. in a part-time, semi-self-instructory capacity while he hunts Horcruxes. (wrong)
It says Year 7 on the spine of my book. We were supposed to get seven years at Hogwarts, so I felt that it had to re-open, but I admit that I never foresaw the circumstances under which it did. I was shocked at the amount of open warfare in this book. Fans have been expecting open war since OotP and it just never happened, so I though DH would follow the pattern.
38. RAB is not Regulus Black. (wrong)
39. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say Andromeda Black or Amy Benson is RAB. (discounted)
All evidence pointed to Regulus, but it was just so obvious that I was dying for it to be someone else. Turns out it wasn’t at all a big piece of DH, though, so I can live with it, I suppose. Even though that whole bit about Regulus going against Voldemort because Voldy mistreated his house elf is rubbish.
40. Nagini won't be killed until the final battle is taking place, echoing the Quidditch match when Harry had to wait to catch the Snitch until his team was 50 points ahead. He must wait to defeat Voldemort until Nagini is dead. (correct)
I can’t explain how I knew this one, it just made sense to me. Nagini was always with Voldemort, and it did beautifully echo the Quidditch match. I just somehow knew that was how it had to be.
41. Harry's final showdown with Voldemort will heavily involve wandless magic, and (wrong)
42. Voldemort will successfully be defeated, (correct)
43. though not by an Avada Kedavra. (wrong)
I was praying and wishing and hoping for wandless magic in this book, and I have been ever since the brother wand problem was introduced in GoF. To go into why I so desperately wanted wandless magic I would have to talk about psycho-analytical literary critical theory and how I feel about the Freudian symbolism and subtext in the books, and why Jo had the perfect opportunity to take a chauvinist and outdated school of critical thought and use it to make a strong, feminist statement… but that would take pages and pages, so I won’t.
44. Furthermore, Harry will not successfully use any more Unforgivable Curses in this book. (wrong)
I have always appreciated that Harry is a multi-dimensional hero who is essentially good, but who can do bad things when pushed (see the Cruciatus in the Atrium and the Sectumsempra in the bathroom). He is much more interesting to me than Voldemort, whom Jo presents as pure evil, unable to ever feel love and goodness. However, the Unforgivables that Harry performed, especially the Cruciatus, were gratuitous and did a disservice to his character. Harry is supposed to be appalled by enjoying causing pain and taking people’s freedom. It is contradictory to have had him perform those curses.
45. Harry and Voldemort will not meet face to face until the final battle. (correct)
My father claims that I was wrong about this, that when Harry walked up to Voldemort expecting to die it wasn’t really the final final confrontation, but all I meant by this prediction was the final battle as a whole, and I was correct.
46. Snape has been loyal to Dumbledore all these years and (correct)
47. he only killed Dumbledore because of some design of his. (correct)
Almost everyone in the fandom believed this, mostly because of the Snape/Lily love theory. I was never a huge fan of the theory, but I did believe that Snape was good, and it turned out correct after all.
48. Dumbledore really is dead, kids, and (correct)
49. he will not be coming back from the dead, BUT (correct)
50. he will have a slight advisory role via either his portrait or memories in the Pensieve. (correct)
There was just too much left for Dumbledore to do when he died for him to just disappear. The chapter “King’s Cross”, however… But we’ll get to that later.
51. Oh, and Dumbledore was a Parselmouth and (wrong)
52. this fact is very significant to the plot. (discounted)
53. We will find out that Parseltongue is, or at least can be, hereditary. (wrong)
54. Dumbledore was a pureblood. (wrong)
55. He had one or more Dark wizards in his family history. (wrong)
If you look to the left of the tram, everyone, you can see the GIANT GAPING PLOT-HOLE of Half-Blood Prince, left there forevermore by JK Rowling. Go re-read chapter ten, I implore you, and explain to me how in the world the memory meant anything to Dumbledore if he wasn’t a Parselmouth. All of the crucial dialogue took place in Parseltongue, Dumbledore admitted that the memory was recorded as such, and he never once asks Harry for a translation. Who else could have provided one when Voldemort and Harry are supposedly the only Parselmouths to have gone to Hogwarts in centuries? I had more involved theories involving Dumbledore’s family history being revealed because of the hereditary nature of Parseltongue, blah blah blah, but on a simple level, how in the world was this chapter possible without DD being a Parselmouth? Absolutely ridiculous, and I expected better from Jo.
56. Harry will use Parseltongue at some point to get past enchantments guarding a Horcrux. (correct)
It just made sense to me that Voldy would copy Slytherin’s protections of the Chamber of Secrets by protecting a Horcrux with Parseltongue. (Now, Ron being able to open the Chamber by imitating Parseltongue? Incredibly lame.)
57. The Trio will travel internationally for some reason. (wrong)
I thought that for sure they’d have to go to Albania or Durmstrang. Whoops.
58. There is a Horcrux hidden at Hogwarts. (correct)
I knew it either had to be the cup hidden in the trophy room, or the crown in the Room of Requirement.
59. The Love Room in the Department of Mysteries will not be significant. (correct)
The room was merely a device for bringing up Harry’s super special love powers. Some people thought Voldemort would be defeated by shoving him into the room. Nah.
60. The Veil Room, however, will be very important. (wrong)
When I was hoping for wandless magic and thought that Harrycrux had to die, I was certain that the Final Battle would be at the Ministry again, and that we would go back to the Veil Room. I was hoping that Harry would not find out about his Horcrux-ness until the last moment, and realize he had to wrestle both himself and Voldemort through the veil, to kill them both simultaneously. I thought the dying and then coming back to life junk in DH was lame lame lame.
61. The Deathly Hallows refers to the Horcruxes. (wrong)
Meh, I was never very sure about this one, but I thought I’d take a stab at it. Should have known it would be something we couldn’t possibly predict.
62. Grawp will have an important role to play. (correct)
As the only Giant on the side of the good guys, I would say that he was crucial in protecting Hogwarts during the battle, but I’m actually open for argument on this one. We probably still could have done without him.
63. The Centaurs will fight with the good guys (correct)
64. after their people/forest/society is threatened by the Death Eaters. (wrong)
The centaurs ended up doing their part, but as there was no explicit threat to them made by the baddies, I’m willing to mark myself incorrect on the second half. They fought because they could no longer stand to watch evil triumph, even if it might not directly affect them.
65. There will be goblins on both sides. (correct)
Griphook helped the trio, the other Goblins were willing to report to Voldemort.
66. The Hogwarts ghosts will help fight Dementors. (discounted)
I’m just not going to count this in the total. The ghosts definitely helped in the battle, and they probably did go toe-to-toe with some Dementors, but as it isn’t explicitly stated I’m just going to ignore the prediction.
67. Ollivander went into hiding on Dumbledore's advice (wrong)
68. to avoid being used by Voldemort to solve the problem of the brother wands. (discounted)
I thought he was going to end up helping the trio when they randomly stumbled upon him while he was in hiding. Whoops again.
69. Hermione's knowledge of Ancient Runes will be key. (correct)
There had to be a reason for her to always be harping on that subject.
70. The mirror that Sirius gave Harry in Book 5 will come back into play. (correct)
Well, duh.
71. There will be no time travel in this book. (correct)
I honestly did like the big Time Travel Theory that started being popular a couple months ago (in a nutshell, that Harry went back in time to witness his parents’ murder and then gave information and the Invisibility Cloak to Dumbledore and Snape hates Harry because he stood by and watched Lily get killed), but it was just so unlikely that we would be able to figure it out so easily.
72. There will be an attack on Privet Drive. (correct)
Just had to happen, what with the Blood Charm ending.
73. Dudley will be the character to use magic later in life. (discounted)
I’m not counting this prediction, as this piece of info that Jo promised apparently didn’t make it into the book.
74. Dumbledore had James' invisibility cloak because Dumbledore was supposed to give it to someone else to use, or was planning on returning it to James after someone else borrowed it. (wrong)
I suppose when Jo talked about this being a crucial piece of info I should have realized that it would be something a bit grander, but I thought I’d have a whack at it. I’m not surprised I was wrong.
75. Dumbledore's "gleam of triumph" in Book 4 was due to the love in Harry's blood weakening Voldemort. (discounted)
I suppose technically I’m right, but I didn’t at all mean anything like what happened, so I’m just not going to count this one, either.
76. The Lost Day isn't actually terribly significant. Harry was just traveling with Hagrid, or being kept safe somewhere or something. (correct)
HAH is what I say to those who thought the Lost Day held all the answers. I would have liked to have seen some acknowledgement of its existence by Jo, but I never thought it was important, so I feel vindicated.
77. The thing holding the sword on the UK Children’s cover is Kreacher. (wrong)
The only contenders were Dobby, Kreacher, or a Goblin, and I guessed wrong. So sue me.
78. The US cover features the world beyond the veil from the Department of Mysteries. (wrong)
Okay, it’s the Great Hall??? WTF? That cover is so misleading in so many ways.
EPILOGUE PREDICTIONS
I’m discounting this entire set of predictions, as the Epilogue wasn’t at all what Jo had always made it sound like it would be in interviews. She made it sound like we would find out what happened to each character in a bit of detail: with whom they ended up, what they ended up doing for a living, etc. Most fans, even ones who loved the rest of the book, agree that it was really more of a Crapilogue. All we really learned is that Ginny and Harry, and Ron and Hermione, got married and apparently had lots of sex. Wow. How exciting.
So, out of the 78 predictions I am left with, I discounted six, leaving me with 72. Out of the 72, I got 46 correct and 26 incorrect, making my percentage of accurate predictions a 64%, giving me a failing grade of Poor. However, I actually think that I did fairly well. I got some of the real biggies correct, so I’m happy.
However, if you couldn’t tell by my tone in my prediction responses, I am not very happy with this book. In fact, I sort of hate it. Well, it’s not that I hated it, I just—no, actually, hate is pretty accurate, the more I think about it. I thought that I was going to be really upset when I finished the book because my HP experience was finally over, but I was much more upset that I was so disappointed in Deathly Hallows.
There are many, many reasons for my dissatisfaction with DH, but the first one I will discuss is Jo’s sudden decision to reverse her presentation of characters that we’ve been reading about for nearly ten years. The new sides presented to us of Lupin and Dumbledore are just absolutely ridiculous. Lupin, the man who taught Harry how to produce a Patronus in his third year, who has the courage to live with and spy on the werewolf that intentionally bit him when he was a kid, suddenly freaking out about being around his pregnant wife? Suddenly shying away from responsibility when he has managed his lycanthropy for almost forty years without apologizing for it or being ashamed? Jo made him act like a coward in that scene, and I hated it.
And Dumbledore. I’m all about adding layers to characters, revealing new things about them, creating depth. She did it wonderfully throughout the books with both Harry and Voldemort. I’m all about sudden role reversal, like making Quirrell be the bad guy in Book 1 and having Sirius end up good in Book 3. But to give us six books over ten years of a benign, twinkling, eccentric Dumbledore… telling us always that we could trust him completely… presenting him as completely patient, wise, and tolerant… I can’t forgive Jo for suddenly making him a manipulative, selfish, lying old fool. Telling us he once sought wizard domination over the Muggles, that he sought to be the personal master of death by owning the Deathly Hallows, that he was weak and tempted by power up until the day he died, that everything he ever said to Harry was naught but a clever plan… I hate her for it. Dumbledore didn’t need to be a developed character. His role in the books was exposition and to prepare Harry for Harry’s own journey and development. Jo soiled his memory in an attempt to add layers where none were needed. I feel like I was yanked around and lied to.
I further felt aggravated in this book by the constant game of Musical Wands going on. Voldy steals Lucius’s, which Harry breaks, and then Hermione breaks Harry’s, so Harry uses a random Death Eater’s, then Harry steals Draco’s and Bella’s, while Voldy steals the Elder Wand, which Dumbledore took from Grindelwald but now belonged to Draco, not Snape, but Voldy kills Snape anyway, and blah blah blahhhhhh. Seriously, Jo, completely unnecessary.
Also, this book was Plot-Hole Central. I already mentioned the plot-hole from HBP that it left wide open, but DH created plenty of its own, too. The Hallows were supposedly this hugely important part of the story, but it was never explained what having all of them together would do, what being the master of death meant. Why, suddenly, did the visions of Voldemort’s plans return to Harry, after they had stopped all last year? The Deluminator suddenly became a magical walkie-talkie, what? Harry’s Cloak is now presented as this nearly infallible, powerfully magical relic that can even repel objects thrown at it, and puts all other Invisibility Cloaks to shame, yet Moody’s eye could see through it in GoF? There was nothing in the Room of Requirement when Voldemort put the diadem in it, yet somehow in the next fifty years enough kids discovered it to fill it to the brim? I thought Jo’s writing was tighter than that.
The next reason for my disappointment in DH is going to sound contradictory: the bulk of the book was entirely too dark, and the ending and Crapilogue far too light and fluffy.
I am conscious enough of my own habits to know that when I read books, or watch movies and plays, I gravitate much more to those pieces which scare me, disturb me, or leave me heart-broken. There’s probably something very deeply wrong with me, heh, but it’s true. Kafka, Peter Shaffer, and Philip Pullman are all among my favorite writers because of their ability to leave me feeling shattered after I finish reading something of theirs. I don’t go to see comedic movies like Evan Almighty or Night at the Museum, because I would much rather see something like At World’s End, Titanic, or Cold Mountain. When taking a trip to Broadway, I feel that West Side Story, Phantom of the Opera, or Les Miserables are much more worth my time than Spamalot, The Producers, or Grease. When I found out that “Good-Bye Love” was cut from the RENT movie because Chris Columbus feared it would overwhelm viewers, I was really mad because I was begging to be taken to that place of pathos.
All of these preferences extend to the Harry Potter universe, and Order of the Phoenix has long been my favorite for these reasons. Umbridge has always scared the crap out of me, and nothing in the series up until the first chapter of Deathly Hallows disturbed me more than the detention scene with her as she smiles while Harry slices I must not tell lies into his own hand. I panicked when Jo fooled us into briefly believing that Hermione was dead, and sobbed through the final chapters after Sirius’s death.
As I said, the first chapter of DH managed to push the horror even further, for me. The Muggle Studies professor hanging limply over the table through the whole meeting, only to wake up briefly before being murdered and her body allowed to crash to the table freaked me out, and I loved it. Eventually, though, I was forced to accept that even I have a limit to the amount of death, stress, macabre, and fright that I can take in a novel. Dobby’s and Fred’s deaths had me weeping, but by that time we’d been through too much in the book already, and I began to shut down. After Fred I didn’t cry again, not at Snape’s memories, not at Harry’s walk into the Forest, not at Lupin’s and Tonks’ deaths, not at any of the denouement. Jo had lost the balance she maintained in other books between horror and humor, and by the end of DH I felt like it was just more yanking around, like all the characterization changes. I wish that she had somehow reared in the amount of deaths just a bit so that I could more completely experience the ones that were truly necessary.
It is important to note, though, that despite my attraction to stories that make me cry my eyes out, in the final analysis they almost all actually have hopeful and happy endings. The His Dark Materials trilogy and At World’s End both cruelly force the lovers to live separate lives apart from one another, but make it clear that they will be together again some day. Rose and Jack finally reunite after Rose dies at the end of Titanic, and Ada has Inman’s child in Cold Mountain and presumably lives a long and fruitful life, missing her love but knowing that everything will be alright. Marius and Cosette get to be together in Les Miz, and Valjean gets the rest he so richly deserves. In RENT, the characters accept their eventual deaths and the deaths of their loved ones, living in the moment and not fearing what tomorrow may bring.
The happy-go-lucky, Disney-fied ending in Deathly Hallows’ Crapilogue relates to this. Had Jo controlled the amount of deaths a bit more, then had to balls courage to kill Harry, and then shown Ginny and the others years later, deeply missing their friend but going on with life knowing that everything is as it is meant to be, JKR could have made her point much better than she actually did.
Probably my biggest reason for disappointment with Deathly Hallows, though, is that this book made it clear that Jo is not at all the talented, brilliant author I have always believed her to be, and I feel very foolish and hurt because of it.
I have maintained for years that Jo is an original and deeply intelligent writer. I defended her in numerous online debates (it’s a habit of mine) against accusations likening Harry to books like the Inheritance Trilogy and The Da Vinci Code. I study literature and religion in school, and I always felt more than qualified to prove that the Potter series was neither derivative shite like the Eragon books nor shallow pop-theology like The Da Vinci Code. College classes in critical theory and philosophy, along with being extremely familiar with the YA/Children’s Fantasy genre, brought me to the conclusion through several very detailed re-reads of the first six books (I have two journals filled with notes, srsly) that JK Rowling was truly visionary and deep, even if she lacked some of the writing skills of authors like Philip Pullman. She borrowed themes and ideas from classic literature, but very rarely specifics the way Chris Paolini and others do.
Deathly Hallows has left me scratching my head and wondering where this author that I’ve defended for years went. The way the locket-Horcrux affected the characters while they wore it was stolen straight from Lord of the Rings. Jo has been inspired by LotR before (see Aragog and Shelob, and the lake in HBP and the Dead Marshes), but this was so much more obvious and not really based on any laws of her Potterverse. Aragog makes sense because almost all of her magical creatures are regular animals with one or two things different about them to make them magical (or else they’re taken directly from mythology, like centaurs and phoenixes). The dead people in the lake were Inferi, not regular corpses, and drownings in rivers and lakes are common themes in literature (see A Separate Peace and A Northern Light). Granted it’s only several days after I’ve read the book, but I have not yet figured out an excuse for the locket.
Another example is the blatant Matrix rip-off in the chapter King’s Cross. Jo can go on all she wants about having planned it that way from the beginning, but come on. Exposition like whoa in a totally white train station which serves as a sort of limbo that the protagonist must either go forward from, or head back where he came from? I adore the Matrix movies, honestly, and it works in those, but the Potter books require something a bit more magical, to use the totally obvious word.
Speaking of King’s Cross, that chapter and the one before it (The Forest Again) also owe more than their fair share to CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. This is a major problem for me, as I loathe the Narnia books, if not necessarily for what they are then definitely for what they are perceived by the vast population to be.
I consider myself to be a very religious Christian. I was raised in the Church, I’ve worked with kids at several faith-oriented youth camps for three years now, I’m minoring in Religious Studies at school, and I’ve been considering a call to ordained ministry since I was 14. I firmly and fully believe that because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, death has absolutely no power over me and, in fact, doesn’t even really exist. That which we see as death is nothing more than the entrance to Eternal Life, and is something to be embraced rather than feared.
However, there is a fine, fine line between embracing death and deriding life. It is a small distinction, but within that distinction is all the difference in the world. The reason I hate Lewis, and now the reason I am so disappointed in Rowling, is that they seem incapable of saying “death is okay” without also saying “and that means that life is insignificant.” “Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and above all those who live without love.” I appreciate the final part of that sentence from Rowling, because it brings her just a little bit closer to the truth of the issue than Lewis was able to get in Narnia, but she still falls sadly short and leaves her readers (mostly kids!) with the message that life is meaningless, and we’re all more or less just waiting around to die.
To quote Rob Bell, I need a God who’s now. Earth isn't just some cosmic waiting room. Jesus was sent to teach us how to live just as much as, if not more than, he was sent to teach us how to die. Read through the Gospels and take note of how many of his commandments are instructions on how to make our Earthly lives as Heavenly as possible: forgive one another, love one another, be charitable, fear nothing. There are absolutely people whose lives should be pitied, but it’s not because they are alive, it’s because of what they are doing with their lives. Life is what you make of it. The Lord’s Prayer, which comes from Jesus himself, says, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” It does not say, “Please take my soul and bring me death, so that I might join Thee in Thy Kingdom.” The prayer asks God to bring Heaven to Earth so we can experience it while we live here, too. I cannot find it in me to believe that Jesus would pray such a thing if life on Earth were something to be disdained and pitied.
So, that’s a fair amount of theological babbling that almost certainly makes absolutely no sense, but the bottom line is that I expected better of Rowling. She is multi-lingual, extremely well versed in Classic literature, clever, hard-working, and well-spoken. I don’t know why I assumed that she would be a good theologian, too, but there you have it. In her efforts to include depth in this final book, she over-reached past her own understanding of what she was trying to discuss and wound up with an ending that lacked subtlety, originality, and profundity. Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince both did much better jobs of conveying her points.
I still have several other things I could talk about that I felt were lacking in Deathly Hallows, but this post is already entirely too long, so I’m just going to let it all go. I’m planning on re-reading the book soon in hopes that I like it more when I’m not going through it at top speed on ninety minutes of sleep, so if anything drastically changes I’ll let you know, but there you have it. I don’t know where I stand in the fandom or anything at the moment, but I’m going to do my best not to let the book change how I feel about talking to the awesome people I’ve met, and I can definitely assure you that it hasn’t changed how I feel about wizard rock, but I don’t know about the fansites and stuff. Most of them seem unwilling to admit that there were any problems with it. Whatevs.
Hopefully everyone who reads this liked the book more than I did. Peace out, kids.
I know I said I'd have my reaction to the book up on Sunday, but I got started and just couldn't stop. This post is sixteen freaking pages long in Microsoft Word, so I'm going to do my best to break it up into smaller chunks with LJ cuts. It's really written mostly for myself, but if you want to read it to know how I felt about the book, then by all means go ahead.
I promised I would discuss the New York Times review and why I was so mad about it, but I’m going to be as brief as possible since there is so much other stuff to cover.
People have been claiming that the review didn’t actually give anything major away, just summarized the plot. I refused to read it before the book, but I finally gave it a look today at work, and I’m sorry, but revealing what the Deathly Hallows were seems like a pretty big effing spoiler to me. The fact is that this review was just plain mean. It’s not like the New York Times can say, “Whoops, our bad, we had no idea what a big deal this was to people. Sorry.” They know that the vast majority of fans have spent the last two weeks in perpetual fear of being spoiled. This had nothing to do with wanting to write an insightful and thought-provoking review, and everything to do with saying to the world, “Hah hah, we’ve already read it, nanny nanny boo boo. We will forever be one up on you because of this, and (just to prove it) here are a whole bunch of spoilers. Have fun, kiddies!”
Most fans of Harry Potter are kids. Those of us that have grown up with the books are probably 15-25 now, but I know a lot of elementary- and middle-schoolers that were looking forward to this. To write a spoiler-filled review two days early says to kids, “We do not value your excitement, we do not appreciate your enthusiasm for reading, and you’re all behaving like a bunch of fools.” The disdain for children is evident, and it infuriates me.
Also, there was a group of boys one street over from our line at the release party who ran up and down with a megaphone yelling spoilers. Luckily a fan attacked them and took their megaphone and smashed it before they reached my street (true story). They have a video they made on YouTube of it all, but I won’t be linking to it, as more views just makes them happier. From that video I found others of people doing similar stunts, all of them guys (and, surprise, so was the writer of the NYT review). For each and every one of you, I just have one message: I’m sorry about your penises.
Despite all of the spoilers running rampant, I managed to stay spoiler free through Friday, and even STAYED spoiler free throughout the concert and release party! And OMG, what a concert and what a party. Despite the fact that it took five hours to get there, despite the fact that I missed two thirds of the concert, and despite the fact that I had obnoxious boys next to me that kept hitting me, I got to see all of Harry and the Potters’ set, and it was freaking incredibleeeeee. I knew I loved wizard rock for good reasons: it’s moving, it’s funny, it builds connections between people, and it’s just awesome. Being surrounded by 20,000 Potter fans, jumping up and down, screaming lyrics, taking pictures, enjoying my last hours of not knowing… There’s no other way I would have wanted to spend that night. Nothing I write here could do justice to the incredible-ness that was that concert.
At the concert I got to meet Lizz finally, plus some of her friends and some other people I knew extremely loosely from the wrock community. I was so hyped and overwhelmed that I sort of just hugged everyone whether I knew who they were or not, and I handed out these bracelets that I made at work when I was bored, so I probably freaked people out, but oh well. =] Lizz had been there for several hours and snagged a spot right up at the front, off a bit to the right side of the stage, which facilitated some pretty sweet pictures and videos. This entry is going to be long enough without me posting them here, so you can find them on FaceBook and YouTube (and on the Wizrocklopedia, soon enough).
After the concert I took Rachel over to the merch table so she could hand in her book report and get a HatP toothbrush, and I bought a bunch of t-shirts, CDs, and other such things. After that I went and got my wristband so I could get in line with the other people who pre-ordered, and Mom and Rach went back to the hotel while I waited in line with Lizz, Tonks, Teresa, Ginny, and some others. We got in line around 10:15, so there were almost two hours to wait until the book, so we occupied ourselves by talking, taking pictures, doing HP crossword puzzles, and passing out Wizrocklopedia flyers.
There’s a big clock at the top of a bank in Harvard Square, and we all counted down the last minute to midnight. When the first people started coming out with the book, a bunch of us realized how in danger we were for spoilers, so we sort of stood there with our fingers in our ears for the rest of the wait, lol.
After we got the book, Lizz and Teresa walked me back to the hotel to make sure I didn’t get lost, and then they drove back to New Hampshire. I walked into the hotel room, changed into pajamas, and read straight through until 7 a.m., when I was finally so tired that I fell asleep, only to wake up ninety minutes later. I got in a couple more hours, and then Mom, Rach and I had to pack up and check out.
We wanted to see Harvard Square in daylight, though, so I put the book in the car, put on headphones with the volume all the way up, and we walked around Cambridge for about an hour. I read the book during the entire car ride home, then just locked myself in my room until I finished at exactly 10:34 p.m. Eight years of fandom were over in about seventeen hours’ worth of reading time.
So, now I guess it’s time to grade my predictions! Here is a breakdown of my thoughts on how I did with each prediction. My final percentage and grade follow.
LIVE OR DIE
1. Harry dies (wrong)
I actually intensely dislike how Harry’s fate was handled, and I’ll talk about it more later. It’s not that I hate Harry and wanted him to die; I simply saw no believable way he could survive, and I still don’t think Jo handled it satisfactorily.
2. Voldemort dies (correct)
Well, duhhh, Voldemort was gonna die. Anyone who predicted that he lived was just kooky.
3. Snape dies (correct)
To me, Snape’s fate was another “duh”. You don’t kill Albus Dumbledore and then get to go on with life as normal, no matter whether he asked you to do it or not. Society just won’t accept you back (and I have issues with how okay with all those memories Harry was).
4. Ron lives (correct)
5. Hermione lives (correct)
6. Ginny lives (correct)
All of my predictions on who lived or died were based on two things: whether I could envision a scenario in which their death would be necessary for the plot, and whether their death was necessary for the pathos that would need to be demonstrated to make the war believable. Since I was so convinced Harry was a goner, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all had to live (in my opinion) because it was actually sadder to have them go on without Harry than to have them die alongside him. Well, all four of them lived, I guess, and people got the sugary sweet ending they wanted.
7. Luna lives (correct)
Luna, for all her eccentricities, was a good fighter who stayed out of trouble. As the “truth teller”, I knew she’d make it through most of the book by necessity, but I was worried for her towards the end. Happily, she made it through everything.
8. Neville dies (wrong)
I thought a Neville/Bellatrix duel was a cert, and Neville was obviously going to come off worse in it. Although a lot of people thought his status as the “other Chosen One” meant he had important things to do, I didn’t really think so, so I figured he’d get bumped off for pathos. Guess I was wrong.
9. one twin lives (correct)
10. one twin dies (correct)
Many people told me I was awful for predicting this, but I felt like I had a good enough understanding of Jo to know that it’s just the kind of thing she’d do in order to mess with readers. And guess what? I was totally right. It hurt really badly though… I knew it was coming and I still cried buckets. =(
11. Arthur lives (correct)
12. Molly lives (correct)
13. Bill lives (correct)
14. Charlie lives (correct)
Another rule for my predictions is my assumption that once a character has been attacked once and lives, they’re safe for the rest of the series (the obvious exception being Harry, or so I thought). Arthur and Bill had both already faced their deaths and overcome them, so I figured they were okay. I didn’t actually expect Molly to be in the Final Battle, but she lived anyway. I considered predicting Charlie to die, but the fact that he’s such a minor character meant that his death would fulfill neither plot necessities nor pathos necessities, so I decided to list him as safe.
15. Percy dies (wrong)
I expected the reconciliation between Percy and the rest of the Weasleys (I know, I shoulda put it under the general predictions. There were a couple things I forgot to put there), but I thought that it would come earlier in the book and that there would be retribution from the Ministry for it. The reconciliation was actually one of my favorite bits of the book, though, so I’m glad that Percy lived.
16. Fleur lives (correct)
Again, her death would have fulfilled neither obligation, so she was safe.
17. McGonagall lives (correct)
I was Deeply Worried about McGonagall, because her death certainly could have fulfilled either of my criteria, but I felt more strongly that someone had to live who could carry on Hogwarts after the insanity was over, and Minerva was that person. She showed the true Badassery that I have always felt from her, and I loved loved loved it. I <3 McGonagall and I’m so glad she lived.
18. Wormtail dies (correct)
Plot necessity, what with the Life Debt to Harry and all. Wormtail, like Snape, did too many awful things to live through the series, even if he managed a bit of redemption before he died. I actually loved the way his death was handled, too, it made so much sense for Voldemort to create the hand so that it strangled Wormtail if he ever betrayed him.
19. Lupin dies (correct)
Lupin’s death was purely for pathos. All the Marauders had to go. I’m pissed, though, that he didn’t get to kick some Greyback ass before he went. I thought that that was a big cop-out.
20. Moody dies (correct)
By my rules, Moody should have been safe after being so injured in the Department of Mysteries, but his death was actually a plot necessity. Mad-Eye was too powerful, too good of an Auror; he had to die in order to make everyone else more vulnerable so that the plot could move forward.
21. Tonks lives (wrong)
Looking back, I should have realized this was wrong. I thought, again, that it would be sadder for Tonks to go on without Lupin, but I should have realized that we already had her period of “mourning” for Lupin, when he refused to let himself love her. Once he finally consented to them being together, their fates were tied. Silly me for not thinking about all that.
22. Hagrid lives (correct)
People have been betting on Hagrid to die pretty much since the fifth book, and I just never saw it. Hagrid, who can walk through the Forbidden Forest without fear, who has the protection of Giant blood, whose greatest injuries ever seen in the books came from a brother whom he refused to fight against rather than enemies? Nope. Jo sure loved messing with me though, between the fall from the motorbike and being carried off by Acromantulas.
23. Cho lives (correct)
Her death would have fulfilled neither obligation. She wasn’t important enough for a plot-necessary death, and everyone calls her Cho-Bag, so I don’t think there would be much pathos. XD
24. Kingsley lives (correct)
And ends up the next Minister for Magic! Huzzah!
25. Umbridge lives (correct)
Psycho-Bitch was loyal enough to escape the wrath of the Death Eaters, and cowardly enough to avoid a fight with the good guys which would have resulted in her death.
26. Lucius dies (wrong)
27. Narcissa dies (wrong)
I had this theory that Lucius and Narcissa were going to be killed by Voldy for some reason or another (either for getting something wrong or to intimidate Draco, or something), and that would enrage Draco to overcome his fear just enough to do something to help out the Order and Harry. Guess I was wrong.
28. Draco lives (correct)
But we did get a tiny redemption for Draco, anyway, which I loved.
29. Bellatrix GETS THE DEMENTOR'S KISS (wrong)
Okay, for me personally Bellatrix=more evil than Voldemort, and she always has. Voldemort is cruel, egomaniacal, ambitious, and sadistic, but his actions have a point: to bring him power. Bellatrix is all of the above, plus batshit insane, and she loves to torture people purely for the fun of it. Voldemort doesn’t get any kicks out of torturing people. I don’t think he gets kicks out of much of anything, really. But for me, Bella was the true supreme evil in the series, and as such I thought she deserved what Jo has said is worse than death: the Dementor’s Kiss. I guess I was wrong, and frankly Mrs. Weasley really had no right to Bella, although “NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” was one of my favorite lines in the whole thing. I’m disappointed in how Bella was handled.
30. Greyback dies (correct)
An obvious death, but as I said I wanted Lupin to kick Greyback’s ass. Trelawney??? Ugh. Cheap.
31. Uncle Vernon dies (wrong)
32. Aunt Petunia dies (wrong)
I expected the attack on Privet Drive to include the Dursleys, and that their deaths would force Dudley to use magic, fulfilling the hint that Jo had given about a character doing magic later in life.
33. Dudley lives (correct)
A death that would have completed neither condition, I was correct about Dudley surviving. (I mean, I guess. Not that we ever hear about the Dursleys again after the second chapter.)
Surely you’ll notice, though, that it never even occurred to me to include the various magical creatures (Hedwig, Dobby, Buckbeak, Crookshanks, etc) in my predictions, and I’m upset now that I didn’t think about it more. Hedwig’s demise was a plot necessity (Harry certainly couldn’t carry her around with them on the Horcrux hunt), but Dobby’s was pure pathos. Dobby actually got the first tears out of me in the book, and I actually felt guilty for not making a prediction about him. I felt as though Jo’s writing slipped a lot in this book, but the Dobby sequence was handled beautifully. *sniff* Here lies Dobby, a free elf. <3
GENERAL PREDICTIONS
34. Harry is a Horcrux. (correct)
I’ve been saying it for two years, and I was right. Cough up, Meta! ;] Knowing that Horcruxes would become so important, there was just no chance that Jo would have written the bit about Voldemort putting a bit of himself inside Harry in the second book unless Harrycrux was going to come true.
35. Hogwarts will re-open and (correct)
36. Harry will return, but (correct)
37. in a part-time, semi-self-instructory capacity while he hunts Horcruxes. (wrong)
It says Year 7 on the spine of my book. We were supposed to get seven years at Hogwarts, so I felt that it had to re-open, but I admit that I never foresaw the circumstances under which it did. I was shocked at the amount of open warfare in this book. Fans have been expecting open war since OotP and it just never happened, so I though DH would follow the pattern.
38. RAB is not Regulus Black. (wrong)
39. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say Andromeda Black or Amy Benson is RAB. (discounted)
All evidence pointed to Regulus, but it was just so obvious that I was dying for it to be someone else. Turns out it wasn’t at all a big piece of DH, though, so I can live with it, I suppose. Even though that whole bit about Regulus going against Voldemort because Voldy mistreated his house elf is rubbish.
40. Nagini won't be killed until the final battle is taking place, echoing the Quidditch match when Harry had to wait to catch the Snitch until his team was 50 points ahead. He must wait to defeat Voldemort until Nagini is dead. (correct)
I can’t explain how I knew this one, it just made sense to me. Nagini was always with Voldemort, and it did beautifully echo the Quidditch match. I just somehow knew that was how it had to be.
41. Harry's final showdown with Voldemort will heavily involve wandless magic, and (wrong)
42. Voldemort will successfully be defeated, (correct)
43. though not by an Avada Kedavra. (wrong)
I was praying and wishing and hoping for wandless magic in this book, and I have been ever since the brother wand problem was introduced in GoF. To go into why I so desperately wanted wandless magic I would have to talk about psycho-analytical literary critical theory and how I feel about the Freudian symbolism and subtext in the books, and why Jo had the perfect opportunity to take a chauvinist and outdated school of critical thought and use it to make a strong, feminist statement… but that would take pages and pages, so I won’t.
44. Furthermore, Harry will not successfully use any more Unforgivable Curses in this book. (wrong)
I have always appreciated that Harry is a multi-dimensional hero who is essentially good, but who can do bad things when pushed (see the Cruciatus in the Atrium and the Sectumsempra in the bathroom). He is much more interesting to me than Voldemort, whom Jo presents as pure evil, unable to ever feel love and goodness. However, the Unforgivables that Harry performed, especially the Cruciatus, were gratuitous and did a disservice to his character. Harry is supposed to be appalled by enjoying causing pain and taking people’s freedom. It is contradictory to have had him perform those curses.
45. Harry and Voldemort will not meet face to face until the final battle. (correct)
My father claims that I was wrong about this, that when Harry walked up to Voldemort expecting to die it wasn’t really the final final confrontation, but all I meant by this prediction was the final battle as a whole, and I was correct.
46. Snape has been loyal to Dumbledore all these years and (correct)
47. he only killed Dumbledore because of some design of his. (correct)
Almost everyone in the fandom believed this, mostly because of the Snape/Lily love theory. I was never a huge fan of the theory, but I did believe that Snape was good, and it turned out correct after all.
48. Dumbledore really is dead, kids, and (correct)
49. he will not be coming back from the dead, BUT (correct)
50. he will have a slight advisory role via either his portrait or memories in the Pensieve. (correct)
There was just too much left for Dumbledore to do when he died for him to just disappear. The chapter “King’s Cross”, however… But we’ll get to that later.
51. Oh, and Dumbledore was a Parselmouth and (wrong)
52. this fact is very significant to the plot. (discounted)
53. We will find out that Parseltongue is, or at least can be, hereditary. (wrong)
54. Dumbledore was a pureblood. (wrong)
55. He had one or more Dark wizards in his family history. (wrong)
If you look to the left of the tram, everyone, you can see the GIANT GAPING PLOT-HOLE of Half-Blood Prince, left there forevermore by JK Rowling. Go re-read chapter ten, I implore you, and explain to me how in the world the memory meant anything to Dumbledore if he wasn’t a Parselmouth. All of the crucial dialogue took place in Parseltongue, Dumbledore admitted that the memory was recorded as such, and he never once asks Harry for a translation. Who else could have provided one when Voldemort and Harry are supposedly the only Parselmouths to have gone to Hogwarts in centuries? I had more involved theories involving Dumbledore’s family history being revealed because of the hereditary nature of Parseltongue, blah blah blah, but on a simple level, how in the world was this chapter possible without DD being a Parselmouth? Absolutely ridiculous, and I expected better from Jo.
56. Harry will use Parseltongue at some point to get past enchantments guarding a Horcrux. (correct)
It just made sense to me that Voldy would copy Slytherin’s protections of the Chamber of Secrets by protecting a Horcrux with Parseltongue. (Now, Ron being able to open the Chamber by imitating Parseltongue? Incredibly lame.)
57. The Trio will travel internationally for some reason. (wrong)
I thought that for sure they’d have to go to Albania or Durmstrang. Whoops.
58. There is a Horcrux hidden at Hogwarts. (correct)
I knew it either had to be the cup hidden in the trophy room, or the crown in the Room of Requirement.
59. The Love Room in the Department of Mysteries will not be significant. (correct)
The room was merely a device for bringing up Harry’s super special love powers. Some people thought Voldemort would be defeated by shoving him into the room. Nah.
60. The Veil Room, however, will be very important. (wrong)
When I was hoping for wandless magic and thought that Harrycrux had to die, I was certain that the Final Battle would be at the Ministry again, and that we would go back to the Veil Room. I was hoping that Harry would not find out about his Horcrux-ness until the last moment, and realize he had to wrestle both himself and Voldemort through the veil, to kill them both simultaneously. I thought the dying and then coming back to life junk in DH was lame lame lame.
61. The Deathly Hallows refers to the Horcruxes. (wrong)
Meh, I was never very sure about this one, but I thought I’d take a stab at it. Should have known it would be something we couldn’t possibly predict.
62. Grawp will have an important role to play. (correct)
As the only Giant on the side of the good guys, I would say that he was crucial in protecting Hogwarts during the battle, but I’m actually open for argument on this one. We probably still could have done without him.
63. The Centaurs will fight with the good guys (correct)
64. after their people/forest/society is threatened by the Death Eaters. (wrong)
The centaurs ended up doing their part, but as there was no explicit threat to them made by the baddies, I’m willing to mark myself incorrect on the second half. They fought because they could no longer stand to watch evil triumph, even if it might not directly affect them.
65. There will be goblins on both sides. (correct)
Griphook helped the trio, the other Goblins were willing to report to Voldemort.
66. The Hogwarts ghosts will help fight Dementors. (discounted)
I’m just not going to count this in the total. The ghosts definitely helped in the battle, and they probably did go toe-to-toe with some Dementors, but as it isn’t explicitly stated I’m just going to ignore the prediction.
67. Ollivander went into hiding on Dumbledore's advice (wrong)
68. to avoid being used by Voldemort to solve the problem of the brother wands. (discounted)
I thought he was going to end up helping the trio when they randomly stumbled upon him while he was in hiding. Whoops again.
69. Hermione's knowledge of Ancient Runes will be key. (correct)
There had to be a reason for her to always be harping on that subject.
70. The mirror that Sirius gave Harry in Book 5 will come back into play. (correct)
Well, duh.
71. There will be no time travel in this book. (correct)
I honestly did like the big Time Travel Theory that started being popular a couple months ago (in a nutshell, that Harry went back in time to witness his parents’ murder and then gave information and the Invisibility Cloak to Dumbledore and Snape hates Harry because he stood by and watched Lily get killed), but it was just so unlikely that we would be able to figure it out so easily.
72. There will be an attack on Privet Drive. (correct)
Just had to happen, what with the Blood Charm ending.
73. Dudley will be the character to use magic later in life. (discounted)
I’m not counting this prediction, as this piece of info that Jo promised apparently didn’t make it into the book.
74. Dumbledore had James' invisibility cloak because Dumbledore was supposed to give it to someone else to use, or was planning on returning it to James after someone else borrowed it. (wrong)
I suppose when Jo talked about this being a crucial piece of info I should have realized that it would be something a bit grander, but I thought I’d have a whack at it. I’m not surprised I was wrong.
75. Dumbledore's "gleam of triumph" in Book 4 was due to the love in Harry's blood weakening Voldemort. (discounted)
I suppose technically I’m right, but I didn’t at all mean anything like what happened, so I’m just not going to count this one, either.
76. The Lost Day isn't actually terribly significant. Harry was just traveling with Hagrid, or being kept safe somewhere or something. (correct)
HAH is what I say to those who thought the Lost Day held all the answers. I would have liked to have seen some acknowledgement of its existence by Jo, but I never thought it was important, so I feel vindicated.
77. The thing holding the sword on the UK Children’s cover is Kreacher. (wrong)
The only contenders were Dobby, Kreacher, or a Goblin, and I guessed wrong. So sue me.
78. The US cover features the world beyond the veil from the Department of Mysteries. (wrong)
Okay, it’s the Great Hall??? WTF? That cover is so misleading in so many ways.
EPILOGUE PREDICTIONS
I’m discounting this entire set of predictions, as the Epilogue wasn’t at all what Jo had always made it sound like it would be in interviews. She made it sound like we would find out what happened to each character in a bit of detail: with whom they ended up, what they ended up doing for a living, etc. Most fans, even ones who loved the rest of the book, agree that it was really more of a Crapilogue. All we really learned is that Ginny and Harry, and Ron and Hermione, got married and apparently had lots of sex. Wow. How exciting.
So, out of the 78 predictions I am left with, I discounted six, leaving me with 72. Out of the 72, I got 46 correct and 26 incorrect, making my percentage of accurate predictions a 64%, giving me a failing grade of Poor. However, I actually think that I did fairly well. I got some of the real biggies correct, so I’m happy.
However, if you couldn’t tell by my tone in my prediction responses, I am not very happy with this book. In fact, I sort of hate it. Well, it’s not that I hated it, I just—no, actually, hate is pretty accurate, the more I think about it. I thought that I was going to be really upset when I finished the book because my HP experience was finally over, but I was much more upset that I was so disappointed in Deathly Hallows.
There are many, many reasons for my dissatisfaction with DH, but the first one I will discuss is Jo’s sudden decision to reverse her presentation of characters that we’ve been reading about for nearly ten years. The new sides presented to us of Lupin and Dumbledore are just absolutely ridiculous. Lupin, the man who taught Harry how to produce a Patronus in his third year, who has the courage to live with and spy on the werewolf that intentionally bit him when he was a kid, suddenly freaking out about being around his pregnant wife? Suddenly shying away from responsibility when he has managed his lycanthropy for almost forty years without apologizing for it or being ashamed? Jo made him act like a coward in that scene, and I hated it.
And Dumbledore. I’m all about adding layers to characters, revealing new things about them, creating depth. She did it wonderfully throughout the books with both Harry and Voldemort. I’m all about sudden role reversal, like making Quirrell be the bad guy in Book 1 and having Sirius end up good in Book 3. But to give us six books over ten years of a benign, twinkling, eccentric Dumbledore… telling us always that we could trust him completely… presenting him as completely patient, wise, and tolerant… I can’t forgive Jo for suddenly making him a manipulative, selfish, lying old fool. Telling us he once sought wizard domination over the Muggles, that he sought to be the personal master of death by owning the Deathly Hallows, that he was weak and tempted by power up until the day he died, that everything he ever said to Harry was naught but a clever plan… I hate her for it. Dumbledore didn’t need to be a developed character. His role in the books was exposition and to prepare Harry for Harry’s own journey and development. Jo soiled his memory in an attempt to add layers where none were needed. I feel like I was yanked around and lied to.
I further felt aggravated in this book by the constant game of Musical Wands going on. Voldy steals Lucius’s, which Harry breaks, and then Hermione breaks Harry’s, so Harry uses a random Death Eater’s, then Harry steals Draco’s and Bella’s, while Voldy steals the Elder Wand, which Dumbledore took from Grindelwald but now belonged to Draco, not Snape, but Voldy kills Snape anyway, and blah blah blahhhhhh. Seriously, Jo, completely unnecessary.
Also, this book was Plot-Hole Central. I already mentioned the plot-hole from HBP that it left wide open, but DH created plenty of its own, too. The Hallows were supposedly this hugely important part of the story, but it was never explained what having all of them together would do, what being the master of death meant. Why, suddenly, did the visions of Voldemort’s plans return to Harry, after they had stopped all last year? The Deluminator suddenly became a magical walkie-talkie, what? Harry’s Cloak is now presented as this nearly infallible, powerfully magical relic that can even repel objects thrown at it, and puts all other Invisibility Cloaks to shame, yet Moody’s eye could see through it in GoF? There was nothing in the Room of Requirement when Voldemort put the diadem in it, yet somehow in the next fifty years enough kids discovered it to fill it to the brim? I thought Jo’s writing was tighter than that.
The next reason for my disappointment in DH is going to sound contradictory: the bulk of the book was entirely too dark, and the ending and Crapilogue far too light and fluffy.
I am conscious enough of my own habits to know that when I read books, or watch movies and plays, I gravitate much more to those pieces which scare me, disturb me, or leave me heart-broken. There’s probably something very deeply wrong with me, heh, but it’s true. Kafka, Peter Shaffer, and Philip Pullman are all among my favorite writers because of their ability to leave me feeling shattered after I finish reading something of theirs. I don’t go to see comedic movies like Evan Almighty or Night at the Museum, because I would much rather see something like At World’s End, Titanic, or Cold Mountain. When taking a trip to Broadway, I feel that West Side Story, Phantom of the Opera, or Les Miserables are much more worth my time than Spamalot, The Producers, or Grease. When I found out that “Good-Bye Love” was cut from the RENT movie because Chris Columbus feared it would overwhelm viewers, I was really mad because I was begging to be taken to that place of pathos.
All of these preferences extend to the Harry Potter universe, and Order of the Phoenix has long been my favorite for these reasons. Umbridge has always scared the crap out of me, and nothing in the series up until the first chapter of Deathly Hallows disturbed me more than the detention scene with her as she smiles while Harry slices I must not tell lies into his own hand. I panicked when Jo fooled us into briefly believing that Hermione was dead, and sobbed through the final chapters after Sirius’s death.
As I said, the first chapter of DH managed to push the horror even further, for me. The Muggle Studies professor hanging limply over the table through the whole meeting, only to wake up briefly before being murdered and her body allowed to crash to the table freaked me out, and I loved it. Eventually, though, I was forced to accept that even I have a limit to the amount of death, stress, macabre, and fright that I can take in a novel. Dobby’s and Fred’s deaths had me weeping, but by that time we’d been through too much in the book already, and I began to shut down. After Fred I didn’t cry again, not at Snape’s memories, not at Harry’s walk into the Forest, not at Lupin’s and Tonks’ deaths, not at any of the denouement. Jo had lost the balance she maintained in other books between horror and humor, and by the end of DH I felt like it was just more yanking around, like all the characterization changes. I wish that she had somehow reared in the amount of deaths just a bit so that I could more completely experience the ones that were truly necessary.
It is important to note, though, that despite my attraction to stories that make me cry my eyes out, in the final analysis they almost all actually have hopeful and happy endings. The His Dark Materials trilogy and At World’s End both cruelly force the lovers to live separate lives apart from one another, but make it clear that they will be together again some day. Rose and Jack finally reunite after Rose dies at the end of Titanic, and Ada has Inman’s child in Cold Mountain and presumably lives a long and fruitful life, missing her love but knowing that everything will be alright. Marius and Cosette get to be together in Les Miz, and Valjean gets the rest he so richly deserves. In RENT, the characters accept their eventual deaths and the deaths of their loved ones, living in the moment and not fearing what tomorrow may bring.
The happy-go-lucky, Disney-fied ending in Deathly Hallows’ Crapilogue relates to this. Had Jo controlled the amount of deaths a bit more, then had to balls courage to kill Harry, and then shown Ginny and the others years later, deeply missing their friend but going on with life knowing that everything is as it is meant to be, JKR could have made her point much better than she actually did.
Probably my biggest reason for disappointment with Deathly Hallows, though, is that this book made it clear that Jo is not at all the talented, brilliant author I have always believed her to be, and I feel very foolish and hurt because of it.
I have maintained for years that Jo is an original and deeply intelligent writer. I defended her in numerous online debates (it’s a habit of mine) against accusations likening Harry to books like the Inheritance Trilogy and The Da Vinci Code. I study literature and religion in school, and I always felt more than qualified to prove that the Potter series was neither derivative shite like the Eragon books nor shallow pop-theology like The Da Vinci Code. College classes in critical theory and philosophy, along with being extremely familiar with the YA/Children’s Fantasy genre, brought me to the conclusion through several very detailed re-reads of the first six books (I have two journals filled with notes, srsly) that JK Rowling was truly visionary and deep, even if she lacked some of the writing skills of authors like Philip Pullman. She borrowed themes and ideas from classic literature, but very rarely specifics the way Chris Paolini and others do.
Deathly Hallows has left me scratching my head and wondering where this author that I’ve defended for years went. The way the locket-Horcrux affected the characters while they wore it was stolen straight from Lord of the Rings. Jo has been inspired by LotR before (see Aragog and Shelob, and the lake in HBP and the Dead Marshes), but this was so much more obvious and not really based on any laws of her Potterverse. Aragog makes sense because almost all of her magical creatures are regular animals with one or two things different about them to make them magical (or else they’re taken directly from mythology, like centaurs and phoenixes). The dead people in the lake were Inferi, not regular corpses, and drownings in rivers and lakes are common themes in literature (see A Separate Peace and A Northern Light). Granted it’s only several days after I’ve read the book, but I have not yet figured out an excuse for the locket.
Another example is the blatant Matrix rip-off in the chapter King’s Cross. Jo can go on all she wants about having planned it that way from the beginning, but come on. Exposition like whoa in a totally white train station which serves as a sort of limbo that the protagonist must either go forward from, or head back where he came from? I adore the Matrix movies, honestly, and it works in those, but the Potter books require something a bit more magical, to use the totally obvious word.
Speaking of King’s Cross, that chapter and the one before it (The Forest Again) also owe more than their fair share to CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. This is a major problem for me, as I loathe the Narnia books, if not necessarily for what they are then definitely for what they are perceived by the vast population to be.
I consider myself to be a very religious Christian. I was raised in the Church, I’ve worked with kids at several faith-oriented youth camps for three years now, I’m minoring in Religious Studies at school, and I’ve been considering a call to ordained ministry since I was 14. I firmly and fully believe that because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, death has absolutely no power over me and, in fact, doesn’t even really exist. That which we see as death is nothing more than the entrance to Eternal Life, and is something to be embraced rather than feared.
However, there is a fine, fine line between embracing death and deriding life. It is a small distinction, but within that distinction is all the difference in the world. The reason I hate Lewis, and now the reason I am so disappointed in Rowling, is that they seem incapable of saying “death is okay” without also saying “and that means that life is insignificant.” “Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and above all those who live without love.” I appreciate the final part of that sentence from Rowling, because it brings her just a little bit closer to the truth of the issue than Lewis was able to get in Narnia, but she still falls sadly short and leaves her readers (mostly kids!) with the message that life is meaningless, and we’re all more or less just waiting around to die.
To quote Rob Bell, I need a God who’s now. Earth isn't just some cosmic waiting room. Jesus was sent to teach us how to live just as much as, if not more than, he was sent to teach us how to die. Read through the Gospels and take note of how many of his commandments are instructions on how to make our Earthly lives as Heavenly as possible: forgive one another, love one another, be charitable, fear nothing. There are absolutely people whose lives should be pitied, but it’s not because they are alive, it’s because of what they are doing with their lives. Life is what you make of it. The Lord’s Prayer, which comes from Jesus himself, says, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” It does not say, “Please take my soul and bring me death, so that I might join Thee in Thy Kingdom.” The prayer asks God to bring Heaven to Earth so we can experience it while we live here, too. I cannot find it in me to believe that Jesus would pray such a thing if life on Earth were something to be disdained and pitied.
So, that’s a fair amount of theological babbling that almost certainly makes absolutely no sense, but the bottom line is that I expected better of Rowling. She is multi-lingual, extremely well versed in Classic literature, clever, hard-working, and well-spoken. I don’t know why I assumed that she would be a good theologian, too, but there you have it. In her efforts to include depth in this final book, she over-reached past her own understanding of what she was trying to discuss and wound up with an ending that lacked subtlety, originality, and profundity. Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince both did much better jobs of conveying her points.
I still have several other things I could talk about that I felt were lacking in Deathly Hallows, but this post is already entirely too long, so I’m just going to let it all go. I’m planning on re-reading the book soon in hopes that I like it more when I’m not going through it at top speed on ninety minutes of sleep, so if anything drastically changes I’ll let you know, but there you have it. I don’t know where I stand in the fandom or anything at the moment, but I’m going to do my best not to let the book change how I feel about talking to the awesome people I’ve met, and I can definitely assure you that it hasn’t changed how I feel about wizard rock, but I don’t know about the fansites and stuff. Most of them seem unwilling to admit that there were any problems with it. Whatevs.
Hopefully everyone who reads this liked the book more than I did. Peace out, kids.
