[bigjko]

Originally Posted by Jackal

And I hate nitpicking silly points, but why didn't someone just disapparate out of Privet with Harry in the beginning? Seemed to work well enough all the rest of the game.

Because they couldn't risk getting Harry arrested by using magic anywhere near Harry Potter before his seventeenth birthday.

[Jackal]

Hm, could be. That seems a stretch to me. For such a significant event with so many witnesses, I can't imagine that being a main concern.

Like I said, I know the point is nitpicking, but since the escape was such a costly event, I figured it must have been justified somehow that I'm missing.

[bigjko]

Well, re-reading Mad-Eye's reasoning, he says it's because Thicknesse (the Ministry worker who was under a curse) made it and imprisonable offense to connect Harry's house to a Flu network, put a portkey there or disapparate from there. As well as the underage thing.

Remember the last time he was in trial at the ministry. It didn't really matter that there was a witness then.

[Jackal]

Ah okay, I'd forgotten Mad-Eye said that. Still think someone could have plopped the invisibility cloak on with him, walked half a block and disapparated together anyway. I was surprised to see how easy it was for them to come and go during the book after such a ridiculously big ordeal to get away in the first place. I still see the Ministry as a non-factor for concern, not for something that important, anyway. But I'll stop belabouring the point. I was just hoping there was a little better reason for such a big (as it turns out) sacrifice.

[fov]

Loved it. I was turning pages the whole time... the parts others have said felt long (like the stuff in the woods) didn't drag at all for me. I thought the section with the Pensive and Harry dealing with the realization that he has to die was extremely well done. Also Dobby's death was poignant, and the part where Harry visits his parents' grave. I like the sad stuff.

I didn't like the epilogue and would have preferred the book to end on the last chapter instead. Also I didn't see why she needed to kill off Lupin and Tonks, but since she did, Harry should have raised their kid (like Sirius said he would have raised Harry if he hadn't been locked up in Azkaban). Teddy is referred to in the epliogue but only briefly, and I think there was a missed opportunity there for things to come full circle.

Also I'm glad that the mirror from book 5 came back in and had a point (it was my biggest frustration with Order of the Phoenix) but I'm disappointed that Sirius was really dead. I wanted him to come back so Harry would have a family... the fact that he didn't would have made a Harry / Teddy family that much more resonant.

Also I agree with whoever said that Order of the Phoenix was the worst book but one of the best movies. I thought they did an excellent job of stripping out the rambly parts and tightening up the story.

[Davies]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

Out of curiosity, is there anyone here who didn't like the book? I don't mean that you have a few criticisms, or even many criticisms, I mean that you didn't like it. Is there such a person? Because really, this ending was so fitting to the series that I can't imagine anyone who's read this far not finding it a treat.

Presumably people who didn't like the book aren't going to bother looking at this thread...

I don't even know what I'm doing in here, since JK Rowling is nothing but a turn-off as far as I'm concerned. Still, I've picked up enough from this thread so that the papers' efforts to tantalise me no longer have any effect. Thanks.

Sorry to bother you. I'll find my own way out, thanks.

[Starflux]

You know, I just stumbled onto a surprising realisation: I don't really like any of the lead characters of Harry Potter. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Voldemort I all find very stale, boring and rather uninteresting. Yet I love the books. So it's really the incredible host of side characters and the events that do it for me instead of the leads. I'd take a Dumbledore or Snape or Lucius Malfoy over any of them anytime.

Anyone else of the same opinion?

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by Starflux

Anyone else of the same opinion?

Well, yeah, I guess so. I'm a big fan of Snape in particular, considering that I see a lot of myself in his adolescent self. The main heroes and villains of the story, I realise, are very clear-cut good and evil (which tends to annoy me a lot of the time, as anyone who's read my AA articles might recall), whereas many of the supporting characters seem a lot more human (I was pleasantly surprised to find Dumbledore in this category, actually). It makes sense.

[bigjko]

I never liked Harry Potter, himself, until the sixth book, actually. Loved him in the last book.

He was always either the dumb boy, who didn't know anything, or the angry, emo kid. Then in book six and seven he just seemed to get over it. And became instantly more likable as a main character.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Davies

Presumably people who didn't like the book aren't going to bother looking at this thread...

On the contrary, I'd think someone who didn't like a tremendously popular book would go out of his way to make it known!

I'm not a huge fan of the characters, but I love the whole wizarding-world tour you get from all these books. It's like you're living there for the few hours it takes you to read a book. Now, while the characters aren't so amazing as characters, the life they lead is really really cool.

[Wormsie]

Here are my incoherent ramblings about book seven.

Originally Posted by Squinky

It was one of those stories that ended rather predictably (if anyone had told me who'd died or not died at the end, I wouldn't have cared so much)

Ditto to the bit in brackets. I was dead wrong about everything. I thought all those people who thought "Harry is a horcrux, Snape is good and Harry and Ginny will get together in the end" were delusional. Perhaps because many of the same people thought Dumbledore was alive... I thought the book ending like that would have been too positive and predictable.

I was dead sure Mrs Weasley was under the Imperius curse in the beginning of book seven.

but still as consistently well-written as the other books. Basically, a Hogwarts adventure taking place, for the most part, outside of Hogwarts. I expected nothing less.

Snape's backstory, oddly enough, was my favourite. Originally, I'd thought he was on neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore's side and was doing what he could to save himself, but what really happened was infinitely cuter. Aww!

I was sure Voldemort would be destroyed as ending the whole book in the enslavement of all humankind would have been rather, well, not really in the style of the books. However, I was dead sure Snape was on Voldemort's side* (although I did think it was possible Dumbledore had indeed ordered Snape to kill him), but actually I thought Rowling explained his character quite well in the end. Like you, I had seen Snape as this incredibly selfish character.

The epilogue was quite brief, I would have wanted to know more, but Rowling revealed stuff about Harry, Ron & Hermione's future in some interviews. And she almost promised a Harry Potter encyclopedia, which I think will be a very good idea rather than endless pre/sequels.

I hadn't enjoyed a Harry Potter book as much since the third book. I didn't much like the fourth and the fifth book, and the sixth, too, I found bland, though better than the fourth and the fifth.

But yeah, I really liked this seventh book. Of course, it carries with it the burden of the fourth and fifth books, the books which I find, well, bad. Especially the fourth. I came to the conclusion that Rowling's stories are better than her writing. The deaths had almost no effect on me, except for maybe Dobby. Oh, and the death in the first chapter was of course depicted in a most gruesome fashion the evil of Voldemort. "Dinner, Nagini."

When I read the bit where Dumbledore claimed that Harry must die, I was overwhelmed, because he seemed to be so cruel and calm about it, like a psycho - it appeared as if he saw Harry only as a tool. At that point I came to the conclusion that Harry must live, because that's not exactly in line with Dumbledore's persona.

When Harry, Ron and Hermione started wearing the horcrux around their necks, I started thinking "oh God how stupid they are, keeping a piece of a soul of an incredibly evil and powerful person close to them. This is unrealistic."

In the end, I found the bit where everybody sneered at Slytherin, quite disappointing. That kind of behaviour creates more outsiders... it seemed like Harry and the rest hadn't learned as much as I had hoped.

Loved the growing up of Neville.

*I still can't decide if he was "evil" or not. He certainly wasn't a very nice man.

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

I also felt sligtly gipped that she promised some major deaths in this one and failed to produce them. After Dumbledore in the last one I was expecting at least Hagrid to die or Hermionie.

What we got was Hedwig, Mad-eye, Snape, Lupin, Tonks, A load of small characters like Colin and crabbe, One of the Twins (Fred) and of course Voldemort.

And Wormtail and Dobby.

I wasn't disappointed about the deaths as I wasn't really looking forward to them, anyway. I was surprised that nobody from the main trio died, but not disappointed.

[Wormsie]

And I loved it how Voldemort almost caught up with Harry every two pages or so. It was exciting!

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by Wormsie

In the end, I found the bit where everybody sneered at Slytherin, quite disappointing. That kind of behaviour creates more outsiders... it seemed like Harry and the rest hadn't learned as much as I had hoped.

I agree. It's surprising, given the revelation of the true nature of the James/Snape conflict in Book 5 (i.e. the "good guys" as the bullies). Though I wonder whether Harry naming his kid "Severus" makes up for it...

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by Starflux

Well, just finished it in a two-day run, mostly because I didn't want to stumble on any spoilers that would take away from the experience (like when it was spoiled grandiosely for me that Sirius and Dumbledore would be dying in their respective books).

There's another epic saga that needs finishing. Shoo!

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by bigjko

I never liked Harry Potter, himself, until the sixth book, actually. Loved him in the last book.

He was always either the dumb boy, who didn't know anything, or the angry, emo kid. Then in book six and seven he just seemed to get over it. And became instantly more likable as a main character.

I would say that Harry finally became a useful character around books five/six, instead of just being dragged around by random impulses. Definitely a good thing.

[Wormsie]

There was a good interview in which Rowling talks about Snape, and comments along the lines that if Snape hadn't cared for Lily, he wouldn't have protected Harry, and that besides everything he is a bully and all that...

P.S. I was also surprised and disappointed that Harry used the Cruciatus curse. It's an unforgivable curse and all...

[Starflux]

Ah yes, I liked that actually. If I were in a situation like that I'd be popping off the avada kedavras like mad. Come on, in a life or death situation; who the fuck cares? I'm not going to expelliarmus my way out of a situation. Self-defence, man. But, good for Harry that he didn't remain a tool in the end.

I actually half expected him to have achieved some zen-like piece and calm after his little tĂȘte-Ă*-tĂȘte with Dumbledore in his brain at the end before the final fight. That he would've been all Neo and just arisen at the campfire site in the forbidden woods, fought off all the Death Eaters with incredible ease and that Voldemort would have been scared and furious. It would have fitted with his Jesus-like resurrection. Of course, in the end he had to use super-chancy subterfuge again to win the day. What if it hadn't been the Malfoy woman who was sent to check whether he's dead? It's random lucky breaks like that that chip away at the credibility and the so-called inevitability of the destiny that the two opponents share.

[colpet]

I read the whole book yesterday, after refreshing the story by rereading the Half-Blood Prince (of which I had remembered nothing but Dumbledores' fate).
This last book was much more like an epic fantasy. I remember thinking 'Oh no, not the multiple perspective narrative that so many fantasy books favor' when Ron separated from the group (though the penseive allows her to give some alternate perspective to significant sequences) . Like Jack, I missed the flow of the school year at Hogwart's. I also got the LotR deja-vu feeling from the way the locket affected the characters (ATM's post). I firmly believed that Snape was a 'good' guy, and I think that removed some of the tension and drama for me, since I was running through the reasons for what he did, rather than accepting the 'evilness' of his actions. To finally see his reasons was gratifying.
I think the biggest success of the book was to humanize Dumbledore, and to a certain extent some of the up-until-now nasty characters, particularly the Malfoy family. Most typical fantasys do not round out their characters this way (Guy Gavriel Kay being a favorite exception).
Lastly, I remember thinking that she handled the life/death issues very sensitively, constantly reinforcing it's not the quantity but quality of the life we lead. While Harry's death could have been a very disturbing scene, his acceptance of it made it seem more like an achievement.

[Hammerite]

I still can't believe they killed the owl.