Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

[dragojustine]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling

Well. Oh my. There is far too much to assimilate here, so bullety list it is:

First, I loved it. I have issues with Rowling and think she has serious flaws, both as a world-builder and as a prose stylist, but I have totally bought into Harry Potter on a fannish level and so of course I loved it. It managed to hit so many of the points that I wanted out of this last installment.

The positive:

- Return of the flying bike! That will never not be cool.

- “Here lies Dobby, a free elf.” Oh GOD. Sobbing, over here. I sob every time I even start to think about it. And he dug the grave himself!

- I adore how Fred and George are back with the funny within moments of losing the ear.

- RAB is indeed Regulus, and Kreacher was indeed involved. I am glad that fannish speculation was so on the mark there.

- Actual use of the mirror yaay!

- Aberforth yaay!

- Dumbledore backstory done WELL yaay!

- River, Royal, Romulus, and Rodent makes me so happy I just can’t even start. Aside from the Vichy France vibe that I’m loving more and more in HP, just… the four of them… and the way the wizarding world, and these people especially, are behind Harry and supporting him… and the names… It makes me so happy I could cry.

- I am so happy that she dealt with Ron’s inadequacy/being overshadowed issues.

- Luna is awesome and seeing the Ravenclaw common room was awesome and being a Ravenclaw is SO MUCH cooler than being a Gryffindor, people. And the Grey Lady and Bloody Baron backstory.

- Neville comes into his own. I’ve been waiting at least three books for that, and while I’m sad we didn’t see more of it, Neville maturing into the leader of the resistance was beautiful. And then with the sword! True Gryffindor! Neville is so awesome that awesome itself runs and hides from him, for serious. And the making of Neville/Luna/Ginny into the replacement of Harry/Ron/Hermione when they can’t be there- I LOVE, in texts of all kinds, when we get the acknowledgement that these minor characters are actually major characters in their own right, in a story just slightly tangent to the story we see. I want SO MUCH Hogwarts Resistance fic.

- I am incredibly glad she rehabbed Percy. Oddly, I am equally glad that she did NOT rehab Draco, because there are a lot of morally grey but fundamentally sympathetic characters floating around. Despite fandom’s weird Thing for Draco (why does everybody love Draco so much?) I think he is a delightfully slimy little shit who is understandable enough without needing to be made sympathetic and tragic.

- Petunia’s backstory! Oh! So sad! So perfect! And Petunia and Lilly and little Severus and how Lilly was kind to him…

- Ron/Hermione forever. That moment, when Harry realizes they fell asleep holding hands? So much yes. This is the only romance in the whole series that really really works (I know some of them weren’t meant to work, but Rowling is not that good at romance) and work it does. She kisses him for caring about the House Elves! But it’s the moment there at Grimmauld Place, holding hands in the night, that will be with me forever. Of course, now I need awkward-fumbling-sweet-teenage-first-time fic. I am sure fandom will provide.

- I really really liked seeing the teachers shine a little. These people are supposed to be incredibly talented witches and wizards, and sometimes they fall prey to a little slapstick humor. I love the fact that Rowling allowed them to be GOOD at what they do during the Battle of Hogwarts. I love Prof Sprout running about with Mandrakes and what-have-you and I love McGonagall and her galloping desk herd and I love the suits of armor coming to life to defend the castle and it totally plays back into my competent-characters kink (have I rambled about how I love competent characters and hate the way too often characters just aren’t good enough at what they do? Maybe later).

- And, of course, at the very end… the Mauraders all together again, accompanying Harry to his fate. I couldn’t even see I was crying so hard. I am so easy.

More, some ambivalent but mostly good:

- I understand the narrative purpose of Hedwig’s death, I really do. But… but…

- Not Mad-Eye! I was so sure that Mad-Eye would survive. I was so sure he’d survive anything.

- One the one hand, I’m so glad she rehabilitated Kreacher. But on the other hand, did it have to be done with more kicking of Sirius after he’s dead? I understand that with both Sirius and Dumbledore Harry is learning more about the people he loves, and learning to accept them and their flaws as a package. But my love for the character of Sirius knows no bounds, and he is so much cooler and more damaged and broken and stronger and more loving than is shown in cannon, and he just… gets no respect from Rowling. She created him, why doesn’t she respect him a little more? I mean, death by drapery, people. I will never forgive that.

- I may like Sirius more, but Snape is definitely Rowling’s greatest creation. I have long thinky meta thoughts about the creation of Snape. He is the conclusion of her James/Sirius/Dumbledore theme of accepting people as creatures of grey, accepting the good and the bad with less judgmentalism- judgment, still, because we are moral creatures, but not judgmentalism. Snape is a brilliant character, stunted and twisted and bitter, trapped in his adolescent world of slights and grudges. He is fundamentally a bully, taking his own issues out on those weaker than he is, and he is despicable. But he also has a heroic side, and he is if anything even more heroic for having to keep it trapped and secret, for letting himself be despised for the cause. And Rowling handled it perfectly, did not give him a grand hero’s rehabilitation, allowed him to die a tragic character without a full redemption. Oh Snape. And Snape and Riddle and Harry, the tragic lonely black-haired boys who finally found a home and Hogwarts. Oh God.

- This book was a bit racy for Harry Potter, wasn’t it? The questionable contents of that book the twins gave Ron, the question of what exactly Ginny was planning on doing, the use of “bitch”- in the context of HP, it’s all a bit racy!

- The darkening tone definitely keeps stepping up, but I like that this book was not as depressing as OOP. Because the helplessness is gone. Things keep getting worse, but they are all finally fighting, being proactive. After so long of the buildup and Harry trying to make everyone believe, no one can deny any longer that the war is here and the relief of finally being able to act suffuses the whole book and makes it feel like a breath of fresh air after OOP.

- It had too many maguffins. Seriously. Chase about the countryside collecting plot coupons is a video game setup. It is bad when used to excess in novels. The effects are good- I like that we see our Trio alone and isolated from the world, and I like that we see them competent and comfortable with using their magic, and the Ron-leaving-and-returning story is a guaranteed yank on the heart strings, but it’s all quite a lot of little magic artifacts to track, and becomes a bit distracting, yes?

- I am… amused and resigned at the Dumbledore explains it all chapter. Of course she did it. Oh well. Afterlife as Kings Cross Station is a cute enough concept to make it work, maybe.

-The epilogue is eye-roll inducing. I mean, it is a children’s book, so a happily ever after isn’t so bad, really. But does it have to be so… hetero-normative? Does happily ever after have to consist entirely of having babies? It bugs. Of course, I can argue the other side of it- Harry Potter is a fundamentally generational story, which I love about it forever, and so a passing on to the next generation is the perfect end. And I can almost convince myself of that. It’s just, of everything you might want to know about the characters 20 years down the line, what they named their babies isn’t it. And it just… closes off speculation. It kills later stories. I admire Rowling for saying she wouldn’t write any more novels, I do. But I think that kind of gratuitous attempt to stifle the extensions of your world is a little… mean-spirited? Am I making any sense?

- George. Oh…. George. We knew a Wesley would have to die, but still. There was so much death and loss and tragedy in this book, some of it emotional and cathartic but so much of it just sudden and pointless and senseless and that is how it should be. But the more you stop and think about it, the more horrible it becomes. George, having to somehow pick up the pieces and go about the rest of his life as… half a person. The more I think about him the more I want to cry, because it’s just so… God. George without Fred. Could there have been a more horrible end for them?

ETA: From

merryish  here:

 

Now I also want it to happen like this:

GEORGE becomes the Defense Against the Dark Arts prof (because he would be so. fucking. AWESOME!) and Fred haunts Hogwarts until George dies many years later of an overdose of puking pastilles.

And in the meantime they wander the halls of Hogwarts joking and laughing and playing tricks, one solid, one not so solid, both happy, for years and years, Fred teasing George about his missing ear and George teasing Fred about his missing corporeality.

Oh, and when George dies, and Fred vanishes from Hogwarts, too, people who don't know them will wonder, why is Fred Weasley's ghost gone now?

And the people who know them, or know their friends and families, will say, "Oh, Fred's spirit was never troubled. It was just waiting."

So there, that is how it happens, in my head. Because? I am a sap.

Yes. That is my fannon now. Oh God George.

The negative:

- Harry/Ginny never worked for me. She doesn’t come together as a proper character- she’s almost a schematic of a girl Harry would fall in love with. You know, relatively smart, athletic, cute, a close friend tied to his little surrogate family. But I never really felt her, on her own, you know? It never convinced me. One of the things I think is most interesting there is that he never really thinks about her. She walks into the room and he’s like “oh yeah- Ginny exists!” and then they separate and he doesn’t think about her again. She seems to exist purely for symbolic reasons, so he can have an avatar of safety and happiness and domesticity which he must leave behind to complete his heroic quest but can hopefully return to, and I really object to female characters existing only to serve that function for male heroes, because it annoys me. So there you go.

- Remus/Tonks is twenty seven kinds of bad. But if I start talking about them I will go on for pages and pages, so that is another rant.