Deathly Hallows Review--Full of Spoilers

Well I finally finished the Deathly Hallows last night about 12:30am (or is that this morning, then?) anyways...its done. I feel as if I am missing a day...there was no Saturday, there was no Sunday because they both melded together...there was only Sunurday. I started reading the book Saturday afternoon after we got back from Sam's Club and hubby started downloading the cd's into his iTunes when he decided to start listening to them (I was already on chapter 4 and moving fast)...of course as soon as the kids heard the story being read thats when they wanted stuff..now. So it did not take long for me to begin to lose my 4 chapter lead...finally after several dirty looks and having to explain things to him that he had forgotten from HBP he decided to take his iPod into the bedroom. At 1:30am Sunday morning he began to complain that I wasn't in the room....so I moved there and we read the book along with the cds...it really slowed me down! I would have been done Sunday morning if I could have just continued on my own, but he felt so hurt when I had finished HBP in one night that I just couldn't stand the thought of seeing that look again.

Below are my thoughts on the book...I am putting them in black on my black background so that if you wish to read them you will have to put your cursor over them and while holding down you mouse button, highlight them to read....no use in spoiling the whole book for every one! Right?

Well, where to begin. I must admit that after all the hype I was rather disappointed on the whole. The book felt very anti-climatic...rather like having a fart towards the end of sex really. So what was the biggest "fart" for me?

Why Snape's death of course. It was very unlike the scene I had pictured...he didn't put up any sort of struggle at all...didn't try to defend himself, just let Nagini come and get him. True, against Voldy he didn't stand a chance but still...just a little of a struggle, just a little...but loyal and true to the end he never revealed to Voldy his true heart.

And then to have him IN LOVE with Lily was just so....wrong....best friends I could see. I really could. I had a feeling that he had known Lily from his childhood....that the "horrid boy" was in fact Snape....but not a romance by any stretch...best friends, yes I could see that. The fight was plausible....the use of the term "mudblood" in the heat of passion--oh how I remember a fight I had with my best friend in 6th grade...she was moving away and I was starting another school alone, I didn't realize it then but on the last day of school we had had a terrible fight! We were cleaning out our lockers (they were next to each other) and I don't even know how the fight started anymore...all I remember was yelling at her that I thought it was very unfair for her mother to make her move away just so she could get drunk someplace new where no one would know them. I had said it...I knew it was wrong, that it was hurtful AFTER it had come out...I have been in Snape's shoes, I can imagine what he would have felt.

That turn...that one slip changed his life really. She began to hang out with the Mauraders more to tick Snape off, I could imagine, than anything else...but wound up falling in love with James. I think she felt some sort of loyalty maybe even graditude when he saved Snape...and he knew it and became very jealous. That is why he turned spy, trying to show her he was just as daring as James was.

Everything he did, he did for Lily. Her memory, her love, her loyalty. Even after he hurt her sister she was still his friend. Even after she had heard, seen all the terrible things he had done up to that fateful day after O.W.Ls she was still his friend...and I got the feeling that even after that she still considered him her friend even if James did not.

I could not see him trying to sacrifice her child though...just to save her. Surely he would have known that she would never have been able to love him, even in her grief, if she had lost her child be it at his hands or not; he would have known that the grief would have killed her, leaving her an empty shell at best.

Perhaps he thought they would have children of their own...but would he really have been delusional enough to think that she would forget the pain of the loss of both husband and son? No this part of it....its just not believable to me.

Did she have to kill him? No I think there were other ways of handling it. Did she bring him honor? Yes and No. She made his death a type of self-sacrifice, she brought back his honor as far as the Order is concerned...that he was in fact Dumbledore's man from the start to the end of Harry's saga. She allowed him to tell his story thru his own eyes, even if it did come thru Harry's use of the pensieve, and everyone got to see the side of Snape that so few of us seemed to have ever known in the character.

How all he did, all he did, he did to save Harry. He was Harry own personal gargoyle, his guardian who went where others feared to tread, he was willing to make sacrifices for a person who hated him to the core until the bitter end...and even then Severus' sacrifice didn't get its full due...where was his funeral? Where was his "reward" for all he did for the school? How sad his ending....no emotionally but rather literary. Why could she not give his death the same dignity, recognition that she did Dumbledore's? Why did she leave so many questions unanswered? Many people might wonder why Snape wasn't a Gryffindor, but I guess you have to understand the true nature of a Gargoyle to understand why Slytherin was the only house he would have really fit into.

I doubt JK will release a new series or compendium of Snape's life...although I know I for one would love to read it. Who were these other women they spoke of in the book? What sort of things did he do that made the other kids afraid of him? What was his home life like? Why did he teach the way he did? Why? why? why? there are so many questions she could answer in a series just about the HBP! DId he have a family? Did he have a child? After all JK said "who could love Snape?" but you don't need to have love to make a child...so does the Prince blood live on thru Snape?

And then there was the back story behind James&Lily's death--hello?? Where was it? You mean the biggest part about their past was the fact that the invisibility cloak was passed from generation to generation? That was rather...stupid! You would have thought that someone on the Potter side would have figured out that this was something extremely valuable and peiced together the story of the Hallows.

After all, anyone worth their nut knows that in every story there is a grain of truth...especially those which have been passed from generation to generation with little change.

I was very disappointed from one page to the next.

The questions of How Dumbledore knew that the Potters had been killed when he was away, why was it Hagrid and not Dumbledore or McGonagall that brought Harry, How did the wizarding world know right away that Voldy had gone? None of these questions were truly answered.,..the last one is implied when Voldy gets killed and the book says that up&down the countryside people were coming out of their Imperius curses...I suppose that would be one way.

What happened to wandless magic??? Isn't that what they were learning in HBP? Magic that they didn't have to speak, that they didn't need a wand to perform?

The unexpected move in the book, though suspected, was Narcissa & Lucius' characters. I have for YEARS maintained that the only reason that Lu&Cissy were still with the DEs were to protect their son...I was glad to see this come to full fluition when Cissy didn't rat out Harry in the grove and helped to bring about Voldy's downfall....she played a very intrical part...if she didn't convince the others of Harry's death all would have been for nought! They were just parents who realized that their child had to come first. So many people have looked down their noses at the Malfoys....spoiled, rotten, mean, cruel, self-centered, evil, etc....but really they were just parents who feared for their son's future. I have always said the only reason that Lucius attacked in the Ministry was to save his family from the Dark Lord's wrath.

I think anyone could respect that....or at least should at the very least understand it. Who wouldn't want their parents to go to the extremes that the Malfoy's did to protect them? I could see the Malfoy's as one of those families in Germany during Hilter's reign who did awful, terrible things to protect their own. Actually its an issue that we have struggled with since then...the soldiers assigned to the POW camps and Concentration camps....were they really guily? They must have known what was going on, but did they really have a choice? I suspect that most of us would say "yes, they could have fled" yet we were not there, we don't know what it was like. This was a lesson that my father, a WW2 vet who liberated one of the Concentratin camps (he still will not say which one), tried to tell me while I was growing up. He tried to explain that the world is not as black&white as so many of us would like to believe or wish it would be.

I did like that she made Dumbledore not so "squeaky" clean...that there was some question about how good he really was, how his childhood obsession still ruled him as an adult...but most importantly that he made mistakes! This was probably the best thing she could have done to the character. It made him.....human. So many people held Dumbledore on such a high pedistal that I hope they do not get hurt now that JK has bumped the pillar-hard!

The silver hand....wow! Didn't see that coming! One has to wonder why JK bothered to make it out of silver then...I'm sure someone will find some obscure passage somewhere that will explain it all....everyone thought for sure it would be used to kill Lupin or Fenrir (my choice)...but the hand killed Wormtail; perhaps it was a take on the "left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing" type of thing. BUT still, even though unexpected...boring!

Dobby....okay this one nearly brought tears to my eyes. Dobby...that little creature who loved Harry so much, before he even met Harry he loved him; Dobby who simply wanted to see everyone free...Dobby who died so that Harry might live. Aw, Dobby. We honor you with the Sock Swap--we will never forget you! Although--I think Harry could have said a bit....all Dobby ever did was protect and help him and Harry couldn't say a thing. Granted Harry dug the grave by hand, no quick fix magic, he put the sweat into it....but still....he should have said SOMETHING!!! And the headstone? It was percise, quick, true in deed and form....just like Dobby.

Now the Weasleys....
The Twins: I knew one of the brothers would die, it was just inevitable...there is just so much out there about the lost-twin syndrome or the surviving-twin syndrome (depending on who's writing about it) that it was just the way I could see it coming...and the moment that George lost his ear and they were no longer identical it was the train on the tracks.
Percy: well nice to see that he can admit what everyone else knew...but to get one son back to lose another just seemed so ironic. Too ironic, very forced. It felt like she was putting it in just for the fans....and perhaps the actor?
Molly: OMGs!!! I figured she would come to the aid of Ginny....why else have Ginny there? it was either going to be Molly, Harry or Ron. Who knew Molly had it in her?? To take on Bellatrix and to be able to out spell her!! Wow, that gave a new meaning to the term Spelling Bee! I just wish JK could have had the page space to zero in on that one--or if there had been a way to enchant the book like a pensieve so that we could watch each of the battles going on...I hope that when they make this movie they make Molly's fight a main shot!
Arthur: What happened to him? He was a main character during the whole series...then *pop* its like he became a background character! I think everyone figured that he was going to be more of a King Arthur type character coming into power at the end, but nope. He's just Arthur Weasley who's biggest scene in the book was telling off Harry in the elevator and not even realizing it was him...remember how Crouch was able to tell that Mad Eye wasn't really Mad Eye? You would think that Arthur would have suspected/sensed something being that they had used polyjuice potion so often in the book.
Ginny: Why was she even in this story? At least that's the way it seemed....she was a pure plot mover...she became a minor character very quickly. The biggest role she played was when she kissed Harry and Ron stood up to him. Of course she marries Harry---oh PLEEEEASE, how cliche was that! It was so sickening I wanted to puke...and then the names they gave their kids...lYUK!!!
"james", "lily" and "albus severus"....how predictable! While I can see it happening with James & lily....albus? and why did they only have three children? I mean, everyone would have expected them to have a whole load of kids just like the Weasley's.
Ron: Well he never got to be Head Boy did he? So I guess that part of the vision he saw never came true, although he did make it to Prefect. I was so glad to see him grow some balls during this book and not just pad-along after Harry like the faithful puppy. And him running into the freign of fighting along side his brothers was fantastic!! It really showed that he was a great wizard in his own right away from Harry and Hermione!
Bill: Well...another plot mover, wasn't he? It became almost a point of why have them there at all. True the cottage needed to be in the story as a safe house...but still. It would have been more poignant if, say, his advice to Harry about goblins was really needed but Harry had already figured that Griphook was going to double cross him, didn't he? Why make him part werewolf at all? It never really played a role in the story other than to prove that Fleur really loved him, but then any wound would have shown that. Was it to show Remus and Tonks relationship? Well it didn't seem to help much with that one either.
Charlie: Why? Why was he even there? All he did was say that Norbert was a girl and that was it. Didn't say that Norbert was the dragon Harry fought, didn't help with the dragon in Gringotts, didn't do anything really...why bother to bring him back in a speaking role when just the mention of him at the wedding would have been enough.

I think the person that she gave the "reprive" to was Hagrid....I think she meant for Hagrid to get killed by the creatures that he had taken care of for so long....like the story of the fox and the scorpion. I think she felt it was better to have Harry be carried in Hagrid's arms back to the castle knowing that the character would have treated Harry's dead body with as much care as a newborn child. I loved the fact that the saga of living at the Dursleys ended the way it began with the flying motorcycle...as we all KNEW it would...with Hagrid taking Harry away from that miserable place just as he had brought him.

McGonagall's character, I felt at least, was rather betrayed in the story. True she had to be a teacher at Hogwarts and all....but she didn't seem to get the play as an Order Member that I felt she deserved...although I have to admit that the scene with the desks really had me laughing!! CHARGE!!!

Remus and Tonks?? What the heck?! I would like to have seen something more of what happened to them instead of just having them lying there with the dead. C'mon! Their deaths were too much like a blip on the screen...they gave more background to Mad Eyes death battle than Lupin and he was a Marauder! No didn't like how this was handled at all. At first I thought, why would she have killed them both...but war leaves a lot of orphans and I think Tonks had shown before that she was going to fight at Remus' side no matter what he said.

Tralawney!! She was so funny....I can so see Emma Thompson's protrayal of her bopping those crystal balls at the DEs!! I kept waiting for her to start spouting more prophesy at the end when Voldy was going to take the school....one last knife in his rib before Harry could lay the final blow, so to speak.

and NEVILLE!! Poor sniffling Neville....how he came into his own in this book! I thought for sure he would be the one to take out the LeStrange's...but I like his role better than what I imagined it to be. He became PART of the prophesy! He took out the last horcrux, not the second to last, no Harry had already done that....he took out the very last. the one thing that would have allowed Voldy to rise again, for the whole masacre to begin again in another generation. He had probably the best hero in the book! Seeing him grow from a wimpering child afraid of his own shadow to one who is strong willed enough to be the only one to stand up to Voldy on the battlefield was AMAZING!!! I can't wait to hear the next PotterCast interview of the actor that plays him to get his take on his characters developement! Oh yes, this was done so much better than anyone else could have thought of, I'm sure!!

Kreecher....well, yes Kreecher....why hadn't Harry forbidden-or Sirius for that matter-Kreecher from using the terms blood traders or mudblood before this story? I thought the change in Kreecher's demeanor was a bit...overwhelming. He spent two books loathing Hermione and Ron, now suddenly he is waiting on them hand&foot because Harry gave him a locket?? No, it doesn't work like that...even if Kreecher could have been told that RAB didn't want to follow the DEs anymore, that doesn't mean he didn't hate Muggle-borns anymore....just that he realized that Voldy was going too far. There's a big difference there and I think Kreecher would have latched onto it as a way to justify his own feelings of dislike for the kids. You can't change views like that over night....it just isn't possible.

WHAT THE HELL was the thing with the Death stone for???? So what if Harry was able to pull back the Marauders and Lily? Who I wanted to see there was Snape so that Harry could apologize for all the horrid things he had ever done or said about him!!! Where was any of Harry's remorse for that??? Good Gods no, Harry Potter mustn't ever apologize for jumping to conclusions. Where in the whole book does Harry say "look we all mistook Snape and he only did what he did to make us better warriors"? No Where....even in the last battle with Voldemort he only brings it up to goat Voldy...there was no respect paid there....there was no apologizes for spying, stealing, speaking-against him. Oh Snape played his part so well, that I think perhaps, he even had Albus worried there for a second or two.

And the wireless??? WHY??? WHY was that in the book? Perhaps it was a nod to the resistance movement during ww2, but since the wireless was never shown in any of the other books that I recall (it was only mentioned) then why was it in this one?? This whole story-arch could have been accomplished using a paper where you tap it with your wand to make stories appear---this we've seen used before when Umbridge was in charge of the school. I will have to double check the other books but I am sure that they never had a scene where anyone was actually listening to a wireless.

I am not even going to give my opinion of the 2B or not 2B scene....how stereotypical! Only things missing were the wings and harps. Pee-Whoo!

All in all--I thought the book was a bunch of sentimental tripe. Only thing that was missing was "And They All Lived Happily Ever After". It was so sickening sweet....kind of like when you are a kid and try to eat all your Halloween candy before your brother can steal your 3Musketeer Bars, or trying to be the first to finish your jelly beans so you could beg your father for some of his black ones! Okay maybe that was just me...but you get the idea.

Not one of my favorites...not my least favorite.