A few words about Deathly Hallows

[ebonlock]

Ok so, book 7...

I would like to say that I didn't hate this book, per se, nor will I swear off all things Potter henceforth. I will undoubtedly remain a fan and I'm even looking forward to reading a lot of the fic this book inspires. Hell, I may write some of it myself.

However, I've seen a lot of people lining up to turn this book into a religious war and I would like to say that feeling the need to lead a crusade, possibly alienate friends and acquaintances, and act like a general ass about a work of fiction is, in a word, foolish. If you loved the book and thought it was the greatest thing ever written in the history of literature, hey, good on you. I'm delighted it worked for you, I truly am. I wish I could share the sentiment but I can't and no amount of strident pleas, logical arguments or pointing at critical response is going to change that.

If you hated the books and will never, ever, ever read another word in the Potter universe because JKR is not getting another cent of your money, well I'm very sorry. I mean I'm profoundly sad that we'll not be able to discuss the series in the future. But no matter of impassioned, angry rants, logical arguments or pointing at critical response is going to change my mind either.

There were some things in the book I enjoyed, though they were few and far between. There were some things in the book I would just as happily have skimmed over or skipped entirely had I been reading alone. There was a scene or two I loved, and several that I outright hated. Overall I found the book extremely disappointing, and I will admit I spent several days last week utterly depressed after I'd read the spoilers.

But you see I understand that this is my opinion about a work of literature. I do not expect anyone to share it, I don't look down on anyone who doesn't, and I expect the same respect from everyone else. I am entitled to my rational, emotional and literary responses to the work, and anyone who tries to say otherwise is every bit as bad as every other religious zealot out there. Your opinion is yours and you're welcome to it, just don't try and cram it down my throat.

Allow me to reiterate just for clarity's sake, anybody out there who alienates a single friend because of an opinion about this book is a fool. An absolute, unmitigated fool.

However I will say that if you liked the epilogue we probably should never discuss it. Seriously, just don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Now, I'd love to point you at Rexluscus' take on the Snape revelations in Book 7 which almost completely mirror my own. We differ on a couple of points, but her overall summary got me definitely nodding. Shouldn't need to say this, but there are spoilers.

Comments are definitely open and I'm delighted to hear everyone's take on the book.

UPDATE: aelfsciene just sent me this very funny review of book 7 which I just had to share:

Page stillnonumbersbutafterthetableofcontents: A quote from Aeschylus and another quote from More Fruit of Solitude by William Penn. I am reminded of how Joe Queenan once suggested that if mediocre books were going to preface with quotes from great literature, how great literature could return the favour by prefacing themselves with quotes from Tom Clancy explaining the technical specifications of a military helicopter.

Read the rest, it's so worth it.

Comments

[pikabot]

The epilogue garnered a 'meh' reaction from me, except for the names. ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER ARE YOU ON CRACK. Aside from that, the thing didn't strike me so much as bad as pointless.

The rest of the book was pretty much exactly what I was expecting: enjoyable, but mediocre. Some of it was excellent (Hagrid tackling a death-eater in midair, for example) some of it was terrible (Dear Rowling you cannot write romance for shit, stop trying), a lot of it was bland.

By far the most annoying things was how Rowling somehow managed to make her canon even MORE incestuous, and the DC-Comics-Esque mass slaughter of minor characters in an attempt to artificially generate tension, while leaving the main characters unscathed.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Agreed on almost every point, the body count of pointless deaths in a vain effort to generate emotion was just pathetic.

But we'll have to agree to disagree on the epilogue, it read to me like something that had been scribbled by a 14 year old girl in loopy cursive and decorated around the borders with unicorn stickers. Though I'll see your Albus Severus and raise you a Scorpious Malfoy. There are already shippers, btw, and the ship is called AS/S. ASS for short.

[pikabot]

Well, I never said the epilogue was GOOD. It was just...bland. Maybe it's because I'd heard horror stories about the epilogue, and as such was braced for something much, much worse. And was willing to let Scorpius slide, as the Malfoy family has an existing history of incredibly lame names.

The only deaths that affected me in any way were Dobby and Fred. Hedwig just made me roll my eyes and say 'HERE we go', I didn't even notice that Lupin and Tonks bought it, and none of the others made any effect on me.

If Rowling really wanted to kill peoplle off to generate tension, she should have killed a major character. Kill Ron, kill Hermione, kill Harry, kill Ginny. George RR Martin does this to great effect: no character at ALL in his books is safe. Any of them can die unexpectedly. The early run of Exiles(before Claremont got his grubby little hands on it and it went to shit) did this as well: The team's lineup was constantly changing as the heros died in action and were replaced.

Death as it appears in Rowling's book, though, it so obviously jsut weak shock-effect nonsense that it's not even worthing mentioning.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

See that's part of why I felt cheated by this one, you throw bodies at us but nobody really big dies. Well, ok, for me Snape is the main character of the books and his death was a major blow, but she kind of waved it off. Then, just to twist the knife makes sure it was utterly meaningless as it didn't even help Voldie.

And the Harry pseudo-death was just retarded.

But yeah, Ron or Hermione really should've bit it in the final battle. You don't just kill of Fred 'cause you threw Percy back and the Weasleys can afford to lose a son. The readers knew from start to finish that no matter how bad things got those three were safe and it just cheapened the whole thing.

[pikabot]

I was actually rooting for Ron or Hermione to get offed in the first half of the book, and then the other spend the whole book getting more and more obsessed with revenge until he or she dies tragically in the final act. Ah well.

You know what else bothered me? The Elder Wand. What a throughly POINTLESS subplot.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Why don't you mean the DEATHSTICK!!!!

Jesus god, once that had been repeated about 30 times I was ready to club JKR with my own handmade death stick. Indeed the entire Hallows secondary widget hunt was the biggest fucking waste of time in a fantasy novel that I have read in ages. I mean seriously, ages.

[pikabot]

The annoying thing is, it actually started off fairly interestingly. The bits with Harry seeing Voldemort abroad, doing mysterious things? That was good! But then the big reveal sucked and sucked hard.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. And everybody's ok with him just dropping one of the three uber-powerful Hallows somewhere in the forest. Although, admittedly, it was an even lamer Hallow than the DEATHSTICK!!!!

If anyone can explain to me why he'd even want Harry to go on a quest for these things in the first place I'd love to know. Oh and it would've been really cool if he'd maybe mentioned the whole Elder Wand thing to Snape. "By the way, after you kill me you might want to hide my wand someplace other than in my crypt. Like, oh I dunno', maybe the moon or something."

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

If anyone can explain to me why he'd even want Harry to go on a quest for these things in the first place I'd love to know.

I'll admit, that part of that chapter really confused me. I would have read that a lot slower on my own, trying to suss out what she really meant. But I finally gave up and told myself that Dumbledore was hoping that in gathering the Hallows that Harry could die-but-not-really when he faced VoldemorT. Which is ridiculous, really, especially the nonsense about drawing out the quest for the Hallows deliberately so that he wouldn't be obsessed with their power the way Albus was... ETF?

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

WTF. ETF? Jeez, I'm down with making up acronyms today.

[chrysoula.livejournal.com]

'Cause under his plan, he wanted Voldemort to have it after he died undefeated. Sort of giving Voldemort a gun and claiming it was loaded. Or something. But it backfired because (I think) Draco managed to disarm him, thus 'defeating' him.

Of course, due to the workings of Fate, it wasn't much of a backfire. Except that the entire plan misfired on 'poor Severus'. Oh well! Everybody (except Voldey) is happy in dead-land.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Er, but that's why Dumbledore wanted Voldie to go on said quest, why have Harry do it as well? And if he wanted Voldemort to go after his wand, why the hell not just have Snape mention, "Oh say, your Lordship, I heard Albus had one kickass wand. Maybe you should go rob his tomb and steal it from him."

[jsmitty-o.livejournal.com]

This basically confirms what I mentioned at R's birthday dinner with her Dad. This series is a set of children's books after all. Anyone can claim for as long as they want that it didn't end up being a children's book, but I still call hogwash on that. The author still has to make this about the kids and make it for the kids. The fact that us adults still are interested in it is just a bonus. I knew she'd never kill any of the Trio. However, I still thought she could have killed off more of the other "big characters" than she did.

This is the first I've read (I'm still catching up on all the DH cut tag) that the pseudo-death was retarded. I agree. She could have done something different with his sacrifice.

But omigosh, are some people you know really ready to disown friends over a frakking book?? SRSLY? Oy vey.