...spoilery comments on Harry's finale, in which the reader confesses

[arrefmak]

So I thought it would be a huge flop.
HUGE.

And imagine the pressure on the author. Wow.

spoilers ahead

I was not happy with 'Half-blood Prince' and that's actually what I expected in the final Potterdammerung, ie, more of same. To me, HBP is a very confused and unsatisfying read. It doesn't advance the characters. They seem flat versions of themselves. It feels like a 'bridge book' to a finale and one that does not have the energy of Order of the Phoenix or Deathly Hallows.

Yet the author reversed, getting back to things that made sense to me, within the story she's been telling all along.  That was, given the material, excellent. Another way of saying this is, the story arc was satisfied and rendered pretty well.

Which isn't to say I loved each page.

I didn't care for Harry being dumb about issues already learned. I didn't like Ron, Harry and Hermione being so inconstant with each other, when it seemed there were ways for them to do drama without spiking each other and their grand motives. The ultimate issues were clear here and the heroes kept straying to childish drama. Now I'm all for teen heroes acting like teens. I'm all for arguments and face offs. What I felt undermined the book, and really slowed it down in the wrong spots was the idea that the trio could not count on each other or themselves in ways they had already learned from the journey.

I guess the war wasn't enough pressure? They had to stay children?

Which leads to my biggest crit of the book: the epilogue.  Which was nice and fluffy and could have been dropped entirely. It's not even a cherry on the cake (except for the obvious potentials of fresh faces.)

Things the epilogue could have done:
1. emotional reflection from the long view
2. hints of 'real changes' in the world, everything seemed a 'soft focus' extension of what had gone before
3. adult commentary, like a 'look back' scene between Ginny and Harry
4. hint new relationships (to be fair, they did this for the kids very well, but ignored the adults)
5. a sense of the chemistry, life, between Ginny and Harry

I'm going to re-read this... but the last bit, regardless of the smiles it gave me, was thin.

overall, thanks and kudos to JK

bound to be a classic.

Comments

[colomon.livejournal.com]

After finishing HBP, my thought was that in some logical sense, it and the last book would effectively be one book split into two parts, and now that I've read book 7, I think that's absolutely right. Books 1-5 are pretty much self-contained, plotwise, book 6 is almost all setup for book 7.

I absolutely loved book 7, BTW.

[arrefmak.livejournal.com]

And if book 6 and book 7 had been 'pared down' perhaps the whole thing would have been better.

-nods-

But book seven was quite the ride.

[lintra.livejournal.com]

My favorite part of the whole book is Snape's memories. I don't know what that says about me or my experience, but from the second I started reading those books as a young mother, I identified most heavily with Lilly Evans-Potter. Getting just that little bit more of her, and getting to hear Dumbledore admit "Sometimes I think we sort too soon," was the book for me.

I felt cheated on Neville. He was wonderful, but I didn't get enough of him.

[arrefmak.livejournal.com]

Neville rocks.
Here's a kid who's had as awful a life as Harry and he sucks it up and does the courageous thing over and over.

[shadowflyer.livejournal.com]

Neville is made of awesome, I quite agree. He got no small amount of that awesome, though, from the grandmother who gave him a stable, supportive home and example of what it means to have steel in your spine. It was a nice touch to have her show up, and have Neville respect her but not fear her anymore.

[egwenna.livejournal.com]

I have no idea when I'll read the book, but I've gone ahead and read everything about it anyway. There seem to be very mixed reactions to the epilogue. I saw this linked on a friend's journal and thought it was wonderful:

http://casirafics.livejournal.com/440900.html

[gentlyepigrams]

The lesson I got from the epilogue is that adult life is determined by high school. Ugh.

[egwenna.livejournal.com]

Well... I know a few adults who don't seem to have gotten past it, so I suppose that could be true. (Sad, but true)

[gentlyepigrams]

It's the "we all married our high school sweethearts" thing.

Or never got over the one that got away, etc.

[egwenna.livejournal.com]

Working on my 20 yr high school reunion (which is hysterical in so many ways) I've found 4 couples who did just that (married the highschool sweetheart). I find it very odd.

[faespinner.livejournal.com]

I DID marry my high school sweetheart... Or something like that. LOL! So it can happen. I just think it's VERY unlikely.

[arrefmak.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Fluffy was the nicest thing I could think of. I used a harder word with Michael.

:)

[cochese.livejournal.com]

See, I didn't like Order of the Phoenix, but felt better about the series after HBP even if it was mostly just a setup for the last book. OotP was, for me, a let down after the ending of GoF.

[arrefmak.livejournal.com]

I liked GOF even though I felt the end was incredibly vicious. The series stopped being a children's book right there.

OOtP did a good job of dealing with the split between adults fighting a secret war and Harry not being ready for it all. It had a lot of 'crazy Harry' stuff that worked because of how important Harry's relationship with Dumbledore had become. It did a good job of establishing the kind of wizard folk who call James and Lily friends. It showed Dumbledore trying things that did not work well.

The padding and angst wasn't as prone to break momentum.

HBP felt muddied for me by comparison. A let down. Harry dealt with his personal issues pretty poorly all 'round.