Literature An Incredible Feat
This series debuted as a series that was a true attention grabber. Rowling's attention to detail and just the sheer amount of passion and love she poured into this series showed so much and in turn made the rest of us love it as well. It was first published in 1997, and this book was released in 2007.
After a span of 10 years put into this series, 10 years of buildup, 10 years of us reading about the Wizarding World this was the final chapter.
And boy did it deliver.
I tore through this and it was awesome. It completed the trend of growing seriousness and adult perspective as Harry was now a full adult. There are casualties, and the people we've all grown to know and love are not immune. When Rowling concentrates on a death, it's sad, and it hits deep inside you. The people who die aren't the ones who were old, or who had a lot of problems, many of those who die are young and have their whole lives ahead of them.
But the main aspect that this book follows through on is its constant devotion to one thing, one lesson that stands out the most and is the main theme of the whole series.
Love.
Without spoiling too much, Harry's actions, especially in the third act bring the actions of his parents full circle. He is very much the man his parents would've wanted.
The other characters who we have big questions about are answered for the most part. Snape especially. The way his character is played is absolutely brilliant. Dumbledore as well is skillfully deconstructed in his "old mentor who has all the answers and can do absolutely no wrong" role. He is even reconstructed towards the end (at least from the way this troper viewed it.)
This series is incredible. It was an enormous undertaking and in the end, neither Harry, nor Rowling let us down. This series is the modern day Lord of the Rings.
For my personal top 10 books I like right now Harry Potter ranks #3, only behind LOTR (as #1) and The Chronicles of Narnia (and I think it might even be as good as #2).
My current score for it 9-10/10.
Literature Harry Potter and the Half-Arsed Conclusion
I used to love this series, the first three anyway. Having read the sixth book seven years ago, I decided to finish Harry Potter so I could praise and criticise the series fairly. Having finished the book, I can only criticise.
SPOILERS:
STRUCTURE: This story takes place outside Hogwarts but the time-frame is the same. Since the trio can't resolve the plot until Summer, there is a lot of stagnating and vegetating. It only serves to show the trio as incompetent, hopeless and way over their heads if all do is go camping for nine months.
REPETITION: Harry's scar hurts. Polyjuice. The trio dick around and do nothing. Harry's scar hurts. The trio camp and do nothing. Harry' scar hurts. Voldemort time!. Harry's scar hurts. Polyjuice. A gripping second-hand account of some tangential shit that happened a century ago. Harry's scar hurts. 400 pages of nothing.
NARM: There's the part where Harry goes to his parents graves. So far, pretty sad. Then he starts thinking about how their remains are moulding underground. What? This book really goes overboard with the Death metaphor. It doesn't make the story profound, only silly.
THEME: This book deals with such themes as fascism, Christianity, and tyranny. It just doesn't deal with these themes very well. I had to groan whenever they brought up the Nazi parallels. The Death Eaters are not Nazis. Actual Nazis would have caught the inept trio. The conflict is not grey as Voldemort has no depth. He is not clever, no matter how often we're told. The explanation for Harry's resurrection comes as forced and brain-meltingly convoluted.
PRESENCE (OR LACK THEREOF): There's what's supposed to be a heart-rending scene where Dobby dies in Harry's arms. The problem is Dobby only showed up out-of-nowhere six pages ago. He's in the book a total of six pages before getting a knife in the chest, and then Harry angst about it forever after. The problem with many characters in this book is that we seldom see them, giving their situations very little weight. Wormtail shows up simply to get killed off in a puzzling manner. Harry worries constantly about Ginny but we're never shown any reason to care. Dumbledore, however, is given loads of back-story in an attempt to flesh him out but he's dead!. Surely it would have been better to have given such room to the not-dead, still-breathing supporting cast?
Literature Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Early Review (Spoiler Free)
Deathly Hallows Part 1 was awesome, as I remember. It packed just about everything you could ask for into the movie and kept the deathly slow half of the final book awesome. So, did Deathly Hallows Part 2 keep us enchanted, or did this last installment of the Harry Potter Movie series break the charms at the last minute? In terms of pacing, it kept itself going, picking up the same pace as Part 1 (as in, kept it just right). Certain events were changed to mesh together and keep the story going (where if it had gone strictly according to the book’s timeline, the movie would just STOP again and again and again.). Of course, this means a lot of events given big fanfare in the books were pushed offscreen or made to never happen in the first place. At first, I was a little annoyed, but a half second later, I respected the movie for these risky changes, and found that the cut content didn’t detract from the movie. You know, for the last and darkest books in the series, I found that they managed to expertly include humorous points through the story where, despite everything happening around the scene, you just have to laugh, and it works. Expect “OH CRAP!” moments from both sides of the battles, ballsy maneuvers, taunting, and classic lines uttered throughout the final half of the movie. Voldemort, especially, hams it UP when it’s appropriate.
In conclusion, I recommend this to anyone who is a Harry Potter fan.
Literature It All Ends Here
Once again Rowling harnesses the impecable pacing seen of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire only this time its Darker And Edgier and having no safe place left our three main characters most now put everything they have learned to the test Crossing the First Threshold of a very different kind of [[The Hero'sJourney Heroes' Journey]] than in the previous books, one that more closely resembles High Fantasy than Urban Fantasy like this. The Law Of Conservation Of Detail is in full effect now, since the last book can't afford such unimportant facts. This is where all the plots are wrapped up, right down to every last loose end. The Climax of the much beloved series, which will leave it well... finished, well finished in fact.
Literature A Satisfying, if lengthy, conclusion.
My number one problem with this book is that it’s just too long. And I don’t normally say that, I didn’t say it about Book 5 but I do think that it’s too long this time.
What do I think about the rest?
I like how this is the book which gets us all to realize that anyone can die. So many beloved characters were getting killed and so often that it was possible to take the threat of Harry getting killed seriously.
I liked the Backstory it gives to Dumbledore when it turns out he was once best friends with Predecessor Villain Grindelwald and went along with his Fantastic Racism because Utopia Justifies the Means only to have a Heel–Face Turn enabling his reconstruction. And that renders him a compelling character.
And Molly killing Bellatrix was extremely satisfying. I like how Neville’s arc paid off with his killing Nagini. And I like how Snape’s true motivations and backstory are revealed establishing that he underwent a Heel–Face Turn and ended up being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who was seeking to protect Harry because Dark Is Not Evil.
I’m impressed by the Nazi parallels of the Death Eaters and I like R.A.B.’s Backstory.
I like Harry’s heroic sacrifice even if his survival were confusing. And I’m a defender of the epilogue which I actually found satisfying inasmuch as it shows Harry was willing to forgive Snape given all the good he’s done.
My alternate character interpretation of Grindelwald is that the reason he refused to tell Voldemort the information he wanted was because he saw the Big Bad as an unworthy successor. I’m not a fan of how it seems to force us to come up with excuses for Grindelwald when he was a thinly veiled Adolf Hitler expy.
That said, I do think that’s a nitpick. All in all, I find this book to be an extremely satisfying conclusion to the Harry Potter series. So I think it’s quite good.