All done Harry Potter! I finished the book yesterday afternoon and now that I've had time to mull it over, I'm fairly pleased with the outcome. No real spoilers in this post, even if you haven't finished. I was a little surprised/disappointed at some of the people who got killed; I was very happy that one of my theories was correct and she wrapped up most, if not all, of the loose ends that were bugging me. Some things were minor disappointments - I found a few demises rather anti-climatic and I wish she'd written more in the epilogue, particularly about the characters' careers.
My biggest gripe - actually, there are two - with the series remains Goblet of Fire, even though I quite liked reading it at the time. One, Dumbledore (or any of the other teachers) never has the teeniest, tiniest clue the whole school year that Mad-Eye Moody is an imposter? Crouch never lets the slightest detail slip, never behaves out of character, it never transpires that he doesn't know/remember something or someone the real Mad-Eye would know, and the finest magical minds in the country never suspect a thing - contrast with the latest book in which Hermione can't pull off Bellatrix Lestrange for 15 minutes because she's too polite. My second gripe is Harry's participation in the Triwizard Tournament; that is, tricking the goblet into accepting Harry's name, monitoring all the competitions, orchestrating things so Harry wins - that's so very, very much trouble to go through just to get him to touch a portkey. It would have been a lot less difficult - and a lot less chancy - to make a certain library book the portkey and at the appropriate time, tell Harry to go fetch it for you. Yes, I realize that would have made the book about 50 pages long, but the lack of logic rather irks me.
I don't want to write in detail about Deathly Hallows, because I know some people haven't finished so I'll conclude by giving Rowling props for a wonderful roller-coaster ride and some great entertainment. Minor grievances aside, it's been a diverting series and, as previously blogged, I've enjoyed being a part of a pop-culture phenomenon.
My biggest gripe - actually, there are two - with the series remains Goblet of Fire, even though I quite liked reading it at the time. One, Dumbledore (or any of the other teachers) never has the teeniest, tiniest clue the whole school year that Mad-Eye Moody is an imposter? Crouch never lets the slightest detail slip, never behaves out of character, it never transpires that he doesn't know/remember something or someone the real Mad-Eye would know, and the finest magical minds in the country never suspect a thing - contrast with the latest book in which Hermione can't pull off Bellatrix Lestrange for 15 minutes because she's too polite. My second gripe is Harry's participation in the Triwizard Tournament; that is, tricking the goblet into accepting Harry's name, monitoring all the competitions, orchestrating things so Harry wins - that's so very, very much trouble to go through just to get him to touch a portkey. It would have been a lot less difficult - and a lot less chancy - to make a certain library book the portkey and at the appropriate time, tell Harry to go fetch it for you. Yes, I realize that would have made the book about 50 pages long, but the lack of logic rather irks me.
I don't want to write in detail about Deathly Hallows, because I know some people haven't finished so I'll conclude by giving Rowling props for a wonderful roller-coaster ride and some great entertainment. Minor grievances aside, it's been a diverting series and, as previously blogged, I've enjoyed being a part of a pop-culture phenomenon.
2 Comments:
Hey Helly:
Totally agreed on the Goblet of Fire problems, but that's my only real big complaint of the series, too.
The Deathly Hallows epilog left me wanting more information, too, but in the end I totally understand why Rowling would concentrate on the things Harry wanted most from his life (think back to what he saw in the mirror of Erised).
By
Topcat, at 10:45 AM
Yes, I see what you mean.
I want to go back and re-read everything in order but I don't know when I'll get to do that because we've packed 99% of my books and put them in storage, including HP 1 - 6.
By
Helly, at 12:10 PM
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