I will start this post by saying this: If you didn’t finish the book, come back later. Ok, now with that out of the way…
The Deathly Hallows was a pretty good book. I was satisfied by the story and thought it brought a decent close to the Harry Potter series. I particularly liked the descent into Gringotts, and the clever traps awaiting Harry in the Lastrange vault. I enjoyed the quest into the Ministry of Magic, too, imagining how the elevator scene would play out in movie format – something akin to a Keystone Cops flick. I suppose that I could generalize and say that the key stand-alone adventures in the book were all very satisfying.
The downside of the book has mostly to do with the book construction. The camping scenes were meant to seem long and solitary for the group of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but the book really drew out in those areas. I think some editing could have reduced those significantly. But my main gripe with the book is that the “fight scenes” were often not comprehensible. Here’s where I hope you other Harry Potter readers can help me out.
I think I may have finally figured out the end, after re-reading pages 742-743 five times.
In the Half Blood Prince, Draco Malfoy is supposed to kill Dumbledore. Because Dumbledore had the Elder Wand, and Draco is supposed to be killing him, Draco became the Elder Wand’s new master. Draco didn’t take the wand, however, and so Dumbledore was buried with the wand, even though Draco was the wand’s master.
Voldemort dugs up Dumbledore’s body and snatches the wand, but he’s not the wand’s master because he didn’t take it from Dumbledore himself. As a result, he can’t use the full power of the wand. He thinks that because Snape killed Dumbledore that killing Snape will grant him access to the wand’s power, which is why Voldemort kills Snape. But that doesn’t work out because Draco Malfoy is the wand’s true master.
Harry unknowingly snatches Draco’s wand during the Deathly Hallows, making him the Elder Wand’s master. This point is unclear to me because Harry doesn’t actually steal the Elder Wand, he steals Draco’s original wand. But whatever. As a result, the Elder Wand that Voldemort wields will not attack its master (which is the explanation for why the dual-core wand Voldemort shared with Harry would not harm Harry when Voldemort used it) and so when Voldemort tries to attack Harry in the end with Avada Cadavera, the spell reflects off of Harry, the wand’s true master, and fries Voldemort. At the same time, Harry’s simple expelliarmus allows Harry to gain control over the Elder Wand, catching it as it flies through the air.
Seriously, I had to re-read those pages more than five times to figure all of that out. This was the most frustrating part of reading this book – the action sequences were not very clear. And even after all that, I’m still not sure that what I know is correct.
I still don’t understand entirely why Harry didn’t die in the forest when he presents himself to Voldemort. I don’t know what was happening when he was chatting with Dumbledore in the train station. Was he dead? Almost dead? Not nearly dead? To blave? Shove a chocolate-coated nut in his mouth and drag him off to free the princess.
I found that in describing many scenes where there was fighting, characters would slip out of my mental view, to appear later in places that they shouldn’t have been. I find it hard to come up with examples from the melee, but it left me with the feeling that I had perhaps turned an extra page and missed a significant part of the action when I know that I had not. Maybe one example is when Hagrid got carried off by spiders. I was quite sure he was a casualty in that battle.
Unfortunately, while Rowling is an excellent storyteller, I think it’s her skill as an author that is stretched here by not having experience at penning detailed fight scenes. Or perhaps the blame rests in the editing? I suppose that it’s worth another read to really see if this comment holds holds up. It’s entirely possible that with the imperative of getting to the end that I went a bit too fast through scenes that required more detailed reading.
Another curious facet is the Deathly Hallows. Did I miss something? Were they ever employed? Harry dropped the stone before he gained control of the wand. So we never saw the three hallows used to control death. Didn’t you expect that to happen? It’s the book’s title, after all.
Speaking of death, oh my, the death toll in this book. Holy cow. Let’s see: Hedwig, Mad-Eye, Dobby, Lupin, Tonks, Fred. Am I missing someone? I had counted seven by the time I was done. At least, seven white-hat characters whose names would be recognizable. Then count in Snape and Voldemort (both of whom you knew were coming, sure) and yeah, that’s a lot of finality.
The last little bit of the book was fun, including the children of the children. There’s no way the franchise can end now, being that it’s such a money-maker. Of course, they’ve got movies coming out through 2010, and probably after a hiatus a new book will surface with an all-new set of kids. One-shot books detailing the adventures of other Hogwarts students might even be entertaining.
I can only assume that Hogwarts: The Animated Series will be forthcoming.
