All DH Discussion here [Spoilers]
Jade
add whatever thoughts you might have. I'm going to be reading it at
midnight tonight, so I'll probably be done by noon tomorrow and ready
to discuss.
Jade
So what does everyone think of the wand owner business? I guess the
importance of wands has been hinted at since the first book, but it
felt a little odd to me.
Green Eyed Devil
well the hole wand thing felt a liitle odd but i sopse its they only
way JK could actually get harry & voldermort to dual & harry to win
plus getting his old wand broken was a bit surprissing a then using
dracos (whos side was draco on hed seamed to swict sides evry chapter
he worse than snape)
bes figh was probably molly & bellatrix that was just cool & ginny
defenatly takes after her
most upseting deth for me was hedwig i just read it & was stunded.
wotsfreek
Really the only two deaths that affected me were Hedwig and Dobby.
Lupin and Tonk's might have if they had actually been shown (written?).
luckyshot572
which was pretty cool, the Hallows thing however I thought was rather
pointless, and we could have done without it.
As for the rest of the story, I will admit it was a vast
improvement(at least in my opinion) to HBP I still felt
it could have been better. However I think much of that rests in the
fact that my favorite cannon character is Ginny and she play such a
miniscule role throughout the entire thing, infact I'd say she
probably has more lines in the epilogue than the rest combined.
Still if I were to do my best to discount that fact, it wasn't bad,
I was really surprised with JK's take on Dumbledore especially. I
think the thing that I found most unbelievable was how easily the
ministry was taken over and that well known Inner Circle Death
Eaters would be allowed to walk around freely so quickly. Still I
feel so... dissappointed at how small of a part Ginny played in this
one, especially since it seemed as if her role would be expanding. I
enjoyed it quite a bit over all, though there were times when I felt
like I was just reading it hoping it would get better. Still there
are several fanfics that I find I enjoy much more,
Jade
something she threw in there to make the battle "real". It's too bad
Jo isn't a fanfiction author - she could write one-shots about each of
the characters' deaths from their point of view. I might get more
emotion out of it that way.
I agree that it was an improvement to HBP, mostly because the romance
had a very minor role. The romance in HP was forced and didn't really
need to be there, and I'm just wondering if she wrote it to take up
space or something in HBP while Dumbledore was explaining about the
Horcruxes.
I can agree with the Ministry being taken over - remember that Voldy
has had 2+ years to work on it, and the Imperius Curse is pretty
powerful in the right hands. I mean, Harry broke into Gringotts with
it.
Ginny was a total failure in the series. I love the Ginny character,
it's just that she's never written about and Harry's romance with her
was pointless when it comes to the plot. It was supposed to be a big
deal for her to be the only Weasley girl in forever, and yet, the only
thing she does is snog Harry a bit. I was disappointed with that - I
thought she'd have a much larger role in DH. And it pissed me off that
no one ever stopped babying her.
Green Eyed Devil
for a lot more from her maybe not on the hunt itself but once they
were fighting at hogwarts. I was also hopping for her & harry to get
bacj together at the weding instead there wern`t even togeth at the
end then it 19 years later & married with three kids the scen with
them getting together should defenatly have been put in (although it
dose make a good missing momnet fic as dose ginny trying to steal
godrics sword).
I was actually quite shocked at how far harry pushe her away as not
only did he actually emoitonly hurt her so bad she actually cried bt
at hogwarts he was treating her like rons little sister go stay in the
room of requirment where its safe then it oh i need to use this room
go & wait outside with out evan an explinationby that stage i was
getting worried that jo was going to kill her off.
hers hopping they put some extra ginny in the move but i wont hold my
breth
James
wotsfreek
mention I really didn't like the epilogue at all? It almost seemed
like low-grade fanfiction to me, Albus Severus Potter? Did Ginny have
any say in naming the kids at all? Lucius Malfoy apparently gets away
with everything with no punishment and I thought Draco should have
helped Harry at the end. My theory is that Tonks and Lupin were the
two characters she didn't originally plan on dying, their deaths
really seemed to be tacked on. Also, what REALLY happened at the end
with Harry and Voldy? Their curses hit in the middle, Harry gets the
wand and Voldemort dies, am I the only one who found that scene
confusing? Why did Harry insist that they had to wear the locket
instead of carrying it in the bag, even though it effected them. Why
didn't Ollivander make everyone new wands instead of just Luna? There
seems to be some things that really just don't make sense.
Jade
Horcrux, unless they were afraid of losing it. It seemed a bit too
much like Lord of the Rings to me. Perhaps it didn't matter if it was
in the bag - maybe it would have affected him anyway.
The Elder Wand refused to kill Harry because Harry was its true
master, and therefore the AK and the Disarming Charm both hit
Voldemort at the same time. That's the scene depicted on the US cover.
The epilogue was horrid. I can't believe they printed that.
Malfoy was "under the Imperius" I'd guess. =|
wotsfreek
thinking how stupid it was that there were hundereds of people
surrounding Voldemort and Harry tells them not to help I mean SURELY
even Voldemort can't block a hundered spells at once ^_^
Julie McCollum
So I was very glad to see that I was right to wonder. :) Although I will admit that I never expected it to be a Hallow (who could've predicted that?)
I loved Neville in this book. But I'm a serious Neville fan-girl, so that's to be expected, especially when he was so absolutely awesome.
And I'll be a dissenting voice here (sort of). I would've liked to have seen more of Ginny, but it didn't really bother me that we didn't. The story wasn't about her -- it was about Harry. And it was enough (for me, at least) that he thought of her constantly, and that she was the last thing Harry thought of before he "died." We really couldn't have seen much more of her, though, unless she went on the Horcrux hunt with them, because Harry didn't see her, and almost the whole story was from his POV. That said,I can't wait to read all of the "missing moment" fics we're going to get about what was going on at Hogwarts.
It's interesting about the epilogue, too, because the fandom seems to be pretty evenly split over it. I'm actually one of the ones who didn't mind the epilogue. It told me everything I needed to know -- that Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville survived, and that H/G and R/Hr were together. I don't mind at all that she skipped the 19 years. For me, it's more food for the plot bunnies. And about the names... Have y'all *seen* the kinds of things people name their kids nowadays? The Potter and Weasley kids got off easy. :D
lapenaloca
that, there were definitely some moments when it sounded like some low
level fan fic... especially in the epilogue, which I found pretty
empty. There were definitely some things I hated, and some things I
loved. Did anybody understand what the heck was "the power he knws
not"? And what did love have anything to do with anything else? I
surely didn't see a lot of love in this book. Harry's love for Ginny
was completely absent (that one kiss was pitiful) - and by the way
Harry treated Ginny during the whole thing and especially in the end
during the Hogwarts battle, I don't see them married with three kids
19 years later. Respect and trust are the base of a succesful
relationship, and all I saw from Harry was contempt. he loved Dobby
more than Ginny, that's for sure. Ordering her around like that...
Did anybody else find Voldemort pathetic? I mean, compared with he
could have been? Or should? Yeah, he does all that political stuff,
sending his DEs around, taking over the ministry, and all that, but on
a personal magical power level, he should have been either the most
powerful wizard alive, or one the most powerful. I didn't see him
acting like that through the book.
When Ron decided to leave them, and they ask him to give them the
locket back, I almost expected Ron to start "my preciousssss...."
The little inconsistencies kept flowing, imo. Like, how does the
Imperius actually work? We see here (and before) the Imperius acting
like a huge behaviour modifier spell, where the caster ony has to
suggest a very general line of conduct, and the target basically keeps
their full reasoning, only with their motivations changed. Only, when
we saw Harry's personal experience with Imperius in book 4, both from
the false MadEye and from Voldemort himself, it was more of pure "take
over" spell, by which I mean that the catster was issuing very
specific orders - jump over the desk, bow to me. How would the DEs use
the Imperius in recruiting? order something like "be a Death Eater"?
To end with the negative and move over to positive, I'll just say that
the whole thing felt a bit rushed and forced, like she wanted to get
done with it, and didn't want to fill the 1200 pages it should have
been.
I also liked a lot about it. I agree with all those who said it was an
improvement over HBP. Individual scenes stand out, like Dobby's death.
Molly also was finely written, motherly to annoying in the begining,
then lioness in the end. Remus' death was badly done, but I thought
from when i read HBP two years ago that the marauders will all die in
the end. Si that was expected. Harry being a horcrux...? The
justification for that is what throws me off. I piece of Voldemort
entered him because he was the only one alive around? However, the way
Dumbledore finally gets his human face is nicely done, if only not
enough (a lot of questions remain unanswered about him).
The end... Such a big difference compared with LOTR. Here, *he* puts
*his* hand through *his* hair, *he* touches *his* scar and *he* thinks
"all is well"; in LOTR, "honey, i'm home". Where's the love? Honestly,
Harry seems a cold bastard at more than one point through the book.
As I fully expected, Jo has not been able to reach to my overblown
expectations... i wanted so much from this book, and it was probably
humanly impossible to get it all.
In the end, Harry didn't manage to grow up one bit through the series.
He remained to the end the same reactive character, I had hoped
against evidence that Jo would choose to make this a sort of coming of
age story, but the only thing we get is a standard good vs evil one. I
need some more fanfiction. The one good thing is that there are so
many holes in the plot and story, there's space for a lot of
fanfiction ;-) yay!
If we see a character growing up and into his own, that's Neville. In
the end Neville seems a better person than Harry.
Well, I'm going to read some Harry/Ginny fics now, I'll look for some
where Ginny really kicks some ass.
At least she didn't kill harry... the whole "you have a choice whether
to return to life or move to the next great adventure" thing is so
cliche!
wotsfreek
possible, Dumbledore tells Harry that Voldy planned on making the
final horcrux WITH HARRY'S DEATH, since Harry didn't die how did a
piece of Voldemort's soul fly into him?
How did Hagrid survive the fall in the beginning? Why do Harry and
Hermione listen to Dean, Griphook, Ted etc. and not try to talk to
them? Can Patronuses do everything? And why do they seem so easy to
cast now, I thought the memory had to be incredibly strong, but it
doesn't seem that way anymore, Tonks was able to cast one in HBP when
she was obviously depressed. There just seem to be a bunch of plot
holes.
Time Shifter
became a Horcrux is that Voldemort had weakened his soul immensely
from the making of all the others, so when he was hit by his own
Killing Curse, a small part of his soul broke off, and, as the book
said, attached to Harry, the only living thing in the room. In regards
to his "power the Dark Lord knows not," it definitely was love, and
I'm surprised some people missed that. He told Neville exactly what to
do to finish Voldemort, then walked right into his death to save
everyone, because he knew Voldemort would start killing his friends
again if didn't. He gave his life so that all his loved ones could
live, and that turned out to be exactly what led to Voldemort's
downfall. In fact, based on what the book said, even if Voldemort's
Killing Curse from the Elder Wand had hit, Harry still would've lived,
since his blood was in Voldemort. Voldemort was, in a sense, Harry's
Horcrux, although obviously not made by killing someone.
Oh, and on the topic of Ollivander not making wands for everyone;
we've never been told how long it takes to make a wand, but I'm
betting there's a process involved, not to mention he'd need
ingredients, and I'm doubting they had wood from a wand tree and
something to make cores from just lying around.
I feel like I'm answering everyone's questions. Personally, I enjoyed
the last book, and realize that there's no way we all could've gotten
everything we wanted in one novel. My only problem was Ginny's lack of
involvement, though I can understand why, since Harry was trying to
keep her safe and the book is from his POV; he obviously wouldn't know
what's going on at Hogwarts. He had 19 years to make it up to her, and
I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of fanfiction about what happened
between them in that time span.
In any case, I obviously don't know for a fact the answers to these
questions, but I feel pretty confident in my theories. Any others?
Jade
the Horcrux thing was explained in the book. Creating an Horcrux takes
a vast amount of concentration and power, and Voldemort's over
confidence forced him to make Harry an Horcrux over Lily's death,
rather than making whatever he was going to make an Horcrux after
Harry's death. Voldemort was Harry's Horcrux, so no matter how many
times Harry would have died, he could have come back and went after
him again. The only way Voldemort could have won would have been to
die while he still had an Horcrux (Harry or otherwise), leave the part
of Harry that's in him behind, and come back and kill Harry so that he
stayed dead. The problem is, Voldemort is so afraid of death that he
won't do that, so Harry has "the power he knows not", which is
conquering death. Love really didn't have much to do with it, other
than Lily's protection of Harry from the Killing Curse that forced
Voldemort to take Harry's blood and make himself an Horcrux.
I don't know why Harry and Hermione didn't talk to Dean and Co. - I
suppose they had nothing to gain out of it, because they couldn't
explain what they were doing, and they couldn't be revealed to
ordinary wizarding society. It would have been a huge hassle for no
benefit.
The Imperius works both ways, in my opinion. You can either give a
general line or specific orders. That's why it's so powerful.
wotsfreek
it doesn't take long.
I really didn't like the ending, I liked the battle and everything but
the last 2 chapters and the epilogue I didn't like.
I thought Hermione's purse was kind of dumb too, it seems to me that
JK was sitting there like "Wow, they have to take a crap load of stuff
with them... I KNOW I'LL GIVE HERMIONE A PURSE THAT CAN HOLD
EVERYTHING!" It seemed odd to me. I also liked HBP better than this
book, none of the deaths in this book really had any effect on me at
all (besides Dobby) but Dumbledore's death had me depressed for days,
and I was in shock when I read it, even though I knew it had to be
coming.
Quick ?, How exactly did Fred die, it seems that if he was crushed
they wouldn't have been able to move him, and it also seems strange
that the rest of them were relatively unhurt but he died apparently
instantly.