What did people think of the Deathly Hallows? (spoilers)

[Candlelight]

I just finished reading it. Overall I found it very enjoyable and for once not bound by the restraints of Hogwarts let the story wander... much like the main characters around half of England...

The action sequences were well written, I can see them translating well when the film is finally made.

Can someone tell me how Neville got the Sword of Griffindor? Did the goblin come to his senses or was that a fake he grabbed???

My critisisms:
- The quest for the Horcruxes: When they were actually following their leads it was good, but the drawn out constantly moving around the country in the tent storyline got a bit tiresome.
- Snape's memory: While a nice bookend to the character the placement so late in the book felt wrong, and stopped the momentum of the battle. Scattered throughout the book might've been a nice little side, and only at the end do you find the boy is snape, but I know that isn't Rowling's style.
- "Dumbledore in Heaven": Largely unnecessary, aside from the seventh Horcrux revelation, which was oh-so obvious it wasn't funny. Plus it reeeaaally slowed down the finale.
- The Final Battle: After seven books, unbelievable build up and a bloody battle, Voldermort is undone by his own spell?? Very anti-climactic; I had hoped for a stand off similar to the end of The Goblet of Fire - at least that lasted longer than ten seconds! Granted it all came down to the Elder Wand and given the context Harry knew the battle would swing his way.

I did enjoy it. Still not sure about the coda but it does wrap up the story.

What did everyone else think? And what was the reaction to the book in general when it came out - I deliberately avoided everything cos I knew I was reading it when I could borrow a mate's copy.

Is that Tales of the Bard spin off worth the read?

 

[Worf2DS9]

I loved the book when I first read it, and thus far I still have only read it that once, when it came out. However, at the time I felt that it had become my favorite of the HP books, bumping OOTP from the top spot. That opinion may be adjusted when I get around to reading TDH again someday.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Probably my favourite of the books; a really strong finale to the series, the odd quibble aside (the ending with the Big Three in Dumbledore's office would have been the perfect place to end it; the epilogue, while not bad, doesn't really contribute anything huge to the understanding of the series).

As for Tales of Beedle the Bard, it's neat; not quite as good as the two "Comic Relief" books, but, as with Fantastic Beasts, the most interesting parts are the commentary by the characters (Dumbledore, in this case).

 

[LaxScrutiny]

Neville pulled the sword out of the Hat, which was Griffyndor's hat, which is where Harry got it in the first place in Chamber of Secrets. There's obviously a connection between the two objects.

I got confused by the Hallows, were they necessary, did they make a difference? Harry having that Death Hallow on his person, did that make any difference in surviving the AK?

I thought Voldemort was pretty lame. Harry has survived AK numerous times, so what does he use in the final fight? Avada Kadavera. If Voldy had tried to drop a chandelier on Harry's head, he'd have probably won the fight.

I thought Snape's memory thing was poorly set up. Harry just "happened" to be invisible watching Snape when he got killed. Voldy, just this once, decides to kill someone with something other than Avada Kedavara. No way Dumbledore could have foreseen this. So this was somehow totally completely necessary for Harry to win against Voldemort? It was absolute random chance, and a one in a million chance at that. Better luck flipping a coin.

I thought Lupin's and Wormtail's deaths were wasted. The story of the Marauders has run in the background through the entire series, and she did nothing to tie up the story or show us anything from the last two remaining members. A major missed opportunity and a major disappointment for me.

Whatever Snape's motives were all along, he was still a nasty creep, with a stalker obsession about a girl who didn't want him. Harry naming his son after him strikes me as hardly likely, no matter how forgiving and understanding Harry was.

I ended up feeling Dumbledore might have been a master chess player, but I ended up feeling he barely cared for the people he was manipulating, was barely truthful to Harry, and that he treated him as a weapon, not a person. He certainly didn't come across as the caring person I thought he was through the previous books, but it explained his indifference over a lot of things that happened throughout the series, like even Quirrel's attack on Harry in the first book. He was more interested in manipulating people than if they ended up getting hurt. I wouldn't have named my child after him either. I would have named him after Lupin and Sirius who were more genuinely family.

Harry marrying Ginny gave the story some obvious closure, and I predicted it, but in real life it hardly happens that someone you have a crush on at age 9 or 10 is the person you marry and live happily ever after with. It makes a good story that Harry ends up part of the Weasley family by marriage, but I think if he'd ended up with Luna I'd have believed it more, somehow.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the body of the book and all the quests and adventures. It dragged out a bit during the camping, but I liked it all overall.

 

[Candlelight]

Neville pulled the sword out of the Hat, which was Griffyndor's hat, which is where Harry got it in the first place in Chamber of Secrets. There's obviously a connection between the two objects.

Ah ok. I never read the five earlier books, and haven't seen the movie of TCoS in a while.

I got confused by the Hallows, were they necessary, did they make a difference? Harry having that Death Hallow on his person, did that make any difference in surviving the AK?

Harry only had the cloak with him during the final battle. Was Harry able to 'hide' from death, despite not wearing it...?

I thought Voldemort was pretty lame. Harry has survived AK numerous times, so what does he use in the final fight? Avada Kadavera. If Voldy had tried to drop a chandelier on Harry's head, he'd have probably won the fight.

I wouldn't have minded, IF the battle were longer. But it wasn't.

I thought Snape's memory thing was poorly set up. Harry just "happened" to be invisible watching Snape when he got killed. Voldy, just this once, decides to kill someone with something other than Avada Kedavara. No way Dumbledore could have foreseen this. So this was somehow totally completely necessary for Harry to win against Voldemort? It was absolute random chance, and a one in a million chance at that. Better luck flipping a coin.

Can't argue with you there.

I thought Lupin's and Wormtail's deaths were wasted. The story of the Marauders has run in the background through the entire series, and she did nothing to tie up the story or show us anything from the last two remaining members. A major missed opportunity and a major disappointment for me.

I think it was to show how vicious the war had become. This book highlighted the generations of evil wizards vs good wizards, the old guard versus the new up and coming wizards (even setting the story in a school highlights this). Ultimately the passing of one generation to the next. Some characters I guess were simply swept aside.

Whatever Snape's motives were all along, he was still a nasty creep, with a stalker obsession about a girl who didn't want him. Harry naming his son after him strikes me as hardly likely, no matter how forgiving and understanding Harry was.

Snape loved and protected Lily all his life, and the sacrifice of his life and service for Dumbledore was unmatched, even to the point of killing him at the right moment to protect the Elder Wand, knowing full well the life he led would mean his own life should be be betrayed or found out. Which it ultimately did.

I ended up feeling Dumbledore might have been a master chess player, but I ended up feeling he barely cared for the people he was manipulating, was barely truthful to Harry, and that he treated him as a weapon, not a person. He certainly didn't come across as the caring person I thought he was through the previous books, but it explained his indifference over a lot of things that happened throughout the series, like even Quirrel's attack on Harry in the first book. He was more interested in manipulating people than if they ended up getting hurt. I wouldn't have named my child after him either. I would have named him after Lupin and Sirius who were more genuinely family.

Dumbledore's character assassination would've made Jane Espenson proud. It was completely absurd to have a great and powerful wizard who after all this time is actually more devious than the entire Shadow civilisation from Babylon 5. Rita Skeeter's book (which sadly served as a plot device and not something which could've had it's own conclusion) was designed to make you angry, but it turns out most of it was true!

Harry marrying Ginny gave the story some obvious closure, and I predicted it, but in real life it hardly happens that someone you have a crush on at age 9 or 10 is the person you marry and live happily ever after with. It makes a good story that Harry ends up part of the Weasley family by marriage, but I think if he'd ended up with Luna I'd have believed it more, somehow.

I think Luna and Neville were more suited to each other, but it was a bit silly that (at least) two childhood romances managed to survive up till 19 years later.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Dumbledore's backstory was awesome; it gave him a ton of complexity.

 

[The Fatman]

I just finished reading it. Overall I found it very enjoyable and for once not bound by the restraints of Hogwarts let the story wander... much like the main characters around half of England...

The action sequences were well written, I can see them translating well when the film is finally made.

Can someone tell me how Neville got the Sword of Griffindor? Did the goblin come to his senses or was that a fake he grabbed???

It was the real sword. I just assumed Godric Gryffindor bound the Sword and the Hat together, and when a tuly brave person is wearing the hat and the need is dire, the Sorting Hat can get the sword from wherever it may be.

My critisisms:
- The quest for the Horcruxes: When they were actually following their leads it was good, but the drawn out constantly moving around the country in the tent storyline got a bit tiresome.

See, in this case, I will argue feeling "tiresome" was the author's intent. The characters are lost and directionless, and the subplot with Ron leaving comes from this directly. I actually thought Rowling did a masterful job writing this section, as when Ron blows up and leaves.... you kind of agree with him.

- Snape's memory: While a nice bookend to the character the placement so late in the book felt wrong, and stopped the momentum of the battle. Scattered throughout the book might've been a nice little side, and only at the end do you find the boy is snape, but I know that isn't Rowling's style.
- "Dumbledore in Heaven": Largely unnecessary, aside from the seventh Horcrux revelation, which was oh-so obvious it wasn't funny. Plus it reeeaaally slowed down the finale.

I agree with you on both points. However, I love both chapters for the information given, so I can't fault them too much.

- The Final Battle: After seven books, unbelievable build up and a bloody battle, Voldermort is undone by his own spell?? Very anti-climactic; I had hoped for a stand off similar to the end of The Goblet of Fire - at least that lasted longer than ten seconds! Granted it all came down to the Elder Wand and given the context Harry knew the battle would swing his way.

After my first read, I also felt it was incredibly anti-climactic. But, after taking some time to come to terms with my own fanboy expectations, I have grown to like it more and more.

I mean, in the end, you can't really expect Harry to truly hold his own in a Wizards' duel with Voldemort, a much older and much more knowledgeable wizard.

I did enjoy it. Still not sure about the coda but it does wrap up the story.

What did everyone else think? And what was the reaction to the book in general when it came out - I deliberately avoided everything cos I knew I was reading it when I could borrow a mate's copy.

Is that Tales of the Bard spin off worth the read?

I like the Closure the Coda provides, but I don't like its inclusion in the main text. Personally, I would have preferred Rowling to include that as a bonus chapter in her inevitable Potter Encyclopedia.

Overall, I remember the reception being overwhelmingly positive, mirroring how I feel about the book. I can stand back and objectively criticize many aspects of the series, not the least of which is that when you break the story down to it's barest bones it's incredibly derivative. However, the whole world feels so alive and real... and Rowling is such an incredible writer, she makes you not care. The only book in the series i actively don't like is Order of the Phoenix, which I feel adds very little to the overall mythology, and feels 200 pages too long. That's just my opinion, of course.

Beedle the Bard is a fun little book, and at the very least all the proceeds are going to a fantastic cause, so it's worth the $10 or $15 USD you're going to pay for it.

 

[JediKnightButler]

DH was my favorite book of the series and probably one of the better series finales that I have read- which is saying a lot because the pressure for Rowling to come up with a good ending must've surely been terrible. Despite the cost, I bought it on CD and have listened all the way through it twice since it came out. Jim Dale is an amazing narrator and did a terrific job with the book. My only major gripe about the book, indeed the series since OOTP, is that I felt like Rowling made the villians too powerful and killed off too many good characters and allowed too many of the evil characters to escape/survive (or at least be dealt with off-page). I also didn't really like the epilogue set several years into the future as I would've preferred more information about the immediate aftermath of Voldemort's downfall and the reconstruction of wizarding society-hinted at in the last part of the final pre-epilogue chapter but never fleshed out. Otherwise, I felt that it was a bold and engaging conclusion to a surprisingly dynamic and complex series. I was particularly amazed at all of the new and unexpected stuff that Rowling was able to squeeze into the story (Deathly Hallows, Dumbledore's backstory), as well as her nods/tie-ins to her previous HP books.

 

[Small White Car]

Dumbledore's backstory was awesome; it gave him a ton of complexity.

I also loved that. We first see Dumbledore in the first several books through Harry's eyes, as a child. Much like an American child would learn about George Washington in grade school, he would have a genuine, unblemished view of his hero at that point in his life.

Only later do you learn that Washington owned slaves or that Dumbledore made some bad mistakes. That they are, in reality, complex people.

I really liked that Dumbledore was the wisest character not for no reason, but because he'd learned hard lessons though his life. It was his experiences that had shaped him into the genius that he was. But it didn't mean he was perfect. But he knew he wasn't perfect, and that's what made him smart.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Has a few problems, but definitely the best of the books, IMO. Certainly my favourite, anyway.

 

[HappyDayRiot]

I'd call it my second favourite behind only Goblet.

I just love that Voldemort got defeated on a technicality re ownership of the wand. Amuses me to this day.

 

[Mr Light]

#7 is absolutely my favorite book. No school scenes, no dating scenes, just full out rated R horror and action and amazing set pieces. It's one of the few endings of a long story I find to really work (what other series has a great conclusion? Bone and LOTR basically). I didn't mind Voldy's end because it was a loophole previously established and that no matter how many spells Harry learns he could never beat him in a fair fight, he HAD to cheat. Dumbledore was always my favorite character, so after his death getting his entire life story was greatly appreciated. I remember when the book first came out I said he was gay and most people here didn't believe me!

 

[CaptainCanada]

Regarding how Voldemort lost, the first chapter of the first book had Dumbledore tell McGonagall straight-up that Voldemort had powers that he would never have because he had no ethics regarding the use of magic. So I never thought it was going to be about physically overpowering him.

 

[Pilot Ace]

I also missed the reactions to the ending of the series as I started and finished it quite late. It's been over a year since then, but I can say I will probably never read Harry Potter again because of how bad I thought the last book was, I put it down in disgust throughout the last half. I still hold out some small hope that the last movie will be heavily re-worked to make a good story out of what Rowling wrote.

It was largely boring and, with a decent editor, could have probably been a 1/3 or 1/4 shorter.

Now, I'm not the sort that analyzed the novels in depth, but I always got the sense that the Harry Potter series was about sacrifice. So, in the end, when she only paid lip-service to a wide variety of secondary character deaths (aside from Dobby, that one was handled very well) I felt cheated. In my ideal world, Harry needed to die in order for Voldemort's end to have any emotional resonance. Or at least one of the main three.

Since the books have been sort of 'growing up' with the children that read them, I thought Rowling would be willing to take the series to that end, instead we got a fake a death and a 'happily ever after' ending--the epilogue is horrendous beyond belief, I have no idea how anyone thought publishing that was a good idea. Seriously? There is nothing redeeming about it.

If I could remember specifics, I would tell them. Unfortunately, after I finished, I just wanted to forget as much as possible.

As far as I’ve noticed, those I’ve spoken to that liked the book were mostly huge fans that almost couldn’t admit it was a terrible ending, because they’d invested so much in the series by going to midnight showings/releases over the years. Those that were more casual fans tended to agree with my gripes and at least thought it was disappointing as a whole.

 

[captcalhoun]

i liked it. didn't have any problems with it at all.

 

[Caliburn24]

I liked the last book, but it did drag at some points, and it felt uneven.

Oh, and I was hoping to see Sirius come back, but that is just the fanboy in my talking.

On a completely unrelated note...Is Rowling done with writing or does she have anything else coming down the pipe?

 

[captcalhoun]

she's supposedly doing more, but psuedonymously to avoid comparisons

 

[Candlelight]

Oh, and I was hoping to see Sirius come back, but that is just the fanboy in my talking.

He did come back, in the forest scene.

 

[Mr Light]

She's allegedly writing a detective crime mystery novel and also a young children's book.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Hallows is quite simple a frakking mess. I've read better HP fanfic than Hallows.

Hallows consists of bacially three things:

1) Rowling goes on a Jason Vorhees like rampage among the supporting cast. And does it in such a moustache-twiriling way that it's even more nauseating.

2) Harry, Hermione, and Ron (at least until the arse runs away) wander around in the woods uselessly while the war rages around them. Chapter after chapter of it. Why? Becasue Rowling needs to pad out her word count or something...it certainly serves no story purpose.

3) A whole bunch of things happen just because Rowling NEEDS them to happen. The Trio get information only when Rowling WANTS them to. The Hallows pop up out of nowhere, and serve only as a deus ex machina to allow her to engineer her way out of the writing corner she started writing herself into in HBP. Ron runs off then returns? Why? I still can't figure it out.

About the only thing that worked in Hallows was Rowling FINALLY at least partially redeeming the "Harry isn't your typical prejudiced wizard" angle set up ALL the way back in Chamber with the house elves joining the fight at the end.

As far as I'm concerned, the series ended with OoTP, that's how little esteem I hold for HPB and DH.