Deathly Hallows

[sistermagpie]

I feel weird writing this post, because I don't really feel like posting, yet it seems like I should, and then I think--what, do you imagine the public is waiting on pins and needles for your words? Get over yourself!:-D

Anyway, I didn't much like it. Perhaps my feelings will change, but stop here if you don’t want to read any negative stuff. I don't have any rants prepared or anything or want to harsh anybody's buzz. (But misery also loves company!) I was talking to someone who's asked me what I needed from the book, what I wanted to happen or what would have made me satisfied, and the truth is, I don't have an answer. I don't have a list of prescriptive criticism, or think things were done badly, or should have been done a different way.

Well, except one little thing, which couldn't be helped. When that white doe showed up I never doubted for a second it was Snape's Lily!Patronus (cause she's a lady!James!). We'd seen Arthur's and Kingsley's Patronuses talk, and oh, how I wanted that beautiful sparkly stag to come up to Harry and tell him to get this Quest going already in Snape's sarcastic voice.

I've never loved these books the way some do--which should not be taken as a criticism of people who do. I just mean that I know there are people who re-read the books over and over as comfort, and that's not something I ever did. I didn't ever want to re-read to spend time with these people or in this world. There are other books I do feel that way about, books that other people find meh. Basically, I felt like JKR was writing a story of good and evil, and life and death, that resonated with her and satisfied her, and felt like a triumph for her--just not me. So I was a bit left out of the story, objectively even seeing characters doing good, brave things, and just not sharing much in the emotions. More than once I felt like I was seeing more story outline/structure than story so that it seemed very contrived (a couple of times Harry himself seemed to admit it) and made it feel like nothing was building to anything.

What it mostly made me do is go over all the ways I was reading it wrong, making my issues more central than the author really considered them. I don't think I was ever so off as, say, a Harmonian banking on the Hippogriff o'love or anything like that, and some things that happened I did predict (Snape/Lily, obviously, and DDM!Snape). But in general I think I was reading Rowling a bit too much like a Tolkien fan, and maybe too much as a Jungian (not that I'm any expert on Jung, but I was reading from my own idea of his stuff). And I think when JKR said that she was Christian and if she talked about her faith we'd know the ending, I immediately began interrogating from the *wrong* Christian perspective and got that wrong too.

Contrary to what some may have thought at times-or not-I don't hate the good guys. Still don't hate them, just still would not want to spend time with them or re-read the books to spend time with them. The characters I liked the most I think less of now or am just kind of confused by, which is unfortunate. I find Harry affectionately naming his child Albus Severus downright creepy--but that wasn't the first time in the book where that kind of thing happened.

Not sure what I predict fanfic-wise. I wonder if people might not start writing some interesting stuff. I did at one point think how I wanted to take a favorite character and put him in a different story.

Oh, also I've been dreading the epilogue for years, because I've always hated epilogues. Even when I was too young to know the name for them I hated them. Some books I guess can make a case for them being appropriate. HP is really not one of them that I can see. There was no reason I could see for needing to see these people married with children. The one good thing I read about it was after it was leaked, before I read it, and I read a comment where someone said the epilogue read like any cliché H/G fic...or any cliché post-war H/D fic.;-)

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I absolutely thought of that epilogue that Tolkien wisely cut out when I was reading it. Oh wait, none of us care to see Sam having a conversation with his kids and Rosie putting her two cents in--yay for Tolkien!

And Harry's kids are far worse than Sam's. I thought they were all going to go off and be on a sitcom--there were all of 8 kids of various characters running around in that epilogue.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Of course, Tolkien's unpublished epilogue DID have that delicious tidbit about Frodo being Sam's "treasure" and how that was so obvious that even a teenaged Elanor knew about it, thereby enabling all F/S devotees to say that they have canonical backup, damnit!! I got a lot of mileage out of that myself, back in the day.

I thought they were all going to go off and be on a sitcom

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Rowling takes a few years' vacation and then starts writing about Harry's kids. Or licenses out the junior Potters and Weaseleys for fiction or films or graphic novels or whatever. I mean, why settle for just being a billionaire?

One question -- does she do anything with Aunt Petunia? A few books back it seemed like she was being set up for something important.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

She doesn't do anything with her, no. She does establish that Petunia was very jealous about Lily's getting to go to Hogwarts and sent letters back and forth to Dumbledore hoping to be able to go too, and of course that's why she then became bitter and decided Lily was a freak. Lily knew she was a witch before she got her letter because Snape told her.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

That's pretty disappointing, because wasn't it hinted at that there was more to Petunia than met the eye, that there was somehow a reason for Harry's specifically being in her care all those years?

She does establish that Petunia was very jealous...

See, I wasn't expecting that at all. I thought that Petunia was going to turn out to be a very powerful witch in her own right, but one who had willfully chosen to turn her back on that world and suppress her own abilities to lead a "normal" life. But I think I was expecting too much of Rowling, and I'm not surprised that she chose instead to go with the angle that Petunia's bitchiness and hatred of Lily stemmed from plain old jealousy, not from anything more complicated. There's something a little catty about Rowling's characterizations, isn't there? Lily was beautiful and talented and perfect so of course drab Petunia wanted to be just like her and turned into a bitch when she couldn't be.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The only reason he was in her care was apparently there was special magic in the fact that she was related to Harry by blood. But besides that the only thing that seemed to be the "more" to her was that she knew Snape and was jealous that there was even more ways she couldn't be like Lily.

Epilogues

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

Of course, there is material in the Appendices that serves as an epilogue to the book, particularly "The Tale of Years" and the last part of "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen." The latter is even a fully-dramatized scene, and I really do think it adds to the story to know how Arwen behaved when the time came for her to die. So I approve of having that. I can take or leave the Sam-with-kids epilogue, though.

Re: Epilogues

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yup--with Tolkien, even thought I still don't like epilogues, I think one can still make more of a case for the Appendices. They fit with the rest of the story, which is all written as a history and is always told from that perspective. HP is a modern story about kids coming of age in that moment, so it's strange to me to have them suddenly go forward in time that way.