Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

[angelophile]

And so the door closes on the Potterverse and my series of reviews on them, as I finish the last in the series.

Firstly, the book doesn't disappoint in many ways. It's as readable as the rest of the series, more so than some, the pace picks up considerably and builds to a climax that, while not flawless, is generally satisfying and certainly not disappointing. But the book's definitely not without flaws and as such is representative of the series as a whole.

The major issue is, as expected, another problem with pacing. It's once again horribly uneven. The book's action packed, wonderfully so, but suffers simply because, after two books of barely any developments, suddenly there's masses to pack into the final volume. As usual, there's the problems of drawn out chapters filled with unnecessary exposition or stumbling around one forest or another killing any pace, but then the action sequences kick in and it's all hunkydory again. But by trying to pack not one, but two quests into the final volume - both for the Horcruxes and the hitherto unmentioned Deathly Hallows - along with trying to build in an ultimately satisfying ending, it's too much for one book to contain. No wonder the movie makers decided to split things over two films. Trying to pack both quests into one book seemed a step too far - as I said in the last review, the quest for the Horcruxes deserved a novel of its own and shuffling around the previous two volumes could easily have solved that issue.

In terms of the characters, it's a mixed bag. Harry gets to mature, but when Voldemort's spitting that he got to where he was by good luck and others hard work, it's hard not to agree. Once again the final resolution is more down a magical deus ex machina introduced in the book about the right of ownership of magical wands than anything Harry sets out to do.

Ron and Hermione get more worthwhile screentime, but get especially short-changed in the finale. They aid Harry in his journey, but once they get to Hogwarts they're shuffled aside. I was hoping that each of them would get a moment of closure, a real moment to shine, but they got nothing, shuffled off to one side. It's fantastic that Neville got his moment - after the disappointment of the last couple of books, it was fabulous to see that he could step up to the plate and that he could easily have taken Harry's place if the prophecy had turned in a different direction - but while he and Molly Weasley got the shining moments, there was no sense of closure for Ron and Hermione beside a long built-up kiss.

Of the secondary characters, Dobby's death was genuinely touching, even though I can't stand the little bleeder, and I quite liked the direction taken with Kreacher, although his transformation was handled too quickly, with what seemed like only a perfunctory nod at a transition period. Luna, Hagrid and Ginny all missed out on their moments in the climax as well, although Luna and Ginny, at least, were served better at earlier points in the novel.

Early on, stalwarts of the novels such as Hedwig and Mad Eye Moody ae unceremoniously dismissed. The other character deaths pretty much fail to carry any emotional impact because there's no time left to explore the emotional impact it has on any of the characters. Fred dies and about that point Ron and Hermione all but vanish from the pages of the novel and there's only the briefest glimpse of how the death of one of the major characters impacts on the others. The death of Lupin and Tonks barely get mentioned at all - killed offscreen and skipped over.

Snape's resolution was fantastic, but again, it's a chunk of exposition suddenly shoved in between action sequences. You only get to know Snape's story when he's abruptly killed. Would it have hurt to have Harry gradually discover Snape's secret and then give him a chance at a redeptive final moment, rather than simply being killed in the space of a page and then ten pages devoted to explaining that he wasn't such a bad guy after all? Why not give him the chance to show it in action? Final exposition from beyond the grave from both Snape AND Dumbledore, right in the middle of the pitched battle for Hogwarts ("Time out!" cried Voldemort. "We'll stop killing you for an hour so you can get a cup of tea and some crumpets and then we'll change ends!") was a stretch too far, I fear. Harry has everything neatly explained for him before he goes into his last battle with Voldermort, and from then on there's doubt in the reader's mind what the final outcome will be. It kills any sense of real danger there may have been after the early stages of the battle.

Then there's every single one of the Slytherins fleeing the final battle. Lines about many of the Slytherins having parents who are Death Eaters don't help matters and at the end of the book, I once again raise the comment that if everyone in Slytherin house is a rotter, why bother teaching them at all? Out of every Slytherin in the books, only two ever appeared to be anything other than utter bastards - Snape and Slughorn. Slughorn, at least, got the opportunity to lead the cavalry and Snape's betrayal of Voldemort was obviously a huge plot point, but aside from them, would it have hurt to have one or two Slytherin students stick around to help defend Hogwarts instead of every single one of them fleeing the final battle. I was hoping for some layers to be brought in that changed my initial opinions on the Slytherin house, but that never cropped up.

I was also a bit bemused why Voldemort and the Death Eaters, who were apparently slaughtering people left, right and centre off-panel in the previous volume and who are reviled and feared by the entirety of the wizarding community can simply slide into power at the Ministry of Magic and take over. With, presumably, hundreds of thousands of wizards and witches well versed in magic, the idea that Voldemort could slip in through some political coup and hold control with just a few dozen Death Eaters seemed questionable to me. The ham fisted NAZI allegory left me cold.

Of course, with so many plots brought up throughout the novels, there was never going to be a satisfying ending for all of them. But there's a number which took up pages and pages of earlier books that are ignored or glossed over and rendered even more pointless (Hermione's campaign for the House Elves for example) by having no bearing on the finale.

And the least said about the epilogue, the better, presumably. It would have been better to leave the future open for the characters and spend more time crafting a satisfying present-day resolution than the perfunctory "19 years later" stuff.

But all that said, I don't want to tear into the series too much. There was a lot to enjoy in the finale novel and it was one of the stronger of the series. While I'm still bemused by the level of enthusiasm and devotion the series has, I can see a little better why people would like it. It's like cheap Chinese buffet food - it's kinda tasty, some dishes are best avoided, some are packed with flavour, you know it's not particularly good for you, but there's just something about it that's moreish.

Let's just hope it's not monosodium glutamate.

Comments

[kirke-novak.livejournal.com]

Then there's every single one of the Slytherins fleeing the final battle.

This was definitely the most disappointing part about the final novel. As much as I am NOT a Slytherin or Draco fan, far from it, the fact that not a single one of them (apart from Slughorn) stayed was hard to believe. I think some of it may be due to the fact that JKR was taken aback by how many fans Draco had, though she had portraying him as nothing else but a bullying asshat.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there was the whole explanation about how certain houses attracted those with certain characteristics rather than everyone in Slytherin being a huge ass and waste of space, but that concept was never portrayed in the books, where there wasn't one single sympathetic Slytherin student. Even Malfoy, who I was expecting to finally ally himself with Harry, after his brief sympathetic moment in the last book, never did.