Like hundreds of other people, I waited at Wal-Mart at midnight on the 21st to get my copy of the last Harry Potter book, the Deathly Hallows. At first, I was surprised by the hundreds of people in line, but why not? After all, I was there so why wouldn’t others have the same idea. It went relatively smoothly, unlike when I went there the day after Thanksgiving trying to get one of their lost-leader items for a Christmas present. My son and I stood in line for about 20 minutes, but we got 2 copies of the book for about the price of 1.
It was a really good book, and hard to put down, especially since a lot of questions presented in the prior books were finally being answered.
If you haven’t read the book and intend to, don’t read anymore of this post because there are a few spoilers.
I like how she handled the fact that Dumbledore was really dead. I admit that I thought for sure he wasn’t really dead. I thought that perhaps he was really a phoenix and would be reborn. I also liked how she explained why Snape killed him, and that he truly was a good guy with dark curiosities. A lot of people died, but they were all minor characters (even Dumbledore was technically a minor character), which made it a little unbelievable. At least one or two of the main characters should have at least gotten injured. Dumbledore meeting him at the halfway point between life and death was a bit farfetched, even for a fantasy story full of magic. If somebody was going to help him choose to live or die, shouldn’t it be somebody like his mother or even Sirius? Of course, it had to be Dumbledore so that we could hear first hand why he wasn’t perfect like everybody thought up until book 7. The wise become the wise through error and learning from their mistakes, not through brains, and so it would be unbelievable if Dumbledore didn’t have a few skeletons in the closet. This side plot was perhaps one of the best in the book.
The horcruxes fell into Harry’s hands far too easily and he was able to destroy them far too easily. Why would Voldermort go through all the trouble of the dead people in the lake, the poisoned water, etc if he was just going to sit the diadem on top of the bust of an old statue? Voldermort wasn’t stupid so the explanation that he thought nobody would find that room was absurd seeing as there were thousands of hidden items there. Retrieving the cup was a great chapter.
The idea of the Hallows was cool and the fact that Harry united the 3 hallows to avoid dying was cool (but like everything else in the stories, a bit too much revolved around him and things always seemed to just fall into place for him).
The last chapter, “19 years later”, was sorely disappointing. Large portions of the books were devoted to school and what Harry was going to do after school. He wanted to be an Auror, he was an excellent teacher at the D.A., his popularity could have made him the Minister, but nothing was mentioned about any of their careers. Ok, great, he and Ginny got married, had some kids, and named them after characters in the book that died, and of course, Ron and Hermione got married and had a few kids of their own. But what else? What about their careers and the rest of the characters? Malfoy was mentioned, but only in passing. Speaking of Malfoy, why did he act so strange at his house and not give them up? In every other part of the books, he hated Harry. I guess it could be assumed that he didn’t like how things were going with how Voldermort was treating the family, but nothing was expounded on that. What about Luna, the surviving Weasleys, Cho and the other DA members? Longbottom was mentioned as becoming a teacher so good for him, but what about the rest of the teachers and the main Order characters?
All in all, Harry Potter is probably the best fantasy series since The Lord of the Rings, but the last book was a bit disappointing as it left a lot to be desired without promise of a sequel.