Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - reaction post

[tree_and_leaf]

First off: I liked it. The reaction to the spoilers had made me very nervous, but I did enjoy it, and the disparity of style some people have noted didn't bother me. It is, after all, a diffferent sort of book, in some ways.



I liked what we learned of Dumbledore - not evil! Dumbledore, but flawed in a way that's consistent with what we've seen in earlier canon - and also with some of his more dangerous strengths (Doctor Who fans will hopefully understand me if I say that at various points he reminded me of the Seventh Doctor, and in some ways his relationship with Harry could be seen as a more distant version of Seven's mentoring of Ace). Although it's not an exact parallel, I also thought - with regard to his youthful indiscretions - of Günter Grass' confession, last year, of his stint in the Waffen SS, and the media storm that ensued (generating, as always, more heat than light). The fact that Dumbledore was himself in some sense a penitent perhaps explains, as much as Snape's torch-carrying for Lily, why he was willing to trust him in a way that Mad-Eye, who appears to have had no dark secrets in his past, couldn't.

I loved the Trio throughout, though I wish we'd got to see Hermione take on 'her' Horcrux. The scene where Ron confronted the locket Horcrux - which had a touch of the Ring about it - was perfect, though I bet there will be howls of disgust at the revelation that Tom Riddle is a Harmonian.

I was generally convinced by Snape. I very much liked Aberforth, and I was surprised to find myself feeling slightly sorry for Lucius, even though he deserves pretty much everything he got. Narcissa showed herself a true Black, being more concerned about family than anything else. Nigellus remains ambiguous, though I was sorry to hear him use language like 'Mudblood' (incidentally, did anyone else notice in the film of OOTP that he'd been burnt off the tapestry, or did my eyes decieve me?)

Loved Neville; loved Minerva, though I wish she'd had more page-time. Bellatrix being taken out by Molly was both unexpected and exactly right. Hagrid, I assume, was the character reprieved, for which I'm glad (though again, that may not be popular in some quarters). Liked Percy; Umbridge was effective. The whole descent of the wizarding world into fascism was chilling, and I didn't expect the Nazism parallels to be drawn quite so firmly (not an objection, just an observation). The Deathly Hallows sign worn by Mr Lovegood seemed to be a borrowing from the perversion of a perfectly innocent bit of sun imagery into an unpleasant sun sign - though, of course, I'm not convinced that the Hallows were entirely innocent, and I don't think I'm supposed to be. The appearance of the symbol in the book of fairy tales reminded me of the swastikas you find in early editions of Kipling, but I don't think this is a deliberate reference.

Am devasted by the death of Tonks - less so than Lupin, who has been wandering about with an 'I'm doomed' sticker on his back for some time (I'm more upset about his spineless abandoning of Tonks, but it's not exactly ot of character, though it's a bit of a blow to admit it) and I do wish we could have seen the deaths. If nothing else, it would have been nice for Lupin to have had a heroic moment to counteract his earlier bad moments. He's more like Pettigrew than is at first apparent. But I suppose that's battle: there isn't time to grieve, or even to take everything in. The same applies to Harry's lack of emotional reaction - at least initially - to the revalations about Snape. He had a job to do, after all. I think I'd have prefered a more 'factual' approach to the epilogue, incidentally, though again, I don't dislike it as much as sections of fandom seem to. Maybe it's just that the final paragraph, at least on a first read, seems so rushed.

Finally, I did really like the idea of the gates of the afterlife as a train station. And there's something suspiciously apt about the way that Harry, just after willingly going to his death (like an animal reared for slaughter, as Snape angrily points out), finds himself at King's Cross.

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I first came across mention of it courtesy of a Bill bryson book on the radio, whereby the entire family spent the next month saying things along the lines of "Please pass the Maldon, sea crystal, pure, white, sparkling salt".