What I thought about 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'

BEWARE: There is very little gushing, and very much complaining below. If you were a huge fan of the book, you might want to steer clear.

A friend and I exchanged a series of emails concerning our reaction to DH after it came out. To protect her privacy, I've only included my own emails in the below list. The following emails were sent July 26-27, 2007.

Please remember that everything stated below is my own opinion. I do criticize JK Rowling's writing style and plot choices, but we all have a right to our opinion, right? If you'd like to comment/complain/agree about anything I say below, please email me! I'd love to hear from you!

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THE GUSHING:

My favourite chapter out of the entire book was ‘The Prince’s Tale’. I loved learning that Lily and Sev were friends even before school and during school. It was devastating to see how Sev fell in love with her and that they were ultimately torn apart because of the sorting hat’s decision to put them into different houses (I have A LOT more to say on this topic, but that’s for later).

I finally realized that the memory Harry saw in the pensieve in Snape’s office wasn’t his worst memory because of the humiliation he suffered, but because of what he called Lily. It seems that that day pretty much ended their friendship and Severus lost the only person he had ever loved.

I can’t say how much I LOVED ‘The Prince’s Tale’. Lily calling Snape ‘Sev’ (just like the Lily in my story has always done *squee*), the two of them sitting by the river and talking about Dementors and Sev’s parents, Lily saying she doesn’t like Mulciber and his other Slytherin friends and the later memories like when Sev found out Lily was dead and agreeing to keep fighting to protect her son and her memory, and Dumbledore finding out he still loved her after all this time. And Sev crying when he found Lily’s letter and picture was just heart breaking. I loved how he left the remainders for Harry to find. He could have burnt the rest of that picture, but he left it. Even better, he didn’t leave any tricky traps in the house for them to stumble into.

To me, another awesome moment was when Phineas Nigellus reported to Snape about where Hermione and Harry were and he called her a mudblood and Sev interrupted him and told him not to use that word. What happened between Lily and Sev was so sad and could have so easily been avoided – but again, that’s a matter that has to do with my bitching list, and that’s not what this list is about.

I have to say, I was suspecting this for a long, long time. Throughout every single book, Severus never wasted an opportunity to rail on James, but he never, ever mentioned Lily. Not even in passing. This was actually where I got the idea from to have the two of them be friends in my story. *squee* I was right!!!

Also, when I watched PoA, I remember that Lupin had a line about Lily which wasn’t in the book. He said she was really kind and had the unique gift of seeing the good in someone most especially when they couldn’t see it in themselves. Or something like that. Anyway, afterwards, Rowling said that lots of things in the movie foreshadowed the seventh book. Right away, bells started ringing in my head, and I thought, who better to have that quote be about than Severus?

I did wonder though why Sirius or Remus or any of the teachers never mentioned the fact that Severus and Lily were best friends. He asked Dumbledore to keep it quiet, but nobody ever mentioned Lily, asides from saying Harry had her eyes.

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COMPLAINTS ABOUT HOW SEVERUS SNAPE WAS DEALT WITH, THE DEATHLY HALLOWS VS HORCRUXES, THE LACK OF A MORAL MESSAGE AND VARIOUS OTHER LITTLE PLOT COMPLAINTS

I had a lot of issues with this book, but most of all was how she handled the whole Snape-was-always-a-good-guy issue. I read the book….and I read ‘The Prince’s Tale’….and still….I found something missing. It’s bugged me for days, but you finally helped clear it up. My problem was that it WASN’T ENOUGH.

Harry has spent six years hating the guy because he was mean to him – never mind that Harry has never been anything but cheeky, rude and obnoxious when around him. Then he finds out Snape has not only been on his side the ENTIRE time, but has helped him nearly every step of the way. Suddenly, Harry’s calling the guy a hero and naming his kid after him. WHAT? It all happened way too fast IMHO. No reflection, no remorse, no nothing. That really irritated me. Not that I give a damn what Harry thinks – because I never have – but since these books were from Harry’s POV, I felt that his lack of reflection and thought about finding out his ‘worst enemy’ has really been the reason behind his survival made that whole part of the book meaningless in a way.

We never heard about what happened to Snape’s body, what the rest of the wizarding world was led to believe about him etc, etc. He was there, he was killed, Harry sees all these memories and suddenly, he’s calling the guy brave and rubbing it in Voldemort’s face. It was all way too fast for me.

Normally, I wouldn’t be quite so upset over Rowling glossing over one of the biggest revelations of the series, but in this case, it really irritated me. Mostly because she spent the first 300 pages of the book DOING NOTHING. My sister pointed out that when you’re on the run, living in a tent and bouncing from place to place, that it’s not a very exciting existence. Fine. Good. I agree. But I didn’t want to have to read 300 pages worth of that crap! In 300 pages, they found one horcrux, constantly sniping at each other, Ron stomps off in a snit and then comes back because of a funky lighter and Harry realizes for the MILLIONTH time how much it sucks to be a third wheel. Once again, I didn’t need to read 300 pages worth of that.

Then out of nowhere, come these Hallow things. It’s like Rowling introduced the Horcruxes in book 6, realized she didn’t have a clue how to handle them, so she throws in some other mystic mumbo-jumbo that was never mentioned or hinted at in SIX PREVIOUS BOOKS, simply because she wanted to give Dumbledore an interesting backstory. I liked some of Dumbledore’s backstory, but the whole Hallows thing was confusing and unnecessary. In fact, all three of Dumbledore’s ‘gifts’ could have been left out. Yes, I liked how the resurrection stone allowed Harry to see his parents and Sirius again, but that entire storyline could have been left out. And maybe it was just me, but I thought that making the sword be the weapon to destroy every single horcrux was a bit cheap. It seemed like Rowling didn’t want to make a big storyline out of the horcruxes and got obsessed with these Hallow things. All it did was confuse me and it was completely unnecessary.

Try as I might, I couldn’t follow the whole Elder Wand thing – I had to fish around online until somebody explained to me why Draco was the wand’s true master—and that whole dying baby at King’s Cross was just beyond me.

Overall, I didn’t like the plot of this book at all. I did like how Kreacher came around and learning about Regulus and what he’d done was cool, but that was pretty much it. Dobby dying also tugged at my heart strings, but honestly, why did she have to kill Dobby?

But asides from the plot, what irritated me most of all was how badly she muddled up the message that I thought she had been building up for the past six books. Over six books we’ve seen over and over again how bad house rivalries can get, and how from the day you’re sorted, your loyalties have been decided for you. The negative impact of this could be seen nowhere more clearly than the fact that the sorting hat split up Severus and Lily.

Yes, I believe the sorting hat put them both in the proper houses, but this decision pretty much ended their friendship. It’s difficult enough to live in different common rooms, but when your houses are constantly fighting each other and everybody looks down on your friendship with ‘the enemy’, it’s pretty damn hard to tough it out. From what Rowling wrote, it’s obvious that they stuck together until the end of fifth year when Snape called her a ‘mudblood’ out of anger and humiliation. He obviously did it because it’s a word that was thrown around casually in the Slytherin common room and he had heard people calling Lily that for years. I don’t think this was the only reason they parted ways, but it did serve as the final nail in the coffin. I think neither of them ever really liked the friends they had in their own houses, but they had to have friends in their own houses. Severus could either be a complete loner with just Lily as a friend (like I always saw him), or he could try to buddy it up with some of the other Slytherins. He tried to fit in with them without really realizing that they thought this meant he was not only loyal to them, but agreed with them about what they thought of muggle borns. He obviously never stopped to think that looking down on muggles because of his father pretty much put him on opposing sides with Lily. He didn’t realize it until Voldemort said he’d kill Lily.

What I’m trying to say – in my usual short, succinct manner – is that the majority of their problems stemmed from being in different houses. Yes, Sev looked down on Petunia, but Lily always reprimanded him about it, and if he wouldn’t have been surrounded by other morons like Mulciber, Lily would have been able to change his attitude before he made the biggest mistake of his life.

To me, it seemed obvious that Rowling would end the book with all the students coming together, house rivalries no longer mattering and when all was said and done, sorting would be a thing of the past.

But no. Every single Slytherin student deserted, every single Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor stayed, the trio saved Draco’s life twice and didn’t get anything in return from him, and at the very end of the book, Ron is joking around with his son that he’d disown him if he ended up in Slytherin. I know what Harry said to his own son, but as I said, I don’t really buy Harry’s change in attitude towards his former potions master because it seemed too fast and unrealistic – not that I didn’t like that line – and I know Ron was probably being sarcastic. However, when Harry was eleven and he heard people saying he didn’t want to be in Slytherin, he decided he didn’t want to have anything to do with that house before he had even gotten to the school. I guess I was really disappointed to see that Rowling had such a perfect opportunity to show that keeping people divided and preventing anybody from trying to make bridges of understanding and compassion between each other will lead to nothing but continuing the hatred and rivalry.

I was especially surprised given what’s going on in the world today. Most of us are stuck in our own ‘house’ and have prejudices and hold (probably) unfair attitudes towards the other ‘houses’. As long as we keep seeing each other as being in different houses, nothing will change.

I guess this was what disappointed me the most. In my story, I’ll be doing things quite differently.

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COMPLAINTS ABOUT DUMBLEDORE'S CHARACTER, MY (WRONG) PREDICTIONS FROM BEFORE THE BOOK'S RELEASE, AND SURPRISE OVER FANDOM'S OUTRAGE OVER SNAPE'S DECISION IN REGARDS TO SAVING LILY'S LIFE

I remember after reading Book 6 thinking that I had the plot of the last book pretty much set. I knew that Dumbledore’s death took care of a lot problems, one of which was finding an iron clad reason for Severus to be back at Voldemort’s side. How better to destroy your enemy than to be sitting right beside him, pretending to be plotting against the person you’re really helping? Out of the entire order, Snape would be in the best possible situation to help Harry.

I thought the last book would be all about the trio stumbling around looking for horcruxes. Snape would find out where the horcruxes were hidden and he could leave clues for Hermione to figure out and lure them to the horcrux. Since Dumbledore and the trio all know that Harry, Hermione and Ron don’t know beans about dark magic or curse breaking, Severus would destroy the horcrux and let them ‘defeat it’ easily, allowing Voldemort to think that they’d done it.

Mostly this worked in my head because Dumbledore said Nagini was a horcrux. Who would have better access to killing her than Severus? I thought it would end with Harry confronting Voldemort and either Snape sacrificing himself for Harry or helping Harry kill Voldemort and then help him escape.

So I spent two years being smug, because everything in canon had lead up to this being a very strong possibility.

Instead, we get the mess that was DH. Unbelievable.

On another note, was I the only one who thought Dumbledore would be a bit kinder to Severus? In most of the memories, Dumbledore is harsh and angry with him, even after Severus changes sides and puts himself at unbelievable risk for Dumbledore. It’s obvious that Severus was helping Dumbledore quite a bit – and not just being there for him when he destroyed the ring. Remember when they’re talking about the fact that Harry would have to die? Dumbledore asks Snape how many people he had seen die lately, and Snape replies that lately, only the ones he hadn’t managed to save.

I guess from their easy going, mutually irritating/tolerating, fatherly-son relationship we’ve glimpsed in previous books, Dumbledore’s attitude in the memories irritated me.

On that note, I had to laugh when my suspicions that Severus asked Voldemort to spare Lily proved correct. It’s the reason I put it in my own story. There was no reason for Voldemort to tell Lily over and over again to move over and get out of his way, especially after he killed James without even pausing in the doorway. To me, it made perfect sense. But then I saw the firestorm of reactions that sprang up on the web, and I have to say I’m surprised. People are saying how despicable it was for Severus to be willing to let Harry and James die in order to save Lily.

I guess it’s easy for them to judge when they’re not in that situation. But let me tell you, as a former lifeguard, I’ve seen a lot of parents willing to let other children nearly drown—five INCHES from them—because they didn’t want to stop playing with their own—very well swimming—child. If this happens regularly, then why is it so shocking that in the middle of a war, knowing that your boss is about to go murder your best friend and the person you love, that you’d ask him to spare her and forget about the others. Severus must have known that Voldemort wouldn’t spare Harry no matter what, Severus didn’t give a damn about James.

I don’t know, to me, it made sense. It’s probably what I would do. I’m not proud of it, but that’s way things are. I can guarantee you that given the same type of situation, nobody would choose to save a stranger or an enemy if they knew they only had time to save the person they loved.

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MORE COMPLAINTS ABOUT DUMBLEDORE' CHARACTER

I totally agree with you about Dumbledore. I can’t believe Rowling trashed his character like this. Yes, I know he wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t ever mean or cold hearted. The way he acted in this book was at such odds with the person who gave so many outcasts a home and told everybody for years that “It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.” and “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

I know she was trying to show that he’d made mistakes in the past, but she went completely overboard and trashed his character.

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COMPLAINTS OVER HOW THE MALFOYS WERE HANDLED IN THE BOOK

Seriously, she couldn’t have messed this up any more than she did. I liked Narcissa ultimately choosing her son over any ‘side’ and sparing Harry’s life in exchange. She’s never liked Harry and she probably didn’t give a damn about whether he lived or died, but she decided to be fair and give him something in exchange for information. I always liked how Rowling dealt with Narcissa. She seems to be mostly on the sidelines, keeping to herself and playing the ‘perfect wife’, but when it comes down to it, she loves her son and will do anything for him, including lie to Voldemort, which we know is pretty much like signing your own death sentence.

And don’t get me started about Draco’s complete lack of presence in the book. My sister claims that fanon has made a Draco who is far different from canon. My complaint wasn’t really that Draco didn’t pick a side, nor that he didn’t come over to the ‘right’ side. My complaint was that he didn’t do ANYTHING at all. Except for having a bit of a fight with Harry in the Room of Requirement (where he didn’t do much other than waving a wand and acting like an incompetent wuss), he didn’t do anything. Harry had that one vision of Voldemort forcing Draco to torture people and Harry feeling sorry for Draco, but it was never addressed again. Even when they were in Malfoy Manor, when Draco had the perfect opportunity to help them or sneer at them or do anything, he did nothing. I feel like Rowling had built up this huge relationship between Harry and Draco and then dropped it completely.

My biggest gripe was that at the end, Lucius was sitting in the Hall with them. What the hell?! I understand Narcissa and Draco being let off the hook – her for being a passive spectator through most of the war and him for being a sixteen year old who had been forced into the whole mess without being given the usual choice. But Lucius?! Even if nobody knew of his other crimes, they all knew he had broken out of Azkaban just a few months previously, and he had been in there for torturing Hogwarts students at the ministry. And they just let him sit there? That was disappointing. I expected aurors to come and arrest Lucius and have him try to get Narcissa to defend him or help him. Narcissa would put her arm around Draco and walk away, done with Lucius once and for all. But no. They all sit there, eating dinner amongst the very students Lucius had tortured a few months ago, and for which you can bet he doesn’t have any remorse for.

Once again, Rowling messed up a perfect chance to give the story some more depth. She built up this entire family and made them so interesting – as opposed to the flat, dimensionless family that is the Weasleys (not that I don’t love them) – and she wastes every opportunity to use them.

I think I’ve finally come to the conclusion that Rowling can think up good outlines for stories, but she sucks at fleshing them out and actually writing them. It’s painfully obvious that this was her first work of fiction. It’s unfortunate, because she obviously has a wonderful imagination. I’m most upset at her editor and publishers, who should have seen this book for the mess that it is, but decided to let it float on the merit of the other six books, knowing that everybody and their dog would buy a copy. They get their money, so they didn’t care.

It’s too bad that Rowling is too untalented of a writer to have squeezed every last drop of amazement out of this universe. She had the opportunity, she just didn’t know how or didn’t care to do it.

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MY GENERAL COMPLAINT ABOUT ROWLING'S TREATMENT OF THE HP UNIVERSE

Rowling created a wonderful universe and didn’t know what to do with it. I think her main problem was the fact that she made an adult oriented universe with complex characters who aren’t usually found in children’s literature, because they are too complicated for children to understand. But she stuck to these characters and then tried to force them into an over simplified children’s plot. The kids would love it, mostly because they wouldn’t know the potential that Rowling swept under the rug. Harry is their hero and Voldemort was evil and Harry defeated him. The end.

I would have no problem with her series if she wouldn’t have created a universe that had such (adult) potential attached to it. I was sucked into it because of that potential and stayed in the fandom for the same reason. The fact that I didn’t give a damn about the trio and sucked up details about the older generations of adults should have been my first warning bell.

It’s a shame, it really is.

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