HARRY POTTER

[pikabot]

There was a lot here to like. The siege of Hogwarts was appropriately epic. Neville turned into a badass overnight. Snape turned out to be a good guy after all. Hagrid jumping off a flying motorbike to tackle a Death Eater in midair. They broke out of Gringotts RIDING ON A MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON. Neville's grandmother. Good stuff all around.

Some of it, though? Not so hot. Rowling still can't write romance for shit, which is annoying in the extreme when it's such a large part of the story. The action scenes were muddled, and at times difficult to follow. And some of the ending just makes NO SENSE. How did Draco become master of the Elder Wand? I can't figure it out. In addition to that, is it just me or is that fucking wand the biggest go-nowhere subplot of all time? Also, there were so many SHOCKING DEATHS of minor characters that it felt like I was reading Infinite Crisis all over again.

The epilogue annoys me almost exclusively because of the names. ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER what is this twelve-year-old fanfiction? Grr.

Definitely more good than bad, though.

Comments

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[dreamtshadow.livejournal.com]

I still felt like they should have possibly killed off a bigger name character. Lupin and Tonks were decent sized names to die, but imagine even Hagrid?

Re: ...

[angahith.livejournal.com]

Butbutbut
They killed Hedwig!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo~

Re: ...

[dreamtshadow.livejournal.com]

Hedwig was teh lame anyway

[(Anonymous)]

Firstly, it took some thinking with Draco for me as well. But it's pretty simple.

He disarmed Dumbledore, effectively DEFEATING HIM (which he did do, really) in book 6. So Draco became master of the wand.

And what do you mean by a "go-nowhere subplot"? The point was that Voldemort wanted a weapon he could kill Harry with. So he tried a new wand, it didn't work, so he went after the most powerful one in legend.

And yeah - LOTS of shocking deaths. Hedwig, Lupin and Tonks were the biggest - especially the latter two, as you don't even see them die.

As for the names, let's face it. Albus Severus Potter MAKES SENSE. People DO name their kids after people they admire.

And it's 10-year old fiction at that, seeing as how it was essentially written that long ago.

[general-tekno.livejournal.com]

Well what do you know, I wasn't logged in to LJ.

That was me above.

[pikabot]

The whole hallows thing went nowhere. The damn things didn't DO ANYTHING, except for the cloak which was pre-existing and did not need to be associated with the hallows at all.

What does the Hallows subplot add to the story? Not a damn thing. The cloak already existed, and was just fine without the extra bit of explanation. The stone never did shit, except summon up shades of the dead who did nothing but say one line of dialogue each, and then were never referenced again. The wand never worked better than an average wand for anyone, except for Harry right at the end, when it fixed his broken wand in a completely pointless gesture, as the book ended RIGHT THEN.

So what then does it add to the book? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's just pointless page-filler, and if Rowling's editors weren't so pussywhipped they'd have told her to cut it.