Someone spoil Deathly Hollows for me.

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Crawl and 1OOO

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Posts: 15578

(07/22/07 12:04 PM)

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I hope the way this book ends is that the Muggles are sick of the wizards' racism, and just atom bomb 'em away.

(I think Honen would approve of that as well)

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CLOUDBOND007

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(07/23/07 12:44 AM)

Lunitari Mage
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I saw someone else who thought it would be cool if Voldemort were finished off with a pistol or other muggle invention.

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CLOUDBOND007

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(07/23/07 3:25 AM)

Lunitari Mage
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Okay... I've heard the best way to defeat Voldemort.

Accio Voldemort's Spinal Cord.

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da dick

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(07/24/07 12:21 AM)

and my bird can sing too!

no, the best way is challenge him to kortal kombat. then use a babality.

"Birdies!"

Crawl and 1OOO

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(07/24/07 8:58 AM)

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Has this some how morphed into the thread for actually discussing Deathly Hollows?

Plot-wise, one thing that I didn't think made sense, and couldn't believe they didn't address it -- though some think it leaves leeway for a prequel -- was that Dumbledore was able to beat the wizard that had the Deathstick to begin with. Or, for that matter, that ANY wizard had been able to beat the wizard with the deathstick, despite that tales of it getting won are splattered over the pages of wizard history.

After thinking it over a little, I guessed one explanation could be that nonsense about how the wand wasn't "really" won. Maybe the guy Dumbledore beat hadn't won it, so Dumbledore could take it like any normal wand. However, if that was the case, then even for Dumbledore it wouldn't have been the true Deathstick. I guess it's never PROVED that it was, but everyone seemed to think it was. (Such as Harry's long explanation as to why HE is really its master).

Random spoiler note: Of those spoilers that CB007 posted, every single one was true (I couldn't really follow the number of children Harry had at the end -- it was at least two, because of James and Albus, but I guess there could be been a third I missed). When I saw that many, I just laughed them off as people making up random spoilers, and totally forgot them not only until I read the book, but until I look at that picture again. On the other hand, I guess that does indeed emphasis the need to read these books quickly to a pure, unspoiled experience.

As for the book, it's pretty good. Once the story kicks into gear (like I said, around page 500), it keeps going.

On the other hand, there's a lot of nothin' happening earlier in the story. Part of the story is just of Harry, Hermoine and Ron aimlessly wandering around the world, and there's no story at all there. Not only that, but Rowling does not effectively capture the flow of time. She communicates that they've been wandering for months by simply stating that. I thought Stephen King did a better job communicated the length of a long journey in the last volume of The Dark Tower, when, despite that they were journeying and thus there wasn't a lot of plot advancement, there were still things to describe, or things they did. Example, when they made hides from the deer.

WAY too much luck also plays a role in what happens.

And while I said the ending of the story is more or less good, some things are kind of abrupt.

The opportunity for making Voldemort into an actual character wasn't taken. He's not even much of a threat; he comes across as a pathetic loser.

I also don't think it makes any sense that Voldemort could have thought he was the only one to have found the room of lost stuff. It's frickin' full of hidden stuff from other people, of course other people have found it before!
.

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Crawl and 1OOO

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(07/24/07 11:25 AM)

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As far as "luck" goes, the most blatant example, which almost everyone has complained about because it's so glaring, is that when Harry and friends are walking through the woods, they just so happen to stumble across some other people aimlessly walking through the woods, and are at just the right time to overhear a conversation that is important to the plot.

Then when they find the cursed cup in Gringots, they can't touch it without being burned. So, how do they deal with that? By simply not caring that they're being severely burned, apparently. When no harm comes to Ron, Hermione or Harry despite that they actually are being harmed, you can pretty much tell then that there's no way those characters will die.

Then, when they have one last horcrux artifact to destroy, but no obvious way of destroying it, what do they do? AS SOON AS THEY GET IT, a minor character casts a spell that has never been mentioned or foreshadowed before, and it just so happens to destroy horcruxes. Well, that's not sloppy or abrupt.

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Crawl and 1OOO

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(07/24/07 9:33 PM)

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I guess I'll post some more positive comments now.

The novel doesn't just talk about being master of the elder wand -- ownership comes up enough to be a legimate theme. There's the goblin concept of ownership, how whoever makes something owns it, regardless of who pays for it. And there're objects that are valued enough to actually put your soul into.

Forget protesting the Harry Potter books because they have witchcraft. There really is a materialistic theme there! But I guess there's no one to protest that: Who is an ascetic anymore?

And there's the ownership of wands in general, where the wand chooses the wizard. That was in the first book, but the last book explains it's a symbiotic relationship, where the wand and the wizard learn from each other and go on adventures together.

For some reason that speaks to me a bit. It may very well be a bad thing about myself, but I can form a bond with material objects. As an example, I'm proud to still have my original NES. Performing maintenance on it, like replacing its 72-pin connector, lets me give something back to it for what it has given me.

For another real world example, I've heard various people say [musical] "instruments have souls".

(To compare that to a videogame, in Soul Calibur, everyone has named their weapons, EXCEPT the Edge Master, who apparently does not think his weapons have souls, but are merely tools)

It's weird that both the good guys and the bad guys in that novel have attachments to material things. Voldemort's attachment is blatant; Harry has a fondness for his original wand, and repairing it is one of the last things he does. He also wants to keep the cloak as a family heirloom. Hell, looking back through the series, Mr. Weasley enjoyed collecting Muggle artifacts. Supposedly, the thing that separates Voldemort from Harry is that Harry can love people, but I guess that doesn't preclude Harry from loving objects as well. Maybe J. K. Rowling thinks she has put her soul into a book?

I'm trying to remember some other things I liked about the novel. I like Snape as a character, but he has ALWAYS been given the shaft in the novels in terms of actually being used. He might have had some poignancy in the final novel, but you can't help but feel it could have been done a little better. He doesn't really exist IN the novel; his story is practically exposition.

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Last Edited By: Flying Omelette 07/24/07 9:48 PM. Edited 2 times.

CLOUDBOND007

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(07/24/07 10:04 PM)

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One thing I didn't get is...

By disarming Draco, Harry became the true owner of the Elder Wand even though Draco wasn't using it at the time? That felt kind of odd to me.

While I'm posting, another thing... there was also a scene where Harry is holding more than one wand when he casts a stunning spell and the effect is multiplied. Why don't all wizards use a handful of wands, then?

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Crawl and 1OOO

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(07/24/07 10:11 PM)

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I definitely wondered, while reading this book, why wizards don't use multiple wands. Just think, if you're disarmed in a duel, you just pull another wand out. Sort of like in the movies (such as Taxi Driver, or the Matrix) where characters use gun after gun.

My best guess, and I admit it's my own interpretation, is that while carrying multiple wands might be helpful if you're disarmed, it might not be good at other times. After all, the wands are symbiotic, and if you're using more than one, they could all become jealous and not give of themselves as much as they would if one was the sole focus.

Even if a wizard fully gave himself to only one wand, but carried others merely as backups, then the main wand might become powerful, but the backups could be so weak when needed that you might as well not even have them.

As for the wand ownership thing, it's convoluted. I think it's a mistake that they made such a big deal about that in the final, but ONLY the final book. If wands can change owners, then surely everyone would have known about that for ages? So, it seems tacked on to only mention it at the end.

Some people claim that the transfering of ownership ONLY applies to the Elder Wand, but no other wand, and the rules for transfering the Elder Wand are complicated. After all, the Elder Wand also sort of has free will to chose its wizard, but it also has the will to change its mind.

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CLOUDBOND007

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(07/25/07 2:01 AM)

Lunitari Mage
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I also don't think it makes any sense that Voldemort could have thought he was the only one to have found the room of lost stuff. It's frickin' full of hidden stuff from other people, of course other people have found it before

I thought so too, but someone pointed out that Voldemort might've assumed the room of requirement just put that stuff there to make it impossible for anyone to find the Horcrux mixed in with all of the other stuff.

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Crawl and 1OOO

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(07/25/07 8:23 AM)

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Eh... He'd be going way out a limb with that assumption.

You know, the thing about the past books, maybe book 6 in particular, is that they make Voldemort out to be a genius of magic, who knows magic beyond what the world has ever seen. But in book 7, he's pretty much a moron about magic, and everyone knows more than he does.

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CLOUDBOND007

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(07/26/07 7:06 PM)

Lunitari Mage
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Rowling gave some more info about what happens to the characters after the ending.

Spoilers:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/

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Crawl and 1OOO

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(07/26/07 9:33 PM)

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She also said she was planning on killing Mr. Weasley in book 5 and again in book 7, but apparently couldn't go through with it.

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Crawl and 1OOO

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(07/27/07 4:05 PM)

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By the way, this is another "leaked" Harry Potter 7. It was on the web at least 9 days before the book's release. It appears as though someone actually wrote a 700-page fanfic version of what they thought Deathly Hallows would be like. It's also possible (maybe?) that it was an "official" fake, made to discredit any early leaks in the event that the real version of the book was leaked (which of course it was).

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CLOUDBOND007

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(07/27/07 4:53 PM)

Lunitari Mage
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Just to go ahead and post in the right thread for once:

I don't know how you could read more than a line or two of that and think it was the real thing.

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CLOUDBOND007

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(07/31/07 12:19 AM)

Lunitari Mage
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http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/07/30/potters.afterlife.ap/index.html

Also about what happens after the last book. It seems to contradict the other link regarding Ron, although I guess he could just be doing both things.

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Crawl and 1OOO

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(08/08/07 12:44 PM)

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Page by page summary of Deathly Hallows.

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Crawl and 1OOO

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(08/09/07 10:28 PM)

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Alternate endings:

"Have at you," said Harry. He pulled out his gun and shot Voldemort with his gun.

"I cannot be killed by guns," said Voldemort, "I assume."

Harry smirked. "Everything can be killed by guns," he said. "Plus mine was magic."

"Oh noooo!" Voldemort dissolved into dust, which then caught fire and exploded. He was dead.

"Well, well," said Harry. "Looks like you just got" --he paused to put on his sunglasses-- "Pottered." Then he drew a lightning bolt in the air with his finger and spun around, then gave his friends a thumbs-up.

All of his friends from all of the books were there, and they congratulated Harry on finally killing Voldemort. The black character presented Harry with a big trophy and from that point on he was always happy, forever. The end.