Harry Potter And The Spoiler-Filled Ramblings
Having predicted that Snape actually had been told by Dumbledore to kill him, and that the reason he was protecting Harry was because of Lily Potter, Deathly Hallows confirmed, once again, how awesome I am. What I didn’t work out though was how this was all related to Harry having ‘his mother’s eyes’; that understated scene where Snape reveals the significance of this as he dies is the series’ is possibly my favourite moment in the whole series. His whole backstory is brilliant too, even though I’d guessed a lot of it; who would have thought that Snivellus was driven by something as unselfish as love? Also explains his hatred of James too; perhaps, if he was had been less of a knob when he was younger, things may have turned out differently. As J.K herself said, Snape was very brave, but he wasn’t quite a hero- he was still a bit of a bastard and let’s face it- if it wasn’t for Lily, he’d have had no qualms about abetting the death of James Potter and his son. But along with Narcissa betraying the Dark Lord for the sake of her son and Slughorn joining the battle against Voldemort, it proved that even the House of Slytherin had more complexity than we had given them credit for.
And it’s not just the Slytherins- Rowling seems to have made a concerted effort to show different sides of established characters in this book, giving them depth beyond the simple good-bad archetypes many had seemed to have settled into. Dudley, whose parting words to Harry was a fine send off for the Dursley clan, and Kreacher, who transpired not to be all that bad really were two good examples of this, but it was Dumbledore who was by far the most surprising. After being portrayed as an almost too-good-to-be-true figure throughout the series, it was refreshing to discover that even he had once flirted with the dark side. Indeed, it’s presumable that if it wasn’t for the tragic death of his sister and his down-to-earth brother’s confrontation knocking some sense into him, his quest for the Hallows would have led him down the same route as Voldemort. (Perhaps it was the recognition of this that made him such an implacable foe to the Dark Lord.) What’s more, he never really ditched the concept of "For The Greater Good" that had led Grindelwald on his path to ruin (and seemed to direct the Ministry of Magic’s actions in the later books), even though his intentions were undoubtedly pure. There’s no question he was hoping Harry would survive (and "the gleam of triumph" in Book 4 suggests he suspected Mr. Potter might do) but still, he would have willingly have seen Harry die for the ‘greater good’ of wizardkind. And in the end, the seemingly invincible Dumbledore ultimately succumbed not to Voldemort or his followers, but his own lust for power. None of that really detracts from all the amazing things he did but in the end he proved to be just as human as anyone else.
Another thing I appreciated was how loads of little incidental details in the previous books proved to be significant- the locket in Order of the Phoenix; the dusty tiara, the mention of the dark wizard Grindelwald way, way back in the first book; Dumbledore lying about what he saw in the Mirror of Erised and his anguished hallucinations whilst drinking the cursed fountain in HBP. At some points as the series progressed I did wonder if she was making some of it up as she went along, given how more complex and dark the later books in the series are compared to the likes of Philosopher’s Stone so it was great to see that no, it was all planned from the beginning. Also, the sheer amount of deaths was pretty unexpected. Dobby’s was actually surprisingly moving and although Lupin and Tonks almost seemed like an afterthought (which, in fact, they were- Rowling wasn’t originally intending them to die), it produced a nice parallel with the events of 17 years previously- Harry is now the godfather to a baby whose parents died fighting Voldemort. The demise of poor little Colin Creevey also hammered home the point that this is a war and like it or not, innocents will get killed- same applies to the likes of Ted Tonks. I really thought McGonagall and Hagrid were going to kick the bucket too, but as it turns out the teachers didn’t actually do that much (bit of a disappointment actually). On a more cheerful note, Bellatrix getting owned by Mrs. Weasley was awesome! I kind of wanted Neville to finish her, but the whole "not my daughter, you bitch" thing epitomised Molly’s undying devotion to her family, even to the point of singlehandedly taking on Voldemort’s most devoted follower. Oh, and Percy’s redemption made me pretty happy too- I was almost convinced that wasn’t going to happen.
My only major criticism is that some clunky exposition (especially in the Kings Cross chapter) and a dull middle section threatened to derail things, but overall I thought it was a damn enjoyable conclusion to the series. Although saying that, the lack of gratuitous nudity was frankly unforgivable.