Potterdump: kurozukin

kurozukin_a

Potterdump

Jul 25, 2007 01:18

On Saturday morning I woke up wondering why my cellphone alarm had not gone off. I looked and discovered that sometime while I was asleep, the cats had knocked over my glass of water. My phone, right next to it, was dead -- drowned in a shallow puddle. When I tried to switch it on, the screen would light up briefly, then die again. "The first casualty of the day," I thought.

Then I went to the Fully Booked in Rockwell to pick up my copy of Harry Potter 7.

Aeschylus quotes in the beginning of the book? When none of the previous books had quotes in the beginning? JKR, you're starting to get pretentious with age. :(

When Volders started to taunt Bella by mentioning a "happy event", I thought, "WTF, is Bella pregnant?" Then he went on to talk about Tonks and Lupin's shotgun wedding, and I thought, "WTF, is Tonks pregnant?" Then later on Lupin confirms it. AHAHA SHOTGUN WEDDING

Wow, Dudley! You're a human being? Who'd have guessed? (And DAMN YOU Petunia, what were you going to say? What???)

SHIT, HEDWIG :O I had been sort of wondering why she was suddenly getting more mention than she has for the past couple of books.

Much as I loved Moody, his death didn't really hit me too hard. Partly because I was still traumatized by Hedwig (seriously, Avada'd, then blown up???). Partly because I'd been expecting Order members to drop like flies and he was the most obvious prospect. And partly because I was just thrilled that the text confirmed that Tonks and Moody had been close. <3

I found it so awesome that Dumbledore left Hermione a book of fairy tales. I went, "I hope the actual fairy tales are significant in some way and not just some lame coded message crap in the book!" And they were!

Hermione brainwashed her own parents. She brainwashed her parents. Hermione is scary.

KRUM! Viktor Krum! <3 I was not expecting him to show up at all. I was certainly not expecting him to show up, make blatant Holocaust/WW2 allusions, then bemoan the lack of single babes for hot Quidditch stars to hit on. (Psst! Go dance with Luna!)

When the silver doe showed up, I wondered for a few nauseated seconds if Ginny's Patronus had been transformed into a doe out of TRUE LURVE for Harry and his stag. XO Then, unwilling to entertain that thought, I wondered if it might be Lily's, except that she's dead. Then I thought, "Wait, wait, crazy thought... what if it's Snape's Patronus? Snape's Patronus takes the form of a doe out of TRUE LURVE for Lily?" The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like JKR's style. And once they started talking in the next chapter about "Oh, what's if it's Dumbledore's Patronus, and oh, don't forget that Tonks' Patronus changed because of TRUE LURVE," I was 100 percent convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the doe was Snape's. Which makes it kinda ridiculous, in the last book, how he belittled Tonks' LURVE-changed wolf Patronus as wimpy-looking, when his own Patronus is effing Bambi's Mom. XD

I liked how Ron got his Badass Moment of holding the sword. Ron was pretty good in this book.

I think I kind of love Kingsley. He was fairly cool in previous books, but... I don't know, he was really cool here.

And is it me, or was Lupin kind of weird and manic-depressive in this book? "NOOOOO I AM UNCLEAN WEREWOLF AND BRING RUIN TO ALL I TOUCH!!! Who wants to see baby pictures???"

It was kinda completely obvious from the moment they showed up at Luna's dad's place that something bad was going on. And right after that part where it revealed that she had been kidnapped, I had to break for dinner, and all the while as I ate I just sat there thinking, "THOSE BASTARDS. HOW DARE THEY TAKE LUNA. THOSE SONS OF BITCHES. DEATH IS TOO GOOD FOR THEM." D:< Also, Harry Ron and Hermione, how could you blame Luna's dad? Hell, I'd sell you to Death Eaters for Luna any day of the week, no hesitation. LUNA > YOU.

And Luna painting a huge mural of her friends all over her bedroom ceiling is somewhere halfway between adorable and creepy. JUST LIKE LUNA HERSELF <3

All the magic in the world and Bella still carries a knife. Because she's just that psycho. XD (Poor Dobby.)

When they mentioned that Aberforth's Patronus was something "huge and horned", for a moment I thought it was a Crumple-Horned Snorkack, and I thought that was unbelievably awesome. Then I realized that it was probably a goat, and it was a goat, but that's awesome too. ABERFORTH IS AWESOME.

Voldemort was really starting to look like a complete and total idiot by the end, there. "Duhrr, is it possible they might have discovered one of my wonderfully secret Horcruxes? No, there's absolutely no way that this room FULL OF OTHER PEOPLE'S DISCARDED CRAP could ever have been found by anyone other than myself at any point in time! I m so smrt!"

I never liked how Cho Chang is always scorned in the fandom, and I felt that Harry was pretty insensitive toward her in Book 5, so I was very happy at the vague semblance of Cho reconciliation in this book, which was way more than I ever expected (I figured we'd never see her again). But I had to laugh when she went, "Oh, let me show you the bust, Harry! :)" and Ginny was all, "SIDDOWN and keep your bust to yourself," and Cho was all ":("

I was a little uncomfortable with how cavalier the supposed good guys were with the Unforgiveable Curses in this book. I mean, flinging Avada Kedavra at Death Eaters in the heat of battle, sure... but Crucio just for spitting in someone's face?

GOD DAMN IT. WHY did Snape's death have to suck so much? Absent for the entire book, then bitten by a snake, then sudden flashback infodump? Infodump of stuff that pretty much everybody had already predicted anyway? I had been gearing up for an epic Harry vs. Snape throwdown, with a lot of flips and explosions and bloody noses and 'YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!!!'. Not, "Oh hey, it's that Snape guy I kinda didn't like. I'd better catch some of this memory juice leaking out of his ears before he croaks." The fact that he had an explosive duel with all the other househeads then left a Snape-shaped hole in the window as he flew away Batman-like is but small consolation. >:(

BITTEN BY THE GODDAMN SNAKE, seriously JKR, what the hell.

And it wasn't even that Voldemort had sniffed out his treachery or anything; he didn't even KNOW. GRAAHHHH

For most of the book, Snape was not around, then we get five billion pages of Snape at his cutesiest and most sentimental. (I don't know if I can handle a canonical CuteChibi!Snape.) What I ended up missing badly was SnarkyAsshole!Snape. All we see of him is this one little passage: "Certainly not. You must kill me."
There was a long silence, broken only by an odd clicking noise. Fawkes the phoenix was gnawing a bit of cuttlebone.
"Would you like me to do it now?" asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. "Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?"
Snaaaaaaaape ;___;

Oh, and I went through the entire book believing it to be so obvious that Snape had sliced off George's ear deliberately in order to look convincingly evil while still avoiding killing or seriously crippling anyone. Because when you've just killed freaking Dumbledore to maintain your cover, what's one little Weasley ear? I was actually disappointed to find out that it had been an accident and he was aiming for the Death Eater instead. XD

Although I never believed for a minute that JKR would actually kill off Harry for real, that whole sequence where Harry is walking to his death was pretty gut-wrenching.

I love how Dumbledore was tempted by the Ring. Just like Galadriel. He failed the test! XD I found Dumbledore's infodump backstory with Wizard Hitler pretty interesting, though kind of a lot to take in all crammed into the final book.

Neville and his granny are badasses. <3 When Neville had his awesome moment of drawing the sword and lopping off Nagini's head, I imagined him with a Goemon Ishikawa pose.

Okay, I'm a Bellatrix fan. In the time between Book Six and now, her place as my Top Irredeemably Evil Badass Chick Of All Time has been usurped by Azula from Avatar; but I still fangirl Bella shamelessly. So I'd been kinda dreading her death, because she was just so persistently nasty and evil and responsible for the death and torture of so many loved characters, that I figured her final exit was likely to be painful and humiliating. But I ended up laughing when the long-burning question of "Who will be the one to kill Bellatrix? Harry or Neville?" was resolved by "A NEW CHALLENGER HAS APPEARED!!!" And Mrs. Weasley seemed to be channeling Ripley, to boot. "Get away from her you BITCH!!!" XD And her death actually upset old Voldemort, which was more than I ever expected. So R.I.P. Bella, that wasn't so bad. There are way worse deaths. Just ask Snape.

Speaking of the Black sisters, I feel pretty bad for Andromeda. She ditched her family for her Mudblood husband and kid, and now said husband and kid are dead. Does that make little Teddy Lupin the new Neville -- son of Aurors, raised by badass grandmother?

The OMG FINAL CONFRONTATION with Harry and Voldemort circling each other while everybody watches and Harry has to draw diagrams to illustrate to Voldemort how screwed he is, and Voldemort's just like "THIS... CANNOT... BE! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" That was... kind of lame.

See, Lupin? You can so vanquish Ultimate Evil with Expelliarmus! Just ask Martha Jones. XD

Speaking of which, I wonder which part made the Doctor cry? Probably something to do with Dumbledore. Or possibly Hedwig.

After all the soap opera antics of the last book, I appreciated the fact that in this book platonic love was much more central than romantic love.

The Epilogue sucks because it completely failed to mention Luna and whatever awesome stuff she's gotten up to. But the only time in the entire book that I cried teared up a little was the part where Harry told his kid that Snape was the bravest man he'd ever known. ;__; I am consoling myself with thoughts that Snape's portrait hangs in the Headmaster's Office along with all the other dead headmasters, and that he and Phineas Nigellus' portrait will unleash their DOUBLE POWERS OF SUPREME SLYTHERIN SNARKINESS on poor McGonagall or whoever.

Things that kinda didn't make sense:

All right, after Book 6, I was 100% convinced that a connection between Snape and Lily would be a pivotal point in the final book. But my idea at the time was that Snape hid whatever feelings he had for Lily from everyone except Dumbledore. In Book 6 Harry tells the others that Dumbledore's reason for trusting Snape was that he regretted the deaths of Harry's parents, and Lupin is shocked that Dumbledore believed it, since Snape hated James. This gave me the impression that he didn't imagine there was any kind of connection between Snape and Lily. But if, in fact, they were bestest childhood buddies, up to their 5th year, then how the hell did nobody else know about it? How did Lupin not think, "Well, it's plausible enough that Snape could regret the death of his childhood friend/TRUE LURVE Lily"? Why did Sirius always insinuate that Snape was jealous of James' quidditch or whatever, and never mention jealousy over Lily? And since the Order's special method of communication involves sending messages via Patronus, the other members must have seen Snape's Patronus at some point. Did none of them even think of making the connection between the doe and Lily?

So in order to be the master of the Elder Wand, you need to kill or defeat the previous master. Voldemort killed Snape because he figured that Snape had killed Dumbledore, the wand's previous master, and killing Snape would allow him, Voldemort, to be the new master. Except that Voldemort didn't actually kill Snape -- it was that damn snake. Wouldn't Nagini have been the wand's new master? And Voldemort would therefore be screwed since he can't kill his own Horcrux? And how did Dumbledore become the Elder Wand's master in the first place -- by defeating Grindelwald? But how could Grindelwald be the master of the Elder Wand, if he just stole it from the previous owner? That whole wand transference business was pretty ridiculous. And what about all the other times in the past six books when someone was disarmed, and their wand continued to work for them afterward?

Hermione says she put a charm on her parents that modified their memories and made them think they were different people, with no daughter, who wanted to move to Australia. Then later on, when the Trio are in the diner trying to do a Memory Charm on the Death Eaters, she says she's never performed a Memory Charm before. What, then, did she put on her parents? I'm confused. And no matter how powerful a charm she cast on them, it's going to be pretty difficult for them to move to Australia under fake identities when they have no documents and don't even know that their identities are fake. Did Hermione really think this through?

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