Unconnected and inchorent
I'm far, far too tired for any sort of eloquence here, but I have to get some Harry Potter love off my chest,
It's been hard for me to get too worked up about the Deathly Hallows, mostly because I was concerned it wouldn't be as good as I wanted it to be. Half-blood Prince, after all, was a big pointless mess, the Harry Potter equivalent of the American Idol results show: 57.5 minutes of filler and 2.5 minutes of pertinent information.
But the Deathly Hallows was an E-ticket ride from front to back. It was transporting and transcendent and many other good things, some of which probably also begin with the letters trans.
Some specificness:
-So whatever happened to Umbridge in the end? And talk about moral ambiguity-was she being possessed by Voldemort all along, as the owner of one of his horcuxes? Ron was absolved from being a complete jackass because he was affected by Slytherin's necklace. Should she get the same treatment?
-If I had come across the epilogue on fanfiction.net, I would have immediately closed the window and never returned. Instead of telling us what they did with their lives, it relegated the characters we've come to love and value to backdrops for some sort of wizarding version of Reader's Digest's "Kid's Say the Darnedest Things" column. Huzzah to J.K. Rowling for finding domestic bliss at long last, but it's not the end-all be-all of happy endings. Did Harry and Ron become aurors? Is Luna working for News of the World? Has Hermione taken over the ministry of magic yet? These are the things I care about, not what Harry and Ginny named their kids.
Also, I'm a touch concerned that the epilogue will be J.K.'s way around her "I'll never write another Harry Potter book." Although it would be nice to read more about Hogwarts, I'll take it to the fanfic--it would be a betrayal to the series to continue it, like some sort of Babysitter's Club franchise just waiting for tie-ins and junior editions.
-I was completely spoiled on Wednesday by someone who posted "Snape becomes Hogwarts' headmaster" in the comments on ONTD. Only I didn't believe it one tiny bit, so was even more shocked than I might otherwise have been when I got to that part of the book. Oh, and re spoilers.
-My first thoughts after finishing the book were the first thoughts I always have when stepping, wobbly-kneed, off a roller-coaster: "WTF just happened?" and "AGAIN!"
It's been hard for me to get too worked up about the Deathly Hallows, mostly because I was concerned it wouldn't be as good as I wanted it to be. Half-blood Prince, after all, was a big pointless mess, the Harry Potter equivalent of the American Idol results show: 57.5 minutes of filler and 2.5 minutes of pertinent information.
But the Deathly Hallows was an E-ticket ride from front to back. It was transporting and transcendent and many other good things, some of which probably also begin with the letters trans.
Some specificness:
-So whatever happened to Umbridge in the end? And talk about moral ambiguity-was she being possessed by Voldemort all along, as the owner of one of his horcuxes? Ron was absolved from being a complete jackass because he was affected by Slytherin's necklace. Should she get the same treatment?
-If I had come across the epilogue on fanfiction.net, I would have immediately closed the window and never returned. Instead of telling us what they did with their lives, it relegated the characters we've come to love and value to backdrops for some sort of wizarding version of Reader's Digest's "Kid's Say the Darnedest Things" column. Huzzah to J.K. Rowling for finding domestic bliss at long last, but it's not the end-all be-all of happy endings. Did Harry and Ron become aurors? Is Luna working for News of the World? Has Hermione taken over the ministry of magic yet? These are the things I care about, not what Harry and Ginny named their kids.
Also, I'm a touch concerned that the epilogue will be J.K.'s way around her "I'll never write another Harry Potter book." Although it would be nice to read more about Hogwarts, I'll take it to the fanfic--it would be a betrayal to the series to continue it, like some sort of Babysitter's Club franchise just waiting for tie-ins and junior editions.
-I was completely spoiled on Wednesday by someone who posted "Snape becomes Hogwarts' headmaster" in the comments on ONTD. Only I didn't believe it one tiny bit, so was even more shocked than I might otherwise have been when I got to that part of the book. Oh, and re spoilers.
-My first thoughts after finishing the book were the first thoughts I always have when stepping, wobbly-kneed, off a roller-coaster: "WTF just happened?" and "AGAIN!"