I needed a couple of days to digest it...
BUT I FINALLY SAW HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART TWO.
My god, it was good. Better than good. As far as chapters of one's childhood drawing to a close go, this one was just fantastic. I literally grew up with this series, like a lot of people in my generation, and HP was one of my "Gateway Fandoms" -- so seeing the film series end is...it's strange, but ultimately right. I'm seventeen, and the characters are my age, and it's just...you know?
Anyway, on to the reviewing of the movie.
First off, can we please get a huge round of applause for Neville Longbottom? Seriously, not only did he get badass, he got cute too. Seriously, he was always, y'know, cuddly, but now? I think it's safe to say that I'd marry him. Not many fictional characters have that to their credit. Neville...*swoons* Between the snake-killing and the resistance-leading and the Voldemort-defying and the bridge-destroying and the morbid-quipping -- It's like he's suddenly Han Solo without the selfish. And damn it if it wasn't the selfish that turned me off when it came to Han Solo.
Best moment for Neville, though, has to be when he stands up to Voldie and goes all "Aragorn at the Black Gate speech" on his ass. That boy can have my ovaries anytime.
Also, McGonagall. MCGONAGALL. Christ Almighty, McGonagall is the fucking bomb. From the standing up to Snape to the telling Seamus to Blow Shit Up to the "I always wanted to use that spell" giggling -- that woman wins at everything. Every second she was on screen, I was flailing at something awesome she did.
And, speaking of Seamus, McGonagall's quip about his thing for "pyrotechnics" was great. It took me a minute to remember that Seamus blowing stuff up was a running gag in earlier movies.
The whole battle was awesome. Not as orgasmically explosive as Transformers: Dark of the Moon was, but hey, giant fucking robots. Some of the moments leading up to said battle had me sobbing before it started because I knew certain people weren't going to make it -- like Fred Weasley. Fuck it, Weasley Twins, why you gotta make a girl cry? And then he goes and dies offscreen. And Remus and Tonks, of course, but with Fred it was like, shattering.
Speaking of shattering, can we get a hand for Alan Rickman as Severus Snape? Dude, the Pensieve scene. If that scene doesn't make you cry, you have no soul. And I'd forgotten how loathsomely cold Dumbledore can be. When Snape gives more of a shit than you do, you kind of fail at life, Albus.
I was also kind of pissed at how the Hallows were mostly left out. Like it was never even mentioned that the Invisibility Cloak we know and love is one of them. And the complete lack of Grindeldore subtext displeased me. When you forget the canon slash but then add in random het somewhere else, I tend to be displeased.
(Err, the random het being the Neville/Luna of course. Not that I don't like N/L, it's just, y'know, not canon.)
However, the Room of Requirement scene did provide the Draco/Harry shipper in me with her little squee -- as Harry does specifically bring up Malfoy's not giving him away at the Manor, and Malfoy manages to dodge the question (true Slytherin, that's for sure). And, of course, Harry grabs Malfoy as opposed to the other guy who's still alive. *shrugs* The D/H in DH is gooooooooood.
Finally, can we give Voldemort a round of applause? His descent into madness was hilarious. When he thinks Harry's dead and he's all like "Join me, 'cause I just won," he's so...ridiculously happy sounding. And then there's the Awkward Hug. I never felt sorrier for Malfoy than I did in that moment; hugging Voldemort must be like hugging Umbridge, but without the extra cushion provided by Umbridge's fat. Poor Malfoy...
Now, for those who haven't seen the movie, I'll present you with my results to the thealmightyguru.com's Sorting Quiz:
Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?
It was quite a near thing with Ravenclaw, though.
And I should like it very much if someone could point me in the right direction as to good fic taking place during the DH year that centers around Neville and the others resisting the Carrows -- I'm rather annoyed that we don't get to see the really cool stuff; we get a camping trip, a narrow escape, and a bank heist by characters for whom such things are practically normal. I want to see Neville with leadership thrust in his lap. Pairings don't matter -- gen, het, slash, it's all good enough for me.
I also would like to be linked to some more good Drarry fic. I'm rather terrified of digging down into the depths of the Pit, or even LJ, given that HP is almost everybody's "Gateway Fandom." I looked through the stuff on TV Tropes (warning: if you click the link, I'm not responsible for the hours of time you'll lose wiki-walking there), so I've read Reparations and Transfigurations (both absolutely brilliant; particularly Reparations), but I don't know where to go from here.