Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
After all the hype and all the waiting, it was even better than I could have hoped. Yes, buying it at midnight was such a clusterfuck that I practically had a panic attack from being trapped in such a crush of people. Yes, I read it in a marathon and finished it fifteen hours after laying hands on it, pausing only to sleep and not bothering with eating. And yes, the last third of the book had me alternating between weepy laughter and weepy, well, weeping. J. K. Rowling is my hero.
DOBBY!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO, NOT DOBBY, WHY?!?!! Damn you, Bellatrix! To quote Mrs. Weasley: YOU BITCH!
For some reason, a lot of fandom tends to hate on Dobby, which I completely don't get AT ALL. He is one of my absolute favorite characters. His death and funeral were just so powerful. Courtesy of a troll on X-E, I got spoiled for three major deaths (Lupin, Snape and Voldemort) but not this one, thankfully. Luckily, JKR writes so well that even being spoiled doesn't ruin anything, but I'm just glad I didn't know Dobby was a goner because I would have spent the whole book wondering if this would be the chapter, or if this would be the chapter, or this one....
I really want to be thoughtful and analyze things all smarty but there's plenty of time for that (forever, actually) so I'm giving in to the random:
Kreacher FTW!!!! My love of the house-elves should be apparent from the above paragraph...to see Harry accept that Siruis was wrong and that Kreacher deserved to be treated well and not like dirt, and then for Kreacher to actually prove to be loyal and make them kidney pie and help capture the Horcrux...and then Ron's concern for the safety of the house-elves being the thing that brings him and Hermione together, you know, that way...awesome.
Speaking of Ron and Hermione, there wasn't as much levity and humor in this one for obvious reasons, but Ron finally wising up and figuring out how to treat a girl, with a little help from Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches was totally LOLtastic. And don't even get me started on the epilogue; cheers to JKR for giving us such a sweet ending.
SNAPE. Snape, Snape, Snape. Is it just me, or is Snape the biggest badass of the whole series? I mean, Dumbledore is powerful, but his mistakes were equally so. And Harry, brave as he is, never really had a choice. He could either fight or die, that was his destiny. He didn't even have the option of running away. But Snape, Snape had a choice. And he made the choice to be in the most dangerous (and valuable) possible position in the whole war, and he made that choice out of LOVE. Next to Dobby's funeral, "The Prince's Tale" where we learn the truth about Snape and Lily Potter was the most emotional chapter, maybe in the whole series. And then in the epilogue, where we learn that Harry and Ginny named their youngest son "Albus Severus"...I'm misting up again right now.
More later; for now, I'm just gonna pour a little firewhiskey on the curb for my fallen homies: Dobby the house-elf, Dora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, and Severus Snape.
DOBBY!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO, NOT DOBBY, WHY?!?!! Damn you, Bellatrix! To quote Mrs. Weasley: YOU BITCH!
For some reason, a lot of fandom tends to hate on Dobby, which I completely don't get AT ALL. He is one of my absolute favorite characters. His death and funeral were just so powerful. Courtesy of a troll on X-E, I got spoiled for three major deaths (Lupin, Snape and Voldemort) but not this one, thankfully. Luckily, JKR writes so well that even being spoiled doesn't ruin anything, but I'm just glad I didn't know Dobby was a goner because I would have spent the whole book wondering if this would be the chapter, or if this would be the chapter, or this one....
I really want to be thoughtful and analyze things all smarty but there's plenty of time for that (forever, actually) so I'm giving in to the random:
Kreacher FTW!!!! My love of the house-elves should be apparent from the above paragraph...to see Harry accept that Siruis was wrong and that Kreacher deserved to be treated well and not like dirt, and then for Kreacher to actually prove to be loyal and make them kidney pie and help capture the Horcrux...and then Ron's concern for the safety of the house-elves being the thing that brings him and Hermione together, you know, that way...awesome.
Speaking of Ron and Hermione, there wasn't as much levity and humor in this one for obvious reasons, but Ron finally wising up and figuring out how to treat a girl, with a little help from Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches was totally LOLtastic. And don't even get me started on the epilogue; cheers to JKR for giving us such a sweet ending.
SNAPE. Snape, Snape, Snape. Is it just me, or is Snape the biggest badass of the whole series? I mean, Dumbledore is powerful, but his mistakes were equally so. And Harry, brave as he is, never really had a choice. He could either fight or die, that was his destiny. He didn't even have the option of running away. But Snape, Snape had a choice. And he made the choice to be in the most dangerous (and valuable) possible position in the whole war, and he made that choice out of LOVE. Next to Dobby's funeral, "The Prince's Tale" where we learn the truth about Snape and Lily Potter was the most emotional chapter, maybe in the whole series. And then in the epilogue, where we learn that Harry and Ginny named their youngest son "Albus Severus"...I'm misting up again right now.
More later; for now, I'm just gonna pour a little firewhiskey on the curb for my fallen homies: Dobby the house-elf, Dora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, and Severus Snape.