Potter noooooooooooo!
So... Harry Potter 7, huh? I didn't really care about this series until my mom and brother started reading it as if it was the cure to some outrageous disease. So here's my opinion on the last book.
She should have killed potter. Keeping him alive is just asking for a spin off series. If she killed him, then she would have ended the series so much more definitively than keeping him alive. In my opinion, Rowling copped out. She took the road that would make less fans angry at her, but it's also the road that had the most predictable and un-fulfilling ending. Success means so much more when there's a lot to sacrifice, but not sacrificing anything is just lame. Sure people died in the book, but those characters aren't the ones we care about. It's true that most immature readers will care about everyone and I include my mother in that group. But readers who are looking for something deeper than plot in the Harry Potter books won't find it. There's no hidden meanings, but there are pointless details. There are allusions to ancient mythology, but none that tell us something about those mythologies or the characters in the HP books. Rowling starts making connections in ways that look like they are going to mean something on a larger scale, but she never quite gets there. Her books never make connections to the real world, which is something that all books should do no matter how fantastic.
It really is a shame that all Harry Potter has to offer us in the end is the same old story of a prophecy fulfilled without a problem. What good is a prophecy if it isn't trying to tell us something about the world in general? Is Rowling trying to say that our lives are predestined? Is her goal to teach children about fate and how it is unavoidable? I don't think so, but at the same time, it really is the message that HP leaves us with. Why not defy prophecy? Because the only reason to do that would be to either solidify the fact that our fate is unavoidable, or to prove that prophecy, fate, and destiny are a fallacy. Rowling chooses neither of these options and decides to end her story in the easiest way possible. By affirming everything that the previous books had been telling us all along.
Final thoughts: Prophecy is boring if it comes true. Prophecy that is defied is much more interesting and gives an author a lot more to say about the world as a whole. Rowling says nothing about our world and ends up with a very boring final book in a mediocre series. Children and those with child-like minds will enjoy them. Others who are looking for more substance in their reading should stay far, far away.
She should have killed potter. Keeping him alive is just asking for a spin off series. If she killed him, then she would have ended the series so much more definitively than keeping him alive. In my opinion, Rowling copped out. She took the road that would make less fans angry at her, but it's also the road that had the most predictable and un-fulfilling ending. Success means so much more when there's a lot to sacrifice, but not sacrificing anything is just lame. Sure people died in the book, but those characters aren't the ones we care about. It's true that most immature readers will care about everyone and I include my mother in that group. But readers who are looking for something deeper than plot in the Harry Potter books won't find it. There's no hidden meanings, but there are pointless details. There are allusions to ancient mythology, but none that tell us something about those mythologies or the characters in the HP books. Rowling starts making connections in ways that look like they are going to mean something on a larger scale, but she never quite gets there. Her books never make connections to the real world, which is something that all books should do no matter how fantastic.
It really is a shame that all Harry Potter has to offer us in the end is the same old story of a prophecy fulfilled without a problem. What good is a prophecy if it isn't trying to tell us something about the world in general? Is Rowling trying to say that our lives are predestined? Is her goal to teach children about fate and how it is unavoidable? I don't think so, but at the same time, it really is the message that HP leaves us with. Why not defy prophecy? Because the only reason to do that would be to either solidify the fact that our fate is unavoidable, or to prove that prophecy, fate, and destiny are a fallacy. Rowling chooses neither of these options and decides to end her story in the easiest way possible. By affirming everything that the previous books had been telling us all along.
Final thoughts: Prophecy is boring if it comes true. Prophecy that is defied is much more interesting and gives an author a lot more to say about the world as a whole. Rowling says nothing about our world and ends up with a very boring final book in a mediocre series. Children and those with child-like minds will enjoy them. Others who are looking for more substance in their reading should stay far, far away.