I should never do this, but I do. (HP7 ending spoilers)

[aquahaute]

Read yesterday's Penny-Arcade, and thought, okay, I have seen the old guy in another PA, but where?

Not a question the search function was likely to solve, I dropped into the PA forums and went to the abyss that is Social Entropy++ to check whether there had been anything about it in the new comic thread. Which there had, question solvedBut there

Comments

[hikarugenji]

Although I liked any epilogue better than none, I think the structure of the entire work that Rowling had built all but demanded a chapter 37 describing the trio completing school. The epilogue should have been longer and revealed more about what the characters did.

Now, if Rowling had done this with the intent of filling the gaps later with more books, I wouldn't be so unhappy about that -- even a second series that involved the Harry Potter universe but only had the HP characters as cameos. But Rowling seems pretty adamant that this isn't going to happen, so I think she should have provided more closure.

And I don't agree with the people who say this is better because it lets you imagine what happened -- if I want to imagine what happens then I'll write my own story. I read books because I want to see other people's stories, not make up my own.

[hikarugenji]

One more thing: I did not have any problem with the *content* of the epilogue (i.e. the marriages, the kids, any of the names, etc.), it was just its incompleteness that bothered me.

Somebody wrote an interesting post on one of the communities talking about how the epilogue was good because it took the book full-circle and established Harry not only as "the boy who lived [i.e. survived Voldemort's attack]", but "the boy who lived [i.e. was able to live a normal life after everything settled down]" which makes sense.

[aquahaute]

I knew going in that the result would be pairings I don't really get, and while I'm not happy with the names, it's the same as the pairings: they're canon, I'm not thrilled but I'll accept it. But it was the style, more than anything - I could have accepted almost anything had it just been TOLD better. Even if the only characters someone cares about are the Trio, there still isn't any major closure even for them - much less any other character anyone might possibly have been curious about.

I'm also beginning to be annoyed at the scarcity of childless witches - off the top of my head, the only married witch I can think of who does not have children is Bellatrix. >_>

[ancientwhisper]

I agree. The content didn't bother me, that I was fine with, but it seemed like she was trying very hard to write a 'glimpse of their lives in nineteen years' chapter, when what I really wanted was a synopsis of what had happened and what became of everyone. All I really gleaned from the epilogue was A.) Certain people paired off. B.)Those certain people had kids. Their names didn't even really matter. C.) After Voldemort, apparently life resumed normalcy.

Admittedly, the list of things I wanted to know in the aftermath could have filled several dozen more chapters, if not a whole other book... but. Eh. I was a little disappointed.