Hester Thorpe's Day Off

[firstlight1]

Today is my first real day off from work, now that I am officially part-time. I intend to celebrate by running errands, making to-do lists of all the stuff I'll finally have time to get done, and going to the office for a bit - yup, you read that correctly. My job sucks so much that I have to go into the office on a day when I should be wandering

Comments

***SPOILERNESS***

[dcrnrmusic]

In response to your who died part:
Hedwig threw me for a loop - I had to read that portion like 3 times until it sunk in. Maybe i've just seen one to many movies with dogs and crazy disasters - the pets always magically make it out alive. I was bummed.

I would have liked Lupin and Tonks to stay alive - I had an inkling one of them would die - (Lupin cause she killed off all other ties to James) but not both :o(. Randomness in the epilogue, which was sort of useless, wouldn't Teddy Lupin be done with hogwarts if it was 19 years later? I did read that correctly that he was on the train "snogging" someone.

My Favorite battle quote - had to be Mrs. Weasley at the very end - I nearly peed my pants, it was hilarious.

Sorry to anyone who hasn't finished

Re: ***SPOILERNESS***

[firstlight1]

I was bummed too - you don't kill the animals. Animal deaths always get me.

Good point - I didn't even catch on to the fact that he should have been done! It irritated me that Harry didn't just instantly adopt him, or take him in a few years later. You just had to wait for this one moment on the platform with Ginny to make up your mind to do that? Wanker.

And yeah, I liked Mrs. Weasley finally getting her 2 cents in like that.

[franseca]

I agree with the fact that these kids deserve good things in their lives & happy endings - but it was so over-the-top that I was literally rolling my eyes the whole time. I would have been much happier if she had cut off the epilogue. All I needed to know was that everyone was safe. Let me make up my own ending after that.

Well... in a book made for adults, I'm sure that would have been the case. But this is a kids' series, so of COURSE the "everyone is happy"-ending is over-the-top and over explanatory. That's what happens when you read kids' fiction as an adult. Especially when it's written by a mediocre writer who doesn't deserve half the renoun she gets. :-P

I got to see Labyrinth on the big screen last week...

Oh... SQUEE!!! That is definitely in my top 3 favorite childhood movies! I am jealous!!!

So, is it true that the big screen adds 10" to what's in those tights ? ;-)

[firstlight1]

10" might be understating...

And the fact is, this final book isn't for kids. Or at least, not little kids. Teenagers would be the youngest audience I would give it to. And I've been reading kids books for years - not all of them have sappy, smarmy endings. And hey, she's not that mediocre - she's not the next Toni Morrison, but she's a damn fine writer. No one else has lit up the world like this with a book - ever. She's like The Beatles of writing. Lots of people said they didn't have talent in the beginning too...

Don't you love that I just started 3 sentences with "and"?

Spoiler Warning? (Like it matters if you've gotten this far anyway...)

[qsical]

I loved that Neville really got to step up, too. That was awesome. I was seriously yelling for him to pull the sword out of teh hat as soon as the hat got thrown to him, and when he did, I was nearly in tears. (I was also in tears when Dobby died...it also got me whn Harry was walking into the forest surrounded by the people he loved who he resurrected with the stone...but enough of my sob-stories. =))

I knew Snape couldn't have been bad. I totally agree with you. He was far too built up and far too complex of a character. I really think one of the only endings that would have made me mad would be ones where Snape ended up being truly, purely, evilly, on Voldemort's side.

Anyways...I can't wait to talk with you about the book! I'd love to hear your insights and what you thought about it. And now I'm it, so I'll try and call you in the next day or two to chat, catch up, and talk HP7!!

Re: Spoiler Warning? (Like it matters if you've gotten this far anyway...)

[firstlight1]

You know, it didn't even occur to me that the hat might help him the way it had helped Harry all those years ago. But I loved that moment, I loved that finally, Neville was on the same level - bravery-wise - as Harry, since he could have been Harry if only Voldemort had chosen differently.

Yeah, with Snape it was "Methinks the lady doth protest too much"...I mean, we've been against him since that first book. So he couldn't possibly be a villan, he had to have some sort of redeption. I was happy with the way she wrote his ending, since he wasn't exactly all good while he was helping Voldemort.

Talk to you soon, I hope!

[germy_germin]

I've always liked Snape on the sole basis that he is played by Alan Rickman (I actually saw the first movie before I read any of the books, so he's always been Snape to me) and I would basically watch Alan Rickman read the phone book, so ... yeah. Always good. I was very satisfied with the way that played out, by the way, even though apparently, everyone except dense little me saw the Snape/Lilly thing coming a mile away. I just thought it was sweet.

Do you know that HP5 is forever intertwined with my memories of camp from that summer? I cant think about one without thinking about the other, it's so odd. Remember how everyone was going ape because we couldn't talk about witchcraft (or whatever ... lame!) with the kiddos because they might be from that freaky sliver of the population that thinks Harry Potter was about Satan or something?

[firstlight1]

You know, the 5th book will always be my favourite, I think, simply because I read it at camp. It just has attachments to it that the others never will, attachments of an immediate shared experience.

Actually, it wasn't until the 5th movie that I really like Rickman as Snape. Don't get me wrong, I'd watch him read the phone book too...but before this one, I was never impressed with him.