furyofvissarion: (Default)
furyofvissarion ([personal profile] furyofvissarion) wrote2007-07-22 09:59 am

SPOILERS WITHIN

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling. I was pretty underwhelmed, actually: more relieved that it's just over already! There were bits I really liked--like the resurgence of the DA, & oh, Neville! Neville kicking butt! And Luna--her serenity in the face of everything, & the portraits she had in her room, &, yes.

I hated what was done to Tonks, though--let's make her pregnant & shove her out of the way, & then have her come back after she gives birth, seemingly more interested in protecting Lupin than in fighting Voldemort. And then they both die. And Harry bashing Lupin for leaving Tonks while she's pregnant to go fight? What about all that "for the greater good" stuff you were so into, Harry? What, no one else fighting has kids they're leaving @ home?

I liked the way Dumbledore was shown to not be perfect, no one is good & evil unmixed, & people can change, blah blah. Harry was an annoying git through most of the book, & I'm still annoyed that he did the whole Spiderman thing, breaking up w/Ginny @ the end of the last book. I did think that Ron & Hermione's relationship was fairly realistic, for teenagers under an incredible amount of stress.

I liked getting to see what Snape had been going through, playing his dangerous double game, but I found the whole "I did it all for the love of Lily" thing to be maybe a tad bit overdone, even tho' I liked the general idea.

Was glad as Hermione to see Ron giving a shit about the house elves (poor Dobby! And I loved how they all came out fighting @ the end, led by Kreacher--what happened w/that Death Eater that Hermione accidentally gave access to 12 Grimmauld Place, tho'?).

The whole "Harry dies & chats w/Dumbledore, only he's not really dead" thing confused me, arrrgh. Draco's mom faking out Voldy about Harry being dead was cool, tho'. Harry losing the stone that was part of the Deathly Hallows seems like an open door for some kind of sequel/side book, except I assume Rowling won't do that. Expect the stone to be found & fought over in fanfic. Mrs. Weasley kicking butt over Ginny was fun, & the return of Percy was just great--he's such a prat, but a repentant prat, & that was super sweet. Glad to see he got to see Fred again before he bit it (sniff!!).

I loved pretty much all the Battle of Hogwarts--I just have a kink for big scary endgame battle scenes like that. I thought that showcased the sorts of things Rowling is good @: cute/funny/apt details. She's still not a v. good actual writer--I like her ideas, but some of her descriptions are so clunky, as well as some of her dialogue (tho' some of it's quite funny & sharp). And could we fine her every time she uses a damn ellipsis, please? Also, the epilogue sucked. I really hate books that jump so far ahead @ the end, like it's an afterthought. I was interested to see that apparently Ron & Hermione have not felt like they had to name a child in memory of Fred, which seemed a bit cold.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Hahaha, I kept giving Phredd updates, like, Mad-Eye Moody just got killed. George lost his ear. OMG Hermione is being TORTURED! (& as I forgot to mention in this post, didn't Hermione have any PTSD? I thought it was odd that she cried for a week when Ron left but has no noticeable reaction to being tortured!)

I agree that it was realistic of them to be pissed off w/Dumbledore, but @ the same time I just got tired of them, esp. Harry, whining about it.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I think in pieces is the best way to take it. Maybe even the whole series--I dunno if I'll ever reread the whole thing, but I love how OotP gets all dark & I LOVE LOVE LOVE Dumbledore's Army.

And yeah: Rowling shows about as much depth portraying women as she does w/POCs.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Alert the media! (re: us agreeing)

I rarely read HP fic; there's just too much crap out there for it to be worth my while to wade through it all. But I may have to go look for some AU Tonks-ness.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I was a little confused keeping track of the kids' names too, but mostly I felt like it didn't matter, so I didn't care. The important thing, as far as Rowling was concerned, was that everyone was happily & heterosexually shacked-up, & that childbirth had occurred.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know much about how JKR's dealt w/ or considered all the fanfic in her world, but I wonder if keeping that shittastic epilogue was her way of closing the canon for queerness. :P

I was so glad to see the bits about the Ministry maybe not being all fair w/its treatment of other species! And then stupid-ass Harry has to try & go & hoodwink Griphook anyway.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I think you're right re: Rowling trying to control ficcers by making everyone so relentlessly straight in canon. AU all the way, baby.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, & apparently having one is the most important thing you can do, nevermind if you helped save the world 19 years ago & whatnot.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I suppose if dunderhead Ron has finally started seeing them as more than just little automatons that bring him his pumpkin juice, then there's hope...

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe it's not so much that Harry lies as JKR & her editors didn't catch that--after all, they had so much other sludge to wade through. Clearly they missed all the commas that ought to have been semicolons, & all the damn ellipses (I only caught one typo, tho': "vice" for "vise").

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 10:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Perhaps to reassure people that Harry and Ginny didn't get married, settle down and have children immediately after the war. The oldest of Harry's would be what, 12? 13? So there's at least five or six years of relative freedom in there, and enjoying the new world. Perhaps that's when all the rebuilding and restoring of order and the workaday world took place, and they all only settled down to have children when it was safe and ordered and just as Ron had imagined it to be all his life.

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
I found the idea of Hermione being fine, if a bit pale, after torture was deeply strange. It was also one of the least appealing bits of the book. I was all right with the idea of her including the torture because it is war, and these things happen - even though they shouldn't - but the way she glossed over the after-effects was infuriating. Though it does fit inwith her general approach to dreadful events, such as death. Mainly to say that everyone is upset, but never show the upset.

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
That seems a good explanation for the 19 Years Later The World Is Exclusively Straight Epilogue. Because we'll show the kids torture and pain and death and great heroic quests and love being the answer, but it needs to be painfully clear that certain kinds of love only are the answer. None of that icky same-sex love, no no. (Again, I say FEH.)

See, I'm going to have a very hard time with getting Pansy and Hermione together, but I do estimate I can have five or six kidfree years between the war and the epilogue, and I might be able to make something of that.

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-23 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
I may have to write some AU Tonks-ness. Just to assuage my ire.
wrdnrd: (Default)

[personal profile] wrdnrd 2007-07-23 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)
I really only read Hannah's fic. At 1st i ignored it when it'd pop up on her LJ, then i decided to just give it a try, and now i quite like it! I might like it better than Rowling's own ending to it all!!
wrdnrd: (Default)

[personal profile] wrdnrd 2007-07-23 11:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, DO!! Would you pair her up with anyone?

[identity profile] ascentintochaos.livejournal.com 2007-07-24 04:44 pm (UTC)(link)
i liked when harry told off lupin to stay at home with his kid. it's true that people leave their kids all the time to go and fight, but i liked how harry convinced lupin to buck the trend, to encourage a man to stay at home and support his pregnant wife rather than try and be a hero.

i knew snape was good. too bad he dies, but then harry wouldn't have gotten his thoughts and found out everything. convenient how all snape's thoughts were organized perfectly to put together a story.

and i always wondered about dd's dark side, because that's alluded to throughout the books. i thought dd's dark side would be a lot worse, but it's basically about him being tempted by power, learning some lessons, etc. nothing really earth-shattering.

i liked the house elf bit too. and the story with the wands, and the deathly hallows. (i.e. they're things, not a place!)

i knew harry wouldn't die. i thought in the end his scar would disappear, and i was kinda right, with the king's cross chapter. jkr making him naked in that chapter felt like a nod to daniel radcliffe's in-the-buff theatre production, but maybe his play happened after she finished writing?

the finding of horcruxes seemed too easy. at the end of book 6, i wondered how jkr was going to do that in just one book. and i didn't like how harry was so easily able to see into voldemort's mind without repercussion and "get all the answers." like vm couldn't feel it? i wonder what happened to voldy's body! peeve's song at the end was funny: "voldy's gone mouldy."

and of course the epilogue sucked. the world is a happy place ("all is well") when everyone's heteronormative. UGH.

7.5 hours! wow! i did about 10, including a couple interruptions.

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-25 08:10 am (UTC)(link)
Hee. I might do. I was thinking of doing one of those "Five Lives Tonks Never Lived, And One She Did" things. So I could pair her with people in a couple of those. I just don't know who.

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-25 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
Awww! Thank you. I'm all blushing now. (And it's only 9.13am.)

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-28 07:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"but i liked how harry convinced lupin to buck the trend, to encourage a man to stay at home and support his pregnant wife rather than try and be a hero."

Hm, that sounds a bit Promise Keeper-y to me. I mean, if all these people are leaving their own families to fight, why should Lupin be special? And esp. when it's the sort of thing where it's v. much do or die: what kind of world will Teddy have to grow up in if Voldemort wins?

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-28 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe... I have a hard time believing JKR would give that much weight to the importance of convincing folks that her characters didn't just run off & be heteronormative & have kids. I mean, Fleur & Bill got married pretty young... it just doesn't seem like JKR would be all into her characters bothering to live it up before having kids & stuff.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-28 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, we see an awful lot of Harry being angsty about various ppl dying, but not too much other stuff from other ppl.

Hermione being tortured was probably the most horrifying bit for me in the book. And to have any sort of after-effect just not visible was so wrong & weird.

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-28 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
You could be a real rebel & make her a happy spinster!

[identity profile] furyofvissarion.livejournal.com 2007-07-28 07:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Happy spinster! Happy spinster!

Or do some kind of poly queer relationship, that would be nice...

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-29 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Well Harry is the one with all these grand ideas and notions, so he has to angst more. Otherwise we, the lowly reader, would never understand that he is the high and mighty one.

It left me with my shoulders somewhere around my ears, and then set my teeth on edge with the lack of follow-through. Ollivander and Griphook get days in bed, but Hermione is so competent that she recovers miraculously. Bah.

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-29 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Happy spinster would be a good one. (I typed spinster as sprinter twice, and I don't think I can bear to do research into athletics to make that one come true.) Hmmm.

I shall have to have a thunk about this one.

Page 2 of 3