Further discussion of Harry Potter in the comments. Don’t read if you want to avoid spoilers. Good reading about the book at Russell Arben Fox’s blog and Unfogged.
Any mysteries, oddities, etc. you want cleared up? Let’s work on that, too.
Update: you know what surprises me? That more people aren’t making more out of Harry’s intensely strong resemblance to a certain other messianic figure in this book. More in comments.
One thing I’ve had cleared up for me is what the little gibbering thing in the ghostly limbo where Harry meets Dumbledore actually was–it was a demonstration of what happens to someone who dies who has had his soul split into Horcruxes. For some reason, I totally did not get that.
Did anyone else find that Lupin and Tonks’ deaths get buried a little in the battle?
Who is raising Teddy Tonks? The Weasleys?
What do you think Harry’s career is by the time of the epilogue?
Alan and I were talking about this more obliquely in the earlier thread, but here’s the way I read the final sequence:
Harry gets blasted by Voldemort. This kills the Horcrux in Harry, but doesn’t actually kill Harry himself because Voldemort used Harry’s blood to rebuild his body. This is the sixth Horcrux to be destroyed.
Neville kills Nagini. This is the seventh and last Horcrux to be destroyed.
Voldemort is killed in battle. With all Horcruxes destroyed, he’s finally dead.
Isn’t this right?
——-
My main disappointments:
The massive undercharacterization of Ginny Weasley.
The epilogue isn’t as strong as it might be. I don’t quite hate it as much as most people but it’s not very good.
I’d have liked Ron and Hermione to have spoken openly about their romance somewhere after Ron returned to them.
In the end, even with the flashback, we never really learn much about Lily Potter: she’s just a generic mother/woman. In fact, I’d actually say Rowling’s entire attention to female characters is ultimately frustratingly weak in this series, with Hermione the only exception, and even she can be a cipher at times.
Some things I thought were really good besides the obvious (battle at Hogwarts, etc.):
The humanization of Dumbledore. One of the subtle things in the last two books is that Harry is going through a process that most of us go through a few years later where he’s learning about what it means to be an adult, about the real people behind “mother”, “father”, “teacher”.
Thanks, Tim, for lifting the Shield.
I misspoke earlier when I said that R.A.B. had destroyed a Horcrux — he didn’t, but he helped steal one. So: (1) the diary is destroyed by Harry; (2) the ring is destroyed by Dumbledore; (3) the locket is destroyed by Ron; (4) the cup is destroyed by Hermione; (5) the tiara is destroyed by Crabbe, accidentally; (6) Harry’s internal Horcrux is destroyed by Voldemort himself, one way or another; (7) Nagini is destroyed by Neville.
Now, to return to the oblique debate Tim and I were having: Presumably the raw baby that shows up in King’s Cross with Harry is Voldemort’s soul, or rather, the fragment of it that’s still in his body. But what happens to it when Harry returns to this world? Doesn’t it have to return into Voldemort’s body? And doesn’t its return account for the fact that Voldemort gets up when (after he comes back to consciousness) Harry does? As I understand it, you can’t live in Towling’s world without at least a fragment of soul. Which means that when Harry decides to return to his own body he is also returning Voldemort’s soul to *his* body. So the Harry-horcrux is not actually destroyed until Voldemort’s final Killing Curse rebounds on himself.
If I understand the story, here’s what would have happened if Harry had decided to board that train and go “On”: because the only bit of soul left to Voldemort would be inside Nagini, and not in his body, he would be thrown back into the situation he was in after he failed to kill Harry the first time: weakened, bodiless, nearly dead — but able perhaps to come back in some form, and over time to reconstruct his empire. Only by returning to his body is Harry able to finish Voldemort off — at least, after Neville kills Nagini, thus insuring that the only bit of soul left is in Voldemort’s body. If Harry had gone On, he would have earned for people a temporary or uncertain respite (sort of like what would have happened if the Fellowship had thrown the One Ring into the ocean or given it to Tom Bombadil).
Have I got this right, people?
I’ll confine myself to two more comments at the moment:
(1) I think the chief reason people are disappointed in the Epilogue is that they want to know a lot of stuff: did Harry become an Auror? did Hermione become Headmaster of Hogwarts or Minister of Magic? (Evidently not the former.) But I think what Rowling is saying is that none of that stuff really matters. At its core this wonderful story is about the love of friends and family, and the power of that love to overcome the will to power and the dread of death, so what we get at the end is a simple vision of families and friends, people who love one another very much. It’s Rowling’s way of saying that that’s what matters — especially to Harry — not what line of work anyone happened to go into.
(2) My chief reservations of the story are about the plotting. This plot has more holes in it than all the other books combined. I think JKR got too caught up in writing scenes in which Harry & Co. are miraculously delivered from mortal peril, and after so many of them they become tiresome — plus I ran out of Suspension of Disbelief Potion. Would the Death Eaters in Tottenham Court Road really have come in and sat down at a table, especially since one of them is highly recognizable because of his general appearance and his leading role in the previous book’s invasion of Hogwarts? Wouldn’t they have tried to surprise our heroes? And at Malfoy Manor, would Bellatrix et al. really have left their prisoners such freedom of movement? Wouldn’t they OBVIOUSLY have used every body-binding and rope-wrapping and tongue-cleaving spell known to wizardkind to make sure Harry and friends weren’t going anywhere? These things really started to bug me after a while.
Ah, I see. No, I don’t think it returns to Voldemort’s body. I don’t see where Rowling has established that you can’t live without a fragment of your soul, actually. I take it that the final confrontation takes place with a soulless Voldemort. One thing that seems to me to be clear in the story is that by splitting his soul into so many fragments, Voldemort has become psychically numb to their destruction (unlike the classic stories where a wizard puts his soul into an object and pretty much croaks the moment the soul is destroyed, as in Alexander’s Taran Wanderer). So at the end, I took him to be a sort of a dead man walking–a sort of soulless shell who is already doomed (unless he can feel remorse) but doesn’t really know it yet.
I don’t think you’re right, Tim — in Rowling’s world the soul seems to be what animates a body. Look at what happens to people when Dementors suck out their souls — they become mere lumps, bodies without wills. It’s possible, of course, that those rules somehow don’t apply to Voldemort, but there’s nothing to indicate that that is the case. And if those rules do apply to him as to everyone else, then there’s something very powerful in the idea that by returning to his own body Harry gives life back to Voldemort — at great risk, of course, to himself and others.
I should go review the pertinent section of Half Blood Prince to verify my horcrux theory. I thought that Voldemort still retained one shard of soul not embedded in an external object.
My reaction to Tim’s quibbles:
My brother and I both noted the surprising lack of character work done with Ginny when we talked.
I felt that Hermione was really given a lot of nice depth in this one. I especially liked the section where she stayed with Harry after Ron split.
I didn’t feel like Ron and Hermione needed a great declaration of love. It seemed fitting that their affection was rather awkwardly expressed in front of their best friend. What really needs to be said? We saw Ron’s reaction while Hormione is being tortured… Hermione’s pride in Ron’s return to the Chamber… and their big smooch before the battle. Not everything that needs to be said needs to be declared through dialogue.
A great continuation of the conversation, Tim and Alan; I’ll be checking in more later today, and hopefully participating (I need to get off the computer now). For the moment, thanks for the link, and here is another one, to a post written by one of Rowling’s editors (she read Deathly Hallows in January!), who makes a thoughtful defense of both the epilogue and the Hallows plot point (and be sure to read the comments, where some interesting Austen parallels come out!).
Who is raising Teddy Tonks? The Weasleys?
I would imagine that it’s his grandmother, Andromeda. (She survived, didn’t she? Or am I forgetting something?) And I wonder if Narcissa Malfoy still treats her with contempt for having married a Muggle. There’s no reason to think that the Malfoys’ obsessive pure-blood arrogance has changed.
By the way, Rowling seems to forget in this book that Ted Tonks is a Muggle. In the “Fallen Warrior” chapter, for instance, she has him healing Harry’s injuries. There are many errors like that in this book, which, wonderful as it is, needed another round of revision. But JKR must have felt enormous pressure to be done with it.
That is a good defense of the epilogue.
The Malfoys are curious. I kept expecting Draco to have an overt moment of redemption, but he really doesn’t. Which is like life, I guess. In a way his role is just to motivate Narcissa to lie to Voldemort near the end.
My brother and I both noted the surprising lack of character work done with Ginny when we talked.
Surprisingly, I don’t feel this way. I guess I see Rowling as having moved her back amongst the rest of the secondary characters, after having given her such a large place in the sixth book. If I was to complain about any of these characters getting less attention than they deserve, it would be Draco (see below).
I didn’t feel like Ron and Hermione needed a great declaration of love.
No, they didn’t need it. But dammit, I wanted it. I wanted the newly confident and at-peace-with-himself Ron to, quite suddenly, in the midst of some battle or escape (or maybe while resting on the banks of the lake following the escape from Gringotts?), propose to Hermionie, and get the big smooch there, and then maybe insist upon running off and finding a justice of the peace somewhere, delays in the race to find the Horcruxes be damned. It’d have been crazy and stupid and so, so, so much fun. (Molly would have had a heart attack when she found out.)
By the way, Rowling seems to forget in this book that Ted Tonks is a Muggle. In the “Fallen Warrior†chapter, for instance, she has him healing Harry’s injuries.
Was he a Muggle, or just Muggle-born–that is, a Mudblood? Either would be terrible to the pure-blood obsessed Lestranges and Malfoys.
I kept expecting Draco to have an overt moment of redemption, but he really doesn’t. Which is like life, I guess. In a way his role is just to motivate Narcissa to lie to Voldemort near the end.
If not an overt moment of redemption, then at least some moment that would have demonstrated something virtuous and admirable to his character. But instead, unlike in the sixth book, he ultimately comes off cowardly and weak. I thought for one brief moment, right there at the end, when it appeared that Draco had properly won the Elder Wand, that Draco, and by extention the Malfoys, and thus by further extension the whole of Slytherin House, was going to have its moment to show us what it’s all about. But no, that moment passed. At least we got Horace Slughorn taking part in the final duel with Voldemort (in his silk pajamas, no less!), but that wasn’t nearly enough development of Slytherin for me.
You’re absolutely right, Russell! Ted Tonks is Muggle-born, not a Muggle. JKR cleared of all charges! I will go iron my hand now.
the biggest gripe i have is how utterly incompetent the ministry (and the wizarding world) have shown themselves to be. i suppose some of it is Rowling’s commentary on government inefficiency. however, the ministry has known about the imperious curse forever, yet has no way to fight it, protect high level ministers from it, nor even detect it in high levels of the ministry!! this is the biggest flaw in the plot, especially when one considers that voldemort and the death eaters have used it before. can anyone convince me to accept this?
Yeah, Jason, I agree. You’d think there would be some procedure for testing people for the Imperius Curse.
other than that point, i’d have to say that this book was my favorite of the series. i was discussing the book with a friend and she didn’t like the epilogue either. i think the key problem most have (as suggested in the link to the defense) is that we don’t have any idea what the characters are actually doing. i think that it’s an important thing to note, considering that the characters have been with us for seven books and people would be curious about their wizarding jobs. yeah, i get the family emphasis, but without the larger grounding it was plain, not very satisfying.
can anybody clear up why ted lupin was at the platform? he wouldn’t have been going to hogwarts (he was 19). was he just visiting? who was the girl he was snogging (i know her name, but who was she)?
I was thinking a lot in the last part of the book about how directly Christlike Harry’s story had become–but even more, the specific version of the Christ story that appears in the novel The Last Temptation of Christ–that all Christ wants at the end is a happy family life, etc–Harry even has his sympathetic Judas, has to accept death, etc
Jason, if the Weasleys and Potters have a cousin named Victoire, that must be the daughter of Bill and Fleur.
And Tim, yes, Christlike but in certain carefully defined ways. Harry’s walk through the Forbidden Forest is like Jesus in Gethsemane, his time of agony, but with the vital difference that Harry goes with help, with loving support and encouragement, whereas Jesus is utterly abandoned. Rowling clearly wants to hint at Jesus while also emphasizing that, if Jesus is unique and solitary, Harry is not unique, is different than others in degree rather than kind — Neville could have been him, could have been the Chosen One, if Voldemort had acted differently — and always has help. Thus the seven Horcruxes destroyed by seven different people. Voldemort taunts Harry by reminding him of all the assistance that he has had, while the Dark Lord goes it alone, but of course Harry’s network of friends, of people who love him, is his greatest blessing, not a point of weakness.
Alan nails it. I really think Rowling, if anything, purposely undermined the “savior”-reading of Harry’s life and choices by focusing rigorously on the fact that these things he is doing for other people are also things that he does because it just turned out that he can do them. If Voldemort had chosen Neville, if Harry had refused to trust Dumbledore, if Ron and Hermione had not played the parts with Dumbledore had imagined they would…then quite possibly everything would have been different. Part of the whole point of the Christian story is that there was only One who was good enough, only One who could have gone into the Garden and then up upon the Cross. But Harry, by contrast, is a boy who learns, through all his friends and loved ones, how to be the sort of person who could face Voldemort…the implication being that others as well–definitely not Snape, maybe not Dumbledore, but others nonetheless–could do this thing, if they could only love and grow up they way we all should.
Christ Everyman, sure. But the *choice* is kind of similar: accept death with grace, accept your role. When Harry finds out that Dumbledore has been setting him up for the slaughter, he’s serene about it–yes, because of his friends and his life. But he still has a choice–Dumbledore’s ghost in King’s Crossing goes out of his way to tell him so, that he has the choice to return to life or go on into death in part *because* he chose to accept death, rather than try to out-power Voldemort.
Anybody have an idea why Voldemort’s Cruciatus curse doesn’t harm Harry after his “resurrection”?
But the *choice* is kind of similar: accept death with grace, accept your role.
Ok, Tim, I’ll give you that. So long as you leave the savior-of-the-world/Christ-Triumphant thing out of it, and focus on the “suffering servant” aspect, that one who drinks the bitter cup because he chooses to…there, yes, you’ve got a real parallel.
Actually, now that I think of it, wasn’t there a fair bit of casual Christianity thrown around in Deathly Hallows, at least far more than in previous books? “Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also,” that sort of thing?
Anybody have an idea why Voldemort’s Cruciatus curse doesn’t harm Harry after his “resurrection�
It’s because his wand was basically powerless, wasn’t it? At least, that’s the understanding I got out of the final exposition in the chapter–Voldemort’s wand was weak because he was not the true owner of it, and therefore none of his spells were doing any lasting damage. But then, obviously the wand was able to do something; I mean, he was fighting off McGonagall, Slughorn, and Shacklebolt there at the end, so it’s not like it was just shooting sparks. This would mean that Harry should have at least been hurting while Voldemort through him around. So I don’t know. Another instance of Rowling playing fast and loose with some rather incomplete post-hoc explanations? Or maybe just some extra bit of protection Harry carried back with himself from the other side?
I enjoyed your “live blogging” after finishing the book myself. I think I knew exactly where you were at each point except for the “JESUS CHRIST!”
Did you get the feeling that Rowling may have done the blue eye in the mirror bit to deliberately yank the chain of people (like you?) who were afraid she was going to pull a Gandalf? She’s very audience savvy and seems to have a mischievous streak, so I can imagine her messing with the minds of some segments of the audience.
I enjoyed the book a great deal but there are oodles of loose ends and feeble plot points. Like Alan, I sometimes needed a suspension of disbelief potion to deal with characters’ stupidity. Another example is that Voldemort still seems to believe that he alone knew about the Room of Requirements hiding place, even though Draco could have told him that Harry was well acquainted with it.
The loose ends bit rankles more with me, perhaps because Rowling was so expert in making even the smallest plot point useful to later developments in earlier books. The return of Viktor Krum — and indeed the failure to develop the whole all schools need to stick together theme — was a real letdown. Surely he could do more than just forward the Deathly Hallows theme. On the other hand, she’s certainly left the fan fic world a treasure trove to work with.
Anybody have an idea why Voldemort’s Cruciatus curse doesn’t harm Harry after his “resurrection�
It’s because his wand was basically powerless, wasn’t it? At least, that’s the understanding I got out of the final exposition in the chapter–Voldemort’s wand was weak because he was not the true owner of it, and therefore none of his spells were doing any lasting damage. But then, obviously the wand was able to do something; I mean, he was fighting off McGonagall, Slughorn, and Shacklebolt there at the end, so it’s not like it was just shooting sparks.
I may be off base, but isn’t it more than just that Voldemort isn’t the true owner, but that Harry is the true owner? The want won’t hurt its true master.
While I agree that Draco deserved far more development, the Malfoy’s do get their redemption. Narcissa, and Lucius as well, choose the love of their child over Voldemort. Sure, this isn’t a full-press “Snape-turned-to-the-light” redemption, but rather a smaller, more human choice that pulls them away from Voldemort. And helps, in some small way, to defeat him.
Good enough for me.
Oh, and I also agree with Alan about the epilogue. It brings closure to what animated Harry — family and friendship. And it would have been impossible for Rowling to address all of the unresolved questions. So why even try?
I wasn’t wild about the epilogue, but I think it makes sense.
The “JESUS CHRIST” was the sudden announcement by Kingsley Shacklebolt at the end of the wedding that the Ministry had fallen and Scrimgeour was dead.
Voldemort’s wand is powerful enough that he can perform a Killing Curse that kills him, so I don’t think Harry’s invulnerability is a product of any weakness of Voldemort’s. Nor can it be that the Elder Wand can’t kill its true owner, since it already has killed its true owner. Voldemort can do things to Harry — toss him in the air, etc. — but he can’t hurt him. And Harry knows (somehow) that the Cruciatus Curse won’t hurt him. Does that also mean that even if he hadn’t blocked Voldemort’s final Killing Curse with his own spell, he still would have been invulnerable to it, like Superman to bullets? I just don’t get it.
Dan,
While I agree that Draco deserved far more development, the Malfoys do get their redemption. Narcissa, and Lucius as well, choose the love of their child over Voldemort.
Narcissa does; does Lucius? I’m not sure–he shows a lot of discontent and worry, but I don’t read him as having ever made a genuine choice, however small. Interestingly (and going along with my mild annoyance at the treatment of Draco, the Malfoys, and Slytherin in general), I thought the chapter at Malfoy Manor, where I am certain that Draco was purposively not recognizing Harry, was genuinely laying the groundwork for a break by Malfoy, and I found myself hoping that Draco would sneak into Hogwarts and play an important role in the end. I really kind of wonder–what with all that stuff about Malfoy controlling at one point the Elder Wand–if that wasn’t in some earlier draft. But in the end, all Malfoy really did was give Harry someone else to rescue, and give Ron someone to punch in the face.
The “JESUS CHRIST†was the sudden announcement by Kingsley Shacklebolt at the end of the wedding that the Ministry had fallen and Scrimgeour was dead.
I knew it! And I agree with your reaction. That was the moment when I knew, absolutely knew, that just about everything I had predicted for the book was going to be wrong.
It’s the power of Harry’s self-sacrifice. It’s like his mother’s protection. The sacrifice, freely given out of love, has the power to protect everyone against Voldemort’s attacks. Harry is the Savior. Death has no power.
At least, that was how I read it.
Oh, I was also highly disappointed by the fact that there was no redemptive moment for Draco. I was also convinced that he was deliberately not recognizing Harry, because once he was in the thick of being a Death Eater, he discovered that it kind of sucked, and he wanted OUT. But nothing ever came of it. I was also disappointed that none of the Slytherin students came over to the Light side of the force–although she continued to give lip service to the idea that being a Slytherin is not necessarily evidence of evilness, JKR is pretty light on the examples. Snape, Slughorn, and the reluctant aid of Sirus’s ancestor (via his portrait) don’t make a terribly compelling case. Also, there don’t seem to have been any Death Eaters who were not Slytherins (at least none named). The simplicity and essentialism disappoints me. Also, JKR spends so much time cutting down James Potter–we see him mostly through Snape’s eyes–that I can’t see what Lily ever saw in him, though it must have been something. But all we ever see of him is that he was an arrogant git who liked to play tricks on people. I guess she just takes for granted the hero-worship that young children have for their parents, and goes from there.
But I really really enjoyed the book. The wandering in the woods didn’t bother me, and I found the abandonment of the structure of the Hogwarts school year to be liberating, as I had found it quite tedious in the last few books.
This is why I’m thinking that if she ever wants to write a new series, it would be great to make Albus Severus the central character and stick him in Slytherin. Maybe a new threat rises where love and self-sacrifice aren’t the answer, but instead what’s needed is the controlled and discreet application of power. That would set up an interesting generational contrast, if Albus Severus needed to be more like Dumbledore AND Snape (his namesakes) than his father in order to deal with a danger to his world and his friends.
Mrs. Coulter,
I was also disappointed that none of the Slytherin students came over to the Light side of the force–although she continued to give lip service to the idea that being a Slytherin is not necessarily evidence of evilness, JKR is pretty light on the examples. Snape, Slughorn, and the reluctant aid of Sirus’s ancestor (via his portrait) don’t make a terribly compelling case.
I’m completely with you, though I recognize that in hammering on this point–on the whole question of the different houses and what the whole James-Snape-Lily dynamic is supposed to show us, if anything–as I have here and on my own blog with Alan and Karl simply the reveals the degree to which I still wish I could see in this book something different than the story Rowling plainly intended to give us. But I don’t care–I wanted a good Slytherin! I wanted some sort of intra-Hogwarts (or indeed, wizarding-world-wide) moment of change or recognition! And I continue to insist that, on some level or another, Rowling was at least initially fiddling around with that. You have all those old comments from Dumbledore talking about how there’s something fundamentally wrong with how wizards have run their world, ignoring the Muggles and elves; you have his comment–relayed through the Pensieve–that Hogwarts probably “sorts too soon.” Moreover, poke around Rowling’s website and some of her interviews, and you’ll see that she had set up back stories for several Slytherin student characters–in particular a chap named Nott–that were at one time going to serve as a counterpoint to the Malfoys. Certainly Slughorn is such, with him very specifically giving Draco the cold shoulder in the sixth book. So the raw material was there. But in the end, she didn’t see developing it as important to her bildungsroman…and I suppose that’s a legitimate choice, though a frustrating one for some of her readers.
Also, JKR spends so much time cutting down James Potter–we see him mostly through Snape’s eyes–that I can’t see what Lily ever saw in him, though it must have been something. But all we ever see of him is that he was an arrogant git who liked to play tricks on people. I guess she just takes for granted the hero-worship that young children have for their parents, and goes from there.
This is something else that Alan and Karl and I discussed in the comments on my blog: how did James change? All we ever are told is that he “grew up.” Well hell, this whole story is about Harry growing up, and we can see in ain’t easy. Why did James manage it, and Snape not? (Taking “growing up” to mean changing for the sake of love, for the sake of something asked of you by others.) But again, that is not the story we’re getting, except in small glimpses here and there.
Tim,
This is why I’m thinking that if she ever wants to write a new series, it would be great to make Albus Severus the central character and stick him in Slytherin. Maybe a new threat rises where love and self-sacrifice aren’t the answer, but instead what’s needed is the controlled and discreet application of power.
Oh, yes! Tim, that’s brilliant. And there’s a foundation laid for sucha generational conflict, or at least inconsistency–notice how easily the rules against memory manipulation or Unforgivable Curses go out the window once war is declared. Couldn’t you just see Harry coming down hard on Albus for deciding to use a little bit of the Dark Arts, and then, as the story progresses, learning of his dad’s own willingness to get Dark occasionally (“You’ve got to mean them, Potter!”) in the past?
one of the ways james p. grew up was his continued friendship with lupin–maybe lily admired that–her patronus was a doe after all. while he made fun of snape, snape was choosing the dark side. i imagine that in helping lupin he was taking many personal risks–these things were covered in earlier books. he was an unlicensed animagus–they snuck out of hogwarts to run aroung with lupin: control the wolf, which in itself was several major risks: getting bitten and becoming a werewolf, getting caught sneaking out and being punished, and getting caught unlawfully being an animagus.
these things seem admirable to me–sticking one’s neck out for a friend. also, remember we see the james’ past through the bitter memories of snape, so we see him at his worst moments.
This is why I’m thinking that if she ever wants to write a new series, it would be great to make Albus Severus the central character and stick him in Slytherin.
Only problem with this idea is that we were told in the first book that Dumbledore was in Griffindor. Hermione said so, so it must be true.
Lots of people seem to complain about this moralistic dualism between Slytherin and everybody else. Remember, though, that the Slytherin House was founded by Salazar Slytherin who created a schizm and ultimately left the school over its admittance policy. The founder wasn’t certfiably evil, but he was a bigot. And that bigotry was used and exploited in various ways over the years. Hogwarts was founded circa 1000. The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was signed in 1692, but clearly didn’t resolve some very old tensions between Muggles and Wizards. And the tension within the wizarding community remained into the (fictional) present day, where bigotry could be exploited for the purpose of consolidating power.
So you could say that the 17 year life of Harry Potter coincides with the great civil war of the wizarding world. Among other things, this war will decide whether the wizarding world will live in peaceful coexistence with non-magical humans, or will become an invisible genocidal regime, like a Hitler with an S.S. that only the Prime Minister even knows about.
A Scrimgoeur or Kingsley Shacklebolt follow-up with the British P.M. would have been interesting, perhaps an argument about whether the time might come where the crumbling resistance might have to break their secrecy so as to give the poor Muggles a chance to hide/defend themselves.
And remember too that just because most of the Slytherin didn’t help Harry, most of them didn’t join the death-eaters either. Self-preservation is one of the most frequently noted Slytherin characteristics, and you see that again and again through Malfoy behavior. (And frankly, self-preservation is supposedly the root of the pure-blood hostility toward non-magical people.) You could assume that in a permanent Voldemort regime, Slytherins would most easily go along to get along, much as many people have throughout the ages under fascist or totalitarian regimes.
Slughorn is meant to be the redemptive Slytherin (along with Snape). Remember that he’s been hiding to preserve himeself at the beginning of 6. And Dumbledore tells him that it’s time for him to pick sides. And he does. He may be a pompous jerk, but he does fight to protect Hogwarts against the Death-eaters.
daddy,
i think the comment was speaking of Harry’s son Albus Severus Potter and not the deceased Albus Dumbledore.
i don’t have a problem with the moralistic dualism as much as i do with the good=pretty, evil=ugly essentializing that the series does. that has always disturbed me about the books. there are a few characters who are exceptions to this rule, but not many.
Another story that I assume has to continue from this time forward, riffing off of the idea that this was the culmination of a Wizard civil war that’s been brewing for some time.
We’re told that Godric’s Hollow was founded at a rather notable historic moment in the Muggle world–I thought the clear implication was that wizards decided they had to go into seclusion away from Muggles as a result of the tumult of the Reformation, the English Civil War, Puritanism, and so on. So now witches and wizards are just a legend to Muggles.
If I were the Muggle Prime Minister after Voldemort is dead, I’d be quietly speaking to a few trusted subordinates about striking back at the wizarding world as a whole. Lots of people dead and not a thing that the PM can do about it–yet.
This is why I’m thinking that if she ever wants to write a new series, it would be great to make Albus Severus the central character and stick him in Slytherin. Maybe a new threat rises where love and self-sacrifice aren’t the answer, but instead what’s needed is the controlled and discreet application of power.
This sounds like it should be written by the bastard son of J. K. Rowling and Iain Banks. (Or, if you’re in a bad enough mood, J. K. Rowling and China Miéville.)
This is a great discussion, but I wanted to add my major quibble with the book, which as far as I have seen, has not been mentioned. I did really like the book and the series, but the most dissonance I felt while reading the book was at the end where they are laying out the bodies of the fallen, and it says something like, “Fred, Tonks, Lupin, and fifty others”–Hello!
Fifty “other” people have died in the Battle of Hogwarts? Nameless too, they are. It really reminds me of the part in Henry V, when Henry asks who was killed during the battle and is told the names of the 4 nobles who have died and then “None else of name, but five and twenty” (IV.viii.105). Presumably, many of the fifty others are students at Hogwarts, and I think they deserve names. It’s like they were wearing the red uniform on StarTrek or are unnamed henchmen in a James Bond movie, and I think it felt disjointed because I the book didn’t feel like that–previously all deaths were significant and addressed.
THis also leads into why I thought the Battle of Hogwarts was somewhat problematic. It’s like a reverse Agincourt. DeathEaters kill fiftysome good guys, the good guys kill 2 Death Eaters and win (of course, they are the worst two, but still). For once in a work of popular culture, it seems like the good guys just can’t shoot straight. I understand why Harry is Unforgiveable Curse-averse, and I think that is fine for his character (Harry is not Prince Hal), but shouldn’t almost everyone else be shooting to kill at this point? Is it that they are not dueling to kill or that they are just not good at it? Yes, Mrs. Weasley kills Bellatrix, but I just thought that the body count on the Death Eater side would be a little higher. And I would have appreciated deaths that were not movtivated by personal revenge (the deaths of Harry’s parents, deaths of Fred, danger to the Weasleys), but just by the necessity of war. It seems as though in Rowling’s world, she can’t imagine a good guy killing someone just because the cause warrants it. Even Dumbledore’s triumph over Grindelwald has a “personal” element to it–his sister. Just for once, can it NOT be personal, but be for the side of good.
If I had to speculate further, I would probably say that the problem comes from placing a narrative where victory comes through sacrifice, resurrection, and redemption over a narrative that seems more militaristic (The Battle of Hogwarts–where one would assume that victory would be achieved more Prince Hal style). It really seems as if the only way the good guys can win is through Harry’s sacrifice, because they are certainly not going to win the day in a straight up fight (even though their numbers seem superior, they have some of the most talented wizards (the teachers) and they are on their home turf).
Despite these lengthy objections, I still really liked the book and felt the series ended OK.
I think that’s a good point. I mean, first off, who are these 50? 50 adults who’ve come to join the fight? Are there even 50 wizard adults of appreciable skill who are not members of the Order of the Phoenix and yet so trustworthy that they’d be encouraged to come through the portal to Hogwarts to join the struggle? I wonder a bit at times about the demography of the WIzarding world–how many wizards there are, what most of them do for a living, where they all are. I don’t get the impression that there’s really that many.
If not, 50 students? 50?? That might solve the problem of “can this gang shoot straight” with the answer being, no, no they can’t–it’s a bunch of underskilled teenagers getting slaughtered by hyperskilled adults. But that’s a grimmer scene by far than a lot of the descriptive passages in the Battle of Hogwarts would imply.
I also think yes, at this point, the good guys are pretty well justified with doing something more than stunning the Death Eaters. Not the least of which is that often these are people who’ve had TWO chances to make something better of themselves, and TWICE they’ve joined up to kill and torment others.
Maybe one reason Rowling doesn’t kill a lot of Death Eaters is that in the end we don’t really know many of them with any degree of specificity. There’s the Blacks and the Malfoys, and then in this book we get a few more of them, but we know very little about even the newer named Death Eaters other than their names and some of their more snivvely habits. Bellatrix needs to get a big death scene because she’s such an out-and-out villain. The Malfoys need to survive for plot reasons. After that, there’s not many dead Death Eaters who would stir us either way, really, if we heard that they had been killed.
I wanted a good Slytherin!
I don’t think this makes sense. The point of there being a Slytherin house, I think, is that the not-good is also necessary to the whole, just as Snape’s deceitfulness was essential to fighting Voldemort…