Monday, July 23, 2007

The Boy Who Lived - Spoiler Free

In case you were stranded on a deserted island for the last month and didn't know, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows was released this weekend. Records were broken (5000 copies per minute in the US). Fights broke out. Police may or may not have arrested people for spoiling the ending at Harvard Square. Pretty much par for the course. As a side note, it is interesting to me how lining up to be the first to purchase or see something is becoming more and more "cool." Recently people have lined up for Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, iPhone, Harry Potter, and every weekend it seems like people are lining up to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster at a midnight showing. I find this to be an interesting trend in pop culture. I wonder when it will flip and no longer be "the cool thing to do?"

But back to the Potter. I really enjoyed The Deathly Hallows. It wasn't my favorite of the series but I did find it quite satisfying. I loved how Harry, Ron, and Hermoine have all grown and developed over the course of the series. Harry has really grown into his hero roll. I did find the climax to be slightly annoying but in retrospect I am OK with it. I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone so I will leave it at that.

My favorite part of the book was the epilogue. Once again, I don't want to ruin it for everybody so I won't say too much more. I actually want to say a little more about this part. I have written three or four sentences and erased them all because I felt like I was giving too much away. So I will just say that I really enjoyed the book and thought that it was a solid end to a fantastic series. I am content. I am interested to hear what other people think now that the series has been completed. Are you happy? Disappointed? One request, please leave the comments spoiler free. I don't want to ruin the ending for anybody.

1 comment:

lybberty said...

I was one of those who waited in line--for about 2 hours in front of the Gower Street Waterstones in London. I read from 2am till 7am the first night and finished it the next day. I'd committed to reading it in one sitting but I just couldn't do it. My thoughts:

I wish it had been longer.

At the same time, it seemed to drag in spots w/o the school year at Hogwarts to give it a natural narrative progression. I found myself asking, "how much time has passed since the beginning?"

Good character development throughout. I don't like that she kills off so many of my fav characters, but still, those who remain, great.

I suppose it is a strength of the series that she kills off characters who could answer Harry's questions. Instead, he's left to wonder about things and be frustrated that the answers aren't easily divined. That's real life.

The ending was appropriate and, the more I thought about it, made more sense than all of the crazy scenarios I'd read about on the internet in the days leading up to the release.

Did you notice the clever use of the epilogue in forestalling any attempts by other authors at writing additional books?

When you open up another "spoilers allowed" thread, let me know.