Saturday, July 21, 2007

Emma Blogger and the Teary Goodbyes.

As I am writing this, I have 5 songs on a “Goodbye” playlist that I prepared specially for writing this. I feel they’re particularly apt for this moment in time, where I am saying goodbye to a series that I have grown up with, that has started when I was 7, and finished when I’m 17.

The songs are:
- Goodbye (Spice Girls)
- Cry (Rihanna)
- Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
- Last Goobye (Jeff Buckley)
- Goodbye Blue Sky (Pink Floyd).


And they’re accompanying, of course, my finishing reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final novel in JK Rowling’s multi-million selling books.

Initial thoughts?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I couldn’t have asked for a better finale.

(I could have asked for a better epilogue, mind!!!! Bloody thing.)

Ok, spoilers ensue…

The Good
- Ron and Hermione finally kiss. To be honest, this was all I was waiting for. Ron is by far my favourite character of the books and films, and Hermione is also one of my favourites in the books (though not the films), and I’ve just been rooting for them to get together from the beginning. And they snog, in the middle of such adversity!! Which just goes to show, all you need is love.
- Voldemort dies. Also what I was waiting for. I wasn’t sure how it’d all go about, though I did have a niggling suspicion that the general population (and me) would be bloody pissed if JK Rowling killed off Harry. So that meant Voldemort must die. And he did, in, the book’s own words, a rather “mundane” fashion. But I was pleased with that, as, at the end of the day, we’re looking at a man who is pure evil, so he hasn’t done any good deeds. A person who’s done no good doesn’t deserve a spectacular ending. He was nothing but a bully, and died weakly, like he deserved.
- Badarse Neville Longbottom. Words cannot describe how proud I was to hear how he so bravely suffered the Cruciatus curses over and over again in the name of defending what was right. It truly would have been poetic justice if it had been he who had slain Bellatrix, but his killing of Nagini was good enough. Go Neville!
- The swearing. Long gone are the days when people can just disregard Harry Potter as a children’s book, the language in Half-Blood Prince and this alone show that it is anything but. I loved Ron’s two usages of the word “bastard”, but even better, Molly Weasley’s outcry of “NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH!!!”
- Harry doing some of the Unforgivable Curses. He’s been playing around with Expelliarmus for far too long, in my opinion.
- The moments of comic relief, such as Lee Jordan’s Potterwatch.
- Harry’s conversation with Dumbledore’s portrait at the end. Poignant, sad, beautiful, and it would have been the perfect way to end the series, yet JK Rowling chose to go with…

The Bad
- That bloody, Hollywood, tacked on, clichéd, lol-inducing as frick ending!!! It just made me angry!!! Who in the name of Borgin & Burkes would name their child Albus Severus? And er, did Ginny get no call at all in choosing the names of her children? Lily and James were Harry’s parents, you’d think he’d have a bit more originality!! Good to see Ron and Hermione getting married, but the interchange between them was unconvincing and stilted. And Harry finally learning that Slytherin wasn’t “all bad”? Bah, how dull!
- The whole Deathly Hallows and the wand, stone and invisibility cloak thing. I was just thinking “meh” throughout. I wanted Harry to get the Horcruxes!
- The body count. As happy as I was to see Voldie and Bella die (yay!), I cried when Dobby died. It was so, so, heartbreaking. Also, Fred, Tonks’ and Lupin’s deaths were sad too.
- JK Rowling overdid it with her usages of the word “Mudblood”, I thought. The moment when Hermione referred to herself as one made me go “oh dear.”…
- Some of the writing and conversations felt slightly stilted, like JK Rowling wanted to insert salacious lines and four-letter words, but had to sacrifice artistic style for book sales.

The Ambivilant
- Finding out that Snape was in fact, good, and that he had been in love with Lily all along. I felt such sympathy for him, as well as slight resentment at James Potter. Should I???

Overall, I feel OK. No, I feel better than OK, I feel as good as I think I can feel about the ending of a series of books that I have grown up with, poured mountains of time and money into the franchise, and loved the characters of. As I said, the ending angered me the most, but there is certainly redemption to be found elsewhere. It’s probably my second or third favourite of the series, and very exciting, thrilling, and dark. In fact, considering how I've grown up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, shared their trials and tribulations, I’m surprised at how composed I am at writing all of this, I expected a mountain of tears.

Oh, wait…



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16 comments:

Kayleigh said...

*SPOILER*



Yeah those are pretty much my feelings...Fred's Demise really got to me....why oh why kill off a WEasley? Its going to devastate my gran! The death toll was way too much for me. Hedwig died....WHY...that was too much!
That ending...JK Rowling really outdid herself on shittiness for it...WHY? It was so cheesy i could smell the cheddar..she should just cut it out...
But great review, you really nailed what made the book...will you be mourning for long...me and my friend are gonna be wearing black for a while...

Kayleigh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Emma said...

About the ending, I personally don't know how to react. I'm just furious. We all had a good laugh at it when I posted it, because we were just all so sure she wouldn't do that to us!!! WTF?

I shall be mourning too. I mean, I'm currently quite OK, but when I wake up tomorrow and realise that Harry Potter is gone forever, I think the depression will kick in...

Kayleigh said...

I heard that she had written the ending to the book years and years ago but i didnt think it could be so unimaginative...she created this whole new world and really made me want to do the same, how could she bastardise her work...it just looked so fake to me, a very realistic fake but a decoy nonetheless.?!

Its really hittihng me knowing this is the end...ill need to find another book series to become obsessed with!

Anonymous said...

I cried so much!

I cried for Dobby, Kreacher, Fred, Hedwig, Snape...

Anonymous said...

If you're discussing the book (haven't read it yet), why are there images of Grint twice, and digimon and stuff?

Anonymous said...

Emma, what's your rankings of the 7 books?

Mine are-
1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
6. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
7. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Emma said...

@ Besty - 'cos they brighten the place up!

Rankings...
01. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
02. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
03. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
04. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
05. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
06. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
07. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Anand Bhardwaj said...

Nice Blog.
A link Swap sounds great.

Yaseen Ali said...

We are in agreement regarding the epilogue - it was atrocious, and I could barely believe that J.K. actually wrote it. I don't care if she wrote it years ago - sometimes letting go of your most beloved and precious work is best for the overall piece. And if she insisted on leaving it in, why only concentrate on a few characters? There are so many other subplots and questions she could have tied up; instead, she settled for the hideous "next generation" wrap-up.

The ending also felt rushed to me; Voldemort bites it, and then everyone has a dinner party? The End? WHAT??!

My overall sentiments? The first three-quarters are phenomenal, among the best Rowling has produced in the series. The last quarter? Talky, trite and much too predictable.

Anonymous said...

Lupin and Tonks's deaths were made less fuss of than they should have been. I know the body count was piling (;__; Fred!!) and she therefore didn't have as much time for personal attention anymore. But still.

I also wish Malfoy got a little more to do besides sticking to his mother and screaming his head off, but I guess Slytherin House's redemption came out of Snape, which I found very well done.

About the epilogue... I agree with the general consensus. |D If I read that, I'd think the most likely writer was a 12-year-old girl. Named Rosie. |D (No slur against Rosies or GOOD 12-year-old fanfic writers who don't insert themselves into their stories intended.)

Anonymous said...

Hey Emma!

I thought the epilogue was quite cheesy, yes, but wouldn't you want to see how everything's going on ... I kinda liked the idea that JK has written this epilogue when she wrote the first book!
And it was quite funny ...esp. Ron telling his daughter that granddad Weasley would bequite upset if lil Rosie married a pureblood one day ... that really made me laugh!

And about badass Neville ... JK has doin' the right thing ... he got the role he deserved at the end - clearly showing that the Dark Lord could have chosen him as well as baby ... he would have been as strong and determined if he had to be in Harry's shoes!!


Cheers,
Kat from The Haven

Anonymous said...

The epilogue is not that bad. It did give closure to the book. Also, if you think more about it, JK gave Harry a great gift - a family that he never had. Also, I think history is repeating itself...Teddy Lupin is apart of the Black family tree; and he is always at the Potters like Sirius

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

Just finished reading today (mind, I only got the book off a friend yesterday!) and I must admit I DID cry. More than I expected. Yes, the epilogue was (mostly) superfluous. Yes, even though I loved the whole revelations thing of the ending IT DID get very talky in the final sections. But it was a heck of a ride to follow these stories to conclusion and overall probably one of the books I have most enjoyed reading.

For me, my order of favourites would be
1. Goblet of Fire
2. Prisoner of Azkaban
3. Deathly Hallows
4. Chamber of Secrets
5. Half Blood-Prince
6. Philosophers Stone
7. Order of the Phoeonix

I would put my first three some way ahead of the other four, and probably my ordering of the remaining four could change in an instant. So tomorrow I could think very differently of the order. Bah. Who cares; the point is now I'm just gonna have to read them all again (and quicker than I was planning to as well) because I'm already missing these stories.

Miss Positive said...

Haven't even read Half-Blood Prince yet! Got to get started if I want to enjoy reading Deathly Hallows now. The 7th book sounds exciting. Good review, by the way.

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