"Your wand, Lucius. I require your wand."
Jul. 22nd, 2007 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangtriSo I'm stuck at home tonight, and have to stay online for a little longer: I was supposed to do some basic testing some time between 4h ago and now, at the tail end of a major data rescue/copying operation. But they're overshooting the allotted 24h. Not much concentration for anything but minor browsing and musing, though -- and my neighbouring LJs are full of Deathly Hallows reviews. Well, then, I want to participate in this wankfest!
So how good is Rowling at the jigsaw puzzle thing? Turns out, very good. Shallow as it may be, seeing how plot points fit together is one of the more satisfaction-inducing parts of the entire HP-reading thing. Harry catching his first Snitch with his mouth in book 1 actually fulfills a relevant plot point in book 7! There's loads about wands again, a profusion of Patroni, Gringott's, Dragons, Goblins, Umbridge and the Ministry; and Hermione's house-elf activism has finally some concrete bearing on how Harry and Ron behave to Kreacher -- with excellent results. Places, catchphrases ("Are you a Wizard?") and themes (Ron's crisis) come back for readers to better say good bye to them.
The overall narrative is convincing enough, and the execution as an action/adventure quest story fitting (and she pulls off the action not badly at all). I'm less disappointed than I expected to be -- the tying-up of ends happened to the detriment of sub-plots though, which was a bit of a shame (Werewolfs, minor characters just popping in and out of the story with no space to develop further). Lots of scenes that cry for a big-screen treatment with special effects and all the trimmings, though I'm not interested myself in watching the films.
On the character-development side, Hermione's treatment has improved by tons compared to the previous tome, and not just because of the bottomless-pit dress purse, and Ron's handled very fittingly. Dumbledore -- yes, he's dead, no worries -- is one of the highlights. I didn't expect Rowling to add major revelations, but she did, and it's all for the good. Because before, we had either wise-and-kindly!Dumbledore or manipulative-bastard!Dumbledore, the latter not acknowledged by the author at all, and most interpretations leaned towards one side to the exclusion of the other. Now we have a Dumbledore all in shades of grey and indeed being manipulative -- and the last of the potential father figures taken off his pedestal. (Lupin gets a bit of a hit, too.) Oh and Aberforth of course, who made and talked sense. Draco (and the other Malfoys) -- lots of potential here.
This is very much a Trio story. And with Luna and Neville returning in prominent secondary roles, Ginny is as usual odd one out. I don't believe JKR ever clearly knew what to do with her. "Worthy partner to the boy hero" does not a character make -- though this time is an improvement over the last book.
We've become used to lack of editorial oversight in the HP books, unfortunately, and the same at times clunky writing we've seen in the previous books plagues this one as well. There are also a few minor blunders that a good editor should have caught: Hermione talking about modifying her parents' memory on p. 84 -- in itself a brilliant point, very Hermione -- and then 55 pages later stating she had never done a Memory Charm before; Ron speaking Parseltongue by imitation (WTF?!); and the Muggle Studies teacher should really have been introduced and given some minor screen time a book or three earlier. The epilogue is utterly forgettable, almost cringeworthy -- I'd have loved to know what the survivors end up doing with their lives, not just how many children they had! While I respect that family is a central topic, the obsession with baby-making to the exclusion of all other life decisions (outside of fighting dark wizards) jars.
Death as the overarching theme was really no surprise. As for "who dies", it's of course a bloodbath. I can actually swallow the way she uses the inevitable "sacrifice" theme -- with the twist she adds when Harry pulls a Lily to save the combatants.
Browsing through the fandom, there's a lot of unhappiness about the "unnecessary" and "undeserved" killing of Lupin and Tonks, "for shock value only", and complaints that it wasn't Neville who got to take out Bellatrix or Lupin or Bill to get rid of Greyback. But I think the desire to tie up ends too neatly and to give symbolic value to every death is a weakness of fan fiction, and in particular well-written and interesting fan-fiction: people are missing a point here. Because most war deaths don't make sense, and one token major character (Fred) dying in the final battle would not have been enough, given how devastating this war had become. Yes, it's sad (and I was quite underwhelmed with Tonks this time, reduced to being an off-screen mother for most of the book), but it's a war! It's cruel, unjust and horrifying. There were already two major fan fiction clichés in this book (Lily/Snape love and Harry as a Horcrux) already, which gave the reading a strange quality. So I'm glad that neither Snape nor Wormtail died throwing themselves in front of Killing Curses to save Harry, and esp. Snape being killed for the sake of mere expedience felt perfectly right. Not to mention Trelawney's Crystal Ball tennis!
I'm not yet convinced the entire soul-economy at the very end actually makes sense, but I'm trying to think it through. What precisely would have happened if Harry had decided to "take a train" and "move on"? Would Voldemort have regained consciousness at all? Thing to ponder...
The overall narrative is convincing enough, and the execution as an action/adventure quest story fitting (and she pulls off the action not badly at all). I'm less disappointed than I expected to be -- the tying-up of ends happened to the detriment of sub-plots though, which was a bit of a shame (Werewolfs, minor characters just popping in and out of the story with no space to develop further). Lots of scenes that cry for a big-screen treatment with special effects and all the trimmings, though I'm not interested myself in watching the films.
On the character-development side, Hermione's treatment has improved by tons compared to the previous tome, and not just because of the bottomless-pit dress purse, and Ron's handled very fittingly. Dumbledore -- yes, he's dead, no worries -- is one of the highlights. I didn't expect Rowling to add major revelations, but she did, and it's all for the good. Because before, we had either wise-and-kindly!Dumbledore or manipulative-bastard!Dumbledore, the latter not acknowledged by the author at all, and most interpretations leaned towards one side to the exclusion of the other. Now we have a Dumbledore all in shades of grey and indeed being manipulative -- and the last of the potential father figures taken off his pedestal. (Lupin gets a bit of a hit, too.) Oh and Aberforth of course, who made and talked sense. Draco (and the other Malfoys) -- lots of potential here.
This is very much a Trio story. And with Luna and Neville returning in prominent secondary roles, Ginny is as usual odd one out. I don't believe JKR ever clearly knew what to do with her. "Worthy partner to the boy hero" does not a character make -- though this time is an improvement over the last book.
We've become used to lack of editorial oversight in the HP books, unfortunately, and the same at times clunky writing we've seen in the previous books plagues this one as well. There are also a few minor blunders that a good editor should have caught: Hermione talking about modifying her parents' memory on p. 84 -- in itself a brilliant point, very Hermione -- and then 55 pages later stating she had never done a Memory Charm before; Ron speaking Parseltongue by imitation (WTF?!); and the Muggle Studies teacher should really have been introduced and given some minor screen time a book or three earlier. The epilogue is utterly forgettable, almost cringeworthy -- I'd have loved to know what the survivors end up doing with their lives, not just how many children they had! While I respect that family is a central topic, the obsession with baby-making to the exclusion of all other life decisions (outside of fighting dark wizards) jars.
Death as the overarching theme was really no surprise. As for "who dies", it's of course a bloodbath. I can actually swallow the way she uses the inevitable "sacrifice" theme -- with the twist she adds when Harry pulls a Lily to save the combatants.
Browsing through the fandom, there's a lot of unhappiness about the "unnecessary" and "undeserved" killing of Lupin and Tonks, "for shock value only", and complaints that it wasn't Neville who got to take out Bellatrix or Lupin or Bill to get rid of Greyback. But I think the desire to tie up ends too neatly and to give symbolic value to every death is a weakness of fan fiction, and in particular well-written and interesting fan-fiction: people are missing a point here. Because most war deaths don't make sense, and one token major character (Fred) dying in the final battle would not have been enough, given how devastating this war had become. Yes, it's sad (and I was quite underwhelmed with Tonks this time, reduced to being an off-screen mother for most of the book), but it's a war! It's cruel, unjust and horrifying. There were already two major fan fiction clichés in this book (Lily/Snape love and Harry as a Horcrux) already, which gave the reading a strange quality. So I'm glad that neither Snape nor Wormtail died throwing themselves in front of Killing Curses to save Harry, and esp. Snape being killed for the sake of mere expedience felt perfectly right. Not to mention Trelawney's Crystal Ball tennis!
I'm not yet convinced the entire soul-economy at the very end actually makes sense, but I'm trying to think it through. What precisely would have happened if Harry had decided to "take a train" and "move on"? Would Voldemort have regained consciousness at all? Thing to ponder...
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Date: 2007-07-22 05:30 pm (UTC)