[About Me]
22 July 2007
Life Updates and Thoughts on Harry Potter
Since my last update, I had a fairly busy week running studies and analyzing data and such and what not. Plus, with just a few short weeks to go before my internship ends, I've started getting briefed on the state of the haptic research project I'm working on over there. Plus, I've started formulating some places for a couple of CHI papers (one for my audio game, and a CHI Notes for a research method I've adapted this summer--assuming that's approved to be released). So it was a fairly tiring week. So to end the week, I decided to take a 3 hour nap on Friday before heading over to the San Jose Borders and picking up my midnight copy of the latest installment of Harry Potter (due to lines and such, I didn't actually check out with my copy until close to 1 AM, but close enough). I then proceeded to stay up until 11:59 PM on Saturday (roughly 23 hours of straight reading) finishing the book. Crazy? Perhaps... But I knew that if I didn't read the book this weekend then I'd either overhear spoilers at work, somebody would IM/e-mail me a spoiler, or I'd get a spoiler from the news (I'm a news addict, so it's hard for me to avoid news, and even though I tried to avoid reading the news I still managed to accidentally read part of a spoiler...) But now I've read it all, and I wish to share my thoughts on the book...
***Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are below--you have been warned)***
First off, let me say that I thought that Rowling did a fantastic job of wrapping up the story completely and satisfactorily in this book--she covered the back stories of interest, finished fleshing out characters that had mysteries around them/lacked character flaws, and provided us with all the information we could have wanted about the fates of the characters we had grown to know and love. The most annoying part for me, as an adult reader, however was that while the themes of the story are mature and mature language ('damn' and 'bitch') appear in the book, thus driving it even further from the "children's book" aura... Rowling still dealt with many issues as if it were still a children's book--glossing over many details and not providing the readers with rich, visual descriptions. This is, of course, understandable but I never the less found it fairly annoying at parts. Equally annoying was that the characters, especially Hermione (supposedly the smartest in her class) seemed so dense as they struggled for pages to figure out mysteries that I had solved 50-200 pages beforehand (or 600-some pages beforehand in the case of Harry not being killed despite getting hit by Voldemort's killing curse--I wasn't sure about the Horcrux, but I knew Dumbledore's happiness regarding Voldemort using Harry's blood to ressurect himself would likely mean he couldn't kill Harry--and everybody already knew Harry had to die, at least for a bit...) There were a couple of big twists that I was unable to predict though, namely how to open the snitch (I had assumed he needed to place it completely in his mouth and close his mouth--which is how it was when he caught it); the secret of the Elder Wand owner (I had completely forgotten that before Snape killed Dumbledore, Malfoy had disarmed him); the creator of the silver doe; the fact that Dumbledore had less than a year left to live when Snape killed him (I knew Snape wasn't evil, but I wasn't sure why Dumbledore allowed himself to be killed); or the full story of Dumbledore's murky past (although there weren't many clues to that... unless I missed something).
The death that I found the saddest was that of Dobby. Not because I particularly liked Dobby, but because of the events surrounding his death and the events following it. In a VERY close second place are the joint deaths of Lupin and Tonks, mostly because I felt bad for the child they left behind. In third place was Fred, just because he (along with George) was one of my favorite secondary characters. Neville's death probably would have topped my list had he died--that kid had a lot of spunk and his grandmother was freakin' awesome. Snape's death was kind of pathetic, not because it wasn't emotional (it was very emotional, especially given the chapter after he dies)--it was more pathetic due to the way he died unable to really put up much of a fight despite being one of the most powerful wizards of his time (easily the most powerful Death Eater).
One thing that I never got why it wasn't really explained was why Harry was allowed to continue to think that everybody was dieing for him. The people fighting at Hogwarts weren't dieing for the sake of saving Potter's life, they were dieing because they wanted to see an end to Voldemort and saw Harry as being able to bring the end of their suffering. They all would have rather died then lived in a world ruled by Voldemort.
Speaking of Voldemort... We all know he was arrogant and everything, but why would he think he was the only person who ever found the Room of Requirement (and in particular the version where you hide things of importance)? Also, why is it that he left it without any booby traps in the way? It just seemed kind of a cop out on Rowling's part. Sure, adding a new booby trapped location would have made the 768 page book even longer... But then there were a good 100-200 pages of nothingness that could have been cut without me caring (pages of Ron, Harry, and Hermione whining/bickering/etc. as they tried to figure out a plan--yes it was necessary in terms of the relationships and such, but it did get slightly annoying).
I could write more on the topic of Harry Potter, but I think that I'll leave it at that for now. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments.
***Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are below--you have been warned)***
First off, let me say that I thought that Rowling did a fantastic job of wrapping up the story completely and satisfactorily in this book--she covered the back stories of interest, finished fleshing out characters that had mysteries around them/lacked character flaws, and provided us with all the information we could have wanted about the fates of the characters we had grown to know and love. The most annoying part for me, as an adult reader, however was that while the themes of the story are mature and mature language ('damn' and 'bitch') appear in the book, thus driving it even further from the "children's book" aura... Rowling still dealt with many issues as if it were still a children's book--glossing over many details and not providing the readers with rich, visual descriptions. This is, of course, understandable but I never the less found it fairly annoying at parts. Equally annoying was that the characters, especially Hermione (supposedly the smartest in her class) seemed so dense as they struggled for pages to figure out mysteries that I had solved 50-200 pages beforehand (or 600-some pages beforehand in the case of Harry not being killed despite getting hit by Voldemort's killing curse--I wasn't sure about the Horcrux, but I knew Dumbledore's happiness regarding Voldemort using Harry's blood to ressurect himself would likely mean he couldn't kill Harry--and everybody already knew Harry had to die, at least for a bit...) There were a couple of big twists that I was unable to predict though, namely how to open the snitch (I had assumed he needed to place it completely in his mouth and close his mouth--which is how it was when he caught it); the secret of the Elder Wand owner (I had completely forgotten that before Snape killed Dumbledore, Malfoy had disarmed him); the creator of the silver doe; the fact that Dumbledore had less than a year left to live when Snape killed him (I knew Snape wasn't evil, but I wasn't sure why Dumbledore allowed himself to be killed); or the full story of Dumbledore's murky past (although there weren't many clues to that... unless I missed something).
The death that I found the saddest was that of Dobby. Not because I particularly liked Dobby, but because of the events surrounding his death and the events following it. In a VERY close second place are the joint deaths of Lupin and Tonks, mostly because I felt bad for the child they left behind. In third place was Fred, just because he (along with George) was one of my favorite secondary characters. Neville's death probably would have topped my list had he died--that kid had a lot of spunk and his grandmother was freakin' awesome. Snape's death was kind of pathetic, not because it wasn't emotional (it was very emotional, especially given the chapter after he dies)--it was more pathetic due to the way he died unable to really put up much of a fight despite being one of the most powerful wizards of his time (easily the most powerful Death Eater).
One thing that I never got why it wasn't really explained was why Harry was allowed to continue to think that everybody was dieing for him. The people fighting at Hogwarts weren't dieing for the sake of saving Potter's life, they were dieing because they wanted to see an end to Voldemort and saw Harry as being able to bring the end of their suffering. They all would have rather died then lived in a world ruled by Voldemort.
Speaking of Voldemort... We all know he was arrogant and everything, but why would he think he was the only person who ever found the Room of Requirement (and in particular the version where you hide things of importance)? Also, why is it that he left it without any booby traps in the way? It just seemed kind of a cop out on Rowling's part. Sure, adding a new booby trapped location would have made the 768 page book even longer... But then there were a good 100-200 pages of nothingness that could have been cut without me caring (pages of Ron, Harry, and Hermione whining/bickering/etc. as they tried to figure out a plan--yes it was necessary in terms of the relationships and such, but it did get slightly annoying).
I could write more on the topic of Harry Potter, but I think that I'll leave it at that for now. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments.
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