Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The Most Unlikely Killer in the Final Book
From: Dan Kois
To: Will Leitch and Polly ShulmanPosted Monday, July 23, 2007, at 6:54 PM ETCaution: This entire Book Club contains spoilers.
Dear Will and Polly,
Wow, and I thought I would be a lone grumpy voice in the wilderness! I can't say I strongly disagree with any of your points, except perhaps one. Will, you expressed your dissatisfaction that it was Mrs. Weasley, and not Neville, who killed Bellatrix Lestrange. I didn't mind that choice in the slightest, for two reasons.
The theme of parents' fierce and protective love for their children has always been present in Rowling's series, of course, but it came to the fore again and again in this book, in ways I found thrilling and touching. Consider poor Xenophilius Lovegood and Narcissa Malfoy, who both betray their beliefs at crucial moments in the desperate hope of keeping their children safe: Lovegood drops a dime on Harry and his friends because his daughter, Luna, has been kidnapped, while Draco Malfoy's mother lies to Voldemort and the assembled Death Eaters about Harry's death in exchange for his whispered assurances of her son's continued survival.
In that spirit, I thought the transformation of Mrs. Weasley from hausfrau to Death Eater Killing Machine was stunning and near-miraculous, especially as it's one of the only moments when we're meant, as readers, to cheer the use of deadly force in battle. Mrs. Weasley faces off against the crazed, careless, evil-to-the-core Bellatrix, whom I could no more imagine caring for a child than I could imagine myself escaping from Azkaban; it was nice to see the long-suffering mom strike a blow against evil. My only regret is that she didn't take out child-assaulting Fenrir Greyback while she was at it.
And I'm glad that Neville's contribution to the fight was saved until the very end, and at the moment of greatest crisis. Not just because, though he'll never know it, the fabled prophecy could just as well have been about him, but also because—as a friend pointed out to me today—Neville functions in the books as sort of an anti-Wormtail. Like young Peter Pettigrew, he arrived at school a similarly unskilled and awkward wizard, who through chance became friends with a group of much more popular students. But Harry, Ron, and Hermione were kinder friends to Neville than Sirius, James, and Remus were to Pettigrew, and at least partially as a result Neville grew into heroism rather than villainy. When Neville pulled the sword from the Sorting Hat (ah, right, Polly—magic!) and chopped Nagini's head off, rendering Voldemort mortal at last, I confess I was so happy my Patronus could have cleared an entire forest of Dementors.
But back to the gripes. I am grateful to Rowling for ending the book on an epilogue, showing us Harry and his friends 19 years later. But I dearly wish that epilogue could have been much longer—perhaps some random tent-pitching scenes could have been cut from the middle—and much more detailed. We learn that Harry and Ginny are married, as are Ron and Hermione, and that children abound, including Harry's three and Ron and Hermione's two. We learn that orphaned Teddy Tonks is alive and well and romancing Victoire, the child of Fleur Delacour and Bill Weasley whose hilarious name suggests she was conceived the night Voldemort was defeated. We learn that Neville is teaching Herbology at Hogwarts, and that Draco Malfoy is also married—with a son, whom Draco has named not Eric or Bob or Goodly or something else that will distract attention from his family's sordid past, but Scorpius.
As comics blogger Heidi MacDonald points out over on The Beat, this chapter—which Rowling has always said she wrote years ago and, presumably, only revised slightly this time around—reads poorly and feels awfully bourgeois in its concern with little other than our heroes' marriages and children. I would have much preferred a longer scene, more carefully written, that offers not only the happily-ever-after but a larger picture of the ramifications of the war we've just seen the wizarding world go through. Did George, with his twin dead, continue on with Weasley's Wizard Wheezes? How was Hogwarts affected by the great battle that took place on its grounds? What do Harry and Ron and Hermione do for a living? (Ron has learned to drive a Muggle car, but that doesn't count.) And is there some memorial to those who died in the Second Wizarding War, as the cold and quiet remains of James and Lily's house serve as testament to those lost in the first?
Or maybe what I'm actually asking for is, you know, a sequel.
Sadly,
Dan
The Most Unlikely Killer in the Final Book
From: Dan Kois
To: Will Leitch and Polly ShulmanPosted Monday, July 23, 2007, at 6:54 PM ETDan Kois was the founding editor of New York
magazine's arts and culture blog, Vulture. He lives in Arlington, Va. Will Leitch is the editor of Deadspin.com and the author of the young adult novel Catch. Brad Meltzer, a novelist and comics writer, is the author of The Book of Fate. Polly Shulman is the author of Enthusiasm, a novel for young adults. Illustration by Charlie Powell.
Remarks from the Fray Editor:
If you're spoiler shy... If you're following Harry Potter discussions... If you haven't yet finished the book... If you're experiencing all three of these conditions, yet you're reading this article... Then you, my friend, are a foolhardy reader.
There seem to be a lot of foolhardy readers out there.
If you're afraid of spoilers close your eyes. Close this page. Don't enter the Fray. Open your book and get finished already, so that you can join this discussion. Spoilers follow below. The Fray overfills with 'em.—G.A.
Remarks from the Fray:
I find it odd that people seem disappointed that 19 years down the road the characters lead seemingly humdrum lives, about which we don't hear much. [That's] just the point.
Folks, most people don't aspire to be under constant threat of death - mostly people want to live happy, relatively uneventful lives. They want to live in a house they love, do work they enjoy, raise kids, be comfortable. The fact that killing Voldemort allowed this to happen is, I think, poignant - Harry was never comfortable as the Boy Who Lived, and now he can finally get away from it. Maybe as readers we want excitement and adventure and really wild things on the page, but by not making Harry et al want these things, Rowling is respecting the characters she created.
On a certain level, I find it a profound commentary on what most people want out of life - not fame or fortune or power, but love and happiness. Odd that so many readers don't seem to see that.
--brennan
(To reply, click here.)
The continued short shrift that Harry gives Hermione is incredibly frustrating in this book, more than in any other. Perhaps Rowling's one effort to comment on this is when she complains about having to do all the cooking - which is not only immediately dismissed, but also like, come on! The one thing Hermione is going to complain about is something so easily dismissed by the unsympathetic reader as an 'age old' feminist complaint. How about the fact that Hermione does everything and never gets a shred of the credit, other than some astonished expressions and the occasional "Mione that's amazing!"
She is consistently the character who saves Harry's ass and I continue to be frustrated that in the last book Rowling does nothing to really acknowledge or challenge this within her book - it is not just enough to assume that readers who like Hermione are going to get it, especially when Harry remains on such a pedestal, or that the lack of thoroughgoing challenge to Harry and Ron's behavior will be picked up on by readers with feminist sympathies, especially when most readers do not share such sympathies! It is especially important to be challenging this, I think, in a children's book.
It is not really believable that Hermione wouldn't challenge Harry more when she so relentlessly stands up for those who are denied rights, equality, and dignity. Maybe it's that other tendency on her part (or Rowling's?) to view her guy(s) as the only ones who are not sexist - they're my best friends, how can they be sexist? etc
Does Rowling's overall failure to inject a feminist critique into Harry Potter reflect her desire to prevent the boys from having to engage in some serious self-critique, a caving in to popular dislike of feminism, or her own discomfort with feminism?
--heypop
(To reply, click here.)
The Problem with the final Harry Potter book is lack of sex. In books 5-6 the students at Hogwarts slowly start to come to terms with their maturing attitudes to the opposite sex. Rowling deftly negotiates the concerns and fears of adolescence as they begin to date, and finally "snog". Throughout book 6 Rowling has various students, including Ron, Harry, and Ginny snogging constantly as they realize their emerging desires.
In book 7 Rowling starts with a great scene showing Harry's awkward attitude towards himself, his body, and his friends. "He felt like asking them to show a little more respect for his privacy as they all began stripping off with impunity, clearly much more at ease with his body then they would have been with their own." This one line gives much insight into the mindset of a 17 year old and allows Harry and his friends to seem believable.
When you contrast that with the 3 teens spending months living together in a forest, with no one supervising, and no one else to disturb them and yet there's no real awkwardness or tension ever described, you begin wonder why Rowling took her characters and replaced them with figurines. By the time Rowling has the plot moving she's turned each of them into an extreme example of their singular character traits. Never is it more apparent then when each wishes for their favorite Deathly Hallow.
Had she bothered making her characters continuously feel real, she could have actually written an interesting finale to the book...rather than a plot-driven bore upheld by at least half a dozen deux ex machina moments.
--Joschenker
(To reply, click here.)
(7/25)
What did you think of this article?
Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUpon
Happy Birthday, Smokey Bear
Are Gas Grills More Eco-Friendly Than Charcoal Ones?
He-Man: Briefs of Rage and Other Toy-Inspired Movies We're Dying To See
Kaus: Seven Possible Theories Explaining Palin's Resignation
The U.S. Embassy in Djibouti Cordially Invites You to a Fourth of July Cookout
The Week's Best Editorial Cartoons
Remarks from the Fray Editor:
If you're spoiler shy... If you're following Harry Potter discussions... If you haven't yet finished the book... If you're experiencing all three of these conditions, yet you're reading this article... Then you, my friend, are a foolhardy reader.
There seem to be a lot of foolhardy readers out there.
If you're afraid of spoilers close your eyes. Close this page. Don't enter the Fray. Open your book and get finished already, so that you can join this discussion. Spoilers follow below. The Fray overfills with 'em.—G.A.
Remarks from the Fray:
I find it odd that people seem disappointed that 19 years down the road the characters lead seemingly humdrum lives, about which we don't hear much. [That's] just the point.
Folks, most people don't aspire to be under constant threat of death - mostly people want to live happy, relatively uneventful lives. They want to live in a house they love, do work they enjoy, raise kids, be comfortable. The fact that killing Voldemort allowed this to happen is, I think, poignant - Harry was never comfortable as the Boy Who Lived, and now he can finally get away from it. Maybe as readers we want excitement and adventure and really wild things on the page, but by not making Harry et al want these things, Rowling is respecting the characters she created.
On a certain level, I find it a profound commentary on what most people want out of life - not fame or fortune or power, but love and happiness. Odd that so many readers don't seem to see that.
--brennan
(To reply, click here.)
The continued short shrift that Harry gives Hermione is incredibly frustrating in this book, more than in any other. Perhaps Rowling's one effort to comment on this is when she complains about having to do all the cooking - which is not only immediately dismissed, but also like, come on! The one thing Hermione is going to complain about is something so easily dismissed by the unsympathetic reader as an 'age old' feminist complaint. How about the fact that Hermione does everything and never gets a shred of the credit, other than some astonished expressions and the occasional "Mione that's amazing!"
She is consistently the character who saves Harry's ass and I continue to be frustrated that in the last book Rowling does nothing to really acknowledge or challenge this within her book - it is not just enough to assume that readers who like Hermione are going to get it, especially when Harry remains on such a pedestal, or that the lack of thoroughgoing challenge to Harry and Ron's behavior will be picked up on by readers with feminist sympathies, especially when most readers do not share such sympathies! It is especially important to be challenging this, I think, in a children's book.
It is not really believable that Hermione wouldn't challenge Harry more when she so relentlessly stands up for those who are denied rights, equality, and dignity. Maybe it's that other tendency on her part (or Rowling's?) to view her guy(s) as the only ones who are not sexist - they're my best friends, how can they be sexist? etc
Does Rowling's overall failure to inject a feminist critique into Harry Potter reflect her desire to prevent the boys from having to engage in some serious self-critique, a caving in to popular dislike of feminism, or her own discomfort with feminism?
--heypop
(To reply, click here.)
The Problem with the final Harry Potter book is lack of sex. In books 5-6 the students at Hogwarts slowly start to come to terms with their maturing attitudes to the opposite sex. Rowling deftly negotiates the concerns and fears of adolescence as they begin to date, and finally "snog". Throughout book 6 Rowling has various students, including Ron, Harry, and Ginny snogging constantly as they realize their emerging desires.
In book 7 Rowling starts with a great scene showing Harry's awkward attitude towards himself, his body, and his friends. "He felt like asking them to show a little more respect for his privacy as they all began stripping off with impunity, clearly much more at ease with his body then they would have been with their own." This one line gives much insight into the mindset of a 17 year old and allows Harry and his friends to seem believable.
When you contrast that with the 3 teens spending months living together in a forest, with no one supervising, and no one else to disturb them and yet there's no real awkwardness or tension ever described, you begin wonder why Rowling took her characters and replaced them with figurines. By the time Rowling has the plot moving she's turned each of them into an extreme example of their singular character traits. Never is it more apparent then when each wishes for their favorite Deathly Hallow.
Had she bothered making her characters continuously feel real, she could have actually written an interesting finale to the book...rather than a plot-driven bore upheld by at least half a dozen deux ex machina moments.
--Joschenker
(To reply, click here.)
(7/25)