Saving myself. I was one of the victims of The Half-Blood Prince spoilage (you know the spoiler), and I'd rather not have a repeat of that. :)

I'm super excited about the 7th book coming out! I've already pre-ordered and everything (of course!) but I hope that she doesn't kill off Harry, although I do see that happening for the fact like everyone said that she doesn't want to be pressured to reprise the character...but like someone said, she should be strong enough where she can say no.

I wonder what her other books after Potter are going to be like.

Dumbledore is dead, she has said so herself when asked directly. There really is no point in arguing otherwise anymore. But, as was expected, he will be in the seventh book in some form, be it pensieve or portrait. She recently told Dan Radcliffe, "Well, yes [Dumbledore's dead]. But it's more complex than that." So all of you people who love Dumbledore don't have to worry, as you will get your fix, but don't expect him to be throwing goblins in between Harry and Voldemort any more.

As for Sirius and his mirror. Siruis's mirror shouldn't play any part in the next book at all, as Harry smashed it at the end of Order of the Phoenix when he realized that he could have used it to contact Sirius. I know your thinking that he could just whip out his wand and fix it right up again, but considering his state of mind when he broke it and the time that has passed since it broke, I doubt that the pieces remain there for him to fix it. One would think that once it has been broken, the magic within is lost. Kind of like the prophecy containers. Like Dumbledore, I wouldn't expect Sirius to be physically helping Harry out either. She killed him for a reason and bringing him back would add nothing.

However, the vail and the Department of Mysteries still holds great interest for me. I do believe that there is a strong possibility that Harry may need to go there to find information on obtaining/destroying horcruxes or to defeat Voldemort. The locked room with the "most powerful magic of all", which according to Dumbledore is the power of love, seems like it may be crucial to Harry's victory, seeing as he is vastly overpowered by Voldemort.

I hate what you say about Dumbledore but deep down I know it's true. THe thing I really loved about book six was learning about Voldemort and looking into the past. That feeling of discovery and I hope this one does that even if just a little.

Your Department of Mysteries angle and the love room sounds dead on and I never thought of that.

Deathly Hallows Cover Art is released.

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/111...fulljy4.th.jpg

Very interesting. I absolutely love it. Voldemort looks exactly like how I always thought he should: Warped beyond human features, red eyes blazing.

Notice the shadows of the people in the background. Reminds me very much of the end of Goblet of Fire. At least we know that Harry and Voldemort won't be fighting their last battle in solitude. Also, notice how they are not holding any wands, which leads to me thinking that Harry will indeed need to try and find a way to harm Voldemort without his wand, per Goblet of Fire. I'm curious as to where they are dueling, too. Nowhere in any of the books has there been a coliseum.

This is entirely to bittersweet for me. Nothing left now to look forward to until the book. Suspense is killing me.

Sweet cover art! Need to make a wallpaper out of that.

I never cared about Harry Potter, but a lot of my firends are nuts for it.

One of them was in a line up for hours when the Half-Blood Prince came out. There was a party at the mall and huge spotlights at the Chapters book store. It was really a big event. Its pretty cool that all this hype is over a book, at least more kids are reading.

This contains spoilers. If you don't wish to be spoiled please leave immediately.

DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU DON'T LIKE SPOILERS.

The character who dies in Book 7 is...



http://encyclopediadramatica.com/ima...lerAlertDH.jpg

I remember reading the first book when I was in grade 5, and thinking that it wouldn't develop at all from there. Wow I was wrong. The next couple books were decent additions, but now it's just getting way to complicated and unecessary. I'll be glad when this whole series is done.

Fiddlegoof, you should edit your post.

Who bought the book?! Does it live up to your expectations?

I'm so buy it the first thing tomorrow.

Cool now I know what happened without having read the book :cool:

It's bloody brilliant.

First half: Most miserable pile of crap I've ever read by choice
Second half: Slightly corny, felt like a pile of internet guesses as to what might happen just randomly thrown together, but exciting.

Overall: 6/10. I put it as equivalent to The Scarlet Letter - everyone else will love it even though in my opinion it sucks. Grudgingly I'll declare it worth reading, but I can't say I love it as much as I did books 4-6.

Dude, NEVER put the brilliance of Hawthorne on the level of Harry Potter. The Scarlet Letter is as depressing as a poem by Plath.

I just got through it - AWESOME. And the ending, so clever...

Well, I finally read finished reading it. My only complaint about the final book was NOT the whinging I've been hearing from others of "fan-pleasing" - it is clear that Rowling planted the seeds very early and if anything her writing was successful in that it stimulated the imaginations of readers to devise possible theories.

Rather, my ONLY complaint about the book was that the middle portion could have done with the firm hand of an editor. It dragged on far longer than it had to, and...


That middle portion felt like such wasted time to make the book longer for the sake of being longer, when really it could have been cut down and been as effective... maybe even moreso, since the readers wouldn't have been bored to death during it (I literally fell asleep and dozed no less than 3 times while reading that segment... and it was the middle of the day!)

However, while the middle third of the book was disappointing, the final third, I thought, more than made for it. There was a return to Rowling in her regular form, and in the last 100 pages she finished very strongly. It's almost as if you can tell that the last portion is where Rowling truly focused her creative soul.



And I found the epilogue absolutely beautiful.

When I put the book down at the end, I felt the same bittersweet feeling that I usually get after I finish, say, a good RPG. When a tale finally comes to an end, and I say goodbye to the characters and world that I have become so attached to, there is always a sense of loss.... And when I feel this, I know it's my gut telling me overall I just experienced something wonderful, and that the vision of the creators has been successful.




Anyway, it's very late now, and I'm somewhat tired. Please excuse the slight rambling of the above post and any typos that may be there, but I am tired :p

I finished the book a bit ago. I'll avoid retreading the crucial events.

GOOD: The four or five chapters during which the opposing factions clashed. As it's the last book, it was enjoyable to see some of the more notable names in the canon reappear for one last hurrah. Even if their presence earned only a paragraph or two, it was better than having forgotten them at all.

I was also pleased by the willingness to kill off likable characters. The sacrifice felt a bit more authentic, as opposed to a one-sided routing of Evil.

BAD: The epilogue. Call me a completionist, but I'm interested in the fates of more than just the central three or four characters. There were enough classmates and supporters who played pivotal roles that it would've been worth noting how they managed to get on. I cannot be the only person with a curiosity as to what eventually becomes of Luna Lovegood or Ernie Macmillan.

Absolutely loved this book and was a brilliant end to the series in my mind. I loved it all. I especially enjoyed what she did with Neville in this one.

As for Harry's anger and angst


Crash: I'm with you on the epilogue being too short, I wanted to know more, and yeah, what was Luna doing these days (I sort of hope she's running The Quibbler now and it's gained something more of a mainstream following). That said, I don't think the epilogue was bad, it was a lovely little end to it all.

Top notch stuff.

Ditto that. Rowling should have made one more chapter before jumping ahead 19 years later. Like tell us the aftermath of the battle, the suvivors, casulties, the grief people felt from the death of loved ones...

I also wanna know what happens to Luna too, along with alot of students, teachers, friends and families etc.

Also wanna know what happens with Draco.

Also does Harry go back to finish his last year at Hogwarts? Does he become and Auror or something else? I want answers more than "He marries Ginny and has kids." cliche. These type of "having kids" ending drive me nuts, since its overused and doesn't tell much about the characters we actually give a damn about. I didn't really give two shits about their kids at all, a couple of pages can't tell me enough about them to make me care. I wanna know what happens to the set of characters we know deeply. The naming of them was also blah and cliche, with the only redeeming factor is

Then again, Snape was always awesome. God I can't wait to see Alan Rickman potraying Snape again now that the cat's out of the bag, he probably has more liberty to reveal abit more about Snape in the movies now.

So yeah, good book, but terrible epilogue.

I enjoyed the book, excellent way to end the series. My only real complaint was, again, the epilogue. She might as well not have written it, the book would probably be better without it. The only thing I really liked about it

Actually, for me, the epilogue and the kids aspect, I found that was very telling of the people Harry and co had become. There was a lot more to that little scene that merely "they had kids".

That they become caring people/parents that have moved on to odinary peaceful lives?

We already know they're kind and caring, and you don't need the cliche kids aspect to say that they moved on to the peaceful lives stuff. There are plenty of other scenarios they could have used to tell us this info, yet she chose to use a cliche one where the kids dominated the scene and dialouge, and barely find out what happens to the entire cast of characters. This is the last time I can see my fav characters again, and instead the last few pages are bombarded with drivels from these kids I don't give a shit about?

What did they end up with career wise? Where are they all living? Other than having kids and sending them to Hogwarts, what else is new? The epilogue didn't really tell us anything new cept they had kids, and

I'd put money on JK releasing a kind of encyclopedia for charity that'll detail all the goings on after the Battle of Hogwarts, what the characters are up to etc etc.

While I found HP7 to be about the best book of them all, I agree with you on the epilogue. It sorta felt like she had written it in 15 minutes and called it a day. Yeah, they were still friends and such 19 years after, but what about the society? I can't imagine that just because Voldy kicked the bucket everything's dandy.
I felt that the epilogue was superficial. I know that Harry forgave Snape, but what about the rest of the wizard community? Still a Death Eater in public opinion?
Argh. I really wish she had penned an extra chapter detailing such things. (Plus, I'm still curious about what Dudley saw when he was attacked by the Dementor...:eagletear: )