[News] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows [spoilers abound]

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...

Spoiler:

...it was irritating how much angst Harry still had. He's a 17 year old, but his emotional reactions were closer to a 13-15 year old). He had experience more than anyone his age, and that should have if anything given him a slightly more mature emotional state. Oh, and the melodrama between Harry, Ron and Hermione was just annoying.

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.

Spoiler:

SPOILER DAMMIT!!!! ----------------- I absolutely loved the way she handled Snape. He was always an intriguing character to me, since his position was truly a grey area in my mind, and as such I could never bring myself to loath him. I'm happy with how she handled it. I'm happy with how she handled the final frontier of death, and I'm especially happy with how she handled Dumbledore's post-humous moment in the book.

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

Jam it back in, in the dark.