Everybody lies

Finally! I’m done with it. YAY! And what a struggle it was…

Nah, I’m just kidding of course. I loved it. I finished the book in a mere 2 days - and it only took me that long because I didn’t have all that much time to read on the first one. As soon as I got into the story I was really reluctant to put it down again. Seems like Mrs. Rowling really deserves the big bucks she gets paid. I have to admit that the book is entertaining, I certainly liked it a lot better than #5 and #6. That may have been at least in part due to the fact that it is the last part of the story and things were finally coming to a definitive end, we had a nice big battle, most of the remaining mysteries were revealed and all of the loose ends were tied up.

The way they were tied up is another matter. I mean, honestly: Albus Severus? Jeez, how corny is that?

One thing that struck me over and over was the feeling that this book was clearly written with a movie in mind. I don’t mean that as a criticism, and you could probably just ascribe it to Rowling’s skilled description of stuff or whatever, but I often caught myself visualizing a scene on the big screen or thinking to myself “now this was just put in here to look good in the cinema”. It worked, though. I have no doubt that the last HP movie will be just as successful as the other ones were. (I myself haven’t watched any one all the way through so far. Especially once Quidditch is played I fall asleep immediately.)

All in all I am pretty happy with how the story panned out in the end, although I can’t say was really surprised by anything. Well, except for Harry dying and coming back (mostly it was the coming back part that had me grumbling, because you see I really had hoped he would bite the bullet in the end, but apparently that was a bit too much to hope for). It was certainly good to see Snape get vindicated, even though making him into a sad little man who was carrying a torch for a woman who didn’t love him back wasn’t doing him any favours in my eyes. ^.^ But even so the way he died just made me angry.

Rowling has a huge problem doing believable death-scenes. As if Sirius falling through that damn veil hadn’t been bad enough (what the hell does that even mean?), now she kills off Snape without even giving him the opportunity to defend himself. WTF? I mean, come on, all the time he was built up to be this badass wizard, ruthless and capable of anything and bla bla bla. And then? Just poof. And not only does she let him die drooling some strange substance, which in itself is quite disgusting (Yeah, I know what it was, thank you. It’s still disgusting.), but then afterwards she destroys his whole credibility with this “I did it all for love of Lily Potter”-crap. Really, the least the guy would have deserved was to let him put up a decent fight.

And don’t even let me get started on Hedwig! I get that Rowling probably killed her off for the same reason Joss killed Wash in “Serenity”, but then as now I don’t think it was necessary to prove a point or set up an atmosphere of doom. (And I still plan to have some words with Joss on the matter of Wash if I ever get hold of him.) And again, it was one of the worst written death scenes I have ever read. Come on, Hedwig was an important character in the series, just for the love of little kittens acknowledge that fact and don’t just get rid of her in one paltry half-sentence! Not to speak of blowing her up a minute later…

Same goes for Lupin and Tonks. We don’t even get to know how they die. And, really, I get it that some people had to die, what with it being a great battle an’ all. And I’m ok with Fred. Lupin would have been fine,too. Or Tonks. But both of them? That seems like a bit of overkill to me. And the only one I was really hoping would die (because I can’t stand him), namely Hagrid the annoying git, is allowed to stay alive. Damn. The world really is unfair, even the fictional ones.

Well, but all in all I had a good time with the book and it certainly was a worthy conclusion to a great series. Still I am glad I got to read it (and assuage my curiosity) without having to shell out money for it.