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blue yellow black by Ira Joel Haber 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harry Potter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the Deadly Hallows

 

 

 

Okay, okay, so I went a little Harry Potter crazy with this issue of GlassFire.  Sue me.  I know that most of you, our loyal readers, are probably sick and tired of hearing about the Harry Potter phenomena.  I, however, happen to live in my own little bubble and have successfully managed to stay away from most of the blathering on television (God, I love my DVR), so I don’t feel so bad in pushing off my views on Harry Potter. 

 

I must say that when I began reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I was filled with a little bit of reverence for the book that would serve to complete my ten year question of “What happens to Harry?”  I’m sure that there are millions of others across the globe that were just as filled with anxiety and apprehension as I was about reading that last book.  Most people were worried about which characters would die and which would live, but I was more nervous about how the characters that we’ve read about for so many years have evolved into adults. 

 

This, is where I felt the greatest disappointment in the books.  The good kids were steadfastly good, and the bad were just as bad.  I had, along with several of my friends, hoped that maybe Malfoy would redeem himself in some way that would make him a better person than his bratty, snotty faced eleven-year-old self had been in that first adventure.  I wondered if maybe we would be able to see the extension of those secondary characters like Luna Lovegood, Seamus, and Dean, into something more than what they’d originally been written for.  But alas, none of this came to pass.  Neville does eventually find the heroic aspects of himself and manages to stand up directly to Voldemort, but again I was disappointed in this transfiguration as we are told more about Neville’s rise through the year rather than allowed to experience it with him.

 

See, this is where I was the most disappointed in Rowling, the telling instead of showing.  When the book starts, we see Lord Voldermort and his gang gathered around a floating body before the point of view switches back to Harry.  I was hopeful that the book would be sure to branch off into several different places throughout the year, but sadly this did not come to fruition either.  Unfortunately, we are stuck with Ron, Harry, and Hermoine in a tent jumping around from wilderness to wilderness for months on end.  During this time, apparently, Neville, Luna, and Jenny Weasley, are heading up a revolution at the school.  The readers do not know anything about this until very near the end, though, when Harry finally gets to Hogwarts and finds Neville and the others holed up in the room of requirement beaten and tortured. 

 

I, for one, would have enjoyed taking a short chapter or two break from the trio stuck out in the tent to seeing exactly what was going on at the school.  It might have helped me as I made my way through the tedium that I found those hundred and fifty pages to be. 

 

I know that I sound like I am bashing Rowling here, like I might even be pompous enough to believe that I could have written the book better, but that is definitely not the case.  I do not believe that at all.  I just felt that after taking so long to get to the battle it felt rushed, as if there was more that could have happened during this time that she left out because she was trying to cut back on the book so that it wouldn’t be a thousand word behemoth.    No one, I repeat, no one could have written the Harry Potter books better than Rowling.  This was her own destiny, her own quest.  And, maybe I’m being a little more critical of the book than I would normally be because I am still morning the end of our friend’s adventures. 

 

I am an admittedly greedy person and I hate it when books, movie series, and/or television series that have defined my life for so long come to an end.  Like any good addict I wanted more.  One more hit, two hundred more pages, a little more description.  It didn’t matter how much she gave me, it would never have been enough to fill the need.  So, take my review with a grain of salt, fill in the blanks she leaves you with your own story of what happened, but I whole-heartedly recommend that you read the books and enjoy the adventure, no matter how twisted up it leaves you feeling when it’s over, it’s certainly worth the high while you’re there.