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Jul. 22nd, 2007 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seawaspHerewith, the review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
"Well, Bob, here we are at the main event!"
"Yes, John, this certainly is it. Rowling's threatened to do this stunt before, and it's her last chance now. She's retiring from the sport following this performance, you know."
"And that'll disappoint whole legions of fans, that's for sure. Hey, looks like they've got a hell of a setup!"
"Indeed they do, John. With her fanbase and the potential for disaster, no ordinary setup would do! So she contacted Crichton and a few others, and got John Hammond to clone THIS up just in time for the performance!"
"Whoa! Bob, I don't believe what I'm seeing here! Is that a Megalodon?!"
"Not just one, not two, but three Megalodons, John -- the smallest one's sixty-two feet long, the largest over eighty feet and almost a hundred tons of giant shark!"
"Now, I understand she's also got special equipment for the jump?"
"Everything about this one's custom, John. Our viewers, and her fans, would expect no less. The ramps leading up to the edge of the water were designed and built by the Mythbusters, who've had help from Caltech to calculate all the loading and flight variables. Adam and Jamie, what do you think about this stunt?"
"Personally? We think she's screwed. No way she can resist this setup."
"Yeah, I agree with Adam. Look at Lucas; he had a setup only about half this fancy and he couldn't keep from doing the stunt not once, but three times."
"Thanks, Adam, Jamie. John, by the sound of the crowd... Here she comes!"
"Here she comes indeed, Bob, on a custom cycle built by Johnny Blaze and his team. Look at the dragonfire striping on that baby!"
"Rocket-assisted with a base 500 horsepower -- and none too much to make that 1.2 mile jump!"
"She's waiting at the top.... the crowd's gone quiet."
"You can feel the tension, Bob. Seventh and last chance, after all these years."
"She's revved the engine... she's headed down the ramp! Here she goes, John, she's going to do it this time!"
"I think you're right, Bob, look at her go! one hundred... two hundred -- SHE SLAMS ON THE BRAKES!"
"She's aborted! Off the ramp at the lowest point! SHE'S NOT GOING TO JUMP THE SHARK!"
"And the crowd goes wild!"
My first comment on this book is: Rowling tells the truth like a Jedi. She worked the rumors -- just like she had before -- to give totally deceptive impressions of the book.
This is a Good Ending. This is not an ending without cost, of course; Voldemort and his Death Eaters are not to be defeated without danger, pain, death, betrayal, and fear. They are too powerful, too established, and their main opposition already damaged and scattered. And -- as any good author knows -- you have to make things a lot worse before you let them get better. The Order of the Phoenix is basically scattered, Harry's support network broken, only a few friends left to depend on. But in the end, the three friends who began the adventures together -- Harry, Ron, and Hermione -- finish them, alive and well, on the other side of the valley of Death, so to speak.
Snape: Greatest. Actor. EVAR. Fooled Voldemort to the very end, and managed -- even when the Dark Lord had killed him -- to get the most critical information to Harry.
Rowling draws together all the threads from the prior books and ties them together with a neat bow.
And despite being dead, Dumbledore gets in on the action ANYWAY. He's like Kaos from Yoroiden Samurai Troopers.
Overall, this was a great book, a grand finish. I'm happy. :)
"Well, Bob, here we are at the main event!"
"Yes, John, this certainly is it. Rowling's threatened to do this stunt before, and it's her last chance now. She's retiring from the sport following this performance, you know."
"And that'll disappoint whole legions of fans, that's for sure. Hey, looks like they've got a hell of a setup!"
"Indeed they do, John. With her fanbase and the potential for disaster, no ordinary setup would do! So she contacted Crichton and a few others, and got John Hammond to clone THIS up just in time for the performance!"
"Whoa! Bob, I don't believe what I'm seeing here! Is that a Megalodon?!"
"Not just one, not two, but three Megalodons, John -- the smallest one's sixty-two feet long, the largest over eighty feet and almost a hundred tons of giant shark!"
"Now, I understand she's also got special equipment for the jump?"
"Everything about this one's custom, John. Our viewers, and her fans, would expect no less. The ramps leading up to the edge of the water were designed and built by the Mythbusters, who've had help from Caltech to calculate all the loading and flight variables. Adam and Jamie, what do you think about this stunt?"
"Personally? We think she's screwed. No way she can resist this setup."
"Yeah, I agree with Adam. Look at Lucas; he had a setup only about half this fancy and he couldn't keep from doing the stunt not once, but three times."
"Thanks, Adam, Jamie. John, by the sound of the crowd... Here she comes!"
"Here she comes indeed, Bob, on a custom cycle built by Johnny Blaze and his team. Look at the dragonfire striping on that baby!"
"Rocket-assisted with a base 500 horsepower -- and none too much to make that 1.2 mile jump!"
"She's waiting at the top.... the crowd's gone quiet."
"You can feel the tension, Bob. Seventh and last chance, after all these years."
"She's revved the engine... she's headed down the ramp! Here she goes, John, she's going to do it this time!"
"I think you're right, Bob, look at her go! one hundred... two hundred -- SHE SLAMS ON THE BRAKES!"
"She's aborted! Off the ramp at the lowest point! SHE'S NOT GOING TO JUMP THE SHARK!"
"And the crowd goes wild!"
My first comment on this book is: Rowling tells the truth like a Jedi. She worked the rumors -- just like she had before -- to give totally deceptive impressions of the book.
This is a Good Ending. This is not an ending without cost, of course; Voldemort and his Death Eaters are not to be defeated without danger, pain, death, betrayal, and fear. They are too powerful, too established, and their main opposition already damaged and scattered. And -- as any good author knows -- you have to make things a lot worse before you let them get better. The Order of the Phoenix is basically scattered, Harry's support network broken, only a few friends left to depend on. But in the end, the three friends who began the adventures together -- Harry, Ron, and Hermione -- finish them, alive and well, on the other side of the valley of Death, so to speak.
Snape: Greatest. Actor. EVAR. Fooled Voldemort to the very end, and managed -- even when the Dark Lord had killed him -- to get the most critical information to Harry.
Rowling draws together all the threads from the prior books and ties them together with a neat bow.
And despite being dead, Dumbledore gets in on the action ANYWAY. He's like Kaos from Yoroiden Samurai Troopers.
Overall, this was a great book, a grand finish. I'm happy. :)
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:00 pm (UTC)Sheesh! You read faster than a speeding bullet!
It was pretty fast...
Date: 2007-07-24 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:35 pm (UTC)Also Harry's fianal speech to Voldemort had a Dirty Harry .... "most powerful wand ever made" .... "don't know if I'm the true owner or not ... do you feel lucky" vibe to it.
Heh.
Date: 2007-07-24 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 01:14 am (UTC)lol. Well put.
Things HP7:DH didn't do (anti-spoilers)
Date: 2007-07-24 01:35 am (UTC)Great book, although I'm kinda disappointed it lacked:
* Any evidence that the non-British wizarding world was alarmed by Voldemort's ascension. But then, wizards seem to have a great talent for ostrich-head-sand-ism.
* The great reunion of Muggle and Wizarding worlds, once Voldemort's efforts become too extensive to ignore, and the key discovery by Muggle electrical engineers that sufficient RF noise can inhibit magic. Also that blinding lasers are faster than spellcasting, and that /protego/ shields are optically transparent.
* A post-Battle of Hogwarts aftermath that explained what happened to the remaining Death Eaters, Dementors, the very bad idea that was Azkaban, the Ministry of Magic and bad seeds like Dolores Umbridge, and whether there's a rapprochement between Wizard, Elf, Goblin, and Centaur. And the few remaining Giants.
Maybe the inevitable movie version will have a brief pan over a new Hall of Heroes at Hogwarts.
* Hogwarts Castle did not transform into a giant stone creature (not an original design feature, but a thousand years of magic does strange things to a place) and fight an enlarged Voldemort (fused with giants and with a dragon for an arm) across the hills and moors of sylvan England until crashing across the Thames and demolishing the Houses of Parliament. (C'mon, everybody else does it!)
Re: Things HP7:DH didn't do (anti-spoilers)
Date: 2007-07-24 12:42 pm (UTC)The union of Muggle/Wizarding world not being talked about is something of a disappointment, but I didn't expect it from her. She hasn't done much work in the "logical worldbuilding" arena, focusing more on "plot-driving worldbuilding", which works only for the self-contained series. I suspect *I* will be dealing with that issue in my Harry Potter-based RPG campaign, since the players are much more the sort to push those boundaries HARD.
Yeah, I would've liked to have seen more "aftermath" stuff: "Minerva McGonagall became Headmaster at Hogwarts; Dolores Umbridge was eaten by Vermicious Knids. Remus Lupin starred in the new movie "Werewolves of London".
I still wanted to see Dumbledore re-emerge to the world of the living from a flare of Phoenix fire. "Hear me, Wizards! No longer am I the man that you knew! I am fire, and life incarnate!"
Re[2]: Things HP7:DH didn't do (anti-spoilers)
Date: 2007-07-24 06:07 pm (UTC)The same objection can be raised re: LOTR: weren't there other fronts to the War of the Ring that we never saw? But LOTR doesn't have long-distance mass media.
Re: Remus Lupin, movie star --- Difficult, since he and Tonks were two of the fatalities of the Battle of Hogwarts.
Re: Harry Potter RPGs --- I once tried to do that as LEGO miniatures gaming and a bunch of kids. I had trouble convincing them that unnamed non-hero Hogwarts characters existed.
Re: Dumbledore --- "... and life incarnate! Behold, I bring cocktail weenies and dipping sauces -- FROM BEYOND!" (DELISHUS WEENIES! "Invader ZIM"/HP crossover? That'd be strange.)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-24 03:12 am (UTC)I loved that. He even fooled me, the skeptical reader. A little more post-battle wrap up would have been nice, but might have been anticlimactic.
Indeed...
Date: 2007-07-24 12:44 pm (UTC)Snape as unexpected hero
Date: 2007-07-24 05:48 pm (UTC)(That's a TF soul-spark, not a GG mad-genius-spark.)
Re: Snape as unexpected hero
Date: 2007-07-26 01:30 am (UTC)Re: Snape as unexpected hero
Date: 2007-07-26 12:53 pm (UTC)"...a STICK! Here I am, in indestructible armor, with the power to rewrite the course of history, and you're going to attack me with... a STICK! What do you think you can do with THAT?"
"Improvise."
Hidden foreshadowing - Petunia Dursley
Date: 2007-07-24 05:55 pm (UTC)Dumbledore has arrived at the Dursley house to retrieve Harry. He greets Petunia: "We've corresponded, of course." Harry thinks he's referring to the Howler he'd sent the previous summer (after the Dementor-encounter at the start of #5). Dumbledore may instead be alluding to a letter 30 years earlier, when Petunia tried to get into Hogwarts along with her sister Lily (something we learn from Snape's offloaded memories).
Well, it may not be terribly clever, just obscure. But in light of this new revelation (i.e., Petunia is jealous of her magical sister, however much she denies it), her knowledge of Dementors (from #5) may not, in fact, be due to overhearing conversation from a young James Potter.
Hmmm. I wonder if anyone's written Petunia Dursley fanfic?
Re: Hidden foreshadowing - Petunia Dursley
Date: 2007-07-26 12:54 pm (UTC)