| QUOTE |
I have to say, I liked the book. To a certain extent, I even enjoyed it. But I just found it... mediocre. It wasn't, at least for me, deeply moving, emotional, or even thrilling. So I started thinking: what;s wrong with it? What's missing? 1. Let's start with the, arguably, most important - the deaths. Certainly, they are numerous. A lot of people (and creatures) are killed off, so there's probably a lot of upset fans out there right now, lamenting the fate of their favourite character. But the list of characters dying is - odd. Unsatisfying on some deep level, unrealistic on another. Positive characters - a lot of low-profile, less significant characters die, and almost none of them were taking any extraordinary risks. Almost everybody who takes foolishly enormous risks, survives. The antagonists - stumble around foolishly and drop dead when ordered. None have memorable death scenes. First chapter, some random witch dies - she taught at Hogwarts? And was never even mentioned for 6 books?... Hedwig. The poor owl dies absolutely randomly, in what is a rather sad way to go, just a random victim of a spell that wasn't aimed at her. Furthermore, consider: she dies at the beginning of the book. Harry experiences a "gut-wrenching pang" as he explodes the sidecar with Hedwig's body in it, then a couple of pages later he feels "his insides clench like a fist" when she is mentioned, and then... proceeds throughout the entire book without giving the owl a second thought. And this is the pet that's been with him since before his first year at Hogwarts, the pet who shared his life for many years, to whom he talked to in an affectionate way, and in general, supposedly cared about. And yet her death has no real impact on anything or anybody, particularly Harry himself. In fact, her death immediately pales to utter insignificance (not just for the readers - for the characters in the book) as we learn of Mad-Eye's death. The old auror dies off-screen, in what is another random death. Yes, a death, but the character that dies is... what, exactly? Fundamentally, just an ordinary guy doing his job. He's never had great significance in the books - he spent the entirety of Book 4 being locked in a trunk, and was given nothing more than a fleeting mention in books 5-6. We were never shown any great deeds of his in the present, he never had a strong connection with any of the main characters - in a way, doomed by his own lack of importance. Scrimgeour. We are obviously supposed to feel somewhat sorry for the minister, and somewhat proud at the description of his death. But yet again, it happens off-screen, no details are actually given, and the character never really had much importance. What has he done, if anything? Rummaged through Dumbledore's possessions for 31 days?... Wormtail - are we even given an explanation why his silvery arm turned on him? Or are we supposed to assume it was charmed by Voldemort to strangle its owner at first sign of disloyalty? In which case, how is it smart for it to strangle Pettigrew, instead of strangling Harry first and THEN strangling Pettigrew, just for good measure?... Overall, Wormtail is present for merely a couple of pages and - yet again - doesn't really accomplish anything, except for one moment of reluctance over killing Harry. Anticlimactic at its best. He says nothing, and we are given no insight whatsoever into his feelings (yes, we can theoretize that he carried guilt over betraying his friends, and so on, but those woulf be just our thoughts on the matter. Why, after cutting Harry's arm in Book 4, does he suddenly feel indecisive now, in Book 7?). Dobby. Yes, we feel sad about him, but yet again - we've not really seen him for quite some time, we don't really know about his personality and his motivations, except for his adoration of Harry for freeing him in - Book 2. Character development since then? Zero. Don't get me wrong, I truly pity the elf, and he dies saving Hr/R/Hm from the Malfoys / Bellatrix, but face it - he's a background supporting character. His is one of the moving deaths, but yet again - Harry and Co think about it for a while, then move on after a couple of days. Lots of background characters die, all of whom both the characters and the readers forget after a page or two of more exciting plot developments... Grindelwald dies, in a satisfying plot-point for the army of fans who've been wondering about him, but I'm really curious if anybody actually cared about him... Then, at last, we have the climax. The Big Nasty Fight of Hogwarts © ™. I'm seriously underwhelmed, and it's annoying. Fred. Dies in a random explosion, pure shock value. Statistic caught up with him: there's 7 Weasley kids overall, one of them just had to die at the end. And Fred is a very politically correct choice, designed to upset the least amount of fans - he's more of a major character than Bill, Charlie or Percy, and at the same time, a relatively background character at that; plus, there's two of the twins anyway. So we, (pardon the horrible pun), kill two birds with one stone: we have a death of a character that's been around since Book1, that has some emotional impact on those around him, but at the same time we don't really upset the fanbase all that much. Remus and Tonks. Off-screen yet again, and by then it was really beginning to look like we're just being fed death after death for the sheer body count. Yes, it's sad, and especially so because of their newborn child. But seriously, who are they? They're barely mentioned throughout the book, and when they do, it's mostly about their son (Luping feeling depressed about the notion / wanting to leave them behind / changing his mind off-screen / being gleeful about the birth of his kid). Tonks is given even less screen time, and face it - though a lot of people find her "cool", her impact on the series is actually minimal. Snape dies, after being absent for the vast majority of the book, bitten by Nagini. The problem with his death is simple - it has no impact, because we only find out about his true allegiance afterwards. Yes, "The Prince's Story" is a very sad chapter (I'll mention it later, too), but just switching the two events around (Harry and us, the readers, finding out about Snape before he actually died), would've increased the emotional impact immensely. As it is, Snape doesn't do anything in this book, and all we have is a good wrap-up of his plotline in the previous books. A lot of random Death-Eaters, that survive fighting throughout Hogwarts, disappear in ONE paragraph of text, and are never mentioned again. Inconsistent, anticlimactic, unresolved, you name it. Bellatrix dies, at the hand of Mrs Weasley - fair enough, though I have real issues seeing Molly, no matter how angry, as a match for "Voldemort's best lieutenant". Besides, was it actually said anywhere that Bellatrix did anything to any of Molly's children? And if no, why the vendetta? Finally, Voldemort dies. Anticlimactic. He just - well, dies, from a curse that backfires on him (let's not go into the mechanics of wands and the way they cast spells just yet). Dies after some pretty silly behaviour on his part, the typical James Bond Villain syndrome in which Harry gets to pretend to be dead (sigh), and then - fundamentally, nothing. The aftermath of his death is rushed and yet again, the emotional impact of his death on the characters is nonexistant. I'm sure I missed somebody or other. It's not like it really matters, though, does it? We're thrown lots of less important names for the sheer statistics of it, but quantity, in this case, does not transcend into quality. It feels tame, like JKR went for the easiest way out: getting the "Horray, it's war, lots of people die!" point across, but at the same time contradicting it as she left all the major characters - those who actually go into the most dangerous situations - alive. That's a contradiction - either we're going for gritty realism, in which case be consistent, or we're going for the "children's book" feeling, in which the Good guys live and the Bad guys die. In a way, it has the same problem as the unfortunate Star Wars EU - the main characters are protected by the author, and thus survive (consistently) against incredible odds. That's not really good writing, and it robs us - the readers - of a sense of realism. It feels like the secondary characters were killed off needlessly, and not because "it's war", but because JKR wanted to shock the fans with a sufficiently large body count. 2. The trio's fate. Putting it into a separate section just because it, like a lot of other things, is underwhelming. The three main characters pretty much take the spotlight this time (and everybody else gets, at best, cameo appearances in a chapter or two) - and at the end, proceed to have their happy ending in an epilogue that, really, feels like it's been written for a different book. It might've served well for a kid with the maturity level on the level of that of Book 1, but, really? Book 7, the "gritty realism" book of the series? I (and I think a lot of readers would agree with me on this) can take one far-fetched escape in a book and not have my suspension of disbelief broken, but in this one, we have how many? They escape narrowly from Privet Drive, escape from the cafe, escape from the Ministry, escape from the trap in Godric's Hollow, Ron rescues Harry from the icy lake in the nick of time (seriously, the idea of having to go into the lake is ridiculous - chivalry and bravery aren't equal to insanity, recklessness and inability to foresee the consequences of one's actions), they survive Xeno Lovegood's betrayal, escape from the Malfoy Mannor, escape from Gringotts, escape from the Room of Requirement and survive the Battle of Hogwarts. Seriously. And the damnedest thing is, they survive most of it by pure luck, not because of clever planning on their behalf. It feels like Divine (or, rather, Author) Intervention and really undermines the book's credibility. And, ironically, it's especially evident BECAUSE of all the secondary characters dying like flies. And one other point. The Harry's resurrection plot. Not only is it poorly explained (there's circular reasoning as to why Harry survives the AK, and the reason the Elder Wand considers him his rightful owner is just pathetically far-fetched - by that logic every wand that had been "expelliarmused" in the past, would cease working against hte person who's done it), not only do we have Harry converse with Dumbledore in a strange plane of existence (can't be just something he's imagining in his mind, as the Dumbledore in Harry's mind wouldn't know all the extra information, would he now?), but he just wakes up from it and proceeds hapily about his business. There's no aftershock, and the "evil side" is, yet again, stupid below all reason. Consider: you're Voldemort. You've just used the AK curse on Harry Potter, and you think you killed him, but you're not sure. What do you do? Ah, of course, you send the unreliable Death Eater among you to check if he's breathing... At the very least, he should've sent Bellatrix to do it. Or, like a sensible villain would've done, he could've just cut off Harry's head (or something equally fatal). But no, that would've made too much sense... By the way. Harry's "King Cross" scene. Did it feel like a horrible, over-used cliche to anybody else? Yes, trains are a symbol of transition, we know. Personally, I've just about had enough metaphysical train station scenes with Neo and "Matrix Revolutions". Overall, a cop-out. And Dumbledore existing somewhere out there, available to provide plot points for the readers... Sigh. 3. The pacing and plot of the book are a mess. For the first half of the book, the trio just moves around aimlessly, without a sense of purpose - mostly, for the author to fill in the blanks in some of the past plot-lines, but without actually advancing the plot. Then the pacing picks up closer to the end, speeds up and then runs into a brick wall instead of gradually slowing down. We rush towards Voldemort's death, and then the book suddenly ends. No closure is given to the vast majority of the characters - "good" and "evil" alike. It's like the book was written with a very commercial decision in mind - to leave things open-ended enough for a possible sequel. We are also given very little screen time for some of the most important characters - most notably, Ginny and Snape. Both spend 99% of the book off-screen, and we are only given hearsay information about their activities. Worse, Harry doesn't give a SINGLE THOUGHT to what he sees in the Pensieve - he just picks up on the "Harry is supposed to die, © Dumbledore" idea and bravely goes to face Voldemort. Never mind that the scene is absolutely wrong for the pacing of the battle - we take an entire chapter worth of exposition while outside, a battle rages on. But think about it, Harry finds out that he hated Snape wrongly, that Snape was a brave and courageous person, and doesn't spare a second to think about it. Instead, we see him 19 years later telling his son what a courageous man Severus Snape was. That sounds pontificating, but doesn't really sound like something coming from one's soul. Ginny - she's barely in the book, and she and Harry exchange what, a couple of sentences? Or were we really supposed to accept that Harry's madly in love with Ginny after Book 6 (in which it appeared out of nowhere and was given very little screen time) and carry that impression all the way through Book 7? It's just bad writing, as it doesn't really consider character's motivations - what, exactly, makes Harry be in love with Ginny and why does he marry her after the end of the book? There's at least one scene missing at the end, in which Harry and Ginny could've had some form of closure. But, hey, that would make too much sense... Moving along, everything in the story is completely random. Every single discovery they make is accidental, and there could've been a thousand little things that could've gone wrong - and yet they never do, they can't, because the author needs to move the plot along, doesn't she? The discovery of every single Horcrux is made by accident. They accidentally find RAB's identity, conveniently find out it's been taken by Umbridge, conveniently find her wewaring it... Then they, no less conveniently, get sent the sword of Godric Griffindor - and the point of Harry jumping in the cold water is only to have Ron save him and thus, somewhat redeem himself for deserting him. Ron finds them by sheer force of Deus Ex Machina of the Deluminator (which he, accidentally, found out the how to use). Harry immediately forgives him, and Hermione doesn't stay angry with him for long - that's very reasonable, after somebody runs away after volunteering to join you on a life-and-death mission. Anyway, after the happy reunion, they accidentally mention Voldemort's name, accidentally get brought up to the place where Bellatrix can be found, and accidentally manage to deduce that she has another Horcrux in her vault. They escape, just because Aberforth was looking into the mirror at EXACTLY the right moment (I'm talking seconds here), and had Dobby conveniently nearby. They conveniently find a way to Hogwarts, look a bit for the Diadem, just get lucky with the ghosts knowing about it and Harry remembers that he accidentally stumbled onto it - seen it, and TOUCHED it - in a gigantic room full of junk. Hey, what are the odds?... The strongest insult to out intelligence is the fact that Voldemort even put it there in the first place. IT'S A ROOM FULL OF JUNK! What kind of a moron is Voldemort if we're supposed to believe he just thought he was the only person to discover this room, and it was already full of hidden items? And, even worse, what kind of a moron is Voldemort if he didn't ask the Room of Requirement to become a hiding place that would be available for HIM and him ALONE? Sigh. Anyway, Ron and Hermione get into the Chamber of Secrets (wasn't it supposed to require knowledge of Parseltongue to enter? Or are we supposed to believe that Salazar Slytherin himself was an idiot, who never thought about elementary protection against random students hissing at each other?), fetch a couple of Basilisk's fangs - which, miraculously, still work - then they go into the Room of Requirement and yet again, while escaping the fires, Harry accidentally sees it in the mess of junk on the floor. Have you ever tried finding a small item in a huge and poorly organised room full of junk lately? If yes, you'll know that it usually takes ages to find even the most obvious of objects. Never mind that it's not necessary as the diadem melts anyway - Harry doesn't know it and he does find it. Furthermore, a lot of plot developments happen because of Harry's ability to see into Voldemort's mind. That happened in Book 5, Voldemort eventually learned about it and used it. Then in Book 6, it stopped, and we're told that Voldemort had started using Occlumency. And yet here, in Book 7, the connection is active again, and this time Voldemort is oblivious. Did he get a lobotomy while I wasn't looking (hm, that could explain a lot...)? And, finally, the Deathly Hallows. They're... interesting, certainly, although they stretch the suspension of disbelief even further. They also have a lot of self-contradictions: one of them has been widely asked - how did Dumbledore defeat Grindelwald, if the latter was using the Elder Wand? And if you argue that Grindelwald wasn't really its true master, then by that logic Dumbledore shouldn't have become one, either (compare to Voldemort's later attempts at "mastering" the unruly wand). The Resurrection Stone idea - okay, Voldemort really IS an idiot, he failed to recognize it as an object with magical powers (wasn't he supposed to be good at this sort of thing?). And... Harry gets it at "the close". That's seriously bad writing - JKR just needed Harry to find the stone at that particular point, so she made it that the Snitch would open at that point (if you really think about it: it opened at that point because it was supposed to open at that point, circular reasoning again). Dumbledore's actions are beyond psychic, and I daresay that with so many variables around, nobody IN-UNIVERSE could've predicted how things would go after Dumbledore's death. And to top it all, the Deathly Hallows don't really go anywhere - yes, they're there, and yes, they have all these intricate connections to Grindelwald / Dumbledore. But we never find out what they actually do. A children's story says they make their owner the "Master of Death". And that means?... Some characters just feel underdeveloped - consider Lupin, whom we see first for the "Noes, Tonks is pregnant, must run away" scene, and then for the "Yay, I have a son, let's party!" scene. Where's logic, I ask you? Same problem with Dudley - no character development whatsoever for over 6 books, and now he's suddenly grown a conscience while we weren't looking... Snape plotline is, in hind-sight, well done - in the previous books! As I said above, his death scene is severely lacking in any emotional imact purely because we don't know, at that point, whether he is good or evil - so we lack the insight into the character's motivations, which is absolutely required for any degree of empathy. Also, the Doe patronus and the "Snape / Lily" subplot were rather obvious, but that's simply because I've read so many articles / essays / editorials about it. Ironically, the only character who shows considerable development is... Kreacher. It was while readng about him that I felt most deeply touched and he was the character I hoped would survive the most - and, of course, was frustrated by the callous disregard in which Harry and Co - even Hermione - decide not to contact the elf, one who trusted them despite having been indoctrinated against their kind all his life - and then proceed throughout the book without mentioning him again, until we see him in the battle of Hogwarts (does he even survive? I hope so, but we're not really given a definitive answer, are we?). But in any case, that's precisely what differentiates good writing from bad writing - when good writing is employed, we actually care about the characters. There's probably more examples, but I'm too sleepy to keep thinking about them. Overall, I feel a lot of those issues are there simply because of the book's structure and the amount of information JKR had to squeeze into it. The structure meant that mostly everybody was pushed to the background as we followed the trio on their solitary adventures. Can't really have much character development if we're not around the characters, can we? As for the amount of information - yes, most of the plot threads from the past books have been resolved (albeit with some contradictions to Rowling's own words and some information still left out), but it made the book feel a bit like a list of facts, instead of a coherent story. Fundamentally, lots of background characters appear, give their useful bit of info, then fade back into obscurity. A lot of times, they give that information without even being asked for it. Yet again, the Deus Ex Machina type of writing - simply because writing a coherent plot would've taken a lot more effort? If that's true, it's rather insulting. And the bottom line? Good, simply for the shock value and the outside factors (yes, the 7th Harry Potter book, the end of a long wait, etc). But as a piece of literature? I've listed my thoughts, and the verdct isn't really all that good. |