Harry Potter 7 (HYOOGE SPOILER ALERT)

[slartibartfast]

One quibble..the Death Eaters in the cafe were patrons, not servers. They came in and sat down right after Harry said the V-word.

[cassandra]

Finished this afternoon (British adult version - i.e., original words and spelling plus better cover art). My thoughts:

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My plot hole problem (and maybe I missed it, so help me out here):

Harry et. al promise the Godric sword to Griphook (or whatever his name is, the goblin) if he helps them break into Gringots and into the Lestrange vault, with the plan on not actually giving him the sword until they are done destroying the horcruxes.

But in the usual melee that ensures Harry doing anything, Griphook gets the sword while Harry et. al get the cup and escape.

Laaater...

Neville whips out the Godric sword and slices off Nagini's head....


Um...how did Neville get the sword? Did I skim over something or is this a massive gaff?

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If you didn't see Harry ending up with Ginny, you were blind. The symmetry of Harry + Ginny and Ron + Hermoine as a tight knit unit was pretty obvious to me since book 3.

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Why didn't Teddy Lupin go live with Harry and Ginny? Because his grandmother is still alive...think Neville and his gran.

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I wasn't much sad at who died in book 7, but the killing off of Sirius in book 5 hardended me to J.K.'s killing off of main characters...I was more concerned about George than Lupin/Tonks. Besides, Lupin had to die...he was the last of the mauraders (J. Potter, Petegrew, Lupin, Black). J.K. is rock solid (and in my opinion, boring) about symmetry.

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In general, I'm disappointed as well with the book. I've become quite disenchanted over the past several books as I don't think J.K. can write her way out of a brown paper bag, but I was still hooked by the story. The monologuing all of a sudeent at the end (Aberforth and Dumbledore) was LAME...and the ending...*sigh*. Whatever, I have an ending and I can move back to better literature.

[cassandra]

So I googled around about my plothole question and answered it, but jeez, how lame; Neville "pulled it out of the Sorting Hat because he's a true Gryffndor". *Sigh*. I believed when Harry did in Chamber of Secrets because a) Fawkes brought him the hat from b) Dumbledore's office where c) the freaking sword lived!

Neville, however, got the hat from a place waAaaay freaking far away from where the damn sword was....we don't even know where the sword is since the last we hear about it is...

*breathes*

Just lame...

[Gooseman]

So I googled around about my plothole question and answered it, but jeez, how lame; Neville "pulled it out of the Sorting Hat because he's a true Gryffndor". *Sigh*. I believed when Harry did in Chamber of Secrets because a) Fawkes brought him the hat from b) Dumbledore's office where c) the freaking sword lived!

Neville, however, got the hat from a place waAaaay freaking far away from where the damn sword was....we don't even know where the sword is since the last we hear about it is...

*breathes*

Just lame...

My guess is that it's explained with MORE symetry. Just like the wands choosing their owners, so did the sword. It remained loyal to the Gryffindor values rather than that of the goblins. Just a guess.

[wolfy-hound]

If the sorting hat can retrieve the sword from the office, to the lower realms of the school, then it's not that far of a stretch to say the sorting hat can retrieve it from wherever it might be.
I was disappointed in Lupin/Tonks deaths because they were so glossed over. No death scene for main characters? It was just "Oh they died in fighting".
I disliked her killing Snape, without having him shown to have been good all along. The only way Snape's name is cleared is Harry's word that he saw it in Snape's memory. That's lame. But then I like Snape, especially since the last movie he seemed less oily.
I'm not rabid about the books, but I enjoy the movies. I JUST finished the 6th book, having already read the last and 7th one. If I hadn't known about Dumbledore dying, I think I would have been stunned by it.
Wolfy

[Gooseman]

My thought is this: Are they the best books ever written? No. But at what reading level were they written at? A kids. What kind of ending does the majority of Harry Potter readers want? A happy fairytale ending, because kid's just don't GET stories that end any other way. Yes, I think if JK wanted to go for a mature, darker book, most of us would have been more pleased with it, however she still has to cater to the intermediate school aged kids who read of the tales of Harry Potter. So in that, I feel she has done a remarkable job. (with the exception on 9/10ths of the last chapter, it should have been just the happily ever after weddings rather than this albus severus nonsense)