HP7 - Loved it. What'd you think? - NOW WITH SPOILERS!

DollarBill · Post by **DollarBill** » July 24th, 2007, 3:35 pm

Well, Milkshake and I finally finished. We've been each retiring to seperate rooms to read one chapter at a time and then meeting up again to talk about what we just read. We had to institute that pollicy because she reads slightly faster than me, and she gave a little bit away, early on, by her reactions to something 5 pages a head of where I was.

Anyway, we both loved it. It's my favorite of the series. I think it has the most emotion, and I really like the choices she made with the story.

Whatdgyathink?

kaci_beeler · Post by **kaci_beeler** » July 24th, 2007, 5:05 pm

It was awesome, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!
Wonderful book!

Roy Janik · Post by **Roy Janik** » July 24th, 2007, 5:11 pm

Yeah, it was my favorite. I thought the 2nd half, in particular, really clicked on all cylinders.

Wesley · Post by **Wesley** » July 24th, 2007, 5:15 pm

For the most part I really liked it. She paid off a lot of the offers she had set up for more than a decade. The writing was pretty intense and kept you guessing and reacting. I thought she did a good job with Snape and his motivations and allowing him to die unsaved in everyone's eyes. That was a bold choice.

But I felt she did punk out a little by killing and then bringing Harry back. Yeah, yeah, it was justified, but I wanted it to be one or the other. Both seems like it was just done to satisfy all camps.

DollarBill · Post by **DollarBill** » July 24th, 2007, 6:14 pm

WARNING THIS POST IS 100% SPOILER!

Wesley wrote:But I felt she did punk out a little by killing and then bringing Harry back. Yeah, yeah, it was justified, but I wanted it to be one or the other. Both seems like it was just done to satisfy all camps.

I really liked the way she handled it. I mean she did choose... to have him live. He just almost died first. The camp for people who wanted him to die wasn't really satisfied... cuz he lived.

I loved the overall feel of chapters 33-36. To me, it's not if he lives or dies, but how it happens. And I loved the way it was handled. She had me the whole way... When he went to sacrifice himself, I felt horrible. It was what he had to do, but it was so sad (like an empty, hollow, grayscale kind of sadness). Then when you find out that there's hope, it just felt... right. Then, BAM: more action/suspence! So like I said, she had me all the way through the end. It's so hard to end epics like that, and I got exactly what I wanted from this one. Anyway, that's how I feel. Sweet.

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » July 24th, 2007, 6:31 pm

I'm a sucker for happy endings, and while I defenetly see where you're comign from Wes, nothing beats that ending in the Hogwarts entry hall...

Someone put a spoiler alert in the subject line if they can...

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » July 24th, 2007, 6:44 pm

Whoops... already taken care of.

kaci_beeler · Post by **kaci_beeler** » July 24th, 2007, 8:25 pm

Jastroch wrote:I'm a sucker for happy endings, and while I defenetly see where you're comign from Wes, nothing beats that ending in the Hogwarts entry hall...

Yeah, that was literary gold. Really fantastic.

And c'mon, it started out as a Young Adult book series, and while it got very dark and "not for children" at the end, all gloom, sacrifice, and death wouldn't have been all that satisfying...at least to me and several other rabid fans.

Kaci's HP saga:
I started reading the first book when I was 12. I was in 7th grade and I was running through the required reading like crazy, so my teacher suggested the first two Harry Potter books, which she had. I read them, not knowing how much the series was growing in popularity at the time, and was hooked.
When I was in my early teens, I was crazy for HP. Worse than I am now (and I have a full costume and did a whole one woman show for goodness sakes). I saw the first movie 8 times at the theater and bought a VHS copy of it early in case it sold out. I went to all of the midnight releases and for every birthday and Christmas I received HP stuff - little stuffed owls, harries, hermiones, rons, coloring books, t-shirts, organizers, journals, planners, beans, wands, soundtracks, more copies of the books. I read one of them aloud to my brother. I read the first four all aloud over the phone to a lazy but interested ex-boyfriend. I love Harry Potter. I used to dream about going to Hogwarts. I used to wish I could meet Daniel Radcliffe. I've been improvising in the HP universe long before the Dark BloodLords or Jill and I's show.
Yeah, you could even say I was obsessed.

So this last book meant a lot to me. Funny, actually. It took 8 years for me to go through all 7 of the books. And for some of the books I was even around the same age as the main characters (Book 4).
I care greatly for the series and I'm so happy with how it ended.

DollarBill · Post by **DollarBill** » July 25th, 2007, 12:54 am

So now we're left with a gaping hole in our lives. I've started filling it by dreaming up a revolutionary magic/fantasy PC game that will never be created. Milkshake is trying to replace the dead dog with a new puppy. She's not sure if any new puppies will be as fulfilling. I'm trying to convince her that a new lesser known fantasy puppy written for adults might actually be MORE enthralling than the old extremely popular seven dog series.

OH!!! And did anyone else think it was strange that in chapter 6 Hermione said she changed her parents' memories, but then in chapter 10 in the bar where they cursed the Death Eaters Hermione said she never altered anyones memory before. I never notice that stuff, so I'm surprised that one slipped by the editor.

yams · Post by **yams** » July 25th, 2007, 2:14 am

And what about Neville killing Nagini with the sword of Gryffindor? Didn't Griphook the goblin take it from Harry in Gringotts before they escaped on the dragon? How did Neville magically (heh) conjure it to slice that snake's head off?

Inconsistency can be the death of such magic.

beardedlamb · Post by **beardedlamb** » July 25th, 2007, 2:51 am

yams wrote:And what about Neville killing Nagini with the sword of Gryffindor? Didn't Griphook the goblin take it from Harry in Gringotts before they escaped on the dragon? How did Neville magically (heh) conjure it to slice that snake's head off?

ha. from the perspective of someone who knows absolutely nothing about this story, this is a very funny sentence. it sounds fake.

Wesley · Post by **Wesley** » July 25th, 2007, 9:33 am

Jastroch wrote:Someone put a spoiler alert in the subject line if they can...

Sorry, I guess I assumed that if the topic was 'finished it' and asking 'what you thought,' spoilers were implied. My bad.

Roy Janik · Post by **Roy Janik** » July 25th, 2007, 9:41 am

yams wrote:And what about Neville killing Nagini with the sword of Gryffindor? Didn't Griphook the goblin take it from Harry in Gringotts before they escaped on the dragon? How did Neville magically (heh) conjure it to slice that snake's head off?

Inconsistency can be the death of such magic.

There's no inconsistency at all. Neville drew the sword from the Sorting Hat, which can only be done by a true Gryffindor... just like Harry did in the first book, I think. Goblin ideas on property rights nonwithstanding, the magic held and the sword heeded the call.

Jastroch · Post by **Jastroch** » July 25th, 2007, 11:14 am

Wesley wrote:
Jastroch wrote:Someone put a spoiler alert in the subject line if they can...
Sorry, I guess I assumed that if the topic was 'finished it' and asking 'what you thought,' spoilers were implied. My bad.

I wouldn't have looked a tthe topic if I ahdn't finished it, because I'm clever. But there are a lot of fools out there, and not all of them are non improvisors.

kaci_beeler · Post by **kaci_beeler** » July 25th, 2007, 12:43 pm

Roy Janik wrote:
yams wrote:And what about Neville killing Nagini with the sword of Gryffindor? Didn't Griphook the goblin take it from Harry in Gringotts before they escaped on the dragon? How did Neville magically (heh) conjure it to slice that snake's head off?

Inconsistency can be the death of such magic.
There's no inconsistency at all. Neville drew the sword from the Sorting Hat, which can only be done by a true Gryffindor... just like Harry did in the first book, I think.

Second book. In the Chamber of Secrets when he was fighting the horcrux in the diary of Tom Riddle.