Harry Potter - My thoughts

Spoiler warning, if you have not yet read book 7, Deathly Hallows, do not read this post!

OK, so I just finished the last of the Harry Potter series, Book 7, Deathly Hallows. Add that to a few comments by fellow bloggers knocking the series, and that lead me to thinking that I need to express my thoughts on the series of books & movies, and hopefully start up a good discussion. So let's start at the most recent and work backwards:

Book 7 - Initial reaction: Great book. I flew through it, hoping that nobody I knew or online would spoil the end before I got there. And no one did. However, upon finishing the book I realized why....no big surprise. JK Rowling did such a great job with this series, keeping it good for pre-teens and adults alike, but starting with book 4 had been building the death toll up with every book. Yeah, this one was a bloodbath, but when you get to the end, Harry lives. And not only does he live, but she pulls the whole near-death experience tease. And then when the real final battle happens, she lets him defeat Voldemort, basically, with his own spell turned on himself. I mean, couldn't she let Harry try the killing curse just like he started using crucio? Nope, she keeps Harry as the patron saint.

The Epilogue - How do you take 7 books, over 4000 pages, and try to give you an idea of what happens after the battles in a few pages of an epilogue. You already finished the battle on the safe, cutesy, high-note. Harry wins. Evil is conquered. Everyone laughs and drinks at a banquet. The only thing missing was one more appearance by Harry's favorite dead relatives telling him the force was strong in him, and a few dancing Ewoks. No, JK thought that she'd continue the love-fest with a look 19 years later, everyone's happily married with kids, all going to Hogwarts starting the cycle all over again similar to Harry in book 1. And she keeps is so short, that she hardly covers what happened over those 19 years. I mean, what about the first couple post-war years? Why focus so much on what Harry, Ron, & Hermy will do for careers after school, only to lightly touch on it? What about the fact that the big 3 took a year off, shouldn't there be a year 8 as they go back to actually finish their schooling, or did that whole school thing lose it's importance? And JK did such a wonderful job creating SO many different characters in this wizarding world, yet the epilogue covers only a handful of the main ones.

OK, enough negativity, I thought it was a good book, so let's get into that:

"On with the bodycount!" - Here's something I really like. In my opinion any story loses credibility if no one dies. So in Book 4 a well liked student dies. A great example of how the dark Lord is back, and people are gonna start dying, most likely right under Harry's nose. Book 5 it's Harry's godfather. Now it's even more personal, there's more fighting going on, and of course some lives will be lost. One of those happens to be the only member left of Harry's Wizarding family. Book 6 it's Dumbledore. Now we're talking. If you're not gonna kill one of the kids, take out the next most loved character in the series, who also happens to be the most powerful. This of course shows that nobody's safe, and keeps readers on their toes. Cause anyone can die. Book 7, there are quite a few here. Every battle in this book has some sort of death or dismemberment. I mean, it is a war, right? And if you want to claim that people are risking their lives, you gotta show that they really are. And this time, there are a lot of battles, not just a big one at the end. Instead we get one every other chapter. Hence so many deaths and injuries. Good stuff.

A different storyline - For the first time really, in 7 books, JK varies from the typical Potter storyline: Life with the Dursleys, hint at trouble, Diagon Alley, back to school, minor issues at school, character development, further explanation of the trouble, Quidditch, love interests, everyone bails on Harry, then they come back just in time for the final battle, Harry defeats evil with a little help from his friends, they leave school. Yeah book 4 mixed it up a little bit with the world cup and tri-wizard tourney, which made it one of my favorite books, but that was about all it ventured from the formula. Book 5 added more at the beginning before school, but then back to the formula. Book 6 was excellent, but followed the formula to a T. Then comes 7. Totally different. Starts out the same, and then you realize they're not going back to school. And the big 3 go on their journey that takes half the book, and is unlike anything in the series to date. This is really what makes this book stand out.

More background story - Book 7 was all about tying it all together. Although Dumbly was dead, we really get a good look into his past here. And learn more about the type of person he was, and his really connection to Harry above and beyond his headmaster role. While book 6 was more about Voldemort's back story, this one was really more about Dumbledore's.

The final battle - Although I do feel that some things in Book 7 happened too fast (like how quickly the coup took over the ministry), the build up to the final battle really had to happen that quickly. With wizards that can just disapparate and fly from place to place, mobilizing forces should really happen that quickly. And how appropriate, staging the biggest battle of the series on the grounds of Hogwarts. The best part, of course, is seeing Neville as the leader of the student underground. The one that shares the same birthday as Harry, that could've been who the prophet was written about, gets to play a vital role in organizing people, defying the death eaters at the school, and then taking out the last Horcrux. By him doing that, does that mean that he really killed the dark Lord? I'll get into that in a minute. The final battle was described pretty well. With everyone getting involved, and so much going on whichever way you looked, and of course, so many casualties, it was pretty good. And best of all, when compared to other great movie final battles, at least this one didn't have the two sides lined up, and the main character give the Braveheart speech "Voldemort will never take...our FREEDOM!!!"

Who really killed Voldemort - For those of you not keeping count, Voldemort split his soul up 6 (or 7) times. So in order to truly kill him, you have to kill all of the pieces of his soul. So in order: Harry killed the diary of Tom Riddle; Dumbledore killed the ring of Marvolo Gaunt; Ron killed the locket of Merope Gaunt; Hermione killed the cup of Hufflepuff; Crabbe killed the Diadem of Ravenclaw; Neville killed the snake Nagini. So that's 6 Horcruxes, leaving the 7th piece of Voldemort's soul in him, and the 8th piece in Harry. Both of which were technically killed by Voldemort himself. So you tell me, who really killed him?

OK, that was alot there, but now I feel better, like I just talked with a psychiatrist. Hopefully I'll get some comments here, and get into a discussion. Then I'll break down the other books and movies as well.