HP and the DH

I read it finally.

It could have been better. I would have done things differently, not that it matters, and despite being thoroughly spoiled I enjoyed parts of it more than I expected, but I was not surprised often. I wonder how long she spent trying to figure some of it out?

I have to wonder too why it was not important to list what the adult versions of various people were doing for a living, but it was necessary to name all the various progeny. Hmm. Sequel series setup?

House elves - deus ex machina or valid plot device? or: how much plot was excised by using up Dobby?

And on that note: Kreacher’s sudden turn to the light side of the Force = religious conversion?

Hermione and Ron - rounded characters who end a series as peripheral.

Snape - see that man in the distance? he did things we approve of, after all.

One thing I appreciated - Voldemort had previously been a typical bad guy, hovering around in the distance cackling and wringing his hands about the nefarious plans he had. The last few books showed the politics he was influencing. In other words, he grew up and became an evil villain you’d expect in an adult book, rather than the sort of bad guy you’d expect to defeat in a kid’s book.

The trouble with this is, all that text about what’s printed in the papers and so on was pretty boring and not much of it had a lot to do with the rest of what happened - she could have had Harry read it in the background and point out the pertinent bits. She had so much happening off camera that would have been interesting to see, why not tuck away the bits that weren’t really completely necessary? In other words, I didn’t like her choices of what she told vs. what she described. I suppose that the fact that it’s still supposed to be a kid’s book governed this, but it’s still annoying. Especially when I didn’t think it was really a kid’s book any more. When you have an enemy hollowing out a body and sticking his pet snake in, even off camera, do you really have a kid’s book any more?