I just got my copy of the book... read the first couple chapters... and almost throwed up in my keyboard... really... if you say the first few chapters were the promising ones than I might just as well burn that fucking waste of money...

 

Hey all,

Turned out I had to wait an extra two days to get the scholastic edition and I didn’t want to read it from net, just finished reading a couple of hours ago.

All in all a solid 3.5/5. After the HPB tragedy, I was expecting something much worse.

Positive Aspects

I liked the overall plot and atmosphere of the book.

Loved the amount of character deaths, would have been better if one of the trio or Neville or Luna died.

Enjoyed the history between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Found the fact that Grindelwald was alive and in his own prison COOL!

Negative Aspects

Molly offing Bella was just unforgivable.

The way the Ministry of Magic fell to Voldemort… Plain fucking sad that was. Where were all the Aurors? The all mysterious Unspeakables? Was there even a fistfight?
The way that Thickness fellow was under the Imperius… WTF!

I was seriously hoping to see more of the DOM and its inhabitants.

The end of the Dark Lord Voldemort. No respect…

Then there was a wanker by the name of Harry Potter. This imbecile, fictional or not deserves to have his penis crucioed. Pathetic pussy, if it wasn’t for the know-it-all they would be dead. He deserves to be dead.

---------------------------------------------
According to JKR standards and after comparing this to her last 2 releases 4/5.

That’s all for now,
-MysterioX

 

He uses the Imperius 4 times (two times each on Travers & Bogrod) and the Cruciatus once. I would hardly call this Harry kicking ass. Throw the killing curse at a couple of Death Eaters or in that final battle against Voldemort…

 

1/5 Stars.

I found this story sadly pathetic. First of all, because Harry died, but came back. And the fact that J.K. Rowling has simply made a fool of herself by pairing Ginny and Harry in the past two books.

The only reason that this story has gotten one star from my point of view is that she made one good character out of the whole story: Ariana.

J.K. should back-track to the fourth book, and redo the series from there on. Anything would be better than H/G. Even H/Cho, and I despise Cho almost as much as I despise Ginslut.

That is all.

 

3/5 for me

The book was not as boring as book 6 but did not strike my fancy like book 1-4. I agree with some people’s disappointment in the development of Harry’s character. It irked me that Harry, with the knowledge that he was the only one to defeat Voldemort, did not put effort in bettering himself and instead rely on 00ber enchanted objects and Hermione’s brain. I had the urge to jab the book when I found out how Harry defeated Voldy. The book made it seem like taking over the ministry is a piece of cake with the imperius curse. The part with Harry using 3 wands at once was lame. I thought some wands were supposed to be very volatile to some users. I guess the secret of power is to know how to make a wand. There is only one word I am going to describe the epilogue, CRAP!!!! Who in the right mind would name their kids over not one but both of their deceased parents; and a manipulative old goat and a greasy bat that ruined their childhood. It was bad enough that Harry boned and married that Gin!slut. On the plus side, I liked how Dumbledore was revealed to be a manipulative bastard who believes sacrificing human lives was a worthy price for his ideology. I am glad JK destroyed the whole Lord of Light image for him. That will teach those kiddies a lesson that some people are more than what they appear. Confirmation of mental retardation of Crabbe and Goyle was humorous. This may suggest there is widespread incestuous practice within certain old family lines. I was also glad there was a better explanation for Snape’s bitterness towards Harry other than that James and Snape were long time school rivals.

 

It was indeed disappointing..
I've been reading this shit since I was a kid, bought all the books and etc, just to get an ending like that.. Pisses the shit outta me, honestly.

When the story was turning towards a machiavellian Dumbledore, the cocksucker turned out to be a goodie goodie with a nice plan, fuck it!

/\ Refers to the ending.

The book was entertaining, it wasn't full of shit like the others, it was actian throughout the whole thing and we can't complain about that. Harry's expelliarmus against Voldemort made me sick...
When he imperiused those people at gringotts, I was like, YAY he's finally becoming a man, and then he comes and expelliarmus Voldemort instead of using Avada Kedavra? that suuuuuucked!

 

I gave it 4/5 as i really didnt hold out little hope for this book after what Half-Blood Prince turned out like so i was pleasantly surprised when it was actually readable. I was happy with the fact that Ginny interaction was kept to a minimum and even happier when she didnt tag along on the horcrux hunt.

The worst part of the book (except the epilogue which sucked balls) was by far the middle, the whole camping thing dragged on and on. I was a little disappointed that she just killed off Remus and Tonks with no detail of how they died or who killed them. I had to read the last couple of chapters from when Harry was sort of killed twice before i fully understood them,because the whole deal with the elder wand confused the shit out of me.

I like the inclusion of the deathly hallows even if there wasnt any build up to them and the gaping plot hole that was Harry's supposedly supposedly invisibility cloak. As I said above the whole wand thing confused me at first and the first question I asked myself was what about disarming an opponent in the DA. I like the whole Harry got screwed over by Griphook seeing as so many authors make Griphook the good Goblin in there fics, I also liked the way the school was giving to Deatheaters and the DA rebelled (Neville kicked ass!). The Muggle registration was a good idea as was the taboo to locate rebels with in the wizard world.

I hated absolutely hated the fact that Bella was killed by Molly Weasley and laughed for a minute before realising that a housewife had killed a dark witch who had previously been duelling three people. The final duel between Voldemort and Harry was a bit anti-climatic but fitted in with the book seeing as how Harry didnt bother to learn anything new despite knowing he had to kill Voldemort.

In the end it was better than I expected and i found it to be a decent read and feel four was a far rating

 

Hmm...Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

All in all, it was a good book. I voted 3/5 on the poll, but now I'm beginning to lean further towards 4/5 as I re-read it. People who say they didn't like it because Harry wasn't an uber-wizard of the likes of Dumbledore and Grindlewald are deluding themselves. The whole of the Harry Potter series, especially HBP, has stressed the fact that Harry isn't a powerful wizard. I'd even go as far to say that Harry not being powerful is the whole point of the Harry Potter series. Harry's power was that he didn't seek power.

This, I find, is far more satisfying than any "Harry trains and comes into his own" storyline. Not because of any moral message or anything like that, but because of realism. Even if Harry were a magical prodigy, there would be no way that you could realistically make a 17-year-old magical prodigy beat a 60-year-old magical prodigy. Therefore, the only satisfying way in which Harry could win would be through a power not related to ordinary magic. Like love, music, self-sacrifice...all those things that Dumbledore has said are magics beyond the ordinary.

Of course, this isn't to say that in fanfiction it isn't fun to play with powerful and skilled versions of Harry, nor does it stop me wishing that Harry could have been at least a little bit more competent, but when it comes to canon, the way DH played out fits the overall canon feeling and message.

I shall now go through pros and cons of the book. No doubt there will be more cons, but that's because it's always easier to see things that displease us than things we like.


Pros

- The Grindlewald/Dumbledore storyline. Dumbledore had always been my favourite character, and it was great to see his character get fleshed out. It isn't really a victory for manipulative!Dumbledore fans though, as many make it out to be. Sure, the whole thing was mastermined by Dumbledore, but that was the only way in which Harry could have won. He didn't really intend to sacrifice Harry as Snape's memory so coldly presented: he just needed Harry to think that, so that he might live. And it turns out he wasn't an evil wizard subduing his sister either: despite all his talent and promise, he did abandon his future to care for her, no matter how much he may have grumbled about it.

- The new magic, what little of it there was.

- The style. Many people criticise JKR's style; I love it. I love the way she tells the story from Harry's view and shows his thoughts yet still from a third-person perspective, and the way she manages to cover a lot of time in little space, which I find very hard.

- The chapter in which Harry goes to sacrifice himself and Voldemort "kills" him. Masterful. If only she could have pulled through and had actually made Harry die: it would have been one of the strongest endings of all fiction of all time.

- The Kings-Cross chapter with Dumbledore. All is revealed.


Cons

- The sheer predictability of the book. Harry is a horcrux, Snape redeems himself, Snape loved Lily, The Malfoy's redeem themselves, Kreacher redeems himself, R.A.B was Regulus, Dumbledore knew what he was doing all along, and of course the format of the book: Hunt for the horcruxes, and then face off with Voldemort. It was all predicted. The only thing that was unpredictable was that which would have been impossible to predict: the Hallows. But these turned out to be a side-plot, not a main part of the story, so meh.

- Snape. His character works better as evil than as good, and the whole loving Lily thing was painful.

- The epilogue. I don't dislike it because it's H/G - I don't mind that too much. No, I dislike it because it tells us absolutely nothing.

- How little new magic we see in the books.

- The abandonment of some rather big parts of the previous books, particularly the abandonment of some of the best parts of HBP. Non-verbal magic anyone? What happened to that? And occlumency too? Snape's words at the end of HBP obviously didn't have ther intended effect on Harry. "Blocked and blocked again until you learn to close your mouth and mind" (paraphrased).

- The ending. Harry beats Voldemort because of Wand Ownership Rights? How lame is that? I wasn't expecting a huge duel or anything like that, but Harry winning on a technicallity is a bit of a let down. I would have prefered a power-of-love ending to that.

- The "Hermione knows everything, I can just sit back and do nothing" attitude that Harry has. I know we've seen this in previous books, but in DH it is upped to the extreme. It's one of Harry's first thoughts of the whole book. "I don't know healing spells: I should learn. I know, I'll get Hermione to tell me". The first two parts of that sentence were good, the last part was not. This I felt was particularly pronounced when Hermione had the book on Horcruxes, and how to destroy them, and Harry didn't even want to take a look at it - it didn't even occur to him that he might want to -, despite it holding the keys to Voldemort's defeat.

- The middle of the book. Like many others, the whole camping thing - even the Gringotts scene - dragged for me.

- The departure from the "Harry Potter forumula". The 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th books all made departures from the forumula, each book's divergence being greater than the last's. I loved that formula...

- Molly beating Bellatrix. Huh?

- Harry's invisibility cloak suddenly becoming an uber magical artifact +1. Eh?



Well, those are my pros and cons. Notice I've put nothing about the romance part of the book, which I didn't mind in the least. I've never minded much about canon-Ginny: it's more fanon Ginny I dislike, and even if I did hate her, she's hardly in the book anyway. As an aside, why's everyone going on about Neville? I mean, sure, he disobeyed a few teachers and got punished for it: so waht? He's a cool character, but he's not that cool.

 

Just for the record, my primary bitch Harry's characterization isn't that he's magically weak (ok it is, but that's under 'wrong plot direction' category), but that he KNOWS he's about to be in a world of trouble, but he doesn't do anything to improve himself, thus increasing his chances for success.

If Voldemort had used a wandless attack, or if he blasted floor underneath Harry's feet or fried his brain with Legilimency, Harry would have lost. He couldn't have known in advance he wouldn't have to buy himself a few extra seconds by knowing an advanced spell or two.

 

Exactly, what he said.

 

I was disappointed with the book. Why did she have to kill Dobby and hurt/kill both of the twins and Tonks? Why did she have to make Luna into an idiot? That woman just wants to hurt what her fans' love.

For the sheer fact it was better HBP, I'll give a 3/5.

 

That was what saved the DH.

Luna was just being herself, eccentric's the word.

I'm sure the epilogue was enough to satisfy your need for "happily ever after".

 

It felt like a video game storyline and had just as many problems with it's philosophy. Moral Relativism and Manichaean Dualism cannot be reconciled.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I liked her use of Dobby and I liked her decision to off a lot of characters. I did not like Molly Weasley owning Bellatrix Lestrange. Nor did I like the Epilogue which, for the record, was one of the shittiest I've ever seen. When I saw that there was an Epilogue I thought "oooh here comes something interesting -- I want an explanation of a few things". Then I read the book and was sorely disappointed.

I guess that's just me.

As for the relationship stuff. It would be better if she hadn't written any pairings in the books.

EDIT: My Rating? 2/5 stars. Better then HBP, but that's like saying that, when compared to a T-Ball Player, Jamie Moyer is an excellent hitter. Philosophically inconsistent etc. Good ideas, but I can't give it higher.

 

The ending was the worst part

 

in addition to never making an effort to learn anything of his own accord, it seriously bugged me when near the very beginning, Harry is told that Expelliarmus is a stupid spell to cast (paraphrased). And then he keeps doing it, throughout the book, to the extent that Crabbe casts a Killing Curse at Hermione and Harry STILL only aims to disarm. That's just stupid, especially when, disproportionatelly, he would be willing to cast the Cruciatus on one of the Carrows just for spitting in McGonagall's face. Why did he never use any serious spells against his real enemies?

That said, I did quite enjoy the book, minus the inconsistencies mentioned above. 4/5.

 

That was a brilliant and well-thought-out post, Seiyaxusagi. I hope you continue to contribute to threads in new and exciting ways.

 

No, that's not the total reason I rated it 1/5 stars.

I'll further my points.

1. Molly Weasley killed Bellatrix Lestrange, I don't care how angry a mother can be, there's no way that a housewife can kill an accomplished Dark Witch.

2. The "Hallows" were simply thrown in randomly, including the whole children's story.

3. The Epilogue was completely horrendous.

4. The fact that Snape turned out to be a good guy, completely ruined that part of the book.

5. Hedwig the frickin' OWL died. That was pointless, and saddening.

6. George without Fred is like pancakes without syrup.

7. J.K. Rowling put more loose ends into the story than she covered from the previous.

8. She said she was done with the Harry Potter series, but I think she's going to start another, but with Harry's kid's as a second generation. The fact that the kid's mother is going [ if it happens ] to be Ginny is completely off putting.

9. Dumbledore plotting to take over the world with Grindelwald was one of the only parts of the book I enjoyed, besides finding out about Ariana.

10. Voldemort flying? Completely retarded.

11. Spells bouncing off glass? Unheard of.

12. That rubbish about not being able to conjure or transfigure food?

13. Snape being in love with Lily? Horrible plot.

14. A pussy Harry that used the Imperius curse, seems like he grew balls, and then threw them away when using the Disarming Charm against Voldemort in the last battle.

15. Harry died, somehow part of Voldemort kept him alive. Then he talked to a dead man, that ruined the chapter.

16. Harry's love protecting all of Hogwarts from silencing charms, simply amazing. PSYCH. More like completely retarded.

17. Dudley worried about Harry? What fanfiction did she steal that from? I can think of one, that was horridly disappointing. The Psychic Serpent series I believe.

Should I go any farther into this? I can re-read it in a couple of hours and take notes this time?