I'm fine with it being Molly who dueled Bellatrix, because I'd already thought of that reasoning. That being said, I still feel that Neville should have been the one to deliver the killing blow. Molly's retribution as it were was a failure to protect. That would have been satisfied simply by her holding off Bellatrix and protecting a crowd of wounded who could not defend themselves.

I think the ideal would have been that if Molly killed/defeated anyone, it would have been Narcissa, not Bellatrix. That's opposing viewpoints, corrupted wealth versus wholesome poverty, an old family feud, matriarch of darkness versus matriarch of light, and a nonactive/sattelite member of the Order of the Phoenix that gives her home to them as a refuge versus someone of similar position to the Death Eaters (i.e. hostess/enabler of Good versus hostess/enabler of Evil).

But Rowling decided to forgive the Malfoys in the eleventh hour and fifty-nineth minute, so we can't have nice things like that.

Macnair is another potential for Molly, as he is a Destroyer while she is a Protector, but Hagrid and Buckbeak both have a much stronger claim against him than she does.

 

Bellatrix didn't avoid pwnage because Dumbledore couldn't pwn her if he wanted to, but because she was separated from the other DEs when Dumbledore pwned them all, having been with Harry and later Voldemort in the Atrium. Once Dumbledore got to where she was, he had to focus on the bigger fish.

 

Y'know who would have been awesome as the killer of Bellatrix?

Narcissa Malfoy. In an act of pride in her name, she puts down the mad dog of her family, by surprise and to no-ones detriment.

Then, the idea of redeemed Malfoys wouldn't leave such a poor taste in the mouth.

 

Then again, there's just something hilarious about a pissed off house-elf named Winky killing Bellatrix because she killed Dobby.

Then again, imagine the plethora of stories with the pairing Dobby/Winky (Dinky?) after that.

 

You mean like pretty much every story on ff.net that features Dobby and Winky?

 

I really don't like the overall message of DH's ending. That vehemently denying death in favor of life is inherently bad, that gaining power is inherently immoral. I mean, those things could be done negatively, sure, but I don't see either as intrinsically corrupt.

This is, I think, best exemplified in the final duel between Voldemort and Harry. Harry, by embracing death, somehow gains an ineffable high ground he did not possess before. He is considered more because he was willing to just lie down and die, even if it was for a cause. And he even eschews the power of the Elder Wand in the end, despite all the good it could have done. All leading back to the themes of death being good and power being bad.

In the end victory is gained with a fluke, in my opinion. Harry doesn't overpower the Dark Lord, wresting triumph from his cold dead hands. He doesn't really out-think Riddle either. Events that weren't planned or anticipated (except MAYBE by Dumbledore to a degree) all came together in just the right way for Harry to win. It feels like being cheated honestly.

With that being said, the Battle of Hogwarts BEFORE Harry went out to the forest was awesome. While many seem to think it's a bit of a letdown, I thought it conveyed the chaos of a full battle rather nicely, with important characters we came to know over six other books dying left and right with no fanfare or import. Just like real war.

 

I wanted Harry to kill Bellatrix. It would have been great if he left Malfoy in the ROR.

 

I've always been partial to Dumbledore curb-stomping the roomful of Ministry officials when they come to arrest him in OotP.

wordhammer, that is fucking brilliant. I always thought Neville should have lopped off Bellatrix's head instead and Nagini should have been eaten by Buckbeak but now Narcissa killing Bellatrix is what I'll pretend happened.

Definitely agree about the Malfoy redemption. Fuck that. I can live with Narcissa being redeemed (after begging Snape in HBP I saw it coming) and Draco just being beneath contempt, but Lucius deserved a painful and humiliating death.

 

You got the wrong sister. Andromeda Tonks would have been the better choice. She lost her husband, her daughter and her son-in-law in the war; she deserves vengeance.

My other suggestion wouldn't be Neville, though. I'd love to have Granny Augusta kick Bella's hot arse instead, especially if she does so in the course of saving Neville, the last of the Longbottoms.

 

I wanted Neville to take her down as well. Then I thought about Molly acting as a stand-in for Alice Longbottom, and thought "yeah, that's fucking awesome." Enraged mothers are capable of damn near anything.

 

The Elder Wand, while not actively evil, was far more sentient than any other wand we've seen, and was actively bloodthirsty. If you think the Deathstick could have been turned to anything objectively 'Good' for long, I've got a bridge to sell you.

The overall message of DH wasn't that gaining power is evil. It was that those who seek power are usually the ones who should be trusted with it the least. Dumbeldore himself admitted that his greatest fault was that he was power-hungry. He enjoyed power for it's own sake, and liked having it more than he should have. He had the intelligence to notice this and feel ashamed about it, and was able to reign in those impulses, but he admitted cheerfully that it was, without a doubt, his vice, and it was a vice that he, Grindelwald, and Voldemort all shared.

Harry acquired a moral high ground because he did not seek power, which contrasts him sharply with Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Voldemort, who all did. Dumbledore expressly said that the trait of not desiring or wanting power was in fact Harry's most admirable trait of all, and it was what made him uniquely suited to wielding such power, because it meant he was least-likely to abuse that power or seek more for his own gain.

It was very directly implied that only someone 'like' Harry, who did not seek power at all, could end the curse of the Elder Wand. Only someone who didn't want the power it offered could stop the bloodshed that power existing caused. He cast it aside, because it was too dangerous and too powerful to be used. He wasn't arrogant enough to believe that he could change it's nature, or bend it to his will. He would rather let it die than risk carrying it himself, and unwittingly causing yet more death and destruction.

I find it in no small terms ironic that so many who criticize the action of Harry discarding the Elder Wand are expressing the very kinds of views that the books made expressly clear were, in fact, the worst sort of things to believe and want, should the wand fall into your hands.

 

Well didn't Dumbledore use the Wand for many years without it turning to bloodthirsty acts? With that kind of power, Harry could have done so many positive things, none of them including murder. IIRC, Dumbledore made many magical advances using the Elder Wand and his own brilliance, so its power doesn't twist you into a tyrant unless it plays a very long game indeed.

I don't think the wand itself is bloodthirsty, just powerful. And powerful weapons attract bloodthirsty men. If you can reference where it was referred to as wanting to kill people, rather than just following the orders of the wizard who owned it, feel free to correct me.

With that being said, I get your point and can see where you're coming from. I just believe that if you have the potential to do so much good directly in your hands just waiting to be utilized, and don't use it, you're not a very moral individual.

 

I'm going to go with: he was Dumbledore.

 

And? It's just never mentioned that the wand would make you a homicidal lunatic, just that many of its owners were, in fact, homicidal lunatics.

 

There are also mentions of periods where it falls into disuse or out of common knowledge. These were probably the times it fell into the hands of someone with the wisdom and constitution to keep it. It does, however, also imply a kind of One-Ringish tendency to reappear despite the best intentions of good wizards. This would be something interesting to cover, as to how it would resurface even after the efforts of men like Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter to lay it to rest.

 

That would depend entirely upon whether someone was able to defeat Harry before he died a natural death. At that point the cycle is broken and the Deathstick becomes just another wand.

 

Or so Dumbledore thought. If it drops out of the historical record for centuries at a time, it may be reasonable to think that at least one or two of its masters died without being defeated. Perhaps its power persists, or if it doesn't, wouldn't belief be enough to continue the cycle? Belief in its power gives it a kind of power in and of itself, though that's a different matter.

 

Not unless this changed from Harry Potter to Harry Dresden when I wasn't looking, it doesn't.

Shit in Dresden can have power just because people tell stories about it. That's never been suggested or shown to be the case in Harry Potter, not even slightly. People believing in the legend (that isn't true) just means that a small, deranged few would still fight over the Elder Wand even if it wasn't still the Deathstick. It doesn't mean the Elder Wand is rekindled into what it once was just because some people keep telling the story.

 

I'm not saying that belief gives it any legitimate kind of magical power, just that belief in its powers could continue the cycle whether or not its legitimate supremacy had been broken in some distant past, leaving it no more potent than the wizard who wields it.

EDIT: Power in the sense of a sort of intangible influence, purely psychological. Whether or not Christianity is valid, belief in it has made it a powerful force in the world. Even if the powers of the wand were mere myth, belief in them would still compel wizards to pursue it.

 

On the topic of Molly Weasley killing Bellatrix: I would have been fine with it if at least two things had happened in the previous books:

- Molly Weasley had been shown to have been a powerful witch at one point. Like if she had been a significant person in school and had a job as an Auror or Hit-wizard or Unspeakable or some other job where there's a requirement to be great. And then at some point she got tired of the job or accidentally kills someone and doesn't want to fight anymore, or she found love in Arthur and she has a kid and decides that she wants to be a housewife from now on. This sort of thing happens in real-life and wouldn't be too far off. It wouldn't even require too much effort either; an off-hand comment about her being retired here, a person (Order member at a meeting, or Lucius at the bookstore) pissing her off and then they get really wary of her there, mention of a the safehouse being safe because she's there, and you add flavor to a character who's only other attribute is her cooking skill.

- Bellatrix had wronged her greatly and personally, say by killing her brothers or sons or friends. Or like in canon Bellatrix attacks Ginny and at least one of her kids had died earlier (granted two did, but its unclear if she knows about them yet), and she says "You will not take another!". Some personal reason to bring her down at least on par with Neville's reasons with his parents.


The killing of a deadly although admittedly insane fighter out of the blue by a housewife that has always been shown to be only a housewife is not a good way to kill off a character.