Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came – Thomas Moran 1859Alright, I feel like I’ve waited long enough to give people slightly less obsessed than me time to read the book. For those who have not yet finished, be warned, there are SPOILERS galore to follow regarding the final Harry Potter book.
First things first: I thought it was great. At some point in the future, I’ll re-read the whole series and try to reach a more firm decision about which is my favorite, but right now I would have to say she saved the best for last.
The majority of people I’ve read who have significant complaints seem to mostly fall into one of two categories a) people who never read “speculative fiction” but got hooked on Harry Potter and b) people who are OBSESSED with Harry Potter. The former find the ending confusing (Harry died, but he didn’t die? What’s up with that?), are not entirely satisfied with some of the explanations that seem thoroughly reasonable to me, and so on. The latter feel that X character who they really love didn’t get nearly enough time, and that the ending wasn’t exactly as they’d imagined it, and there are various places where (admittedly) there are some logical gaps and unanswered questions.
It’s not that either of those perspectives or wrong, but I certainly don’t share them. I think it’s a triumph, and about as good an ending as I could have wished for. I was actually partly hoping for a sad ending (with one of Harry, Ron, or Hermione dying) because I just wasn’t confident in her ability to produce a happy ending that didn’t feel fake. I was wrong. I found the whole final battle, the Pensieve, Harry’s walk to his death, his Limbo conversation with Dumbledore, Neville and the sword, and the final showdown to be about as perfect as could be.
In particular, I’ve always found the final battle part of series like these to be almost impossible to do well. These kind of books are about the search, the journey, and the final battle can never really live up to that, in part because it always feels so random. Why did the good guys win and the bad guys lose? Tolkien has one answer. Rowling has another, one that was perhaps even more satisfying. And I feel good that I sort of predicted it (expecting him to sacrifice himself so that another could defeat Voldemort). But her decision to give him a reprieve precisely because of that sacrifice was something I didn’t anticipate, and brought everything back full circle so perfectly.
I thought the various deaths were done well, for the most part. The scene where Harry digs Dobby’s grave was tremendous, and her willingness to kill people off quickly and without much fuss in some ways made it more affecting. The way we learn about Tonks and Lupin actually makes more devastating than if she had dwelt on it. It happens offscreen and neither we nor Harry are given any time to grieve. It simply must be noted as we rush on, trying to bottle up the sadness, knowing that tremendous things are going on all around.
The Deathly Hallows were a great innovation. I like the idea that they are the mirror images (very different, but also far too similar for comfort) of the Horcruxes, how they gave us a window into Dumbledore’s humanity and weakness, how they forced Harry into what was sort of a first for him: a relatively complete awareness of the situation long before the very end of the book. In fact, one of the things that’s always bugged me a little bit about the series was the way that it was 400 (or whatever) pages of stumbling along blindly and then a big finale. This time, Harry gets to make a conscious choice (whether to focus on the wand or the Horcrux, whether to try and get to the wand before Voldemort, etc.). He knows what he’s getting himself into going back to Hogwart’s, and walking to his doom with Voldemort. He is finally given the chance to take the path on his own terms (if not any particularly good options).
The payoff on Snape was fantastic. I know some people are complaining that he had virtually no onscreen time, was killed rather pointlessly, and we only got to finally hear his story secondhand through the Pensieve. But I think all of those things are essential. The hero has never been, and was never supposed to be, Snape. I think it would have been too much for him to stare down Voldemort or something – his character is all about subtleties and the question of where, underneath it all, the truth really lies. He in fact played a tremendous role in the book (guiding most of Harry’s actions in the first half) – we just don’t find out about it until the end.
And the Pensieve medium is absolutely necessary. It would be completely out of character for Snape to ever willingly just tell Harry. He still can’t really face what he did or the part he played, and he still can’t get over the way Harry makes him feel. He could only reveal the final truth as he lay dying.
And it reveals something truly amazing about the arc of the story – the way Harry’s perception changes. We start with an eleven year-old’s perspective (an inexplicably mean teacher punishing him for no good reason), move on to an adolescent’s dawning understanding that Snape is tortured by his father’s bullying and is taking it out on him, and finally we have a young man who is able to understand how deeply and completely Harry’s history is tied up with Snape’s misery. It’s not just bullying from James and Sirius and Remus, it’s that James stole the one thing that could have tied Snape back into good – his one true love – who was then killed thanks to Snape himself. It is only once Harry has gone through everything that he could even begin to understand how much this must have tortured Snape’s sense of self.
Every time he saw Harry, he saw the living memory of Lily (“you have her eyes”) and every mistake he ever made. He saw someone he could almost love for being like her, but who he could never afford to show any affection for (even to himself), causing him to overcompensate, finding every fault, every way he was more James than Lily.
There is no happy ending for Snape, nor could there ever be. No final showdown or chance to make everything right. His mistakes were already too great for that, but it is an incredibly important message that he still chooses to try.
The larger theme that everything is much closer to gray than either black or white is very important, I think. I really enjoyed the treatment of Kreacher. It is an open question whether he is rehabilitated, or whether he is exactly the same but was just never understood. On a similar note, we begin to see the Malfoys in a different light. Narcissa is willing to sacrifice everything for the she has for her son. And, because Harry risked himself to save Draco, he is able to tell her the truth, that her son is still safe in Hogwart’s.
I Love You Too – S
For all of them, we see that love plays a tremendous role. I was a little skeptical of the “love conquers all” theme from Half-Blood Prince, because it seemed a little trite. But she gave it many more levels here. Love is not the answer by itself. But it is the force that ties people together, that shows them that there is always something more important than pure power. It doesn’t make people like the Malfoys good people, but it makes them better than we thought.
My minor complaints: I agree the period in the middle out in the
forest dragged a bit, and the similarities between the locket and the Ring from LOTR were a little too much. I both liked and disliked the epilogue. When I initially turned the page and saw “19 year later” I was baffled about why she couldn’t just end it where it was. And if she was going to add the epilogue, I really wish I could have found out what happened with the other people I care about. But, that said, I’m glad that it gave me the chance to believe that the four of them can be happy together. They deserve some years of peace and happiness, after all they’ve been through. And I enjoy the symmetry, the feeling that this is just one story among many, and that as each story fades and we grow up, more young boys and girls stand waiting for the Hogwart’s Express to come, anxious to find out what mysteries await them.
The Road goes ever on and on…
* * *
The Dark is Rising (Black Session) – Mercury Rev
Last train of thought on this subject (and while I’m speaking about the joy of new mysteries), here’s my short recommended reading list for those going through Harry Potter withdrawal:
The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia stories, but you didn’t me to tell you about those.
The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. Before Harry Potter, this was the paramount coming-of-age story about magic. I first read it in 3rd grade and it remains one of my absolute favorites. “Over Sea, Under Stone” is the first book chronologically, but start with “The Dark is Rising” for full effect. Also, there’s apparently a movie adaptation, which has the potential (if well executed) of being truly awesome.
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I’ve never been a huge Stephen King fan, but when he makes an effort he really is a pretty good writer. And since this is the work, out of all of them, that he cared the most about, it’s also (by far) his best. Books 2-4 are truly astonishing, and the introduction of himself as a character at the end bizarrely manages to only improve the story. Seriously.
The Amber series by Roger Zelazny. Not traditional fantasy by any stretch, but supremely entertaining. Zelazny’s unique voice and style is on fine display here. It’s a tale of countless alternate realities layered on each other and a mad family at the very center of it. Fittingly, you get equal parts Arthurian fantasy and murder mystery, car chases and unicorns, and everything in between. The first 150 or so pages told entirely in first person by a character with a serious case of amnesia is some of the very best writing I’ve ever read.
The Belgariad and Mallorean series by David Eddings. Perhaps my absolute favorite at 9 or 10 and still holding a firm place in my heart. Yes, the plots are somewhat predictable and he apparently only knows how to write one kind of female character, but you can’t deny that it’s gripping. In terms of sheer readability, these might even surpass Harry Potter.
So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. Notable for featuring the single best introduction to wizardry plot device – a young girl browsing in a library and coming across a book called “So You Want to be a Wizard.” There’s a whole series based on this book, and the later ones are pretty good, but for the sheer joy in youthful magic tales, the first stands head and shoulders above the rest.
The Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guin. I only read these within the last couple years, and I have no idea why I waited so long. In just a few short books she develops a complete mythology and universe, and populates them with wonderfully complex characters and plots.
The Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg. A bunch of friends sit down for a game of D&D only to find themselves actually drawn into the magical world. A premise that sounds ridiculous but works surprisingly well, and manages to develop into a surprisingly complicated story about slavery, morality, the role of technology in social development, and the power of sacrifices. The series has lost its way a bit in recent years, but the first 4 or 5 books are really quite good.
Takes on the Arthurian legend. T.H. White’s The Once and Future King is the gold standard on which all others should be judged. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon is rightly considered one of the finest fantasy books of all-time. And the previously mentioned The Dark is Rising series includes some fascinating takes off these stories.
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. It’s a fantasy version of The War of the Roses. I burned through four books in about a week and a half last winter and was amazed at his capacity to let characters develop continuously. No one’s role is set in stone, and no one is safe (a good chunk of the initial “main characters” are dead by book 4).
Finally, I’ll recommend Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time with a gigantic caveat. The first three or four books are insanely good. The next couple are good, but about 500 pages too long. Books 7-10 seem designed for the sole purpose of infuriating dedicated readers. It’s about 4000 pages of endlessly expanding (and completely irrelevant) plot twists where virtually nothing of any significance takes place. But you have to read it because at this point you’re so invested in the characters that you just have to know how it ends. The thing is: it’s not yet over and I’m not convinced he’ll ever finish. So if you start now, you may be subjecting yourself to countless hours of suffering with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Am I missing any? People have said many good things about Philip Pullman and The Golden Compass, which has been added to my reading list. What else should join it?