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So how about that Harry Potter! I finished the book two days ago, but I'm collecting my thoughts on it now. I have to get my opinions in before the people reading it tonight or tomorrow just on principle.



Overall, I liked it. I think it did as good a job ending the series as it could have, and I loved the stuff it did with Harry, Ron and Hermione, and that's the most important part for me. I did have my issues with it, though.

I think the biggest fault of the book was something that unfortunately could not be helped, just because of the structure JKR boxed herself in. The war just plain didn't feel big enough. She only had a year to wrap things up in, and that just wasn't *enough.* I've perhaps been spoiled by future fics that have the wars lasting years and Harry losing everyone and Ginny and Ron becoming Aurors while fighting Voldemort and etc etc, but with just one year it did not feel nearly epic enough. Voldemort was not formidable enough, and the Order--well, I'll get to that in a second but the Order came off looking just weak. I think she tried to get in the epic and evil and grim feel with Voldemort taking over the Ministry and forcing Harry on the run, and I suppose that was the best she could've done, but that just left me going 'What? Wait, seriously, *what?* The Wizarding World is this stupid?' because wow, the Ministry just got flattened and all of England just kind of went along with it.

Oh, and that was another thing--I had hoped that we would see more hints in the last book that the Wizarding World was more than just the UK, but aside from hearing about Voldemort traveling abroad, we never really heard about Voldemort trying to conquer other countries, or Harry and Hermione and Ron hiding out somewhere not-British, or anything like that. I mean, was Voldemort really going for world domination or just Britain domination? I guess we got the world domination plans with Grindelwald, and I did love the hints of wizarding World War II, but I would have liked that with Voldemort as well. I wanted so many more details about the war than we got, and I guess that was the fault of the limited PoV, but I wish that she would've let herself go beyond the limitations of her PoV and the one-year storyframe with the last book.

Maybe this is again the fault of the PoV, but the Order just came off looking pathetic. I mean, by Book 7 it was down to like three people. I guess they just lost it after Dumbledore died, but aside from in OotP--where they had an excuse for being small, covert, and struggling, because they were fighting Voldemort in a world that didn't believe in him--I never got the impression that the Order was a force worth reckoning with. They were pretty shabby in Book 6, but I had hoped that she would really have them step up and be all impressive in the last one, and no. Not so much. Kingsley was bad-ass and awesome, but as a whole I got the impression that Dumbledore really *was* the only thing that the side of good had going for it--aside from Harry, of course.

And the thing is, if Dumbledore was really prepared to die leaving the world with nothing but the promise of a seventeen-year-old boy and the spy who killed him, no army no Order no anything, than he wasn't really a good general at all. The argument for justifying Dumbledore has always been, I've felt, that he's been acting as a general and not a teacher all along--and that point is definitely driven home in this book, what with Snape's (accurate) accusations of him raising Harry like a pig for the slaughter. But the thing is, he was flat out bad at his job. He left the wizarding world virtually defenseless. I think that was the point, that we were supposed to get how stupid and bleak and ridiculous it was for it all to ride on the back of three school children, but then it contradicted itself because Harry still ended up worshipping Dumbledore in the end, and I felt like the readers were as well. And no, I do not buy into liking Dumbledore in the end, he was very very bad at his job.

I can't quite believe I'm saying this, but I think she could have made up for the feeling of letdown and non-epic-ness in the war by killing off more characters. Not just more characters, more characters *close to Harry.* I mean, seeing Lupin and Fred and Tonks die made *me* miserable, but I felt like Harry was way more impacted by the deaths of Dobby and Hedwig. I'll just say it: I really wish she had killed off Hagrid. I got so excited when it seemed like he had died right at the beginning, because it seemed like she was really playing hardball, and then no. Not so much.

The epilogue, of course, was ridiculous. I mean, it's actually really easy for me to cheerfully ignore it completely and pretend it's not canon, so whatever. All I'm going to say is, Harry, "Albus Severus"? Seriously? You know what it's like to be teased mercilessly as a child, how could you!

The Remus/Tonks annoyed me not because I don't like the 'ship, but because she took her Spunky Badass Auror (tm) and got her pregnant and staying home with the kids. What-the-fuck-ever, JKR. This was mildly redeemed by Tonks fighting and dying in the last battle, but not enough. (Also, the scene with Lupin telling Harry about the kid was *so* random and weird that I seriously thought Lupin was under Imperius or a Death Eater in disguise or something.)

But, okay, this is seeming like I hated the book, and I honestly didn't. Overall I liked it. The one thing that I felt like she really got right was the emotional story of Harry, Ron and Hermione, and that's really the most important part. I loved how imperfect their friendship was, that Ron left and Harry felt left out when Ron and Hermione hooked up, that Hermione felt responsible for Harry's wand breaking and took a long time to forgive Ron. They got the reunion bits with Ron SO RIGHT I can't even, omfg. I mean, beyond the fact that Harry and Ron reunited when Harry was wet and naked and that Ron saved his life omg. Haha, of course we had to be hit with the het stick in the locket after that, but I don't even care because Harry/Ron, yes, yes, and another yes on top of that. (And then I thought the Ron/Hermione played out beautifully after that, without taking over either character, but that doesn't stop me from happily imagining Book 7 with Harry and Ron having desperate hot wartime sex every five minutes.)

And Hermione, jesus, how much of a cold bad-ass motherfucker was she? What she did to her parents, good lord. I mean, I understand that fucking about with people's minds clearly isn't a big taboo in the wizarding world, but I can't help it, I've been programmed by Joss Whedon, and the best way to put a big "Morally Ambiguous and Fucked Up" flashing neon sign over someone's head is to have them COMPLETELY REPLACE THEIR PARENTS' MEMORIES AND BEWITCH THEM INTO THINKING THEY DON'T HAVE A DAUGHTER FOR THE SAKE OF THE WAR. After that I really thought she was going to explore Hermione's badassery and total lack of a HEART jesus christ, and she didn't but that just means I need good dark fic about Hermione so so bad. I want fic where Hermione cheats on Ron with Kingsley and then takes over the Ministry. Or something, but god, give me the morally ambiguous twisted Hermione fic, I need it like oxygen.

I also loved to death everything to do with Neville and Luna. They were both so damn perfect, holy shiiiit. Like, seriously, Neville, I just--I don't even need fic about him really, because I'm so in love with what happened to him in canon. Oh my god, Neville and his GRAN, hell YES. Neville killing Nagini, hell YES. Neville leading a rebellion in Hogwartz, hell YES. Neville in my pants, hell YES.

Other things that were bitchin': Ginny getting to fight in the last battle (I would've been so pissed if she hadn't); Percy finally coming back (and I want fic about how he spent that year weakening Voldemort and the Ministry from the inside) and then Percy and FRED, that just ripped out my heart, oh man--that was one of the parts where I really thought she had balls, killing one twin and not the other; relatedly, Snape taking George's ear off; how much of a bleak rip-off Godric's Hollow turned out to be; Dean! There was so much Dean! I loved it! If fandom doesn't provide me with awesome Dean/Seamus now I will choke a bitch; Dobby and Kreacher's plot ('Master told Kreacher to come back,' or whatever that line was, *awesome*); the few other glimpses we got into Marauders era; ABERFORTH, MADE OF WIN; Dumbledore and Grindelwald; Kingsley, who also needs to be in my pants; the fight between Molly and Bellatrix, although I am slightly ambivalent of the 'bitch' line--it made it seem like we were supposed to read this as a catfight or something, what the hell. McGonagall was also fucking awesome in what we saw of her, although I wish she'd had more to do, but that ties into my whole dissatisfaction with how little the Order ended up doing. I did *love* Harry coming out of the invisibility cloak because Carrow spit on her--yes, it was stupid of him, but oh my god, it totally made me tear up. Shush, okay, I love McGonagall a lot.

At first I was pretty disappointed with what happened with Wormtail, the Malfoys, and Snape--and I still think the Lily/Snape reveal was kind of predictable and meh, but now that I've thought about it I like what she did with Wormtail and Snape's deaths and the Malfoys' "redemption." It was all really unsatisfying on an emotional level, and I feel like that was the point, kind of--it was all so twisted and not... easy, if that makes sense. Wormtail's fate, especially, was just so bitter: he did good in the end, but all that good was was going easy on Harry in a basement and then dying immediately after. There's something really horrifying about how much of a part he *didn't* play, if that makes sense. Ditto Snape's death: he fought his whole life for the side of good, he never got the woman he was in love with, he lived a twisted and bitter life and exiled himself, and in the end he had such an amazingly pointless death. He barely even fought back. He didn't even get to see Harry forgive him. It was perfect.

I also liked how murky the Malfoys came out. Their big redemption was simply that they didn't care enough to be all the way evil! Awesome. I loved that they were totally in between, and again, that it wasn't really emotionally satisfying for the readers. We didn't get to see them be punished *or* redeemed. We weren't even really sure what Harry thought of them in the end. I don't know, I thought that really worked, and fit very well with the theme of murky and uneasy endings for the bad guys she had going.

I need to read it again, but I need to wait until I have the book in my hands, of course. I'm not sure if I want to brave the midnight release party with my family tonight since I've already read it--it's going to be one tiny bookstore packed full of children and adults in costume. Eehhhh. Decisions.