Summer '07 - Blockbuster 7 - HPATDH

Not all blockbusters are movies. And since the first weekend sales of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" pretty much blew away the opening weekend of the movie version of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", it's clear that blocks have been busted.

This will be a short, spoiler-free review to begin, with more detail just a click away.

Rowling decided, with this final book, to do two very specific things with the narrative. The first was to return Harry's pals, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, to prominence in the story. With dozens of characters and plots around every corner, the triumverate of these three school chums became less and less central to the books. For great swaths of this book, it's just those three, working -- and arguing -- together. That was a nice choice.

The second thing she did was to keep Hogwarts in the background for most of the book. That was a daring choice, considering it was so dominant a presence in the six previous volumes. Once we finally do return to the school, it's like coming home again, even if under dire circumstances.

The problems with the Harry Potter books remain problems in this one. The clunky methods for passing on exposition to the reader in particular continue to annoy. Overheard conversations continue to advance the plot of this final book, even as they did the others. Convenience bothers me in fiction, and while there is loss in the story, there are also a number of lucky coincidences that just set my teeth on edge.

But, all in all, a good book. Probably one of the best of the series. (Though I still have a fondness for "Prisoner of Azkaban" and the wonderful lessons of Remus Lupin, pretty much the only professor we ever saw actually teach something useful to the students.)

For more thoughts, and spoilers, read on...

I went back and found a collection of predictions I made a few weeks before the book release... Let's see how I did:

Voldemort dies. (Yeah, that was a toughie, wasn't it?)

Hagrid dies. (Oops. My first mistake!)

Neville does something grand and important at the end. And maybe he dies, too. (Nailed it!)

Harry survives, and ends up with Ginny. (Nailed it!)

Sirius comes back from the dead to be godfather to Harry. (Well, I'll give myself half a point, since he does make an appearance of a sort.)

Harry will one day in the future become a permanent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. (Still think this was a missed opportunity. But hey, I'm not the billionaire author here.)

Harry will get a chance to say goodbye to Dumbledore by talking to his portrait in his office. (Another half-point, since I didn't imagine Rowling would steal from "The Matrix Revoltions" for her resolution of the Harry/Dumbledore arc.)

Snape will die in a heroically redemptive act. He's been portrayed too nicely in the films. He can't be evil. (How could anyone think Snape was evil! He was so totally not evil. Nailed it!)

Harry will mend his ties to the Durselys... but it's not like they're going to go on holidays together. (I think three quarters of a point is in order, for the handshake with Dudley.)

Ron and Hermione will end up together. Though, that's less a prediction, and more a certainty. (Yeah, no duh.)

On the larger question of Harry's (or Ron's or Hermione's) death, it just wouldn't have fit the tone of the series. Yes, Cedric died. Yes, Sirius died. Yes, Obi-Wan... I mean Dumbledore died. But Luke, Han and Leia can't die. The Emperor has to be defeated, and the universe brought back into harmony. And, perhaps more important, the marketing strategy for two more films, uncounted future copies of books, candy and games and scarves and tickets to a whole Potter-themed amusement park would have been dashed if the whole thing was revealed to be high tragedy.

I complained earlier in the review about clunky exposition, but I have to admit, "The Prince's Tale", wherein a cavalcade of Snape's memories nicely retcons his entire function in the series? That was quite wonderfully done. I loved it. It made sense, it worked. And the coda, in which we learn that Harry named one of his sons after Snape... yeah, I got a little misty. I admit it.

The finale, with a pitched battle between wizards and death eaters, giants and centaurs, spiders and, of course, Hagrid, is a wonderful sequence, and will make an even better movie. The confrontation between Harry and Voldemort makes use of some of Rowling's most convoluted backstory that was, all in all, a bit too complex. I really didn't care about Grindewald or the Three Brothers or even the Hallows themselves. I just wanted Voldemort to die. And he did. And I was left pleased with the ending.