Skip to main content

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I've been meaning to write my own review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for a few weeks now, having finished the book a few days after it came out. I'm always staying up too late, and I'll admit staying up til 3 and 4 in the morning a couple nights to finish Harry Potter. I know there are about a million reviews of this book here, there, and everywhere (my favorite (if you ignore the bizarre illustrations) by Stephen King is here), but what is a blog for if not to add your own two cents to an already talked-over topic? Warning - this post will contain spoilers, so if you don't want to know anything about the book, stop reading now.

I started reading the Harry Potter books when book 3 came out - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I hadn't heard much about them - my pastor actually recommended them. I loved them. The first thing I heard in the media about them was that some Christian groups were condemning the books. This baffled me, first, because The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, which are generally beloved in the Christian community, certainly have magic and spells and witches and wizards in them, and no one (that I know of) accused Lewis of promoting Satanism among children, and second, because the books seem to ooze with themes that seem quite, well, biblical. Sacrificial love? Selfless love? Ring any bells?

Any lingering doubts should be eliminated with Deathly Hallows. I could preach a sermon series with themes from this book (maybe I will!) In fact, Rowling quotes the Bible twice, although she doesn't cite her source :). "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." A good review focusing on these themes is here.

I won't rehash all the details, but here's a few highlights for me:

- I think it is great that Rowling doesn't have any 'saints' in these books, if by saint you mean 'perfect person.' Dumbledore is as close as the series came to having a saintly sage figure, and Deathly Hallows gives us so much more about who Dumbledore is and how he came to be the man Harry knew as headmaster. I like this added complexity. Dumbledore isn't perfect - in fact, his past is very troubled. In the end, Harry is able to respect him more and learn more from him because of it. And hardly anyone is simply 'evil' either - there is room for redemption for almost everyone. Even Voldemort gets a chance, Peter Pettigrew tries for it, Percy Weasley, etc. Severus Snape is certainly no all-admired hero by the close of the story, but he too experiences repentance, because of his love for Lily. I'm so glad Rowling didn't leave Snape to just be a 'bad guy' as many wondered after book 6, but I'm even happier that she also didn't make him simply a 'good guy' who was just misunderstood. Her characters are deeper and more layered than that.

- I've read many laments about the epilogue, readers unhappy with the lack of detail about exactly what happens to everyone. I understand, I guess. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I want to know exactly what's happened to everyone in my real life too - what happened to so-and-so who moved away in fifth grade? What happened to my best friend from camp? Where'd that person from college end up? But I know I will never know. Life isn't all neatly tied up like that. I thought the epilogue said what was important for Harry: All was well.

- The whole book (series, really) is about confronting and handling loss. I missed the book being set at Hogwarts and tied up with school life. I missed the professors and the other students. I'm glad we stayed focused on Ron, Hermione, and Harry, but I longed for the 'good old days' sometimes too. But, I think this longing, missing the 'good days' was actually a key part of the story and plot. Harry longed for that. Ron tried to recreate that when he left the group. Some of the leaders in the magical world tried to delude themselves into that. But Harry grew up. He had real life to face (real life for a fictional character, that is!).

- I'm sure Rowling had quite a task in writing book 7, but I also admire her writing because the plot seems like it had to happen that way. I heard an interview with an author recently who talked about the story taking over - he was just writing what had to happen. That's how I felt about Deathly Hallows - not that Rowling was choosing to write the book a certain way, but that based on everything that had happened in the series so far, the story was unfolding as the story had to unfold. I think that's a great quality in a book.

Comments

gmw said…
I facebooked you just to keep the email off the web--you can get my gmail there. Thanks for the group and the invite!
Tim said…
I do like that she said from the very beginning she knew how she wanted it to end. To be able to tell that huge story and have it all sort of flowing in her mind is pretty cool.
Nathan Mattox said…
Great review, you keyed in on many things I did, and shed some new light there as well. I remembered feeling a sense of being rushed around and not having the respite of Hogwarts, and hadn't thought about that being a plot device to get us inside "Harry's life." thanks
Greg Hazelrig said…
I also loved your review. And I was one of those who wanted desperately to know who would wind up where. But your point was well taken.

Although, I still want to know :)

I have to admit that I was worried though for a year and a half (or however long it was since I'd read the last one) I was so concerned that Rowling was going to do something terrible like allow dark to win over light...bad to win over good. Don't ask me why. Maybe it was how the last book left me hanging. The thing I was not surprised about was Snape. (enough said in case anyone reads this that hasn't read the book) But I loved the way she played it out, don't you?
Jan said…
Thank you for writing your review. I really enjoyed it and agree, especially because I have been re-reading the entire series in sequence this summer. Now I'm reading the last book for the second time. In sequence like that, I can see how Rowling planned it all out, with so many little details showing up in previous books that are connected to the last book.
Beth Quick said…
Greg -
To satisfy all those lingering questions:
http://www.beyondhogwarts.com/harry-potter/articles/jk-rowling-goes-beyond-the-epilogue.html

:)

Popular posts from this blog

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent, "Hope: A Thrill of Hope," Mark 1:1-8

Sermon 11/26/17 Mark 1:1-8 Hope: A Thrill of Hope             Are you a pessimist or an optimist? Is the glass of life half empty, or half full? My mom and I have gone back and forth about this a bit over the years. She’s wildly optimistic about most things, and sometimes I would say her optimism, her hopefulness borders on the irrational. If the weather forecast says there’s a 70% chance of a snowstorm coming, my mom will focus very seriously on that 30% chance that it is going to be a nice day after all. I, meanwhile, will begin adjusting my travel plans and making a backup plan for the day. My mom says I’m a pessimist, but I would argue that I’m simply a realist , trying to prepare for the thing that is most likely to happen, whether I like that thing or not. My mom, however, says she doesn’t want to be disappointed twice, both by thinking something bad is going to happen, and then by having the bad thing actually happen. She’d rather be hopeful, and enjoy her state of

Sermon for First Sunday in Lent, Year B, "Jesus in the Wilderness," Mark 1:1-4, 9-15

Sermon 2/18/18 Mark 1:1-4, 9-15 Jesus in the Wilderness             You’ve heard me say before that the gospel of Mark is my favorite gospel. Part of the reason I love it is because of Mark’s brevity. I don’t love that he’s short on details, exactly. I love that he seems practically breathless in getting the good news of Jesus to us, and that he seems to believe that the news is so good it isn’t even going to take very many words to convince you of his message! His frantic style strikes me as showing both how important and how convincing he believes Jesus’s message to be.             But, then we arrive at a Sunday like today, and I find myself a little frustrated perhaps, or at least a little challenged by Mark. In the lectionary, the series of the first Sunday in the season of Lent always focuses on the temptation of Jesus – his time in the wilderness, where he confronts Satan, and commits to God’s path rather than the flashy alternative Satan presents. This is the fo

Sermon for Second Sunday in Advent, "Peace: All Is Calm, All Is Bright," Isaiah 11:1-10, Mark 13:24-37

Sermon 12/3/17 Mark 13:24-37, Isaiah 11:1-10 Peace: All Is Calm, All Is Bright             “Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright. Round yon’ virgin mother and child. Holy infant, so tender and mild. Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.”             This week, I read news stories about North Korea testing a missile that perhaps could reach across the whole of the United States.             This week, I spoke with a colleague in ministry who had, like all churches in our conference, received from our church insurance company information about how to respond in an active shooter situation. She was trying to figure out how to respond to anxious parishioners and yet not get caught up in spending all of their ministry time on creating safety plans.             This week, we’ve continued to hear stories from people who have experienced sexual assault and harassment, as the actions, sometimes over decades, of men in positions of power have been