The Last Book
Jul. 22nd, 2007 01:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thornyrose42Well I read it. Then I went and checked up on my flist and the SQ. And I've only just stoped shaking and hour and a half afterwards.
Okay, here goes.
Okay, here goes.
I thought that this would be easier to write after I'd calmed down a bit, but no, my brain is still over loaded and uh, but I need to get my impressions down now. It is weird how everything is already getting a bit blurry, the desire to read it again is growing...but I must pluck up the courage and press on.
The Tonks Family.
I almost feel like writing to JKR and saying "How dare you! They were mine! And I loved them and you just killed them with a flick of your pen and no one even cares about Ted, just one among many. Obviously ment to be one of the deaths that happen half way through and remind you that this is war and people are dying, and it is a bit unpleasent because we met him and he was nice, but oh never mind, lets move on. But I minded! What about his wife? Oh god what about my Dromy? My poor poor girl.... Almost all of her family just gone, just like that. And what makes me even sadder is that I didn't get to properly cry for Tonks and Remus, they were just suddenly dead, lying there like they were asleep. And you can't cry properly unless there is a good build up. And I wanted to see the Tonks family, I really did. But you know I never thought, never imagined... I thought that Remus and Tonks were safe, that Remus had got his happy ending (after Harry had knocked some sense back into him) and that they see it to the Epiloge. And Ted!
This just serves me right really, saying that I prefer angst to fluff. Well I've got angst aplenty now and...well I've already got plot bunnies nibbling at my heals to be honest, but still.... Hasn't Dromy suffered enough?
Right, I'm not going to rant, I'm not going to rant.
I have seen some people wondering about the Tonks/Lupin subplot, some about how well JKR handled it and some questioning how stable their relationship would have been if they had survived. Well personally (especially considering my new found love of fluff) I really really want Lupin to have left Grim Place, gone somewhere, anywhere and just sat down for ages and thought, really thought about what Harry had said, about fatherhood, exactly what Tonks means to him and then got up dusted his knees off and gone back to Tonks. This is what I want and what I think did happen. You did see Lupin rushing in crowing about having a son, and showing Arthur baby photos and, (oh no I'm tearing up again) the way, the way in the battle they were always looking for each other.... I think that Remus's reaction to the news of the baby was entirely in character, even if that character was a lot more unpleasent then what we would like to think of Remus. He was just so scared. I mean look what happened to the last lot of people that stood by him, and we have seen him (rather bizarly blame himself for that) his whole none of this would have happened if I hadn't been bitten speech in PoA. He is afraid of getting too close to people and he just couldn't deal with the enormous responsibility of a wife and child, whom he could seriously hurt or who might be hurt because of him. So much so that the duties of a teacher (a role that he would have played and hid behind if he had gone along with the Trio) seemed a much lighter burden to bear.
And I hope and believe that he and Tonks did get things sorted out during that year. I have to, he has to have had just one year of happiness, please.
The Malfoy Family
Who were just...just utterly and completly a family. How anyone is ever going to be able to support Abusive!Lucius after this is just beyond me. All the moments, we just got so many glimpses of them. The very first chapter! Cissy as the rock which Lucius needs to lean on, that simple reasuring hand squeeze under the table. And a mother's love helping to defeat Voldemort again, Cissy, my heart nearly burst with love for her when I read her lie about Harry's death. Oh and Draco, I was begging, constantly begging as I was reading that he would survive, pity does not even come close to describing how I felt about him during this book. Right from the word go when we see him terrified and trembling under poor Charity. To him avoiding identifying the Trio when they were captured, I had a brief flash back to a more innocent time when he was more than willing to rat on them and I wished for his sake that he could go back to being someone who was just a sort of whimpish, mean, class clown . He is just a boy, my age, just my age. The way his voice trembled after the fire when asking about his friend. (OH and we finally heard Crabbe and Goyle speak!). What made that bit even more painful is that the whole confrontation between the two Trios had had so many connections to their younger days, the brooms and oh the hints of Quidditch. And the way that his parents were just frantically searching for Draco during that final battle, I defy anyone not to have loved them at that moment. And Lucius...just seemed broken, the contrast between this book and the previous books is well, disturbing.
PoA Theme (theory nicked from Red Hen, she is awesome)
Was absolutly in this book. I mean completly there. We get Snape filling Sirius's shoes You Know Who's right hand man, believed by everyone to be guility from the word go but the real "villian" turns out to be the one that nobody suspected, the one who died a hero, please step up to take Mr Wormtail's place Albus. We even get a brief return to the Shack! How great is that!
(Peter's death, while not as significant as I had hoped for was...well chillingly grusome would be the word I reckon.)
While I'm one the subject I am just blocking out quite a bit of the Snape/Albus/Lily stuff, for instance WTF is SWM doing coming after the Prank, I mean... no, not only is the timing screwy: the full moon is just coming up. I also continue to believe that the Prank and its results had An Effect upon the Marauders, James in particular. They would not be all bussiness as usual lets go and string up the boy who could give away our friend's secret to the whole school, something would have changed. The Prank happened after Snape's Worst Memory, end of story. Also how could Snape only have heard the first part of the Prophecy if Sybil saw him at the door after she came out of her trance, it doesn't make sense.
Also although I heartily aprove of Lily and Snape being friends the notion that Snape Did it all for the Love of a Good Woman sticks in my throat, as does the fact that she had a choice because Snape requested it not because of her own merit. I liked the theory (also nicked from Red Hen) that Lily didn't have to die because she might In Herself have been useful to the Dark Lord, didn't we listen to Slughorn raving about her genius with Potions for a whole year. Wouldn't someone like that have been more useful alive then dead? But no, instead she is presented as some sort of bad conduct prize. Pah!
Also the entire Horcrux, soul, Hallows thing ended up being a bit too confusing for my liking.
And while we are talking about things that were bad, how...fanfiction was the Epiloge. And what? None of the Slytherins stayed to help defend Hogwarts? None of them? None of them! I would quite happily have killed to have had just one, maybe two people stay. Is that too much to ask? I mean sure we get the "I don't mind which house you are in" thing at the end, but still an illustration that not all Slytherins are out and out Death Eaters and cowards would have been nice. (Please ignore the Potion Master behind the curtain) Did no one listen to the Sorting Hat?
But those unpleasent things aside.
It was pretty incrediable.
I cried, I mean really really sobbed. Which is something I generally don't do for books, End of Buffy's fifth season, yes, ET, whole buckets, but not Harry Potter. Sirius was blink and you'd miss it and for Albus I was just in shock. But this book? I was an absolute wreak. Ted I was too angry that she had just disposed of him like that, but I think everything just caught up with me when Dobby died. I really don't know what it was, maybe the fact that I've always had a soft spot for him, or that I'd just been through absolute hell reading Hermione's torture scene (it was just horrible, awful, awful, awful, I really couldn't bear watching Ron. Oh Ron....) but I had a lump in my throat from the moment I realised that he was dying and when I read the inscription I jsut started bawling, really sobbing. I actually had to stop reading and go downstairs to curl up with my mum on the sofa until I'd stopped crying.
Then I was OK right up until Harry's walk into the forest. That...that just... oh. I think I started crying when Harry realised that he was going to have to die, or it might have been when he met Neville but I know that I could barely see the page for tears when Harry asked whether dying hurt. (I'm tearing up just thinking of it now). That entire scene was just... Well, you read it too. You've been there.
But despite all my rantings I did love this book, so, so much.
Looking back you can definitly see where my loyalties lie. The thing is, you all know how awesome Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna and all the kids were. You saw it too.
I loved, more than anything, the glimpses we got of how the wizarding world was coping with rule by Voldemort. The radio programe was just brillient and the DA and all of that, that wonderfulness. And Chilla, I reckon you got your Luna/Dean!
*sighs*
I still can't believe that it is all over.
But it is four in the morning now, I'm off to bed.
(But first I just have to say that Dudley is...well, good on ya Big D. I've always liked the Harry Dudley relationship, every since the silent fight for door listening in the very first book)
The Tonks Family.
I almost feel like writing to JKR and saying "How dare you! They were mine! And I loved them and you just killed them with a flick of your pen and no one even cares about Ted, just one among many. Obviously ment to be one of the deaths that happen half way through and remind you that this is war and people are dying, and it is a bit unpleasent because we met him and he was nice, but oh never mind, lets move on. But I minded! What about his wife? Oh god what about my Dromy? My poor poor girl.... Almost all of her family just gone, just like that. And what makes me even sadder is that I didn't get to properly cry for Tonks and Remus, they were just suddenly dead, lying there like they were asleep. And you can't cry properly unless there is a good build up. And I wanted to see the Tonks family, I really did. But you know I never thought, never imagined... I thought that Remus and Tonks were safe, that Remus had got his happy ending (after Harry had knocked some sense back into him) and that they see it to the Epiloge. And Ted!
This just serves me right really, saying that I prefer angst to fluff. Well I've got angst aplenty now and...well I've already got plot bunnies nibbling at my heals to be honest, but still.... Hasn't Dromy suffered enough?
Right, I'm not going to rant, I'm not going to rant.
I have seen some people wondering about the Tonks/Lupin subplot, some about how well JKR handled it and some questioning how stable their relationship would have been if they had survived. Well personally (especially considering my new found love of fluff) I really really want Lupin to have left Grim Place, gone somewhere, anywhere and just sat down for ages and thought, really thought about what Harry had said, about fatherhood, exactly what Tonks means to him and then got up dusted his knees off and gone back to Tonks. This is what I want and what I think did happen. You did see Lupin rushing in crowing about having a son, and showing Arthur baby photos and, (oh no I'm tearing up again) the way, the way in the battle they were always looking for each other.... I think that Remus's reaction to the news of the baby was entirely in character, even if that character was a lot more unpleasent then what we would like to think of Remus. He was just so scared. I mean look what happened to the last lot of people that stood by him, and we have seen him (rather bizarly blame himself for that) his whole none of this would have happened if I hadn't been bitten speech in PoA. He is afraid of getting too close to people and he just couldn't deal with the enormous responsibility of a wife and child, whom he could seriously hurt or who might be hurt because of him. So much so that the duties of a teacher (a role that he would have played and hid behind if he had gone along with the Trio) seemed a much lighter burden to bear.
And I hope and believe that he and Tonks did get things sorted out during that year. I have to, he has to have had just one year of happiness, please.
The Malfoy Family
Who were just...just utterly and completly a family. How anyone is ever going to be able to support Abusive!Lucius after this is just beyond me. All the moments, we just got so many glimpses of them. The very first chapter! Cissy as the rock which Lucius needs to lean on, that simple reasuring hand squeeze under the table. And a mother's love helping to defeat Voldemort again, Cissy, my heart nearly burst with love for her when I read her lie about Harry's death. Oh and Draco, I was begging, constantly begging as I was reading that he would survive, pity does not even come close to describing how I felt about him during this book. Right from the word go when we see him terrified and trembling under poor Charity. To him avoiding identifying the Trio when they were captured, I had a brief flash back to a more innocent time when he was more than willing to rat on them and I wished for his sake that he could go back to being someone who was just a sort of whimpish, mean, class clown . He is just a boy, my age, just my age. The way his voice trembled after the fire when asking about his friend. (OH and we finally heard Crabbe and Goyle speak!). What made that bit even more painful is that the whole confrontation between the two Trios had had so many connections to their younger days, the brooms and oh the hints of Quidditch. And the way that his parents were just frantically searching for Draco during that final battle, I defy anyone not to have loved them at that moment. And Lucius...just seemed broken, the contrast between this book and the previous books is well, disturbing.
PoA Theme (theory nicked from Red Hen, she is awesome)
Was absolutly in this book. I mean completly there. We get Snape filling Sirius's shoes You Know Who's right hand man, believed by everyone to be guility from the word go but the real "villian" turns out to be the one that nobody suspected, the one who died a hero, please step up to take Mr Wormtail's place Albus. We even get a brief return to the Shack! How great is that!
(Peter's death, while not as significant as I had hoped for was...well chillingly grusome would be the word I reckon.)
While I'm one the subject I am just blocking out quite a bit of the Snape/Albus/Lily stuff, for instance WTF is SWM doing coming after the Prank, I mean... no, not only is the timing screwy: the full moon is just coming up. I also continue to believe that the Prank and its results had An Effect upon the Marauders, James in particular. They would not be all bussiness as usual lets go and string up the boy who could give away our friend's secret to the whole school, something would have changed. The Prank happened after Snape's Worst Memory, end of story. Also how could Snape only have heard the first part of the Prophecy if Sybil saw him at the door after she came out of her trance, it doesn't make sense.
Also although I heartily aprove of Lily and Snape being friends the notion that Snape Did it all for the Love of a Good Woman sticks in my throat, as does the fact that she had a choice because Snape requested it not because of her own merit. I liked the theory (also nicked from Red Hen) that Lily didn't have to die because she might In Herself have been useful to the Dark Lord, didn't we listen to Slughorn raving about her genius with Potions for a whole year. Wouldn't someone like that have been more useful alive then dead? But no, instead she is presented as some sort of bad conduct prize. Pah!
Also the entire Horcrux, soul, Hallows thing ended up being a bit too confusing for my liking.
And while we are talking about things that were bad, how...fanfiction was the Epiloge. And what? None of the Slytherins stayed to help defend Hogwarts? None of them? None of them! I would quite happily have killed to have had just one, maybe two people stay. Is that too much to ask? I mean sure we get the "I don't mind which house you are in" thing at the end, but still an illustration that not all Slytherins are out and out Death Eaters and cowards would have been nice. (Please ignore the Potion Master behind the curtain) Did no one listen to the Sorting Hat?
But those unpleasent things aside.
It was pretty incrediable.
I cried, I mean really really sobbed. Which is something I generally don't do for books, End of Buffy's fifth season, yes, ET, whole buckets, but not Harry Potter. Sirius was blink and you'd miss it and for Albus I was just in shock. But this book? I was an absolute wreak. Ted I was too angry that she had just disposed of him like that, but I think everything just caught up with me when Dobby died. I really don't know what it was, maybe the fact that I've always had a soft spot for him, or that I'd just been through absolute hell reading Hermione's torture scene (it was just horrible, awful, awful, awful, I really couldn't bear watching Ron. Oh Ron....) but I had a lump in my throat from the moment I realised that he was dying and when I read the inscription I jsut started bawling, really sobbing. I actually had to stop reading and go downstairs to curl up with my mum on the sofa until I'd stopped crying.
Then I was OK right up until Harry's walk into the forest. That...that just... oh. I think I started crying when Harry realised that he was going to have to die, or it might have been when he met Neville but I know that I could barely see the page for tears when Harry asked whether dying hurt. (I'm tearing up just thinking of it now). That entire scene was just... Well, you read it too. You've been there.
But despite all my rantings I did love this book, so, so much.
Looking back you can definitly see where my loyalties lie. The thing is, you all know how awesome Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna and all the kids were. You saw it too.
I loved, more than anything, the glimpses we got of how the wizarding world was coping with rule by Voldemort. The radio programe was just brillient and the DA and all of that, that wonderfulness. And Chilla, I reckon you got your Luna/Dean!
*sighs*
I still can't believe that it is all over.
But it is four in the morning now, I'm off to bed.
(But first I just have to say that Dudley is...well, good on ya Big D. I've always liked the Harry Dudley relationship, every since the silent fight for door listening in the very first book)
