Attention Muggles

Attention Muggles: Major Plot Spoilers Ahead!

 

Last night I finally finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Remarkably despite the tension that builds in this book I did not find it as dark as some of its predecessors.  This is the kind of book it really would be preferable to sit down and read uninterrupted over a long weekend when one has nothing else to do—as a child could do.  In reading it over two months one tends to lose track of the many plot twists.  My hat’s off to J. K. Rowling; this final book in the series proves just how masterful a story teller she really is.  In this book she ties together plot threads that began in Book one of the series along with those added along the way.  Let’s get the salient one out of the way first.  I predicted during the hoopla leading up to the publishing of this book that Harry had to die and I was right.  But that declaration ignores the fact that Harry is the “boy who lived.”  Therefore, even though he is killed in the final chapter of this book—he ends up living after all.  This is a tale with talking pictures of dead people after all. 

 

Book six left me deeply dissatisfied on many levels and now that I’ve finished the series I understand that on many levels it sets the groundwork for book seven.  Book seven makes book six whole.  Why did Dumbledore die and is Professor Snape the villain he appears to be?  I don’t envy the writers who have to script a movie based on this book that will leave those who paid good money to watch it satisfied when they come out of the theatre. 

 

As this series progressed much is made of the fact that Harry is growing up as it unfolds.  Yes he hits puberty and hormones kick in but the more important growth is spiritual and philosophical.  This is an orphan whose adopted parents force him to live in a broom closet under the stairs.  When he comes to Hogwarts he finally does come home and its Headmaster becomes a father figure who is idolized.  As with all children parents progress from ultimate law-givers who can do no wrong to ordinary fallible mortal beings.  It is this realization that can fuel teenage rebellion.  How those teens come out of this experience depends as much on the teen as on the parent who must accept his/her new status in their eyes.  In this final book Harry comes face to face with the dilemma of confronting the fact that even his hero has deep flaws.  The test comes in accepting the fact that parents are ordinary flawed individuals while learning to love and respect them despite their imperfections.  In so doing you must accept that you too are a flawed being.  It is bringing Harry to this realization that is one of facets of this story that helps give this book such satisfying closure.