Harry Potter and the Neverending Sequels

Done.

When we moved in with the parents a few weeks ago I started re-reading the Harry Potter series, so as to be prepared for the 7th book.  Apparently looking for a job and living with your parents provides a lot of time for reading, and I finished Deathly Hallows this afternoon.  I have to say it was my least favorite of the books.

The books have a pattern and pace to them that I really enjoy.  You start with the summer, where the days are loose and lazy, and you can spend all sorts of time lining up all the necessary elements for the plot to play out.  There will be some tension, that will be played out later, but mostly it's just setting the table.

Once the school year starts, there is a rhythm and pattern that must be followed.  Despite whatever excitement there is in the world of witches and wizards there are classes and Quidditch matches and Hogsmeade weekends that set the pace of the school, and necessitate a certain pace in the lives of the students.  Tension builds, but at a reasonable pace, because as much as you might want to be out there fighting the dark forces, you've got essays to write and tests to study for and detentions to slog through.  And with Fred and George Weasley and Peeves the Poltergeist around, you are guaranteed plenty of comic relief to keep things light and easy on the soul.

But then the battle arrives, and you are thrown into it full force.  As much as I can usually pace myself during the books, once the battle arrives I know I am done for.  I must sit down and read until the end.  There will be moments when you think this will be the end, but eventually the good side comes out ahead, thanks to all of those lessons that were learned in school this year.  Which is all conveniently spelled out for us once the battle is over, usually thanks to our favorite Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.

But the final book went and messed with that strategy.  No going back to school, so none of that lightness to keep you happy and carefree while knowing the battle was coming.  Just two to three friends wandering through the forest in the rain and snow.  Fighting, and battling evil, and not having any fun at all. 

All leading up to the standard big battle at the end.  Which started out to be the biggest, baddest battle of them all.  I loved how Dumbledore's Army was growing itself, and just waiting for there chance to get in on the action.  The finding of Ravenclaw's artifact was genius, and I did like that this book allowed both Draco and Dudley some redemption in the end.

But then we get to the big, crucial bits of the battle.  Where Harry has to fight Voldemort mano e mano so that good can triumph over evil.  We're prepared for it, and know the basics of what's going to happen.  But now we interrupt the biggest, baddest battle ever to be seen for a sideline into Snape's memories.  Because he must be redeemed.  And we get past that, and they're there and about to engage in battle, and let's have our handy little wrap-up in one nice little package right now, with Dumbledore, in Harry's mind, the bad guy can wait.  Really messed with the pacing of the whole thing.

And then you've got a handy epilogue, opening up the doors to a never ending stream of sequels.  Because now we have Potter's offspring to send through Hogwarts.  And then they'll probably go and have kids.  And so on, and so on, ad infinitum. 

Comments

[Eve]

Actually Rowling has said pretty clearly over and over again that this would be the last about this world -- and I don't think she's set herself up for a sequel about his kids, since she's led us to believe that all the tension and all the drama stems from extraordinary times, created by an extraordinary (and evil) dark wizard. She was quoted in an interview saying that she wanted to write the epilogue to show that even though Teddy Lupin was orphaned (like Harry) in ordinary, more sane times, he could be OK, untraumatized and "normal" by all measures -- it wasn't being orphaned per se that caused Harry to have such a difficult life, it was the times into which he was born.

I was really glad he finally broke loose from the shackles of the school structure. It worked when the series was a kids series, but she started to deviate from it back in Book 4, when the structure was more about the Triwizard Tournament. The structure was holding the potential of the series back, big time. I think Book 7 is her strongest book. Book 4 comes in second place, IMO.