Harry Potter 7 (spoilers inside)

[Hostile]

You know, she has left the door open to do another if she comes across the right idea. But I got to tell you, I think this book slammed the door shut. I mean you can almost tell that in the 19 years from the end of the turmoil to the epilogue that there was peace.

If any writer tries to run with the series since she has abandoned it I think it will fall flat on its face.

Truly a good job.

I too would like to know what some the main characters end up doing for a living. The only one we know for sure is Neville Longbottom. That's my only remaining curiosity of the entire series really.

 

[Crown Royal]

You know, she has left the door open to do another if she comes across the right idea. But I got to tell you, I think this book slammed the door shut. I mean you can almost tell that in the 19 years from the end of the turmoil to the epilogue that there was peace.

If any writer tries to run with the series since she has abandoned it I think it will fall flat on its face.

Truly a good job.

I too would like to know what some the main characters end up doing for a living. The only one we know for sure is Neville Longbottom. That's my only remaining curiosity of the entire series really.

Agree there - perfect ending. I know it sounds weird - but I don't quite know what kind of story you could come up with to top this one, and to be quite honest, I don't think I would want to. I mean, if you create another dark-wizard storyline with Harry, it just gets to be ridiculous. Why would anyone want to torture a character more than that?

I love the Neville Longbottom character and how it turned up with him, by the way. Next to Snape & Dumbledore, one of my favorite characters in the series, especially his ending.

My hope is that she will, as she has stated, create an encyclopedia using all her unused notes on the characters and world of Harry Potter. I think that would serve to be a good note on what happened to everyone without having to create a story to describe it in.

 

[Danny White]

She has said that she's going to take some time off, but then write an "encyclopedia" of the Potterverse that will answer a lot of back-story questions and also likely fill in what happened to various characters in their futures.

She has all this fleshed out in her head already, it's just a matter of getting it out in a book.

 

[Crown Royal]

She has said that she's going to take some time off, but then write an "encyclopedia" of the Potterverse that will answer a lot of back-story questions and also likely fill in what happened to various characters in their futures.

She has all this fleshed out in her head already, it's just a matter of getting it out in a book.

I hope so. She spent the 5 years pre Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone fleshing out the history and universe these books are about. She has notebooks of every single character, telling their history, blood status, house, relatives, etc. It's amazing.

 

[MapleLeaf]

I hope so. She spent the 5 years pre Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone fleshing out the history and universe these books are about. She has notebooks of every single character, telling their history, blood status, house, relatives, etc. It's amazing.

...of a good writer that much of the universe the story exists in is storyboarded in advance.

My wife will take an entire wall of her office to story board her writings.

Rowling has opened Pandora's box upon the publishing world. No one ever believed that 10 year old children would stay up all night to read a 600 page tome.

Now that she has shown the world it is possible popular fiction will never be the same as people attempt to recreate the magic captured by Rowling.

Already the copycats are lining up.

 

[MapleLeaf]

I'll be done with it in about an hour. It is the best of the 7 books IMO.

...I actually thought the first was the best. This one was a close second.

This final book has an unfair advantage in that it contains most of the tying threads to all the subplots the previous six books built up.

What I liked about the first was the economy of words. My guess was that Bloombury's editors came in and told her that so much of the manuscript had to paired down before they would consider publishing it.

She was a new writer and the Bloombury contract was just for $4000.00. She didn't have clout and gave in to their demands. It resulted in a streamlined book.

By the third book she was a runaway hit and that's when I believed she began to exercise creative control. JMO.

 

[Hostile]

...I actually thought the first was the best. This one was a close second.

This final book has an unfair advantage in that it contains most of the tying threads to all the subplots the previous six books built up.

What I liked about the first was the economy of words. My guess was that Bloombury's editors came in and told her that so much of the manuscript had to paired down before they would consider publishing it.

She was a new writer and the Bloombury contract was just for $4000.00. She didn't have clout and gave in to their demands. It resulted in a streamlined book.

By the third book she was a runaway hit and that's when I believed she began to exercise creative control. JMO.

I can definitely see why you'd say this. It is the way she tied them that impreses me though David. That and as I said before, I think she has very cleverly closed the door. 19 years of peace. Is someone really going to attempt to bring in a new Voldemort in between? She even removed the most likely candidates, the Malfoys.

Pretty nicely done.

 

[MapleLeaf]

I can definitely see why you'd say this. It is the way she tied them that impreses me though David. That and as I said before, I think she has very cleverly closed the door. 19 years of peace. Is someone really going to attempt to bring in a new Voldemort in between? She even removed the most likely candidates, the Malfoys.

Pretty nicely done.

...finished. I can't see the world prepared to accept any writer other than Rowling for their diet of the universe of Hogwarts.

As for tying loose ends, you can even see it in the names of the children. Albus, James and Lily? Teddy, Remus' boy, is snogging with a girlfriend.

The likely antagonists have been represented as largely impotent - Malfoys.

It's better for her to take the money and run now. It makes one wonder if it is possible for the publishing world to see another Rowling.

 

[Crown Royal]

...finished. I can't see the world prepared to accept any writer other than Rowling for their diet of the universe of Hogwarts.

As for tying loose ends, you can even see it in the names of the children. Albus, James and Lily? Teddy, Remus' boy, is snogging with a girlfriend.

The likely antagonists have been represented as largely impotent - Malfoys.

It's better for her to take the money and run now. It makes one wonder if it is possible for the publishing world to see another Rowling.

I would be ashamed to see another Harry Potter title. The world has been extravagant enough with the last 7 years. It would be bordering on the ridiculous to suggest more adventures for the protaganist. This work was perfect as is - I don't see the need for more. The encyclopedia will be enough.

By the way - I started crying my eyes out when Dobby kicked it, and didn't stop until 'King's Cross.' Then, when I thought everything was good, I lost it again when Harry talked to Albus Severus. Probably my favorite line in the whole book.

 

[Hostile]

The worst thing is that "Half Blood Prince" doesn't hit the theaters until November of 2008 and "Deathly Hallows" is probably 2 years after that.

 

[Hostile]

By the way - I started crying my eyes out when Dobby kicked it, and didn't stop until 'King's Cross.' Then, when I thought everything was good, I lost it again when Harry talked to Albus Severus. Probably my favorite line in the whole book.

Yeah, Dobby was a cool character. That got to me too.

I liked the line to the boy too. Thought it was classy.

 

[Crown Royal]

The worst thing is that "Half Blood Prince" doesn't hit the theaters until November of 2008 and "Deathly Hallows" is probably 2 years after that.

Meh - all the movies ever did was provide a temp fix until a new book. Now that they are all over, I could not care less about them. I would like to see Chris Columbus come back for Hallows, though.

 

[Faerluna]

I was finally able to finish the book last night. I was about halfway through when I started reading, and when midnight rolled around I kept on reading instead of going to bed.

By 1am, I figured I was already up too late and there was no way I could stop at that point. It was 2:30 when I finished, but it was worth every minute of it.

I'm glad I'm finished with the book, and at the same time sad it's over. Add to that the sadness for the "loss" of life within the characters that was, at the end, accompanied by the "Our little Harry is all grown up" feeling. Melancholy relief, I guess.

Brilliant, just brilliant.

 

[Faerluna]

Interesting excerpt from a CNN article.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/07/30/potters.afterlife.ap/index.html


Rowling said the world was a sunnier, happier place after the seventh book and the death of Voldemort.

Harry Potter, who always voiced a desire to become an Auror, or someone who fights dark wizards, was named head of the Auror Department under the new wizarding government headed by his friend and ally, Kingsley Shacklebolt.

His wife, Ginny Weasley, stuck with her athletic career, playing for the Holyhead Harpies, the all-female Quidditch team. Eventually, Ginny left the team to raise their three children -- James, Albus and Lily -- while writing as the senior Quidditch correspondent for the wizarding newspaper, the Daily Prophet.

Harry's best friend Ron Weasley joined his brother, George, as a partner at their successful joke shop, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Hermione Granger, Ron's wife and the third person of the series' dark wizard fighting trio, furthered the rights of subjugated creatures, such as house elves, in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures before joining the magical law enforcement squad. The couple had two children -- Rose and Hugo.

Luna Lovegood, Harry's airily distracted friend with a love for imaginary animals who joins the fight against Voldemort in the Order of the Phoenix, becomes a famous wizarding naturalist who eventually marries the grandson of Newt Scamander, author of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."
And what Muggle, or non-wizard, song would have been played at the funeral of Albus Dumbledore, the most brilliant and talented wizard the world had ever known?

"Surely 'I Did It My Way' by Frank Sinatra," Rowling told her fans, referring to the song "My Way," written by Paul Anka but popularized by Sinatra, among other singers.

 

[LaTunaNostra]

I saw the new film the other night - HP and the Order of the Phoenix, HP #5, and of course, the first thing comes to mind is how much the kid actors have grown since the first installment. And that they will be young adults by the time Book # 7 film is out.

The latest flick is "dark", cinematography all grays, charcoals, and interior shadows. I like some light in cinematography somewhere along the story line, but this installment had virtually none.

Ralph Fiennes as Valdemort is stunning - he had a scene where Harry sees him along a running train at a crowded train station (Harry is the only one who can see him) and Fiennes used a shruggish, sideways downlook that was the last look you'd think of as 'scary', no intent glare, no full force evil, just a sideways glance and grimace, but it was absolutely CHILLING.

Jason Isaacs was terrific as the supercilious evil Lucius Malfoy, and alas, Gary Oldman's Sirius Black got killed off!

These Brit actors are to die for. They seem to have the same kind of actor comradery the Sopranos cast had going, only instead of New York and New Jersey paisans goofing on each other and providing a play within a play, you've got the Shakespearean crowd.

The Harry Potter flicks for me have become more about the quality of the adult cast and the mega talent of actors like Fiennes, Isaacs, Smith, Coltrane, Oldman, Rickman, and Gambon just knocking off each other like bowling balls.

What a freaking treat! I can never get enough of it.

 

[Crown Royal]

LaTuna - watching that movie made me agree with a review I read about the movie - you have the best of British Acting assembled in a film and hardly use it. Dame Maggie Smith probably had less than 10 lines, Rickman's Snape, while great, still hasn't been given the spotlight it deserves. In the meantime, you have to sit through Emma Watson's dreadful acting as she is always out of breath and must make a facial expression before each and every line she spouts.

The editing was awful, a prime example being the scene where Harry was practicing occlumency - the camera zooms out of the window and up into the night, and after 5 seconds of that, just cuts to a new scene. What a worthless couple of seconds in a movie where everything felt crammed anyway.

I do feel that Jason Isaacs and Ralph Fiennes were perfectly cast. I still have not forgiven the moviemakers for the travesty that is now Dumbledore - they should have known better than Richard Harris in the first place, but surely they could have done better after the second attempt.

 

[Faerluna]

I loved the movie. I've always felt swept up by the movies when I'm in the theater and really never see the shortcomings that others see. The cast is perfect, and I adore them all.

For me, I think I keep the movies and the books seperate, that way I'm not disappointed by what the movie leaves out. The characters in the movie help me visualize them while I'm reading the books. The book and the movie go hand in hand, and I think I enjoy them more when I allow myself to just enjoy it for the sake of being entertained.

 

[Mavs Man]

Well, finally finished it a few hours ago.

I don't think I can add anything more to what's already been said, but it was definitely worth the wait. I'm not yet ready to call it my favorite of the series (I'm still partial to books four and five) but it was a completely satisfying finish to the whole Potter story.

I was able to hold off on finishing the book the opening weekend, and would like to think it was because I wanted to savor it, you know, being the last book. But in truth, it probably had more to do with my wife and I's busy work schedule lately (we read the book out loud so we could read it at the same time) and a new puppy we got hours before the Book 7 midnight release. He's a hassle, but a welcome one - when he isn't trying to eat my shoes, or electrical cords, or papers, or really anything EXCEPT the many toys we have for him . . .

It was hard trying to go through each day without hearing about who died or how it ended. Glad that's over.

 

[locked&loaded]

the last 100 pages blow. Except knowing snape is good, so i could tell my friends that i was right and they were wrong. Harrys fight with voldemort=let down. I wish harry had casted one of the 3 unforgiveables, and come on harry being the last horrocrux... man i was into it when i read it but let down when i thought back.

 

[Mavs Man]

the last 100 pages blow. Except knowing snape is good, so i could tell my friends that i was right and they were wrong. Harrys fight with voldemort=let down. I wish harry had casted one of the 3 unforgiveables, and come on harry being the last horrocrux... man i was into it when i read it but let down when i thought back.

If you want to see a letdown of a final showdown, read Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

This wasn't it.

I think Harry refusing to cast one of unforgiveable curses (except for a few instances with Bellatrix and others) was more noble, especially considering how much friendly fire there was during the battles (Snape blowing George's ear away by mistake, for example).

I thought Harry "dying" was one of the coolest parts of the whole series, and him literally mastering death for the final duel was pretty awesome.