rodo | Thoughts on HP and the Deathly Hallows

I'd like to apologize if my entry is slightly unorganized. I did not sleep last night because I could not stop reading.

First of all, I really liked the book.

For everyone who does not want to get spoiled (like I did), don't click on the cut!

Well, I really hoped most of you stayed unspoilered, because a part of me was waiting for the next character to die all the time. And I tried not to read the spoilers, so I did not notice all of the names of the people who died. And there were a lot of them.

Secondly, I noticed that there's so much fanfiction around that not even JKR is able to write a story that's unique. The way Harry left the Dursleys? Seemed rather familiar. The whole tent thing and the travelling around? Read at least two stories like that. I won't even go into the Muggleborn registration thing.

But of course that does not mean, that JKR was not able to surprise me. I could live with the suprisingly low amout of Harry/Ginny romance. I liked Dudley and wanted to read more about him. Seriously. I loved Kreacher. Dumbledore was great (Dumbledore/Grindelwald forever!). Draco was Draco, and I felt a little sad for him. But what I liked least was the death of Lupin and Tonks.

The worst part of the book was, surprisingly, the epilog. 19 years later, everyone's happily married and sees the kids off at King's Cross. The typical lovey-dovey fanfic ending, including the kids named James, Lily and Albus Severus. JRK just can't write romance. But I'd have prefered it if Harry had met the Dursleys again, that would have been some sort of closure again.

I think the ending also allowed us to write a lot of AUs which make it easy to change some things (like the death of certain people) with a tiny plot twist, without changing much of the story. What if Snape thought he died, gave Harry his memories, but barely survived because a brilliant Hermione managed to save him last minute? And most of the deaths weren't as vital to the plot, as long as you killed off someone else who was close to Harry. You want Lupin and Tonks to survive? You might as well kill off one of the Weasleys instead.

I am not a big fan of small changes that make the story AU, but I think in this case I would not mind at all.

What I missed: More of the Dursleys. And I want to know more about the piece of drapery that killed my favourite character.

PS: For everyone who hasn't noticed yet: policy changes that might concern us at