literature

Deathly Hallows: A 'Review'

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

After years of spending time with Harry Potter and his quirky, mentally-ill friends, J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Etc., Death Wears a Garbage Bag, Planetary Occlusion and the Dictionary Definition Theirof, Tanj Bartleby: The Totally Unofficial Biography) finally says goodbye to her world in the epic final chapter in the novel series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Most other reviews shy away from spoilers, and for good reason: J.K. Rowling once sued the London fog for breach of privacy and won. But I? I feel compelled to go in-depth, including a frank discussion of its plot, so before you venture further, noble readers, find and read your own copy. Or, if you're here looking for spoilers, grab a notepad and get to jotting.

The prior book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, left our heroes on a disastrous note, as Snape kills Dumbledore over an argument about who paid the bigger half of the rent check that month, leaving Harry Potter to pay for Dumbledore's substantial half of the bill, depleting his inheritance.  As the novel opens, Harry Potter finds himself slaying giant rats and slimes in his front yard to earn pathetic pocket change from his hideous aunt and uncle just to pay for this year's tuition at Hogwarts, though Harry can barely manage to scrape enough to purchase his books.

A change mirroring his 11th birthday comes in the mail--a gigantic, mystic sword crafted by Ollivander himself as a change of pace from wands.  No sooner than he receives the blade than he is challenged by a powerful dark wizard, Makes No Difference. In an intense duel, Harry Potter disembowels the magician, earning both a new spell (titled Kickstart My Heart) and a healthy prize purse--enough to pay for one month's tuition at Hogwarts.

When Harry meets up with Hermione and her boy-toy Ron at Diagon Alley, Hermione spills a vital piece of information: Makes No Difference was but one member of the Deathly Hallows, a cadre of magical assassins working for the highest bidder. Each wizard and witch has a prize on his or her head big enough to pay for a month at Hogwarts, and each bear deadly magical powers and weapons. Harry's goal is obvious: in order to attend Hogwarts this year, he must defeat one Deathly Hallow each month to pay for the next.

Rowling's newest novel is a brilliant piece of work, the most mature adventure she has thus written. Harry's quest to kill an implausibly dangerous magician each month just to finish tuition at Hogwarts is a clear metaphor for a college student's eternal challenge to pay his way through school. Further, his gigantic sword serves as a metaphor for a more normally-proportioned sword, or possibly (as per Freudian theory) his mother, whom he wants to have sex with.

The whole gang shows up for the final outing, including several dead cast members resurrected by the Deathly Hallow named Gloomy Sunday. Most are in a bad way from the last book: Ron is still recovering from being raped at the end of Half-Blood Prince, confiding in his girlfriend Hermione; Hermione studies the Dark Arts "for perfectly explicable reasons" and soon skyrockets to the top of the school through indiscriminate use of the Imperius curse; Hagrid still labors under the Panallergy Pox, and can get no closer than 10 feet to any weird living thing without sneezing up pieces of organ; McGonnogal escapes from Azkaban after being arrested for magical tax evasion, and teaches her class secretly, on the fly in the hallways; and Snape uses Dumbledore's limp body as a puppet, Weekend at Bernie's style, to lord over the students and make arbitrary rules declarations. One of these declarations, "Naked Tuesday," constitutes an entire chapter certain to be cut out of the movie.

Snape is not the only antagonist in Harry's way. Draco buds off several clones of himself, becoming the Draco Dozen, each doing its level best to pester Harry as hard as possible. Ginny, lovingly nicknamed "the Whore of Babylon" by fans, is attacked by Cho Chang, who has developed a sudden and overwhelming need to "pair" with Harry by the end of the school year. And, of course, Voldemort is still plotting his takeover of the Wizarding World. His current plan: steal the world's largest Large Hadron Collider, install it in his brand-new cyber-arm, and use it to spray concentrated Science at his opponents, dealing twice the damage due to elemental opposition.

Joining the miscreants are the Deathly Hallows. Though Makes No Difference falls early, readers come to know and love-to-hate the other nine: Frontier Psychiatrist, Rebel Without a Pause, Minutes to Midnight, Just a Rumor Though, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, special guest star Remilia Scarlet, Say I, You Could Feel the Sky, and necromantic master Gloomy Sunday. Each member has their own unique magical ability, taxing our hero to his limits. Minutes to Midnight, for instance, doubles in power at 11:55 p.m., and doubles in power again at each minute, only to return to his normal strength at midnight. You Could Feel the Sky can reverse spells cast at him, bolstering himself with spells intended to harm or reversing healing and protective effects as they are cast. Gloomy Sunday, the leader of the Deathly Hallows, can animate the dead and use them to cast her spells by remote or to focus spellfire on her victims. Each power is thrilling and inventively used--expect to see them copied and expounded upon endlessly in self-insertion fanfic to come!

Speaking of fanfiction, Rowling throws her fans a bone in Deathly Hallows, dropping some fan-service moments to assuage her deeply irate fanbase. H/Hr fanlings can rejoice as Harry and Hermione pose as boyfriend and girlfriend to infiltrate Just a Rumor Though's Slytherin-only ball, and subsequently make out on the dance floor to prove their boy-girlfriendhood. Other popular internet pairings--including Hagrid/Buckbeak, Neville/Snape, and Draco/Draco/Draco--get some screen time as a wink and nod by the author. Those who took offense to Ginny wooing Harry can enjoy Cho tying her up, cutting her, and nearly lighting her on fire before being slain by Harry on his way to stop Voldemort from acquiring a new piece of the Large Hadron Collider (page 300).

Oh yes--there's a lot of death in Deathly Hallows, and not just of the new villains. It would be tacky to list all deaths of the "old guard," in order, by page number, but what the hell:

Percy Weasely, page 8: Slain by Makes No Difference while visiting Harry.
Professor Flitwick, page 39: Mentioned in passing as perishing of Scorn.
Dolores Umbrige, page 40: Strongly hinted to have been pushed into a giant blender by the reader.
Mad-Eye Moody, page 109: Killed by "The Guardians" for jumping on the train tracks.
Luna Lovegood, page 240: Found slain by a sasquatch.
McGonnogal, page 298: "Stickied" by a plasma grenade thrown by Bellatrix leStrange.
Rita Skeeter, page 430: Exsanguinated by Remilia for derogatory article in the Daily Prophet.
Neville Longbottom, page 588: Tricked by Say I into dividing by zero.
Draco Malfoy, page 643: Split in half when his multiplication spell is reversed by You Could Feel the Sky.
Stan Shunpike, page 670: First target of Voldemort's new LHC-derived techno-magic spell Megalomania.
Hagrid, Grawp, and Lupin, page 711: Victims of Megalomania.
Mrs. Weasley, page 747: Spontaneously combusts to prove a point.

Death isn't the only controversial topic explored by Deathly Hallows. On page 420, while pondering how to defeat Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Harry, Ron, and Hermione pause to contemplate over a hookah of Hagrid's hydroponic Wizard's Weed, which directly leads not only to the defeat of Bullet, but in fact to the defeat of Voldemort in the second-to-last chapter. Harry and Draco are briefly gay married after a botched Severance Charm rebounds on them. Come election time, Ron votes for the Beer 'N' Bitches party. Harry swears at a fairly constant clip, even several completely-made-up swear words ("Slint," "mcambre," "skung"). Each topic is handled with the maximum level of maturity that can be expected from the masterful author.

Yes, there are new enemies, new friends, Large Hadron Colliders, and herbal smoking products, but how does it all read? Why, it reads perfectly, like a cross between H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Pynchon, and the largest, most complete thesaurus ever written by man, as interpreted by Walt Whitman and Dr. Seuss, compressing enormous, terrifying, and confusing ideas into succinct, yet still brain-hemorrhaging words. Critics who proclaim Rowling's writing to be "infantile," "sub-literate," and "am so bald" will certainly have their traps decisively shut by her latest work.

What will divide readers the most is the twist ending, wherein Voldemort is defeated and subsequently regenerates back at his home base. On the very last page of the book, Harry remembers all about the Horcruxes, and decides that for his post-school trip around the world, he's going to take out the Horcruxes, joined by Hermoine, Ron, and their new friend, the reformed Gloomy Sunday. Ron is then raped by Remilia Scarlet. The ultimate spoiler:

"Ron winced and turned down the seat.
'Damn,' Harry said, 'that's going to leave a scar.'

TO BE CONTINUED in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Episode One."

Exactly what's next for Harry and the gang is unknown, but we can be sure it's going to melt some faces.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as the last Harry Potter novel released in a traditional format, has a lot to live up for--the six prior books and their increasingly insane adventures each, the blockbuster movies, the occasional Slime Pit(tm) action playset, funding for the Large Hadron Collider, and of course the hordes of ravenous, gay-sex-loving fans who have followed the series from Harry's first fledgling steps as a wizard to his latest adventures in financial management. It delivers a lot--violence, off-screen hanky panky, swearing, things exploding, bizarre super-powered villains with enormous yet curiously inane goals, questionable Latin, and, of course, Draco Malfoy's boyish, Aryan good looks. But will the fans embrace it?

Who knows? Some disliked the prior book enough to write 700+ page fanfiction specifically devoted to replacing that book in fannish timelines. Personally, I think the fanbase is insane and disturbed, possibly dangerous, and armed with the deadliest weapon any author may arm her fans with: love. Love of a world and its inhabitants, love of reading and creativity, and also extreme lower-back strength from hauling around enormous hardback books, and thus the lower-back-strength necessary to swing imitation swords that weight five times as much as actual swords at people who disagree with them.

Fear the fans of Harry Potter, but join them, because it is better to be on the side of insane fans of creative, entertaining literature than against them on the "we're so cool because we don't like good books that are popular" side. Deathly Hallows offers all you could want from an adventurous fantasy novel--an immersive world, lovable but flawed heroes, loathsome villains, actual drama and suspense leaking out of every orifice, and enough heft to serve as an impromptu weapon of defense or offense.

Rating: Recumbent Battletoad/40.
That didn't make a whole lot of sense.

Harry Potter (c) The Big Rowl. Special Guest Star (c) ZUN. Plot gingerly ripped from No More Heroes.

EDIT HISTORY: Wow, did I somehow miss that "a" in Hallow? I think I did.
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mizzpinkie's avatar
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