Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows SPOILER Thread

[Seiryu]

Okay...I'm going to have to stop you there. Rowling says...I have never taken anything she says on face value and here's why: if she doesn't put the thought into writing it into one of the books, it's non-canon. Why? I can't go back to one of the books and point out where it was stated as a fact in the book. This is what pisses me off about her going back later and telling us what everyone did after the demise of Lord Voldemort. It's nice she tells us, but when can I go back and look that up in one of the books? I can't...ever. Unless she puts out an eighth book or something.

[neo-dragon]

She is supposedly writing an HP encyclopedia at some point. Will you consider such details to be canon if they are printed there?

I'm not sure why she'd bother to point out that mudbloods have wizard ancestors. Although, it's one of those areas that would be interesting if wizards knew some muggle science so that they could study it. Since magic is obviously hereditary, there must be a magic gene. If it can go for several generations without being expressed and then re-emerge in mudbloods that would suggest that it's recessive. Actually, it's probably multiple genes because if it was as straightforward as one autosomal recessive, two wizard parents shouldn't be able to have a squib, and half-bloods would turn out to be squibs more often than not.

Maybe there's a wizard version of midichlorians...

[Seiryu]

Yeah, if SHE has an encyclopedia, I'll accept it as canon. If someone else puts it out, I won't.

I mean, the difference is that I'll have something physical in my hand written by her that can sit on my shelf and I can get it out and open it up to look things up all I want. See, if she says it, then it's only what's reported to me through the media. I end up having to take it from a reporter that what she says is valid and she could change her mind on it at any time. When it's in a book, it's as good as set in stone.

[Jebus]

Griphook intended to get things his ways, he never expected the kids to get out, he just thought it'd be a fine ruse to get the sword back. He held up his end of the bargain getting them to the vault, but then the deal was sealed.

I think that's a very weak point in favour of Gringotts being as completely fortified as it was described in the first book.

[peterlocke123]

*snip!*

OD: Stealing is bad, mmmkay?

[eriador]

Ummm. I think that that's a violation of the forum ToS.

[VelvetElvis]

It is also literary piracy...


Although being a literary pirate is a way cool title.

[eriador]

It's both. The only reason I bring up the ToS is that that's much more likely to be enforced

[Dr. Mobius]

If anyone wanted an illegal digital copy, they'd have already downloaded the torrent a week before the book was released.

[eriador]

All the more reason to believe that Lewis "peterlocke123" Godowski of Tigard Oregon here is an idiot.

[jotabe]

Personally, i downloaded the book AFTER i bought it.
Great to keep reading at work! lol well, during breaks at work. And increases your daily reading speed (yeah, i took several days to read it ^_^).

[eriador]

Stupidly enough jota, that's still illegal in the States. I dislike it.

[Rei]

Amusingly, it was the States who used to gather up books from Europe as fast as they could and publish them without paying any royalties to the authors as the only copyright that they cared about was the American copyright. In fact, it took until 1989 for your country to join the Berne Convention.

...not that I'm saying we should steal literary works. I'm more amused by the swapping of positions.

[eriador]

Mmm. We don't care if you hold a copyright in a different country. It's just if it's an AMERICAN copyright that is even being approached they freak out. I hate the DMCA.

[jotabe]

humm... no right to personal security copy?
that sucks...

[eriador]

It's a disputed point. Content producers (esp. the RIAA and MPAA) argue that the only fair use there is is what they say you can do (for example: privately play a CD without recording it) and that any other use is copyright violation, even if it's entirely personal. Fair use advocates (like the EFF (eff.org)) say that ANY personal use is fair use, as long as one doesn't distribute copyrighted content. They also support some distribution (for example, making a mix tape/cd for a friend or family member) but the line is fuzzier there.

Then there's the whole DMCA which makes the following illegal:
-reverse-engineering copyright protection
-trying to reverse-engineer copyright protection
-circumventing copyright protection
-trying to circumvent copyright protection
-providing information about reverse-engineering or circumventing copy protection
-show people where to get information about reverse-engineering or circumventing copy protection

And even worse:


Read carefully: This post is copyrighted material, encoded with ROT26 encryption. Any attempts at reading this post will be prosecuted under the DMCA.

[Slim]

I finished the book a couple weeks ago, and I only just now got around to reading through this spoiler thread. A lot of what I noticed has already been hashed, so I won't rehash it (all) but I'll just say what I thought of the book, and of what I saw in some replies. Okay, and I guess some of my opinions on the hash map.

Half-Blood Prince, to me, felt like "Deathly Hallows: Part I" Why? Because nothing happened. "What do you mean?" one might ask, "There was Quidditch, Horcruxes, Slughorn, Lucky potion, more Horcruxes, they actually Get one, Dumbledore dies, what more do you want?"

I finally realized what I was missing out on.
Book 1: Voldemort is trying to come back. Harry goes through hazards to the mirror, and stops him.
Book 2: Voldemort is trying to come back. Harry goes to the Chamber of Secrets and stops him.
Book 3: Voldemort's servant is coming to Hogwarts to (supposedly) kill Harry Potter. Harry goes to the shrieking shack, and saves his godfather.
Book 4: Voldemort's servant is using a Triwizard Tournament to kill Harry Potter. Harry goes to a cemetery and defeats Voldemort.
Book 5: Voldemort is trying to get a Prophecy. Harry goes to the Ministry of Magic and stops him.
Book 6: Draco is trying to kill Dumbledore. Harry goes off to find a Horcrux, but its a fake. Death Eaters come to Hogwarts and Snape kills Dumbledore. Harry defeats everyone. Oh, wait, that last part didn't happen.

Anyway, so I was looking forward to this one.

Obviously, I knew there were going to be deaths. But I was shocked that the book had already started, and Hedwig and Moody had already died. I knew anyone was up for grabs. Which is, of course, what J.K. wanted me to think.

Oh, I thought for sure Dudley was under the Imperious Curse. I guess its like when Peter tells Ender while asleep, "I love you, man." What do you make of it?

Oh, and when I found out that Umbridge had the Horcrux, I thought, NOOOO! They couldn't have picked a more evil place to have it!!!!

And I THOUGHT I knew what the plot of the book would be. -- Find a Horcrux, destroy it. Find another one, destroy it, etc. Fine. So they destroy the One Ring, and after that are introduced to another Horcrux -- no wait, now we are talking about the Deathly Hallows. (ah, I should have noticed it wasn't Deathly Hollows.) Okay, who derailed the train? This is a strange twist...

And then, Harry decides to use forbidden curses, and McGonagall uses forbidden curses too. "..." luckilly, I was reading all six other books concurrently with the last one to refresh my memory. So I eventually justified it because they said the last time Voldemort was in power, forbidden curses were approved for aurors to use. But still, did I like it? No.

Snape's part, was what I was really dying to read. Oh, I get it now! It was okay for Snape to kill Dumbledore, since the latter was dying and wanted to die on his own terms! Snape's worst memory wasn't being tormented, it was calling Lilly a Mudblood! Slughorn was always praising Lily's Potion making skills ... She probably learned them from Snape!

The epilogue? Yeah, sort of cheesy, but we need some sort of closure. Mostly I was only bothered with Harry and Ginny's lack of creativity.

As for your other comments, W00t! I liked that liked story.

I didn't notice the thing about, "Hmmm... I've never done a memory charm before. Especially one as complex as erasing the last whole five minutes of a persons memory." That's funny. How did that one get past the continuity editor?

Yeah, I was confused as to what the muggles did to Ariana. Now that you mention it rape does sound like that's what it was. It would also explain why it wasn't specifically stated.

All in all, I liked the book. My mom was confused by a couple things, like why the Elder Wand was Harry's, and why the sword was back in the hat. I thought it obvious -- I mean, they explained the Elder Wand thing right there at the end. And I thought the Sword thing was evidence that it is true that you can only receive it through an act of bravery, unlike Griphook.

It was great, but my favorite book is Order of the Phoenix. Call me cruel, but I just like it when horribly mean people get their comeuppance.

[Young Val]

Well, JKR, you've done it now.

Dumbledore is gay. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/ ... cores-more (loads more tid bits in teh article as well).

That's just one source of about a million, but I have it on the authority of an associate who was present for the talk, JKR did in fact confess that Albus is gay.


Now, more power to her, I say. But what I don't understand is why make Dumbledore gay when Remus Lupin is OBVIOUSLY the resident homosexual of the series?!?!?!?! I can't get over his "romance" with Tonks. It's absurd.


Thoughts?

[starlooker]

*mentally hugs Lupin*

I love him.

They can both be gay, for all of me. I just wish either of 'em had a "romance" -- even in her own mind, in backstory, that had worked out slightly more favorably than, you know, duel or death.

[Young Val]

Lupin's my favorite. (Prior to book seven, that is, in which JKR made him an a****** as she eventually did with all of Harry's male role models).

[starlooker]

What do you expect? Rawling has him closeted (we suspect), married to Tonks, and not allowed to take on his greatest werewolf nemesis. He was having a bad year. He's allowed to be an a******. I have full faith that, had there been a book 8, he would've redeemed himself. Well, had he lived in book 7. Never mind.

[Young Val]

Haha.

It's ok. Sirius & Lupin = Puppy Love in the afterlife.

[Oliver Dale]

These detailed character histories and futures shame me. I NEVER know this much about characters. Seriously. It's intimidating.

[neo-dragon]

I guess this means that Ian Mckellen should have played Dumbledore instead of Gandalf.

[Violet]

Meh, Dumbledore is such an asexual character that it's easy to make him gay. Pointless, one might say.

[Jayelle]

This is clearly just to piss more fundementalists off.

[starlooker]

I don't think that's what it's intended to do.

It may have that effect, but I don't think that's necessarily the intent.

[Dr. Mobius]

So Dumby's the gay groupie of the second greatest criminal mastermind in wizarding history and his brother really likes goats. No wonder their sister is nuts.

[Rei]

I really don't see the point to making this announcement. I can't see it bringing much to the story, and if it were so important, it should have been in the actual book.

[neo-dragon]

Maybe Rowling already misses all the attention and wanted one more big headline.

[Young Val]

Guys, she was answering a direct question. Whether you believe the answer to be manipulative or not is your choice--but she was asked whether or not Dumbledore was ever in love, and she answered. She didn't just blurt it out for the sake of doing so.

[Oliver Dale]

Moreover, it would have been a cheat to her audience to have broadcasted the fact in the books themselves. Think about it: whose story was this? Harry's. In what capacity did Dumbledore relate to Harry? As headmaster and mentor.

It wouldn't have made sense (further, it would have been inappropriate) for Dumbledore to 'come out' to Harry.

And think about that last book a little bit in this new context. It makes a bit more sense to me, I think.

[locke]

I'm delighted by this, it makes some of Dumbledore's decisions in the past make more sense, it adds a lovely texture to his character's backstory and it's makes me think of both oscar wilde and oddly enough, Jane Austen. I never considered the sexuality of any characters in the potterverse, it's just sort of a hetero bias I guess I have, I just assume everyone else is straight in a book unless I'm bludgeoned over the head with clues. I mean I never picked up on Loras and Renly the first reading of A Song of Ice and Fire and that's some fairly obvious subtext going on there. :p

So the burning question now is: did Dumbledore die a virgin or were he and Deadalus Diggle friends with benefits? lol.

If the filmmakers now fail to get Ian McKellan to play Aberforth I will be most distraught. But who is the gayest British elderly actor that can play Diggle? No Nathan Lane!

I'm not even going to go into the 'duel' with Grindlewald, I'm sure the slash community will be all over that by now.

[Violet]

Moreover, it would have been a cheat to her audience to have broadcasted the fact in the books themselves. Think about it: whose story was this? Harry's. In what capacity did Dumbledore relate to Harry? As headmaster and mentor.

It wouldn't have made sense (further, it would have been inappropriate) for Dumbledore to 'come out' to Harry.

And think about that last book a little bit in this new context. It makes a bit more sense to me, I think.

She doesn't need to plainly state that he's gay in the story for his homosexuality to have an affect on it. And how much sense the last book makes (pretty little in some parts) is in no way affected by Dumbledore's sexuality.

I don't see this as attempt to piss off fundamentalists, I see this as a token attempt to appear open-minded and accepting, when it adds nothing of value to her story.

[Young Val]

I don't see this as attempt to piss off fundamentalists, I see this as a token attempt to appear open-minded and accepting, when it adds nothing of value to her story.

Literary critics and academics alike with disagree heartily. There was an abundant application of Queer Theory applied to the text ages before Dumbledore's sexuality was revealed; I can see massive revelations ahead for the text in terms of Queer and Feminist theory in particular, not to mention Freudian and a healthy array of others.