And The Book Was Really Good, Too

BIG SPOILER ALERT: Don't read this if you are still in the dark about what happens in the last Harry Potter book. I will tell all.

So I read the last Harry Potter book. It took me about a week because The Muse and I were sharing it. She, however, was kind enough to read the whole 759-page thing in about two days, which, given that it came out on a Friday/Saturday, fit nicely with my work schedule. Thanks, Muse.

I thought the book was great. I kind of expected some of the major plots. There was no way in hell J.K. Rowling was going to kill Harry. You don't kill the thing that pulled you up from being a single mom on the dole to being wealthier than the Queen of England. Instead, you love that thing and make sure things work out for it. I had a sense that Snape wasn't evil and that Dumbledore would help Harry at the end. Campbellian mythology predicted these things.

While many of the reviews thus were undoubtedly right that the book was somewhat derivative of mythology and Tolkien and Star Wars and other sources, what you have to give to J.K. Rowling is her commitment to the story. She had set up, lovingly and lengthily, the story that Voldemort was not just mean, but flat-out evil, and that Harry would have to be the one to defeat him. In the words of Bugs Bunny, "of course, you know, this means war." And Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows was war. And Rowling committed to that fact.

Some modern pieces of mythology, much as I love them, shrank from the real meaning of their stories. In short, good guys didn't really die. In the Star Wars movies, there is an awful lot of carnage, but, when you think about it, no one you really cared about died. A lot of "Gold Leaders" and "Red 3's" and "Daxes" became balls o' flame, but none of the main characters died. Obi-Wan gave himself up and came back "more powerful than you can imagine," supposedly. The closest Star Wars came was when Han Solo was frozen in carbonite and, while that set off my personal first existential crisis, Han lived and fought on, smart-mouthed as ever. Similarly, in Tolkein, at least in the movies (got to admit, I haven't read the books), who really dies? Gandalf comes back. Gollum dies, but that was fine with me. The only important good guy who dies is Boromir and he deserved it because he tried to take the ring from Frodo. Hell, even Faramir survives his explicitly suidicial charge at the Orcs.

J.K. Rowling, on the other hand, had the courage to show you what a war against Voldemort meant. Fred Weasley died. We loved Fred. He and George made the magical swamp and gave Harry the Marauders' Map. How can George go on without Fred? Well, he'll have to because Fred died in the war. She killed Lupin?!? Poor tragic Lupin, bit by a werewolf as a child and doomed to be an outcast his whole life, has his great friends the Potters be killed, thinks his friend Sirius may be a mass murderer for 12 years, finds out that, no, his other friend Pettigrew betrayed the Potters, has Sirius be killed, finds happiness very briefly with Tonks and then they both get killed in the Battle of Hogwarts just after their son is born. Wow, that is some potent stuff. Hedwig, Harry's great owl friend. Dead. Madeye Moody, so desperate to fight Voldemort and protect Harry. Dead. Colin Creevey, who loved to take pictures. Dead.

And the one that hit me hardest of all, Dobby. Dobby, who loved Harry and who Harry freed (by tricking Lucius Malfoy into giving Dobby one of Harry's dirty socks), coming to save Harry and the others at the Malfoy's house because only Dobby could do it because he had House-elf magic and could apparate in his old master's house, shaking with fright and then killed by a dagger as they apparated out. Good Lord, what a moment.

These things made the ultimate resolution so much the better. Made it so much the better that it was goofy, forgetful, lame Neville, who found courage, had Gryffindor's sword emerge for him -- a true courageous Gryffindor -- from the Sorting Hat to lop the head off the snake, the last Horcrux. What a moment! Kind, worrying Mrs. Weasley doing in the evil Bellatrix Lestrange (what an evil name, like Scott Farkus) in motherly fury. Freakin' awesome! Snape's back story and horrible end. The Malfoys ultimately caring more about their kid than being evil. All of that, plus the escape from the Ministry, the escape from Gringotts and the fight inside the Room of Requirement. Whoa!

I think it was a great book and think that the series really is an astonishing achievement. I don't know how they are going to get the last book in a movie, but I know that I will go see it.