Problems with "Deathly Hallows"

When Deathly Hallows was released in July 2007, I had not gotten as far in the writing of Penumbra as I should have liked, but I had a thorough outline. Still, I was excited to see what Rowling had in store for her readers. I liked it. It was good enough that I was up all night reading it, just as with Half Blood Prince, and in fact had read it more quickly, even though it's longer. But I also had some disappointments with it, which probably was my own fault, since Penumbra was, even then, taking a detailed (and wildly different) approach to Harry Potter. 

My favorite scene in Deathly Hallows, and the main reason I
sometimes go back to reread it. 

Don't get me wrong. There were many things I admired about Deathly Hallows, starting with the pacing. I was never bored reading it. Rowling has a gift for suspense which I appreciate. The pacing was perfect for the story (I wish I could say the same for Books 4 and 5). I also admired the powerful symbolism (even if it is a bit clichéd) of Harry's sacrifice. Rowling pulled it off well, and the film even better, which I can say with a surety because it is one of the few scenes in a movie that actually has reduced me to tears. I was impressed by the theme of motherhood, how they won because of Lily Potter's sacrifice and Narcissa Malfoy's turning on Voldemort; Molly Weasley's killing of Bellatrix Lestrange, in outraged defense of her daughter, also reinforced that. (Plus, I think we all loved "Not my daughter, you BITCH!"

But at the same time there were a number of failings in the book where Rowling either could have done better or done without entirely, which I will now detail:

1. The Epilogue
There was a lot I didn't like about the epilogue, but what I really couldn't grasp was the fact that after the devastation presented in Deathly Hallows, everything appears to have just gone back to normal. But history doesn't work like that. If Rowling were to present us with an epilogue at all, it ought to have been one showing the aftermath of war. Is it believable that Harry kills Voldemort, the remaining Death Eaters get imprisoned, and it's business as usual? There were no discontented persons who profited from Voldemort's regime, and lost their profit? No backlash from the International Confederation of Wizards, or the Muggle government, for the number of Muggles killed? The Dementors simply disappeared? There were no vengeful Muggle-borns or half-bloods preparing some sort of anti-pureblood backlash? Nobody coming after Harry for the Elder Wand, even though he shouted for the whole Great Hall to hear that he was now its master? No discontented, escaped Snatchers or Death Eaters? No backlash from the goblins? No economic repercussions?

History shows that after a war, especially one fought on one's own soil, society cannot simply return to the way things were before the conflict. The status quo is dead. This is why war should be avoided if possible, only done when in a crisis, all other alternatives have been exhausted. The deaths are bad enough, but when you go to war, there is no turning back. There are countries out there which fought wars decades or even centuries ago, which still haven't recovered. Of all things in the Harry Potter series that I found the most unbelievable, this was it. 

2. The Horcruxes
Simply put, Rowling made the Horcrux hunt too easy and too fast. Many fans didn't mind as much as I did, but I didn't like that Harry managed to locate and destroy four Horcruxes in twenty-four hours (the cup, the diadem, the snake, himself). The fact that he learned their location through Voldemort himself, or through a panicked Death Eater, is a cop-out. Rowling either was being lazy, or simply didn't think this through. An analysis of each Horcrux explains why this was badly handled:

a. Marvolo Gaunt's ring and Salazar Slytherin's locket

The ring and the locket were the only Horcruxes handled well (with the exception of the diary and Harry). The ring set a precedent to how Voldemort's Horcruxes are hidden and protected, and the locket set the standard. Firstly, the Horcruxes are hidden in places connected with Voldemort's obscure, yet significant past: the ring was hidden in the Gaunt shack, connected with his more obscure ancestry, his parents' meeting, and near where he murdered his father; while the locket was hidden in a cave Voldemort had visited as a child. Secondly, the Horcruxes and their hiding places are booby-trapped, extremely dangerous to approach, let alone remove: the ring was protected with a deadly curse, and the locket protected by a potion that could only be drunk, and was also surrounded by hundreds of Inferi. Thirdly, the Horcruxes themselves, and their hiding places, are connected to Voldemort engaging in an act of dominion over someone, either by murder or by something subtler: the ring was hidden in the place where Voldemort framed his uncle for his father's murder, while the locket was hidden in a place where Voldemort had terrorized two children. While the ring's location and destruction all happened offstage, the locket was entirely on page: its location was obscure yet significant, it was heavily booby-trapped, its history (and the history of the cave) was particularly dark, and this is to say nothing of Harry's struggle to locate and destroy it after R.A.B. removed it. Every one of the remaining Horcruxes should have been at least as difficult to find and destroy as the locket, if not more so. This, however, Rowling failed to do.

b. The diary
I admit that the diary completely violates the standard of the locket; but I still think this was handled well because though the diary was a Horcrux, it wasn't created for the same purpose as the others; unlike the other Horcruxes, which are safeguards for Voldemort's immortality, the diary was created as a weapon, a means for Voldemort to personally infiltrate Hogwarts and open the Chamber of Secrets without actually going there. He gave the diary to Lucius Malfoy, with the intention that Malfoy plant it on a student for this purpose; but Malfoy wasn't supposed to do so until Voldemort gave the go-ahead. But this is where my praise ends and my criticism begins.

c. Nagini
I don't have as much to say about Nagini as I do about the others, but I find it strange that Voldemort would place a piece of his soul in a creature that can think and act for itself. My largest criticism about this, however, is that it would have made more sense if the piece of Voldemort's soul in Nagini completely took over her body, so that Nagini either lost her sense of self, or was being constantly possessed. It wouldn't have been difficult for Rowling to say as much, but she never did.

d. The cup

Seriously?

This was the first Horcrux, which Rowling did not handle well, because it has the same purpose as the locket but doesn't follow the standard set up in Half Blood Prince. In fact, the cup's hiding place seems completely contrary to Voldemort's character:

1) Its hiding place, though difficult to get to, was not in a remote place, and its location had nothing to do with Voldemort's personal past, and to our knowledge, it is not a place where he ever killed, terrorized, or showed dominion over someone. The Gringotts vault only had one connection to Voldemort, in  hat it belonged to one of his Death Eaters. This in of itself doesn't fit in, but we'll get to that shortly.

2) Its hiding place was only booby-trapped after Bellatrix began to fear a breakin, and the traps were laid by goblins, supposedly at her request, but not by Voldemort himself. 

3) It is established in Half-Blood Prince that Voldemort works alone, and does not depend upon his Death Eaters. Therefore, it seems completely contrary to his character that he would place one of his Horcruxes in the custody of one of the Death Eaters, even one as loyal as Bellatrix Lestrange, and make the cup dependent upon goblin security and enchantments for protection, which Voldemort himself has broken through (in Philosopher's Stone). The exception is the diary, of course, but again this was because Voldemort created the diary as a weapon and not a safeguard. The cup, however, had no such purpose (at least to our knowledge); therefore it makes no sense for Voldemort to place it in Bellatrix's custodianship.

4. The justification given for Voldemort hiding the cup at Gringotts is that he never had been part of the Wizarding World before Hogwarts, and had no vault-- and resented it. Again, given that he prefers to work alone, dependent on no one, this also is inconsistent to his character.

The inconsistencies are glaring. It makes it almost sound as though Voldemort put the cup there because he couldn't think of anywhere else to put it-- making him less creative, and therefore less formidable, than is established.

How did Voldemort not realize that hundreds of students had used it?

e. The diadem
The diadem's hiding place was the most incomprehensible to me. Like the cup, it was glaringly inconsistent with the standard set by the locket.

1. While Hogwarts is a part of Voldemort's past, it is hardly obscure, and the Room of Requirement is simply too obvious. In Deathly Hallows, we are told that because Voldemort works alone, and because of his own arrogance, he didn't realize that anyone can get into the Room of Requirement. This was a brain fart on Voldemort's part if there ever was one. He was a prefect, and chances are he could have heard about the Room of Requirement from other prefects; surely someone knew about it? But even if not, how did he fail to notice the hundreds of items which other students had hidden there over the centuries, some of them undoubtedly hidden recently? Voldemort is not an idiot. He's arrogant, yes, but not stupid. It should have taken him a single glance at the "Room of Hidden Things" to realize that hundreds of students have been there, used it, discovered it by accident, and that more almost certainly would in future.

2. The diadem wasn't booby-trapped at all, making it incredibly easy for Harry to obtain (it was only Draco Malfoy and Crabbe that made it difficult, nothing Voldemort did).

3. To our knowledge, the room has no connection with Voldemort terrorizing or killing somebody. It sounds as though he simply found it by accident, like many students before him.

Simply put, the Room of Requirement was a bad place to put the diadem. It was lazy on Rowling's part, and inconsistent with what she'd done with the locket.


3. Ginny
The fact that Penumbra is largely about Ginny ought to show that I actually love her as a character. I find her a fascinating part of the series, and unlike many of my friends I can see Harry and Ginny as a believable couple. Unfortunately, believability is all that can really be said about them. While Rowling put enough into Ginny's character to make the relationship believable, I do not deny that she is not as well developed a character as many of the more central characters. It wouldn't have mattered if Harry hadn't fallen for her; but the fact that he does, and that Rowling intended it that way from Philosopher's Stone,  makes the lack of Ginny's development aesthetically unacceptable. I only let Rowling off the hook because it makes Ginny stories more creative. The development of Ron and Hermione's characters and their relationship exhausted itself, but with Harry and Ginny I always have room to maneuver.

Ginny Weasley: The most neglected
character in Harry Potter. 

In Half Blood Prince, Rowling put Ginny almost on center stage, towards the end almost in Harry's inner clique. It was something she'd been building towards since Order of the Phoenix. I therefore expected Ginny to play some essential central role in Deathly Hallows; but when the last installment came along, Rowling just sort of swept Ginny out of sight, giving us only a few brief mentions of her and her doings.

In story-telling, I care considerably about aesthetics, and in literature, it’s often better to either completely justify a character’s prominence, or simply not make that character prominent at all. Rowling should have given Ginny a lot more presence from the beginning, at least from end of Chamber of Secrets on. The plot of CS gave Rowling considerable potential to give Ginny her own journey, her own story. She could easily have developed Ginny further on the basis of the trauma of the Chamber of Secrets. Ginny ought to have been presented as someone who, like Harry, has a personal (and painful) connection/relationship with Voldemort. Rowling treats her possession by Riddle’s diary as something initially painful but which she can brush off, like Riddle striking or beating her. But what Rowling presented in Book 2 (heavily veiled, considering her audience), and briefly discussed in Book 5, sounded a lot more like rape, which is very difficult to recover from. Is Ginny presented as a tough, gutsy girl because of her upbringing among six brothers? Or is that her character because of what Riddle did to her? Does Ginny try to deal with it through toughness? These are questions Rowling never answers, but Ginny’s character would make more sense in this aspect if she shows signs of PTSD, especially in the wake of Voldemort’s taking over and Harry’s departure on the Horcrux Hunt.

4. Harry's failure to use resources
Harry's "eternal camping trip" (as my brother calls it) was much more difficult and dangerous than it needed to be, because he did not use all available resources at his disposal. Some of these might not have helped in his survival, but they might have been useful in the fight against Voldemort.

I don't know about you, but Parseltongue seems like a useful asset. 

1. Parseltongue: (I am not counting his using it to open the locket.) Why does Harry never use this against Voldemort? Since snakes seem to be sentient in the Harry Potter series, why doesn’t Harry make use of snakes?

2. Not making any use of his financial assets: Harry and Ron are completely dependent upon Hermione for money; yet we know that Harry has more money than both of his companions. Why did Harry never visit Gringotts and remove his money? Knowing he'd be going away on a very undercover mission for a while, the very first thing Harry should have done, as soon as he left Hogwarts in Half-Blood Prince, was transfer his money to Muggle banks, or even completely into cash. Either way this would make it more accessible to him even if Voldemort took over the Ministry. 

That being said, 3. Spends more time living off the land than researching and hunting Horcruxes: This is understandable, given that once Voldemort takes over the Ministry, Harry would be barred from all conventional resources in Britain. So why does he never go abroad? He’s rich enough, and he’d be able to put much greater focus on his actual mission, than on surviving. 

That being said, 4. Clearly not knowing how to live off the land: This isn't as serious a problem, but was simply something that irritated me. I've lived on the border between city and wildlife for most of my life, and there are few simple rules to this, one of the most important being to never eat wild mushrooms (or wild anything) unless you are absolutely sure they are edible. I don't know how many edible mushrooms and berries, or poisonous ones, grow in Britain, but in America if you went camping with Hermione's and Harry's foraging habits, you'd either be incredibly lucky, or incredibly dead. This is another reason that it would have made more sense for Harry to go abroad, where he wouldn't have to live off the land so much. 



These are only a few problems I had with Deathly Hallows, but they are the main ones. These problems aren't difficult to spot, and in outlining aren't difficult to fix. However, lot of these failings would have required considerably more work and book length to repair that Rowling seemed willing to put into the work. Rowling is more talented than she shows in Deathly Hallows. Overall, her work in her finale was lazy, and not only could have used considerable more work, but needed more work. 

Origins: Open-end for "Half-Blood Prince"

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was released on July 16th, 2005. I remember the date because it was also my sister Carrie's birthday. We had a "Carrie-Harry" party later that week, but the day of, for reasons I don't fully recall, wasn't a convenient day for it. Just as well, because everyone wanted to read the book. I remember there was a local spoiler. Near the nearest Shopko there's a highway overpass with a chain-link fence, and somebody Dixie-cupped "SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE" into it. My sister was outraged, but I was not... because I had already read it by the time I saw it.

We-- me, my father, and my brother-- obtained our own copy at one o' clock that morning, and I sat down immediately and began to read. I couldn't put it down. I was intrigued by the situation with Draco Malfoy, fascinated with the unfolding Horcrux story, and pleased with the growing Harry/Ginny Ron/Hermione romances. Finally, I was absolutely stunned by Snape killing Dumbledore at the end.

I finished the book and went to bed at around three in the afternoon (I would have finished it earlier, had I not been called away to help my grandfather fix his roof), but I didn't sleep long, because I kept turning everything over in my head. What would happen next? Where would the Horcrux hunt take Harry? How long would it take him? Whose side was Snape really on? What would Ginny be doing? What if HARRY were a Horcrux? So it went. I wanted answers, but I remembered the two-year gaps between previous book releases and I was too impatient to wait for that long.

In her introduction to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley made the remark, "Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it." In other words, regardless of what formalists would have us think, imagination does not come out of nowhere. Something always conditions it, then inspires it. It was no different for me.

One day, while re-reading a portion of HBP, I had the image of a battle-worn Harry Potter standing at the parapet of a tower on a hidden island, looking out to the sea as he carefully plans his enemy's downfall, training daily for it, no longer innocent. He has taken lives, and has resigned himself to it, to doing whatever it takes to put an end to the awful evil, depravity and bloodshed happening in his home country. Meanwhile, he wonders about her, his beloved, fighting on the front line, but he has little further knowledge of her. Meanwhile, she undergoes her own journey, fighting for him but with no knowledge of his whereabouts or if he is even alive.

That was my prompt. And unable to wait for Book 7's release, I built a story around that image. I slowly developed an ending to the series, the way I would end it, were I J.K. Rowling. Many things helped me build this world. I felt it doable. During high school (and later university) I had studied World War II and Nazism extensively. I had seen fascist propaganda, had read extracts from their literature. I had read extensive (and disturbing) details from the concentration camps and the battle fronts. I took special interest in Germans who opposed Hitler, and were often killed for it. I was especially touched by the stories of the White Rose and Helmuth Hübener. They became part of my inspiration, both for this story and the novel I intend to later base on it.

My father worked in a university library, and I'd spent many hours of my childhood there, encouraged to read in any genre or area that struck my fancy. I'd always had an inquisitive nature, and in addition to modern history I'd also grown up learning about physics and natural science, and later philosophy and religious thought as I progressed in my education. When I began developing this story, I studied the classical elements and the medieval theories about the humors. I learned a little bit about alchemy. I read fantasies and became particularly fascinated with dragons, faeries, goblins, and the World War II folk story of the gremlin.

I also harbored a guilty enjoyment of computer games, typically from the science-fiction and fantasy genres. As a teenager one of my personal favorites was the Myst series, which offered a wonderful blend between the two genres. I also loved The Elder Scrolls and Halo, among other games.

I was equally drawn to literature, reading classics in all time periods. My favorite was Pride and Prejudice (and remains so), but I also loved the works of Goethe (particularly the first part of Faust), and the poetry of T.S. Eliot and Siegfried Sassoon. In popular literature, I also loved The Lord of the Rings and Ursula LeGuin's "Earthsea" stories. I read whatever crossed my fancy, and of course, all that my history, German, and literary studies classes required.

All of these provided ideas that enabled me to write this story, one that currently is a Harry Potter-themed story, but which, after its completion, I intend to rewrite as a publishable series of novels. The key to being able to write well is being able to write and read well. I had wanted to be a writer since I was very young, but it was this idea, what became the "Penumbra" series, that really put me into practice.