- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - L. Koppy
After faithfully sticking with young wizard Harry Potter through six books that provided varying degrees of reading satisfaction, the saga’s conclusion should have been a tour de force of excitement, thrills, and visual imagery for the reader. Instead book seven fell flat with a meandering narrative that leaves readers thinking there must have been a more imaginative way to end the series than this.
The Deathly Hallows Begins
With The Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling brings to a conclusion the popular Harry Potter series in which she created an intricate, textured world full of wizards, elves, werewolves, and other magical beings. The Deathly Hallows opens on a promising note, as several other Harry Potter books have, with readers being treated to the nefarious shenanigans of Lord Voldemort and his minions.
As in past Harry Potter books this has been an effective opening hook since the Dark Lord is such a formidable and compelling villain. But instead of finally enjoying more of the evil wizard’s presence readers are quickly detoured from this riveting beginning to a distracting chase scene where Harry Potter is being spirited to a safe haven by those loyal to him.
From here things quickly go downhill with readers being forced to wade through several hundred pages of what amounts to little more than filler as Harry and his cohorts roam all over kingdom come dodging Death Eaters, Dementors, and various other antagonists while engaging in a labored search for magical items intended to help them ultimately defeat the Dark Lord.
Lord Voldemort vs. Harry Potter
Since everything in the previous six books has been leading up to this ultimate sorcerer’s duel where Harry and Lord Voldemort do battle to see if good or evil shall be victorious we come to the main problem of the final Harry Potter book. This confrontation between the hero and villain should have taken a sizable portion of the book’s ending. It should have had an ebb and flow reminiscent of titanic battles where the fate of the world hangs in the balance, where one side struggles to overcome the other, and that did justice to the inhuman evil of Lord Voldemort and the heroic character of Harry Potter.
Instead the final duel with Lord Voldemort is a short, unimaginative, fight scene where more words are exchanged between the two combatants than magic spells. It was a major disappointment after a commitment to reading over 700 pages.
The Potter Series Concludes
By contrast the duel between Potter and Voldemort at the end of book four, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was better staged, more compelling, and provided the reader with much more gripping, sinister visuals that far exceeded what was delivered in the final book.
Rowling goes on to add a short coda at book seven’s end where we get to see the characters nineteen years into the future. This wrap-up has too much of a “happily ever after” feel to it and only adds to the feeling that with more thought a better ending could have been written for such a promising saga.
Sources:
Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Arthur A. Levine Books an Imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2007
Lawrence Koppy - Lawrence Koppy is an Oregon native living in the high desert of Central Oregon. He has been a small business owner for many years ...
