Happily Ever After

The long wait was finally over, as of 0701H this morning (21 Jul 07), the 7th and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released to the entire world, through much fanfare. Some minor spoilers scattered below, so read at your own risk.

JK Rowling is amazing at storytelling and for building up suspense to the readers to read and find out what happens in the end. With just 7 novels, she's made millions and become richer than the Queen of England, not forgetting royalties from the Harry Potter movies also.

However, she tends not to make the death of her major characters clear-cut. For example, Sirius Black falling into the veil, that was ambiguous, it kept fans guessing if he's still alive or there might be some kind of hope that he will return. She never explained the veil portal, or where it leads. At least if she did, it would have been more obvious that the character had indeed died, and there wouldn't have been this huge debate of whether or not he was truly dead. This truly obsessed fans to research and scrutinise every single detail of all the books for clues.

Many questions were answered in this book, but there were many other that were left open-ended without a conclusion. What happened to the giants? What happened to Hagrid's brother Grawp? What about Hermione's campaign to free to house-elves? Her epilogue could have been longer and more detailed, for all time's sake.

Lord Voldemort was indeed truly evil and ambitious. While pursuing to return to a human body, he did find some other projects to do. Kill his enemies, search for the items pertaining to the deathly hallows, try to kill Harry Potter. Let's put it this way, he was bent on magical world domination, like some James Bond villain. He was hellbent on destroying his nemesis Harry Potter in order to "rule" unequalled. But perhaps he could have stopped while he was at it and still "rule" the world. An experienced and powerful dark wizard, time and time again having his plans thwarted by a young teenage boy, must have put him to such shame.

In the end, enemies became friends, and even some family was found again. I don't think they really explained what happened to other characters like Cho Chang. Rowling never again touched on the other wizard schools. I expected a international battle against Voldemort, not a one man show. It's all about balance in the magical world. And the cycle continues again with the next generation of wizards, free from the world of Lord Voldemort.

I would have preferred a much darker ending than the goodie-goodie ending, where perhaps one of his close friends like Ron or Hermione was murdered and Harry never found love ever again. He would be an auror like he always wanted to be, hunting down every last death-eater and anyone else evil there was. It was happily ever after like some fairy tale. Perhaps that would have angered fans all around the world, but hey, a twist does make things a tad more interesting and unforgettable sometimes.

But what have I learnt from the entire series? Magic is wondrous and helps expand our imagination beyond limits; true friendship, love, courage, cowardice, hope, despair, betrayal, jealousy, good, evil, wickedness, revenge, obsession; good always prevails no matter what, but many people have to die in order for that to happen.

A crying shame that the series has ended. Let's hope that JK Rowling will be able to dazzle us with another series of beautifully crafted novels to read in the future, someday. I, for one, am hoping that she writes murder mysteries, she's excellent at keeping the readers in suspense for the longest time!

8.5 out of 10 stars