Aardy R. DeVarque (aardy) wrote,
Aardy R. DeVarque
aardy
  • Mood: cynical

Questions for the Potternauts...

Overall, I liked the book and generally laughed and cheered and felt sad when I was supposed to, but some parts didn't strike me right, some parts felt like an author alternating between pandering to the fans and intentionally smashing the loopholes clung to by fanfic writers, some parts dragged on far too long, and some descriptions felt altered for the sake of consistency with the way things look movies rather than the way they were described in the earlier books.

Having now finished, it, I was left pondering these questions:

How pissed off must Griphook be that something goblin-made and goblin-owned, and which he went to the length of knowingly becoming a race-traitor to reobtain and thereby ensure came back into goblin possession, can be stolen instantly teleported away from the deepest vaults at Gringotts or wherever goblins keep their most important possessions, at will by anyone who sticks his hand up the hole of an old hat? (This one struck me so hard I was paying more attention to trying to figure out how that part worked than pay attention to what was really going on for the rest of the chapter.)

How pissed off must every Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw be when they find out that their tribes' houses' most highly prized treasures, treasures long thought lost and sought for by darn near everyone in those houses at some point, a) were perverted into storing pieces of Voldemort, and b) were turned into worthless slag by the act of exorcising Voldemort? Especially while Griffyndor's Sword, while initially "lost" by being returned to/stolen by the goblins, is restored to that house by the end of the book?

What good is a "resurrection" stone if it not only can't actually resurrect anyone (which, I get it, is the point of the moral to the didactic fable, but then why call it that), but when actually used, doesn't work the way it's previously described as working and simply conjures up ghosts who are happy to be there and happy to help, but can't actually do anything or be seen by anyone else?

If a goblin-made sword that can destroy anything is used to cleave the Resurrection Stone in twain, how can the stone still function?

If the stone is as big as it needs to be to have noticable carvings on it and be something that can be cut in two by the edge of a sword without being turned into kibble too small to handle--especially if it's not all that much smaller than a Golden Snitch, how in the world did no one over the generations notice that the setting in that ring wasn't exactly normal? (Especially if it was essentially just an average stone with a yonic symbol scratched into it and not a gemstone or something similar like opal or mother-of-perl.)


If it weren't for the title, I'd predict that Movie #7 would drop the entire Deathly Hallows subplot, let the Cloak just keep being a Cloak, leave the Stone out entirely, and make the One Wand stand on its own as a relic a la the Philosopher's Stone, and thereby shave off around three hours of near-pointless meandering.

Given the hoopla and buildup, you'd think that when you open a the cover of Deathly Hallows, the light of Marcellus' soul bursts forth and an angelic choir bursts out, singing the book's praises. It's about as good as the previous books in the series, but it's not that good. (If you mostly enjoyed books 1-6, you're likely going to mostly enjoy this one, too; if you haven't really enjoyed books 1-6, this one's not going to suddenly make a true believer out of you.)


Feudalism: Serf & Turf
Tags: books, harry potter
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