Harry Potter’s quest started at age 11, the year “The Boy Who Lived” left the cupboard under the stairs for the grandiosity and warmth of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Seven years later, Harry, now experienced in the ups and down of a rigorous academic environment, puppy love and hormones, popularity and unpopularity, and true friendship, is ready to fight for his own life and those of his loved ones. He’s faced down his nemesis, the increasingly powerful and malicious “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” more than once, and his magical skills are refined. The only tool the powerful wizard-that-be is missing is faith – in himself.
Plot Overview: Determination, Strategy and Closure
(Note: The plot overview will not be long so as to avoid any spoilers.)
At the age of 17, Harry is, by all accounts, nearing adulthood. The protective spell over his muggle aunt and uncle’s house on Privet Drive is about to be lifted, and Harry will be at his most vulnerable to attack from Voldemort and his henchmen of Death Eaters. To foil any potential plots against his life, Harry unites with the Order of the Phoenix and escapes to the Burrow to strategize (though not all of Harry’s friends involved in the getaway survive).
As his allies hatch plans and gather forces, Harry sets out on his, at times, solitary mission to destroy the remaining horcruxes, pieces of Voldemort’s soul split into animate and inanimate objects. Battles, meanwhile, start to rage in and around Hogwarts, and the school endures the collateral damage of war, death and grief. Only a final showdown between Harry and Voldemort can end the bloodshed.
Criticisms and Compliments
As the long-awaited conclusion to the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows delivers. It’s an engrossing, epic read, and as the final book, it is satisfying for the reader to get one last immersion in the world of wizardry. The length, however, has been a bone of contention for many critics. Some writers, like talkers, enjoy the sound of their own words, and only ruthless editing can cut down a novel to something crisp, clear and unburdened by superfluous prose. J.K. Rowling could arguably be one of those writers who needs to cut down on characters, side plots and extraneous dialogue. For the Harry Potter fan, though, the more, the better.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is, more than the other six books in the series, the most archetypal. Harry, the storybook hero, faces two typical battles: one external (with Voldemort), the other internal (with his own desire to fight and his dwindling belief in himself). Despite the story’s setting of the mystical and magical, Harry, now one of literature’s most popular characters, ranks with Gilgamesh, Arthur, even Odysseus as a person for whom the journey to victory is long and overwrought with emotional and physical battles; the boy becomes a man (or transforms from struggling man to wise older man) and ensures his honor. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows can be read superficially as just a children’s book, but Rowling is a clever writer who not only keeps the plot twists turning but also builds layer after layer of potential symbolism (what would she have to say about the journey of Neville Longbottom, the boy who narrowly escaped becoming the renowned and infamous Harry Potter?).
For readers, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is simultaneously a page-turner but also a disappointment – because it is the final in the series.
Source:
- Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2009 ISBN 9780545139700
