I read the books this year because I wanted to feel pain, basically, and I wanted to be justified in disliking Harry Potter. I was not disappointed. However, I still don't understand how the fuck the end of the book worked. It was so harebrained and convoluted and sloppy as fuck that I don't know what actually happened. Am I stupid or was it a bad ending? And what the fuck happened? How did they actually kill Voldemort?

    • buh [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Harry won on a technicality.

      No wonder libs like these books so much

    • gayhobbes [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Yeah all that I got, but literally how did Harry NOT die, and then how did he manage to kill Voldemort anyway? It was something about like a wand remembering something or some stupid shit like that.

        • Gorn [they/them,he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I like to tell myself that Avada Kedavra is just a end spirit command, since it doesn't mar the body, and it only hit the outer shell of spirit in Harry's body, which was that piece of Voldy's that was pasted over top when Harry was accidentally made into a Horcux by that same spell. Though ya, it's never explained haha. Could also just be residual love magic from the first time Voldy tried to Kadaver Harry

    • LeninsRage [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      On reflection the first four books were clearly planned intricately well in advance and are very coherent. But the last three, even if they become more mature in their themes, I think were clearly done one at a time, with only certain very important aspects planned out before (ie Snape being a double reverse quadruple agent who killed Dumbledore; Dumbledore being terribly flawed and also dying before the finale; Voldemort's entire character and ultimate ironic fate). The later books start seriously pulling shit out of their asses that were barely or never foreshadowed in earlier books (the prophecy, Occlumancy, the Deathly Hallows, why the "Half-Blood Prince" subplot was even remotely important enough to warrant a book title) and retroactively made more important.

      I feel Rowling has a very good grasp of how to write complex, compelling characters but when she's improvising on plot details her talent comes up short.