Voy a robar esta de un journal en livejournal. La autora es rowen_r. Hay algunas ideas repetidas, pero la verdad es que estoy de acuerdo en todo. TODO. Especialmente en lo del día Nacional de Snape con gente de negro insultándose.
------
The Verdict
A Huge Roller-Coaster of a Novel, Packed With Sizzling Gypsies Death Eaters; or, The Deathly Hallows: What I Made Of It
PLAYER: Are you familiar with this play?
GUILDENSTERN: No.
PLAYER: A slaughterhouse – eight corpses all told. It brings out the best in us.(
Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead)
The Deathly Hallows opens with one of our now relatively regular insights into the crazy shenanigans of Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters, in which poor Snape has to pretend to be evil, Narcissa Malfoy is quietly impressive, and Voldemort actually does feed someone to Nagini. (Lucius has pet peacocks, which is rather endearing. Although I hope they were special, magically silenced peacocks, because otherwise they’ll have been a bloody nuisance. I know, my school used to have peacocks and they wandered everywhere making a terrible racket, until one day they Mysteriously Disappeared. We decided that the headmaster had shot and eaten them.)
I think you can tell from this point (the perplexingly orgy-less Death Eater meeting, I mean, not the peacocks) not only that it’s going to be a bit of a bloodbath, and also that Snape is doomed. He looks Charity Burbage in the face three times without helping her; numbers are important, it feels like a test. In the stories, you ask someone something three times to see if they stand fast – and Snape stands fast, ostensibly to Voldemort, really to Dumbledore – but he’s too far in, he’s too compromised, and his fate is sealed.
The whole book feels like endgame to me, in a way, the missing half of The Half-Blood Prince, because the tension barely lets up, the trio’s on the run almost from the word go. I missed Hogwarts, it felt disorientating not going back there, and having the rhythm of lessons, seasons, and exams, but I think that’s intentional – you’re meant to feel cut adrift, because that’s how Harry is.
It’s probably my least favourite of all the books, but I enjoyed it immensely. Well. I mean, I was held, hooked, engrossed, couldn’t put it down, etc, but it wasn’t always comfortable reading. I hated having to recognize Dumbledore as fallible, I hated seeing Harry using Unforgivables, I hated seeing Remus teetering on the edge of feckless husbandage, and I hated Snape’s suffering and death. (Does he ever have fun? Ever? Or has his life been an unqualified misery from start to finish?) When Dumbledore says to Harry, ‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’, it’s apt, because for the last few chapters my heart was pounding, it was painful to keep going – it always amazes me that something that isn’t actually happening can produce a real, physical response. I think the line that upset me the most, though, was at the end of ‘The Prince’s Tale’ – ‘Snape might just have closed the door.’ Ouch. Just brings it home, somehow. He’s gone.
Speaking of painful, I could have done without the Epilogue, mostly because in my head Harry’s still the scrawny eleven-year-old on the cover of the first book, all dazed-looking and about to be mown brutally down by the Hogwarts’ express. It’s weird to see him all sprogged up and presumably with a house, mortgage, etc. But it was worth it to see Albus Severus, and also to see Draco going bald. This was also a bit worrying, though, because isn’t male pattern baldness hereditary? Does this mean that Lucius’ exquisite crowning glory has also fallen out? Doesn’t bear thinking about. (Scorpius, incidentally? I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. Draco's exactly the type to propagate Bond villains, bless him).
Anyway: hurrah for J.K Rowling, because she finished this gargantuan series where lesser mortals would have fled, cackling wildly, to the Bahamas, taking their royalties with them. And also hurrah because the books are good, and have made a ridiculously wide spectrum of people happy. Getting the book on Friday night was amazing in that respect – for the most part we were sitting on the floor of Boarders, reading our way through a stack of trashy magazines and doing our best to ignore the attentions of the magicians, mime artists, etc wandering around. But I went for a wander half way through, and looking round was just … amazing. So many different people. Old, young, drunk, sober, all waiting for the same thing. I saw small children bouncing up and down because they’d seen one of the Boarders’ staff dressed as Ginny Weasley. I bought my latte wearing a witch’s hat, and I wasn’t just an oddly-dressed, harmless eccentric, I was one of many, and just for a moment it was like being at Hogsmeade.
Anyway, that’s enough profundity lite, time for 13 frivolous observations:
1. I’m glad Percy made it up with his family, even if he did have to put himself completely in the wrong to do it (I suppose there wasn’t really time, mid-battle, for a lengthy dissection of the Weasleys’ parenting errors). But who did he marry? (He must have children, or he wouldn’t be on the platform at the end, presumably.) It must be Penelope. Everyone else is marrying their childhood sweetheart, it’s practically the law. Yeah. Definitely Penelope. One of my ships is canon, yay!
2. I was so glad to see Krum again. And he has a point, you know: why isn’t he beating off infatuated admirers with a stick? Something doesn’t add up.
3. ‘Would you like me to do it now?’ asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. ‘Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?’ I think this quotation more than proves that a serious miscarriage of poetic justice has occurred: this man is far too fantastic to die. I suggest that Ms Rowling’s poetic licence be temporarily revoked until this matter is satisfactorily resolved. (‘Snape!’ exclaimed Harry. ‘Alive? And living in the South of France with Lupin? But how?’ – see, she wouldn’t have to do a lot of work, it’s dead easy).
4. RIP Bellatrix. I’ve always liked her, I don’t quite know why. Maybe it’s because she so obviously enjoys her work. (Didn’t J.K Rowling mention the Mitford sisters once? And wasn’t one of the Mitford girls passionately obsessed with Hitler? Hmm.)
5.
I do not love thee, Ginny Weasley
For reasons I can’t account for easily
But this I know, and know quite queasily:
I do not love thee, Ginny Weasley
6. McGonagall Vs. Snape: oh, yes. I could have watched that duel all day. Badass versus badass, what’s not to like? (McGonagall could have had more to do, though. Because she is cool. And is she head of Hogwarts in the end, or what?)
7. Snape can turn himself into a bat. Funky. (And Ron was right!)
8. The Ravenclaw common room is the best one. I love the question-asking-door thing, especially as it gives Luna a chance to show that there’s a lot of cold hard method underneath the madness. (Go Luna).
9. So are all the Slytherin students evil incarnate, now? Not one of them wanted to stay and fight? I was sort of hoping they’d prepare a diabolically cunning ambush/trap type thing to fight the Death Eaters, but no. Alas. I felt the treatment of Slytherin as a whole was a bit of a cop-out. At least they’ve got Phineas Nigellus to stick up for them. (Go Phineas).
10. Tom Riddle was much more interesting than Voldemort. I miss him, he had a nifty Steerpike-esque thing going on, whereas Voldemort was a little bit …blah. Maybe he’s supposed to be, considering his soul’s all jigsawed up.
11. Lily/Severus. (D’oh! A deer! A female deer!) Ah, it should have been. Granted, none of the books would have happened and Voldemort would have won, but they would have been so sweet together. They could have been mad-professor-style potions researchers.
12. Alberforth! Hitting Albus! Conjuring a goat patronus! Telling it like it is! He’s brilliant. (I now suspect that Dumbledore’s ‘of course, I’m not sure if Alberforth can read’ joke in book 4 may have had a touch of malice in it – who likes being told off by someone younger and less gifted, after all?)
13. Snape needs more recognition. All he gets from Dumbledore is ‘Poor Severus’. Where were the dozens of people tearfully wringing their hands, lamenting the harsh words now impossible to recall? I think a large but tasteful statue is in order. A national ‘Severus Snape Day’, even, when everyone wears black and insults each other. ‘Happy Snape Day, dunderheads!’ would be the traditional greeting. And there would be cake with green icing, and a few verses of ‘Weasley is our king’ (the original version). Because Snape totally helped Draco with that – he’s good with rhymes, we found that out in the first book. I think I’ll write to the people who institute daft, meaningless holidays (National Pencil Day, stuff like that) and put them on the case. Right, that's my extremely lenghty ramblings out the way.
Now I can get back to the Snupin. As Shakespeare remarks at the begining of Much Ado About Nothing: War is over: let the romantic comedy begin!
