After This I'm Harry Potter-ed Out. LOL JK NEVER.

WE NOW PRESENT THE SEVENTH AN FINAL INSTALLMENT IN THE EPIC ANALYSIS OF HARRY POTTER.


DOES EVERYONE SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

To Recap:

Pros:

-BRILLIANT soundtrack.  John Williams did a fantastic job of setting up the main themes in the first three films (The third was particularly dynamic, and part of why this is my favorite movie is the fantastic soundtrack.  I should write an essay on the influence each of the directors has had... Anyway, I recommend sampling the middle of all the songs.  You can find all the soundtracks organized and available for free listening on Spotify.)   Then Patrick Doyle's takes on the Quidditch World Cup, Yule Ball, and Three Tasks in Goblet of Fire were absolutely superb (Wizard Rock is also fun), but Nicholas Hooper rather dropped the ball in Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince.  Don't misunderstand me: These pieces of music are beautiful as well as beautifully performed, but they don't have the same charm as their predecessors do, and don't work in the context of a soundtrack.  The music became less musical and more like a stream of sound effects in places.  Alexandre Desplat rather confuses me.  I enjoy his themes and variations, but dislike the general path the soundtrack takes for Part One.  It's just kind of generic.  Part Two, however, had wonderful interpretations of all Williams' main themes.  Everything from Lily's Theme to A New Beginning, the final track of Part Two, consists of an ideal blend of Hollywood drama, pleasingness to the ear, and a high level of musicality.  If I may make a suggestion, I'd listen to a New BEginning all the way through rather than just sampling it.  Listen attentively, not passively.  It's beautiful and perfect for the moment it portrays.  The same applies to this last musical link.  The coupling of the Epilogue with a freshly arranged version of Williams's Leaving Hogwarts, the former final track in the first film, is highly poignant and expressive.  A New Beginning and Leaving Hogwarts, right after each other, always leave me with tears running down my face and, to me, present a simultaneously emotional, visionary, heartbreaking, and heartwarming finale to the epic series.  Hats off to Mr. Desplat for his work on these two films.


(^^Guys, I cried writing this section.  Music and Harry Potter?  My two favorite things, together?  Was there really a doubt?)

-Tons of direct quotes.  All our favorites were there: "Here lies Dobby, a free elf."  "If we die for them, I'm gonna kill you, Harry!"  " 'After all this time?' 'Always.' "  " 'Does it hurt, dying?'  'Quicker than falling asleep.' "  " 'You'll stay with me?' 'Until the very end.' "  "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" "Do not pity the dead, Harry.  Pity the living and, above all, those who live without love."  My personal favorite: "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on Earth should that mean that it is not real?"  And they finally threw in: "You have your mother's eyes," from the right person, at the right time, even if it was not strictly cannon.  

-Covered plot decently.  A lot does happen in the last 300 pages, and Kloves does get us there in the end.  The right people lived and died in the right manner, the Gringotts heist and escape were loyal to the book, the horcruxes were the correct items destroyed in the correct order, the drastic changes in Hogwarts policies were noted, Helena Ravenclaw helped Harry when he needed her, the Room of Requirement went up in flames properly, the Deathly Hallows were (somewhat) explained, Snape's death was as cruel as it was written to be, Snape's memories were wonderfully poignant, the Resurrection Stone was used properly, Harry spoke to Dumbledore at Kings Cross in his head, and Harry was the owner of the Elder Wand, allowing him to beat Voldemort.  All the elements were there.  

Cons:

-Forgotten-about details.  In a book, you have to have all loopholes closed, and J.K. did that excellently.  When you translate to the screen, many of the small details are unnecessary and are assumed to be accounted for.  It seemed like a huge deal when, during Half Blood Prince, Kloves skipped most of the memories pertaining to Voldemort's ascent to power.  In the last two films, though, most of the lost information is glossed over and the deduction of correct answers are attributed to Hermione's brilliant guesswork and Harry's connection to horcruxes (because you know, they sing to him).   

-All the good scenes they changed.  I personally love the scene in Ravenclaw tower, for example.  It's much more suspenseful than his stepping out from the crowd to chastise Snape.  Instead of Fred telling his last joke, you see him cowering in fear.  That is not how a Weasley would cope.  They weirded up Ron and Hermione's kiss.  That was unforgivable. (The use of any unforgivable... sorry, I had to.)  Harry's dramatic speech in the Great Hall in which he addresses Voldemort as Tom Riddle in from of the whole school and Order disappeared.  We rather needed it there to explain how the hell Harry was still alive.  Also, it would have taken about ten more seconds to add in Harry repairing his wand at the end.  The movies don't even show how problematic the Elder Wand is, with all the bloodlust it attracts, so to non-readers, snapping it was a bit overdramatic on Harry's part.  This is a much more petty point, but since when does Hogwarts have a boat house?  It's not like they've got a sailing team or any team besides Quidditch.  

-The meaning of the book was lost.  The book is entitled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, yet the hallows make very few appearances.  Taking a step back, we also lose a lot of what we're supposed to learn about Dumbledore's family.  Although this isn't a huge part of the plot, it contributes a lot to how we feel about Dumbledore, power, love, and the power of love.  We learn that Dumbledore's weakness is his affinity for power, and that this is why he cannot be the master of all three Deathly Hallows.  Who can unite all three hallows then and become master, conqueror, vanquisher of death?  Why, Harry, of course.  The term Master of Death refers to Harry's ability to use the three hallows to greet death as a friend, to embrace it.  Harry chooses to walk to his own death to save those he loves.  Because Harry can do this, his life is spared.  It’s less about him surviving because he is the wizard that owns the Elder Wand, as the movie plot tells us, and more about the very human quality of being able to love strongly.  What the book teaches us is that the ability to love is stronger than magic in the end.  Those who have read the books know this already, but those who haven't will miss a major message by only seeing the movie.   

In my professional opinion, I’ve given up thinking about whether the movie is effective or not.  What matters is that we, the readers, or audience, or both, understand what J.K. Rowling clearly tells us: Love is all you need.  We all get attached to the very Romantic ideas of magic and Hogwarts and crusading for what’s right, and get caught up in the pen and paper world Rowling has offered us.  Quite apart from how heartwarming and fulfilling it would be to live in Harry’s world, love is all we need.  Nothing more, nothing less.  

Epilogue.  


Nobody likes the epilogue.  More than anything else though, it's incredibly sentimental that Harry, Ron, and Hermione return to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters as adults, the place where they actually broke the barrier that divides everything mundane that they knew from a whole unknown world they choose to dive into.  The number 9 3/4 is the most emotionally charged symbol in the whole series in my humble opinion.  Many people characterize the series by the Deathly Hallows symbol and accredit it for encompassing so much significance, but I disagree.  I’d poured six years of my life into Harry’s world before knowing that that symbol existed.  That symbol does represent Harry’s ability to face death due to his extreme capacity to love.  This is a major theme in the series, obviously, yet it’s less poignant than the sign in Kings Cross for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.  Kings Cross is a train station, the starting point of a journey.  Rowling alludes to this by setting the scene that takes place in Harry’s head at the station.  Now imagine being eleven and running toward a brick wall.  How exciting, how beautiful would it be to charge straight through and embark on a voyage into the wild and untamed and unpredictable unknown?  Some days that's all I want.  I want to lose the mundane and familiar things.  I want my own personal platform nine and three-quarters to open up a gateway to somewhere full of big adventures and dreams, somewhere where I'm small compared to the rest of the world, and somewhere I can achieve more than I've ever conceived of.  And yet, how ungrateful, how ignorant of me.  Look out a window.  I don't need that gateway because I'm already in that world.  J.K. Rowling said it nicely: "We do not need magic to transform our world.  We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already." 

Always.