Really did give a sense of being more mature & having grown in this book (as a person and a leader) while still convincingly being seventeen and kind of dumb. Liked that the narrative at least gave a nod to him needing to learn not to rush into things without making a plan or knowing what he's doing, even if that particular bit was executed a bit anviliciously.
2. Ron
Got to be awesome, and have his heroic Joseph Campbell moment in the woods, so that's cool too. There might be people who feel like the "Ron and Harry fight" subplot has been done and is kind of repetitive, here, but I feel like it's more realistic if it's really a constant theme in their friendship that you can't just *fix* by saying "Ron, dude, you're not my funny sidekick, honest," and then Ron never thinks about it again. So I *liked* that it came up again, the way a person's neuroses really do, and I liked that Ron came back, and so on and so forth.
3. Hermione
Really seemed like part of the *team* in this book, which was really cool. *LOVED* that she stuck with Harry instead of going away with Ron just because she's in love with him-- if there's one thing that kind of gets on my nerves about this last book, it's the sort of very subtle way that the female characters are *still* treated a bit differently than the male ones-- like at the end, the son gets teased about *becoming* a Slytherin, but the daughter gets teased about *marrying* one, ARGH. Anyway, there were other bits like that (especially Harry "saving" McGonagall from being spit on, when he'd managed to keep under the Invisibility Cloak under far greater provocation) but I didn't really have a lot to quibble with in terms of *Hermione's* characterization, so that's good. Oh, and I loved that she was the one to initiate her and Ron's first kiss, which I thought was handled well.
4. Snape
Yeah, I still don't like Snape. OK, so he was in love with Lily. It didn't keep him from joining the Death Eaters. OK, so he was actually out to protect Harry all along. Didn't keep him from taking out his sad little grudge against Harry, on all the rest of the Gryffindors. I'm glad he didn't die super-heroically, like, diving in front of a killing curse to save Harry or anything, because then I would have felt like JKR was trying to manipulate me into liking him, and I still don't.
5. The Malfoys
What are we supposed to think about the Malfoys? I mean, didn't Lucius and Narcissa still torture and kill people-- in the original Voldemort era, surely they did, right? They're still Death Eaters, but we're supposed to accept that people wouldn't immediately throw them in the dungeons or something after the fight's over, just because they pussed out at the end and weren't actively killing people in the final battle? Did they end up in Azkaban? What about Draco? I need to re-read that scene where he doesn't positively identify Harry or Hermione... I just don't know what I think about Draco. (Unlike 90% of fandom, I would have liked less Draco redemption. *G*)
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1. Harry
Really did give a sense of being more mature & having grown in this book (as a person and a leader) while still convincingly being seventeen and kind of dumb. Liked that the narrative at least gave a nod to him needing to learn not to rush into things without making a plan or knowing what he's doing, even if that particular bit was executed a bit anviliciously.
2. Ron
Got to be awesome, and have his heroic Joseph Campbell moment in the woods, so that's cool too. There might be people who feel like the "Ron and Harry fight" subplot has been done and is kind of repetitive, here, but I feel like it's more realistic if it's really a constant theme in their friendship that you can't just *fix* by saying "Ron, dude, you're not my funny sidekick, honest," and then Ron never thinks about it again. So I *liked* that it came up again, the way a person's neuroses really do, and I liked that Ron came back, and so on and so forth.
3. Hermione
Really seemed like part of the *team* in this book, which was really cool. *LOVED* that she stuck with Harry instead of going away with Ron just because she's in love with him-- if there's one thing that kind of gets on my nerves about this last book, it's the sort of very subtle way that the female characters are *still* treated a bit differently than the male ones-- like at the end, the son gets teased about *becoming* a Slytherin, but the daughter gets teased about *marrying* one, ARGH. Anyway, there were other bits like that (especially Harry "saving" McGonagall from being spit on, when he'd managed to keep under the Invisibility Cloak under far greater provocation) but I didn't really have a lot to quibble with in terms of *Hermione's* characterization, so that's good. Oh, and I loved that she was the one to initiate her and Ron's first kiss, which I thought was handled well.
4. Snape
Yeah, I still don't like Snape. OK, so he was in love with Lily. It didn't keep him from joining the Death Eaters. OK, so he was actually out to protect Harry all along. Didn't keep him from taking out his sad little grudge against Harry, on all the rest of the Gryffindors. I'm glad he didn't die super-heroically, like, diving in front of a killing curse to save Harry or anything, because then I would have felt like JKR was trying to manipulate me into liking him, and I still don't.
5. The Malfoys
What are we supposed to think about the Malfoys? I mean, didn't Lucius and Narcissa still torture and kill people-- in the original Voldemort era, surely they did, right? They're still Death Eaters, but we're supposed to accept that people wouldn't immediately throw them in the dungeons or something after the fight's over, just because they pussed out at the end and weren't actively killing people in the final battle? Did they end up in Azkaban? What about Draco? I need to re-read that scene where he doesn't positively identify Harry or Hermione... I just don't know what I think about Draco. (Unlike 90% of fandom, I would have liked less Draco redemption. *G*)