Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows...*DEFINITE SPOILERS*

[PTeppic]

Originally Posted by Alia

Harry was NOT a Horcrux... It was his SCAR!

"You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make." Dumbledore (or his spirit/ghost, it's a little unclear) (Page 568)

Originally Posted by Joel007

A horcrux splits your soul, it doesn't become your soul. Voldemort was the last piece.

A Horcrux becomes a vessel for part of your soul: the splitting is done by the witch or wizard (indirectly) themselves by committing murder...

[Adasunshine]

Originally Posted by PTeppic

"A Horcrux becomes a vessel for part of your soul: the splitting is done by the witch or wizard (indirectly) themselves by committing murder...

It's not done indirectly in Voldie's case, Harry was the only Horcrux created by mistake, I can't remember which book it is, must be HBP but Dumbledore tells Harry about Horcruxes and how wizards and witches have split their soul into two, sometimes three pieces before but never any more than that because although the soul is already tainted, it is still in few enough pieces to not be completely mangled. Dumbledore thought Voldie would try 7 as it's a magical number which Voldie thinks is important.

In summary, he created every horcrux on purpose, except for Harry.

xx

[elvet]

I read the whole book yesterday, after refreshing the story by rereading the Half-Blood Prince (of which I had remembered nothing but Dumbledores' fate).
This last book was much more like an epic fantasy. I remember thinking 'Oh no, not the multiple perspective narrative that so many fantasy books favor' when Ron separated from the group (though the penseive allows her to give some alternate perspective to significant sequences) . I missed the flow of the school year at Hogwart's. I also got the LotR deja-vu feeling from the way the locket affected the characters . I firmly believed that Snape was a 'good' guy, and I think that removed some of the tension and drama for me, since I was running through the reasons for what he did, rather than accepting the 'evilness' of his actions. To finally see his reasons was gratifying.
I think the biggest success of the book was to humanize Dumbledore, and to a certain extent some of the up-until-now nasty characters, particularly the Malfoy family. Most typical fantasys do not round out their characters this way (Guy Gavriel Kay being a favorite exception).
Lastly, I remember thinking that she handled the life/death issues very sensitively, constantly reinforcing it's not the quantity but quality of the life we lead. While Harry's death could have been a very disturbing scene, his acceptance of it made it seem more like an achievement.

[cherryofcupcake]

So nice to find other people who have finished it...everybody I know IRL are still reading it..grr!

My thoughts:
First off: Goblet of Fire is my favourite title, by a longshot. I was disappointed by Order of Phoenix and, although I read HBPrince, all I remember of it is the ending. When DH came out my expectations were pretty low and, really, I just wanted to see how she finished the whole thing off.

In the end, I did enjoy it. The Battle of Hogwarts is fantastic, epic. The world she has created in this series is all-encompassing and endlessly intriguing. It ended in an entirely satisfactory way. Oh, and apparently JK has confirmed in an interview that Harry and Ron are now aurors.

Sense a reservation in all of this? Absolutely. I can't quite get beyond the flaws in the structure. Somehow, the flaws don't seem to matter, her characterisation and world-building more than make up for the problems. But still...somehow I have a vague sense of disappointment. Ah well. I enjoyed the book and the experience of the series, and I suppose that's what matters.

[cherryofcupcake]

Oh, by the way. I'm re-reading the whole series now (looking for signs and hints to what lies ahead) and the first thing that struck me is in philospher's stone. Re-read what happens when Harry gets his invisibility cloak. It's clear, at this point, JK has no idea that it'll end up as a Hallow: from Ron's response, it's clearly just another wizarding object, albeit a rare one.

[Rik Roots]

Originally Posted by Adasunshine

It's not done indirectly in Voldie's case, Harry was the only Horcrux created by mistake, I can't remember which book it is, must be HBP but Dumbledore tells Harry about Horcruxes and how wizards and witches have split their soul into two, sometimes three pieces before but never any more than that because although the soul is already tainted, it is still in few enough pieces to not be completely mangled. Dumbledore thought Voldie would try 7 as it's a magical number which Voldie thinks is important.

In summary, he created every horcrux on purpose, except for Harry.

xx

The more I think about it, the less this makes sense. From Book 6 I got the impression that making a horcrux was not only deep and evil magic, but was also bloody hard to achieve - otherwise any wizard/witch running round AK'ing another person (which was happening a lot in book 7) would be creating horcruxes of their souls in bricks, lampposts and stray cats close to the scene without even knowing it. The "Harry is an accidental horcrux" plot was an excellent device on the first read of book 7, but the more I think of it, the less convincing it becomes.

Damn this questioning the story's veracity lark. I'd enjoyed the book until I started thinking about it!

[MJRevell]

But wasn't the reason it happened to LV the fact that he had already messed up his soul so much not only through so many murders, but through so many horcruxes? And he essentially died before the Philosophers Stone, which meant his messed up soul was out there and not protected by his body.

The AKing in book seven was generally done by death eaters, and since they would be killing people who didn't have torn up souls, when those people died their soul bits would not fly around everywhere as LV's had done in Godrics Hollow.

[Rik Roots]

Originally Posted by MJRevell

But wasn't the reason it happened to LV the fact that he had already messed up his soul so much not only through so many murders, but through so many horcruxes? And he essentially died before the Philosophers Stone, which meant his messed up soul was out there and not protected by his body.

The AKing in book seven was generally done by death eaters, and since they would be killing people who didn't have torn up souls, when those people died their soul bits would not fly around everywhere as LV's had done in Godrics Hollow.

He got quite mad after the bank robbery, killing several Death Eaters - mad enough to shatter his soul to smithereens? But I'm not going to allow little things like this spoil my overall enjoyment of the books.

[HoopyFrood]

I thought I remembered something along these lines (perhaps one of the only things I remembered...Like other people, I remember very little from this book...) From The Half Blood Prince, conversation between Riddle and Slughorn:

"Killing rips the soul apart. The Wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: he would encase the torn portion-"
"Encase? But how-?"
"There is a spell, do not ask me, I don't know!"

So, that says why people don't make Horcruxes all over the place, because a spell is needed to encase the soul. However, then that blows apart the idea of the accidental Horcrux that is Harry...

Oh, no, wait! Do I remember something else, about how Voldemort was planning to use Harry's death to create his final Horcrux? Perhaps he had the things all prepared for it, but when the killing spell backfired, this disrupted the Horcrux preparations and made Harry the Horcrux...?

EDIT: Oh, here we go...from the Half Blood Prince:

"I am sure he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your [Harry's] death". (Dumbledore)

However it failed, and so he later used the death of the muggle in The Goblet of Fire to create the horcrux in Nagini. However, that doesn't rule out the possibility that I said earlier...that he had everything ready to make a Horcrux from Harry's death. He didn't think he had, but perhaps he did, only his soul was encased in the wrong thing (ie Harry!)...

[MJRevell]

Interesting ideas Hoopy. When I was reading it, I remember just seeing it like so:

Voldemort blasted harry and "died". Since he was pretty much merely soul floating around, and this soul was so ripped up, part of it attatched itself to Harry - and nothing more than that.

Although it's equally possible that it could be due to horcrux measures put in place before attempting Harry's murder. I guess it depends if one needs to do the horcrux spell/s before or after the murder...

[HoopyFrood]

Originally Posted by MJRevell

Voldemort blasted harry and "died". Since he was pretty much merely soul floating around, and this soul was so ripped up, part of it attatched itself to Harry - and nothing more than that

Yeah, that's just as possible, especially as, like you say, we don't know if measures need to be taken before or after the death. I hadn't even considered what I wrote above until I re-read the passages in The Half Blood Prince. Most of it was just voicing ideas out loud, as seen by my various edits

[PTeppic]

Originally Posted by cherryofcupcake

Oh, by the way. I'm re-reading the whole series now (looking for signs and hints to what lies ahead) and the first thing that struck me is in philospher's stone. Re-read what happens when Harry gets his invisibility cloak. It's clear, at this point, JK has no idea that it'll end up as a Hallow: from Ron's response, it's clearly just another wizarding object, albeit a rare one.

Not sure I entirely agree: Ron recognises it as an invisibility cloak, but he'd have no idea at the start that it was such a good one. The issue with other, "cheaper" ones is that they lose their power after a time. How would he have been able to tell it was a Hallow from the start?

[Snarf]

Man, it was an awesome read. I knew Snape couldn't be evil, he's almost mah favorite character. I finished it the day it came out.

[Joel007]

I had to wait for my wife to finish it first, and then I read it during lunchbreaks at work. I had to use threat of deadly force to prevent her telling me the plot though

[Winters_Sorrow]

Originally Posted by Nesacat

Thought it was too long and too short at the same time. There were some very long draggy bits with people waffling and arguing back and forth and then some things that were important were extremely abrupt and rushed. The ending while not unexpected felt forced.

I agree entirely. It took me about a week to finish it, partly because I was working a lot but also because the middle section was so boring. The last 150 pages did speed up again which helped. The deaths have been discussed a lot and I agree with most of the comments but I do think that Tonks & Remus' deaths were very much 'tacked on' and the fact they occured 'off page' was very disappointing and robbed them of any emotional impact for me.