After a 200 page marathon last night, I have finished the final book in the painfully popular wizarding saga, Harry Potter. Unlike a blogging colleague of mine, my thoughts will contain spoilers. Lot’s of them in fact. So let’s begin.

SPOLIER ALERT – Don’t read ahead unless you have read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, or if you don’t mind it spoiled.

On the whole, I enjoyed HP:DH. It was a fun ride, lots of action, and some classic Rowling mysteries. But the end left a little to be desired. To begin, let me list some of the things I didn’t like about Deathly Hallows. First of all, I felt that throughout the Harry Potter storyline, there was always an underlying theme of civil rights and class equality. It wasn’t just a wizard’s war, but it was a war about how wizard’s treated other creatures, and treated other people with different bloodlines and abilities. Unfortunately, I felt that these were just dropped midway through the book simply to make space for the surface level conclusion. Much like the other flat conclusion this year, Spiderman 3, it felt that the thematic undertones and even character dynamics were sacrificed to make room to tie up loose ends of the plot. Ironically, it is precisely these elements that made previous Harry Potter books so great.

Secondly, there was no actual sacrifice by Harry. Granted he faced seemingly certain death with enough bravery to put Godric Gryffindor to shame. But it really felt like Rowling artificially wrote herself out with another magical loophole of love. I would have hated to see Harry die, but I guess I had been bracing for it since I learned of the Horcruxes.

Now on to a lighter note. I liked the book. I mean I liked all the Harry Potter books. Here are some specific things I liked. We finally got to fill in the blanks of Snape’s love for Lily, and it was actually kind of touching. It is often presented that Voldemort’s ultimate downfall is his ignorance and underestimation of the power of love. Here, Snape personifies that. Snape loved Lily, and Voldemort had no idea. Despite the epilogue being about as cheesy as Wisconsin, I did like that Harry named his son Albus Severus. It showed honor to Snape, and that Harry had closure on it.

Also, I liked how Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s schemes had such a similarity to previous Hogwart’s hijinks. At a time in their lives they were simply kids sneaking around the castle, impersonating Slytherins, or merely solving Scooby Do style mysteries. It’s like the scope has increased, but the characters actions hadn’t changed entirely. I enjoyed seeing the comparison and contrast.

Finally, I really got a sense of ability from the characters. Early in the series it was almost traipsing through the plot with clues, and relying on a final deus ex machina to survive the final confrontation. But with Harry, Ron, and Hermoine constantly on the run, and a few times, being on the attack, it was clear that they weren’t kids any more, they knew what to do. That was refreshing.

Once again, on the whole I enjoyed it, it was a fun ride, but to me the end felt a little flat and rushed. To conclude and summarize, here is my order of preference to the Harry Potter series. 6, 4, 3, 5, 7, 1, 2.

Update: Apparently, Rowling did have a better idea of what happened to the characters after defeating Voldemort.  Check out this article about an interesting Q&A with the author.  Thanks Leigh.