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Summary & Study Guide Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and last in the Harry Potter series. This novel follows Harry Potter and his two closest friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger on their quest to destroy the evil Lord Voldemort.This study guide includes the following Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.
64 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 17, 2010
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June 9, 2015Great Harry Potter, but exposes many of the limitations in the Harry Potter series. Rowling's target reader in an eleven year old. This limits her writing both in the complexity of the plots and in the subject matters she can address.
The storyline is very linear. We follow Harry as he goes about his quest. We see everthing through his eyes. There were many opportunities to explore other points of view, like Ron's or Hermione's, to get inside their head, see their own struggles, but we only get to see what is externalized, in as much as it affects Harry. Compare Harry's first kiss with Ginny in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince against Ron and Hermione's first kiss in this book. The latter lacks any emotion or real warmth; it is almost comical in its development and its timing. I was disappointed by its banality. I wanted more than this after following these characters across seven books and waiting for this moment for the past four.
There are also many opportunities to explore side plots, which Rowling totally ignores. We only get echoes of what's hapenning at Hogwarts, or what the other members of the Order of the Phoenix are doing while Harry is pursuing his quest.
To keep the plot simple and within the grasp of an eleven year old, Rowling relies heavily on widely used formulas: bringing back every possible character ever mentioned for the big finale, Mrs. Weasley as the super-protective supermom, the whole "King's Cross" chapter. In parts, it is so formulaic that it appears downright cheezy. The same goes for the entire epilogue, where apparently Ginny doesn't get a say in naming her own children. In the entire series, each character has their own name, no one is burdened with having to live up to the name of some ancestor, except for Tom Riddle. This last bit, in the epilogue, is a strange and troubling departure, one I don't find particularily tasteful.
To illustrate how the Harry Potter universe is ever unchanging and how nothing beyond the main protagonists has any opportunity to evolve, witness how House Slytherin removes itself from the final battle with Voldemort. This would have been a great occasion for the four houses to put aside their differences and come together to the defense of their school. It could have begun a healing process for the Wizarding society that is divided by the issues put forth by Voldemort. It could have shown to judge people on an individual basis, not solely by their association. It could even have ushered an new era where students are no longer sorted into Houses anymore, like we hear Dumbledore wish for in one flashback. But Rowling does not want to take it that far; Slytherins are evil and selfish and they will not fight for their school. In the glimpse of the future that we see in the epilogue, things are still the same at Hogwarts, with Houses and sorting and so forth.
The events in the Harry Potter series present a major challenge for the Wizarding society. As they make their way through those traumatizing times, they have an opportunity to learn something about themselves and emerge on the other side transformed and enlightened, changed for the better. Here is an opportunity for change on a societal scale that Rowling completely passes by. She had a chance to reinvent her universe based on a new foundation and she compeltely ignores it. Instead of a story about how an entire society can grow through the actions of a courageous few, we get a story about a single individual's struggles. I guess this is one of the risks you take when you willingly dumb down a story "for the greater good."
Thus brings me to the themes Rowling choses to discuss in her novels. On the one side, she wants to portray realistic teenagers, with all that entails: search for self-identity, peer pressure, and of course puberty. On the other side, she's writing for pre-pubescent readers, which pretty much precludes any sexuality angle. I think this is slightly disingenuous. All relationships are utterly platonic and dating is reduced to holding hands and taking long walks by the lake, stealing an occasional kiss when nobody is watching. Harry is afraid to display any signs of affection towards Ginny in front of her mother. Ron and Hermione refrain from any intimacy when Harry is present. There is a major dissonance between what you would expect of normal teenagers like the ones in the story and the behaviors Rowling has them display.
I was re-reading the scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where Harry kisses Cho Chan. Afterwards, Hermione comments on Cho's state of mind and her conflicting feelings towards Cedric and Harry. She goes so far as to hint Cho could suffer socially for going out with Harry after she had dated Cedric. She dated him for a few months and it's been over six months since he died at this point. Is she expected to go into mourning forever for a guy she briefly dated? She is only 15 or 16 years old!
In this book, Harry, Ron, and Hermione live together in a tent for over six months, cut off from the rest of the world and with nothing better to do than stare at each other. Ron and Hermione are obviously attracted to each other and yet nothing happens. This is utterly unbelievable. It goes way beyond any notion of suspension of disbelief. It borders on stupidity. If you put any three normal 17 year olds in a tent for six months, someone gonna end up pregnant. Even keeping the whole thing chaste, there in no point in Ron and Hermione denying their love for that long.
One character that has evolved as the series progressed is Neville Longbottom. He starts out as an inept nerd that everyone picks upon. By the middle of the series, he starts being of genuine help. He really comes into his own in this book, though. He shows courage and skill and even a modicrum of leadership. I wish we could have said the same of the other characters. Draco Malfoy is one very disappointing failure on that front. At the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, there is a brief moment of possible redemption for Malfoy. But it is fleeting and amounts to nothing in the end.
What I really liked of the first three Harry Potter novels was how Rowling kept expanding her fantastic universe. But by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, she had started to close down on expansion and starting tying everything together. In this book, she finishes this process and ties the last few knots that close the entire construction. It goes as revealing Harry's ancestry up to some ancient and forgotten wizard family and even giving him an ancestor in common with Voldemort. I don't like these devices; they tend to make everything rather incestuous. I like it much better when the author leaves things open to interpretation and lets the reader's imagination roam. It is not necessary to fully specify every single detail and relate everything to the action that is going on at the time. The universe does not have to be hermetic. When you first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, there is a rich tapestry of things that are thrown in off the cuff and that the reader is free to flesh out as they like. By the time you get to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the world is fully defined by the author and the reader's role becomes much more passive.
I quick point of curiosity: Rowling never even mentions the Americas or Asia or Africa. All the action takes place in Western Europe, with just a very brief mention of Egypt. It is as if they didn't even exist. Voldemort can conquer the entire world simply by subjugating Great Britain.
But all this is nitpicking. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this lastest book and I had a hard time putting it down. All the things I pointed out were just minor irritations while I was reading. Harry's story comes to a satisfactory conclusion, even if the relationship between Harry and Voldemort is so tangled and convoluted that it borders on the ridiculous. Many of the more subtle associations have to be explained by other characters and it would have been nice if the reader had been given enough clues to figure it out on their own. Even the parts that are formulaic are exciting and engaging, which is why those formulas are so popular to begin with. Once you accept that the book was written for eleven year olds, it is very captivating and fulfilling.
The storyline is very linear. We follow Harry as he goes about his quest. We see everthing through his eyes. There were many opportunities to explore other points of view, like Ron's or Hermione's, to get inside their head, see their own struggles, but we only get to see what is externalized, in as much as it affects Harry. Compare Harry's first kiss with Ginny in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince against Ron and Hermione's first kiss in this book. The latter lacks any emotion or real warmth; it is almost comical in its development and its timing. I was disappointed by its banality. I wanted more than this after following these characters across seven books and waiting for this moment for the past four.
There are also many opportunities to explore side plots, which Rowling totally ignores. We only get echoes of what's hapenning at Hogwarts, or what the other members of the Order of the Phoenix are doing while Harry is pursuing his quest.
To keep the plot simple and within the grasp of an eleven year old, Rowling relies heavily on widely used formulas: bringing back every possible character ever mentioned for the big finale, Mrs. Weasley as the super-protective supermom, the whole "King's Cross" chapter. In parts, it is so formulaic that it appears downright cheezy. The same goes for the entire epilogue, where apparently Ginny doesn't get a say in naming her own children. In the entire series, each character has their own name, no one is burdened with having to live up to the name of some ancestor, except for Tom Riddle. This last bit, in the epilogue, is a strange and troubling departure, one I don't find particularily tasteful.
To illustrate how the Harry Potter universe is ever unchanging and how nothing beyond the main protagonists has any opportunity to evolve, witness how House Slytherin removes itself from the final battle with Voldemort. This would have been a great occasion for the four houses to put aside their differences and come together to the defense of their school. It could have begun a healing process for the Wizarding society that is divided by the issues put forth by Voldemort. It could have shown to judge people on an individual basis, not solely by their association. It could even have ushered an new era where students are no longer sorted into Houses anymore, like we hear Dumbledore wish for in one flashback. But Rowling does not want to take it that far; Slytherins are evil and selfish and they will not fight for their school. In the glimpse of the future that we see in the epilogue, things are still the same at Hogwarts, with Houses and sorting and so forth.
The events in the Harry Potter series present a major challenge for the Wizarding society. As they make their way through those traumatizing times, they have an opportunity to learn something about themselves and emerge on the other side transformed and enlightened, changed for the better. Here is an opportunity for change on a societal scale that Rowling completely passes by. She had a chance to reinvent her universe based on a new foundation and she compeltely ignores it. Instead of a story about how an entire society can grow through the actions of a courageous few, we get a story about a single individual's struggles. I guess this is one of the risks you take when you willingly dumb down a story "for the greater good."
Thus brings me to the themes Rowling choses to discuss in her novels. On the one side, she wants to portray realistic teenagers, with all that entails: search for self-identity, peer pressure, and of course puberty. On the other side, she's writing for pre-pubescent readers, which pretty much precludes any sexuality angle. I think this is slightly disingenuous. All relationships are utterly platonic and dating is reduced to holding hands and taking long walks by the lake, stealing an occasional kiss when nobody is watching. Harry is afraid to display any signs of affection towards Ginny in front of her mother. Ron and Hermione refrain from any intimacy when Harry is present. There is a major dissonance between what you would expect of normal teenagers like the ones in the story and the behaviors Rowling has them display.
I was re-reading the scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where Harry kisses Cho Chan. Afterwards, Hermione comments on Cho's state of mind and her conflicting feelings towards Cedric and Harry. She goes so far as to hint Cho could suffer socially for going out with Harry after she had dated Cedric. She dated him for a few months and it's been over six months since he died at this point. Is she expected to go into mourning forever for a guy she briefly dated? She is only 15 or 16 years old!
In this book, Harry, Ron, and Hermione live together in a tent for over six months, cut off from the rest of the world and with nothing better to do than stare at each other. Ron and Hermione are obviously attracted to each other and yet nothing happens. This is utterly unbelievable. It goes way beyond any notion of suspension of disbelief. It borders on stupidity. If you put any three normal 17 year olds in a tent for six months, someone gonna end up pregnant. Even keeping the whole thing chaste, there in no point in Ron and Hermione denying their love for that long.
One character that has evolved as the series progressed is Neville Longbottom. He starts out as an inept nerd that everyone picks upon. By the middle of the series, he starts being of genuine help. He really comes into his own in this book, though. He shows courage and skill and even a modicrum of leadership. I wish we could have said the same of the other characters. Draco Malfoy is one very disappointing failure on that front. At the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, there is a brief moment of possible redemption for Malfoy. But it is fleeting and amounts to nothing in the end.
What I really liked of the first three Harry Potter novels was how Rowling kept expanding her fantastic universe. But by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, she had started to close down on expansion and starting tying everything together. In this book, she finishes this process and ties the last few knots that close the entire construction. It goes as revealing Harry's ancestry up to some ancient and forgotten wizard family and even giving him an ancestor in common with Voldemort. I don't like these devices; they tend to make everything rather incestuous. I like it much better when the author leaves things open to interpretation and lets the reader's imagination roam. It is not necessary to fully specify every single detail and relate everything to the action that is going on at the time. The universe does not have to be hermetic. When you first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, there is a rich tapestry of things that are thrown in off the cuff and that the reader is free to flesh out as they like. By the time you get to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the world is fully defined by the author and the reader's role becomes much more passive.
It may seem ironic that I rail against Rowling for defining everything in her novels when that's what I admire in Tolkien. And maybe it's not exactly fair to compare Rowling to Tolkien. But in Tolkien, while everything has a backstory, not everything is intimately related to the main story. Rowling goes the other way and tries to relate every element in the universe to Harry's struggles.
I quick point of curiosity: Rowling never even mentions the Americas or Asia or Africa. All the action takes place in Western Europe, with just a very brief mention of Egypt. It is as if they didn't even exist. Voldemort can conquer the entire world simply by subjugating Great Britain.
But all this is nitpicking. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this lastest book and I had a hard time putting it down. All the things I pointed out were just minor irritations while I was reading. Harry's story comes to a satisfactory conclusion, even if the relationship between Harry and Voldemort is so tangled and convoluted that it borders on the ridiculous. Many of the more subtle associations have to be explained by other characters and it would have been nice if the reader had been given enough clues to figure it out on their own. Even the parts that are formulaic are exciting and engaging, which is why those formulas are so popular to begin with. Once you accept that the book was written for eleven year olds, it is very captivating and fulfilling.
July 17, 2011
I feel that every so often one should invest in something obscure, give a little-known novelist the benefit of a few pennies in royalties. Yes. That aside, who else got hopelessly mixed up between their hallows and their horcruxes? And who else eyerolled when Dumbledore, even though dead, STILL turned up to give the traditional chapter's worth of plot exposition?
June 28, 2013
Ending was abrupt, but lots of questions are answered in this, JK Rowlings final book on Harry Potter.
July 8, 2013
I truly enjoyed all of the Harry Potter books. Deathly Hallows was very good; I really hated to see the series end.
July 17, 2022
ho concluso finalmente questa saga per la terza volta, ma l’ultima in inglese. non l’ho trovata molto complicata e questo libro mi ha fatto compagnia quando mi annoiavo a morte.
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March 12, 2017reread
July 22, 2013
Marvelous finale to the series, with things uncovered that I never could have imagined.
July 29, 2012
A fitting conclusion to the series.
December 27, 2012
Awesome book. Jkr is a great author.
5/5
5/5
October 8, 2013
Great book by rowling......
September 22, 2014
I am sad it is over.
February 21, 2015
I hate that its all over. Here's hoping for a Book 8 :)
May 16, 2017
I think they "camped" a bit to long but overall the book was good.
October 30, 2017
Such a well written finale!!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews