Reading time - 10 hours
Jul. 21st, 2007 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabremeisterOh yes, very nicely done.
So ... Ladbrookes must be in something of a quandary. On the one hand, Harry does get killed by Voldemort, but on the other, he doesn't stay dead - so does that mean they have to pay out on any bets that supposit death by LV? Not that I placed any bets, just curious.
Anyway, how did my predictions fare?
The only one that springs immediately to mind is that Neville killed the snake. Just checking the rest now...
Okay, Ron and Hermione don't come to stay at Privet Drive. They do stay at the Burrow until the wedding. Went to Godric's Hollow much later, not directly after the wedding, and not contacted by the Mentor. They don't go back to Hogwarts - so that's taken most of my predictions off down the wrong track, but still. Penseive encounter and conversation with Dumbledore's portrait occur at the end of the book. Does the infiltration of the Ministry occur at roughly the first Hogsmeade weekend? I think so. The revelation of R.A.B., which I thought might be triggered by Aberforth, occurred sooner than that. There was a major event at Christmas, which wasn't spent hunting horcruxes. Something at Easter does prompt them to get a move on in - although more in the direction of finding the Deathly Hallows than more horcruxes. Ginny and Neville not kidnapped. Harry does not go to Hogwarts to take his exams, although he does return round about that time of year - by which time, he only has to find one more horcrux, destroy it and another one, kill Nagini, then deal with Voldemort. Final confrontation is only Harry and LV, although there are several other onlookers - Snape and Wormtail already dead, Draco hiding; Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville all at the forefront of the fight until Harry reveals himself. Both final confrontations. Nagini is indeed killed by Neville. The two significant deaths are Fred and Lupin, although the passings of Moody, Dobby and Tonks are quite notable as well. Snape reveals his true colours to Harry via the pensieve - yes he was in love with Lily, yes he did try and persuade LV not to kill her, yes he did show utter remorse to Dumbledore when she was killed, and has worked against LV ever since. Wormtail does show Harry mercy, although considerably earlier in the book than I thought he'd be able to. McGonnagall remains head of Gryffindor, and Snape is made Head of Hogwarts. Snape is not a traitor or a coward, he is in a very deep cover as a double agent. Ravenclaw's diadem was the fifth horcrux, and the snake was the sixth. Harry was a seventh - my reasoning against this is precisely the reasoning JKR used this to make it so, and thus ensure LV's defeat. Kreacher did indeed go with Regulus to retrieve the locket horcrux. Hufflepuff's cup is still in London, although at Gringotts, rather than buried under the orphanage. The Mentor was Snape, and although Aberforth was perhaps more active in protecting Harry, Snape did keep an eye on him via Phineas' painting, and he allowed him to get the sword of Gryffindor, and, in his memories, explains to Harry just what has been going on. And what was foreshadowed? Practically everything - we see levicorpus, wingardium leviosa, sectumsempra, expelliarmus, all used as plot points; the whomping willow, "are you a witch/wizard or what?", the portable blue flame, reparo, parseltongue, the secret bathroom entrance, all seen before and used again significantly here, dragons in the lower vaults at Gringotts were even mentioned in book one! Snitches, the dodgy dealings of Mundugus Fletcher, polyjuice potion, accio, even the true nature of Albus Dumbledore are all significantly mentioned before, all turn up again in this book (with a quick reminder at the beginning for the last). It is a masterwork of interconnectivity - but that's not to say that all loose ends were tied up.
So - mostly, I was mistaken. A departure from the expected pattern, but isn't that in macro what JKR has been doing in each book in micro? Rather clever. She took the five-year story arc popular in TV and converted it successfully to novel form. That grand final battle in the Great Hall? Very ... engaging. Most notable was Molly Weasley's sudden conversion into Ellen Ripley. For a grim to-the-death grand blood-soaked finale, it probably provided more laughs than the rest of the book put together, and that includes the 300 pages or so in which I suspected Dumbledore was pulling an Obi Wan.
Anyway, I've been dribbling here for an hour, I'd better go and get something to eat. Emmental babybels, jaffa cakes and a cornish pasty don't tend to last that long.
So ... Ladbrookes must be in something of a quandary. On the one hand, Harry does get killed by Voldemort, but on the other, he doesn't stay dead - so does that mean they have to pay out on any bets that supposit death by LV? Not that I placed any bets, just curious.
Anyway, how did my predictions fare?
The only one that springs immediately to mind is that Neville killed the snake. Just checking the rest now...
Okay, Ron and Hermione don't come to stay at Privet Drive. They do stay at the Burrow until the wedding. Went to Godric's Hollow much later, not directly after the wedding, and not contacted by the Mentor. They don't go back to Hogwarts - so that's taken most of my predictions off down the wrong track, but still. Penseive encounter and conversation with Dumbledore's portrait occur at the end of the book. Does the infiltration of the Ministry occur at roughly the first Hogsmeade weekend? I think so. The revelation of R.A.B., which I thought might be triggered by Aberforth, occurred sooner than that. There was a major event at Christmas, which wasn't spent hunting horcruxes. Something at Easter does prompt them to get a move on in - although more in the direction of finding the Deathly Hallows than more horcruxes. Ginny and Neville not kidnapped. Harry does not go to Hogwarts to take his exams, although he does return round about that time of year - by which time, he only has to find one more horcrux, destroy it and another one, kill Nagini, then deal with Voldemort. Final confrontation is only Harry and LV, although there are several other onlookers - Snape and Wormtail already dead, Draco hiding; Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville all at the forefront of the fight until Harry reveals himself. Both final confrontations. Nagini is indeed killed by Neville. The two significant deaths are Fred and Lupin, although the passings of Moody, Dobby and Tonks are quite notable as well. Snape reveals his true colours to Harry via the pensieve - yes he was in love with Lily, yes he did try and persuade LV not to kill her, yes he did show utter remorse to Dumbledore when she was killed, and has worked against LV ever since. Wormtail does show Harry mercy, although considerably earlier in the book than I thought he'd be able to. McGonnagall remains head of Gryffindor, and Snape is made Head of Hogwarts. Snape is not a traitor or a coward, he is in a very deep cover as a double agent. Ravenclaw's diadem was the fifth horcrux, and the snake was the sixth. Harry was a seventh - my reasoning against this is precisely the reasoning JKR used this to make it so, and thus ensure LV's defeat. Kreacher did indeed go with Regulus to retrieve the locket horcrux. Hufflepuff's cup is still in London, although at Gringotts, rather than buried under the orphanage. The Mentor was Snape, and although Aberforth was perhaps more active in protecting Harry, Snape did keep an eye on him via Phineas' painting, and he allowed him to get the sword of Gryffindor, and, in his memories, explains to Harry just what has been going on. And what was foreshadowed? Practically everything - we see levicorpus, wingardium leviosa, sectumsempra, expelliarmus, all used as plot points; the whomping willow, "are you a witch/wizard or what?", the portable blue flame, reparo, parseltongue, the secret bathroom entrance, all seen before and used again significantly here, dragons in the lower vaults at Gringotts were even mentioned in book one! Snitches, the dodgy dealings of Mundugus Fletcher, polyjuice potion, accio, even the true nature of Albus Dumbledore are all significantly mentioned before, all turn up again in this book (with a quick reminder at the beginning for the last). It is a masterwork of interconnectivity - but that's not to say that all loose ends were tied up.
So - mostly, I was mistaken. A departure from the expected pattern, but isn't that in macro what JKR has been doing in each book in micro? Rather clever. She took the five-year story arc popular in TV and converted it successfully to novel form. That grand final battle in the Great Hall? Very ... engaging. Most notable was Molly Weasley's sudden conversion into Ellen Ripley. For a grim to-the-death grand blood-soaked finale, it probably provided more laughs than the rest of the book put together, and that includes the 300 pages or so in which I suspected Dumbledore was pulling an Obi Wan.
Anyway, I've been dribbling here for an hour, I'd better go and get something to eat. Emmental babybels, jaffa cakes and a cornish pasty don't tend to last that long.
