I loved the epilogue. I thought it was beautiful and necessary.

(um not bright enough right now to defend it but just had to put it out there.)

I loved the epilogue. I thought it was beautiful and necessary.

Me too. I loved Harry telling his younger boy that he didn't have to accept what the Sorting Hat said. Not only did Harry say no to Slytherin, he didn't go through everything just to let people be ruled by someone else's destiny.

I found the epilogue clunky but I also loved it. I would have been very disappointed without it.

I'm enjoying the Rowling interview on Dateline.

I'm also one who would really rather have learned what the immediate aftermath of the big battle at Hogwarts entailed, how the wizarding (and witching) and magical community at large reacted and were affected. The funerals, the changes, if any, in the wizarding and muggle societies.

So, yeah, I wanted "The Scouring of the Shire" as well as "The Grey Havens".

It's almost the same jolt I got watching the end of Serenity, where you go from "funerals and grief" to "all better, moving on" and I didn't have the same time that the characters must have had to adjust to this new frame of mind to end the story.

I guess, while it was indeed a nice way to end the story, the emotional flow wasn't there for me. JKR forgot to take me with her after the battle.

And, what Juliebird said. Actually, that's an issue I have with a lot of current fiction--it doesn't give me enough denouement. The story just STOPS. I want to see the repercussions, the mourning, the celebration. That's one thing I really like about Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books--she gives me enough closure after the climax. The characters don't just win the battle, they win the battle and have a masked ball in the palace to celebrate, with just enough solemnity to mourn whoever died along the way.

I am not afraid of cows, but neither do I dismiss them.

I can't see cows anymore. I just see tractors going moo.

One thing from the Dateline special is that JK said if she had to go back and change anything, she would re-edit Order of the Phoenix, because it was too long. I was like, "Amen to that." Then I realized that I'd rather see a re-edit of Goblet of Fire.

One of the things I'd like to know is; what happened to Umbridge? It would've been nice to see her get her comeuppance.

The thing that struck me about the ending was that it was very clearly not a "Never Again" sort of ending.

Very much not. Rowling writes a very cyclical world with parallels all over the place and you can see where different choices have lead people on very different paths. It's a magical world where the most basic non-magical choices are what ultimately matters.

Its pretty subversive children's literature in my opinion: good guys can be bad and bad buys can be good, they people you trust sometimes hide things from you, the government lies to you (particularly in times of strife), your fate depends on the choices you make, and bad things will happen over and over again.

One of the thinks I love about Slytherine house is that what they're into is power. That doesn't MAKE you bad, but it does (and should) make other people question your actions. They're not all dark wizards, but that's where all the dark wizards come from. That notion filtering into the psychies of millions of children the way the hard work and independence of the Ingalls or the faith in goodness and intelligence of everyone in Narnia filtered into mine is going to be a really interesting thing to see as they all grow up.