Nilly, it is such a pleasure to read your posts again. Your comments about "Deathly Hallows" remind me so much of why I loved reading your "Firefly" posts. They are thought-provoking celebrations of a great story well-told.

Narrator? Narrator Narrator Bronze Narrator much-missed Narrator of Bronze??

"Narrator of the Bronze"? That has a very nice ring to it -- like I own an estate or something.

Yes, that's me -- Estate owning (No, not really, but let's all pretend I am rich, shall we?) Narrator of the Bronze.

Narrator has always been here...

t /kosh

Tod, I think you're new. Welcome! (English is not Nilly's native language. She's in Israel.)

Thanks for putting it that way, Ginger! I was about to go all irrationally protective of Nilly (who can certainly take care of herself) ballistic and had to step away from the internet. It's been a hard day.

Anyway, I have marked Nilly's posts to read when I am a) able to focus and b) deserving of a treat for myself!

Sue, I don't know if it answers your question, but the Scholastic Edition is different from the Bloomsbury (UK) edition. My waiting until I got the Canadian (which is the same as the UK) to read it was what won me the spot as top geek at my training course this summer.

Sue, I don't know if it answers your question, but the Scholastic Edition is different from the Bloomsbury (UK) edition.

I did know that, but from what I understood, mainly those changes are English vs. US language things, and are generally pretty minor. I'm wondering if the US editors do a big edit, or if they just do those "translate into American English" edits.

She didn't make Harry choose whether to trust Snape. She made Harry choose whether to trust Dumbledore. Which was brilliant! Taking the one character who had his faith without any reservations - Harry led "Dumbledore's Army" in "Order of the Phoenix", he kept saying how he's Dumbledore's man, through and through, and then, to crack this faith

Yes, I love this! And then your discussion of triangles made me think of this moment when Harry is about to enter the forest to die and he sees Ginny comforting a young girl who wants to leave the battle and “go home,”

"He wanted to shout out to the night, he wanted Ginny to know that he was there, he wanted her to know where he was going. He wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, to be sent back home...

"But he was home. Hogwarts was the first and best home he had known. He and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys, had all found home here..."

This is one of my favorite passages, because in my mind, Dumbledore=Hogwarts and I think of all the characters, only three, the triangle of Tom Riddle, Severus Snape, and Harry Potter needed both Hogwarts and Dumbledore's approval so tremendously. I don't think it was only Dumbledore's abilities that made Voldemort fear him - this was the man who told Tom that he was a wizard, that he would be going to Hogwarts, and who later denied his request to teach there. He had a power over Voldemort that no one else had – the power to deny him his home. Hogwarts is also where Snape found forgiveness and was given a second chance, and where Harry felt loved for the first time. And all of that was bound up in Dumbledore for each of them.

And then Harry learns that this man, who represented home to him – lied to him for the greater good. And he’s not entirely at peace with this when he enters the forest, but he does so anyway. Dumbledore asked Snape to protect Hogwarts and its students and that’s what both Harry and Snape do – even when they learn that Dumbledore used them, and even when they know it will lead to their deaths.

Ngah.

God, Nilly - bless your heart. I actually had to stop reading your review quite early on, because it's very embarassing weeping in a small internet cafe full of gamers. Um. But - yep. What you said.

(Also - OMG, love, I just read Will the Vampire People Please Leave The Lobby, and the Bring-Nilly-To-America campaign fucking KILLED me all over again. Buffistas, how much do you rock?)

Also - welcome to the board, Tod!

Nilly, what a wonderful post. I had not considered the shifting priorities from the interiority of Hogwarts to the exteriority of the world. I was just irritated because I missed teh structure of Hogwarts.

You've given me something to ponder.