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Harry Potter #7 Misc. Musings 7/25/2007 3:56:33 AM
Just wanted to drop a quick line - finished with Harry Potter #7. I just want to say JK Rowling is brilliant!
As a writer, I really appreciate how she outlined and drafted the entire series. I got a renewed sense of this appreciation when I went back to book #1, started skimming it and discovered the bio on Dumbledore's card read that he was in a famous wizarding duel with Grendelwald in 1945! That's a plot point which becomes important in book #7!
As a writer, I see that her ability to outline was so important. Her outline and notes obviously helped to keep the series fabulously CONSTANT.
While Rowling's main audience for the book is the young teen set, there's a lot more going on here. New characters, history, and lore help Harry on the journey - but not only that, Rowling keeps it modern. I love the mention of "Potterwatch" in book 7. It seems everytime we turn on the TV we're on some kind of "watch," like "firewatch" and "stormwatch." And while the series is easy to read (unlike Tolkien, another major fantasy author) it's also easy to get into the deeper themes of friendship, good and evil, light and dark and gray. Snape was an extremely complicated gray character that I loved reading about. To create the epic that Rowling has is something I think we as writer's would love to do. She's lived the dream. hehe.
I just want to say, (SPOILER COMING UP) at the end of #7, Snape's story practically had me in tears. His unrequited love for Lily Potter was so touching and so human, and I think if but for one or two poor choices on his part, he might have won her affections. The defeat of Voldemort was well done and I especially liked how Harry refered to him as Riddle in the end. It was very fitting.
