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Deathly Hallows: scoring the predictions
From the Elitist Bastards mailing list, scoring some predictions on how Deathly Hallows would end, with the quotes from bon vivant David R. Henry and the rest of it my reply (which were before Olbermann's, but in large agreement with his). The e-mail was dated June 6, so...no, not too bad.
> 1. Snape is loyal to Dumbledore (if not Harry), and his "betrayal" at
> the end of HBP was part of Dumbledore's plan to make sure Snape's
> "loyalties" to Voldemort are beyond doubt. Snape's the master of
> occulmancy, after all.
Very yes, and I don't think there's been a reasonable argument to the contrary, aside from that whole killing-Harry's-mentor-in-front-of-him thing. Dumble was obviously in agony enough to have begged Harry to kill him a handful of pages earlier; I imagine he was relieved to die for an actual purpose, that being cementing Severus as part of Mr. Ah-Gots-No-Nose's inner circle.
That said -- whither Severus? Even if -- big "if" -- Potter's lot is willing to accept that Snape was doing Albus's bidding the whole time, how likely is Snape going to be to forgive himself? There's only one way out for Severus from where he's gone.
Scoring: yup. Though, on reflection, I could easily see Snape demanding to be respected for the travails he went through for the Order of the Phoenix. Obviously he returned to Hogwarts with his reputation intact -- one of the more mind-boggling parts of the plot, for me, was his mostly-unseen role as headmaster after killing Dumbledore -- so yeah, maybe I overestimated his conscience, or lack thereof.
> 2. Harry won't die. Voldemort will. The rest of the cast is up in the
> air -- and while I'd like my favorites to live, I trust Rowling enough
> to kill off my favorites for a good reason (despite the fact that her
> on-screen death of Sirius was one of the lamest deaths in any book in
> the past ten years, the death of Dumbledore proves she can pull it off
> when she puts her mind to it).
She's taking the Joseph Campbell thing to heart, isn't she? Yes, the mentor must die, and I'd always understood that to be Dumbledore -- Sirius was something of a surprise. It's another way of making Harry an orphan -- again -- and making him suffer, which he does with great frequency.
No, Harry can't die. He can't suffer if he's dead. (And what I'd like is a Dur-Mal DVD cut of the entire Harry Potter movie series, with chapters placed so that you can quickly and easily skip over every scene with the Dursleys or the Malfoys. Because half a minute into the third movie, I think I've seen everything I need to see of those particular family trees. Yes, evil, slovenly, idiotic, selfish...we get it.)
Honestly, though, you have to hope that Harry's lifetime of agony will be redeemed somehow, and I don't mean those islands of solace he's had in the last seven years. If he died...? Seriously? How futile would that make the entire experience?
Scoring: Very yes. But I still don't consider that a true possibility.
> 3. The Dursleys will play a minor yet important part in defeating Voldemort.
Probably. Family's a big theme, and these people could use a bit of redemption.
Scoring: Nope. And this after Dudley's impressive moment in chapter three... Pity.
> 4. Hogwarts will survive, physically and as an institution.
Very much. It's very much becoming a cultural touchstone; I don't see it disappearing. Its loss would be as much a victory for the Red Team as killing and skinning Potter and his ilk.
Scoring: As the torpedo to the midsection of future fanfic everywhere that was the Epilogue of Suck confirmed, yes, and good. Begin with an ending, end with a beginning.
> 5. Personal wishes: I'd love to see Luna and Neville have some kickass
> scenes.
Ever since the closing of the first book, we know Jo has a soft spot for the misfit, and these two fit about as badly as anyone.
Scoring: Luna has her moments, mostly unseen. But as mightygodking put it, Neville Longbottom is fucking hardcore. Big win here.
> We already know the Big Three (now Four, if we count Ginny as
> Harry's official GF) will have plenty of scenes. I have a bad feeling
> Hagrid won't survive the book. Of the other students I'm most
> interested in seeing a nice payoff for Luna and Neville.
Hagrid's enough of a mentor that yeah, I can see him falling. Also Trelawney, just because I don't think the irony of a "seer" (even one as scattershot as Sybill) being fatally surprised is enough for Jo to resist.
Scoring: well, oops. And you could see Jo tease that, too. And mad props to Sybill for using a crystal ball as a melee weapon. I always liked her, and Emma Thompson kinda cements it for me.
Also, and sadly, it's about time -- gotta lose a Weasley. Hell, if a wizarding war does engulf the magical world and a significant percent of magic-users perish, the law of averages suggests one of them *has* to be a Weasley.
Scoring: Well, technically, lost about 1.04 Weasleys. And somewhere else I did guess that it'd be one of the twins, but not both.... So yeah, I'm not going to apologize for not seeing the ear coming.
> 6. Despite being Harry's foil for six novels, Draco Malfoy will not
> have a very satisfying payoff use in the final installment.
There's been so much potential for the Malfoys through this entire little endeavor, and they're one of the few missed opportunities, I think, in the series. Too much mustache-twirling, very little humanity about them. I don't think you can have a satisfying payoff for them -- or him, specifically -- anymore. But I don't doubt she'll give it a shot.
Scoring: I seriously don't get what the whole point of the Malfoys is anymore. They aren't even properly adversarial anymore. Just inept and pathetic and still somehow malevolent. They're obnoxious and tedious by their own existence and imposition on the plotline. And, honestly, Scorpius? Goddamn, the worst moment of the entire eye-rolling atrocity of the epilogue, which I hope for God's sake was written decades ago and left untouched by virtue of letting it remain static, because that's the only possible explanation for that. I'd laugh at it if I saw it in a fanfic.
My one want: bring back Cedric, so he can have a taco.
Scoring: Goddammit.
> 1. Snape is loyal to Dumbledore (if not Harry), and his "betrayal" at
> the end of HBP was part of Dumbledore's plan to make sure Snape's
> "loyalties" to Voldemort are beyond doubt. Snape's the master of
> occulmancy, after all.
Very yes, and I don't think there's been a reasonable argument to the contrary, aside from that whole killing-Harry's-mentor-in-front-of-him thing. Dumble was obviously in agony enough to have begged Harry to kill him a handful of pages earlier; I imagine he was relieved to die for an actual purpose, that being cementing Severus as part of Mr. Ah-Gots-No-Nose's inner circle.
That said -- whither Severus? Even if -- big "if" -- Potter's lot is willing to accept that Snape was doing Albus's bidding the whole time, how likely is Snape going to be to forgive himself? There's only one way out for Severus from where he's gone.
Scoring: yup. Though, on reflection, I could easily see Snape demanding to be respected for the travails he went through for the Order of the Phoenix. Obviously he returned to Hogwarts with his reputation intact -- one of the more mind-boggling parts of the plot, for me, was his mostly-unseen role as headmaster after killing Dumbledore -- so yeah, maybe I overestimated his conscience, or lack thereof.
> 2. Harry won't die. Voldemort will. The rest of the cast is up in the
> air -- and while I'd like my favorites to live, I trust Rowling enough
> to kill off my favorites for a good reason (despite the fact that her
> on-screen death of Sirius was one of the lamest deaths in any book in
> the past ten years, the death of Dumbledore proves she can pull it off
> when she puts her mind to it).
She's taking the Joseph Campbell thing to heart, isn't she? Yes, the mentor must die, and I'd always understood that to be Dumbledore -- Sirius was something of a surprise. It's another way of making Harry an orphan -- again -- and making him suffer, which he does with great frequency.
No, Harry can't die. He can't suffer if he's dead. (And what I'd like is a Dur-Mal DVD cut of the entire Harry Potter movie series, with chapters placed so that you can quickly and easily skip over every scene with the Dursleys or the Malfoys. Because half a minute into the third movie, I think I've seen everything I need to see of those particular family trees. Yes, evil, slovenly, idiotic, selfish...we get it.)
Honestly, though, you have to hope that Harry's lifetime of agony will be redeemed somehow, and I don't mean those islands of solace he's had in the last seven years. If he died...? Seriously? How futile would that make the entire experience?
Scoring: Very yes. But I still don't consider that a true possibility.
> 3. The Dursleys will play a minor yet important part in defeating Voldemort.
Probably. Family's a big theme, and these people could use a bit of redemption.
Scoring: Nope. And this after Dudley's impressive moment in chapter three... Pity.
> 4. Hogwarts will survive, physically and as an institution.
Very much. It's very much becoming a cultural touchstone; I don't see it disappearing. Its loss would be as much a victory for the Red Team as killing and skinning Potter and his ilk.
Scoring: As the torpedo to the midsection of future fanfic everywhere that was the Epilogue of Suck confirmed, yes, and good. Begin with an ending, end with a beginning.
> 5. Personal wishes: I'd love to see Luna and Neville have some kickass
> scenes.
Ever since the closing of the first book, we know Jo has a soft spot for the misfit, and these two fit about as badly as anyone.
Scoring: Luna has her moments, mostly unseen. But as mightygodking put it, Neville Longbottom is fucking hardcore. Big win here.
> We already know the Big Three (now Four, if we count Ginny as
> Harry's official GF) will have plenty of scenes. I have a bad feeling
> Hagrid won't survive the book. Of the other students I'm most
> interested in seeing a nice payoff for Luna and Neville.
Hagrid's enough of a mentor that yeah, I can see him falling. Also Trelawney, just because I don't think the irony of a "seer" (even one as scattershot as Sybill) being fatally surprised is enough for Jo to resist.
Scoring: well, oops. And you could see Jo tease that, too. And mad props to Sybill for using a crystal ball as a melee weapon. I always liked her, and Emma Thompson kinda cements it for me.
Also, and sadly, it's about time -- gotta lose a Weasley. Hell, if a wizarding war does engulf the magical world and a significant percent of magic-users perish, the law of averages suggests one of them *has* to be a Weasley.
Scoring: Well, technically, lost about 1.04 Weasleys. And somewhere else I did guess that it'd be one of the twins, but not both.... So yeah, I'm not going to apologize for not seeing the ear coming.
> 6. Despite being Harry's foil for six novels, Draco Malfoy will not
> have a very satisfying payoff use in the final installment.
There's been so much potential for the Malfoys through this entire little endeavor, and they're one of the few missed opportunities, I think, in the series. Too much mustache-twirling, very little humanity about them. I don't think you can have a satisfying payoff for them -- or him, specifically -- anymore. But I don't doubt she'll give it a shot.
Scoring: I seriously don't get what the whole point of the Malfoys is anymore. They aren't even properly adversarial anymore. Just inept and pathetic and still somehow malevolent. They're obnoxious and tedious by their own existence and imposition on the plotline. And, honestly, Scorpius? Goddamn, the worst moment of the entire eye-rolling atrocity of the epilogue, which I hope for God's sake was written decades ago and left untouched by virtue of letting it remain static, because that's the only possible explanation for that. I'd laugh at it if I saw it in a fanfic.
My one want: bring back Cedric, so he can have a taco.
Scoring: Goddammit.