Well, I wasn't entirely accurrate in my predictions but not bad on the whole I think, better than 50-50 I guess.
Posting spoiler stuff in comments just in case, but seriously, if you've not finished the book what the hell are you doing reading MY blog? Go finish the damn book!
I can't wait to see what she writes next. Rumor is that it's for a slightly younger age group, so hopefully Del and Liam can grow up with a series while they actually remember it instead of just looking at pictures of their tiny selves at release parties (I'll post pictures to the photo website).
A warning for folks who haven't read the book yet and may read it aloud (or listen to the audiobook) with young children - there is swearing in this book. It's a war. It's not pretty. It's a bloodbath. The people who deluded themselves that there would only be 2 deaths in the book from what JKR said were kidding themselves. It's a freaking wild roller coaster that I wouldn't have traded a minute of, but damn was I glad to be able to take breaks and snuggle my kids and I think the lactating hormones helped a bit with coping. Damn. I cried several times, but she brilliantly mixed in almost as many times to laugh. As much as I still dearly love the series, Liam and Del (and any younger siblings) will DEFINATELY have to be of a certain maturity level before I really let them have access to this book, especially. It is really emotionally challenging. 11 year olds are going to be really torn up. But bless her, she left us our fan fiction options, even with the epilogue included I'm still sprouting ideas.
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Oh my gods. Well, that's another word that shows up in this book more than any other - God. I was surprised to see that one show up so much, though still religion really wasn't part of the book.
Well, didn't see that coming with Wormtail obviously, tho I foresaw Fred's death. A bit surprised, still, that he was the only Weasley to die (I was worried bout Molly there in the battle with Bellatrix). I'm glad she found a way for Harry to be the instrument of Voldemort's death without becoming a murderer, since it wasn't a deadly curse Harry threw at the end.
I'm pretty sure Remus and Tonks were the deaths she hadn't intended, and really that was fucking pointless - excuse me, rather pissed about that one, especially since really there seemed no point aside from letting Remus walk with Harry, Lily, James, and Sirius while walking through the dementors, there was absolutely no plot reason to kill off Tonks instead of leaving her to raise Teddy (a name which particularly annoys for personal reasons - the name of the one boyfriend who ever dared hit me, but that's a side point) - from the epilogue it doesn't sound like Harry raised his godson and the thought that the baby needed him never really entered his mind, so why the hell kill the kid's parents? As happy as I was to have the little technicolored pup show up, I'm pissed that she even wrote Tonks into the battle in the first place, even tho it was a nice little nod to "Maiden, Mother, Crone" to have Ginny, Tonks, and Mrs. Longbottom in the Room of Requirement when Harry got back there. There was absolutely no point in having Tonks die and it felt like it was thrown in there as an afterthought, especially since by the time Harry is made aware of Tonks and Remus' death, he's trying to steel himself emotionally anyway and Tonks' death has very little time to have an impact. Given that the Stone of Ressurection still obviously works, though Harry says he's not going to go find it, he also doesn't plan to destroy it and Ron and Hermione hear him say this and could have a reasonably easy time locating it (err.. look for the place where it looks like a duel happened recently in the forest, feel around for a rock with markings you'll recognize in the area where the grass is crushed from having someone laying prone on it while they were dead for a bit, should be close-by - that'd be easier to find than Hufflepuff's cup was, logically). Fainficlet #1, having Hermione or Ron ressurrect at least Tonks, if not both her and Lupin, so they can raise their kid, since there's nothing to contradict that in the epilogue.
Really rather disappointed that life-debts seem to have so little real effect unless the moron who owes one tries to actually directly off the person. Clearly Draco and whichever cronie (I can never keep Crabbe and Goyle straight) that got pulled from the fire would both also be owing Harry life-debts... completely shrugged off.
And. Really. Love of Lily? *shakes head* well written but I've gotten so sick of it as a fan clique that it annoyed me a bit. Especially when there was a perfectly good other plot device there to use. But that could be my vanity (and lack of sleep and whining toddler) influencing my perspective.
Yay for One Big Happy Weasley Family... 19+16=35 so Ginny should have plenty more fertile time to have a couple more babies ;)
Surprised she didn't make use of the wizard cards but no big deal really - it was mostly that I knew that there had to be more Harry/Dumbledore conversation. And I'm glad she showed Dumbledore's faults so clearly - made him human instead of an icon. Harry, and the readers, needed that, needed to know he was fallable too.
Still rather surprised that Nagini actually was a horcrux after all, even if Harry's scar was an unintentional additional horcrux (it's not specified but I still get the impression that the voldibit was localized, Dumbledore worried it was becoming systematic, which is hinted at and i caught it early in the book talking about how emotional investment in the horcrux makes some of the voldibit seap into the victim.)
Also, Snape... still with the flippin' bat references for no apparent reason, still with the cover-all-flesh thing that's never explained. Various things like that (and Tonks' totally pointless death) left me feeling like the book was written in too much of a hurry. I think she really liked the release date (3 Hallows x 7 Horcruxes, in the 7th month of 2007, very pretty) but it could have been fleshed out a bit better in some parts.
Oh, and a prediction I'd forgotten to include but was a little off the mark - I'd thought that Aunt Muriel's tiara was the Ravenclaw horcrux... even into reading most of the book, I suspected that tiara (after all, it'd explain a bit of Muriel's nastiness too, tho maybe Molly's family is just like that? Muriel must, after all, be either from Molly's side of the family or married in since there hadn't been a female Weaseley born in several generations acording to JKR's website - yet another detail that was competely overlooked). I also had thought (and forgotten to write) that Ravenclaw's item would be something connected to the tarot suit of Penticles - I think the crown is close enough, but it is definately a weaker reference/connection.
And I really thought the darn doe Patronus was Ginny's. Way to throw off the reader, Jo, having it be an obviously female animal and misleading me at least to think it was an Arthurian reference (lady of the lake, leading Harry to the sword) but still - Love of Lily? *shakes head* I can only imagine how many adolescent boys sneered their little cheeks off at that. It's not a flippin' romance novel series. The Love of Lily stuff really made me gag, and it STILL didn't really give much flavor to the explaining Petunia thing (tho nice to see that "that disgusting boy" wasn't James - nice twist there at least).
And we never did see who the heck it was that displayed magic at a later age - wonder if that got cut or if she forgot that she'd mentioned it in interviews. I still think she ment it to be Dudley, especially with the exchange we saw between him and Harry at the beginning. Plenty of room for fans to play in there still I think.
So I was right about Harry inheriting things from Dumbledore, but not totally on the money... I knew he was goign to need to look into that pensieve again somehow, the way she did it left them with a bit less heavy luggage I guess.
And obviously I was totally on the money about Harry/Ginny, but I was in good company there. I'm glad that the major prediction a lot of people seemed to be making - that Harry would have to give up his magical abilities - was way off the mark (obviously, at the end after coming back from the dead, he was way more powerful, and even if he's not USING the Hallows, he's still the master of all of them so he'd still have the power that confired msot likely). That theory was grating onme a bit for some reason. Mostly that Harry had already sacrified enough and that seemed like overkill I guess.
I was right about Fred dying. Really didn't help steel me against it, predicting that it was coming. That one had me crying and had to set the book down for a little bit. I'm still surprised that was the only Weasley casualty. I bet it was Percy who got the reprieve. I think she really missed playing the emotional impact of that one up, not letting us see George's reactions to it. If her editors cut this stuff, they deserve some major smacking upside the head.
Was right about RAB, but then again so were the majority of the fans pretty quickly. See, Serena, he really was dead, didn't even make it off the island and by his own intentions. And I was right that Kreacher had had to drink the potion, though not by Regulus' hand and that was a nice touch. Letting Kreacher be redeemed was also really nice. How nice of her to have both of the major theories of where the locket went - Kreacher had it but Dung stole it from him directly, then Umbridge got it when he was trying to fence it not knowing what it was.
I still contend that Dumbledore wasn't killed by an AK - it doesn't match what we witness when LV does them, then people still just crumple/fall where they're at, no lifting invovled. Nice touch with having the fact that Draco disarmed Dumbledore being what passed the ownership of the wand along to Draco and then to Harry, even tho Snape did the deed.
OK, too exhausted to analyze the rest of my accuracies... I ws more acurate than Trelawney at least (but nice to see the woman has a good throwing arm at least, and a use for the divintation tols she's really not so adept with ;) ).
head is about to hit the keyboard. eyes crossing in fatigue. maybe more later
Not only was it not a deadly curse, but Harry gave Voldemort a chance to save himself - by asking him to try to feel some remorse. It was a long shot, but at least he got a chance. He just chose not to take advantage of it.
The love of Lily thing wasn't romantic. You saw the memory - they were close friends long before puberty. I don't think it was ever a romantic thing. Anyone who thinks it must have been romantic is making the same mistake the H/Hr idiots made.
Oh, another thought. There's an explanation for why Snape's AK didn't behave the way Voldy's did. Like I said before (and like Harry observed before), the more practiced and adept a wizard is, the more efficient and less flashy the spells get. Fewer flashes of light or loud bangs or smoke. Remember that Dumbledore apparates silently. Voldemort has had lots and lots of practiced with AK, so of course he's likely to have it down to an art - doing only what the spell's supposed to do and no more. Snape, who has had less practice with it (and is younger), is more likely to cause more side effects with his AK - such as lifting the victim and knocking him backwards.
showing remorse wouldn't have saved his life, only his soul which LV didn't value anyway.
love of lily - part where dumbledore asks "still" and snape makes his patronus, that's a romantic love indication. argument being that your patronus form doesn't take on something resembling a sibling's, tonks took on the form of the person she loved romantically.
your theory on snape's ak differing from lv's doesn't work - we saw crouch jr do an ak on the spider, it just crumpled then and he was an even younger individual than snape, even less experienced.
typing around baby, excuse typos and lack of capitals.
Crouch JR was an actual Death Eater, and probably relished killing; I wouldn't be surprised if he'd had a lot more experience with it than Snape, whose service to Voldemort was mostly espionage.
Tonks's patronus is not evidence that a patronus can't take the form of someone you love platonicly. Do you think Harry was romantically in love with his father? Proof that one thing is possible is not evidence that a different thing is impossible.
There's no reason to think that Crouch Jr would have had more experience as an actual Death Eater than Snape - Snape WAS an actual Death Eater until the Potters were targeted, a span of at least a year or two. Indications are that Crouch Jr was younger than Snape by at least a year, and it seems like he barely had time to do anything as a Death Eater other than help (not even by himself!) torture the Longbottoms. No reason to believe that EITHER had cast an AK before, and definately no reason to believe that Crouch Jr is a more powerful wizard than Snape - Snape is pretty darn powerful.
Harry's patronus is it's "native" form, it hasn't changed for love, it's an indication that he is, at his core, his father's son, weither he knows it or not. It's the fact that the patronus CHANGED that's important - the doe was not Snape's native patronus and Dumbledore is aware of this from the comment. I really doubt your patronus would change to reflect your best friend - else the Marauders and HRH would have at least related forms one would think. You think that Snape's depth of *platonic* feelings for Lily were stronger than Hermione's for Harry?
And no, proof that one thing is possible is not evidence that another is impossible, but it definately tells you when you're probably sniffing up the wrong tree. Harry's patronus being a stag is also reminiscent of a phrase that recurrs in "The Mists of Avalon", not sure if it was something MZB put in there or if it's drawn from Celtic mythology (and can't look it up right now, Del's starting to fuss) "What of the King Stag when the young stag is grown?"
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