Blog Post #3 Ending

There were certain parts that the end of the series had that I enjoyed, while there were many I thought were lackluster as well. I thought the series ended well with a dramatic ending that lasted a while and kept me entertained throughout. The epilogue was also a nice addition; it allowed closure for a lot of the characters that were extremely important for the story. That being said, there were several moments at the conclusion of the story that I really didn’t care for.

The last two books in particular really built up Snape’s character. I felt that it was fairly obvious that Snape was not truly on Voldemort’s side. The way Rowling wrote his character throughout the series never really lead me to believe that he was a generic, flat, evil character. Due to this, I felt there was going to be a major revelation with his character. This revelation happened after his death when Harry viewed his memories through the pensieve after Voldemort had killed him. His death in particular, I felt was very weak. He went in a room with Voldemort and was killed. There wasn’t any really dramatic scene or anything, Rowling just killed him off. This was, in my opinion, one of the scenes in the book that had a lot of importance, but was poorly executed.

Another issue I had with the ending was the magic and explanation behind the ownership of wands; more specifically, the ownership issue with the elder wand. Suddenly the entire series boils down to how important it was that Harry stole Malfoy’s wand. It was by chance that Harry fought with Malfoy to disarm him and become the owner of the elder wand, and I feel it was a weak explanation for him to own the wand and be able to defeat Voldemort. There were many times throughout the series that wands were disarmed from people and this ownership issue never came up. Finally, above all, just because Harry owned the elder wand, I don’t see how this let Voldemort be killed, especially when Harry just used a disarming spell. Wands were taken and used against their owners multiple times in the series. I didn’t really appreciate the wand ownership ordeal, but despite this, I still felt that the climactic ending sequence at the castle was really the high point of the series; and I’m fine with how it ended.