Sorry this is late kids. Jetlag and all. But here it is, as promised: the Picks, Pans & Scans review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Remember, there are tons of spoilers in this thing so if you care, run away as quickly as possible. Enjoy! –Adan.

Brendan: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the best of all the Harry Potter series, and anyone who says otherwise is an ass. And with that, the opposing argument…
Adan: Alright there hoss. You’re gonna throw down right off the bat, are you?
Brendan: I came to play. I will defend this book’s honor.
Adan: Okay, then. This book is merely okay. Enjoyable in parts, but flawed overall. Let’s begin with the biggest of this book’s problems: Harry’s “death.” Don’t promise if you can’t deliver.
Brendan: What was the promise, and what failed to deliver? The Hallows remained Deathly to the end.
Adan: The promise was Harry’s death. There is one (or so) chapter in which Harry has to come to terms with dying for a cause, making this an epic story. But the author punks out instead and the Boy That Lived lives. You can’t make that kind of promise and not deliver.
Brendan: I don’t understand why an ending that tugs both ends of the emotional spectrum is a bail? There is death, yes, but like many heroic journeys, death is not the end. There are greater challenges.
Adan: You mean the stupid ass semantic victory over Voldemort? “I actually beat Malfoy, who beat Dumbledore; therefore I am the actual owner.” That’s almost worse than Eowyn’s semantic victory over the Ringwraith.
Brendan: The act of sacrifice is not the act of dying. The willingness to sacrifice is traditionally the greatest humanitarian value. And hey, she is no Man.
Adan: That’s bullshit is what that is.
Brendan: The problem with a series ending in death is twofold; one, as you say, it is exactly what was expected. Two, it is a downer and kills the ability to hope.
Adan: No it isn’t. Nobody ever expects the death of the main character. That’s why “Get Carter” is so damn awesome. And it isn’t a downer because the hero has died for a cause that is usually won through the hero’s death.
Brendan: But he died. Your bloodlust was appeased.
Adan: He didn’t fucking die. He took the scenic route through unconsciousness.
Brendan: Why must that be the end? Why should Harry’s entire existence be defined by Voldemort?
Adan: Because it has been for six books. Anything else is some kind of left field addition.
Brendan: Harry’s story is over. The story of The Boy Who Lived, his journey into the world of magic and majesty is at an end. This is what the afterward is all about.
Adan: Yeah, nineteen years in the future in some fan-fiction-y epilogue, which was also crap.
Brendan: It isn’t really about Harry’s life. He had a life before Hagrid landed on his doorstep and he had one in the nineteen missing years described. But this isn’t about his life, it is about his journey. To kill him makes it about his life. But there is more to life than what Voldemort decided.
Adan: His journey should have ended in death. Look, the difference between Harry dying and not dying is the difference between an epic story and just another fantasy novel.
Brendan: Bullshit. A seven year story is epic no matter how it ends.
Adan: Now that’s bullshit. Tell that to Laurell K. Hamilton.
Brendan: There is also a difference between what best serves a story and what a fan of the series wishes to see. That is the problem with expectations and an active audience. They become invested in the story, and then feel as though it is their story to persuade.
Adan: Yeah there is. A fan would want to see Harry live and the story would be better served by Harry’s death.
Brendan: You say that, but saying “Death makes it epic,” doesn’t really describe what serves the story.
Adan: The story is better as just another fantasy series instead of an epic?
Brendan: Dude, that means nothing. Those are just words.
Adan: This isn’t about Harry’s life, or his journey. This is about the magical world as a whole. After Harry dies, there are a bunch of other people who can take over, especially since Harry has done what he needed to do.
Brendan: What of the book’s content makes you think that?
Adan: The fact that while Harry, Hermione, and Ron are fucking about the woods of England, people are still fighting everywhere else. Badass Neville and his band are fighting at Hogwart’s. The Order is fighting somewhere. These people aren’t just sitting on their duffs waiting for Harry to save them all.
Brendan: He isn’t a tool. He is a character, a “person” who needn’t be defined by any one conflict.
Adan: He is a tool. He’s a tool that Dumbledore used. We are told as much, plain as day.
Brendan: Dumbledore believed in him, there is a difference. Dumbledore left the journey to chance.
Adan: Believed in his capacity as a tool, you mean. You use the right tool for the right job, and Harry was the right tool. As were his friends, incidentally.
Brendan: No. It was, perhaps, an experiment.
Adan: Yeah, that’s way better.
Brendan: It is, the idea is that the “right” side will prevail.
Adan: This doesn’t preclude Harry’s tool-ness.

Brendan: But let’s move on to that- the use of Dumbledore as a motivating factor, and even as a character, in this installment.
Adan: I didn’t like that his back story was essentially created whole cloth in this book. There were no pointers or foreshadowing in any previous book. This was just sloppy writing to me.
Brendan: Okay, well are we talking about what we like about the book, or are we talking about how the book served as an exemplar of how to pay off an “epic” story?
Adan: Look, sloppy writing is sloppy writing, regardless of the genre. There must be narrative flow.
Brendan: His duel with Grimenwald is addressed in the first book. It is laid out on the Chocolate Frog card. His crooked nose is a constant.
Adan: Sure, but his friendship with Grimenwald and his shared ideals are not, to say nothing of the fact that his brother has apparently been living in Hogsmeade this entire time. We couldn’t have addressed that in a previous installment? Perhaps mentioned a sister, just once?
Brendan: Voldemort’s fear of him as a great wizard is always alluded to, but never described. We didn’t meet Sirius in the first book; these things come up as they need to.
Adan: But we talked about Sirius and his relationship to the Potters in the first book. Hagrid is riding his motorcycle.

And to get back to your point about this being about Harry: no it isn’t, and we get clues to that in the story. The Boy Who Lived could have easily of been Neville; this story has always been about Voldemort and his machinations and fuck-ups.
Brendan: It is Harry’s journey. He acts as our eyes into this magical world. His fears, his wonder echoes our own. Neville’s story would have been about overcoming expectations and bitchy grandmas.
Adan: It is only Harry’s journey because Voldemort made it so. Like I said (and like the story said) it could just as easily have been Neville.
Brendan: Yes, but by deciding to make it about Harry, we learn more about the world as an outsider. Yes, it could have been Neville, but it is the choices that are made that decide the path.
Adan: We, the readers, would have anyway. And it’s Voldemort’s choices that decided the path.
Brendan: Among others. But as a reader, we couldn’t learn via Neville.
Adan: Yes, we could have. We just would have done so at an earlier age.
Brendan: We needed a fresh perspective, one with reactions akin to our own, to fully appreciate the breadth of this world.
Adan: Look, I’m not particularly interested in writing fan-fiction here, so let’s just get back to Dumbledore and his made-up back story.
Brendan: Ok, Dumbledore. Powerful wizards will have interest in Dark magic, as it is a powerful aspect of magic. Much like the Force. There is also a need for Albus to be sympathetic to Muggles. Because otherwise he would have agreed with Voldemort. By creating a back story where his experimentations dabbled on the side of the wrong, he is a much more believable champion of good.
Adan: Sure, but some of this should have been made clear in previous installments. To shove it all in this final chapter makes it seem rushed and not entirely thought out.
Brendan: Why? Did you wonder? Harry didn’t. And that is the point. Look, novel protagonists are, basically, blank slates. That is how we like it.
Adan: Of course I wondered. That man was basically a saint! I wondered all the time if he had a dark history, but was shoehorned into believing he didn’t until it was sprung upon me.
Brendan: Right. He was saintly and kind and childish and good. Well hey; I thought Snape was evil until the very end.
Adan: Snape was evil. None of this love saves the day bullshit. He was evil until Voldemort killed Lily. And then he was just evil to Voldemort.
Brendan: A child isn’t evil. Draco isn’t evil. A child is a product of the world around him.
Adan: Snape was working for Voldemort until Lily’s death. He was a Death Eater, happily killing Muggles until Lily died. But that’s neither here nor there.
Brendan: Actually, it is. Because this book is as much about Snape as Dumbledore.
Adan: I thought it was about Harry. Why did Snape have to go out like a punk? For that matter, why did the lion’s share of the deaths have to happen off panel?
Brendan: Because that is scarier.
Adan: It’s scarier that they die off panel? No, that’s just lazy.
Brendan: The fact is, in a war this epic, many things will happen beyond the eyes of the soldier.
Adan: I don’t entirely hold with the theory that what I can picture is scarier than what I am shown. Sometimes, somebody’s gonna have a way better imagination than I am. And those people usually write for a living.
Brendan: Okay, well let’s go death by death, case by case. The first death was that of Hedwig.
Adan: That was on-panel, and a very good death. The author showed this wasn’t another one of those play fights. This is a real war.
Brendan: This was a pivotal moment to me. The loss of innocence and the fact that nothing was sacred were vital in starting the book off running.
Adan: Hedwig represents Harry’s tether to the magical world. Hedwig was there at the beginning, and now he’s not.
Brendan: Yeah, and who likes to see pets die? Even the loss of the wand hurt.
Adan: Yeah, that hurt a lot. That almost hurt more than losing Hedwig.
Brendan: Next, I will throw out the near-death of Hagrid. This was very important to me.
Adan: This was more pussyfooting to me. I guess to foreshadow the big pussyfoot later.
Brendan: What purpose would killing Hagrid serve?
Adan: None, but pretending to kill him doesn’t serve any either. It’s just a shock moment. It’s, I’m sorry, lazy writing.
Brendan: The fact that a chapter closes with a potential death goes to show that this is a story where anything could happen. It doesn’t mean it will happen, but the threat of the gun is as powerful as the gun itself.
Adan: It’s the cliffhanger at the end of every comic: “Will the hero survive?” Of course he will. You’re just trying to drum up sales.
Brendan: Drumming up drama does not equal drumming up sales. Also, we knew someone was going to die during that journey. It was clear.
Adan: During the escape from 4 Privet Drive, you mean?
Brendan: Yeah. Would stripping Harry of his closest familial figure have further motivated him to take down Voldemort? Or would it have made him reckless and unreliable?
Adan: A little of both, I think. But that’s not as important as who actually died.
Brendan: Losing Mad Eye made Harry accountable for his own fate. There was no safety net left.
Adan: The baddest Auror dies off-panel, and the reader is left caring more about a dead owl and a twin’s lost ear.
Brendan: It isn’t an action story.
Adan: Obviously not. Nor should it be. Nonetheless, there is obviously some action. I will say that this sequence is redeemed slightly by the fact that Mad Eye’s mad eye is found later on Umbridge’s door.
Brendan: How does it redeem the scene?
Adan: That was a pretty awesome scene, and helped to cement Mad Eye’s death (”there is no death without a body”) and just ratchet up Umbridge’s overall dickishness. Plus, Harry goes a little crazy. The best scenes, I feel, are the ones in which Harry stops thinking like the adult he’s not, and start’s thinking like the teenager he is. It doesn’t matter that they’re at the Ministry for a reason, Mad Eye must be avenged. Or at least respected after death.
Brendan: All that Mad Eye is really important for is to serve as a professional hero to Harry. He gives Harry a purpose beyond Hogwarts. By dying the structure of the Order is compromised and the danger mounts. And I think one of the best scenes is his calling out of Lupin, and that was a very adult course of action/manipulation.
Adan: Yeah, that was pretty sweet.
Brendan: Anyways, next death: Scrimgeour. Again, off screen. Does it matter?
Adan: I guess he has to die so that Harry, et al. have no one inside the Ministry.
Brendan: Doesn’t the growing pile of dead bodies serve to illustrate the power of the Death Eaters?
Adan: Yeah, it does. This is actually a good off-panel death.
Brendan: Also, he reached out to the trio. There was an opportunity for unity, but they refused.
Adan: Scrimgeour is little more than a figurehead, and his death is also a symbol. Yeah, this was a good off-panel death.
Brendan: Okay. Next.
Adan: Wormtail?
Brendan: Yeah, and Dobby. That’s a two-fer. This was the most emotionally charged scene of the book, to me.
Adan: Wormtail’s death was very good because this was foreshadowed like three books ago.
Brendan: Yeah, he wasn’t going to be living. He lived long enough.
Adan: We the readers had been told that there was now powerful magic between Harry and Wormtail and this is how it manifested itself. Dobby’s death, on the other hand, is just another shock to me. Harry needed to somehow pay for getting them all caught and this is how the author chose to punish him.
Brendan: It is so much more. Dobby was the responsibility of Harry.
Adan: I think Dobby’s burial is so much more. The death itself, meh.
Brendan: Well they go hand in hand. The fact was we were as deep in the maw of the villains, we were as close to defeat as we had yet come. It was Harry’s foolhardiness, yes, but it is also Dobby’s animal-like love.
Brendan: It is one of the things that proves Dumbledore’s assertation.
Adan: What assertation?
Brendan: Love is the most powerful magic of all.
Adan: Ugh. Sure.
Brendan: Dobby owed Harry his life. He paid only what he was willing to pay. Grimace if you like, but that is the thesis of this entire series. Love trumps Hate every time.
Adan: I think I will grimace, thank you. And yeah, that’s Snape all over.
Brendan: Also, I never really liked Dobby. He was annoying and a burden and talked stupid. Yet his spirit overcame, and he was as important a character as any. He also served as a signal of the human/ non-human relations that were a macrochasm of the wizard/ muggle issue
Adan: I agree with half of that.

Oh Shit, we forgot about Ted Tonks and the other goblin. This is the first time that ancillary characters are killed simply to kill off characters. They were killed just to show how bad the wizarding world now was.
That was all there deaths were good for.
Brendan: Yeah, they were in close proximity to the gang, and it was about how lucky/skilled they were to go uncaught.
Adan: Maybe. I don’t like that Ted was Tonks dad and therefore was important only by association. It was like “Hey, I don’t want to kill off any actually important characters, but let’s pretend that I have.”
Brendan: What good does killing off major characters do? Why is that better than killing other people who are important to the other characters? In either case it ups the ante for the characters within the text, and that transfers to the reader.
Adan: None, but again, there’s no reason to pretend to kill of major characters. It smacks of manipulation. If this important, then it doesn’t matter who dies. Don’t try to force me to care.
Brendan: Death is important by nature of being death. It also is important because it shows exactly what it was Voldemort was so desperate to avoid. It was the finality of it.
Brendan: Next. I think the blood clears until the Fred Weasley mishap. Feel free to tell me why this one sucky.
Adan: No, this is actually also a good death, even though I personally wish the set could have been preserved (as a fan). This is actually the closest this book gets to killing off a major character.
Brendan: I agree as a fan, but I also knew as a writer/critic that not every Weasley could make it. Can’t have both twins.
Adan: Yeah, I assumed as much, though I would have preferred almost any other Weasley besides the twins.
Brendan: And Dobby had more lines, I think.
Adan: More lines than Fred? You’re out of your mind! Fred and George have been in every book.
Brendan: Yeah, but that was mostly George saying he was Fred.

The Percy moment of redemption as a final movement for Fred was poetic and tragic. But don’t worry, he totally has unfinished business as a ghost. Though he’s no coward.
Adan: Next death: Snape. He goes out like a punk. What’s up with that?
Brendan: What makes it punk-ish?
Adan: He just sits there and a fucking snake eats him. He even screams like a girl. He doesn’t fight back or anything. He’s also a smart guy, and should have seen this situation coming.
Brendan: Voldemort betrayed the one he knows to be most loyal to him; he’s pretty evil. This was the risk Snape ran for seventeen years.
Adan: I understand Snape wanted to keep his double agent status secret, but when you’re about to die, all pretense gets scattered to the four winds in favor of survival. He didn’t even lift his wand.
Brendan: He isn’t a warrior; he is a lifelong whipping boy. He can duel kids, great, but that doesn’t make him so tough
Adan: He’s a potions master, as well as a Dark Arts master. Dude’s badass.
Brendan: This scene is all about the betrayal to me, and I think it serves the purpose.
Adan: Yeah, but he still goes out like a punk.
Brendan: Killing him is an afterthought, despite all he does. Plus, Nagini don’t play. We’re left with Remus and Tonks. Complain away.
Adan: And Colin.
Brendan: Ahh, right.
Adan: No. There is no complaining for Tonks and Remus. They were warriors in the middle of a battle, and sometimes an Aveda Kedavra spell just hits you when no one is looking. They died, and that was that.
Brendan: Ahh, what a relief. With Harry as the kid’s godfather, they were doomed anyways.
Adan: Colin, on the other hand, is another throwaway character that was killed simply to pad the numbers. It’s another manipulation moment. Why was he even there? Weren’t all underage kids supposed to be gone?
Brendan: He was half-blood, and had snuck back into the school.
Adan: Yeah, he snuck back in to pad the numbers.
Brendan: I would say that overall, the deaths of the book accomplish the goal of making this story (I’m gonna say it) epic.
Adan: But then there’s Harry. Harry’s “death” was emotional manipulation, pure and simple. I am a big hater of emotional manipulation. I don’t like being forced to care about something simply because an author has made it emotional. Harry dwells on his death for about a chapter before he “dies.” Then he doesn’t, thereby invalidating that chapter.
Brendan: Fiction is emotional manipulation.
Adan: Yes, but you’re not supposed to be able to tell.
Brendan: His struggle to accept death is the whole story of the three brothers, and accepting death. He was willing to serve the greater good. That is different from having to do it.
Adan: Yes, he was. Too bad it didn’t matter. It was invalidated by the fact that he didn’t actually die.
Brendan: You were invalidated by the fact that he didn’t die. You don’t get to decide what happens. It isn’t your book. It is a book that exists for you to interpret and enjoy. You don’t get the right to say “this should have happened.”
Adan: Nobody gets to decide what gets to happen; it’s nobody’s book. And at the same time, it’s everybody’s book. And I do get that right. I am after all, a reader.
Brendan: No, it is JK Rowling’s book.
Adan: No it isn’t. It wasn’t the moment she put it into the world. It no longer belongs just to her. It belongs to us all. Her interpretations are no more or less important than anybody else’s. She can say what was supposed to happen, but if the text doesn’t support her, then she’s full of shit.
Brendan: It isn’t interpretation. Her word is gospel. It’s her world, and you are visiting.
Adan: That is bullshit.
Brendan: No, it isn’t. She made the rules.
Adan: The text exists on its own. It has no master, nor does it recognize any.
Brendan: Right, the text exists.
Adan: On its own.
Brendan: It is whole and complete of itself.
Adan: Yup.
Brendan: Again, you don’t get to decide what it should do. It isn’t a Choose-Your-Own adventure.
Adan: No I don’t. However, I do get to interpret it. And my interpretation is that the text would have been better if Harry had died.
Brendan: That isn’t an interpretation. It is an assertion.
Adan: Of course it’s an interpretation..
Brendan: An interpretation is taking what is there, and spinning it in such a way that it reveals greater truth. You are saying what you wish had happened. There are two worlds to analyze from. You can live inside the book and feel from there, you can internalize the justice and the injustice, you can ride the ride. Or, you can see it as you wish it to be, and never be satisfied.
Adan: I have taken Harry’s non-death, seen that it has sucked, and spinned it in such a way to reveal the greater truth that it would have been better if Harry had died.
Brendan: No matter what happens, it happened. Otherwise you’re left with fan-fic.
Adan: I’m not writing a separate book here. I am merely calling it like I see it.
Brendan: Think of it like this: There is the world. It is governed by its own set of rules. There is what happens, and what should happen. They may not coincide. From there, we can take the sum of both, and learn. That is what happens here. We may not like what happens, but it happened that way. If you are someone who identifies with characters in the book, you will emulate the feelings there.
Adan: Yes, I have acknowledged that, and have found it wanting.
Brendan: Right, well sometimes the world isn’t what we want it to be. In this text, I choose to enjoy it for what it is, rather than what it would have been had I been the one playing God.
Adan: It’s not a question about playing God.
Brendan: Yes it is. It is about deciding what happens.
Adan: It’s a question of what would have made the text better.
Brendan: It would have made it a dead end.
Adan: It didn’t happen that way, and I can’t make it happen that way, but there’s no reason we as critics can’t compare the two.
Brendan: It would have made the story mean one thing, when the intent was obviously that it meant something else.
Adan: I don’t see that.
Brendan: Yes, well as I say, this is Harry vs. Voldemort, not the Life and Times of Harry Potter
Adan: That’s not what you said at all. You specifically said that this was the Life and Times of Harry Potter. That’s why Potter couldn’t die.
Brendan: No I didn’t. I said it is about this one journey. The Life and Times would imply that it is about the end. Let’s get to that: The afterward.
Adan: Ugh.
Brendan: Here is my take: we are given the information needed to satisfy the basic needs of someone who does want to know everything that Harry and gang have been up to. We see who is with whom, and what bonds last. We also see Harry send his kids off to school, which puts the final parenthetical on the entry point to both the Potter series and the magical world.
Adan: Except we know nothing about the magical world.
Brendan: Hogwart’s is the magical world.
Adan: Are the elves freed? Who is the headmaster at Hogwart’s? What about the goblins and the banking? How bad was Voldemort’s coup for the magical world? Do the Muggles know anything? We get none of this. Instead we get fan-fiction about who ended up with whom, and who’s named after whom.
Brendan: You can’t call it fan-fic if the author wrote it. Except for Chris Claremont and X-Men: The End.
Adan: ZING!
Brendan: Why do you need that information anyway? Again, this isn’t about the magical world, but rather Harry’s take and place in it. We could have had drawn out funeral and recap, but it would have taken away from the fact that this is about Harry.
Adan: Because this information is important to the world.
Brendan: Read the first chapter of Sorcerer’s Stone. It isn’t the magical world we are brought into; it is the story of a little boy who loses his parents.
Adan: Read the first chapter of this book. There is no Harry Potter in the first chapter.
Brendan: Right, instead we see his opposition. Still a reflection of him.
Adan: Out in the magical world. And I call shenanigans because it could have been Neville. I think that right there is the most damning evidence against Harry being as important as you make him out to be.
Brendan: It isn’t about Harry being important in the world of the book. It is about him being important as a tether for us as readers into the world of the book. That is his ultimate purpose.
Adan: I’m glad the guy I’ve been reading about for the past ten years is little more than a vehicle for my understanding.
Brendan: He is meant to make us learn and identify with the world, not defeat Voldemort or find peace or die. That is what any protagonist is.
Adan: Dude, that doesn’t even make sense.
Brendan: Fiction is not merely a vehicle to peer into fake worlds.
Adan: No, they’re vehicles to peer into the real world. Which is why elves’ freedom and goblin’s place in the world is important.
Brendan: They win. They fight Voldemort. They liberate themselves. It probably doesn’t happen overnight.
Adan: We don’t know that.
Brendan: Yes we do.
Adan: We get an incomplete world.
Brendan: By the rules set out, we know the outcomes.
Adan: We don’t even know the rules.
Brendan: Look, Harry is an Auror as much as he marries Ginny, the logic prevails.

Look, let’s get to it. Why did you like this book? Why did you like any of these books?
Adan: Because Neville is a badass. Because the twins were awesome. Because Harry tells Ron “Did you expect to find a Horcrux every other day?” We had pages and pages of nothing really happening except traveling, like Sam and Frodo in Two Towers. The characters suffer, therefore the readers must too. That is good fiction. And super important: Neville is a badass! Did you see how he stood up to Voldemort and hacked off that stupid snake’s head? That was awesome! How about you? You couldn’t have loved everything.
Brendan: To me, this was all about payoff. It was a payoff to the issues laid out from page one of the series. It was about Dumbledore using his Deluminator in the beginning, and Ron figuring out the real purpose right when he needed to. It was about figuring out exactly who Albus Dumbledore was, and what made him that way. It was about Snape in the same way. It was the culmination of a masterfully orchestrated scheme. It was about Ron becoming the man Hermione needed him to be right when he was ready. It was about Neville being de-facto AS important as Harry, and contributing to the downfall of Voldemort. It was all of it, and it was what I wanted it to be.
Adan: So you hated nothing? Lame.
Brendan: Look, I thought it got slow in the middle. I thought that Hermione or Ron was going to die. I thought Hagrid would bring a legion of Giants to Hogwart’s door. But I see why it wasn’t that way, and I don’t wish it were what I wanted it to be. I’m not the author, and if I were it wouldn’t have been as good. I’m not willing to sacrifice the things that I wished as a compassionate person to the things I want as a reader and voyeur. I lived and died with each page, and I got out of it what I hoped to.
Adan: You’re gonna be the kind of guy that’s going to make me ultimately hate this book because you can’t find any fault with it. It happened with “Gladiator” and “Return of the King.” I enjoyed both of those movies until people couldn’t shut up about how awesome they were. They were okay at best, as was this book.
Brendan: Well, that’s your problem.
Adan: My problem is with the fantasy genre as a whole (not just Harry Potter). That problem is that magic is mutable and has no fixed position. The only rule of magic we get in this series is that food can’t be created out of nothing. And apparently it’s one of five. This is why Harry’s resurrection is fishy and manipulative. He should’ve died, but because of magic I don’t understand because it isn’t really explained to me beforehand, he doesn’t. There’s a connection between Voldemort and Harry, and slowly but surely, this connection gets more and more powerful until it finally resurrects Harry from death like he was the Lamb of God (he even beats out Jesus because Jesus was a slowpoke in coming back).

My problem is with killing off minor characters to make something seem important. Yes, sometimes minor characters will die because death is random and unseen, but to kill no major characters makes cheapens death to the point of making it mean nothing. It’s just a lazy writer’s way of making something seem important, whether it is or isn’t. If something is important, then it will be by the strength of your writing. You don’t need to shock your readers into believing it is important.

My problem is with critics or reviewers or what have you who don’t point out flaws in works. Nothing in this world is perfect and in not pointing out flaws, you do a disservice to the audience, the authors, and yourself, to say nothing of the works that don’t have as many flaws. You can’t love everything, and you can’t pretend that everything is awesome.

This book was merely okay. It had way too many flaws to pretend otherwise.

Brendan: I feel as though critiquing the action that takes place within the text does a disservice to the text, because it is only skin deep. I can go through any literature, a film, a comic, a song, and say that it would mean more to me if X had happened instead of Y. I can gripe about what would have worked for me, but that is just going to be griping. I don’t disagree that it is important to point out the flaws in a work, but I’m more interested in what makes an “A” and “A,” and not what could have made it an “A+.” I also don’t think that the only way a book can be made “good” or “important” is by major characters dying. In the Lord of the Rings example, none of the Fellowship die within the trilogy, except Boromir. The hobbits, Gimli, Aragorn, and Legolas die in the afterwards, when the story is done. It doesn’t lessen the stakes, nor does it cheapen the victory. I’m sorry, but attitudes like that make up why Superman #75 is the most well known comic to people who don’t read comics, or why fanboys clamor at the idea that Cap should have died at the end of Civil War, and not in the aftermath. In those cases, death is used solely for shock value, and create a false sense of breadth to the work. As I said, this book was entirely about payoff for me, and to waste time picking apart the book that could have been instead of the book that was is energy wasted, and misses the point of enjoying literature.

But we have talked about this about as much as any two people could. If you made it this far in our tirade, we hope you’ll come back next week when we get back to important issues like why Tony Stark is such a bitch, and which superhero has the biggest balls.