Why HP7 Sux

Now, I know that this is merely a continuation of our earlier conversation, but I would prefer to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. Now, I do not actually plan to include textual evidence, but if I do, it will be from the British version of the book (I had to get it. The cover was too awesome to miss. Little did I know...)

Now, without further explanation, I present:

Reasons why Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sucked. Part I.

Characters:
Harry Potter: The epitome of Deus Ex Machina. While some argue that this is just a sign that he has matured as a character, mature characters have developed and specific traits that they stick to. Harry, though it is stated otherwise, does not. The first trait one thinks of Harry is brave. He easily accepts that his death is necessary to end Voldemort, he fights valiantly throughout the book, and he does a list of spectacular achievements. But the final battle does not take place until Harry is certain of his victory conditions. He knows the ins and outs of his opponent, better than Voldemort understood Harry. In fact, for all of their time connected, in the end Harry must've used the connection to far more effect than Voldemort. Another trait often attributed to Harry is that he is humble. Yet, in the three pages of their show-down, Harry spends the entire time detailing why victory is his. You want to know what image this conjures up? The ending fight of Book 4, where Voldemort explains how he survived all these years. Except, that took one and half pages. Would this make Harry just a conniving and methodical as Voldemort?
And this does not even begin in the second half of the book. In the very beginning of the novel, Harry is packing his staff, and eyes a newspaper about Rita Skeeter's book. How does Harry react? He naturally tosses the paper aside, shouting "LIES!" and visibly upsetting his lawn-cutting neighbor. But, when Harry picks up the book after his dodgy escape from Bathilda Bagshot's home, Harry feels a guilty pleasure in finding out the things Dumbledore never bothered to tell him. By the end of the reading, Harry is convinced that Rita's assertions have some weight of truth to them. Now, hold on- this is RITA SKEETER we're talking about. This woman has been manipulating facts since book 4, and Harry would rather choose to believe in her insinuations than the most important task Harry's great father-figure bestowed upon him? Rubbish.

Voldemort: The character I have the biggest problem with. Voldemort is supposedly the greatest Dark Wizard since, um, Grindelwald, but we rarely get to see him use that Dark Magic. In fact, after the first movie, there was less and less magic in each consecutive iteration. So, just when we're ready to see some real bloody wandwork, we get... a long camping trip. That's it? The duels are short and Voldemort uses only one friggin' spell in the entire book. I don't care if its your trademark buddy, but as a Dark Wizard, there are much more heinous things you could do than just off someone. Bellatrix, in a sense, was more evil than Voldemort in that she tortures, maims scars and mentally incapacitates her victims. We never see Voldemort even take the time to really kill something except in book six, where it mentions that little Tom Riddle hung rabbits from the Orphanage rafters. My problem doesn't just lay with Voldy's effect in book 7- it's with his entire character. Nobody is pure friggin' evil. Book six was Rowling's chance to tap into the origins of this character, add some meat to his existence. Instead what we get is a murdering ten-year-old, a sixteen-year-old murderer and a seductive twenty-year-old (you guessed it) murderer. There was no character, no depth. Just a man whose ability to love was completely forgotten in his creation. The only time he ever shows any real inkling of regret was when he ordered Nagini to kill Severus Snape. (And I quote: "'I regret it.'") This, after he ordered a SNAKE that happened to be one of his HORCRUXES to bite and POISON his RIGHT HAND MAN into a slow, but penultimate death. The first death in the ENTIRE BOOK not committed through a wand, and it had to a SNAKE BITE ordered by VOLDEMORT. Voldemort, whose only spell is a green flash that instantly severs the connection between the body and soul, considers a slow, painful, "regrettable" death to be a more humane way to deal out punishment. Also, consider the fact that wands respond to a VICTOR. Who was the real victor in that battle? The snake. If anything, the Elder Wand, if Voldemort had assumed correctly, would've fallen into the "hands" of his pet snake as a result.

Albus Dumbledore: The man whose was greater than any man. Chopped down to human-sized bits. It was certainly understandable that Rowling wanted to explore the character, but not to the extent that it would eventually kill everything we came to love about the man. Dumbledore was Merlin for kids- he was witty, funny, an absolute loon. But he was charming and caring in his own regard. So what good does it serve us to know he has a family? What purpose do we need to hear about his tortured self-guilt, our innocence shattered as he details the truth behind his pursuit of the Hallows? He was just one of mysteriously knowledgeable old guys we all wish we knew, but he was so much better than that at the same time. Now, when I look back at book six, I can only picture a man who was just WAITING to die. His last appearance further ruined our image of him. He does not artfully dodge around Harry’s questions. Maybe dying addled his brain or something. In a sense, he is almost cynical. But the end of the book, we are left with the crumbling image of old man Dumbledore, and left to wonder, “was he really gay?”

Hedwig: I love Hedwig. She's one of the most badass owls ever. Then I read Guardians of the Ga'Hoole, and realized that owls could easily take over the world once humans passed on the knowledge to create their own blades. Regardless of whether or not Hedwig intended to help the Owl Revolution conquer the free world, or if she just stuck around because Harry kept her fat and happy, her death served NO PURPOSE whatsoever. I could say the same for any of the other deaths, but at least those served a plot-based purpose. Hedwig's death was pure shock value. She got hit by a stray bolt of green, perhaps inadvertently saving Harry's life, but no, that was not enough, was it? She would later be incinerating by getting left behind in a flaming sidecar. Yeah, pretty terrible death. At least most of the characters got well deserved green bolts to the chest. Oh wait...

Dobby: Maybe it was because I imagined that Dobby was Gollum, or the movie made him look awesome, but Dobby really grew onto me... after book 2, where all he did was screw things up. But in book 7, Dobby served a noble purpose- he took a blade to the chest. Wait... a blade to the chest? Let us think about this logically here. Dobby, as described in book 2, stood at about chest height of the twelve year old boy. Now, accounting for the average height of a growing male, that would put Dobby at about three-foot-something. So, in Book 7, Harry is about 6' tall, with Dobby at about sternum-height. Taken in context, this would mean that Dobby is only half of Harry's height. Even with Harry doubled under the weight of Griphook the goblin, Dobby would still be a bit too low. Anything thrown at Harry would probably hit Griphook instead. But Griphook was necessary for the plot. Here's how Rowling describes Harry's desperate Apparation: "As he turned into Darkness, he caught one last view of the drawing room: of the pale, frozen figures of Narcissa and Draco, of the strak of red that was Ron's hair, and a blur of flying silver as Bellatrix's knife flew across the room at the place where he was vanishing-" So, Bellatrix was aiming at the place where Harry was standing. Before he apparated, he grasped the hand of the little-House-elf-that-could, and was focusing on Bill and Fleur's home. So, clearly, as he was spinning, Dobby had been lifted, and took the blade straight to the chest, right? Wait...
Harry was double-bend beneath weight of Griphook and his "Precious" sword. How could he spin in such an angle that Dobby would inadvertently take the hit for him? Was Bellatrix aiming for Dobby? That would have missed, as Harry had pulled Dobby in order to apparate. Perhaps this was just Rowling's attempt to end Dobby, causing little children to have nightmares about how all the cute and enjoyable things would slowly be destroyed. Perhaps this was to symbolize the motif of sacrifice. Like Hedwig didn't do that already. In the end, Dobby's death was merely for shock value, and to allow Griphook to warm up to Harry. Because, you know, offering him the blade of Gryffindor wouldn't do that already.

Fred: Yes, Fred was funny. Yes, Fred was a genius. Yes, Fred was one of the many characters that made Harry Potter absurdly unique. But his death was pitiful. He got killed by either a) Shrapnel, or b) a wayward Death Curse. Both options, are frankly, methods to kill canon fodder. Maybe Rowling was attempting to capture that D-day feeling- the feeling that no matter where you went, no matter how fast you ran, you would still be hit because the friggin' air was composed of bullets. Maybe Rowling was attempting to use the whole sacrifice motif again. Whatever she intended, it was depressing. The fact that she would kill off a main character in such a redundant manner proves that only master of Murder and Mayhem in this book is... Rowling herself. And, personally, I would not mind. Schindler's List was all about killing indiscriminately, but what differentiates that from Harry Potter is that in Harry Potter, Hogwarts is at war. I personally love how Rowling makes "executive" decisions throughout the book, but she fails to make their deaths really work reading.

Lupin: Died. Without a single sentence about how, or why, or even by whom.
Neville: Could have gotten revenge on Bellatrix Lestrange, but had it stolen by Molly Weaseley (come on! Give the man a chance to grow! Killing snakes is only step one!)
Luna: Lol, did she even partake in battle? All I recall is that her Patronus came to Harry's aid.
Dementors: Seriously, how does a creature that seeks the happiness of a person's soul spawn from fear and hate? Its counter-intuitive, since humans attempt to do that anyways.