The Problems with the DH movie

[Carol]

md wrote:
> 
> I was very flustrated (yes, I made that word, I'm a wordsmith, see?)

Carol: 

Actually, a large number of people have used that "portmanteau word," to borrow Lewis Carroll's term (flustered plus frustrated). It's  perfectly intelligible--no need to apologize or claim credit for it.

md:
> by the way she killed off characters by simply stating they were dead. As a writer I find it lazy and stupid, as a teacher I hand it back and say "make it make sense to the reader." <snip>

Carol responds:
True, it's generally better to show than to tell, but JKR was hampered here by Harry's point of view. Snape's memories were more important to the story, and some deaths had to occur while he was viewing them. At least the film version will have the advantage of multiple points of view and should show at least one of them (Lupin?) being killed. BTW, perhaps Tonks is motivated by more than a desire to show her stuff as an Auror and be with her beloved Remus; her father, Ted Tonks, is killed earlier in the book, so she may want revenge, and Auntie Bellatrix has been trying to kill her all year for "polluting" the family by marrying a werewolf. It must have been hard for her to sit at home while Remus fought, and she certainly could not have anticipated that both of them would be killed. Nor would she have abandoned Teddy if his loving grandmother Andromeda has not been there to watch him. 

As for Lupin, JKR originally intended Mr. Weasley, the book's only fully functional father, to accompany Harry to his "death" along with his parents and godfather but changed her mind and decided to sacrifice the Lupins to show Teddy as a happy, much-loved orphan at the end of the last book.(Earlier in the book, Harry wanted Lupin to stay home and protect his family rather than accompany him and his friends, but now the danger has shifted to Hogwarts and it's a real battle, not a Horcrux hunt. I'd say that circumstances have changed. But, yes, it's a shame that we're not shown Tonks' motivations and she looks like a love-crazed, overprotective wife, and we're not shown their deaths. JKR's focus was on Harry's and Snape's stories, not those of supporting characters.)

I do agree that parts of DH, especially the Elder Wand subplot, should make more sense to the reader than they do. I'd give examples, but that's a discussion for the main list.

md wrote:
> Snapes death is something I CANNOT VISUALIZE making any sense (a floating snake in a bubble suddenly floats towards him, and bites him and he knows several seconds in advance it is coming and does nothing??? <snip>

Carol responds:
Snape's death scene upset me greatly, but not because I had trouble visualizing it. Apparently, Voldemort doesn't want to kill Snape with the Elder Wand because he thinks that Snape is its master and it might refuse to kill him. At any rate, JKR doesn't want him to be AK'd because he wouldn't be able to perform his last bit of wandless magic with the memories or look into Harry's eyes if he were killed instantly.

Instead, she has Voldemort force Snape's head into Nagini's bubble, where Nagini bites his neck and then LV lets him fall out of the bubble and leaves him there to bleed to death. As for why Snape does nothing, he could have saved his life through an act of cowardice, screaming out that Draco is the true master of the wand, but he remains silent, protecting Draco to the last. And his fear, as I read it, is not of death--he's been risking his life for seventeen years, after all, even making an Unbreakable Vow that would have killed him had he broken it--but of failure. His mind, as we can see from his repeated "let me talk to the boy," is on Harry and the message he has to give him. Unless he somehow senses that Harry is present, he must sense that he's failed in his final mission for DD and fear that Voldemort will win the battle because Harry will try to fight rather than sacrificing himself. Snape's mind is preoccupied, not with saving himself, but with Harry. And though he raises his wand, he doesn't use it, knowing that the soul bit in Harry's scar will keep LV from dying and that he must face Harry. Snape is more helpless in this situation than he's ever been in his life, and he's in despair, feeling that Voldemort has won the battle. Once he sees Harry, he takes action instantly, using his last strength to release every memory connected with himself and Lily or himself and Dumbledore that will help Harry understand why he has helped him and persuade him to do what he has to do.

Carol, who would much rather that Snape had lived but who can visualize that scene all too clearly