Victory for TEWWW EWWW

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 173307

> va32h:

> Call me presumptuous - but I think a much better, meaningful 
ending 
> to the the final Harry/Voldemort showdown would be for Harry to 
have 
> never had his wand broken in the first place, and to have never 
taken 
> Draco's wand. When Harry tells Voldemort that Draco is the true 
> master, all eyes in the Great Hall turn to Draco...Voldemort says 
> fine, he'll just kill Draco first, and turns to do so, and in that 
> split second, Draco throws his own wand to Harry declaring "I 
> surrender to you Harry Potter" and just misses the killing curse. 
> Harry meanwhile catches Draco's wand and drops his own, Voldemort 
> turns in a howl of rage at being thwarted yet again, and tries to 
> curse Harry, and then the rest of it plays out as it did in the 
> actual version. 
> 
> Later, during the whole "victory feast in the great hall", Harry 
> would approach the Malfoys and lay Draco's wand in front of him, 
make 
> eye contact, say a simple "thanks", and go on his way. Draco and 
> Harry still loathe each other for personal reasons, but in the end 
> Draco made the right choice - Harry's side over Voldemort's side - 
> and even if he made it for purely selfish reasons, it's a damn 
sight 
> better than the entire Malfoy clan being saved by Saint Harry's 
> largesse. 


Magpie:
You know, this gets into a very dodgy area, I know, but that is 
exactly what I felt. This is the author's story for me to make sense 
of--it's not up to me to tell her to write the story I would want. 
If I can say "this should happen in the Draco storyline!" why 
shouldn't somebody else make her write Snape as being motivated 
purely by ethics or Harry get together with Hermione? 

So I realize that I can't just demand what I want. But in this 
instance, it really felt like more than just my Draco fangirl 
wanting something good for my boy--after all, it's not like that 
ending in any way makes Draco more courageous or OOC. It actually 
plays on exactly the qualities he showed throughout, where he 
realized he actually didn't like being evil or having Voldemort back 
(and was punished by having to commit the kinds of torture he'd 
grown up claiming was cool, while Crabbe turned out to enjoy it as a 
true sadist) but didn't have the courage to actually do anything to 
oppose it. 

The trouble was that the way it happened felt actually *more* 
artificial for me, like I could see the author's hand guiding 
everything around the points she wanted to make. That's why I think 
I feel so strongly about the way Slytherin ends up--as you say, 
saved by largesse without making the right choice. It seems like JKR 
was absolutely making a point about these characters, and that 
meant, for instance, showing that the assassin storyline in HBP did 
*not* have the thematic importance I thought it did--it was just an 
extended punishment and way to start "Who's got the Elder Wand?" 
Draco was meant to go from a child who thought evil was cool to a 
man who had lost that idea--but that's not much, and it wasn't all 
that transformative. It wasn't a real development or change. 
Dumbledore really wasn't about second chances the way I thought he 
was--he was just really smart about what made people tick and how to 
make that work for you. So the moment Harry says Draco was the 
master of the elder wand, he brings it right back to himself--
luckily I swiped his wand back in chapter 23 so he's totally 
irrelevent. This isn't even totally about Draco, btw. This would 
have been a good development in Harry as well, especially if he had 
to encourage Draco's choice via what he saw on the Tower. That, I 
think, would have said something that I personally would find very 
true about courage, and very hopefully for a future healing of the 
split--all without turning Draco into a hero or stealing any of 
Harry's thunder.  

If I were her editor--and I am an editor--I think I absolutely would 
have grilled her on that: why have you chosen to end Harry's 
dealings with his antagonists (I'm including Snape here, though he's 
got a totally different story) the way you have? I suspect she might 
have had a real point that she was making about "people like that," 
but it's just not a point that resonates with me or seems 
particularly realistic or insightful. I don't think that's an 
unreasonable criticism to make.

I think it's part of why some people found the end of the series 
just sort of...repulsive. Not uplifting. And I know that many have 
pointed out that maybe everything doesn't have to have a great 
lesson, but I think with 7 volume series like this it usually helps 
and might make the difference in the way it's ultimately regarded. 
There obviously are values being put forth as correct and good 
throughout the book, and the ending is going to be the thing that 
people use to unlock exactly what the values are and whether they 
agree with them. 

I realize I'm as subjective as anyone else, but this really felt 
like one of those places where it was a story opportunity 
artificially missed. Maybe because it went against the author's idea 
about character--but then that leads me to wonder if her ideas about 
character didn't just turn out to be a limitation in this case. I do 
think that's a valid criticism, even if not everyone agrees with it.

-m