Harry Potter/Epilogue/Headscratchers

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• It just bugs me that so many people disliked the epilogue to the seventh book- I mean, come on, Harry Potter spent the first ten years of his life being emotionally and sometimes physically abused (starvation) by his family, and then the next seven years as a Chosen One with a Big Bad who kept trying to kill him, and he never really got a break, and finally, after everything is over, he gets a happy ending. I mean, I would get it if he didn't deserve his Happily Ever After, but after everything he had gone through... Or is this just a case of "True Art Is Angsty" with a side of Fan Dumb and Ship-to-Ship Combat?
  • While I disliked the Epilogue a lot on first reading (it was very, very cheesy), overall I think it really drives home some of the things that Rowling wanted out of the final book. Especially the role of Dumbledore and Snape - people still argue about teh evil Snape all over the place (and of course a lot of people also forgive every one of his wildly numerous flaws), and these two ridiculous extremes are both Completely Missing the Point of a grey character of such importance. But it is very clear what Rowling INTENDED with the mentions of them in this scene. What bothers me more than people hating the chapter is the specifics of what people hate, and I always hear people bitch about 'Albus Severus' and how much Harry hated Snape and how OMGCRAZY it is that he named a kid after him. This in spite of what he found out about Snape; if we're going to attack fanfic writers who portray Snape as The Woobie, we should probably take a good close look at the source material. Rowling couldn't have woobiefied him more than she did in the whole of his backstory without derailing the focus of the plot - Harry. Still, it seems obvious to me that for both his sons, Harry is displaying his forgiveness of others. He forgives his father and Sirius most easily, because he already loves them unconditionally, but had to face some really horrible immoral things from them that, let's remember, created something of a moral crisis in him. But he owes nothing more to Dumbledore than he does to Snape. Both of them gave him the tools he needed to defeat Voldemort (in equal amounts, in fact) and ultimately died to protect him. But both of them were damaging to him, too. The reveal that Dumbledore had been grooming him to walk willingly to slaughter is a huge betrayal of the love and safety Harry associated with Dumbledore, particularly considering the casual way in which Dumbledore speaks of it. And Snape was freaking awful to Harry. But Harry forgives them both and pays tribute to their personal sacrifices and the fact that they shaped who he is as a person more significantly than any other adults. It really rubs me the wrong way when people act as if Dumbledore's being a namesake is a given and natural and acceptable where they think that Snape as a namesake isn't. Obviously that whole scene is about Harry giving redemption to the most polarizing characters in the series, James, Sirius, Dumbledore and Snape, and saying that they were all crucially important to him. It never fails to surprise me that people don't seem to get that, whether they dislike the tone or cheesy writing of that chapter. I dislike the writing of the chapter but I still appreciate the sentiment. Why is that so hard for readers?
  • It would be a lot better if the happy ending was implied, rather than clumsily spelled out. A settling down scene where he thinks how happy he is with his friends or something, where the reader can share the feeling of the scene, rather than a timeskip which just shows the results.
    • So... It's not the happiness per se, it's how she wrote it out leaving nothing to the imagination?
      • That's one part. It kills the feeling of hope and anticipation when you can already see the result. Another one is that it is just so...cheesy. It was one step away from Rowling writing out "and then Harry lived happily ever after" verbatim as her ending. Once again, it doesn't have to be a bleak ending to be acceptable, but it becomes annoying when you come out of a bloody war with lots of casualties and into an almost Sugar Bowl.
        • Do you see the length of these pages? If Rowling didn't explicitly detail Harry's future, the fans would have hounded her in Q&A sessions until she did. They still do regardless, for all the numerous secondary and tertiary characters she *didn't* mention.
  • Rowling likes to sink ships.
    • After all of the Fan Dumb, this troper doesn't much blame her.
  • Part of it was that the Epilogue didn't seem to exist for anything except Ship Sinking. All we really find out is that Harry and Ginny got married and had kids and Ron and Hermione got married and had kids. If we were going to get a "17 years later" perspective, I would have liked to learn something that wasn't obvious from the end of the book. We could have learned about the characters careers, how they had changed since leaving Hogwarts, how the Wizarding World had changed... instead, we learn that the official couples get married. Thanks, because I would never have figured that out from the last chapter.
  • My opinion is that Harry's final words to his son perfectly sums up the legacy of Dumbledore's and Snape's and how Harry will keep their legacy and stories alive. Snape's love for Lily was not in vain. If the epilogue was so dragging, then I suppose what Rowling could have done was have a small epilogue only mentioning the origins of Albus Severus Potter's name.
    • It showed that not only had Harry forgiven Snape, he also respected him. A lot. Possibly too much. And Draco was fat, balding, whipped, and stupid (the Take That was what the author seemed to be saying, not mine).
      • ...The epilogue did say that Draco's hair was "receding somewhat" and that he was standing with his wife and son, but it never mentions anything about being fat, whipped, or stupid. At all. And I didn't like Albus Severus' name because it just seemed like such a mean thing to do to a child. Harry has his son James, his daughter Lily, and his other son Albus Severus. How old was he before he could pronounce THAT, I wonder.
    • Well, no. He named his son James Sirius, his daughter Lily Luna, and his other son Albus Severus. Albus, while more antiquated than James or Lily, is still a perfectly serviceable name, particularly in a world where every second person is named something crazy like Quirinus. And I doubt that Harry and Ginny call their children by their first and middle names, so they're just James, Lily and Albus. Completely normal.
    • "Albus" can be shortened to "Al" anyway.
  • It seems more believable that Harry would honour Snape by naming his son Severus than honour Dumbledore by naming him Albus. Harry had consistently considered Snape evil no matter how many times he was told he was on Harry's side. He only finally realises the truth after Snape's death, so any reconciliation has to be post mortem. But in the same revelation, he also learns that Dumbledore has been grooming him as a sacrificial goat (which even Snape considers is damn cold!) which he doesn't seem to have a problem with. Granted Harry may be a better man than me, we only see Snape's view of the scene (which may be somewhat self-serving) and Albus Severus was born several years after the events of Deathly Hallows which would probably soften any hard feelings, but I'd still be pretty pissed at Dumbledore and wouldn't be particularly keen to honour his memory.
• Why did Ginny not get to name any of their children? Unless the 'Luna' in Lily Luna is her input. None of the names have particular significance to her. I would have expected a Fred maybe (or even a George's Left Ear). Or possibly even an Arthur.
  • George named his first son Fred. Possibly Fred Arthur. And Bill's full name was already William Arthur Weasley.^[1]
  • And I seriously doubt that Ginny had no input. I doubt there was a scene of "Hey, Harry, I think we should name him--" "Oh, sorry, I already filled out the birth certificate. He's James Sirius. But you can name the next kid. Maybe."
  • Aside from Ginny surely having some input, think about it this way: Harry's an only child. If James or Lily were ever going to get memorialized, it's through him. Ginny is one of seven. Less responsibility there, especially since she probably had her kids after all of her older siblings. (And indeed, Word of God says Percy's daughter was named Molly, though there unfortunately doesn't seem to an Arthur among the Next Gen.)
• Severus Snape was a Jerkass who hated everyone except his precious Lily. Just because he isn't a Death Eater and made sacrifices to help Dumbledore, doesn't redeem him at all. He was still rude to Harry for no reason, scarred Neville for life, made fun of his students, and called Hermione (and many other people) the Wizarding equivalent of the N-Word even though that was what ended his friendship with Lily. While Dumbledore claims Snape felt the greatest regret for sending Voldemort after Harry, that is a a complete and total lie! Snape only felt remorse because Lily was going to die. He didn't give a crap about James or Harry. Even Dumbledore realized that and told Snape that he "sickens him". If Snape were truly remorseful, he wouldn't have been such so rude to Harry. Snape also refused to teach Occlumency to Harry even though he knew that Voldemort would use legillimency on him. Even Sirius agreed that Snape needed to teach Harry Occlumency. I will admit that Dumbledore had many Jerkass moments himself. However, for the most part, Dumbledore treated Harry and the others with kindness and understanding. As for the other names, as others have said, besides Lily's middle name their all named after dead people who Harry knew (Unless Luna died sometime between the last chapter and the epilogue, that's my next point) Ginny was barely associated with most of these people. My next point about the epilogue is that it tells us nothing. The only thing we learn is that Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione all ended up marrying their high school romances. Because that happens all the time. (This is all the information we're given, this is stuff we could've guessed since the sixth book! We are given some bare facts here in there, but I would have preferred an epilogue that, instead being written within a story format, was written as a fact sheet format. That lists most of the characters, and tells us where they are now. Or at least Have the main characters see off their kids then go into the Leaky Cauldron and discuss what's going on with their lives and the lives of their friends. Instead we get, Harry married Ginny Ron married Hermione, Draco married someone, and Neville became Herbology teacher.
  • You find me a single instant of Severus Snape calling someone "Mudblood" in the books following Lily's death, and I will pay you a million Galleons.
  • I'll double it. Snape never uses that term after he destroys his friendship with Lily. He even told off Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait for using the word on Hermione.
  • And I also want to mention a few things: a) his patronus is a doe, not a stag, so his love for Lily changed to a more selfless love (because had he only wanted her and nothing else by the end of the books, his patronus would have been a stag, the perfect parter), b) Snape was disgusted by Dumbledore raising Harry like a Lamb for slaughter which shows he did eventually protect him and not only Lily (because he is a part of her) and c) YES he was a bastard. What would you be after an abusive childhood, terror in school etc when the only person who EVER stood by you was targeted and killed?
• My problem is partly that the epilogue is so feel-good and sappy and that it basically doesn't tell us anything that can't be inferred. I'm not arguing for a wangsty Darker and Edgier ending: I'm fine with a peaceful settle down after everything they've been through; hell, I prefer it. The problem is it focuses almost entirely on a few characters and tells us what's already pretty obvious: Harry marries Ginny, Ron marries Hermione (yeah, I know some fans would refuse to accept that that's what happened unless it was spelled out, but that's because they prefer their own fantasies about the series over what's pretty blatantly stated; the rest of us can figure it out on our own). I would have preferred a better view of how things have gone since then, like what various characters are up to now, how some of them are dealing with losses or with injuries (like Lavender Brown; did she survive that mauling? Is she okay?) how life has been proceeding since the end of the war, etc. Basically, we know what's going to happen with the main characters; it's fine to show how they're doing in the Epilogue, but I also wanted to know how the supporting and minor characters got along, instead of vague allusions to just a few of them. Also, Harry and Ginny suck at naming children. Albus Severus? Lily Luna? These names are fine individually, but some names just clash when placed next to each other. But I digress.
• What bothered me more than any of the aforementioned things is the fact that Harry apparently deemed Remus and Tonks unworthy of having kids named after them. Every other important dead character does. It's hardly unusual for a kid to have two middle names (I do) and Dumbledore had three! So why not add 'Remus' to James Sirius Potter's name (nice to have all of the Marauders together.) And if you can bring youself to call a child Albus Severus or Lily Luna, I don't see why you couldn't call one Lily Nymphadora. Or even just Lily Dora. Why the heck did Luna get a kid named after her when she's still alive over when there was still an equally major character who died?
  • Alliteration for Lily Luna. Also I think Harry let Teddy have the weight of his parents names rather than the rest of the named characters (minus Luna and Harry's parents) who didn't have children. But then again I wasn't in favor of the naming children after dead people myself.
  • To name everyone important, brave or significant to Harry would involve quite a few more children. Also, I like to think that Luna also (vaguely or not) refers to Lupin. Luna does mean moon in Latin, after all.
  • You would name your daughter "Nymphadora"? Even herself hated her own name! "Don't call me Nymphadora!". Anyway, I suppose Teddy would name his future children after his parents.
• On the topic of Luna, it seriously Just Bugs Me that Rowling married her off to a character we've never seen or even heard of. I mean, she's an Ensemble Darkhorse beloved by readers, and you gave her off to some stranger? How the hell are people, shippers or otherwise, supposed to feel good or supportive about that? This is just a Neville/Luna shipper talking, but still. The whole concept of it makes no sense.
  • I actually loved that. Call me odd, but I like it when authors defy the pat expectations of their readers—for example, before the last three books came out, some fans were absolutely certain that Harry had to be the "heir of Gryffindor" and that's why he would be the one to defeat the "heir of Slytherin". I was SO GLAD that Rowling didn't do that tired, sad routine. So, out of our six main characters, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny end up with their high school sweethearts. Neville and Luna find love elsewhere. This is logical, it's true to life, it reads like it was written by someone who's an adult rather than a junior-high-school-aged fan-fic writer.
    • While I, too, liked that Luna and Neville ended up with different people, unknown people (It prevented that dreadful Pare the Spares done in the movie!) I found the epilogue, for all it was worth, too sappy. And narrow. We all knew the things depicted in the Epilogue would happen because there was no way JKR would break up her couples. But only focusing on them and their oh-so-picture-perfect future? Big mistake, if you ask me. As much as I love the books, I hated the epilogue.
  • I think it makes perfect sense for someone as out there as Luna to find someone she cares about in the oddest of places, although I too was disappointed that JK did posthumously deny the Neville/Luna ship.
  • This attitude drives me crazy. Not wanting a certain ship to come true, but expecting it to happen and acting like it must bad writing if it doesn't. Listen: Original fiction is not fan fiction. It shouldn't be written with a fan mindset. Fandom Nods are nice when they happen, but you are not owed them. Louisa May Alcott was right not to put Jo and Laurie together, and by standards of actual literary merit rather than "wouldn't it have been cooler if," Arthur Conan Doyle shouldn't have brought Sherlock Holmes back to life. Shipping is all well and good, but it's a concept based on trying to interact with a medium that is fundamentally not interactive, and you're inevitably going to run into a wall, and you shouldn't act shocked and wounded when that happens. In the real world, people typically do not choose a life partner out of a handful of close friends, marry them right out of school and live happily ever after (or get killed in the act of living happily ever after). HP as it is seriously pushes the limits of believability with the number of canon couples who do that. Be glad you even know who Luna ended up with, because there's no reason you should.
    • OP here. What makes you assume I didn't want or expected a ship to happen? I most certainly did want it, and most certainly did NOT expect it. I know the different between original and fanfiction- but Luna was one of the most beloved characters, and I didn't feel comfortable having the future of an individual that I was invested in just handwaved in the form of a character I had never heard of, nor cared about. That's what irritated me- please don't project your frustrations towards the wrong end of my complaint. I am used to ships going unfulfilled, but Luna's backstory just seemed half-assed to me, especially for such a favorite character. Oh, and I never said the writing was horrible. The assumptions you managed to obtain from my five sentences is astounding, bordering on quite damn impressive. In other news, having just seen the movie, I am no longer irritated and take Neville and Luna's last minute hook up as J.K.'s apology (and before you get annoyed again, I do not really expect J.K. to be repentant towards me or care for my preferences, it is simply how I interpret and appreciate the change). Good day to you, sir or madame.
      • Annoyed? Au contraire, the prosecution rests.
  • Actually, what bugs me the most about Luna and the epilogue is that she gets nary a mention in it. She's easily the most prominent character to not get one and I was afraid that she'd been killed offscreen some time in those 19 intervening years. Especially because I found out that Harry's daughter was Lily Luna before I read the stuff about Luna getting married off to some unknown character.
• What bugged me the most was that Ron cheated on his driving test and then lied to Hermione about it. Not only cheated, but the method of cheating: confounding a muggle. Now, this isn't about the Statute of Secrecy or saving people's lives. He's doing this for personal gain. He just doesn't want to be bothered to fail the test and re-take it. This is nothing but using a magic on a muggle for personal gain. How is Harry okay with this?
  • Also, I'm not sure if magical Britain had any laws against that (which they probably should, even if it's about the same as "animal abuse" in terms of severity due to discrimination), but after Voldemort's defeat, they most definitely did. Hermione is a prominent muggle-born who is a champion for equal rights (remember SPEW?) for all sentient beings- especially muggles, like her parents. I'm sure she managed to pass a few laws after becoming so famous and getting into the Ministry. Now Ron goes and confounds a muggle so he can breeze through an exam as if it were the most natural solution to the problem instead of, you know, failing, admitting his faults, practicing some more and trying again. Yeah, you know that husband and wife see eye-to-eye.
    • Have Ron and Hermione ever seen eye to eye?
  • Confounding doesn't seem to be a big deal in the HP world. Hermione did it to Cormac McLaggen for no good reason. This is a case of Values Dissonance; it doesn't seem to be something that would bother anyone. Yeah, she'd probably be annoyed if she knew, but not actually upset.
    • You know that if anyone had discovered Hermione had done it, she would have lost at least 50 points for Gryffindor and Ron would have been booted off the team. That was cheating, that was wrong, they knew it; they just all hated McLaggen, a lot so nobody ratted her out. Let's put it this way: What if Ron had confounded a magical examiner on a magical exam? Oh yeah, you bet everyone would be on his ass after that one. A muggle, for a muggle test? A-OK. That's racism. Plain and simple.
      • Even if that hypothetical would hold true, it could just as likely be that the non-magical-ness of the skill in question is the reason it's not taken seriously. After all, Ron's probably going to supplement any driving he does with magic, so he'll never need the ability to drive legitimately. He probably sees fulfilling every letter of the requirements as a waste of time—heck, even a regular driving test has rules which are often unnecessary or flexible in normal driving. Whereas with a magical test, being unable to pass properly is usually life-threatening to the wizard and/or others. Splinching, anyone? Probably the worst thing about confunding the examiner, in any character's eyes, would be messing with the examiner.
        • That's exactly my point! That is racism. Ron sees muggles and their methods as "beneath" him. "My kind does this better than your kind, therefore I don't need to respect or follow your rules." I repeat, this is racism. You don't have to parade around in a lynch mob to be considered racist, actions and opinions like this more than qualify. The fact that the muggle examiner would find it highly offensive and the main characters don't only further exemplifies the fact that this is a racist action. All the characters are magical, so we don't have a muggle opinion, but I know I would by highly offended if someone did that to me. If no white person felt "offended" by enslaving africans, does that automatically mean that the african's opinions never mattered?
      • Most people don´t get licenses for very ridicolous reasons, even though they can drive without killing a dozen pedestrians GTA-style. I think he enchanted the tester only to get the license without retaking the test for petty reasons. If one is capable of driving without causing accidents there shouldn´t be a problem with having a license and I think he takes the same opinion.
        • Ron says that he only forgot to look in the wing mirror, and that he can use a super sensory charm for that. It's not like he said "I hit the prop pedestrian. But I can just use a bone mending charm for that." It's something insignificant that can be remedied easily with magic.
        • Since IRL being unable to see out your rearview mirror can easily lead to a traffic accident, its not 'insignificant'. There is a reason the instructor fails you for it—its like not fastening your seat belt. Sure, 999 times out of 1000, nothing will happen. But since that 1000th time involves an automobile wreck and quite likely someone seriously injured or dead, its still 'serious'. You measure 'seriousness' not in how likely a bad outcome is, but by how bad the bad outcome will be when it finally comes around.
        • Also, its not something 'minor', because using a Confundus Charm on a Muggle to get him to give you something that you are not otherwise legally entitled to is actually a crime in Wizarding law — "muggle-baiting". For a wizard to muggle-bait is bad. For an Auror to do it is worse. For an Auror who is the son of the man who wrote the Muggle Protection Act to do it is like some kind of triple word score in Jerkass Scrabble.
• I was bugged by the fact that we didn't actually find out where the other characters were in life. I wanted to know what happened to George, Percy, Neville, Luna and everyone else. We found out a little bit through JK's website, but I would have liked more info in the actual book.
• What the eff do you people want?! Twenty more chapters of explaining absolutely everything that had happened in the wizarding world in the previous nineteen years? Really? Sure, JKR could have had half a dozen chapters of Harry just sitting down and reminiscing about absolutely everything that had happened (for no good reason, I might add), but then you know what people would do? They'd complain about the sheer weight of the Info Dump and how JKR had included way too much information for a simple 'nineteen years later' epilogue. It's clearly a catch-22, but the simple fact of the matter is this: the series is about Harry Potter. There have been a great many characters with whom Harry has formed close (or not so close) relationships, and many more who have been little more than named in passing, but the series has always been, first and foremost, about the titular character (emphasis on titular, since hey, the entire series was named after him!). The epilogue was five pages long, and in those five pages, we got a slice of Harry Potter's life, nineteen years after the events that made him famous. Personally, I took the whole thing (particularly lack of any overt information regarding 'state of the world at this moment') to be a show of just how much things had changed. No one was worried about anything beyond getting their kids to the train on time—there was no threat, nothing looming in the horizon, and it had been nineteen years since anything awful had happened. So why, on the first day of school for their kids, would they be thinking about all the awful times and all the hard work that had to have gone into rebuilding the wizarding world after Voldemort's fall? Simply put, they wouldn't. They were thinking about the now, because they didn't have to be thinking about anything else. That's why 'all was well'--because it was. Honestly, there is no way JKR could have given all the information everybody wanted out of her without someone somewhere claiming she left something out. I would have done what she did, to Hell with whatever ultimately irrelevant information my fanbase might have wanted. She was ending an epic series, and I think the only reason most people see it as so cheesy is because it was such a stark contrast to the incredibly dark nature of the later books. Personally, I liked the epilogue, I think it tied everything up nicely and gave our heroes their happy ending without doing what some other notorious series did and using an Ass Pull to avoid anyone actually getting hurt.
  • Most people want good information and a heartfelt conclusion, not an infodump. The epilogue was an infodump that simply felt tacked on and unnecessary. It gave information we could have guessed if the book had ended with "and they lived happily ever after." It allowed for just about no further character development from the end of Deathly Hallows and nineteen years in the future. End of DH: Harry reunites with Ginny, Hermione and Ron are together, Draco is broken and repentant, Neville has gained both courage and respect and is good at Herbology. Harry and Ron want to be aurors. Voldemort is dead. Harry has a newfound respect for Snape. Epilogue: Harry is married to Ginny and has kids, Hermione is married to Ron and has kids, Draco is broken and repentant and has a kid, Neville is a professor of Herbology. Harry and Ron are aurors. Voldemort is still dead. Harry has respect for Snape enough to name one of his kids after him. The only reason it even existed seemed to be to make sure that nothing interesting could have happened in between -- Nineteen years later and everyone and their relationships are exactly the way they were at the end of school and that's final. So there. So yes, the common suggestion of "Harry sitting at a fireplace at home feeling very satisfied with what he's accomplished in the past few years (without listing specifics) and maybe planning a reunion party of some kind" would have worked very well. In this case, less information is even better.
• Also something that really, really bothered me: "All was well." Really? REALLY?? No evil person can ever rise to power again, and all's well, and he doesn't have to do anything important anymore, just because one particular scar's connection to one particular dark lord is quiescent! *rolleyes*
  • Not YET. Someone will eventually rise, that's how history is, and will be. It's just the end of Harry's story, but his children's, however, is just beginning. Any strife might circle around them next time round.
  • Well, yeah, that's true. But the general statement bugs me. How is "all well" when people are dying and children are starving and genocides are happening? Just because the threat of Voldemort is gone, doesn't mean all is well. It would have been a much more satisfying ending if Harry had gone on to stop and prevent more widespread evil from happening all over the world, maybe join Genocide Intervention and slow down entropy... no wait, now I'm confusing this with Young Wizards. Sorry. But you do get my drift, right?
  • 19 years pass between the Final Battle and the Epilogue. It's also implied throughout the series that the Wizarding World wasn't nearly so fucked up until Voldemort came around—while the racism was always there (and the majority of wizards weren't so much racist as profoundly ignorant), the kangaroo courts, show trials, awful journalism, etc. weren't. Those likely came about in response to Voldemort. We've all heard the 'tough on crime' campaign bullshit from Real Life politicians that in practice are absolutely awful and questionably legal (per whatever national constitution would apply). By the time the Final Battle comes around, the Ministry has gone way too far, and the Wizarding population is definitely beginning to realize that. While things would hardly be perfect in 19 years, they'd be quite a bit better than they were.
  • Furthermore, all was well for Harry. Miserable, parentless, unloved-for-his-entire-early-life Harry. His life is good and in order, he's no longer burdened by a destiny he never wanted that required him to kill a man or be killed, he's no longer living with his insufferable aunt and uncle who hate him for just being Harry, he's even patched things up with Dudders. His friends are happy, he's on at least curt-nodding terms with Malfoy, he's become an Auror so he probably is doing some good in the world, and all the pain of the past (Snape's dickishness, Dumbledore's manipulation) has been put to rest. After all the cosmically unfair bullshit this man has been put through, I think "all was well" is the least he deserves.
  • ^ You could have stopped at "all was well for Harry". This complaint is ridiculous. Literal-mindedness is a sad thing.
    • Adding 'for Harry' in the last sentence would just make it ridiculous, when you consider that the entire book is practically written in HIS point-of-view.
  • No more psychopath trying to kill Harry every other minute, no more loved ones dropping dead like Dominoes, no more piece of Voldemort's soul living in Harry, no more horrifying truths being discovered when no one wants to find out about them, no more constant Mind Rape. Is "all was well" too much to ask?
• It is stated that the part of Voldermort in Harry was destroyed, does that mean he is no longer a Parsletongue?
  • Yes, Word of God confirms that Harry can't talk to snakes.
• The 19 year gap bugs me a little, because Harry's oldest son is, what, 12? I understand thet Harry and Ginny might not get married and have kids right away, but seven years? Why? What made them wait for so long? Not like that exact duration had any significance for the plot - it could've just as easily been 12–13 years.
  • What, exactly, is wrong with waiting seven years? Couples can wait up to twenty years before they have children, it's not like they had any need to rush.
  • Trying to raise Teddy part-time put Harry and Ginny off of having kids of their own for a while.
  • A wait of 7 years makes harry about 24 and ginny 23 which is, if anything, a little younger than most. also, Particularly harry might have wanted to have a bit of life that wasn't cooped up at the dursleys or with his life constantly under threat before settling down
  • And the fact that Ginny was a Quidditch star for most of that time and she probably did not want kids.
  • Also, taking out Voldemort doesn't end the death eater threat. It's definitely a big deal, but Voldemort died before and still had supporters for years. Given Harry's auror ambition (if he still wanted the job after doing it for 7 years and dying for it), he was probably busy for a while.
  • Yeah, how could that be considered 'waiting so long'?! These days, starting a family at 23-24 is considered quite young—not teenage parents, obviously, but you'd still mostly likely be the youngest mom in the birth class. Besides, after so many years of life-and-death struggle, wouldn't it be kind of normal for Harry to want to just LIVE a few years—start a career, get married, hang out, have fun, whatever—before taking on the enormous stress and responsibility of starting a family?
• Is it me, or was there a huge Dementor-shaped Elephant in The Room? There were some mentions in the Wiki that the Ministery no longer employs the demons as warden in Azkhaban, but surprising diffidence was shown when it came to their exact further fate. Are they still roaming free, spreading misery and sucking people's souls out? The air of happyness that peremeated the final chapter spoke to the contrary, but how exactly was the problem dealt with?
  • Dementors need to feed and are capable of breeding, so it stands to reason that they are capable of dying as well. With the wizarding government no longer supporting them (and probably in some cases, actively hunting them), many of them would likely end up simply starving to death. Being that they breed asexually, they probably don't have enormously long lifespans, so their population would dwindle significantly without explicit government support.
    • Except, of course, that as (quasi-)demonic entities they could just as easily be immortal and doing what they do For the Evulz or out of Horror Hunger.

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1. ↑ He sounds like he should be part of the Watchers Council