Wow. Thanks a lot people for actually taking the time to some SERIOUS LITERARY analysis of the book. (*sarcastic*) I can't wait until people like Varitek and Utoo get (back) on here. Thanks to everyone who agree with me on Snape.
FYI, Tolkien and CS Lewis didn't become Tolkien and CS Lewis until 50 yrs later, if you get what I mean. And I've read that back in the day, the critics absolutely LOATHED Lewis Carroll. They thought Alice was juvenile hogwash and early 20th century critics nwards accused him of being a pedophile since Alice was based on a neigbor's 9 yr old daughter that he liked to watch playing in a garden. The 19th-century critics verbally flushed Carroll down the chamber pot, comparing him unfavororably to Dickens. Is "Through The Looking Glass" any better/worse than, say, "Oliver Twist'? Or, for that matter, "The Hobbit"? If you're comparing HP unfavorabloy with LOTR, that's crap. Is HP better or worse than "The Hobbit" (which is the origional Tolkien classic and many people still like that best among all his works, precisely b/c LOTR is too dark for them?) I'm going to commit absolute heresy here, and I'm speaking from someone who has read all of Tolkien and all Of CS Lewis, right down to Peralendra and the Screwtape Letters. HP may be light years behind Tolkien (if you judge great works of literature by literary style) but it is much better than Narnia, Christian allusions and all. The wizarding world is just as big of a place as Narnia and Lewis starts off well with the first 3 books, but books 4-6 are poorly written and esp Book 6 of the Narnia series is a dense and confusing thinly vieled anti-Muslim screed that I find personally offensive, that tarnishes the whole series for me. Forget the fact that the whole Pevensie family dies in a train wreck at the end, and we find out who Aslan is. Better to not dip your toe into the religion matter at all. Rowling is like Tolkien in that her characters have no one to pray to, but they spend their whole time in the series "praying" if you get my drift. I don't care about religion in lterature, I don't usually pick up on it I don't cast judgements, but Lewis is so blunt and in your face about it, in later parts of the Narnia Chronichles. Somer books of HP are better than others but some flaws other writers have are missing.
And as far as being juvenile goes, DH is NOT I repeat *NOT* a kids book. I am absolutely shocked at how much Jo pushed the envelope in this one, and I am only starting to read the first half of the book! I read some of the stuff floating around on the spoilers this week and thought some of the "reviews" was utter crap, but it's true, and I haven't even finished the book. Rita Skeeter insinuating, in a book (BRILLIANT bit of satire, compare the traditional "old" obit from a serious journalist and the Rita Skeeter article in Chapter 2, can anyone say TINA BROWN people?!?!? Yesterday's serious journaslism compared to today's infotainment) that Dumbledore sexually abused Harry and threatened him to keep him silent (like the Catholic priest scandal), and that Harry finally killed him in his 6th year in revenege/to make it stop. This isn't even interpretation, Jo openly uses pharses like "unhealty relationship, even sinister.....Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in young Harry from the word go....I wonder if it has been in Harry's best interests..... it's no secret that he has had a most troubled adolescence." And the fact that Harry clearly gets what she is saying just adds whole new dimension to the wizarding world, doesn't it??
And someone talked about a wet dream/i.e,. possible masturbation "hint" and I thought the poster was off his rocker, but even I was able to pick up on it. In the 2nd page of "The Flaw In The Plan" (and I still am not able to figure this chapter out??) Harry awakens and he is naked, and he hears a thumping noise and Rowling says he felt as if he were spying on something shameful and indecent. New paragraph. "For the first time, he wished he were clothed.." New paragraph.....Robes suddenly appeared and he put them on. "They were soft, clean, and warm." And how it was funny that they had appeared the instant he had wished for them...why would Jo drop in that little fact about them being clean? I know, Teta, get your mind out of the freakin gutter, but believe me, you don't expect this stuff when reading HP! It just jumps out at you!
I haven't been online yet to see the reaction...have yet to finish the first half of the book.....
But thank you Jack in the Box, I know....wonder if anyone else on here will see the same things I did...Does anyone else have some *SERIOUS* reactions here?
PS Alan Rickman. I am turning cartwheels trying to picture his performance in Film 7!! (Damn, HE gets the great death scene!
) Jo does not tell us the expression on Snape's face at the moment of his death, when he is looking into "Lilys' eyes.....could Rickman have it look a bit adoring just for that one moment, so we can clearly see he is picturing someone else? And BTW, HOW are they going to tone this down? He dies pouring his last thoughts into a basin, silvery blue (SILVERYagain, the Patronus allusion).
One thing though..I managed to get my hands on one of the Deluxe Editions, the one with the FANTASTIC Mary Grandpre illustration of the Trio flying on a dragon on the cover, with the enlarged chapter title sketches in the back/captyions, and the full-color illustration of Snape and Yaxley walking thru the gates of Malfoy Manor from Chapter 1 pg 2. If we didn't know Snape had a shampoo problem, we'd take a look at that pic and say that damn, Snape is HOT, in a piratey sort of way. Rickman is fantastic but this pic throws things in a whole newlight (sorry, I don't know how to post it....and the story of how I got a Deluxe Edition is a saga in itself)
did we ever find out the point of that creature? Was it supposed to represent Voldermort's Horcrux in Harry, or what? Perhaps I should re-read that chapter. It was definitely the most intriguing of the entire book, perhaps even the whole series.
but the whole Draco/Lucius/Gregorovich/Olivander/Harry/Voldemort/Snape wand thing, the whole concept of the Elder Wand is still baffling to me. I need to finish the book, maybe I'llget it better....I mean, the Hollywood suits couldn';t even trust the audience to get the concept of a Secret-Keeper, so they simply have Moody rap a stick on the ground. Since a backfiring wand spell kills Voldemort, they can't cut out the wand thing, which means they'll have to explain it. How? 
I kinda feel with this chapter there are two levels to everything. Kinda like in Dante's Inferno how pretty much every passage has multiple meanings (political, spiritual, etc)
