Some things happen quickly, others do not, and a good ending is to be appreciated.
How to tie up and end a story like Harry Potter’s?
At Year 7, Harry is 17. He and his close friends do not return to school. They elect instead to unravel the sign of the deathly hallows and seek the end of the evil menace that threatens their world.
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” is the 7th book and, in two parts, the 7th and 8th movies of the epic to preserve pure magic.
Movie 7, Part 1 of the Deathly Hallows, is the prelude to the final installment. For this last book and the last two movies, there is a word: “horcrux.” In the Harry stories, there are a total of eight horcuxes: two persons, a creature and five things. No further clues will be given here. Into these too many horcruxes, the Dark Lord has divided, strained and poured portions of his tortured soul. If a single horcrux is killed or destroyed, Voldemort survives in another of his deadly creations and by so doing defeats death. Immortality is the Dark Lord’s goal and it will be achieved – unless all the horcruxes can be destroyed. Harry discovers that these pieces of his nemesis have been his task since Year 1, when the first horcrux of Voldemort’s living essences perished in the basement of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry destroys one or two of the objects. Friends and enemies dispatch the others. It is Harry’s path to the soul of his enemy that fuels their struggle and makes this their story.
By the final Movie 8, Part 2 of the Deathly Hallows, four horcruxes remain hidden. The race to their discovery begins. A monumental battling of forces breaks into view. In scope and complexity, the pace to finish is astonishing and to be applauded. Part 2 is one of the highest grossing pictures of all time, and the film does deserve its share of goblin treasure.
As I sat the other day in an office of modern magic, the young practitioner across from me said simply: “You will not be disappointed. Your questions will be answered.” As the youthful doctor promised, they largely were — although, even after Movie 8, in the realm of Harry Potter and his friends, questions remain. I think they always will.
For me, these films present the triumph of the plain people. The actors we follow for seven years grow and change. At the end, they are each less in appearance than they would have been had Hollywood been allowed to recast their efforts. By feature and in physical appearance, Harry and his friends become quite ordinary looking — in a kind everyday sense. I like this. It is an artifact of the extended filmmaking process and so unlike Hollywood’s natural behavior. Yet, this telescoped televisioning of life is a refreshing reality show of its own so like Hollywood’s normal behavior. I find the contradictory and confirmatory combination somehow appealing. I wonder what the author, J. K. Rowling, thinks of what time has drawn so naturally upon the faces and bodies of her actors.
Mother’s love wins out. A palate of protective love is the paint that binds these pictures. It is that nurturing background that torments its lead detractor and sentences him who has so long denied love’s embrace to a fetal limbo of the soul. For all the wizards helping Harry in his endeavors, it is the witches who ensure his success.
Harry’s mother, Lily Potter, saves her son at story’s start and is the strength of his heart at story’s end. The force of wand of Hogwarts’ real headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, is the slight wisp of shaken hair that signs the school’s rock solid defense. Harry’s best friend’s mother, Molly Weasley, will not surrender, and it is her unwavering nerve and solid arm that forecast her daughter Ginny Weasley, Harry’s future wife, onto a platform of hope. His best enemy’s mother, Narcissa Malfoy, preserves Harry’s life to save her son and doom the Dark Lord. Harry’s best young witch friend, Hermione Granger, reaches into her purse at the right times for the right answers to place Ron Weasley and their family securely at that future station on the right platform waiting on the children’s train. The pivotal role these determined women play is not lost on the young ladies reading the books and watching the shows. They are the faithful followers who make Harry Potter successful, and they are the true and pure magic surrounding us all.
I am grateful for each and every one of them.
They make for a great ending.
Grandpa Jim