SPOILER ALERT

Yesterday (Saturday) I picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows down at the local bookstore. It was the next to last copy available. I'm nursing a hamstring thing, and I was going to attempt a triathlon today, so I felt a full day of lounging was in order.

Several hours later, my years long exploration of Rowling's England had concluded. And not without a few genuine chills and thrills. And on more than one occasion I seemed to get a little dust under my contacts.

I have a few small problems with some of the literary devices Rowling has utilized in her latest novel. Do they add to the story? You will have to decide for yourself.

First of all, the rather odd choose your own adventure ending did not do much for me. I found it rather forced and contrived, but that said, I did work my way through as many of the various permutations as I could, and I have some comments.

My favorite ending was clearly, 'Harry Goes to Vegas and opens his own Illusionist Show.' I thought that that was fairly clever, and provided a nice bridge from the Wizarding World to the Muggle world. I was a little less enthusiastic about the 'Harry and Lord Voldemort go to Vegas and open an Illusionist Show.' It just made me somehow uncomfortable, and I'm not sure why they needed a group of white Ligers in their show.

I was particularly fond of what I refer to as the 'Annakin' ending. Having Harry 'Strike down the Evil Lord, and take on the mantle of Dark Wizard', well, it does open the door for a whole redemption cycle series. But frankly, While Rowling has for years borrowed heavily from the Genre, this is just a little too, 'StarWars' for my taste, and I'm not sure I'm buying Neville Longbottome as the new Luke Skywalker.

The ending with Ron's broken wand disarming Harry at a MOST inopportune time was brilliant, a grim reminder that fate and happenstance are closely related. As opposed to the overwrought use of deus ex machina in earlier volumes, and in children's literature in general (and tom clancy novels), this is a refreshing reminder that sometimes, well, your gun jams.

Gandalf, er, Dumbledore's return in one ending was OK, seemed a little forced to me, but I mean, Fawkes Phoenix Droppings and butterbeer mixed in the TriWizard cup... can't argue with that.

The ending I like to refer to as 'Dark Phoenix', (X-men homage, not fawkes) where Hermione goes bat shit crazy after 6 years of removing alfalfa and opie's bacon from the fire and getting no credit was interesting. Given Rowlings rags to riches story, and living as a single mom, it's really no suprise that she would upend social conventions in such a manner, but the whole lazer beam eyeballs thing on Ron, well, I mean, I was really hoping they'd work it out, they're just kids.

...LIke in ending 7-B-3, where we look to the future, and the whole thing has unravelled like some protracted 'Beyond the Glory' sports montage, and you can't help but wince at Mary Grandpre's stylized art of a portly balding Harry, reduced to babbling on about the good ole days like some over the hill NFL star with failing memory (can't spell cast anymore) and arthritis (clumsy wand manipulation)...

And I could really have done without the ending in which Harry awakes from a very vivid dream to reveal that he's just a 12 year old boy being kept in a closet under the stairs by his creepy relatives. What the heck is up w/ Rowling? It's supposed to be a kid's movie. It's like the scene in Napoleon Dyanamite, where they shoot the Cow in front of the school bus. But.. that was funny... this was just, painful.