I'm just saying that OBHWF is too neat of an ending. Everyone is part of one big weasley family. It's TOO perfect in my opinion. And I think that a majority of fans think that a H/Hr romance would be wierd, because JKR stinks at writing romance.
When chooing between what is right and what is easy, doesn't mean that it's easier to write. It's just more convienant. it ties all the lose ends up together and packages them neatly.

What you seem to be saying here (pardon if I misunderstand you) is that happy endings which wrap up loose ends = trite/inherently inferior to less-than-happy endings. I cannot agree with that. I completely understand how JKR's *execution* of her OBHWF ending was crap, but now how such an ending is *inherently* crap. Many, MANY revered literary classics have neat, happy endings; they're just better-written

I don't think that the many people think H/Hr would feel weird because JKR writes romance badly; that would be implying that JKR intended to write H/Hr, which she didn't (no matter the result). R/Hr and H/G--the ships she did intend--don't come off as weird to me, just badly written.

Yep. Misunderstanding. I'm just as satisfied with a happy ending as much as the next person. I personally think that DH would have ended perfectly if JKR didn't include the crapologue. That part felt forced to me. Yes it was nice to see Harry have a family and all that, but it just felt like I've said a number of times...too perfect. I don't understand why she felt the need to add those four pages? Does it add anything to the story? IMO it doesn't. Harry seemed pretty happy to me at the end of the final chapter of the book. Why not just leave it at that? Let the fanfiction writers take over. I agree there are many better written happy endings, and to me having her write the 100% perfect epilogue cheapens the ending imo.



I agree with you that the ships JKR intended to write came off poorly done. That's one reason why I don't like the ending. It's HOW she wrote it. IMO it was crappy..and not just in book 7. IMO she should have just ended it with Harry wondering if Kreacher would make him a sandwich....that last page actually brought a smile to my face.

Yeah...personally, I would have preferred a better wrap-up at the end of the last chapter to the epilogue. And while I understand why she wanted to show Harry with, basically, what he saw himself with in the Mirror of Erised in book 1, I think that point could have been made more elegance and subtlety.

Imagine, as an epilogue, a short scene of Harry as an adult: He is visiting Hogwarts to give a guest lecture for DADA. He finds the Mirror of Erised, and as he smiles into it, memories of his younger days flooding back, his reflection smiles back at him; for him, it has become a regular old mirror, for he has become a perfectly happy man.

Now THAT, for me, would have been a perfect ending <3 It would have, in a way, brought the series full-circle.

Ah...C'est la vie...



Yeah, I just think that the epilogue's problems were mostly unconnected from the fact of OBHWF (I also generally put more stake in "bi-partisan" criticism ).

I agree, personally. Althought I wanted Harry and Hermione to get together so very badly, OBHWF is the easiest choice. H/Hr wouldn't be as neat for an ending (as much as I would love it) because Ron was still in love with Hermione, that was made evident throught some of the books. GoF and HBP but that doesn't mean they were 'meant' for each other. I don't, and never will believe that OBHWF was good. Harry and Hemrione whatever havoc it would have wreaked I would have adored it.

Although, now that I think about it...if JKR was going to write HHR how she wrote OBHWF then...I don't think I would have wanted it.

That would've been an awesome epilogue.

At this point anything but JK's ending would of been a better ending.

If she had Don't stop Believing Lyrics from Journey and having the last few pages blank like the Sopranos suddenly. Atleast then we can imagine what happened, instead we are stuck with kids names like Scorpius, Albus Severus and Hugo.

Hell, the scooby doo type ending I have in my signature would of probably been better at this point.

I don't know how much JKR has changed the ending since she wrote it seventeen years ago. If she didn't change it too much, she has had Harry and Ginny together the whole time in her mind. However, she lead us on for all seven books about Harry/Hermione's relationship. *shakes head*

I'd like to see JKR's original ending but for reasons at hand I doubt we'll ever see it. Even if we do it probably won't be the real original ending because if it is better then the one she put in the book, everyone will only have another reason to bash the book itself.

I go back to a old quote that I read a couple times, and even saw in a fanfic on here used in a different situation in a story. However, It will be changed a little for the situation at hand.

"The Harry Potter Series went out not with a bang but with a whimper."

It really would have been.

And I can see the ending being all..."Harry looked into the mirror, and saw just a regular image of him as he was exactly at that very moment, right down to the scar."

Hahah. I miss the series ending with "scar" instead of ... ''well.''

Now that I've read DH,the epilouge does make me wonder why she ended the book with "All was well". Why didn't she go cold turkey and said how happy the two couples were that they were finally married to eachother? It would have been the equivalent to the cliched "...And they lived happily ever after",which is what I guess she wants the readers to think that nineteen years later,the characters are very happy with their lives. However as many have pointed out,there are several things about the epilouge that make it seem detached from the rest of the book. Not to make this into an analyzing thread,but from the way the couples are interacting with eachother,I find it very odd that while the kids are getting ready to board the train Harry and Hermione do not speak to eachother.

Although JKR's epilouge is supossed to bring closure to the series and in her latest interview,where she mentions the careers the character pursued after Hogwarts,I get this nagging feeling that things are not as happy on the surface as they appear to be between the couples. Neither couple is showing any romantic affection for eachother by holding on to their spouse. All you get from Ron is that he's glad his daughter is smart like Hermione and all Harry does is look at Ginny when she tells him their son will be alright. Since Rowling was appealing to 10-15 year olds everywhere with this ending,you'd think she'd show more emotion between the couples. Or I guess she's saying that over a decade of marriage,public affection does not have to be shown.

I find it much more believable that she did not mention these things in the epilogue because it was crappily written than because the couples are secretly unhappy and about to be divorced.

In my opinion it's probably both Joseybird.

JKR knows herself that American, European and everywhere else Divorce rates are high. In fact, the number of kids born out of non-marriage couples are in rise in most European countries and America. So it would be plausible to me that she would keep them together for the kids, even if they weren't happy. Plus it would send a bad marriage to the kids if they were divorced, and the parents of those kids would be outraged..

However sadly, we are stuck with this ending for Book 7 much like Soprano fans are stuck with the blank black screen and Don't Stop Believing playing in the background.

Hopefully however, one day both will be fixed But I doubt HP will be. Unless JK can rewrite Books 6 and 7, or go back to basics like the first five and write 8 beautifully.

It's not out of her reach, but at this point it's going to take a lot more magic to do that..

I'm thinking about this on a thematic and narrative structure standpoint. I'm not looking at these characters as real people, but as personalities with qualities and psychologies reminiscent of real people but always subservient to the narrative and thematic structures of the book.

Characters in fiction are not just people on paper; they are subservient to the intentions of the author and the necessities of the plot (*cough*HermioneinBook2*coughgrowl*). Whatever "secret life" we could imagine these characters having (and in order for characters to come alive in one's imagination, one has to assume that they do things "off-screen"), imagining them doing something that undermines the structure of the book is pretty far-fetched. Voldemort COULD be playing hopscotch and giggling like a schoolgirl when we don't see him plotting Harry's demise. There's nothing in canon that says he does not enjoy hopscotch or giggling like a schoolgirl. But imagining him doing so undermines the seriousness of his villainy and can't be taken seriously when considering the narrative as a whole.

As badly developed as the romances were, they still fit into the structure of the books. Assuming that in the last scene, the adults are actually leading lives of quiet desperation (*in canon*)throws the structure of the narrative out of whack, which ruins the books as a series more than bad romantic development ever could.