Finished!

Last night, I finished my second read-through of Deathly Hallows and I think I enjoyed it much more than the first read. Sure, I have questions regarding the changes to the idea of a Secret Keeper, the fuzzy logic behind wandlore, the handy plot-enhancing handbag, the exposition chapters, that God-awful epilogue and the sloppy editing.

Overall, though, the story was good. I still cried over Dobby, I laughed over the twins' double-entandres with wands, sniggered at how 'friendly' Draco's wand felt to Harry (a nod to the D/H shoppers, perhaps?), cheered for Alpha!Neville, adored the underground radio show and loved the idea of a not-so-flawless Dumbledore.

Initially, the second McGuffin annoyed me - it was bad enough that they had to search for unknown Horcruxes with little to no information, but the addition of the Deathly Hallows seemed to be an unnecessary. Now, I think I get what she was trying to do - it was another test for Harry to prove his worth, to prove to himself he was the hero and not just a lucky (or unlucky, depending how you look at it) kid with a whole load of other, better people watching his back. This time, he overcame the desire and hunger of mastering death to defeat evil instead, because it was the right thing to do.

Throughout the series, this has been the deciding factor for most of Harry's decisions - he does what he thinks is the right course of action. Sometimes, the decisions are good (like defending Hagrid and Ron to Malfoy and trying to keep Snape from the philosopher's stone in PS, saving Dudley from the Dementors in OotP, risking his neck for Malfoy in DH) and other times, they're not so good (taking the car to school in CoS, going to 'save' Sirius from Voldemort in OotP, trying to get the memory from Slughorn in HBP). But throughout it all, his sense of what is right, justice and doing well for the common good, his 'saving people thing', have been the overriding factor.

It shows that Harry is fundamentally a good kid, regardless of his loveless upbringing. Harry is a good example of nature versus nurture and it is his very nature that saved a whole lot of people from the sheer dastardliness of Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters. (I reckon that could be a band doing '50s covers...)