Bookraft

The last Potter story starts off with a wonderful chase sequence as Harry gets away from his secure but stifling stay at the Dudleys. This is great action writing. Not a moment too lose - and the need to make 6 copies of Harry each steeling away on a Quidditch broom in different directions. And will Harry survive - and will his fake-Harry friends survive the attack of the Death Eaters and Dementors ? 30 pages in and there is plenty of excitement to spare.

And J.K.Rowlings, once she establishes the pace - is unrelenting until the Pensieve-based tying up of the tale and the epilogue at the very end of the book. But a strange almost reverse charm works on the book as the tale of how the 7 Horcruxes containing Lord Voldemorts soul are first discovered and then destroyed. It all starts meandering downhill amidst the second great action scene - the takeover of the Ministry of Magic and all its bureaucratic machinery.

Again, the plotting is brilliant - the happy wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacourt is the launching point of the Voldemort’s and the Death Eaters takeover of all things Magic. But at this point, Ms. Rowlings has made fatal blunders in the plotting - she has launched the attack too soon and uses the danger excuse to abandon her natural setting- Hogwarts campus by having Harry and company not return to school at Hogwarts, but to start on their "secret Dumbledore-induced Inadmissibly Impossible Mission ". This is Harry, Ron and Hermione on their own on the hopeless search for the remaining five Horcruxes of which they only have a inkling notion of two more.

This is hopelessly bad plotting. Potter and crew need to discover more Horcrux clues at school. Also while at school, Harry should delegate one task of recovery of a Horcrux to trusted members of the Dumbledore army. Then as a plot device this will be the lingering suspense item. This will be the one Horcrux which Harry and company will always be worried about - will the Dumbledorian's recover the Horcrux? Will the DumbleDorians, in the process of looking for it or trying to destroy it - reveal their mission prematurely? Mme Rowling does not even have to advance the Dumbledorian Horcrux plot except as a series of messages to or secret meeting with Harry and/or company. Maybe some Messages just get through ... but what do they mean? A traitor in the Dumbledore Army crew? A chance to put Snape back in as menacing but also ambivalent presence. Then the wedding can take place at a Hogwarts break and then the Ministry of Magic is taken over just as Harry comes across a crucial Horcrux clue at Hogwarts. So only now that they have some notion of the nature and location of the Horcrux, Harry and company must wander apparating and disapparating in a tent all over England.

But there is still a big problem. Woahhh - its so big it stretches believability such that even a Muggle can feel her leg being pulled.

Yes I am talking about the almost President George Bush level of incompetence displayed by Lord Voldemort in this last book. First he is somewhat rightly unaware of the destruction of the first two Horcruxes; but then again his magics and charms should have been already doubled and then again redoubled when he realizes what prizes someone(think Harry P) and gang are after. We have to believe that Lord Voldemort would fall for the Enigma charm - the fact that like the Nazis, he would not even suspect that his precious Horcruxes would be in danger by means of Harry Potter who has already resisted his Avra Kadavre curse not once but twice. And suspiciously Harry has now taken off on a secret mission taking him close to at least one of his Horcruxes.

But what really stretches all credibility to the bathos limits is that Voldemort should have failed to place such deadly curses and such alerting signals - particularly on the handling, let alone the destruction of his soul in any one of his Horcrux. The Dark Lord should be aware of their disturbance let alone destruction. Remember this is Lord Voldemort who has messaging tattoos emblazoned on the wrist of everyone of his Death Eaters which tell him when and where to come whenever the tattoos are touched. And if Lord Voldemort can put an alerting charm on the speaking of his name - he should be able to do the same for the movement of his Horcruxes or for the Apparate command. In the latter case, the Dark Lord could at least follow Harry and collaborators if not confound the Apparate command.

The Prince of Evil must be that - but he is not.

Worse still this evil upon evil does not pursue the obvious Taliban strategy - take hostages of friends and loved ones of Harry and company, killing them off one by one until Harry the Rescuer finally shows up. But apparently the master deviant Voldemort has forgotten the strategy that worked so well in the 5th book, drawing Hero Harry out and to the rescue in the Labyrinth but also to Harry's near demise. True the friends of Harry can hide away - but perhaps a Luna or a Lupin could be found - and set up as a sacrificial luring lamb. Then the rescue would gain something but at a price.

In the second chapter of the book, Mme Rowling has set up this hostage possibility with the killing of Malfoy's sister as a succulent treat for Nagini, Lord Voldemort's huge patron snake and a living Horcrux. This also set up the possibility of another great plot twist mechanism which Mme Rowling has forgone - the breaking of ranks among the evildoers. Some Malfoy, Snape, or well placed half-Muggle Death Eater, aghast at the horrors of his Master, might well dare to switch sides and supply crucial Horcrux info to Harry or some Dumbledorians at a dire cost. Much better than the Pensieve based exoneration of Snape for example.

However give due credit, the Jesus Christ sacrifice of Harry was J.K. Rowling's return to very high plotting form. But that should have ended the story. With the death of Nagini proceeding it as a guessed "final Horcrux", Harry would prematurely think he had triumphed. But Voldemort staggered would still be alive. He would catch Harry un-alert and weakened because part of Harry's soul was mixed in with Lord Voldemort's. Voldemort would feign death only long enough to regain his wand and strength and then "kill" Harry. His moment of gloating would become LordVoldemort's death hallowing cry. And then some of the bonds that held his Death Eater and Dementor minions would dissipate and the Dumbledore Army would prevail in the fight to regain Harry's body(the appearance would be that some essence connected Harry to Lord Voldemort at their moments of apparent death - but only Harry's body remains. So both army's would seek Harry's body) and secure the safety of Hogwarts and Magicdom. Afterwards, having courageously rescued Harry's body, Hermione, Luna and Ginny would discover that Harry's soul still hovered. The final scene would be Harry's Redemption/Resurrection - I am sure J.K. could handle that scene very well.

Gone would be the belated holding hostage of Hogwarts. Gone would be the tiresome Pensieve rereading of Snape's past, gone would be the Deus Ex Machina appearance of Dumbledore. Thank Heavens. Meanwhile the Dumbledore Army would be truly worthy of their mettle as proved in gaining a Horcrux and in the Battle on Hogwarts.

Shades of Evil

A colleague who likes to discuss plots and story lines surprised me with the following. "You know Jack, your and J.K. Rowling's Lord Voldemort is too dark a shade of evil. Slytherin Snake House - yeah right who would want to join that crew. You need to find evil in a dark, but not completely black shade. Greed is Good and Macht ist Recht - Power is Right will attract a number of potential Slytherins and even Death Eaters. Many people choose to be on the winning side- almost regardless. But absolute power resides in only a few places - Presidents Putin and Bush and Mugabe are all shades of tyrants. But look to the arts, sports or business scenes for the really dark and murky shades of gray. Barry Bonds dancing with Bud Selig is a great example of murky gray from sports. And just look to the Tour de France and the doping scandals there. But the organizational arenas where absolute power is most likely to corrupt are politics and business.

Now thats where you will find some real Snapes and Dark Lord Voldemorts. Some of the deviance means CEOs can now pay themselves $Billions while dismissing tens of thousands of workers and steamrolling over minority shareholders (see notes on Private Equity firms here and here). The rash of prosecutions against CEOs in the case of Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, CA, Tyco, Hollinger and others are only variants on some very ugly shades of gray.

Yet these Dark Lords have their appeal. Mugabe and Bush cling to a hard core of supporters. Ditto for Barry Bonds and Bud Selig. Many opportunistic CEOs have their favorite charities and requisite partners. But they engender complex moral issues mostly involving raiding the Commons. For examples, thousands of jobs are lost so a tiny few will get millions if not billions in annual pay. Or hundreds of thousands of consumers will be subject to risk and recall due to slavish cost cutting, less quality control, and devious use of substandard components - just ask Colgate-Palmolive, Fisher Price and Mattel among others confronted with huge product recalls and body blows to the integrity of their brands. .

In an email my friend noted " here is where you have the real chimeral aspects of immorality. Evil comes in sheeps clothing. It blends with special interests, group gain and loss, greed and power in strange ways. It is these shades of evil, particularly the darker ones - that are so fascinating. That is why Snape, Sirius and Umbridge are even more interesting than Bellatrix and Yaxley or Ron and Kingsley Shacklebolt. It is the risk of traitors, the crossover to one ethical side or another, the deliberate loss of an ethical plumb - these are the tragedies of the spirit that make flawed but not clearly good or evil characters most interesting.

There is some of that moral ambivalence occurs within the Potter series - the Malfoys loyal to their son, not always Voldemort. Snape the ambivalent. Regulus Black drinking the potion that protects one of the Horcrux. But it is the pluck, wits and courage of Harry, Ron and Hermione - and how they grow up into it that carry the book. But I want to know more about those that would choose to support such a Dark Lord or would ally themselves with Harry and Dumbledore. And in that regard the final two books of the Harry Potter series were less interesting than I would have wanted. "

Given that the romantic match up between Hermione and Ron plus Ginny and Harry seemed a bit arbitrary who was I to argue with Mary about the adequacy of the shades of gray in Harry Potter. For me the series hit its high point in the 5th tale , Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, with Dumbledore's Army and shades of Umbridge, and since has been tailing off in plot integrity while gaining in sheer action. This is almost a tragedy. Such a splendidly peopled and carefully structured world - this series could have been a lasting masterpiece of magnificent imagination. Unfortunately the ultimate book falters on a shaky plotline, as if someone cast a Confounding spell. Give the last tome a 6.5 on 10.