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I’ve got to make 5 posts by midnight tonight if I’m to fulfill my 30 posts in 30 days quest. Thus, I’m digging into the archive of unfinished posts and seeing what I can polish up and get published. Here’s the first of *fingers crossed* five.

There aren’t many times when I voluntarily give up the Internet for prolonged periods. In fact, I’m struggling to think of any such occasions right off the top of my head. That is, excluding the week leading up to July 21, 2007.

To say that I was a little paranoid about being spoiled the ending of the final Harry Potter book would be an understatement. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that people on the Internet are assholes, myself included. Some more often than others, but trust me, the fact remains. If you spend more than an hour a day on the Internet, there will be a point somewhere along the line where you’ll purposefully be a dick just for the hell of it. And when the entire HP book ends up on the Internet over a week before it’s actual release date, you didn’t have to have an active imagination to know what would follow.

So, with that said, Only click the link below if you’ve finished the Harry Potter Heptalogy, because otherwise you’re going to be spoiled. For you see, I surprisingly don’t want to be a dick right now.

Just to clarify once more, THERE ARE SPOILERS COMING UP SO UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW THE FINAL BOOK ENDS, STOP READING NOW, YOU FREAKING MORON! I know it’s been well over 7 months since the book came out, but hell, you never know.

Ok, so let’s just get a few things out of the way. I’ve already read the book three times and I’ve loved it every time. In fact, let’s just list some of the awesomeness:

• Neville finally completing his transformation from a bumbling tool to a hardcore, pure metal badass who isn’t afraid of anything. HOLY CHRIST, DID I LOVE THAT! In fact, I was probably hoping for that to happen more than anything else, even more so than Harry living at the end. From his shittyness at casting magic (which, albeit, got better after he broke his dad’s old wand in the 5th book. Turns out that wasn’t the best fit wand for him) to his parents (yeah, Harry’s might have been dead, but his were basically dead as well) to him not even having any real friends. Sure, he was friends with Harry, but Harry never treated him like Ron or Hermione. I didn’t care if JKR killed Harry off, just as long as she redeemed and validated Neville. And did she ever.
• The brutal killing of Hedwig destroyed me. I went to bed after reading that chapter and if you remember, JKR teased us into thinking Hagrid might be dead as well. So as I curled up for the night, I couldn’t have cared less that the bumbling Hagrid was dead. I couldn’t think of anything else beyond the fact that Harry had just exploded his freaking pet in his effort to escape the Death Eaters. And they say these are children’s books…
• The fact that Dudley maned up was awesome. It was a tad too Hallmark for some, but you can’t say that you saw it coming. I fully expected the Dursleys as a whole to remain assholes to the very end.
• Snape’s Redemption. I. Did. Not. See. That. Coming. At fucking all. I thought JKR was going to let Dumbledore’s blind faith in Snape be his ultimate worst mistake in life, yet even that proved to be yet another of his brilliant moves. Learning of his past didn’t excuse the fact that he was a total dick to Harry for no good reason, but it did at least explain it. He might not have been a good man, but at least he was trying to be.
• “NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” – Hahahaha, eat it Bellatrix.
• All the loose ends were tied up. I mean, everything got a shout out if not an out right finality to it. From Shunpike being revealed as an actual Deatheater to Harry & Co. traveling to pretty much all the locations we’d ever seen in the books to the very last chapter where we learned what finally happened to heroes. Most times I enjoy endings where there’s at least some wiggle room for interpretation and imagining what actually happened, but for some reason it felt better being told what happened with everybody involved with this story.
• People died. Yeah, I hated reading about all the deaths, especially Lupin’s and Tonk’s. But they were necessary! You can’t have a believable war without people dying, it’s as simple as that. JKR was never afraid of killing people off in the past, which was a good thing, but I was still a little scared she might pull her punches and make the final battle a little too pie in the sky.
• And speaking of the final battle. I was so damn afraid it was going to be a letdown, but as soon as McGonagall had the suits of armor spring to life and take up defensive perimeters, I knew it was gonna rock. I would have liked to see a little Lupin-Greyback werewolf action, but all in all that’s my only criticism of the battle. And when you’ve got over a decade and seven books of buildup to said battle and that’s the only drawback to it, then you know it was good. I mean, everybody showed up to fight! As people kept coming through the portrait into the Room of Requirement, I kept yelping out with joy and my heart started racing faster and faster. From start to finish, it was freaking awesome, from the cavalry of desks to the portraits screaming out battle reports to Trelawny raining down fortune telling orbs – awesome, awesome, awesome.

I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting about, as I only had two of those bullets above typed before an hour ago. But I wanted to get this post up just as a small thank you to JKR. Our parents had Star Wars and their parents had Lord of the Rings, but up until the Harry Potter saga, my generation didn’t have an epic fantasy tale to fall in love with and call our own. For that reason alone, JKR will forever have my gratitude and appreciation. It’s not easy writing fantasy (trust me, I know) and the fact that she was able to create such a vivid and rich world is nothing short of brilliant and amazing. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!