Deathly Hallows Review

July 23rd, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Review: OK, now that I've read it, I have to give you my review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The first thing that I have to say is that this is more of a young adult novel than a children's novel – I wouldn't recommend it for young children. For one thing, the body count is pretty high, and the level of violence is much more pronounced than in any of the previous books. Which is to be expected – this is the final showdown, and as has been said many times before, it's life or death for the magical world.
Harry pretty much begins the book on the run, with his final leaving of Privett Drive – the magic that protects him there only lasts till he is 17, and without that, there is no point in him remaining in a home that has represented nothing but oppression to him. There are two surprising things about this – one of the Dursleys has a change of heart about Harry, and the escape from Privett Drive starts the ratcheting up of the violence.
Once Harry and the survivors of the escape make it to their place of safety, there is a brief period of peace, but even there, Rowling just can't let Harry be happy. One of the things that annoyed me about Half-Blood Prince was Harry's leaving of Ginny; 'Stupid and noble' in her words. Since Order of the Phoenix, Ginny has shown that she is able to fight and is quite powerful in her own right – why not just let them be together, Jo? What have you got against young love? I get that he's lost tons of people he loves and can't bear the thought of losing another, but c'mon, he's dragging Ron and Hermione along with him...
A large portion of the first half of the book is given over to the trio's life on the lam, as Rowling does her typical extension of time so that events will match up with a school year. My main problem with this has always been – why are the bad guys waiting all this time? Yeah, the good guys have to think and plot and practice, but the other side is essentially ready. In Deathly Hallows, I was actually thinking the opposite. Why are the good guys waiting all this time? Once they actually get off their butts and decide to do something, events unfold fairly rapidly, but there was really no reason that they couldn't have wrapped this all up in time to just miss the first couple of months of their senior year. And, of course, the inevitable fight, breakup and reunion of friends that has become a hallmark of Rowling's previous work shows up here, as well. That got annoying after the second book, Jo.
So much for what I didn't like about the book. Other than my nitpickings above, it is, in the English vernacular of the author and my co-historian, a cracking good read. The students left behind at Hogwarts, most notably Ginny, Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom, become way more bad-ass than Harry ever was. I would have liked to see some more about them than the interminable and pointless arguing among Harry, Hermione and Ron. Neville, in particular, (whom it was hinted at in previous books is also a possible candidate for the prophecy of Voldemort's arch-nemesis), steps up and makes you think that maybe Harry's not really the one after all...
I would have also liked to see the ladies actually allowed to do something. Harry gets to be a hero, of course, but so do Ron, Neville, Fred & George, a host of other guys – but never the women. Hermione, who is the best witch of her age in the world, is used as a librarian and defensive shield. And hostage – let's never forget that typical use of the heroine. 2/3 of the rebellious leadership at Hogwarts is female, but only Neville gets to do cool stuff while we can watch. Molly Weasley, who has been the domestic point of contrast with Harry's Aunt Petunia, finally gets to throw down, but only in the mother-protecting-her-cubs way that is socially acceptable. Professor McGonagall has always been represented as a formidable sorceress, but other than use her air of authority, she does nothing more than animate objects in the final showdown. Jo, you're the world's most famous female author. There is no way this book would not be a bestseller. You could have let the women share in the heroics.
Back to what was good - there are a number of harrowing dives by the trio into the jaws of defeat, only to be snatched out by pure luck and nerve. I like the fulfillment of the prophecy, but there is never a very clear explanation of why Voldemort feels that he must be the one who kills Harry – in my reading of the whole thing, if I were the big V, I would just as soon have one of my minions face off against the scar-faced boy wonder. Obviously, The Evil Overlord's List wasn't required reading at Hogwarts when Tom Riddle attended. Although there are escapes from those aforementioned jaws, there is a price paid each time, sometimes a very dear price, and I like that. Nothing comes without cost in this book; even the truth about people's pasts is paid for quite dearly. Everyone is beat up by the end, even on the evil side.
The final showdown, the big battle that will play out very well in the 7th movie, happens mostly off-camera at the end of the book, because it's just a distraction for the real process of searching for that small thing that will defeat the other side. Evil is hoist on its own petard a couple of times here, but the good guys aren't exactly taking the best advantage of it. It all comes down to a duel in the end – with the side the loser is on giving up immediately, of course, because that's how these things are done. The epilogue, hinting at the aftermath, is touching, although I felt it could be a tad longer. I wanted my goodbyes to these beloved characters to last just a little while more.
My final recommendation is to read it, of course, which is what practically everyone is going to do, anyway. Every critic in the world could give the thing a negative review, and it would still have broken all sales records in history. It is the end of the journey for Harry, and here's hoping that Ms. Rowling finds something to do with all her free time and oodles of cash. Perhaps she might take an interest in helping authors who are not quite so successful get a leg up in the publishing world? Call me, Jo.

In 1990, Susan Shwartz won a Nebula Award for best secret history account Loose Cannon. Its 1941 and Commander of the British Eighth Army Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence holds the keys to North Africa. Yet two terrible secrets from twenty-five years before threaten to deliver an unlikely victory to the Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps. It was all about integrity really, in both senses of the word. Truth and honour. And also holding it together inside.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of Susan Shwarz original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Sitting in the morning sun I'll be sitting when the evening comes Watching the ships roll in Then I watch 'em roll away a-gain, yeah
Otis Redding	I'm Sitting on the dock of the bay Watching the tide roll a-way I'm just sitting on the dock of the bay Wasting time ~ Lyrics to “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” - Click to Play Sample
Big O

Madison, Wisconsin on December 10, 1967 ~ five of the six members of Redding's backup band, The Bar-Kays, were killed when Redding's twin engine Beechcraft plane crashed into the icy waters of the Squaw Bay area of Lake Monona. Redding, who had swapped seats with Ben Cauley and was sitting directly behind the co-pilot's seat, had fallen asleep on the flight clutching his seat cushion. He awoke when he realized he could not breathe. He said that he then saw band mate Phalon Jones look out of a window and say "Oh, no." Redding then unbuckled his safety belt which ultimately allowed him to separate himself from the wreckage. As the impact tore a wing off the small Beechcraft, the fuselage was torn open and Redding was able to bob to the surface as he clutched his seat cushion. Bassist James Alexander survived because he had taken a different flight as there was not enough room left on the plane. Big O had been warning fellow artists that he was “planning to leave this world”, which seemed on first listening to be the meaning of “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” recorded only three days prior to the crash. However, the song was Big O's first number #1, Redding's greatest commercial success, representing a significant stylistic departure from the bulk of his other work. The inner meaning of the song was Redding talking about leaving the world of gospel and rhythm & blues at Lyrics Vault

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

Ronald Reagan	"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done. " ~ Ronald Reagan
President

On March 30, 1981, only sixty-nine days into the new administration, Reagan, his press secretary James Brady, and two others were struck by gunfire from a deranged assassin, John Hinckley, Jr. Missing Reagan’s heart by less than one inch, the bullet instead pierced his left lung. On April 12, Nancy Reagan escorted the body of the President home from the hospital. The assassination of Ronald Reagan was a CIA coup which brought to power ex CIA Director George Bush. The thirty-five year project to recover Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) buried in Iraq, Iran, Panama and North Korea required Bush to gain the White House and he had no time to lose. He had his own rendezvous with history. The description of this tragic event is described at Wikipedia

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

In 2009, TV networks ran episode fourteen of So What If?, in which historian L. Sprague de Camp explained the significant divergence in the date of Easter celebrated by Latin and Ionian Christians. The heretical and schismatic refusal of 664 AD to adopt the Latin calendar date was a superficially minor decision considered by de Camp to be highly significant in the long-term. Preserving Celtic traditions sustained the Norse civilization on the North-West periphery of Europe, comprising Scandinavia and Great Britain. One consequence was the Viking settlement of North eastern Turtle Island and the subsequent formation of the Bretwaldate of Vinland.

~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Archduke Franz ..	In 1914, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia allowing the Austrians to find out who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. When Serbia accepts their demands tension with Austria-Hungary subsides.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1840, the Dominion of New Britain is created by the Act of Union. This Anglophone pocket of North America would the refuge of the fleeing British Royal Family in 1940. Head of the British Government in Exile Winston Churchill called this traumatic period “the British Empire and Commonwealth's darkest hour”.	New Britain
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

King David Hote..	In 1946, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a radio broadcast to the nation following the Irgun bombing of the previous day. Ninety people were killed when arch terrorist Menachem Begin destroyed the headquarters of the British civil and military administration at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The ..
.. Prime Minister said that the perpetrators of this heinous command would be brought to justice and the British Mandate in Palestine would continue. Churchill meant it when he said he would not preside over the end of the British Empire.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1977, octogenarian Chiang Kai-shek sought refuge on the island of Formosa for the second time. This time there would be no return to the mainland, and also, he had not been able to steel the gold and foreign currency reserves of the Chinese nation again.	Chiang Kai-Shek
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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August 15th, 2006

Alternate Historian's Note: Our thanks to Guest Historian, Viannah Duncan, for filling in for us yesterday. She did a great job, and we hope she enjoyed it as much as we did the day off :)

in [time unknown], for two days, the crews of the Pokor and the Eagle have been constrained in orbit around the brown planet. Their ships have been unable to break free from the the strange force that the alien ships have been using against them. They detected various probes being made of the ships and the crews, but no attempts at communication. Najib Kasem and the Quarai translator Monkar have been working almost without rest to decipher the radio transmissions they had received earlier. Kasem keeps feeling that the language is within his grasp, but never quite realizes why. Together, the two manage to unravel a tale of civil war and planetary devastation – the people of the brown planet have been evacuating to the 3rd and 5th planets in the system in order to save something of themselves. Hostilities have followed them there, though – the 5th planet, where the majority of the refugees are, is currently being bombarded, and Kasem finds a snippet of conversation in one transmission that speaks of a great weapon that will be used on this world to show the power of one of the factions in the civil war. Just as Kasem informs Commander Patterson and Captain Mawrao of this weapon, the Pokor is forced into a descent by the ships holding it. “We're landing,” the Pokor's helmsman says.

in 1057, with the powers of black magic on his side, Scottish King MacBeth slaughters the army of Malcolm Canmore, son of MacBeth's predecessor, Duncan I. Although Canmore's side had hoped that his general MacDuff's birth through caesarian section would counteract the prophesy that no man born of woman could defeat the Black King, MacDuff was never able to reach MacBeth in the heat of the battle, and was slain by the King from afar. It wasn't until MacBeth's attack on the noblewoman McAfferty's lands in northern England that the true meaning of the prophecy came true; Lady McAfferty, after seducing the King, poisoned his wine.

in 1935, Oklahoma's governor, former humorist Will Rogers, is invited to Washington to speak to an meeting of the nation's governors to discuss ways of alleviating the pain of the Great Depression the nation finds itself in. Rogers is popular across party lines, even though he himself is a Democrat, and had been chosen because under his leadership, Oklahoma's poorest had been given enough of a living to where they were no longer fleeing the state in record numbers. As his plane left the airport in Oklahoma City, though, a twister sprang out of nowhere and sent it spiraling into the ground, killing the governor and all aboard. The nation mourned the loss of this gentle, funny man.

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Yeshua ben-Yusuph; Best Plays Vietnam

READ OUR CHRISTMAS DAY CONTEST WINNERS TOMORROW! Congratulations to our winners - Dante Ojeda, Nathaniel Engelsen, Heather Pilcher and XJ. Look for their alternate Christmas Day tomorrow!

December 24th, 2005

in 47,392 BCE, Telka and her great-granddaughter Swikolay reach the mountains of the Himalayas. The two slay many animals over the next week, and tan their hides into furs that they can wear. They start up the mountain as the years turns, and Telka tells Swikolay, “This mountain will allow us to touch the sky.”

in 753 AUC, a young Hebrew couple, the woman heavy with child, were given shelter in an inn in Bethlehem. The innkeeper, whose wife had just had a baby, took pity on them and gave them his finest room free of charge. When the woman died during childbirth the next morning, the husband took the young child to the east with 3 men who had apparently come to pay homage to the child because of a prophecy. This child grew up to be the great east philosopher Yeshua ben-Yusuph, whose speeches and writings became a bridge between Roman culture of the west and the Asian cultures of the east.

in 1802, a Signore Tolman, was permitted into the presence of Emperor Buonaparte of Italy to inform him of a grave disaster he could foresee with mystic powers. The emperor listened half-heartedly at first, but gave the man greater attention when he showed that he could disappear and reappear at will. Emperor Buonaparte sent his armies to the German north at the stranger’s request.

in 1814, the Treaty of Ghent brought peace between Canada and Great Britain after 2 years of war. Canada kept the formerly American colony of Maine by virtue of having troops all over it, and Great Britain paid restitution for the burning of the new Canadian capitol at Ottawa.

in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, by former Confederate soldiers unwilling to accept defeat. The racist organization was, oddly enough, responsible for keeping America from falling under the influence of the pro-Nazi American Bund during the 20th century because it forbade its members from allying with foreign powers.

in 1905, star-maker Howard Hughes was born in Houston, Texas. Although his family business was in the tool industry, Hughes saw his fortune in Hollywood, and with his acquisition of RKO Pictures in 1948, gave up all interest in virtually every other pursuit. Under his direction, RKO made some of the greatest classics in Hollywood’s history, such as Spartacus, The Godfather, and Star Wars. Hughes, who hated flying, died in a plane crash on his way home to his native Houston in 1982.

in 1952, Congress is unable to override President Truman's veto of the McCarren-Walter Act. Truman's characterization of the act as “inhumane” evoked the image of all the Jews turned away from America who went back to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis, and scuttled any chance the bill had of being enacted. This led to charges from the Republicans of being soft on Communism, but even incoming President Eisenhower agreed with Truman, having seen what happened to the Jews in Europe because of bad immigration policy.

in 1970, Bartholomew Thompson, direct descendent of Mikhail von Heflin, is born in Bryan, Texas. Although all four of his older siblings were aware of their lineage fairly early in life, Thompson didn’t find out until meeting with the Baron in 1996. Their introduction to each other at the science fiction convention Aggiecon proved pivotal for the both of them.

in 1972, international superstar Pete Best makes a controversial decision to perform for American troops fighting in Vietnam. Although he is derided as a sellout by the anti-war movement, the performance endears him to American troops everywhere. Best eventually mends the fence with the peaceniks with his album Goodwill Towards Men, released the following Christmas.

in 1994, Algerian extremists hijack a French plane and fly it to Paris, where they blow up the plane, killing all the passengers on board. The horrific spectacle prompts governments around the world to institute new security procedures in their airports. Scarily, this catches many other groups that were planning similar attacks over the next few years, including five groups in the United States who had planned on using large planes as missiles.

in 2003, a horrible crack opens in the earth surrounding London. Fires shooting up a hundred feet prevent the population from leaving by car or on foot – even airplanes find it hard to take off and fly through the geysers of fire. Pope Righteous I commands his Holy British troops to begin their march on Jerusalem.

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Pressures

	In 2008, the final resting place of three German U-boats, nicknamed Hitler's lost fleet were found at the bottom of the South Atlantic. The submarines had travelled 8,000 miles from Germany at the climax of the Second World War, but were mysteriously sunk as the war neared its end. Now, more than 60 years later, explorers located the flotilla of three submarines off the coast of South Georgia. The vessels, including one once commanded by Germany's most successful U-boat ace, formed part of the 30th Flotilla of six submarines.

All three U-boats had been operating against British shipping in the North Sea. U-23 gained notoriety for scoring one of Germany's earliest successes, sinking a British ship off the Shetland Islands days after war began. It was later commanded by Otto Kretschmer, known as Silent Otto, the most successful U-boat ace. Fantastic stories circulated that Adolf Hitler and some of his followers had commandeered the vessels in April 1945 and endeavoured to escape to the hollow lands within the Earth after World War II via an entrance in Antarctica. Now the submarines' hulls have been discovered by a team led by Selcuk Kolay, a Turkish marine engineer, who presented his findings to a shipwreck conference in Plymouth. He thought he was also close to pinpointing the third boat, U-19, thought to lie more than 1,000ft down, three miles from the coast of South Georgia. It's one of the least well known stories of the war but one of the most interesting, said Mr Kolay. It is a quite incredible story. To get to the South Atlantic these boats had to avoid Allied shipping in the Atlantic, and once they got there head for the southern polar opening to meet their Agarthan allies. Until the discovery, the Hollow Earth Research Society in Ontario, Canada asserted that Hitler and his Nazi followers were still there. After the war, the organization claimed, the Allies discovered that more than 2,000 scientists from Germany and Italy had vanished, along with almost a million people, to the land beyond the South Pole.

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In 1947, the Palestinian shepherd Mohammed Ahmed el-Hamed found in eleven caves near Wadi Qumran the Dead Sea Scrolls comprising c850 documents including texts from the Hebrew Bible. Of great religious and historical significance, they are practically the only known surviving Biblical documents written before AD 100. The State of Palestine used the scrolls as a key bargaining chip in the negotiation of the two states solution in 1982, when the documents were ceremoniously handed to Israeli Chairman Yitzhak Rabin by President Mahmoud Abbas in the Free City of Jerusalem.

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In 1607, the Secret War begins between the two major factions of the Speaker's Line; those who wish to take control of the world's governments in order to fulfill the Speaker's Dream, and those who wish to continue their work without letting those outside the Speaker's Family know of their purpose.

In 1992, promising to get under the hood and fix the engine, Ross Perot announced his intention to run in the 1992 U.S. presidential election on CNN's Larry King Live. When US votes found out the extent of incompetence and waste in Washington, they were simply shocked, and today Perot is recognised as the Father of Small Government in the United States.

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In 1985, the Republic of Ireland knuckles under to pressure from the Catholic Church and kills a measure in Parliament that would have allowed the sale of contraceptives, in spite of a Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that the Irish constitution provided a right to privacy that allowed such sales. Several pharmacies worked outside of the law to provide contraception to at least married couples, and were covertly aided by the government until a conservative backlash placed staunch Catholics in charge in 1990. A very repressive law against any form of birth control passed the Parliament, and provided an impetus for feminists in Ireland to organize and campaign. They were so successful, and tapped such a huge groundswell of support, that they managed to cast out the conservative government in 1992 and finally implement the 20-year old Supreme Court decision.

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In 1969, a world wide catastrophe occurred on the date predicted by anti-pope Michel Collin as the undeclared war between United States, Russia and China in Vietnam escalated into a nuclear exchange.

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In 1494, heretical bishop Johan Friis was born in Denmark. Bishop Friis converted to the Lutheran Church after Pope Henry VIII had Martin Luther executed. Friis was instrumental in spreading the outlawed faith across Denmark, against the laws of the Holy British Empire, and earned Pope Henry's wrath for himself. He was executed for heresy in 1542.

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In 12-10-19-10-7, Inca is hit by a huge earthquake, destroying the city of Talcahuano. Oueztecan Emperor Kanticli declares the great loss of life, numbering in the thousands, to be an imperial emergency, and aid from across the two continents of the empire pours in to help the citizens of Talcahuano.

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Alistair Cook	The Democrats have the man to beat George W Bush said Alistair Cooke in his final Letter from America, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, 20 February, 2004. Cooke pointed to the fateful testimony before the Senate Arms Services Committee of David Kay - the CIA's retired chief weapons inspector. 'We got it all wrong,' he said, finally driving a stake in the heart of the administration's main declared reason for going into Iraq. 'All we found,' said David Kay, 'and are likely to find are the relics of an abandoned chemical warfare arsenal and of a primitive nuclear programme.'
Letter from America

Only one man - a doctor and former governor of Vermont - sensed the rising tide of popular feeling against the war. He galvanised the young and in all the public polls he was way ahead of the other seven. In the actual primaries he was time and again a distant first. This week his main rival joined the other dear departed. Hence the 15 out of 17 primaries lost by the Massachusetts senator, John Kerry, who since the campaign's beginning has sounded an odd and lonely boast: 'George Bush must be driven from the White House and Howard Dean is the man to do it.'

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In 2004, fans of the film series The Lord of the Rings riot in Los Angeles after the film is snubbed by the Oscars, garnering only one nomination for a technical award. Control is restored in the city after the Motion Picture Academy takes the unprecedented step of declaring that The Lord of the Rings will be awarded a special Oscar for 'Artistic Merit'.

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In 1962, Marine Lieutenant John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth died after his spacecraft, Friendship Seven burnt up on entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Glenn, 40 had travelled about 81,000 miles (more than 130,000km) as he circled the globe three times at more than 17,000 mph (27,000kph). Lieutenant Glenn controlled nearly two of the orbits himself after reporting 'minor difficulties' with the automatic altitude control system as he completed the third circuit - the maximum anticipated. Messages from the astronaut were transmitted by radio stations across the United States and United Kingdom and his progress was monitored by 18 ground stations around the world. As he re-entered the atmosphere after his four-hour and 56-minute journey Lieutenant Glenn made his last transmission saying: 'Boy, that was a real fireball.'

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In 1976, the South-east Asia Collective Defense Treaty (SEATO) was disbanded. The defense considered necessary at the signing of the Manilla Pact in 1954 was no longer required. The success of President Douglas MacArthur's Second Pacific War had rendered the organization unnecessary as friendly governments ruled the AsiaPac states by the mid-1970s.

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In 2004, fans of the film series The Lord of the Rings riot in Los Angeles after the film is snubbed by the Oscars, garnering only one nomination for a technical award. Control is restored in the city after the Motion Picture Academy takes the unprecedented step of declaring that The Lord of the Rings will be awarded a special Oscar for 'Artistic Merit'.