A friend is having a Harry Potter Halloween party and I think I'm going to go as Bellatrix Lestrange. She so rocks in an evil way.

That sounds like a lot of fun!!

....Did I mention my SIL made his quilted velvet jacket for the movie amongst other things...? :p

/back on topic

OK so I have 200 pages of HPatDH left to go and it just hit me that there was a rather large logical gap with the horcrux issue that perhaps has been discussed or someone can resolve:

Why can't Voldemort create yet ANOTHER horcrux?

Supposedly you gotta kill someone and then cast a spell on an object and whammo, a horcrux. If HP and friends destroy all the horcruxes, then Voldy is mortal. So why can't Voldy just create another one on a random object after his resurrection? One that has no sentimental connection to him and therefore would never be guessed at by Harry Potter and Friends?

Is this explained somehow, because I am missing it. Or perhaps I haven't gotten to it yet.

The more you split your soul the more unstable what's left becomes. Making one horcrux is bad enough but he's made many more. Each time he rips his soul in half a little less is left. And what's left becomes more and more unstable.

So he could do it - but he's already gone way to far.

Yes ! I'm sure Slughorn explains this in Half Blood Prints.

Plus, he's a dimwit (as portrayed by Rowling) who doesn't realize till waaaay too late that Harry's knocking off the Horcruxes (horcruxi??) one-by-one.




Maybe all that soul-splitting has split off too much of his brain power.

YAY I am finally done with the book. Freaking loved it -- definitely the high point of the entire series. Very worthy finale.... I just loved Hermione and Ron's kiss, as well as the "NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH!" line... wowie!

I hope the movies of the last two books will do them justice, since it was dizzying how much was packed into those pages. Escape from being kidnapped (Malfoy Manor, my fave chapter) , a bank heist, a mystery, a war, and I swear she kills someone every 50 pages. Just ... fantastic.

I do agree that Voldemort was a little too dumb and arrogant at the end, but I guess that was the point. I still don't understand why he didn't just make another horcrux when he realized that HP had destroyed some of them. If I ever re-read Half-Blood Prince I suppose I'll look for that explanation from Slughorn, because I don't remember it.

If you kill all 31 other versions of yourself in parallel universes, you become all powerful. Wait, that's "The One" with Jet Li. Well, best not to think about these things too deeply.

Loved the book. Well worth the disappointment of the last three. (I've gone back to re-read key portions of the Order of the Phoenix in anticipation of seeing the movie, and it still sucks.)

Some quibbles: the final duel with Voldemort, like all the OK Corral wand battles did not sing out on the page. Harry went from "Do you feel lucky, punk?" to zen master who would not use the killing curse. I didn't like it.

I also was exquisitely worried that Hermione would be put on trial as a mudblood and would have to be rescued--or not. But that didn't happen. I also can't believe Harry and Hermione didn't hook up after Ron ditched them, but maybe that'll happen in the rewrite.

All in all, an amazing achievement, even with all the wretched excess.

I LOVE Order of the Phoenix. All a matter of taste, I suppose. But I dig the allegory.


I HATE Half Blood Prince, but am re-reading it now because I just read both books that, heheh, bookend it. Maybe I'll like it better the second time.