Can someone please explain the end of Harry Potter to me?

[Tonight37]

Please explain it to me as though I’m 5.

Is Albus Dumbledore good or bad?

What about Snape?

Thanks

While you’re here can someone tell me why Harry didn’t marry Hermoine

Because he loves her like a sister, as said to Ron in the forest.

I thought Snape only covered for Harry in the Sectumsempra bit because otherwise it might have come out that he'd invented the spell in the first place.

Thanks
I just can’t get onboard with Ron and Herm being a couple

That's a marvelous stretch.

I think the main thing is that hogwarts is a safeguarding nightmare. As if you'd send your child there if they got the letter!

That was never on the cards. There was no romantic interest between them.

And it's a good thing this is a work of fiction because with the childhood he had no way would Harry have turned out as he does.

Because he was in love with ginny. Book ginny is so call. Film Ginny is the worst.

Well, yeah 🙂

Most people probably do a bit more shagging around rather than marrying the person they dated at 14 too, but probably less appropriate for a kids’ book…

Well, I guess we don't know what they did after the war and before getting married 😄

Unless the book tells us, but I don't remember if so.

Harrys first child was born 5years after the books so not much time for shagging around.

Oh well, maybe they got a year or two before settling down 😄

Ginny was a professional Quidditch player, bet she had opportunities.

Plenty of people have appalling abusive, traumatic childhoods and still become lovely and successful people.

I was thinking about HP books yesterday. Although everyone in my family read a lot, my (now adult) son didn't, preferring movies. HP was the first book he willingly read and he became obsessed with it. Even now I can hardly think of many other books he's read. His wife, from Forrin Land, is the same age; she was learning English and struggling with it as it just seemed like work. She read the first HP in translation and after that, couldn't wait for the translated copy to come out (later than the original) and just made herself learn English in order to read it. She says the English skills of girls in her year improved massively because of HP.

When they talk about HP books now they know them in more detail than the pope knows the bible, but it's the enthusiasm and love they have for JKR and the impact she had on their childhood that really shines through. I hope when JKR sees the vicious trolls online she knows that for every one of them, there are thousands and thousands of readers who love her and hate them - I don't know what the equivalent is in books, but she's the soundtrack of their childhood.

@TheProvincialLady true. But I assume that if someone was starved, forced to live in a cupboard and bullied horrifically by their family (not to mention the death of their parents, god father and other "family" members) they might at least have some mental health difficulties and trauma to process.

It's the triumph of good over evil, though.

It’s a book about wizards and goblins and house elves. I think we have to suspend disbelief in a number of areas…

Exactly, I think it gave a good message.
Most people are good but do bad things sometimes.
Sometimes there are people who are mostly evil/shit/cruel but have a bit of good in them.

No-one is entirely either/or

Pretty abusive towards the Dursleys, wasn't it? They had a kid dropped on them that they had to protect or they might all have been killed like his parents. They couldn't remain anonymous, everybody who visited was part of the life that led to her sister's murder and any of them could have done something horrible to them at any point (and did at times).

I agree they were neither good nor bad.

I fell that JKR really managed to portray how good people can do bad things but also how bad people can do good things.

I think every character was shown to have good and bad sides. Or rather shown to have flaws. For me that's what made them all so human and relatable - despite the fact they were also wizards and witches who could do magic that caused distraction in seconds 😂

They are such cleverly written books and my favourite scene with Snape was when he produced his patronis and it was the same as Lilys and he said "always" about loving her.

I think that the theme was meant to make us see their bad sides but they were ultimately good and that's why Harry called his son after them both.

A lot of children's books have parental figures you can't go to though. If Harry had had a normal loving upbringing with the Dursleys a lot of the story couldn't really happen.

He'd have gone home every Christmas, so not as much time at the Burrow. They'd have signed his permission slip in PoA, so no Marauders' Map! He might have been able to see Lupin growing up etc etc

But they could have been involved. He still could have called it home but with knowledge of who he was, visits from other wizards, an intervention to stop them being horrible. Mrs fig knew exactly how they were treating him and did nothing.

They could have still been shit but not abusive. Rejected magic but not kept him starving in a cupboard

In Real Life people make mistakes, fail to take the obvious steps, and generally bugger things up.

Snape was a bitter twisted misanthrope who is spiteful in little things but great in big things. Dumbledore is a bit of a softy but carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Ultimately he would die to protect everyone else- but usually manages not to need to.

And agree that love is the defining protective factor. Those who love can be saved. Those who don’t, can’t. Even Draco is saved because his mother loves him.

I think it’s interesting that some people only love people they are invested in, and are uninterested in anyone else- Lucius and the dursleys for example. They are ambitious and don’t care who they hurt to progress their own.
Others are self sacrificial- they make what they have stretch to cover a foundling, and protect others as well as their own.