Like ten million others around the world, I have my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Like more than half of them, I'm also finished with it. I will only say this - the spoiler on the Internet is wrong about a bunch of stuff. Read the book.
For years people have been saying that the Potter books are about the battle of good versus evil. In the same way that they say the same thing about Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, this is both true and much too simple. Part of the power of both sets of books is this: in the course of the story, the characters discover the complexities of the world. There is good and there is evil, and they are both powerful. Sometimes, they do battle (although rarely explicitly). Yet, who is good? Who is evil? How are we to judge? How do we reckon with poor decisions, bad choices, the secrets that lie upon our hearts?
There are more thoughts, some of them I will save for the future. I will say this, however. I believe the final triumph of the books is true, and it poses the dilemma of that truth as starkly as any short story by Miguel de Unamuno - is the price of the good worth the life of one innocent child? There is no satisfactory answer to that question, because the answer depends upon the individual. It is my contention that these books, for all that they are offered as "juvenalia" present to us all this stark truth - beating within all of us is this heart of darkness. Who we are, who we will be is a never-ending project. Only those who really believe that all choices are final and that redemption is either an illusion or impossible surrender to death not out of courage, but out of fear. Or they run from death at all costs.
For all their flaws (yes, I said this marvelous series of books has flaws), the Harry Potter books are a masterwork for the ages. We are witnessing the end of one era, and the beginning of another. We should all be thankful we have lived in this time to learn, with Harry, that the real magic isn't waving a wand, but living a life of love.
