Having just dedicated the best part of a fortnight to producing a chapter-by-chapter review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I thought it best to conclude with an overview of the series, highlighting some of the things I found most discomforting about Rowling's Opus.

This is going to be in three sections, so bear with me.

Chekhov's Guns: Rowling and Style

Commendation has, of course, been heaped upon Rowling from all corners for her epic septology, and one of the most common articles of praise is her supposed mastery of something that the internet likes to call "Chekhov's Gun".

This is the thing JK uses all the time, where something gets mentioned in passing in book X, only to become a crucial plot point in book X+1. See, for example, Harry's ability to speak to snakes, the diary from book 2 turning out to be a Horcrux in book 6, or the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw showing up in the Room of Lost Things as a random piece of junk.

Rowling's fans view this sort of trick as the Height of Good Writing, and they frequently cite Anton Chekov in support of this.

The actual line they are referencing (or, as I hope I am about to demonstrate, mis-referencing) is the following:

One must not put a loaded rifle on stage if no-one is thinking of firing it

It is sometimes also couched in the following terms:

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise do not put it there.

There are two crucial things about Chekhov's guns which The Internet At Large fails to notice.

The first is that in both cases, Chekhov is talking about the stage. Small details matter a lot more on stage than in a book, because novelists are expected to describe their locations in greater detail than playwrights are.

The second, and significantly more important thing which people seem to get wrong about this Chekhov quote is that they seem to mentally reverse the word order. In particular, people seem to read it as:

If in the second act, you intend for a pistol to be fired, you must have hung it on the wall in the first act.
The difference here is important. The first (original, correct) sentence is an admonition. It's basically saying (and I take some license with this, I admit) "do not introduce details into your text which do not serve to drive the narrative forwards." People usually take "Chekov's Gun" to be something implied more strongly by the second sentence, very roughly: "if something is important to your narrative, it should be introduced well in advance." Or, to put it in the most condescending way possible "it is desirable to introduce seemingly pointless details, so that you will look clever when they become important later on."

"But Dan," I can hear at least one person shouting from the electronic wilderness. "Why does it matter what Chekhov might or might not have originally said, and what he might or might not have meant by it? If people enjoy the way that Rowling introduces seemingly irrelevant detail, only to have it become important later on, isn't that good enough?"

Well no. It isn't.

Chekhov's Guns are an example demonstrating the importance of placing the focus on the story you are trying to tell. You don't put a gun on stage unless somebody is intending to fire it. You don't give the hero's mentor a Dark Past unless it is going to be somehow important.

Rowling's "Guns" are the exact opposite. They represent the primacy of world over narrative. The difference here is subtle but vital. Chekhov's Gun is a setting detail which drives the story. Rowling's Guns are story details which drive the setting.

Take the Dumbledore backstory. In Book 1 we read, on a chocolate frog card, that Dumbledore defeated the Dark Wizard Grindelwald. In Book Seven we learn that in fact he and Grindelwald were close friends, and plotted to take over the world together. But neither of these revelations drive the story. They are both equally unimportant, and Anton Chekhov would, I am certain, have considered both of them to be an unfired gun.

"But Dan," the guy from before is still saying "some people clearly liked the Dumbledore backplot, so why does it matter what you think Chekhov would have thought of it?"

And here, frankly, I'm going to get snarky.

By using Chekov's Gun to validate the fact that the pointless crap in the previous books gets revealed to be bigger but equally pointless crap in the final book, people are claiming that a cheap trick has literary merit. They are equating the fannish desire to be rewarded for obsession with detail with the creation of a strong, tautly plotted story.

The Invisible Man: Rowling and Virtue

JK Rowling has stated on a number of occasions that, if she were to join Hogwarts, she would want to be sorted into Gryffindor, because she values bravery above all things.

I genuinely believe this. I also believe that JK Rowling has a really messed up definition of "bravery".

In the final book of the series it is revealed that the Invisibility Cloak, which Harry has carried around since book one, is in fact the greatest of the Deathly Hallows. Its true glory, Dumbledore explains in the final chapter, is that it can "protect others as well as the wearer." Why that is more true of the Cloak than the Wand (which can presumably be used for shield charms as well as killing curses) I will never know.

I do, however, think it is very telling that JK Rowling's great hero possesses, as his defining quality, invisibility.

The original invisible man is driven slowly mad by his condition. Of course it's a slightly different situation, since Griffin's condition is irreversible, whereas Harry can put the cloak on or take it off as he pleases. However, the central point of the original Invisible Man story is that to be invisible is to lose all sense of identity, all contact with the world, and all need to face the consequences of your actions. This image (or perhaps non-image) resonates throughout fiction. The invisible man is no man at all.

Yet for Rowling, invisibility is a hero's virtue. This becomes even more interesting when we realise that as well as having the power to become physically invisible, Harry is "invisible" in many other ways as well. His very lack of personality, of drive or motivation, is held as his greatest and most admirable virtue.

This strange situation goes right back to the first book. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Quirrel is unable to find the stone, because when he looks into the Mirror of Erised, all he sees is himself handing the stone over to Voldemort. The mirror spies into his mind, and determines his true motivation for wanting the stone, and finds him lacking. Harry, however, looks into the mirror, and sees himself finding the stone. Dumbledore later explains that "only one who wished only to find the stone, find it and not use it" would be able to pass that particular test.

Now by itself, there's nothing wrong with that. It's a standard children's fantasy setup: the magical doohickey looks into your heart and sees that you are Good and True and Pure, and you win. In the context of the wider series, however, it sets a strange precedent. Harry is able to find the Philosopher's Stone because he has no motivation for looking for it in the first place, and this continues throughout the series, and is singled out as the quality which makes Harry a "better man" than the other characters.

Throughout the series, the most noble reason for any course of action is no reason at all. Harry seeks the Deathly Hallows because he thinks it might maybe be what Dumbledore was expecting him to do. And according to Dumbledore, had he sought them for any other reason, he would not have been worthy to find them. When Dumbledore tried to unite the Hallows, he was actually trying to achieve something, and therefore proved himself unworthy.

Harry spends seven years doing what he thinks other people might expect him to. He's utterly passive. The piece de resistance in this directionless saga is, of course, Harry's "sacrifice" at the "climax" of the seventh book. Having seen in the pensieve that Dumbledore intended for him to be killed by Voldemort, he immediately decides to lay down and die. Rowling, apparently, views this as the height of courage. The act of a True Gryffindor. I view it as utterly craven.

JK Rowling seems to view "courage" as the quality which allows you to accept the world as you find it. Now if we were talking about things which genuinely were beyond your control, that would be one thing, but Potter is a hero, and the protagonist of the stories. He is supposed to be changing the world (and according to Rowling's later interviews, he totally does, after the books end).

Harry goes willingly to his death, not to protect anybody, not to save the world, not to destroy Voldemort, but because somebody tells him he's meant to. It's pathetic. But in the afterlife, Dumbledore heaps praise upon him, and tells him that he has become the true "Master of Death" because he killed himself on instruction.

The flip-side to Harry's passive Gryffindor "courage" is of course the "ambition" of House Slytherin. Many fans were deeply upset that the Slytherins all abandoned Hogwarts in the final fight: "they were supposed to be ambitious, not evil" is a common complaint. To Rowling, however, ambition is evil in and of itself. Actual desires, actual motivations, are reprehensible things. No action is pure unless it is motivated by a nonspecific sense of duty.

I'm currently reading Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy (the ones about the assassin). It's interesting to compare Fitz unwavering loyalty to the Farseer line, and Harry's unwavering loyalty to Dumbledore. Fitz's absolute loyalty is presented as much as a failing as a virtue. While laudable, his utter devotion to a single master gets in the way of his developing real human relationships. In many ways, Fitz is prevented from becoming a complete human being by his dedication to his master.

Harry, on the other hand, shows a similar blind loyalty, not only to Dumbledore, but increasingly to a spurious and nebulous sense of "should be" and this is what makes him a "better man" than Dumbledore. JK Rowling glorifies her hero for having no personality, and tells us that his blind following of the plot makes him a great man.

Like fuck.

Dulce et Decorum Est: Rowling on Death

This is where I go from being a bitter ex-fan, to being genuinely angry. JK Rowling's attitude to death in the books is trite, patronising and offensive.

In the penultimate chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry becomes the "Master of Death." He does this by willingly sacrificing his life to Voldemort, and by "understanding that there far worse things in the living world than dying."

I'm onside with the idea that there are worse things than death. It is most certainly better to die than to - say - slaughter hundreds of innocent people in a misguided attempt to divide your soul into seven pieces and attain immortality. I might even go so far as to accept that it's better to die than to betray your friend, his wife, and his infant son to a murderous psychopath.

However Harry does not go to his death for any of these reasons. Harry goes to his death because Dumbledore told him to.

Now before you all start writing in, I get the whole "Harry was a Horcrux" deal. I understand that Voldemort couldn't die while Harry was alive. I get the prophecy. I understand why Dumbledore told Harry to go and kill himself. But it's not the issue. The issue is that nobody tried to find a solution to the problem that did not involve Harry sacrificing himself. Harry's death is considered to be a desirable end in and of itself.

And this is what gets me. It is not courage which Rowling praises, it is not struggling, or striving, or fighting. It is not defiance in the face of evi. It is the very act of dying which she glorifies.

As I pointed out in my earlier article, every single man, woman and child who stayed to fight the Battle of Hogwarts was willing to die to protect something or somebody. But because they fought, because they tried to stay alive, because they tried to solve their problems by confronting them head on, their struggle is considered somehow less noble than Harry's ritual suicide.

Perhaps I would find Rowling's portrayal of death less offensive if I didn't know she took such pride in it. She talks about how being a children's writer means being a "cold, callous killer."

Then there's this interview with msnbc, in which she tells us, with reference to the death of Lupin and Tonks:

"I think one of the most devastating things about war is the children left behind. As happened in the first war when Harry's left behind, I wanted us to see another child left behind. And it made it very poignant that it was their newborn son."

Except that we don't see the child until the epilogue, and when we do, we don't see any sign that he has been affected in any way by the death of his parents. Harry expresses no sense of obligation towards his orphaned godson, no sense of responsibility. Harry's words of wisdom are to his natural son Albus Severus, not to fellow war-orphan Teddy Lupin.

And of course, Teddy Lupin was only orphaned at all because Remus and Nymphadora chose to fight at Hogwarts. They clearly felt not only that there were worse things in the living world than dying, but that parenthood was one of them.

Of course, the Lupins aren't the only couple to completely reject their parental duties the moment they get the whiff of an opportunity for heroism. The late James and Lily Potter make an all-singing all-dancing cameo as the Super Suicide Cheerleader Squad, when they appear before Harry and tell him that they are "very proud" that he is marching blindly to his death and that it "won't be long now" and that dying is "quicker and easier than falling asleep."

I said it before, and I'll say it again. That is fucking fucked up. He is their fucking son for fuck's sake. I don't care how evil Voldemort is. I don't care how cool your afterlife is. Did Lily Potter really stand in front of a Killing Curse for Harry just so that he could go and stand in front of another one sixteen years later?

As I think I have already said, the message of the Harry Potter books is supposed to be "there are far worse things than death." Now to be honest, I don't think that's a massively controversial statement. But she takes it way too far. She spends so much time talking about how it's okay to be dead, so much time telling us that Harry's decision to die is Brave and Right and Honourable, and so much time talking about dead characters, that it seems like in the Potterverse, life is just an unfortunate preamble to the main event.

Interestingly, this is exactly the same attitude which C.S. Lewis is routinely lambasted for presenting. The difference is that Lewis presented it deliberately, and it was founded in a devout Christian faith. Rowling's freaky death-cult is the accidental result of a bad writer cramming one too many sentimental cliches into a badly thought-out treatise on bereavement.

I think the basic problem is that JK herself doesn't know what she thinks about death. She just knows that it's Very Very Important and that she wants to say something about it. She knows that when people die it is very sad, but wants to reassure her readers (and dare I suggest, herself) that ultimately death is a perfectly natural part of life. The problem is that all of these conflicting motivations spill out into a terrible jumble on the page. So sometimes we're told how terrible death is ("the suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a presence" and of course murder is the "supreme act of evil") but at the same time we are told that actually dying and being dead are perfectly fine. Even if you're only seventeen, or have a new-born child to bring up.

I'm going to get into some slightly murky water now, and play the "what I think a complete stranger's life is like" card.

It's fairly well publicised that, around the time Harry Potter was first getting going, JK's mother died. She apparently had MS and the last six months of her life were hellish. This being the case, I can well see that you would develop an idea of death as something tragic but ultimately merciful. But what is a welcome release to an old woman with a terminal illness is just a senseless waste for a young couple with children, or a seventeen year old boy.

Rowling tries to confront the horror of death and the futility of war, but because she is unwilling to present any of the characters who die as anything but heroic (if they are good) or irredeemable (if they are evil), she manages only to glorify it. Sweet and honourable it is to die for Hogwarts.

And indeed, Owen says it better than I can, so I'll leave you with him. If you're reading JK, I'd take some notes.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.