Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

[G.T]

It's one of the most anticipated books of all time, and has a very good chance it'll become the fastest-selling book of all time, beating the previous book's 6.9 million copies sold on the first day.

Lots of speculation and hints of the book's plot given from J.K Rowling herself are collected together on this Wikipedia page.

This thread is mainly for discussion of the book, so if you haven't read the book and want to do so, posts will contain spoilers. I myself will have to avoid this thread until I've read it, incase I do read anything by mistake.


The UK edition will be coming in two editions:

Children's:

Adults:

Both are expected to contain 608 pages



The U.S edition will also have two editions:

U.S Standard cover:

U.S Deluxe cover :

Both editions are confirmed to have 784 pages.


Anyone else getting this book?

 

[FoolKiller]

I never buy these new. I refuse to pay that much for a book when waiting a year will get it for $6.

To show you what I mean. I just bought and read Half-Blood Prince.

I will admit it is tempting to get hold of a copy early as the ending to Half-Blood Prince was ruined for me about a week after it came out.


So are there any changes to the children's and adult versions? I know it is featuring 17-year-olds who are not likely to always use polite language, and there may be romantic situations that parents would rather not explain.

 

[Famine]

Yay. Yet more plagiarised nonsense masquerading as literature.


Honestly, people, read The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. If Harry doesn't turn out to be the result of a spell by Voldemort to rid him of the good parts of himself (or some similar theme) I'll be very surprised.

If I can muster up enough care.

 

[DuckRacer]

Both are expected to contain 608 pages

Both editions are confirmed to have 784 pages.

If I may ask, what's up with the US version having nearly 200 more pages?

 

[Alex.]

Yay. Yet more plagiarised nonsense masquerading as literature.


Honestly, people, read The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. If Harry doesn't turn out to be the result of a spell by Voldemort to rid him of the good parts of himself (or some similar theme) I'll be very surprised.

If I can muster up enough care.

good prediction. never thought of that before. I always thought there was something we wern't told, that could be it 👍

 

[Jondot]

Yeah, I'll probably get it. Although not at midnight or whenever the stupid rush is. I usually just pick it up from Sainsburies if I happen to see it. Probably won't get around to reading it for months anyway.

@Foolkiller: I've always wondered what the difference is. I'm not sure if there even is a change behind the cover.

 

[G.T]

If I may ask, what's up with the US version having nearly 200 more pages?

Book could possible be smaller in size.

I have no proper idea though. I've never seen a U.S edition of any of the books.


What Famine predicts is a good theory. It's definitely be something like that. The characters that end up dying is another is still anyone's guess...

 

[Omnis]

Yay. Yet more plagiarised nonsense masquerading as literature.


Honestly, people, read The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. If Harry doesn't turn out to be the result of a spell by Voldemort to rid him of the good parts of himself (or some similar theme) I'll be very surprised.

If I can muster up enough care.

Word, Famine. I even showed my english teacher the Earthsea books and now she's so determined to read this last one to find out if Rowling really is a plagiarist.

 

[Famine]

Word, Famine. I even showed my english teacher the Earthsea books and now she's so determined to read this last one to find out if Rowling really is a plagiarist.

Finally! Someone who's read Earthsea. It's shocking how obvious it is in places.

 

[Omnis]

Finally! Someone who's read Earthsea. It's shocking how obvious it is in places.

Yeah, thanks for pointing the series out a while ago when (surprise!) discussing Rowling and plagiarism in a similar thread.

 

[Famine]

Yeah, thanks for pointing the series out a while ago when (surprise!) discussing Rowling and plagiarism in a similar thread.

I just noticed that.

This picture is still really shocking though...

 

[Danny]

I can't wait to see the new and inventive people can think up to ruin it with spoilers.

I haven't decided on mine yet.

 

[Wenders]

If I may ask, what's up with the US version having nearly 200 more pages?

Maybe bigger print.

I will be buying my copy as soon as the shop opens, my daughter will be buying a copy too. We could just buy one copy but I don't want to wait til she finishes reading it which will take about 2 weeks for her. I'll finish mine over the weekend which means I'll be doing nothing else. So Jack, you'll be cooking all meals and doing all housework this weekend - that's if you want to eat and have clean clothes etc. (of course Jack won't see that message as I can't imagine him looking at any HP thread)

 

[Blackbird.]

You could hint him towards this thread?

 

[DustDriver]

If I may ask, what's up with the US version having nearly 200 more pages?

Those pages are probably needed to place the warning signs and text that you can shoke when you eat the pages etc, etc.
And a nice long disclaimer that they aren't responsable for accidents when children try to replicate the story in real life.

 

[OpheliaMontague]

Yay. Yet more plagiarised nonsense masquerading as literature.


Honestly, people, read The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. If Harry doesn't turn out to be the result of a spell by Voldemort to rid him of the good parts of himself (or some similar theme) I'll be very surprised.

If I can muster up enough care.

I read the summary for "The Wizard of Earthsea" on Wikipedia and they do sound kinda similar, but so are many books in the fantasy genre. The idea of a wizard school has been used in stories other than just these two.

There must be difference enough between the two to cause Rowling's books to become so huge yet Ursula Le Guin's to remain virtually unknown. It's not like J.K Rowling was famous before she wrote them. The books became popular by themselves.

 

[Omnis]

I read the summary for "The Wizard of Earthsea" on Wikipedia and they do sound kinda similar, but so are many books in the fantasy genre. The idea of a wizard school has been used in stories other than just these two.

There must be difference enough between the two to cause Rowling's books to become so huge yet Ursula Le Guin's to remain virtually unknown. It's not like J.K Rowling was famous before she wrote them. The books became popular by themselves.

That's because they're like 40 years apart and Rowling used something called Marketing.

 

[OpheliaMontague]

Every book thats ever been published has been marketed to a certain extent. A good story will stay popular no matter when it was written. Seriously obvious example: Lord of the Rings, written in 1930/40's.

Even if some of the overall story in Harry Potter has been recycled, it's brought alot of joy to alot of people all over the world so why question it?

 

[Omnis]

Every book thats ever been published has been marketed to a certain extent. A good story will stay popular no matter when it was written. Seriously obvious example: Lord of the Rings, written in 1930/40's.

Even if some of the overall story in Harry Potter has been recycled, it's brought alot of joy to alot of people all over the world so why question it?

Because people think it's so original when it's not. Nobody acknowledges the giants (not even their shoulders) upon which Harry Potter stands.

 

[YSSMAN]

To answer the origional question, yes I will read it. After I get through about 4000 pages of books 3-6, so its going to be a while until I get there.

I have my theories about what happens to say the least, so we'll see...

 

[OpheliaMontague]

Because people think it's so original when it's not. Nobody acknowledges the giants (not even their shoulders) upon which Harry Potter stands.

Giant's, eh? Harry Potter is the giant here. He's the one stamping all over the dwarfs of literature you insist on arguing for.

I don't think there's anything wrong with drawing inspiration from someone else's work. Rowling's ideas have been original enough to so far squash all the attention seeking plagiarism claims filed against her.

Anywho, if you'll excuse me I'm off to drag Matt (hopefully with minimal kicking and screaming) to watch Harry Potter 5 at the movies

 

[Omnis]

Giant's, eh? Harry Potter is the giant here. He's the one stamping all over the dwarfs of literature you insist on arguing for.

I don't think there's anything wrong with drawing inspiration from someone else's work. Rowling's ideas have been original enough to so far squash all the attention seeking plagiarism claims filed against her.

Anywho, if you'll excuse me I'm off to drag Matt (hopefully with minimal kicking and screaming) to watch Harry Potter 5 at the movies

Oh, I'll let Famine deal with you.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Every book thats ever been published has been marketed to a certain extent. A good story will stay popular no matter when it was written. Seriously obvious example: Lord of the Rings, written in 1930/40's.

Even if some of the overall story in Harry Potter has been recycled, it's brought alot of joy to alot of people all over the world so why question it?

Believe it or not, Lord of the Rings is recycled, too. In Book 2 of Plato's The Republic, there is a mythical artifact called the Ring of Gyges. A shepherd found a giant's tomb after an earthquake opened up his field. When he explored the tomb, he found a ring around the giant's finger, which he took. He soon discovered that when wearing the ring, he became invisible to those around him, and started using it to his own advantage. Ultimately he seduces his queen and murders the king to take control of the lands.

Alright, so The Lord of the Rings is not a carbon copy of The Ring of Gyges, but herein lies my point. William Shakespeare once said that there are only seven different types of story that we tell each other. When you boil it down to its basic elements, all stories can be traced back to very similar origins. No doubt The Ring of Gyges is derived from some other text that wet before it. This is much more common in fantasy; I'm a bit of a fantasy buff and while I see similarities between Harry Potter and the likes of Earthsea, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's plagiarism. Compare the similarities between those two with the similarities found in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time and Raymond E. Feist's Magician and you'll notice that there are many, many more similarities between the two.

 

[OpheliaMontague]

Oh, I'll let Famine deal with you.

But I'm not arguing with Famine, I'm arguing with you. Famine simply pointed out the similarities between Harry Potter and Earthsea. I haven't read Earthsea so I can hardly argue against him.

My arguement with you is that I don't agree Rowling got to where she is by stepping on others. Like Do You Race? pointed out, there's only so much originality in the whole world of literature before ideas are used again. It'd not like Rowling was going to put a disclaimer at the beginning of her novel saying 'I nicked this this and that, from here here and there. Thankyou.' She incorporated a few aspects from a few different sources into her story to make it better.

 

[Omnis]

But I'm not arguing with Famine, I'm arguing with you. Famine simply pointed out the similarities between Harry Potter and Earthsea. I haven't read Earthsea so I can hardly argue against him.

My arguement with you is that I don't agree Rowling got to where she is by stepping on others. Like Do You Race? pointed out, there's only so much originality in the whole world of literature before ideas are used again. It'd not like Rowling was going to put a disclaimer at the beginning of her novel saying 'I nicked this this and that, from here here and there. Thankyou.' She incorporated a few aspects from a few different sources into her story to make it better.

I'm not attacking Rowling. I'm just saying that people think Harry Potter is so wonderful and original when they are oblivious to what so similar literature preceded it.

 

[TopHat]

When I get this, I bet I could finish it in 2 weeks, tops.

 

[Famine]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's plagiarism.

Even the artwork is plagiarised - and I'll note that the character in the artwork above, one "-y -er", is a 12 year old English boy who discovers he can do magic one day, is paid a visit by a wizard from a far-away magical institution and is given a pet owl to carry messages to him.

And the author had the rights to his novels bought by Warner Brothers following a protracted claim/counterclaim battle through the courts - and put pen to paper and was published a decade earlier.

 

[F1GTR]

That's glacially slow.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Even the artwork is plagiarised - and I'll note that the character in the artwork above, one "-y -er", is a 12 year old English boy who discovers he can do magic one day, is paid a visit by a wizard from a far-away magical institution and is given a pet owl to carry messages to him.

And the author had the rights to his novels bought by Warner Brothers following a protracted claim/counterclaim battle through the courts - and put pen to paper and was published a decade earlier.

Maybe, but what's the bigger picture (I can't really remember the series as I read it ages ago)? I'm asking this because if you go and read the opening hundred pages from Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World and compare it to the opening book of The Fellowship of the Ring, you'll notice the same kind of similarities. A magic-user visits a quiet village in a far-off corner of the world and finds three teenage boys who she takes to a larger town nearby. Along the way they have to deal with a wraith-like servant of the Dark Lord, race to a river crossing, and make the acquaintance of the last king of a lost land (though not in that order). Author Robert Jordan, however, says that he deliberately made them similar in order to give traditional fantasy fans - namely the Lord of the Rings crowd - some grounding for when they entered his complex world. But from the time Jordan's party reaches their first destination, the story branches out and gets very different from LotR. This goes back to what I said when I paraphrased Shakespeare; there's only really a few core stories we can tell. It's in the details that it can be called an original work or considered plagiarism. For example, if I write a book about a teenage kid who finds he can perform magic, is visited by a magic-user of considerable experience and has to travel away in order to study, you couldn't accuse me of plagiarism. The same ideas are found not only in Harry Potter, but in Earthsea, The Wheel of Time, David Eddings' The Elenium and Magician/The Riftwar. But if my story puts my protagonist against an evil wizard who seeks to find a path to immortality and will kill anyone who stands in his way, then I'm in trouble.

 

[Jimmy Enslashay]

Led Zeppelin were thieves and nobody really seems to care.

There's nothing wrong with taking ideas from something and expanding on them. There is, however, something wrong with copying an entire article and changing a few words here and there.

I also think Do You Race? deserves reputation for his previous post.

Oh, I'll let Famine deal with you.

Wuss.