I was kind of let down by the epilogue, I found it short and it could have been much, much longer.

Of all the things trees had to die for, it sucks that they had to waste their lives on that tripe. Does Rowling really think nothing of her fans? Does she really think that we're that dumb that we didn't know that Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione were going to get together? I would have thought that would have been a dur moment. How about focusing on the direct aftermath of the war as opposed to Harry's atrocious choice of names like Albus Severus that hit my gag reflex to such an extent that it poked my stomach. Seven years of torture forgotten because sooper speshul Harry found out that Snapey-kins lurved his mummy. Urg. It's every Suethor's dream come true. I would have much prefered to find out how the Weasley's coped with the loss of a son, how Teddy got on without Remus and Tonks. I couldn't give two flying thestrals' backsides how many babies Ginny popped out with Harry and it sucked that that was what her character was reduced to. After books of saying just how powerful she was, we see next to none of her fighting, her sitting in a room and then becoming Harry's baby maker. Lovely. I could rip those few pages from my book and burn them in my sink and I wouldn't care. It was terrible. With that epilogue it looked like she consulted Mary Suethor's Guide to Fanfictastic Endings. Ick.

I take it you're not too fond of it then?

I found it a bit short and focusing in on the main two love interests. I understand why JKR tackled it the way she did, but when I came to the last page, I felt a little like "Well... What about the others???" It kind of felt that the other charcters weren't important and that our emotional interest in them was wasted. I wanted a kind of overview on how the world was functioning, what happened to the death eaters, did the magical world have a parade when Voldie was finished, that there was some kind of round up to the whole thing rather than just the Trio plus a couple extra.

As I've said before, it might have been wasted on me, as I prefer grit and bloodshed, but it just felt a bit anti-climatic to me.

That's not all she did. Jo has since said she played for the Holyhead Harpies and, after having kids, retired and became Chief Quidditch Correspondent for the Daily Prophet.

I was severely disappointed in the epilog. Even if JKR didn't want to expound on the whole wizarding world, we could have at least given some information on their lives (other than married with kids). Did Harry become an Auror after all? Did Harry go on to play quidditch to escape the Dark Arts draw? Did Ron get any NEWTs? Did Hermione become an Unspeakable (as I imagine she would)? What'd Draco do? Did he make up with Harry for saving his life (twice)?

The only person we found out about was Neville...

Where'd this info come from?

-K-

Harry and Ron became aurors. Hermione went on to work in Magical Law Enforcement. Together they revolutionised the Ministry. Draco and Harry never became friends.

All this info is in the news -- JKR's interviews and webchat.

I'm confused though. In her interview on The Today Show and Dateline, she said that both Ron and Harry were Aurors.

THEN today, in the webchat, she said that Ron joined George at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

Which one is it? *is frustrated* Ron is my favorite character (as I'm sure you all know by now...) and I really want to be POSITIVE about what happened to him...beside marry Hermione, the love of his life, and have two kids with her.

Oh, also, according to JKR's webchat, Ginny played for the Holyhead Harpies before retiring to start a family!

Shannon

i liked it...but i agree that it could have been a little longer.

I loved it. I did wonder what happened to George...and a few other characters but I didn't feel cheated at all. I was incredibly worried about Ted Lupin being orphaned after the war. And the epilogue let me know how he was doing and just...it made me feel better. I have no words. Just...I liked it.

I agree that it could've been longer as well. And i'm dying to know who married Draco. And i think Harry's kids names were too cliche. Albus Severus? I really thought that she would've made better names.

I felt as if the Epilogue needed way more description. I wanted to know everything that happened to Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the crew. I liked that she had the story end with kids going to Hogwarts as I thought that Hogwarts was going to be closed forever.

it was too short and still left a lot of questions hanging. i thought everything will be clearer after this book.
but then again, i'm happy about how the book ended. it gave me a sense of peace

Ron could've done both easily, as F&G supplied the Ministry in Half-Blood Prince.

And she was a journalist!

I guess he could have. It just seemed, in her answers, that they were both seperate. She said nothing of WWW in her NBC interviews and then nothing of being an auror in the webchat. But...I suppose he could have done both. I LOVE HIM!

Yes, Ginny was a Quidditch correspondant for the Daily Prophet after retiring from the Holyhead Harpies!

Shannon

I wanted to find out what happened to all the other characters!
It didnt explain enough for me...
I did like Albus's name though-that was really sweet of Jo to put in!

But why not include all of that information at the end of the book instead of dropping it in interviews? If it was meant to be vague, keep it vague, don't push the rest of the information on us after the fact. If there are solid lives set for these characters, why not add it all in? If she knows just what happened to Neville and Luna, why not give us that information? if she knows the outcome of George, why not tell us actually in the book? I think her focus on the ending was grossly skewed and should have focused more on the direct aftermath of the war instead of the blatantly obvious at the end. And the thing is, not everyone pays attention to Rowling's interviews so for someone that doesn't, they wouldn't know such information. It just looks like Ginny became a proper female Weasley and was reduced to baby farming while the man did all the work. Her stand alone strength was gone at the end of that and if you don't seek out external interviews, you're going to be stuck with that. I just don't understand why she couldn't flesh out the end.

And epilogues can be good when they're done right. This one was just terrible, and that's being generous.

Because how could that information be included without it coming across as being shoe-horned in? I didn't understand the epilogue on a first reading, but she said she intended it to be as if the reader were witnessing the scene through the mist, which kind of makes more sense. I would've preferred the epilogue to have been biographies rather than a proper narrative, but there you go. What I guess is important is we now know it all. It's not like she's talking about it unprompted. The epilogue didn't tell anyone's occupations in terms of Hr/R or H/G so it's not as if Ginny was singled out as being unemployed. The house-wife thing was an assumption.

See, to me, the epilogue already looks shoe-horned in so there isn't much of a difference there. And I had no idea about that dream state that we're supposed to be reading the epilogue through. I think it wrong of her to assume that her readers are going to make the proper assumptions about these characters without getting any kind of insight in the reading itself. She's a writer. That's her job. I have no doubt she could have turned the ending around to give us a proper explanation of what happened over the course of that time and have it fit in nicely. This ending just shows me that she rushed it and just didn't care, especially if she has to explain herself after the fact and explain to people how it's supposed to be read in order for them to get it. Perhaps the book should have come with an insert or something. Or how about a fold out family tree? I would have MUCH prefered that to that tooth-rotting epilogue. Give us a family tree. it would have been easier, especially considering the major players in the book have intertwined families. It could show us who married who and, for good measure, give a short bio after the war of each character under their name. It would have been far more tactful and, I think, much more pleasing than that sugar-coated epilogue she gave us.

It was really good and cute as well but I think it should have been a little more longer

I don't think it was rushed - after all, it's been completed for 17 years. It's more likely she hadn't edited/polished it since then. The only reason I can think why she didn't use bios or trees is because of her plans for the encyclopedia.

It just didn't seem like it fit. I guess it would have been fine for another book, but such an obvious, simple, and boring ending to a phenomenal series was disappointing. What happened to the other characters? What did Harry and everyone else make of their lives?

Also, I take issue with the last word. JKR said it would be scar, although it was "subject to change". Couldn't she use her considerable ingenuity to construct a sentence which lived up to her promise?

Okay for starters. For everyone who is sad that Harry and Hermione didn't end up together, puhlease, if you read all the books, and read them carefully, then you'd know it was Ron and Hermione from the start.

I actually liked the epilogue. And who says Albus is the only one with two names. It goes one like 'says Albus',, so for Harry saying Albus Severus, he just wanted to make clear that he was named after two headmasters of Hogwarts. Also, Rose and Hugo, what's wrong with those names, mind you, Hermione is still muggleborn and might like those names since her childhood. Or maybe it's family of her.
Also I think George might have names his son Fred. I think that he's got the only right to do that.
It's Victoire people, not Victorie, haha.
But I liked her and Ted. It sounded cute. And Teddy to be there to say goodbye was cute.

I was a bit dissapointed about not finding out if the Dursleys survived, but I have a feeling they did.

I'm not really sure if I liked the epilogue. It was just kind of too perfect, too happy. After all the suffering and everything in the books, I think it just made it end too perfectly. But it was okay.

This is going to sound extremely stupid. But one of the saddest parts of that book for me was in the epilogue when Albus Severus asked Harry "What if I'm in Slytherin?"
and Harry said, "Albus Severus. You were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was in Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew."

For some reason that made me cry. I know it sounds stupid and pathetic, but it was just emotional for me. Harry finally showed Snape respect and he finally sees him as a good man. And brave, most importantly. But then it was too late for him to tell Snape that he really thought good of him now.

I didn't like the epilogue, I personally found it absolutely unnecessary, and rather dull. It was far below the standard of the rest of the book. I thought the end of the last chapter was satisfying and convincing enough. When I started reading the epilogue, I was a bit disappointed. It really didn't fit.

Yeah, that's what I think. It was "too perfect", which I personally see as not perfect at all. It was "okay", but too sugary to make me say that I liked it.


But this is just my opinion, of course. I know there are also people who are pleased with it, or who would want even more additional information. My main complaint is that the feeling (...of strange satisfaction. It was a happy end, but not so utterly happy. You could almost feel the wearyness Harry himself felt. I really liked it.) I had while reading the few last chapters was completely ruined by the epilogue.