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[DrForester]

Ron got kind of screwed in the movies, but book Ron was great and Hermione and Ron work great.

 

[Watch Da Birdie]

"Sonic Knuckles Potter, you are named after two heroes of all time. One of them was an echidna and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew."

Ahem, I think you mean "Sonic Knuckles the Potter".

 

[mxgt]

Harry and Ginny might be one of the most forced and unconvincing relationships in all of fiction.

Should've been Cho, man.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Harry and Ginny might be one of the most forced and unconvincing relationships in all of fiction.

Should've been Cho, man.

or literally anyone he met in the 20 something years after school. The Cho thing was also terrible, just infatuation.

 

[TheZink]

Ron got kind of screwed in the movies, but book Ron was great and Hermione and Ron work great.

Good points. Book Ron and Movie Ron are very different

 

[Replicant]

I suspect she had written the epilogue before everything else.

As a result, even though her writing and the story in general improved, the epilogue felt like a fan fiction that her amateur self had written before she got better as a writer.

Like that ending from "How I Met Your Mother".

 

[DrForester]

or literally anyone he met in the 20 something years after school. The Cho thing was also terrible, just infatuation.

Harry and Ginny might be one of the most forced and unconvincing relationships in all of fiction.

Should've been Cho, man.

Harry and Ginny worked. They got to know each other due to his visits to the Burrow and they had a lot in common. Him having it hit him like a sack of bricks that it was love didn't come off as forced to me.

 

[MugiwaraCole]

This is the first I'm hearing of this.

I didn't like the name Albus Severus, but, other than that, it was about how I imagined things wrapping up for years.

 

[DrForester]

This is the first I'm hearing of this.

I didn't like the name Albus Severus, but, other than that, it was about how I imagined things wrapping up for years.

This is how I felt about it as well. It was a nice sendoff.

 

[rackham]

Muggles arguing about wizarding relationships and names not being real enough. Oof

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

1. Its incredibly saccharine.

2. It does not at all mesh with the book that its in at all in terms of its tone and the way it was written. Its very apparent this was written by Rowling when she was just getting started.

3. Albus Severus Potter...its like fucking fan-fiction

This. It's really clunky and primitive compared to the rest of the book, both in writing style and in content. (Every character is married to someone they met when they were 10 years old? It's dumb.) It doesn't fit in at all.

 

[Lagamorph]

Harry and Ginny might be one of the most forced and unconvincing relationships in all of fiction.

Should've been Cho, man.

Nah, Cho turned out to be a bit of a bitch in the end so bullet dodged there really.

 

[Travo]

I haven't read or seen past the 5th installment, but, is it true that Ron got so drunk at his wedding that he forgot it?

He hooked up with Lavender during the reception.

 

[Supast4r]

Harry getting with Ginny instead of Luna was some bulllshitttt.

This is what I'm saying.

 

[Astral Dog]

Voldemort also got a happy ending

 

[manueldelalas]

Because it's completely useless.

All plot points were resolved before it, internal and external. It doesn't have world building, it doesn't expand our knowledge of the world (although it's several years later, more years than the down of the seven books), it isn't a game changer, it's nothing.

If you can cut a part of the book or a part of a story, and it's the same, you should just cut it.

On the other hand, if you use an epilogue to set a game changer for further stories, or you use it to solve a plot point (like in TLOTR), then it's fine, but in Harry Potter you could replace the whole thing with "and they lived happily ever after, the end."

 

[Vincent Alexander]

I didn't realize people cared about the names. I hate the epilogue, but the mames seem fine considering the universe. I mean...you so get to name your own children in Harry Potter, right?

Also, this is a world where the werewolf is named Lupin. Come the fuck on. All naming standards ceased to matter at that point.

 

[Vengal]

I find it interesting that Harry named all his children. Albus Severus, and Lilly Luna (wtf?). Also why would he give his daughter one of his friend's name as a middle name. Is Ginny really so passive of a character that she wouldn't have wanted to name one of their kids after her dead brother, and also would let harry give their daughter the namesake of some girl he went to school with?

Lots of strange stuff about names in the epilogue. I was never a really big harry potter person but my wife loves the books/movies so most my knowledge is from the movies and random bits of osmosis she would throw my way.

 

[DrForester]

I find it interesting that Harry named all his children. Albus Severus, and Lilly Luna (wtf?). Also why would he give his daughter one of his friend's name as a middle name. Is Ginny really so passive of a character that she wouldn't have wanted to name one of their kids after her dead brother, and also would let harry give their daughter the namesake of some girl he went to school with?

Lots of strange stuff about names in the epilogue. I was never a really big harry potter person but my wife loves the books/movies so most my knowledge is from the movies and random bits of osmosis she would throw my way.

George named his kid Fred.

 

[manueldelalas]

I find it interesting that Harry named all his children. Albus Severus, and Lilly Luna (wtf?). Also why would he give his daughter one of his friend's name as a middle name. Is Ginny really so passive of a character that she wouldn't have wanted to name one of their kids after her dead brother, and also would let harry give their daughter the namesake of some girl he went to school with?

This too! It would have been a great character beat if Harry's kids were all named after Ron's grandparents or Weasley's family members that we don't know about. Expand the world, expand our knowledge of the characters, though I would still prefer to just cut the epilogue.

 

[phaze]

I love those.

This is actually amazing.

Thank you. I can't stand the amount of love Snape gets. Yea his story with Lily is nice, and he did ultimately fight for the good side, but he was an absolute jackass to so many students.

Duh he was already playing the long con !

----------
On topic; I don't really hate it but it's really corny and the names are dumb.

 

[Korigama]

Nah, Cho turned out to be a bit of a bitch in the end so bullet dodged there really.

Wasn't this a book thing, where she came off as less sympathetic for other reasons in spite of her friend (who was left out of the movies) being the one who betrayed the group? The worst I remember in the films was her telling secrets to Umbridge after being given truth potion, and then Harry getting mad at Cho for it anyway.

 

[Hollycat]

For me its that Hermione and Ron stayed together, harry never tried to befriend Draco or even seem friendly, and Albus Severus Potter.

 

[Octavia]

I get the idea, but most of it is just directed badly. The final shot of the three MC standing together looking off at the train as the main theme plays one last time, it's a send off to these characters stories telling you it's done. Let's look to the future.

But... we basically already had that? So, that takeaway is cheapened. The final thoughts on the bridge were good enough to satiate the feeling of finality to their journey. Add a bit more dialog of "what next" there and it would have been fine to send the series off in that scene. But since we get doubling up on endings, we get this weird coincidental meeting of the characters and thus the epilogue puts the focus on "Hey, everyone shacked up, had kids, hell even Malfoy got gud and is a suburban dad now, that sly dog!." There's absolutely no subtlety at all with it.

As well, the tone and mood of the scene is just bad, especially since the bridge got it so right (you had sunlight rolling in, signalling the darkness is over). The lighting in the epilogue is dreary, everyone looks fucking tired as hell as if the big battle happened yesterday (the "old people" makeup instead of hiring new actors doesn't help this at all). It doesn't give the viewer a feeling of a "bright new adventure." It just contributes to the 'wtf' moment of it all.

Finally, while the name may not sound out of place being long and unwieldy, I busted out laughing when we got to that. It's just so cliche in this case. A reflection of time and a celebration of memory is insanely cheapened when it's one of the first things you hear through a timeskip. It just sounds goofy.

 

[Rorschach]

Dumbledore was a dick.

 

[EdReedFan20]

I just realized, if the events of Harry Potter ever actually took place, the epilogue would be occurring later this summer (September?). According to the official timeline J.K. Rowling released, Harry was born in July 1980, which means the core of the books take place from Summer 1991 (when he turned 11) through late Spring 1998 (the defeat of Voldemort). The epilogue occurs 19 years later, which sets it in 2017. As it depicts the children going to school, it clearly is late Summer.

Long story short, this means Harry and the gang are supposed to be 37 (give or take) in that scene. I'm not sure they needed to age them up as much as they did in the movie's epilogue. They sure look a lot older than most people do in their pre-40's.

 

[Apath]

Dumbledore is either senile, evil, or, at best, completely negligent.

1. Knows Harry and his friends break school rules that put their lives and their peers lives in danger multiple times each school year and yet, not once does Dumbledore go through extra means to ensure that Harry and Co. can't keep sneaking around and breaking rules. No meaningful punishment, no extra security, and he rewards them for doing it.

2. Dumbledore gives Harry to the Dursleys, but doesn't take Harry away when he realizes they are abusive. His excuse about Harry being with his family is nonsense when they are constantly emotionally abusing him. The magic protection Harry gets inside their house is meaningless when he is out of the house 8 hours a day, five days a week for school. If someone wanted him dead, they could easily kill him when he is not home. Any wizard family home would be far safer. It makes no sense.

3. Lets Snape mercilessly bully children and pamper other bullies. Even if you look past how Snape bullies Harry (which Dumbledore could put up with due to Snape's past with James), it doesn't justify how Snape bullies Hermoine and Neville. Neville had both parents tortured to death, was very emotionally fragile, and yet Snape would constantly bully and terrify Neville.

4. Never defended Harry when the school was turned against him. I can't recall if this was in the movies only, but during the heir of Slytherin nonsense and the Tri-Wizard cup, everyone in the school either bullied him or treated him as evil. You would think that Dumbledore would instruct teachers to shut that shit down, but he lets it continue.

I could keep going on and on. Dumbledore is heralded as one of the most brilliant wizard minds, but he constantly does terrible things or lets terrible things happen around him.

She is

I'm not judging her, but posting a heavily photoshopped picture of her doused in makeup at a professional photoshoot doesn't really prove anything.

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Bonnie Wright as Ginny had the charisma and screen presence of wet cardboard.

Doesn't help that Ginny is already a boring character.

 

[peanutbutterlatte]

For me its that Hermione and Ron stayed together, harry never tried to befriend Draco or even seem friendly, and Albus Severus Potter.

I mean as JK points out it's sad that Draco got used as a pawn and had his whole world turned upside down

But he still systematically bullied (racially at times) Harry and his friends for 6 years.

 

[BaasRed]

I like that Albus Severus Potter's initials are ASP, aka a fucking snake, like he's memorializing Voldemort too.

If this was planned wtf is wrong with Harry/Rowling 😂

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

I like that Albus Severus Potter's initials are ASP, aka a fucking snake, like he's memorializing Voldemort too.

 

[Psychoward]

Harry getting with Ginny instead of Luna was some bulllshitttt.

yup

 

[A-V-B]

Harry getting with Ginny instead of Luna was some bulllshitttt.

This was only a movie thing, based almost entirely on the screen presence of Luna's actress. They were friends in the books but had no romantic chemistry. Luna is weird. Harry is the kind of guy who doesn't do weird without safe words. For him, going steady with Luna would be like dating a kodama from Princess Mononoke.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

It's been a long ass time, but I always dislike how Hermione had more competence and magical attitude compared to most, students and adults alike.

 

[kromeo]

In the movies, it was so dumb that they just didn't recast some older actors as them but instead tried to make these young kids look old:

I couldn't bring myself to watch past the 4th movie but this is worse than I could ever have imagined

 

[Crossing Eden]

I couldn't bring myself to watch past the 4th movie but this is worse than I could ever have imagined

Confirmation bias at work. The last few films are very well shot and directed. Like, the context and reason for this scene is fantastic. J.K. Rowling regrets using the ending she originally wrote when the story was early in development.

 

[kromeo]

Confirmation bias at work. The last few films are very well shot and directed. Like, the context and reason for this scene is fantastic. J.K. Rowling regrets using the ending she originally wrote when the story was early in development.

My problem specifically is that I found all 3 of the main actors pretty awful. Radcliffe has improved somewhat as he's got older, no idea about the other 2

 

[Burbeting]

The Epilogue was fine, although little bit saccharine. The problem with it is mostly in that it clashes tonally pretty hard with almost entirety of the last three books, so it, in comparison, just feels weird to read.

But I will say, that Harry/Ginny makes good sense in the books, where Ginny was actually a developed character. The movies... let's not talk about them.

The names of the children are all pretty damn bad, though.

 

[Rymuth]

Best thing it gave us were all the jokes about Harry being miserable and having unsatisfying sex with Ginny.

You could stick a horror theme to this picture and it fits.

And that's not even touching on the trainwreck that is the Hermione/Ron marriage.

*chefkiss* Mwah, thanks for all the laughs Rowling.

 

[Uzumaki Goku]

Best thing it gave us were all the jokes about Harry being miserable and having unsatisfying sex with Ginny.



You could stick a horror theme to this picture and it fits.

And that's not even touching on the trainwreck that is the Hermione/Ron marriage.

*chefkiss* Mwah, thanks for all the laughs Rowling.

Oh boy.... reminds me of the Naruto pairings.

 

[Crossing Eden]

My problem specifically is that I found all 3 of the main actors pretty awful. Radcliffe has improved somewhat as he's got older, no idea about the other 2

They all massively improved.

Best thing it gave us were all the jokes about Harry being miserable and having unsatisfying sex with Ginny.



You could stick a horror theme to this picture and it fits.

And that's not even touching on the trainwreck that is the Hermione/Ron marriage.

*chefkiss* Mwah, thanks for all the laughs Rowling.

Pretty sure that's my favorite GAF roast ever.

Harry looks like he snorts coke off a strippers ass after work before going home.

"FUUUUUCK, I JUST.... *SNARL* ENGORGIO PHALLISTISIMO!"

Harry looks like he's just strangled the secretary of a top law firm, only to go and do some heroin in the bathroom out back to celebrate.

Harry looks like the guy in Shaun of the Dead that everyone hates

Harry looks like he shows up drunk to the company's take your kid to work day

"Dad! Dad, stop! Please stop singing! My birthday was two months ago."

"Put the bottle down Harry!!"

That Harry is totally cheating on Ginny. Like... using the Cloak of Invisibility while Ginny was in the same room.

Well I admit I was already pretty skeptical Harry turned out as normal and nice as he did without any serious negative side effects after living with the Dudley's for years and that was before Wizard Hitler showed his noseless face.

Harry set his glasses on the granite tabletop before shuttering the tapered curtains. He let out a soft sigh as a light moan erupted from behind. Slowly turning around, a scantily clad woman of Asian descent crawled around on his luxurious office chair made of phoenix feather. Pulling away one of her thin arms, she revealed a wand: eleven inches, crafted with holly. The mystical beauty let out a sly smile, to which Harry merely greeted with chagrin.

"What's wrong my prince?" She asked softly.

Harry looked at her for several moments, contemplating whether or not to actually let her into his mind. However, the longer he stared, the more he realized that her concern only existed on a surface level; her dazed eyes seemingly stared on even when Harry moved away from her line of sight.

Without much effort, he snatched the beautifully constructed creation from the woman's grasp and flicked it twice: once to unveil a bag filled with pure white hiding under the granite, and the next to slip away from his business skin.

Taking his position behind the woman, Harry showered her with the gift of pixie dust. Before letting himself indulge, he simply stared at the painting before him. It was soulless, hopeless - just like the painter who created the work.

Without any further ado, he dove his head downwards. He let himself go like every other night for the past seven years. He just wanted to forget the present in order to have a chance at finding some of the magic he had once been enraptured with so many years ago.

But he didn't.

He never did.

Harry cupped his hands over his mouth, exhaled, and took a deep sniff. He didn't know why he bothered. His bottomless hip flask ('confiscated' by a particularly filthy herb dealer who would never remember it was even in his possession) was in constant use during the worst days of his work, and this one in particular had been a complete horror. Triple homocide, father and two children, the mother contorting their corpses into the symbol of a dark hex. That was the problem with wizards and witches. A crazy muggle may attack people, they could even kill, but even your dullest wandbearer were capable of things completely unspeakable. Hence the blood on his shoes. Hence the drink.

Ginny'll clean that, he thought dully, shoving a fistful of Bertie's beans into his mouth. He'd found out early on their cataclysm of flavours masked the smell of whisky incredibly well. Not that his wife didn't know, of course, but he had to keep up appearances. For the kids.

He didn't announce his return to his home. He found his wife reading the paper in the kitchen, the dishes being quietly cleaned by floating rags, a charm cast by his mother in law as a wedding present. Cheap bitch, he thought, throwing his coat onto the hanger. "My shoes need cleaning," he told Ginny by way of a greeting.

"I don't know why you're telling me," she replied, without looking up, "You know the spell for it."

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut in frustration. "I've told you, I spend all fucking day casting spells, and all I want when I get to the home I paid for-"

"Hah!" She spat. "Here we go again, you think your money gives you control of this family-"

"Well it certainly doesn't give me anything worthwhile." he replied coldly. "When was the last time you performed your marital duties?"

She rolled her eyes back at him, tired of having this same conversation. "Maybe when you stop sleeping with Granger."

"Maybe I will when you tell your dipshit brother."

Argument settled for the hundredth time, they turned to see their son, Albus, standing in the doorway. "So I'll just pretend I never heard that, again," he muttered, looking between the pair. "I'm going out for the evening."

"No you aren't," Ginny started, "I've heard what you and those boys are getting up to, and-"

"I'm sure Lily would love to hear about about Aunt Hermione and Dad's fun business trips," he drawled, then pointed to his father, "and the Ministry would sure like to know about the truth about their star Auror." Met with silence, the boy didn't even smile at his victory. "I'll be back late."

He left, not acknowledging Harry's feeble wave. Ginny harrumphed in frustration, storming upstairs to write yet another howler to send anguished cries to her mother.

Harry sat, pulling the flask out of his jacket. Where did it all go so wrong? He found himself in a loveless home, sleeping with his best friend's wife, unable to go on without the comforting fuzz of intoxication at the edge of his vision. He thought back to his school days, as he always would when searching for better times. How odd it was, that he was happiest when there were men that wanted him dead. Now, there was only one person left who could say they wanted that. But the boy who lived couldn't go against his moniker.

Spoiler

In doing this I learned the Harry Potter wiki has a whole list of alcohols that have features in the series

Every morning, I shove Ginny awake.

Every morning, it's the same. She's the same. Half-awake, she'll ask where Harry is. Laze an arm across, feel that familiar, cold empty of the unfettered sheets beside her. Where Harry was. Always, was. Like a twitch of the newly departed, the ritual always begins with a slow dance.

Then from reality, the birth of expression, it crawls onto her face. Half-awake. It too, is a twitch. A reflex of loss, a suspect pang that is by no means sorrow nor regret, but something far more petty. It's Harry. It's the Harry expression.

I could Obliviate the Harry off her. Like I did, many times before. I learned from the best there was. Always, was. At the very least, I had to, then. For her.

For Ginny.

But it's never enough. It's never far back enough. The Harry always comes back. The Harry is deep within her, she lives for the Harry. I can't take that away from her.

Because then I'd be taking away me.

Why she's still here, I don't know. She should be awake by now, because it's time for me. He made us this way, made it so that this time is always the time for me. Always my time, never our time. So why can't she just get up and we'll leave together. Without him, for good. With me, just me.

I shove her again. I shove the Harry off her. Now she's awake, now she screams me out of the room, like she does every morning. As if I'm the personification of the Harry that I just nudged out of her. It's unfair. She yells she has to get decent, she says. But decent is us leaving the Harry behind.

Leave him behind. If only.

If only, we'd leave behind the man who had the audacity to name me Albus. Always, was.​

They....went....IN!