Saturday, August 20, 2011

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: Raising a pig for slaughter




It was not a question of how to defeat evil, but on who started it all, and what became of the rest of the characters.

An old man once "gave up a lot of things for POWER", recruited what eventually became everyone's nightmare and set the whole story in motion. He was the man who taught us that the road to power is painted with blood.

Another man, misunderstood, became the old man's apprentice and crafted the art of serving two masters. He was the man who taught us what love is.

The third guy, his fate determined, was simply unfortunate enough to witness the death of everyone he loved, and to carry the guilt all the way. He was the guy who, despite everything, discovered and taught us what friendship and loyalty is.

Dumbledore. Snape. Harry. After watching Hogwart's last stand in the silver screen, I realized it wasn't simply a seven-book compilation about good vesrus evil or even friendship, but a novel with huge gaps leading to an ironic conclusion that "He who is good created evil. He who created Hogwarts destroyed it. And he who accidentally created evil desperately passed on the heavy burden to a man who sinfully loved so much and a boy who only knew friendship and loyalty."

Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) did help, protect and support Harry in any way he possibly could for an old man. He protected Harry  from Tom Riddle whom he personally fished out from an orphanage even though he had a hunch he may be a potential threat to his kingdom. Dumbledore protected Harry because he needed him, because for a wise man he surprisingly made a huge mistake and his plans were suddenly falling apart.

Little may really be known about Dumbledore's history as J.K. Rowling had once planned to publish a book mainly about him, but personally I still have a serious issue about him.

On the other hand, even though the concept of good versus evil was designed the classical way where kids will immediately point out the bad guy because he's ugly and wears something black, the movie actually highlighted deeper moral lessons for modern youth:

1) Loving your enemies.
Harry saving Malfoy was the most critical detail that actually spared his life in return.

2) Defining friendship.
Aside from the trio always appearing side-by-side in every Harry Potter ending, we learn what true friendship means through Hermione (HP7 Part1), a friend fully understanding that Harry's sudden hot temper did not mean to hurt her, it was only a product of wearing Voldemort's necklace horcrux filled with dark magic.

 3) Loving her...always...and all this time.
We all want to marry Snape (Alan Rickman) because he is the only man who loved his bestfriend--even after they parted ways, even if she's married, even if she already had a son, even if she's already dead. He taught us that loving someone doesn't mean you have to be meant for each other. He simply meant loving someone...because he does.

The fact that it was the last stand, the dramatic goodbye to the silver screen, and the unbearable feeling of not seeing the trio together again primarily made the movie a big hit. I thought it was too compressed though, with lots of action shown instantaneously I couldn't remember what happened previously, and a little out of place kissing scenes.

Nevertheless, I still learned a lot from Dumbledore's real but hidden motivations and Harry's loyalty to a man "who didn't even tell him where to start".

And I still want to marry Snape.

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