8 ms·

Two finales: - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. When the seventh book came out in 2007 there was this fear among the fandom that JK Rowling couldn't deliv

by 101008 6y ago

Two finales: - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. When the seventh book came out in 2007 there was this fear among the fandom that JK Rowling couldn't deliver a great ending. I think most people agreed she did very well (even more than expected, considering the complexity of the story in the prior six books). - Breaking Bad last season / last episode: there aren't many tv shows that can end in a high note (check Game of Thrones, for example). I think Breaking Bad - and in general, what separates the best tv shows from great tv shows - is that they are able to have a good ending.

st1x7 6y ago
> Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Man... there is way too much deus ex machina at every plot point of that book to give it any credit. If you have the end of the 6th book as a starting point and the end of series that Rowling had in mind as an end, then Deathly Hallows is just connecting those two points using plot conveniences at every single opportunity. Too many fortunate coincidences in a very short period of time. (Half-Blood Prince is still peak Harry Potter IMO).
- dgfitz 6y ago
  Couldn’t agree more. I wish I hadn’t read it. HBP was the peak. In DH they just run around the woods for a while. I was extremely disappointed with DH.
  - WhompingWindows 6y ago
    "They just run around the woods for a while." I'm sorry, that's plain incorrect. First, they're at Privet Drive, then the Burrow, then Grimmauld Place, then they camp for a few weeks-months but it's highly condensed plot-wise. They don't "run around the woods" at any point, that silly chase scene with the snatchers is onlyin the film. Why do they hide? Because there is ZERO safe-space in the rest of the UK. They are forced into hiding to maintain their safety until such time as the horcruxes are gone and battle can commence. How is that much different from Frodo and Sam wandering the wilds alone at the last 2 LotR books? In HP, they are in society and non-wilderness far more than Frodo and Sam. And then they do a lot of epic shit at the end that has nothing to do with the woods. Re-read the book, the woods part is a very small aspect.
    - XorNot 6y ago
      To be fair Frodo and Sam wandering alone was a low point of the LotR series for me as well. I do remember starting to skim when we got into the interminable sequence of "and they're still climbing the mountain". Like, I get it's a struggle but 800+ pages in and it's not going to get any realer for me sitting in a comfortable chair (or on an airplane as I was) then it already was.
    - Macha 6y ago
      Honestly, Frodo and Sam in the woods was also the least enjoyable part of lord of the rings for me. Well, ok, second most if we're going by the books, there was the two chapters of bombadil
    - dgfitz 6y ago
      I have read it many times. Why was the book centered around a children’s story that we didn’t hear about until book 7? Why were the deathly hollows items not mentioned at all throughout the entire rest of the series? Why do we not find out until the last book that the invisibility cloak should have faded a long time ago? That last point especially irritates me because it just smells like lazy writing. I love Harry Potter. I have read the series many many times. I sincerely wish I had never read the last book. It felt rushed, unplanned, and almost desperate. There is a fluid cohesion between books 1-6 that completely disappears in book 7.
      - WhompingWindows 6y ago
        JKR didn't fully flesh out her universe at the start. She had feature creep just like any app, she added tons of spells and stories and characters and enriched the world book by book. While HP:DH does have a "summary" vibe, going back to all the old places and seeing all the old characters' plots wrapped up nicely, I do think she needed SOME new material in there. She needed to create new tension, she needed new suspense; simply wrapping up things she'd already devised wouldn't have been fresh enough for her, or for us, I think. If I had to change just two things about DH, I think I'd remove the epilogue (it could just be an online essay, there's no need to put a second bow on top of the present, you know?) and I'd remove wand lore. The idea that your wand changes allegiance whenever someone bests you in any way, physical or magical? Come on, that is borderline plot manipulation. Now, Harry wins the fight at the end because Voldemort's wand knew that Harry's hands pulled some wands out of Draco's hand, who in turn disarmed a Dumbledore who wasn't trying to not be disarmed? I mean, ugh, wand lore was a sort of hand-wavey MEH aspect, IMO. I think Book 6 and Book 3 are the pinnacles...they don't feature battles with Lord Voldemort, they're nicely self-contained, they have fantastic endings, I'm getting chills thinking of them.
- WhompingWindows 6y ago
  How is there too much deus ex machina? You threw out that label and never mentioned a single plot point to substantiate your claim. I believe there's very little deus ex machina. The main point is that Voldemort delved too greedily into dark magic, weakening himself very much, while Lily's love magic was pure and protected her son against Voldemort's evil magic. This is why Harry can see into his mind and why he manages amazing feats like Gringotts or escape at Godric's Hollow, because Voldemort's hubris handed Harry the tools. It's all explained in the chapter "King's Cross", re-read that chapter and you'll gain fresh clarity. JKR does introduce new concepts and history unknown previously to Harry, but name a book she doesn't do that. She'd be raked over the coals if she didn't offer anything new in one of her longest of the seven books. She needed the Deathly Hallows as a new mystery, a new suspense that creates tension throughout the book, pulling you onwards and competing for the horcruxes. It also highlights Harry's temptation to attain that which Dumbledore sought, but ultimately Harry chose the wiser path than Albus. The other new concept was wand lore, which was not very fleshed out before DH. I don't love that wand lore dictated the final duel so heavily, why does Harry have to win based on overpowering a 3rd wizard, the wand truly knows that? Why not just have Harry's courageous, love-inspired magic overcome Voldemorts? It's kind of a letdown that Harry beats Voldy because he took 3 wands from Draco's hand... Other than these two concepts, I don't see anything new and cheap like a deus ex machina. That term would literally mean that Harry is defeated by Voldemort in the end (he never was), only to be saved by a God at the last minute (he never was). Harry won on his and his allies' courage, and Voldemort lost due to his own hubris and his own determination to focus on wands and to tell all his servants not to kill Harry.
  - st1x7 6y ago
    From wikipedia: > Deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Examples from Deathly Hallows. Having no idea how to proceed on your quest of finding and destroying Horcruxes? The only soul who was there with Voldemort when the locket was planted, happens also to be magically bound to Harry and have obligation to obey Harry's every command. Need to impersonate someone? Just pick a hair off your cloak for the potion. Don't know where the next horcrux is? Immediate vision from Voldemort's mind to help you. A character who has crucial information is killed? Well no, instead of using a spell like any other time, Voldemort decides to leave Snape to slowly die giving him just enough time to share his memories with Harry. Need to check if your mortal enemy is really dead? Don't verify yourself but send the only person in the group who has any incentive to lie to you about it. (And you're supposed to be able to magically tell when people are lying by the way). The way to destroy a horcrux is hidden in a place accessible only to those who speak parseltongue? Nope, Ron can just guess his way into an ability that was previously established to be hereditary or transfered through magic. I could go on... the point isn't any single one of these, it's more about how they accumulate throughout the book.
- 535188B17C93743 6y ago
  I mean, it's a book about magic... what do you expect?
  - st1x7 6y ago
    That's not an excuse for sloppy writing though. Even a book about magic needs a level of consistency within its own universe and when the quality is above a certain level, I'm prepared to suspend disbelief and go along with the story and not nitpick.
    - DobryMorozov 6y ago
      It's also a children's book that evolved in a book for young adults. I always thought it was supposed to be whimsical and fun, not have serious complicated plots
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    Brian Sanderson (and others) have written plenty of magic-filled books with more interesting endings. If you want a 'hard magic' system, the one in the Mistborn series is pretty interesting (ingesting and 'burning' particular metals for particular abilities): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistborn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistborn * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson 'Booktuber' Merphy Napier recently did two videos on magic systems in fantasy novels: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMQk4ltJa0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMQk4ltJa0 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6f3tAOUHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6f3tAOUHk
    - musingsole 6y ago
      Brandon Sanderson* Sanderson has lectures on a system of rules for magic in books to balance their coolness against deus ex machina: https://stormlightarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Sanderson%27s_Laws_of_Magic https://stormlightarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Sanderson%27s_Laws...
- anonunivgrad 6y ago
  My biggest frustration with Harry Potter is that Harry never has to actually make tough decisions. All moral dilemmas are resolved by a deus ex. He never even has to murder the villain, just deflects his spell back at him. My eyes rolled straight to the back of my head. The books deliver a fantastical, childish view of morality where the world will always save you from having to make difficult decisions.
  - war1025 6y ago
    > The books deliver a fantastical, childish view of morality Almost like they were written for children...
    - anonunivgrad 6y ago
      Plenty of young adult books, which is what Harry Potter was, especially after the first book, engage with difficult moral situations. Harry Potter instead tells you that you can have your cake and eat it too.
- kungito 6y ago
  I'd say a big thing is how old you are when reading HP. I loved all the books and loved the ending. Over time I started reading Asimov and Vinge and became repulsed by the quality of the whole HP story. One lucky boy doing dumb things and getting away with it, all happening in a world where magic is done in the worst balance between mystic and explained. If I recall correctly, they tried to make the most sense of the Snape's magic spells. Compare the nonsense to the way a young man of 16 years imagined magic in Eragon where I really liked how he tried to keep as much consistency with energy cost and implications. Harry Potter really is just mostly for kids
  - st1x7 6y ago
    True. I was around 9 when I got into HP and 15 when the last book came out so it hit me right at the appropriate age where the books get slightly more serious as you grow up but you're still a kid who is into the book universe. The lore or some of the overarching plot points don't make too much sense when looking at them with adult eyes but you still have to give Rowling credit for writing books that are just difficult to put down for someone at the right age.
  - webmobdev 6y ago
    Yeah, Eragon did get the "magic world" right in its fantasy series. But then it lost track of the story in its reams of pages ...
    - stanford_labrat 6y ago
      The almost carbon copy of Star Wars to Eragon really changed my perception of the series.
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    For a counterexampel, my personal experience is pretty different. I had read almost every one[1] of Asimov's novels and short stories by the time Deathly Hallows came out when I was 16, and I was still a big enough fan of Harry Potter to finish each book the day it came out. To this day i'm pretty confident I could pick up a Harry Potter book and enjoy it. There are different types of storytelling, and not every kind has to have balanced stakes or world-building that stands up to scrutiny. And it's not like Asimov's work doesn't have similar flaws: as much as I love the scope of the Foundation series, it does settle into a bit of a pattern of setting up seemingly insurmountable challenges and then resolving them through neat changes to the rules of engagement of psychohistory (though as a much more ambitious series than HP, it's more understandable). [1] Literally; I was ravenous
mhb 6y ago
I thought that the Homeland series finale was in the same class. After a meandering few middle seasons, the last one was surprisingly satisfying.
- scrumbledober 6y ago
  well i gave up on homeland during the meandering middle seasons, i'll have to pick it back up now.
535188B17C93743 6y ago
Futurama also had a fantastic ending.
- st1x7 6y ago
  Yes, they tried to end the show a couple of times but the last-last episode is lovely.
- ringshall 6y ago
  I agree. (Edit: to add to this, I've always thought that the third-last episode of Futurama, 'Murder on the Planet Express', was a return to form and reminiscent of the heyday of the show). On the subject of tv shows, ‘Peep Show’, the British sitcom, also had a very strong final season and final episode.
- zeroonetwothree 6y ago
  Or four
arkaic 6y ago
Mr. Robot's entire final season. Especially the last half.
- throwaway743 6y ago
  First half of the final season was great, but the writing in the last half felt rushed and at times cheap. It ended up being predictable, where the rest of the show was the complete opposite. They had the ability to write better, first half of that season and prior seasons proved this, but came off as if they were trying to wrap it up too quickly and finalize the loose ends :/
  - shawnz 6y ago
    As I understand they intended to have 5 seasons but condensed it to 4. I agree the last season felt rushed but overall I felt the whole course of the show was more cohesive than most series.
- cercatrova 6y ago
  It really was incredible, especially after watching Game of Thrones and seeing how that ending turned out. Episode 8 of season 4 was briefly at the top of IMDb, and it was an amazing revelatory episode.
lqet 6y ago
> in general, what separates the best tv shows from great tv shows - is that they are able to have a good ending. "Dexter" has made this painfully clear.
- ragnese 6y ago
  Ugh. I loved the premise of that show and the first two-ish seasons. There were a few more decent seasons in there, but I don't remember which ones. The final season was embarrassing, though.
  - jkcxn 6y ago
    Have you heard they've returned to do another season? https://news.sky.com/story/dexter-one-of-tvs-best-known-serial-killers-to-return-for-a-new-season-12104373 https://news.sky.com/story/dexter-one-of-tvs-best-known-seri...
    - ragnese 6y ago
      I have not. Wow. I don't even know what to think of this...
fleaaa 6y ago
Ozymandias it is, it wil live up to me for decades, such a good script.
swyx 6y ago
I'll call out Silicon Valley as having a great finale too. I still watch the final documentary every now and then. one of the greatest satires I will probably ever see.
- sayyss 6y ago
  True, silicon valley had a great finale but kinda rushed.
  - no_one_ever 6y ago
    It probably felt rushed because of the rinse/repeat of all preceding seasons (group experiences success only to have it dissolve before their very eyes)
deleted 6y ago
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deeg 6y ago
I'm largely with you on HP. Most impressive was how JKR was able to keep Snape's loyal/evil question unresolved to the very end and still come up with a plausible explanation for it all. Rereading the whole series shows little hints along the way. It was deftly done. It was a great time, having midnight release parties for a book!
slg 6y ago
It isn't really a true finale in the same way as those two examples, but I would throw out Infinity War and End Game as a joint example. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was able to successfully put a capstone on a cinematic project on the scale that had never even been attempted before. It was impressive enough to end a single story like Harry Potter in a satisfying way. The MCU was able to do the same for a wide variety of stories, dozens of characters, and over twenty movies. Also it doesn't hurt the MCU's legacy that there is the obvious comparison with Game of Thrones that magnificently failed a very similar task the exact weekend that End Game came out.
- grecy 6y ago
  I really liked Infinity War and have re-watched it a couple of times. I watched End Game in the theatre and have not seen it again since. I really didn't enjoy the whole "goofy time travel" aspect, and re-visiting all the prior movies/events.
  - slg 6y ago
    > I really didn't enjoy the whole "goofy time travel" aspect, and re-visiting all the prior movies/events. It is certainly more comic-booky than some of the other MCU movies and the acceptance of that will vary from person to person. It also isn't a completely unique concept. They basically stole it from Back To The Future 2 which was also a big hit.
- delecti 6y ago
  It's really incredible just how well Endgame stuck the landing, but the whole MCU is impressive. Even the worst films of the MCU are still totally watchable, just forgettable. And comic movies are really easy to get wrong, that same decade of MCU movies overlapped with both Andrew Garfield Spiderman movies, and a smattering of forgettable or outright bad DC comics movies. That Rise of Skywalker and the final season of Game of Thrones came out in the same year helps to contrast how much most things don't stick the landing.
gordon_freeman 6y ago
Surprised to see Harry Potter discussion on HN. I thought it is a book series for Kids and Teens. Do Adults (30+ age) find it interesting too?
- mucholove 6y ago
  Well. I was 10-12 when Harry Potter was released and it’s been 20 or so years...
- egypturnash 6y ago
  2007 was thirteen years ago, Gordon. Have the Men in Black stolen time from you again? Someone who was a teenager when it came out could easily be in their thirties now. So could someone who started in on the series when they were a kid, and kept up with it as they grew.
- godelmachine 6y ago
  I have learnt many lessons from Harry Potter and consider them real. The beautiful scene of Death and the Three Brothers [1][2] has so much to teach us. [1]https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Death_(The_Tale_of_the_Three_Brothers) https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Death_(The_Tale_of_the_T... [2]https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Three_Brothers https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Three_Br...
gordon_freeman 6y ago
The Mandalorian Season 2 Last Episode: the best ending to a season finale ever! Totally lived up to the Hype!
whycombagator 6y ago
> Breaking Bad last season I actually thought BB went downhill and quit mid-way through the last season, but I understand I'm in the minority.
- goostavos 6y ago
  I'm with ya. While season 5 had some phenomenal individual scenes (like "tread lightly"), it didn't land with me as a whole in the way the earlier seasons did. The finale of season 4 is to me, with the haunting "I won" line, is the ultimate ending in my mind.
- davidwparker 6y ago
  100% The first four seasons were great, with a ton of character development. The last season was incredibly rushed, and felt like they went from $0 to $millions overnight, and then introduced (annoying) characters and fell into quick traps. It was super frustrating to me.
riazrizvi 6y ago
I would add Lord of The Rings, but it turns out that industrious old prof turned the whole trilogy out in one shot. It was his publisher who released it in stages. Interestingly he had a hard time convincing someone to print it at all: > A dispute with his publisher, George Allen & Unwin, led to his offering the work to William Collins in 1950. Tolkien intended The Silmarillion (itself largely unrevised at this point) to be published along with The Lord of the Rings, but Allen & Unwin were unwilling to do this. After Milton Waldman, his contact at Collins, expressed the belief that The Lord of the Rings itself "urgently wanted cutting", Tolkien eventually demanded that they publish the book in 1952. Collins did not; and so Tolkien wrote to Allen and Unwin, saying, "I would gladly consider the publication of any part of the stuff", fearing his work would never see the light of day. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Receptio...
dirtybird04 6y ago
Real tv fans have come to accept that the last season of The Wire and the last episode of Breaking Bad are pretty blah. We just shake our head and move on.

by 101008 6y ago

st1x7 6y ago

> Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Man... there is way too much deus ex machina at every plot point of that book to give it any credit. If you have the end of the 6th book as a starting point and the end of series that Rowling had in mind as an end, then Deathly Hallows is just connecting those two points using plot conveniences at every single opportunity. Too many fortunate coincidences in a very short period of time. (Half-Blood Prince is still peak Harry Potter IMO).

dgfitz 6y ago
Couldn’t agree more. I wish I hadn’t read it. HBP was the peak. In DH they just run around the woods for a while. I was extremely disappointed with DH.
- WhompingWindows 6y ago
  "They just run around the woods for a while." I'm sorry, that's plain incorrect. First, they're at Privet Drive, then the Burrow, then Grimmauld Place, then they camp for a few weeks-months but it's highly condensed plot-wise. They don't "run around the woods" at any point, that silly chase scene with the snatchers is onlyin the film. Why do they hide? Because there is ZERO safe-space in the rest of the UK. They are forced into hiding to maintain their safety until such time as the horcruxes are gone and battle can commence. How is that much different from Frodo and Sam wandering the wilds alone at the last 2 LotR books? In HP, they are in society and non-wilderness far more than Frodo and Sam. And then they do a lot of epic shit at the end that has nothing to do with the woods. Re-read the book, the woods part is a very small aspect.
  - XorNot 6y ago
    To be fair Frodo and Sam wandering alone was a low point of the LotR series for me as well. I do remember starting to skim when we got into the interminable sequence of "and they're still climbing the mountain". Like, I get it's a struggle but 800+ pages in and it's not going to get any realer for me sitting in a comfortable chair (or on an airplane as I was) then it already was.
  - Macha 6y ago
    Honestly, Frodo and Sam in the woods was also the least enjoyable part of lord of the rings for me. Well, ok, second most if we're going by the books, there was the two chapters of bombadil
  - dgfitz 6y ago
    I have read it many times. Why was the book centered around a children’s story that we didn’t hear about until book 7? Why were the deathly hollows items not mentioned at all throughout the entire rest of the series? Why do we not find out until the last book that the invisibility cloak should have faded a long time ago? That last point especially irritates me because it just smells like lazy writing. I love Harry Potter. I have read the series many many times. I sincerely wish I had never read the last book. It felt rushed, unplanned, and almost desperate. There is a fluid cohesion between books 1-6 that completely disappears in book 7.
    - WhompingWindows 6y ago
      JKR didn't fully flesh out her universe at the start. She had feature creep just like any app, she added tons of spells and stories and characters and enriched the world book by book. While HP:DH does have a "summary" vibe, going back to all the old places and seeing all the old characters' plots wrapped up nicely, I do think she needed SOME new material in there. She needed to create new tension, she needed new suspense; simply wrapping up things she'd already devised wouldn't have been fresh enough for her, or for us, I think. If I had to change just two things about DH, I think I'd remove the epilogue (it could just be an online essay, there's no need to put a second bow on top of the present, you know?) and I'd remove wand lore. The idea that your wand changes allegiance whenever someone bests you in any way, physical or magical? Come on, that is borderline plot manipulation. Now, Harry wins the fight at the end because Voldemort's wand knew that Harry's hands pulled some wands out of Draco's hand, who in turn disarmed a Dumbledore who wasn't trying to not be disarmed? I mean, ugh, wand lore was a sort of hand-wavey MEH aspect, IMO. I think Book 6 and Book 3 are the pinnacles...they don't feature battles with Lord Voldemort, they're nicely self-contained, they have fantastic endings, I'm getting chills thinking of them.
WhompingWindows 6y ago
How is there too much deus ex machina? You threw out that label and never mentioned a single plot point to substantiate your claim. I believe there's very little deus ex machina. The main point is that Voldemort delved too greedily into dark magic, weakening himself very much, while Lily's love magic was pure and protected her son against Voldemort's evil magic. This is why Harry can see into his mind and why he manages amazing feats like Gringotts or escape at Godric's Hollow, because Voldemort's hubris handed Harry the tools. It's all explained in the chapter "King's Cross", re-read that chapter and you'll gain fresh clarity. JKR does introduce new concepts and history unknown previously to Harry, but name a book she doesn't do that. She'd be raked over the coals if she didn't offer anything new in one of her longest of the seven books. She needed the Deathly Hallows as a new mystery, a new suspense that creates tension throughout the book, pulling you onwards and competing for the horcruxes. It also highlights Harry's temptation to attain that which Dumbledore sought, but ultimately Harry chose the wiser path than Albus. The other new concept was wand lore, which was not very fleshed out before DH. I don't love that wand lore dictated the final duel so heavily, why does Harry have to win based on overpowering a 3rd wizard, the wand truly knows that? Why not just have Harry's courageous, love-inspired magic overcome Voldemorts? It's kind of a letdown that Harry beats Voldy because he took 3 wands from Draco's hand... Other than these two concepts, I don't see anything new and cheap like a deus ex machina. That term would literally mean that Harry is defeated by Voldemort in the end (he never was), only to be saved by a God at the last minute (he never was). Harry won on his and his allies' courage, and Voldemort lost due to his own hubris and his own determination to focus on wands and to tell all his servants not to kill Harry.
- st1x7 6y ago
  From wikipedia: > Deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Examples from Deathly Hallows. Having no idea how to proceed on your quest of finding and destroying Horcruxes? The only soul who was there with Voldemort when the locket was planted, happens also to be magically bound to Harry and have obligation to obey Harry's every command. Need to impersonate someone? Just pick a hair off your cloak for the potion. Don't know where the next horcrux is? Immediate vision from Voldemort's mind to help you. A character who has crucial information is killed? Well no, instead of using a spell like any other time, Voldemort decides to leave Snape to slowly die giving him just enough time to share his memories with Harry. Need to check if your mortal enemy is really dead? Don't verify yourself but send the only person in the group who has any incentive to lie to you about it. (And you're supposed to be able to magically tell when people are lying by the way). The way to destroy a horcrux is hidden in a place accessible only to those who speak parseltongue? Nope, Ron can just guess his way into an ability that was previously established to be hereditary or transfered through magic. I could go on... the point isn't any single one of these, it's more about how they accumulate throughout the book.
535188B17C93743 6y ago
I mean, it's a book about magic... what do you expect?
- st1x7 6y ago
  That's not an excuse for sloppy writing though. Even a book about magic needs a level of consistency within its own universe and when the quality is above a certain level, I'm prepared to suspend disbelief and go along with the story and not nitpick.
  - DobryMorozov 6y ago
    It's also a children's book that evolved in a book for young adults. I always thought it was supposed to be whimsical and fun, not have serious complicated plots
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Brian Sanderson (and others) have written plenty of magic-filled books with more interesting endings. If you want a 'hard magic' system, the one in the Mistborn series is pretty interesting (ingesting and 'burning' particular metals for particular abilities): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistborn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistborn * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson 'Booktuber' Merphy Napier recently did two videos on magic systems in fantasy novels: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMQk4ltJa0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMQk4ltJa0 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6f3tAOUHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6f3tAOUHk
  - musingsole 6y ago
    Brandon Sanderson* Sanderson has lectures on a system of rules for magic in books to balance their coolness against deus ex machina: https://stormlightarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Sanderson%27s_Laws_of_Magic https://stormlightarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Sanderson%27s_Laws...
anonunivgrad 6y ago
My biggest frustration with Harry Potter is that Harry never has to actually make tough decisions. All moral dilemmas are resolved by a deus ex. He never even has to murder the villain, just deflects his spell back at him. My eyes rolled straight to the back of my head. The books deliver a fantastical, childish view of morality where the world will always save you from having to make difficult decisions.
- war1025 6y ago
  > The books deliver a fantastical, childish view of morality Almost like they were written for children...
  - anonunivgrad 6y ago
    Plenty of young adult books, which is what Harry Potter was, especially after the first book, engage with difficult moral situations. Harry Potter instead tells you that you can have your cake and eat it too.
kungito 6y ago
I'd say a big thing is how old you are when reading HP. I loved all the books and loved the ending. Over time I started reading Asimov and Vinge and became repulsed by the quality of the whole HP story. One lucky boy doing dumb things and getting away with it, all happening in a world where magic is done in the worst balance between mystic and explained. If I recall correctly, they tried to make the most sense of the Snape's magic spells. Compare the nonsense to the way a young man of 16 years imagined magic in Eragon where I really liked how he tried to keep as much consistency with energy cost and implications. Harry Potter really is just mostly for kids
- st1x7 6y ago
  True. I was around 9 when I got into HP and 15 when the last book came out so it hit me right at the appropriate age where the books get slightly more serious as you grow up but you're still a kid who is into the book universe. The lore or some of the overarching plot points don't make too much sense when looking at them with adult eyes but you still have to give Rowling credit for writing books that are just difficult to put down for someone at the right age.
- webmobdev 6y ago
  Yeah, Eragon did get the "magic world" right in its fantasy series. But then it lost track of the story in its reams of pages ...
  - stanford_labrat 6y ago
    The almost carbon copy of Star Wars to Eragon really changed my perception of the series.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  For a counterexampel, my personal experience is pretty different. I had read almost every one[1] of Asimov's novels and short stories by the time Deathly Hallows came out when I was 16, and I was still a big enough fan of Harry Potter to finish each book the day it came out. To this day i'm pretty confident I could pick up a Harry Potter book and enjoy it. There are different types of storytelling, and not every kind has to have balanced stakes or world-building that stands up to scrutiny. And it's not like Asimov's work doesn't have similar flaws: as much as I love the scope of the Foundation series, it does settle into a bit of a pattern of setting up seemingly insurmountable challenges and then resolving them through neat changes to the rules of engagement of psychohistory (though as a much more ambitious series than HP, it's more understandable). [1] Literally; I was ravenous

mhb 6y ago

I thought that the Homeland series finale was in the same class. After a meandering few middle seasons, the last one was surprisingly satisfying.

scrumbledober 6y ago
well i gave up on homeland during the meandering middle seasons, i'll have to pick it back up now.

535188B17C93743 6y ago

Futurama also had a fantastic ending.

st1x7 6y ago
Yes, they tried to end the show a couple of times but the last-last episode is lovely.
ringshall 6y ago
I agree. (Edit: to add to this, I've always thought that the third-last episode of Futurama, 'Murder on the Planet Express', was a return to form and reminiscent of the heyday of the show). On the subject of tv shows, ‘Peep Show’, the British sitcom, also had a very strong final season and final episode.
zeroonetwothree 6y ago
Or four

arkaic 6y ago

Mr. Robot's entire final season. Especially the last half.

throwaway743 6y ago
First half of the final season was great, but the writing in the last half felt rushed and at times cheap. It ended up being predictable, where the rest of the show was the complete opposite. They had the ability to write better, first half of that season and prior seasons proved this, but came off as if they were trying to wrap it up too quickly and finalize the loose ends :/
- shawnz 6y ago
  As I understand they intended to have 5 seasons but condensed it to 4. I agree the last season felt rushed but overall I felt the whole course of the show was more cohesive than most series.
cercatrova 6y ago
It really was incredible, especially after watching Game of Thrones and seeing how that ending turned out. Episode 8 of season 4 was briefly at the top of IMDb, and it was an amazing revelatory episode.

lqet 6y ago

> in general, what separates the best tv shows from great tv shows - is that they are able to have a good ending. "Dexter" has made this painfully clear.

ragnese 6y ago
Ugh. I loved the premise of that show and the first two-ish seasons. There were a few more decent seasons in there, but I don't remember which ones. The final season was embarrassing, though.
- jkcxn 6y ago
  Have you heard they've returned to do another season? https://news.sky.com/story/dexter-one-of-tvs-best-known-serial-killers-to-return-for-a-new-season-12104373 https://news.sky.com/story/dexter-one-of-tvs-best-known-seri...
  - ragnese 6y ago
    I have not. Wow. I don't even know what to think of this...

fleaaa 6y ago

Ozymandias it is, it wil live up to me for decades, such a good script.

swyx 6y ago

I'll call out Silicon Valley as having a great finale too. I still watch the final documentary every now and then. one of the greatest satires I will probably ever see.

sayyss 6y ago
True, silicon valley had a great finale but kinda rushed.
- no_one_ever 6y ago
  It probably felt rushed because of the rinse/repeat of all preceding seasons (group experiences success only to have it dissolve before their very eyes)

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deeg 6y ago

I'm largely with you on HP. Most impressive was how JKR was able to keep Snape's loyal/evil question unresolved to the very end and still come up with a plausible explanation for it all. Rereading the whole series shows little hints along the way. It was deftly done. It was a great time, having midnight release parties for a book!

slg 6y ago

It isn't really a true finale in the same way as those two examples, but I would throw out Infinity War and End Game as a joint example. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was able to successfully put a capstone on a cinematic project on the scale that had never even been attempted before. It was impressive enough to end a single story like Harry Potter in a satisfying way. The MCU was able to do the same for a wide variety of stories, dozens of characters, and over twenty movies. Also it doesn't hurt the MCU's legacy that there is the obvious comparison with Game of Thrones that magnificently failed a very similar task the exact weekend that End Game came out.

grecy 6y ago
I really liked Infinity War and have re-watched it a couple of times. I watched End Game in the theatre and have not seen it again since. I really didn't enjoy the whole "goofy time travel" aspect, and re-visiting all the prior movies/events.
- slg 6y ago
  > I really didn't enjoy the whole "goofy time travel" aspect, and re-visiting all the prior movies/events. It is certainly more comic-booky than some of the other MCU movies and the acceptance of that will vary from person to person. It also isn't a completely unique concept. They basically stole it from Back To The Future 2 which was also a big hit.
delecti 6y ago
It's really incredible just how well Endgame stuck the landing, but the whole MCU is impressive. Even the worst films of the MCU are still totally watchable, just forgettable. And comic movies are really easy to get wrong, that same decade of MCU movies overlapped with both Andrew Garfield Spiderman movies, and a smattering of forgettable or outright bad DC comics movies. That Rise of Skywalker and the final season of Game of Thrones came out in the same year helps to contrast how much most things don't stick the landing.

gordon_freeman 6y ago

Surprised to see Harry Potter discussion on HN. I thought it is a book series for Kids and Teens. Do Adults (30+ age) find it interesting too?

mucholove 6y ago
Well. I was 10-12 when Harry Potter was released and it’s been 20 or so years...
egypturnash 6y ago
2007 was thirteen years ago, Gordon. Have the Men in Black stolen time from you again? Someone who was a teenager when it came out could easily be in their thirties now. So could someone who started in on the series when they were a kid, and kept up with it as they grew.
godelmachine 6y ago
I have learnt many lessons from Harry Potter and consider them real. The beautiful scene of Death and the Three Brothers [1][2] has so much to teach us. [1]https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Death_(The_Tale_of_the_Three_Brothers) https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Death_(The_Tale_of_the_T... [2]https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Three_Brothers https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Three_Br...

gordon_freeman 6y ago

The Mandalorian Season 2 Last Episode: the best ending to a season finale ever! Totally lived up to the Hype!

whycombagator 6y ago

> Breaking Bad last season I actually thought BB went downhill and quit mid-way through the last season, but I understand I'm in the minority.

goostavos 6y ago
I'm with ya. While season 5 had some phenomenal individual scenes (like "tread lightly"), it didn't land with me as a whole in the way the earlier seasons did. The finale of season 4 is to me, with the haunting "I won" line, is the ultimate ending in my mind.
davidwparker 6y ago
100% The first four seasons were great, with a ton of character development. The last season was incredibly rushed, and felt like they went from $0 to $millions overnight, and then introduced (annoying) characters and fell into quick traps. It was super frustrating to me.

riazrizvi 6y ago

I would add Lord of The Rings, but it turns out that industrious old prof turned the whole trilogy out in one shot. It was his publisher who released it in stages. Interestingly he had a hard time convincing someone to print it at all: > A dispute with his publisher, George Allen & Unwin, led to his offering the work to William Collins in 1950. Tolkien intended The Silmarillion (itself largely unrevised at this point) to be published along with The Lord of the Rings, but Allen & Unwin were unwilling to do this. After Milton Waldman, his contact at Collins, expressed the belief that The Lord of the Rings itself "urgently wanted cutting", Tolkien eventually demanded that they publish the book in 1952. Collins did not; and so Tolkien wrote to Allen and Unwin, saying, "I would gladly consider the publication of any part of the stuff", fearing his work would never see the light of day. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Receptio...

dirtybird04 6y ago

Real tv fans have come to accept that the last season of The Wire and the last episode of Breaking Bad are pretty blah. We just shake our head and move on.