Blog #3

I overall enjoyed the end of the series. I thought that the final fight between Harry and Voldemort in the Great Hall was really a great way to show that Voldemort was ultimately human, as he looked like everybody else when he was killed. The main issue I have with the ending of the series is the epilogue. Mainly, over the name chosen for Harry's middle child, Albus Severus.
Throughout the series, Severus Snape was shown to be someone who showed great hatred toward Harry, from sabotaging his Potions grade after Harry looked into Snape's memory during their Occlumency to being borderline cruel with his dishing out of detentions to Harry after the smallest issues at school. Although we are able to see Snape's memories after he passed and see that he only hated Harry because he loved Lily so much, I was still very angry that he had lashed out against the child of the man he hated and who Lily had married. To me, Snape hated Harry so much because James was the one that Lily chose. Although Snape flipped sides and played spy, he only did so after Lily was murdered; he did not care one ounce about James nor Harry.
When it comes to Dumbledore, it was shown that he cared about Harry, trying to protect him from Voldemort and helping him gain insight into the Dark Lord's mind. But as we read Snape's memories, we learned that Dumbledore's motivations were much more manipulative than originally thought. As Snape had said to Dumbledore "You have been raising him like a pig for slaughter," Dumbledore had manipulated Harry into growing up so he could die to kill Voldemort in the end, without even thinking to explain it to Harry before Dumbledore's death (Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallow 687). Dumbledore responded simply "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?" (687). In this scene, I felt as though Dumbledore did not care at all about Harry, that he was only a means to an end.
With the selection of this name for Harry's youngest son, I found that Rowling was telling the reader that Harry was okay with being bullied and manipulated during his time at Hogwarts, and even after he had left the school. It sounded like Rowling was trying to brush these wrongs under the rug, trying to ignore them for an ending with a pretty bow on top.