What I am going to do here is not a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but just a reflection on some points about the series, and primarily on the character of Severus Snape.

First of all, I am not trying to enter the debate on the morality of the Harry Potter books here. Suffice it to say that while I would certainly have serious reservations about the appropriateness of parts of the later books for children, I do not agree with the fundamental criticisms of the entire series as a whole as promoting the occult and immorality. It seems to me that magic in the realm of fantasy and myth need not be occult, and is not in this series. (To my mind, the most serious ethical problem in the series is at the end of Book 6, which I will talk about in a moment.) The Harry Potter series obviously is a matter of controversy and disagreement, and I skip over such concerns here only because I simply would never get to what I really want to talk about now if I started addressing them. [I am inserting a note here later to point out that I wrote these comments prior to the extremely bothersome authorial remarks made by Rowling about the character of Dumbledore. While these remarks do not change the books themselves, and I do not believe Rowling's claims about her intentions are reflected in the stories as written, widespread public knowledge of her comments certainly makes the reading of these books by children additionally problematic, at least for the near future.]

Spoiler alert: Ok, although I'm not explicitly discussing the plot here, there will be some major plot spoilers coming up. If you haven't read the book, and don't want to know what happens, please don't read any further.

On the whole, I think J.K. Rowling lost her way slightly in the later Potter books, beginning a little bit in Book 4, and then hitting bottom in Book 5. She tried to do some things (particularly in relation to teenage life) that she just didn't do as well as she has done other elements in the story. Nevertheless, she remained a master storyteller. Also, there was at least one major exception to the decline in the later books: the development of the character of Severus Snape, particularly in Book 6 and in the small but striking sections in which he appears in Book 7. It seems to me that Snape (contrary to the original intentions of the author, as far as I can tell) becomes the most compelling character in the series, and arguably its true heroic figure. [Incidentally, I think there is also a sense in which Lily (Evans) Potter, while existing for the most part only in the background and flashbacks, could also be said to be the true heroine of the story, but I won't go into that here.]

First I'll look at the ethical problem I mentioned earlier, since it involves Snape. The end of book 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was a problem to me as a reader. Snape killed Dumbledore. This meant one of two things: 1. Snape was evil all along, which would pretty much ruin the series as far as I was concerned, or 2. Dumbledore himself, as part of his plan to defeat the evil of Voldemort, got Snape to kill him, which would obviously be seriously morally problematic. We find in flashbacks in book 7 that the latter is true. Dumbledore (already dying by his own fault, preserved from death only by Snape's skill) plots his own killing, for reasons that I need not go into here. He also plans for Snape to kill him, rather than the boy Voldemort sent to do the killing, Draco Malfoy. Interestingly, although Snape kills Dumbledore, and had previously taken an oath to dark wizards (to maintain his cover as a double agent) that meant he had to either kill Dumbledore or die himself, it is Dumbledore who truly wants Snape to kill him, and indeed both pleads and demands that he do it. Snape is portrayed as far less certain about the killing, and seems to sense that there is a problem with it, even if done for a good end, and even though Dumbledore is already dying. He is clearly tormented by what he does, and appears to loathe Dumbledore for getting him to do it. When Dumbledore insists that Snape kill him, to spare the young soul of Draco Malfoy from being "ripped apart" by the deed, Snape rightly retorts "And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?"

It isn't obvious that Rowling has a moral problem with what Dumbledore plans here, which is why I point to it as potentially the greatest moral weakness in the series. However, to be fair to Rowling one should note that she makes it clear in book 7 that Dumbledore, while heroic in his own way and doubtless well-intentioned, is far from perfect, and not necessarily a reliable guide to the right thing to do. He never really seems to conquer his recurring temptation to use people--in the course of the story above all Snape and Harry--as means to "the greater good." Although the character of Dumbledore clearly would not consciously embrace a philosophy of the ends justifying the means (thus he will not stoop to the use of evil magic), he seems unwittingly to embrace this philosophy in a subtler form through using people as means, although again he always has the best of intentions. This aspect of Dumbledore seems to repulse Snape, both on his own behalf and on behalf of Harry. In book 7 it emerges that it is the apparently cruel Snape, more than the grandfatherly Dumbledore, who really seems to care about Harry apart from Harry's role in the plan to defeat Voldemort (although admittedly Snape can't stand Harry personally, and protects him only because Snape loved--and still loves--Harry's dead mother).

Snape is also the one character who undergoes a real conversion (though in reality we see his conversion only in flashbacks in the books--by the time Harry first meets him, Snape is already on the side of good, though it does not appear so). Furthermore, although he is extremely proud, he becomes a heroic figure without ever becoming one of the "cool kids" in the book. The side that he is on will never accept him, and the only real approval he gets will come from those he most hates and despises. The fact that he spends his life as the ultimate double agent, fooling Voldemort to the last, and always hated by the very people he is fighting for, is all the more remarkable because he is never included as part of the group by the "good guys," even in his youth. Indeed, his temporary fall into dark wizardry appears to have both fed and been fed by his rejection and persecution by those supposedly on the side of good, with the obvious exception of Lily Evans, although she eventually married James Potter.

Book 7 explicitly lays out Snape's love for Lily as his saving grace, as the center of his conversion and motivation for fighting against Voldemort, who killed her. Snape is clearly a very flawed character, and very misguided in other ways in his youth, but I see no reason to understand Snape's love for Lily as portrayed in the story as anything other than authentic. Given that, it seems entirely right that his love for her could really inspire a conversion to the good such as he experiences. In a way, though, maybe that already puts the relationship between Lily and his conversion too extrinsically. Lily is good, and in the end she is his religion, his cause. I don't mean in the sense of some sort of idolatry in which he sees her as divine or anything like that. What I see in Snape is reminiscent to me in an odd way of Erlend in Kristin Lavransdatter, though little else connects the characters. Snape, of course, is not an attractive figure like Erlend, and he does not "get the girl" as Erlend does, but the parallel here is that the redeeming qualities of Erlend make little sense unless one understands that Kristin is his faith. Whatever salvation he attains comes through her. Snape is similar in relation to Lily, though I think he is clearly stronger and more faithful to his "religion" than Erlend.

This loyalty is also why, given his loss of Lily, death is merciful in a way for Snape--he is the one character who would not be liberated from his torture by the defeat of Voldemort, even though Voldemort is his greatest enemy. Some people have criticized Rowling for, after all the death and mayhem, essentially inserting a limited but real "happily-ever-after" ending to the series. I think that style of ending was entirely appropriate. For Snape, though, there is no happily ever after without Lily. The logic of his character would demand that every participation in the good, and all that he experiences as he works for good, must simultaneously be a constant reminder of his double loss of her. Dumbledore himself is struck by the connection Snape has to her after she has been gone so long: "'After all this time?' / 'Always,' said Snape." In the end, in his moment of death, Snape seeks to die looking into the eyes of Harry, inherited from his mother. This is perhaps why I sympathize so much with his character, and find the most powerful moments created by Rowling in the series those involving Snape in the final two books. The central reality of Snape as seen in the last book is that, despite his many problems, he is motivated more clearly and fundamentally than any other living character in the story by loyalty and fidelity to one personal love.