On November 14th 2001millions of people first heard the words ‘I think it is clear that we can expect great things from you. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great. ” Uttered in the wand shop of Mr. Ollivander on Diagon Alley, almost ten years and 7 films later we finally see those great things finally come to fruition. The Harry Potter series, according to author J. K. Rowling, is about how we respond to death and this film encompasses a fear and understanding of death on so many levels.

Thanks to this statement by Ms. Rowling director David Yates focuses more on the tragedies and the aftermath of violence instead of weighing the film with epic battle scenes. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 begins on a quiet beach with Harry, Ron, and Hermione mourning the death of Dobby the house elf and quickly takes a dark turn to finish collecting and destroying the last of Lord Voldemort’s horcruxes. Lord Voldemort had split his soul into seven pieces in an attempt to cheat death and live forever.

The final hour of the film concentrates on the last battle between good and evil. Voldemort and his Death Eaters determined to create a wizarding world with only those with ‘pure blood’ against the rest of the wizarding community. The speeches and undertones of the film are reminiscing of Word War !! and Hitler’s ideal of a master race. Harry finally confronts his destiny realizing that he is in fact one of Voldemort’s horcruxes and in order for Voldemort to be stopped once and for all he must die.

This is a turning point in the film because it makes not only Harry but the audience as well confront their mortality. How far would a person go in order to destroy evil? Is the question that is on everyone’s mind as Harry approaches Lord Voldemort in the Forbidden Forrest knowing that he is about to greet death, he does not fight but takes the killing curse proudly. Entering a sort of limbo where Harry has a discussion with Professor Dumbledore we discover from the old wizard himself that this was the plan all along for the piece of Voldemort inside Harry to be destroyed by its creator.

Harry makes a conscious decision to return to the land of the living and finally defeat the Dark Lord and allow for a peaceful time to once again descend on the wizarding world. This movie focuses heavily on love and loss as seen during the Snape’s memories scene, Snape was in love with Harry’s mother Lily and did everything he could to protect her before her death at the hands of Voldemort and after watched over her son.

Snape went so far as to join the Death Eaters as a spy for Dumbledore in order to feed adverse information to Voldemort at great personal risk to himself. Many beloved charachers lose their lives in this final installment of Harry Potter but I think that this quote sums up the tone of the characters and movie “I am sorry too. Sorry I will never know him … but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life. ” Remus J. Lupin referring to his son growing up without parents.