74 pages • 2 hours read
J. K. RowlingHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Fear of Mortality and Accepting Death
The Harry Potter series has never shied away from the topic of death. However, in every novel in the series to date, death is seen as a fate that must be avoided at all costs. In The Deathly Hallows, Rowling changes the narrative around death and begins to explore the nobility of death, or more accurately, what it means to conquer one’s fear of death. Rowling uses the parallel journeys of Voldemort and Harry to illustrate the difference between running from the inevitability of death and accepting death with dignity and honor.
In the sixth Harry Potter novel, Rowling introduces the idea of Horcruxes, evil objects in which a person conceals a piece of their soul so they can return to the world of the living when they die. Voldemort calls his Horcruxes “his treasures, his safeguards, his anchors to immortality” (549), and he believes that he has conquered death in the process of making so many Horcruxes. However, as Dumbledore explains, the process of ripping his soul into so many pieces has “rendered [Voldemort’s] soul so unstable that it broke apart” (709), and Harry became “the Horcrux [Voldemort] never meant to make” (709). Voldemort’s malicious attempts to outrun death led to his downfall, and because of Harry’s connection to Voldemort and his ability to read his mind and anticipate his evil plans, the Dark Lord meets his timely end.
When Harry learns that he is the seventh Horcrux, he doesn’t shy away from his destiny. Instead, Harry understands that he must die if there is to be any chance of destroying Voldemort. Despite his many adventures and acts of bravery throughout the Harry Potter series, giving himself up to Voldemort “require[s] a different kind of bravery” (692). Harry doesn’t run from death like Voldemort, who hurts others to ensure his own survival. Harry does the opposite, laying his life down to protect his friends and the wizarding world. Dumbledore calls Harry “the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying” (721). Rowling reminds the reader that, like Voldemort, some people live without love, creating a miserable, depraved existence that hurts others. In The Deathly Hallows, death is not always a brutal, unspeakable fate but a necessary passageway to create a better world. Harry understands this, while Voldemort dies without fully understanding the power of love and self-sacrifice.
Sacrificing for the Greater Good
In the second chapter of The Deathly Hallows, Harry reads Dumbledore’s obituary written by his childhood friend, Elphias Doge. Doge claims that Dumbledore’s life was full of good deeds meant to better the wizarding world, and he states that Dumbledore “died as he lived: working always for the greater good” (20). As admirable and well-meaning as this sentiment may be, the phrase “greater good” has complex (and morally gray) implications in The Deathly Hallows. Rowling explores the controversy behind the idea of the “greater good” and what it can mean for many different types of people.
Hermione explains to Harry that “‘For the Greater Good’ became Grindelwald’s slogan, his justification for all the atrocities he committed later” (360). In the context of Grindelwald and his dreams of bringing wizards out of hiding to rule over Muggles, the “Greater Good” has a dark and twisted meaning. The idea that wizards are inherently superior to Muggles and should be able to exercise power over them rings strongly of eugenics, and when Hermione mentions that “‘For the Greater Good’ was even carved over the entrance to Nurmengard” (360), Rowling creates a strong allusion to the idea of Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Grindelwald (and a younger Dumbledore) believed that sacrifices must be made for the betterment of the world, even if those sacrifices involve human life.
Dumbledore’s brother Aberforth complains that in his youth, Albus was full of self-righteous pride, and he fell for Grindelwald’s rhetoric and abandoned his sister in the process. After all, “if one young girl got neglected, what did that matter, when Albus was working for the greater good?” (566). Even Albus himself regretted his foolish thoughts toward the end of his life. He realizes that Grindelwald’s arguments about “the greater good” were, at best, deeply misguided, and at worst, they were malicious and evil. Dumbledore’s perspective on the “greater good” shifted toward the end of his life. As his childhood friend points out, Albus dedicated his life to the real greater good: protecting innocent people from the likes of Grindelwald and those who agreed with his idea of a magical hierarchy.
Friendship and Teamwork
Harry Potter may be the main protagonist of the Harry Potter series, but he would never have made it to his dramatic showdown with Voldemort without the support of his friends. In The Deathly Hallows, Harry’s friendships are pushed to new extremes. As Harry embarks on his most dangerous and challenging adventure yet, Rowling emphasizes the necessity of teamwork and how friendship can embolden and empower others to take risks.
When Harry tries to talk Ron and Hermione out of joining him on his quest to destroy the Horcruxes, they scoff at him. Harry tries to explain that he doesn’t want them to suffer, and he doesn’t want them to throw their lives away for him. Hermione retorts that “[they] know perfectly well what might happen if [they] come with [him]” (97). After six years of daring adventures with Harry and a long track record of risk-taking, Ron and Hermione are dedicated to stopping Lord Voldemort and supporting their friend no matter how dangerous the journey may become.
Dobby the house-elf has been a devoted friend of Harry’s since Harry’s second year at Hogwarts. When Harry first met Dobby, he was fearful and subservient, but his friendship with Harry empowered him to become daring and fearless. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione are trapped in Malfoy Manor, it is Dobby who rescues them, and when Bellatrix screams at Dobby for defying his masters, Dobby proclaims that he “has no master” but is a “free elf” who has “come to save Harry Potter and his friends!” (474). Dobby pays the ultimate price for his bravery and loses his life, but his sacrifice brings Harry and his friends to safety and one step closer to defeating Voldemort.
Like Dobby, Neville Longbottom wrestled with feelings of low self-esteem and fear. He was bullied throughout his time at Hogwarts, and in the first few books, Neville is seen as an accident-prone, clumsy boy who cannot be trusted to do anything right. However, towards the novel's end, it is Neville whom Harry tasks with killing Nagini. Neville is the one who keeps the resistance going at Hogwarts when Harry isn’t there, and it is Neville who speaks out against Voldemort and says that he’ll join the Dark Lord “when hell freezes over” (731). Neville blossoms as a hero because of his friendship with Harry and his fellow members of Dumbledore’s Army. Like Dobby, Ron, and Hermione, Neville is willing to take any risk because of his love of his friends.
Prejudice and Blood Purity
Eugenics and the dangerous ideas that come with it have been explored throughout the Harry Potter series. Hatred for Muggles fuels Voldemort to become the most evil wizard in history. Even Muggle-born wizards are seen as a threat in his new world order. In The Deathly Hallows, Rowling portrays prejudice and blood status as a toxic, deadly virus that is on the brink of destroying not only the wizarding world but also the Muggle world. Prejudice, as Rowling demonstrates, is illogical, cruel, and used to justify some of the most abhorrent crimes in human history.
Voldemort and his followers value “blood purity” above all else, and he taunts the Lestrange family because their niece Tonks has married a werewolf. Voldemort laments that “Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time” (10), and the only solution to the problem is to “cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest” (11). To Voldemort and his followers, anyone who sympathizes or fraternizes with Muggles, Muggle-borns, or magical creatures must be put to death to salvage the honor of a family name. For Voldemort, “the blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods” (247), and anyone who blurs the separation between the magical and non-magical worlds must be destroyed.
This ideology is not reserved for the dark hallways of Malfoy Manor but invades the brightly-lit halls of the Ministry of Magic when Voldemort takes over. Harry is shocked and horrified to see a graphic statue front and center in the Ministry, which celebrates the idea of Muggles being put “in their rightful place” (242) as slaves to wizards. He finds anti-Muggle-born propaganda in Umbridge’s office warning of “Mudbloods and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society” (249), and he sees members of the wizarding community terrorized and interrogated for nothing more than their parentage. For Harry, the wizarding community has always been a place where he felt accepted after a childhood of always feeling like he didn’t belong. Discrimination like this jeopardizes the beauty of the wizarding world and its people, and as Kingsley says, “it’s one short step from ‘Wizards first’ to ‘Purebloods first,” and then to ‘Death Eaters’ [...]. We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving” (440). Rowling makes it clear that it will take people and creatures from every corner of the wizarding world to defeat Voldemort, and the only way to conquer evil is to stand together and celebrate their differences.
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