Rowling clarified that, while Deathly Hallows was not "a blood bath", there were more than two deaths, as mistaken by many fans after she said two characters died that she didn't intend. (Which, to my knowledge, hasn't been revealed yet, but I'm putting my thoughts below.) Here's the body count of the good guys. For those of you who wish to discuss in great depth, there is a Snape thread posted below.
* Hedwig - The book's first jet of green light struck Harry's faithful fowl in a moment so surprising that I thought (hoped) that it wasn't what I thought it was. I shed a tear, but the action was so intense, that I was distracted by getting all the OOTP members safely to the Burrow. I wonder if Hedwig might have been an unplanned death (as Susan and I discussed) because Rowling realized the cumbersome logistics of what to do with her while Harry roamed through the book.
* Alastor Mad-Eye Moody - Mom and I had guessed that Moody might be one of the deaths. In a way, it made sense to clear out the members of the OOTP from the first generation. In fact, thinking on it, the Hogwarts professors are some of the only originals to survive. Mad-Eye was shot down in a blaze of glory, and that's how he would've wanted to go. Harry's burial of his eye later in the book gave me a moment to tear up on the Auror's behalf.
* Dobby - Didn't. See. It. Coming. And therefore it hit me like a ton of bricks. Dobby was the least likely character to die, according to Mugglenet, who put his odds at 100/1. The death was so unexpected, but I accepted it, knowing that Dobby would've been happier to die saving Harry Potter than any other way he might go. And the subsequent grave-digging scene with the characters' contributions of clothing and Harry's manual labor and mental toil made it the most well-processed death in the book. Plus, Luna's funeral speech was so...appropriate and simple that it made me bawl all over again.
* Fred (sniff...sniff...sob) Weasley - When Mike and I were talking prior to the book's release, he suggested that Rowling would take one of the twins - a kind of grief that was different than any other death she could create. I scoffed. Not the twins, I said! My favorite living characters outside of the trio. The appearance of Percy just prior to Fred's death already had me in a fit of weeping, but the death, Fred's face with "the ghost of his last laugh" and Percy's obvious anguish was so wrenching. The scene that followed with the Weasley family was a flash-portrait of despair that we hadn't seen in the books thus far. Mike, you called it.
* Severus Snape - Snape had the most gruesome death in all of Potterdom. The moment Nagini's cage sunk down over his head, I shuddered at the macabre scene. I liked that Harry drew blood biting his knuckle in horror - I think that was almost a meta-moment in which the character does the same as the reader. I wished Snape had gotten a more heroic death, but, as Kim pointed out, it was unlikely that Harry would've believed his goodness without the memories or that Snape would've allowed Harry to see them while he was standing there. It was absolutely grotesque, but after what we see in the pensieve, I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about his soul.
* Remus Lupin - I anticipated that Lupin would be among the death count. It seemed fitting that all of the Marauders would be laid to rest before the book's end. I was a bit disappointed that Remus died offstage and that we weren't given much room to absorb his death. Even the moment his resurrected spirit has with Harry in the forest is overshadowed by the appearance of James, Sirius, and especially Lily, and the overall emotion of Harry's decision to die. I wished we'd been able to have more of a moment with Lupin's death than to add a tally mark to the body count.
* Nymphadora Tonks - This is my bid for the other unexpected death. Tonks, like Lupin, dies offstage, and I think that Rowling might have conceived late in the book that it would be a nice homage to the first generation to have an orphan left to his godfather in the second generation. Similar complaints here about having no emotional room for this one.
* Colin Creevey - Some are calling it a throw-away death, but Creevey, like Hedwig and Dobby, was one of the characters most wholly and unabashedly devoted to Harry. And though we don't see his death, this is his moment, albeit brief, to prove he's a true Gryffindor, unafraid to face death. He might have been a side character (at best), but it was a touching little moment to see Oliver Wood carrying his body into the castle.
Your turn.
I lost it over Dobby. When they put all those clothes on him, I was a goner.
I think I read the line about the dead bodies lined up, and thus telling us that Lupin and Tonks had died, three times before it registered. Although, Lupin asking Harry to be the godfather was a little foreshadowing of the fact that Teddy would be an orphan.
Um, I started reading your list... And when you mentioned dobby, I got teary... and then you mentioned Fred... and since I am at work, I've decided I must not read any farther. After all, no one likes a weeping-work-daisy.
(The mention of Fred's expression... genius and traumatic.)
i think dobby's death and snape's were the best and most impactful. bcs i think the scenes were flushed out well. and since i'm practically heartless, to say i almost teared up over snapes death is saying something. and we def should've been given more for lupin and tonks after all that. i was surprised that hagrid lived after the spiders. colin and hedwig seemed unnecessary casualties. i wish there was more emotional set up for fred's death- in terms of the loss and how little of a part he played in this last novel. but dying with a smile was a good touch.
can we talk about why the slytherins were all patently evil? i mean i don't get it- i think this is sort of weird oversight in the book- since JK is so into blurring the lines into shades of grey- for the house to all turn to the darkside seemed just a little odd. though it was funny when that pansy girl was like, he's right there get him- and they all turned on her.
I agree with Mendacious about Lupin and Tonks-- I wanted a little more out of it, more fleshed out, as she said. As a crucial player in the whole tale, Lupin in particular needed to be seen going out guns blazing, ripping out the throat of Fenrir Greyback.
What happened to him, anyway? Did I skim that part too quickly?
I totally lost it when Dobby died. We had plenty of opportunity to really process that one, and his neverending devotion to Harry was so touching.
As soon as Lupin asked Harry to be the godfather of his son, I had a pretty good feeling that neither Lupin or Tonks was going to make it.
To be honest, I was kind of surprised that there wasn't a more significant death. Granted, they were upsetting, but after losing Dumbledore, I thought for sure either Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Ginny wasn't going to make it. Considering all the danger the trio put themselves in, it's a little hard to believe that they all lived, though I guess Harry's death was avoided on a technicality of sorts.
For me, I think that it might take the visual of the movie, with all fifty bodies lined up in the Great Hall, to really grasp the real sense of loss in the battle. The toll was heavy, but not as heavy as I anticipated, especially considering that we didn't lose any major characters.
agreed.