7. Dobby Dies (Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was a grim book, and no point was so grim and hopeless as the chapter in which Harry, Ron, and Hermione are captured and taken to Bellatrix Lestrange at Malfoy Manor. Draco was so frightened at the implications that he wouldn't even identify them. Hermione was tortured. Wormtail was strangled by his own magical hand. Voldemort was summoned. Harry's and Ron's rescue attempt was thwarted by a knife to Hermione's neck. Still, due to the heroics of Dobby, the trio was able to escape Malfoy Manor and Apparate to the home of Bill Weasley. Only there does Harry discover that Dobby had been stabbed in the heart by a dagger thrown by Bellatrix. A lot of people died in this book, many of them the good guys. Sadly, in the grand literary scheme, most of those deaths had to happen. Mad-Eye Moody had to die. A Weasley had to die. The fourth Marauder had to die. Snape had to die. We could accept those deaths as necessary. But Dobby? Dobby didn't have to die. And it was completely unexpected. The chapter was already so horrifying that we didn't need another innocent to die to make us wonder just how we had gotten from the boy who accidentally set a python on his cousin to one of our primary characters being tortured for information. Was Deathly Hallows basically 700 pages of devastation heaped upon devastation? Sure. But Dobby's death was pretty darn heartbreaking.
Fiction buff and writer. If it's on Netflix, it's probably in my queue. I've bought DVDs for the special features and usually claim that the book is better than the movie or show (and can provide examples). I've never met a TV show that I won't marathon. Follow on Twitter @lah9891 .
