Subtlety and elegance as Bellatrix meets her end

There's a wonderful moment near the end of The Deathly Hallows where Harry, caught midway between two duels in the Great Hall, hears a laugh, sees a look of surprise and disbelief on the face of Bellatrix Lestrange and knows she's about to die.

Harry knows because the laugh and the look echo Sirius Black's behaviour just before he was killed by Bellatrix's curse in The Order of the Phoenix.

It's a wonderful moment and beautifully written. I remember having shivers the first time I read the passage and realised that Molly Weasley was about to strike a deathblow to Voldemort's support. And, in doing so, would force the final confrontation between Harry and the Dark Lord.

Harry recognises that Bellatrix is about to die in time to cast a protective charm over Molly before Voldemort has a chance to curse her. Harry then emerges from beneath his Invisibility Cloak to the surprise and delight of the Hogwarts fighters and to the dismay of the Dark Lord.

I mention this now because I have been thinking a lot about the way the filmmakers chose to rewrite Rowling's ending and all the wonderful moments that have been lost as a result. This is, indeed, one of them, as is the moment that Voldemort finally dies, a moment of ultimate mundanity (is that a word?) that serves as the perfect end of the Dark Lord.

I've struggled to understand why the film's drawn out duel scenes and its commitment to making the battle a singular event between Harry and Voldemort bothers me so much.

The term I've used so often in the past to describe what is lost in the movie version is "subtlety" and I just can't seem to find a better one. Rowling wrote a subtle, elegant final battle, filled with nuance and depth.

The film's climax is more of a steamroller: big, slow and, in the end, unexciting. Lacking in depth or subtlety. Empty of meaning, devoid of soul.

I am coming to recognise that there exists in the world of Harry Potter fandom a significant group that has only watched (and loved) the films but has never read all of the books. Most, in fact, have read the first two or three novels but, once the books got longer, more complex, more adult, these people gave up the reading.

I urge members of this group of fans to try again. Start at the beginning but commit yourself to reading all seven novels from start to finish. Immerse yourself in Rowling's world in its pure, unadulterated form. Get to know the characters to a level you simply cannot know them through the movies.

But, most of all, enjoy the many wonderful moments of subtlety and elegance that the films simply do not, cannot capture.