DEEP WIZARDRY (spoiler)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "spinelli372003" <spin01 at a...>
wrote:
<< Not sure if this is what your looking for but I read the "So you
want to be a wizard" books a while ago.  The second book Deep Wizardry
has a scene sort of like that at the end.  The wizard had to turn into 
whales and there had to be a sacrifice that would be accepted is that 
the one your talking about?  the evil one was a shark.  that is the 
only book coming to mind for me.  It is by Diane Duane.  >>

The shark was NOT evil, 'merely' a deadly predator. Predators are
simply natural -- us humans are predators, does eating meat make us
evil? Unlike me, who eats from agriculture, wild animal predators
serve to pick off the sick or weak members of other species, and are
therefore the force that caused those species to become strong and
fast or well-armored or well-camouflaged or whatever that species's
defense mechanism is.

In this spirit, I found the 'happy ending' of that book very
irritating and not very happy.
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Someone had to die, and the girl protagonist had gotten herself into
the situation where it would be her. Suddenly and surprisingly, her
life was saved when the Shark voluntarily died instead. I found it
tragic that a twenty million year old force of nature died and is gone
from our world -- I found it absurd that all those non-human marine
beings, such as the whales, would find the life of one human child so
much more valuable than the life of one of their fellow marine beings,
a very important one at that.