Death in GoF

[catherine at cator-manor.demon.co.uk]

No: HPFGUIDX 17465

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> Lucy wrote:
> 
> > > I was also much more affected by hearing it read.  Suddenly it 
hit 
> me
> > > just how quickly Voldemort could kill,
> 
> Amanda wrote:
> 
> > I think JKR did a great job of both catching how callous 
Voldemort 
> is,
> > how little life matters (that "Kill the spare" line is chilling), 
> and of
> > communicating how bad guys really kill people, how death happens.
> > Sudden. No warning. No opportunity to speak, no last words. Not 
the 
> way
> > deaths are usually handled in literature at all, and very 
effective. 
> I
> > was very impressed.
> 
> Me too, me too, me too, and this is why I can't understand the 
critics 
> who say HP is evil because "four people die in the first chapter of 
> GF" (this is by their addition, not mine), or because it's about 
evil, 
> or because there isn't always a happy ending.  If people think 
these 
> themes are too advanced for eight-year-olds, that's one thing, but 
as 
> for judging the books immoral on this basis, I couldn't disagree 
more. 
>  I firmly believe that literature should portray death the way it 
> really happens, which is often sudden, cruel, arbitrary, and 
without 
> apparent redemption.  If there is to be a happy ending for Cedric, 
the 
> reader will have to believe in heaven and imagine that that's where 
he 
> is now--which is fine.  But in the books, as for the rest of us 
here 
> on earth, all anyone knows for sure is that a kind and good young 
> person is dead for no good reason.  His parents are left to suffer, 
> there's no bringing him back, and the only consolation anyone can 
take 
> is that he died fast (and at a time that he was happy, as Mrs. 
> Diggory says) and his body wasn't left to be mutilated.  This, to 
my 
> mind, is exactly the kind of thing that makes HP such fine moral 
> literature.

.  
> 
> Thanks for letting me rant,
> Amy Z

At the risk of sounding me too (but I have talked about this line 
before, so I don't feel to bad about jumping in here) - I still find 
the "Kill the Spare" line the most chilling in all of the books.  For 
me, it sums up Voldemort and everything he and the Death Eaters stand 
for.  I find it absolutely terrifying that they can have such little 
regard for human life.  I also agree with the comments about the fact 
that usually in literature there is some build up to a person's 
death, and there is usually some kind of redemptive quality to it.  
Here it is simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong 
time.  

Cedric's death does, however, add another dimension to the whole 
Voldemort saga.  Until this point, most of the killings have been 
removed from the immediate action and the sphere of Harry's point of 
view.  Even Frank Bryce at the beginning had less of an impact, 
because he was such a minor character, and for Harry it seemed almost 
unreal because it was witnessed through a dream.  Cedric's death 
therefore has the effect of bringing death sharply into focus for 
Harry and his peers, giving JKR an opportunity to discuss it in a 
slightly different context - and to show also that when asked why 
something like this has happened, when something truly evil and 
pointless has occurred, that adults cannot possibly have all the 
reassuring answers and platitudes which are usually churned out.

Catherine