[HPforGrownups] Re: The Deaths of Beloved Characters, and related subjects

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 23651

catherine at cator-manor.demon.co.uk wrote:

> I so agree with this.  I have said many times before that this is one
> of the most horrific death scenes I have ever read, and that the
> sentence "Kill the spare" sends shivers down my spine.  This scene for
> me was an amazing bit of writing.

Me, too. This scene was so accurate. There was no explanation, no cues,
no hints, no warning, and no escape. I went through, as a reader, the
exact same disbelief that Harry did. Harry didn't want to look down. I
didn't want to read down. We both knew what we'd see and we couldn't
quite process it. This was terribly effective.

> There are not many instances when a death occurs in
> a book like this - totally without provocation, without need, just for
> the hell of it.  The fact that it was Cedric, and that we supposedly
> don't have as much invested in him as in other characters, for me made
> it much worse, as I felt that I had sold him short in some way.  I
> also feel that if the person to die had been someone we had loved
> more, the impact would have been lesssened, because it was what we
> were expecting.

Oh, precisely! We liked Cedric, he was nice, he did not impinge on our
consciousnesses very much, he was *there.* When someone like that is
suddenly *not* there, it makes it so much of a shock. Like when you go
to another country, the things that really get to you are *not* that
they are speaking another language or that the signs are
unreadable--it's that the doorknobs are shaped wrong, the air smells
different, the bread has a strange texture. It is the underlying,
taken-for-granted things that bring it home first. If that all makes
sense.


> I have a hypothetical question.  If Harry had refused to take the cup,
> and Cedric had been forced into taking it, what would Crouch/Moody
> have done to resolve the situation?

Hm. Probably awaited developments? Either that or created a distraction
and then gone into the maze to transport Harry to Voldemort another
way...?

--Amanda


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