death by logic - Ghosts.

[dfrankis at dial.pipex.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 21253

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., eggplant107 at h... wrote:
> After thinking about it some more I've come to the conclusion that 
> I'm wrong, nobody will die in the next book and I'll tell you why. 
> Everybody is certain somebody will die but Rowling ALWAYS surprises 
> us. Nobody can die on the last page of the book because if there 
has 
> been no death by the time we read the second to the last page we 
will 
> know somebody must die on the last page and so we will not be the 
> slightest bit surprised, thus nobody will die on that page. What a 
> surprise! In the same way after we have read the third to the last 
> page we will be certain that nobody can die on the second to the 
last 
> page, using the same reasoning we can work our way all the way back 
> to page 1. Thus we can be absolutely positively 100% certain that 
> nobody will die in the next book; and if there is a death on page 
117 
> we will be very surprised.

Of course, if OoP is only twenty pages long, with a death of a major 
character on every page, that would be a bit of a shocker.  The sort 
of book Rita Skeeter or Trelawney would write.

A slightly more serious issue on death in HP:  we are repeatedly told 
that you can't get the dead back.  At the same time, we have a number 
of ghosts floating about to contradict this.  Can we be sure that if, 
to take a random example, Snape is bumped off that that's the end?

Who would be your favourite character to be a ghost in the next 
episode?

David, wondering if there's a similar issue about the undead...