[HPforGrownups] Devastation & Heartbreak (re: Horrible to Write)

[Richelle Votaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 41484

bboy_mn writes:


> I hope JKR stays true to her original vision and doesn't compromise it
> for 'popularity'. On the other hand, if she kills Harry, it will
> probably be the last book she ever writes. Of course, she is a
> multimillionaire, so she doesn't have to write any more, but I just
> can't see the world every viewing her the same. In our subconscious,
> she will be the person who killed our best friend. She will be the
> person who murdered Harry Potter or one of his friends, and although
> we may forgive her intellectually; I don't think our broken hearts
> would ever be able to forgive her completely.

I know I could never forgive her if she killed Harry.  I could barely
forgive her for letting him endure such mental and emotional anguish in book
4.  (Yes, I know, it isn't real.)  Still, she has hinted that although she
has the final chapter of book 7 written, she may rewrite it when she gets to
that point anyway.  Maybe we'll talk her out of it!

Anyway, Harry is really the only character that I would be angry if he died.
Any of the others I'm sure she could write it in such a way that the death
would be for the greater good of mankind, etc, etc, and we'd feel like the
other characters (and ourselves) were better off for having known them,
touched by their lives and deaths.  However, if it's Harry, I don't care how
you stretch it (even the whole "Harry must die to defeat Voldemort" theory
doesn't cut it for me), he must live in order for me to be emotionally
stable the rest of my life. :)

I'd hate for Ron to die, but I can conceive it.  On the other hand, my mom
(who doesn't read HP but hears plenty from me to follow along) thinks it
will be Hermione because no one seems to worry about her survival, as if
it's guaranteed.

On a side note, I read this today in SS/PS, chapter 16.  It says "In years
to come, Harry would never quite remember how he had managed to get through
his exams when he half expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door
at any moment."  That one little phrase "In years to come" is my hope that
Harry will live to "tell the tale."  Yes, I know six years later could be
"years to come," but I don't see Harry sitting around thinking back on his
first year exams while he's busy fighting Voldemort.  To me it at least
implies a distant future after Hogwarts, telling stories to the kids, etc.
Maybe I am grasping at straws, but right now that's all I've got to grasp
at!

> As a side note: I think the heart breaking death will be Neville. That
> doesn't make it any easier, because I love Neville. I firmly believe
> that Neville is not just a background character. I think his present
> is very significant and that he will play a much great role in future

That is possible.  I never cared for him much until Harry found out about
his parents' being driven insane by the Crutacious curse.  Now every time I
think of him it's "poor little Neville."  How much he does or doesn't
remember about it doesn't matter, he has to relive it all every time he
visits his parents, which sounds like it is frequently.

Richelle