Requiem for Weatherby (Re: The Bull's Eye on Hermione's Back )

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 46194

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Cindy C." <cindysphinx at c...> wrote:
*********
> 
> Look at that!  JKR *volunteered* that whole bit about the bad 
> death.  She didn't have to say that, now did she?  It's like she 
> couldn't wait to repeat the bit about the horrible death.  Oh, JKR 
> is sitting in her mansion, laughing her head off that no one has 
> come close to figuring out what she has in mind.  If we've all 
> guessed it correctly in Dumbledore or Hagrid, I'd expect JKR to back 
> off a bit or stay mum about the death.  So that means to me that the 
> Hagrid/Dumbledore consensus is way off.

Cindy, I wouldn't buy that Hermione theory if you paid me to, but your
words have had a chilling effect on me. 

Why does JKR keep on bringing up this thing about the death being
"bad" and "horrible to write" etc. etc. etc? It seems to me that
you're right. That if the death was Hagrid or Dumbledore's, she
wouldn't be flaunting it like that. She's going to do something that
we aren't expecting, that most of aren't expecting.

It is with a heavy heart that I'm going to change my vote from Hagrid
to Percy.

I've thought Percy was doomed for a long while now. To me, there is no
character so obviously dead by Book VII. I won't go into why I think
so. It's been discussed a million times on the list. Many of us feel
it our bones.

But for a long time, I've been persuading myself that Percy gets to
live through OotP, that he'll die in Book VI or VII. But now I'm not
so sure. Percy seems to me the perfect candidate for an unexpected
death that will be horrible to write. Because JKR loves Percy, even if
certain unappreciative child readers don't, because she loves the
Weasleys, and it's going to be heartbreaking. Meanwhile, she can't
stuff every death into the last book. I think Dumbledore and Lupin's
numbers are up as well, but they have to stick around to Book VII.
There's very few people who we can spare for OotP. 

But I thought Percy's OK. She can't spare Percy b/c she's going to
keep the Ministry doing the appeasement thing all through OotP. She
isn't going to give it up so quickly after setting it up so thoroughly
at the end of GoF. Percy's been thematically linked with that subplot,
and I suspect its resolution will involve his death. So, it should be
fine for this book. 
But wouldn't it make sense for the appeasement situation to crumble at
the end of the next book? Leaving Percy dead, dead, dead!

Oh the pain! The agony! The weeping children: "I s-said I wished
P-percy was d-dead b-because he was b-boring!" Fred and George going
into deep depression and regretting their persecution of their brother. 

What you say? I sound like I'm enjoying the prospect?

Look, I am a FEATHERBOA. Would you like a glass of brandy?

Eileen

P.S. On the other hand, Cindy, she could be planning to restore Frank
Longbottom to sanity just long enough for him to die horribly in a
bloody ambush involving the Lestranges, Avery, and ever-so-evil
Mad-Eye Moody. Now, that'd be a death horrible to write.