[HPforGrownups] Re: End of Harry Potter Series

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 44726

At 22:28 30/09/02 -0500, Richelle Votaw wrote:

<snip stuff>

 > JKR: "Magic in the sense that it happens in my books, no, I don't 
believe.  I
 > don't believe in that.  No.  No.  This is so frustrating.  Again, there 
is so
 > much I would like to say, and come back when I've written book seven.
 > But then maybe you won't need to even say it 'cause you'll have found it out
 > anyway.  You'll have read it."

Yes, that's the one I meant. Thanks. I *knew* someone would reproduce it 
very quickly.  :-)

>Here's what I got from that.  Whatever happens in the end, magic won't solve
>it.  Harry will not pick up his wand and AK Voldemort into oblivion.
>Throughout the HP series, the truest deepest desires cannot be fulfilled by
>magic.  Magic cannot bring James and Lily back. Magic cannot truly protect
>Harry from Voldemort.

<more snippage>

Indeed, that's what I have always felt the books would ultimately be about. 
In a way, it goes back to the original point of this thread: Harry doesn't 
see himself as a great wizard at all (whether or not he is, is really 
irrelevant), and it is not wizarding prowess which will save the day; his 
purity, his innocence and (heck, let's use the word us menfolk avoid 
whenever we can!) his love, are what will triumph over the hatred and 
decrepitude Voldemort represents. A teenage boy's fantasy would NOT work 
that way.

I always read that quote of JKR's to support that position, and I used to 
think nothing more of it. However, it's only because my last reading of it 
was influenced by darkthirty's thread that I started looking at it in a 
different light; she's talking not about the importance of magic, but the 
"reality" of it, hence my suspicions. I do agree that the quote most 
probably means nothing more than outlined above, but the alternative 
reading still could be inferred...