OOP Spoiler: How the Death was written

Adana Robinson adanaleigh at hotmail.com
Tue Jun 24 12:43:24 UTC 2003


No: HPFGUIDX 62831

Spoiler space:

F
I
N
I
S
H

T
H
E

B
O
O
K

A
L
R
E
A
D
Y
!

I lost my ability to keep up with the Humongous Boardposts sometime 
yesterday, so I hope I'm not just repeating five hundred other people.

There have been a lot of "complaints" about how the death was written.  Many 
people said it went by so fast they almost didn't notice, and it didn't sink 
in until later.

I think this is exactly what JKR was trying to do.  We're seeing this all 
from Harry's POV, remember, and he was watching all these things happen and 
trying to save his friends and not get killed himself that it all is going 
past like a blur.  Time slows down momentarily while Sirius is falling; then 
everything speeds back up and it's almost like Harry hasn't realized what's 
happened yet.

Harry goes through the basic stages of grief (can't remember exactly what 
they are): shock, denial, and in Dumbledore's office, serious anger.  The 
death goes by so fast for us because it goes by too fast for Harry to 
comprehend.  It sinks in on us later because it is finally sinking in on 
Harry.

This mirrors real life exactly in my experience; it's not the actual moment 
of the person dying when you break down; it's when you realize later what 
life is going to be like without them, when you feel that "hole inside you 
where they were, where they're not there anymore" not an exact quote, but 
Harry felt something like that.

I think the death was written very realistically.

adanaleigh

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail





More information about the HPforGrownups archive