Death of a Loved One in Book 5

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 53789

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan Pessin"
<jrpessin at m...> wrote:

> I write: (Jonathan)
> 
> All this argument and discussion on who'll die in book 5 reminds 
> me of all the worries we had before book 4 came out; we heard that 
> there was ... a death that we would "care about," ... people who 
> could die: Gred  or Forge, Hagrid, Dumbledore, ....  ... none of 
> these theories were correct.  We cared about the character's death,
>  but ... cared about it because he had been fleshed out ....  What 
> I'm thinking is, maybe JK's going to do something similar in book 5.  

bboy_mn:

I've taken a similar position in the past. JKR, as you pointed out,
called it a death we would 'care about', and she said she cried when
she wrote that characters death. In the end, I like the character very
much, I thought the character as a decent, noble, honorable person who
deserved a great deal more than they recieved.

What we need to watch out for, is a character who moves from the
primary background into the foreground. By primary background, I mean
'in your face' obvious background characters like Neville and the
Creevey brothers. Both of whom I love dearly and expect great things from.

Here is a hypothetical example of how a character we like could be
come a character we love which would make there death very sad. This
also assumes that Harry's emotions will parallel our own.

They need to start working on a Quidditch Reserve Team because in year
6 most of the team will be gone. This give us the perfect opportunity
to bring several background characters to the foreground. There aren't
that many people that they can choose from for reserve players, in
fact, they will probably have to introduce new character in order to
create a whole Quidditch team. 

So Colin Creevey (insert character of choice) starts training as the
reserve Seeker (insert player position of choice). In the process,
Harry gets to know Colin and discovers that once you get past the hero
worship, Colin is a really nice guy; fun, easy to talk to, a hard
worker at practice, a hard player on the pitch, and has substantial
magical talent. 

So Harry and Colin develope a mentor/friend relationship. Harry
focuses time on helping Colin with Quidditch which improves his
personality and makes him an all-around better person. He's lovable,
he's innocent, he has all the characteristics necessary to make us
really love him, and to make him like Harry's little brother. 

All of which adds up to, one dead Colin Creevey.

I can build emotional attachment to other characters the same way. Cho
Chang and Harry initially are at odds with each other over the death
of the character in the previous book (since the person I'm responding
to didn't mention the character's name, I won't either). Eventually
after some initial hostility, they discover that they are both
mourning this persons death, and sufferring the lose very deeply. 

Cho realizes that Harry is suffering from guilt and blames himself.
Cho realizes that Harry really isn't at fault and through a slow
cautious process, Harry and Cho become very close. Cho becomes the one
Harry leans on for more intimate (non-sexual, non-romantic) emotional
support. This mutual need and emotional support gives them a very deep
connection to each other, and in the process, we develope a deep
emotional connection to Cho. 

Cho is the comforter of Harry's soul and we love her very deeply for
that kind sensitivity. As a result, one dead Cho.

Existing secondary character can easily be built up to the point where
we have an emotional attachement to them, and their deaths become very
difficult both to read and to write.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn