Surprises in OOP (Guardian article)

[sophiamcl]

No: HPFGUIDX 58245

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat2001" <Zarleycat at a...> 
wrote:
> David said, quoting part of article in The Guardian,
> 
> 
> > I was struck by this statement;
> > 
> > "With the biggest sales in publishing history to protect, the 
> > premium put on secrecy is understandable, but it is also a bit of a 
> > joke, because the last thing that anyone wants when they finally 
> > open their copy on June 21 is a real surprise. 
> 

Mrianne said:
> Besides, at what point would a reader think that Rowling had taken "a 
> leap into the dark"?  That's pretty subjective.  The death of a 
> favorite or major character?  Is that a minor jolt or a leap?  
> Voldemort thwarted, but at the cost of a death of a major character?  
> What if Rowling revealed one or more of the major characters to be 
> gay?  Some people wouldn't care, but others would find this to be a 
> really big leap into the dark.
> 

Me:
>From the article, I got the impression that the leaps and surprises that would 
really change the Potter-universe is not the deaths--we've been told for a 
long time that they are coming--but issues with adolescence and growing up:

(I quote:)

"But some things will have to change. Harry is growing up." 

"...since the hero starts The Order of the Phoenix at the age of 15 and will be 
18 at the end of the series, his growing maturity presents a challenge to 
Rowling's inventive, but essentially naive style. In the last book, she coped 
pretty well with the stirrings of adolescence. Her world is sufficiently 
easygoing to allow Harry to express incipient sexual desires and for all the 
young witches and wizards to giggle and blush over their invitations to the 
end-of-term ball." 

"Many children's writers skip over the issue altogether, leaving their 
protagonists in a sort of limbo, neither quite child nor quite adult. Tolkien is 
the great exemplar of that style, in which his heroes fall in love, marry and 
have children but never actually lay a finger on one another. Rowling could do 
something similar, allowing Harry to focus on his heroic tasks until the very 
end, when he could, say, slip into everlasting union with Cho Chang, and Ron 
into perfect harmony with Hermione, with the happy-ever-after purity of old 
fairy tales. But Rowling has an altogether more vernacular style, and has 
already shown that she wants to explore the embarrassments and desires of 
adolescence. Who knows where that may take her?" 

(Me again:)
So to me the question will be--perhaps not for book five, but certainly for the 
rest of the series: How "much" will Harry grow up, and how much of it will we 
as readers be privy to? In other words, can we expect (or dread?) sex to 
come up? I can't see there being any gritty stuff, but the feelings, thoughts 
maybe? 

I thought Rowling quite skillfully created an undertone of hormonal tension 
(not intrusive) in GoF with the veela, the Fleur and Cho incidents, Myrtle 
spying on Harry, to mention just a few things.

Sophia