What if Harry dies?

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 85222

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
> <snipping>
> I work in publishing and the publishers I know of are interested in
> making money. If they think that killing off a highly popular
> character will interfere with sales, they will reject the book as
> written. Yes, she can go to another publisher, but money counts 
with
> all of them--or at least with all the ones I work with. Rowling 
may be
> a special case, but I'm willing to bet that her current publishers
> have been given her word that she won't do anything that will 
cause a
> dropoff in readership. Publishers want books that sell. Period.

Jen: I found this quote from JKR, 1999 in The Connection (Quick 
Quotes Archive):

"the bottom line is I can't be led by what people want me to write, 
I have to write what I want to write --- that's just the way it's 
got to be. I've got to write what I want to write. If by Book 6, I'm 
only writing to 6 people and I've lost everyone else, yeah, I'm 
going to be sorry about that, but I will feel that I have to stand 
by what I want to do.....I'm not writing to order here, so I'm going 
to be sorry if children don't want to keep up with Harry."

Here's another quote from the Columbus Dispatch in 1999:

"It's heartwarming that people care enough about them to want them 
not to get hurt, but at the same time I have the absolute right to 
do what I like to my story and characters. I'm not going to write to 
order. I've planned the whole story, and I've always known who was 
going to die and who was going to come through unscathed, and I'm 
not going to deviate from that." (Both articles on Quick Quotes)

Now, call me naive, but I think if it came to the publishers nixing 
JKR's story she would either find other publishers or stop writing 
and take the consequences. Through all the fire-storm of "not enough 
female characters", "plagarism", "these evil books should be 
censored", JKR has told *her* story. 

> Carol:
> Sirius, though he's the title character in PoA, was deliberately
> misrepresented throughout that book and appeared in his proper 
person
> only very near the end. He was a distant face and voice in GoF and 
was
> present in OoP only in the Grimmauld Place chapters and in the DoM
> battle in which he was killed. He is not a major character to the 
same
> degree as Ron or Hermione or for that matter Snape, who has grown 
and
> developed through all the books as is as much a part of Hogwarts as
> Dumbledore. I do agree with your statement that only Ron's or
> Hermione's deaths would have hurt Harry more than Sirirus's. That 
does
> not make him a major character, however, and he is clearly 
expendable
> regardless of his popularity on this list and elsewhere.

Jen: I don't see how Sirius dying equals his character being 
expendable. His major role in the story arc was to give us 
information no other character could give. He and Pettigrew alone 
held the valuable information that they switched as Secret Keepers, 
and that Pettigrew was actually the spy. Without Black escaping 
Azkaban, no one would ever be the wiser that Wormtail was alive and 
living in Harry's dorm. 

Also, Sirius and Lupin are the only initmate connection Harry has to 
James and Lily. Those characters bring his parents alive in a way no 
one else can, because they were intimate friends. Snape may have 
memories of James and Lily, Dumbledore has great respect for them, 
but their perspectives on James and Lily come from a very different 
place--not the deep love Sirius and Lupin hold for them. Little 
details like Sirius running away from home but mentioning he 
was "always welcome for Sunday dinner at the Potters" or the fact 
that Lily and James didn't feel love at first sight (to say the 
least). Or Sirius and Lupin talking endearingly about James ruffling 
up his hair, when Harry viewed it as annoyingly arrogant. 


Carol:
> P.S. I accidentally snipped the part about Hagrid. I read in an
> interview, which I naturally can't find at the moment, that JKR 
had no
> intention of killing him off. I didn't invent the idea, you can be 
sure.

Jen: I vaguely remember that too. All I could find was this quote:

"You've said in interviews that there will be casualties in the 
Harry Potter series. Now, everyone at a web site I visit says 
someone (probably Hagrid) will die in Book 4. Will someone die or is 
this a terrible rumor? I love Hagrid! It is true that there will be 
deaths in Book 4 for the first time. It is likely that the reader 
will only care about one of the deaths. I can't say who it is, but I 
have certainly never told anyone that it's Hagrid -- hint, hint."

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/quickquotes/articles/1999/0999-
barnesnoble-staff.htm