[HPforGrownups] Digest Number 3979

[John Hatch]

No: HPFGUIDX 85261

Erin wrote:
> And "hardly anyone would buy the books once the word got out" of
> Harry dying?  Can you truly believe that?  I mean, a tragic ending
> never stopped Romeo and Juliet from being popular.  And there's a
> certain new movie out that's selling pretty well despite the hero's
> death at the end.  Star Wars is still going strong although we all
> realize the main guy is about to become Darth Vader.  I think Harry
> Potter would sell even if she had all the characters bite it and
> Voldemort win at last. If you don't, perhaps you don't realize just
> how big this thing really is.

Carol wrote:
Yes, I truly believe that. The millions of children you mentioned in
the snipped portion of this message are not going to want Harry to
die, and if they find out that he does, they won't want to read the
books. I'll read it because I want to find out what happens to Snape
and certain other characters, but I think the children who idolize her
now will feel betrayed and many will reject both her and her books.
You are, of course, entitled to the opposite opinion. "Romeo and
Juliet" is not a valid comparison because it's a play intended for an
adult audience, not the last in a series of children's books with a
secondary audience of adults. Theater goers didn't wait ten years (or
whatever) to find out what happened to Romeo and Juliet. They knew at
the outset that R and J was a romantic tragedy. And believe me, I do
know how big this thing is. It's caught me, hasn't it?

Now John responds:

I probably wouldn't buy the book - and that comes from someone who's a big
enough fan to join a Harry Potter email group :) I read Harry Potter for the
fun of it. Period. If the books stop being fun, then I'll probably stop
reading. And IMO, Harry dying definitely qualifies as not being fun. Sure,
I'd stick around this group for a while and visit the Lexicon to find out
what else happens in the book, but I wouldn't read it if I heard Harry dies.

Granted, I'll be buying the book at 12:00 AM the day it's released. But if
Harry dies, I'll be disappointed and I won't read the book again.

Erin wrote:
> Next- Sirius not a major character??  The guy had a whole *book*
> named after him.  Harry regarded him as a mixture of father and
> brother.  Probably only Ron or Hermione's death could have hurt him
> more.  How much more major do you want?


Carol wrote:
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.

Now John writes:

I couldn't agree more with Carol. Sirius was an important character to
Harry, but he strikes me as hardly a major character. Just because he had a
whole book named after him means little. How much of a role did the Goblet
of Fire play in book 4? Sure, it got Harry into the tournament - then we
never saw it again. That's why I was surprised the title was changed from
"Doomspell Tournament" to "Goblet of Fire." You could also make the same
argument about book 5 - The Order of the Phoenix. The book isn't about the
Order of the Phoenix at all. Harry learns what the order is, sure. But once
he's at Hogwarts, he has little to do with them.

> Erin responded:
> Actually, having the hero die is a classic... oh, I can't really
> explain it properly, but you should definitely read Joseph
> Campbell's "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" to get a better
> understanding of why so many heros end up biting it.  It has to do
> with the whole heroic journey thing.  I will limit myself to asking
> if you consider Shakespeare to be a substandard author, since several
> of his plays end as tragedies?

John writes:

Harry Potter hardly classifies as a Shakespearian tragedy. Having said that,
there may be some evidence that Harry is slated to die in the series as he
does fit Joseph Campbell's model in some respects. First, he's a loner. Oh
sure, he's got Ron and Hermione and Hagrid. But from the looks of it, Ron
and Hermione are doomed to fall in love in future books. Hagrid's a nice
chum, but he's hardly a character Harry can connect with emotionally. The
prophecy only serves to separate Harry from others even more. Everyone in
Harry's life that has been a parental figure has been taken away from him.
Those that are supposed to be surrogate parents fail miserably - the
Dursley's.

Harry appears to be born with a single purpose - to defeat Voldemort. Many
characters that have a "destiny" end up dying - Anakin Skywalker and Neo
(sorry for those who haven't seen the movie yet) are just a couple of recent
examples.

But I think there are other evidences that Harry will not die. He's a
survivor - he's the boy who lived. He has a fairly positive outlook on life,
and he enjoys life. Characters who sacrifice themselves often have a gloomy
outlook, or have nothing to live for. While Harry has no one in particular
to live for, he does enjoy life and has a much different attitude that
typical characters who give up their lives.

Regardless, I'll be extremely unhappy if Harry dies. Extremely.

Just my two cents.

John

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