JKR's scary little plan

[Melody]

No: HPFGUIDX 83551

Kittyhawk pondered: 
> Okay, so I imagine myself as an author who has absolutely no 
> intention of killing my main character... so why evade all these 
> questions if it's a simple yes or no question?

Well, i always thought she liked to play with people's minds.  Part of
the fun of interview, from what I can see, is the ability to answer a
question with a tease and yet still satisfy your audience.  Frankly, I
found JKR's answer amusing and very satisfying.  Mostly because, I
don't want to know what she is going to do either.  I am glad she did
not say, "this is a Children's book, so of course, he will live.  He
is the hero."  That would be no fun to our debates, no would it?  :)

No, she made her sinister enough to pull it off, but playful enough to
tease us with anything is possible.  I quite like her.  


Kittyhawk wrote: 
> I know this all ties in with the prophecy and all that, but once he 
> kills Voldemort, he isn't "immortal" anymore. 

You really think him immortal right now?  Do you mean the prophecy is
keeping him alive because it is not fulfilled?  Are HP prophecies so
binding that it supercedes life?  If that is true, then Voldemort does
not have to find immortality, he already has it.  All he has to do is
avoid HP...or Neville.  :)  Bad Dark Lord.  He should have been smart
with the prophecy and just avoided those two.  Then he lives forever.  


Kittyhawk wrote:
>The prophecy was fully fulfilled. Voldemort died at Harry's hands -
>and now he has to face the death eaters. I'm not saying it will end
>tragically like that or anything - of course it would be heroic. He
>would probably die saving someone (that is, if he does die).

He could.  Before OoP, I would have said Sirius would not have died
before having some reconciliation with Snape.  Instead, JKR cut his
life short, and almost pointlessly right now, making this series very
RL.  In RL, people die without burying hatches and making atonement or
bedside confession.  She ripped the comfort rug out from under us (the
readers) and made us as timid as Harry is now.  We are all alone out
there without a genre to really identify with.  Heroic tales are not
as melancholy and depression as this one is.  It is more epic.  The
hero has the ability to make it through because of his character and
gifts.  Harry makes it through because of those helping him and sheer
luck with a sprinkle of his gifts.  Harry is the hero so far, but he
is not the typical hero.  He spent all of OoP brooding and snapping at
people because he did not understand.  

Errr....I am getting off topic to your post.  ::blush:: Sorry.  :)

What my point was...was to say, yes it would be heroic.  And very
warming, but if JKR takes that route (Harry dying because he saves
someone's life) then I would not expect it to be textbook.  In fact, I
think it would be a twist that, as we read, we would have never of
expected.  Often when I read the endings of JKR books, I fully expect
Harry to escape because there are more books after...very
meta-thinking but honest.  In the last book, this safety net is gone,
and JKR knows it.  And I expect her to enjoy the freedom from it.

So I think she replies that way in interviews because she is so
looking forward to the freedom of the book being the last one.  Then
all gloves are off and she can really write as she wills.  Bet the
book will be seven inches thick though...


> Yes, the whole thing about Trelawney's prediction of Harry's 'death' 
> by seeing the grim was all a joke - but why would JKR put that in 
> there? Why death? 

Because when Trelawney predicted the death in PoA (and again in GoF),
Harry had a murder attempt at the tender age of one.   In PS/SS, he
had a run in with a troll and with Quirrelmort.  Run in with a
basilisk the next year.  Then in PoA, he had a werewolf as a teacher,
slammed into the whomping willow, and an ex-convict after him (as far
as she knew...granted if she was a real seer she would have know
Sirius was not after him but Peter...)  Frankly, she is not predicting
his death, she is going with the odds.


Kittyhawk wrote:
>She [JKR] has a great way of keeping us from noticing big clues.
>Maybe this is one of those cases?

Possibly.  It is so hard to say what is a clue and what is just there.
 Maybe Trelawney is not as much a fraud as everyone thinks.  Given
that JKR's identify characters of McGonagall and Hermione completely
denounce Trelawney, I don't see JKR putting that much credit to
Trelawney.  


Melody