Deaths in Tolkien and Rowling was Re: Do we need any more death cases?

[dk59us]

No: HPFGUIDX 89861

Andrew wrote:
> My I draw your thoughts, to a famous childrens 
> book, written many years ago, in a less free 
> society. This book, as it happens, is named The 
> Hobbit. There is tons of killing in that book, 
> villagers, spiders, and main character dwarves. 
> Is it impossible that JKR may kill of main 
> charactars, no.

Neri answers:
<snip> 
> A more relevant example may be LOTR, with a 
> full-scale war and a very high body count. I can 
> recall the death of only one major character in LOTR 
> (Boromir, of course. Theoden was hardly a major 
> character in the book, as opposed to the movies), and 
> again with a very good moral. 
> 
> But I certainly did not claim it is impossible JKR will kill more 
> major characters. I merely asked: what for?


Now Eustace__Scrubb:

Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings contain bloody battles
resulting in the deaths of major characters:  Thorin Oakenshield in
the former (along with his kinsmen Fili and Kili, if I recall
correctly), Boromir and Theoden in The Lord of the Rings.  I'd have to
say that Theoden is at least as important a character in the book as
he has been in the Peter Jackson films.  All of these deaths are
reminiscent of the Icelandic Sagas that Tolkien loved, with the heroes
(again, like those in the sagas, tragically flawed or doomed in some
way) dying only after suffering numerous wounds (or in Theoden's case,
crushed by his frantic steed).  All three speak to one or more of
their comrades before dying and their speeches help to establish the
"moral" or purpose for their deaths.  Thorin reconciles with Bilbo;
Boromir explains the madness that overtook him and is assured by
Aragorn that the brave defense of the hobbits made up for that fault;
Theoden tells Merry that, having kept faith and ridden to the aid of
Gondor, he can die with honor and not be ashamed in the "mighty
company" of his predecessor Kings. 

Of course there _are_ many hundreds of other deaths in both books,
which Tolkien does not focus on.  There are also numerous
deaths of bad guys (Great Goblin, trolls, Saruman, Grima Wormtongue,
"ruffians") and we can find parallels in JKR's works (Quirrel, Crouch
Jr. {is he dead? or just soul-less? is there a ward at St. Mungo's for
those whose heart beats even though they are soul-dead?})

How does this relate to Rowling's works?  Well, I would argue that
only the deaths of Sirius and possibly Cedric qualify as the deaths of
major characters (on the side of the good guys). Sirius is the only
character thus far who has played an important role in more than one
of the books and has died.  Cedric seemed like a perfectly good
fellow, but really his primary impact on Harry lies in the fact that
Harry was present when he died.  (I would say "saw him die" but
without GOF at hand I seem to recall that Harry heard the killing
curse spoken, heard Cedric's body hit the ground and then saw his
lifeless body.  This must have been discussed at length in a thestral
thread sometime.)

But in any case, both of these deaths are quite unlike those in
Tolkien.  Sudden, quick, no time for dying speeches or assurances of
meaning.  It is left for the survivors to decide what, if any, meaning
the death had.  Although it is true that Cedric's death leaves Harry
with a choice--whether or not to try to honor the request of Cedric's
ghost and risk his own life to bring the body back to Hogwarts.  Which
gets back to the regular theme that Rowling's books are, with a very
few exceptions, told from Harry's immediate point of view--in these
cases the point of view of a boy in his mid-teens.  The Hobbit
is told mostly from Bilbo's immediate point of view (that of an adult
hobbit), but LOTR is an epic told either by many different voices
depending on the place and time or by a detached authorial voice that
pieces it all together.  

In Rowling's books we need to ask, how do these deaths affect Harry? 
In LOTR, we don't ask how do these deaths affect Frodo (except in some
objective strategic way), who is unaware of them until much later and
never even met Theoden.

I guess this is just a long-winded way of saying that readers should
judge these and potential future deaths in the HP series by how they
shape Harry's character in the conflict with Voldemort as it reaches a
conclusion.

And just as an OT aside, what would Tolkien have thought if there had
been "groups" of readers ca. 1954-55 rabidly discussing the merits of
killing off various characters between the publications of the 3
volumes of LOTR?  I bet there would have been threads titled
"Gandalf--gone for good?," "Was Boromir's death necessary?" "Time
Travel:  Sam-is-Gandalf" and "Is Frodo the real Ringbearer?"   The
world of writing, publishing and reading has certainly changed a lot
in 50 years.

Eustace_Scrubb