Narrative strategy and Harry's death

[ariston3344]

No: HPFGUIDX 107290

I (ariston) wrote:
> If Harry is able to come back to life after death, then that does
> more or less render the POV question moot. But I'm pretty sure
> that JKR has gone on record saying that a fundamental limitation
> in the  Potterverse is that magic can't bring people back from
> the dead.

Hans replied:
> Yes I knew about Jo's statement there. However I see this as a
> paradox rather than a statement that makes Harry's return from
> Hades impossible. [...]

ariston again:
Hans, you could be right, but this isn't the "feel" I get from the 
HP books.  For one thing, it's pretty rare for JKR to go on record 
so dogmatically about something (especially something she decided up 
front), and I'm not sure she would have done that if she was 
planning death and resurrection (in any form) for Harry.  For 
another, I think Jo is going out of her way to make the sacrifices 
and pains in her books be very real.  My feeling is that she doesn't 
want us to despair, but she doesn't want there to be light at the 
end of the tunnel in the ordinary sense, either.  If Harry 
sacrifices himself in the end (and I suspect he will), then I think 
he's Not Coming Back.  He will "have gone on", as Nearly Headless 
Nick says.

I don't know much about the Alchemical Wedding, but the idea 
of "going on" after death fits in very well with another known 
influence on JKR, namely C.S. Lewis (not only in the Chronicles of 
Narnia, but also in _The Great Divorce_).  Put another way, I think 
that Harry is a Christ figure only up to a point; in most ways he 
remains an ordinary, and very mortal, human being.

But again, of course, there's a lot of speculation here, and you 
could well be right!

-aristion