Books 6 & 7 - no longer school stories?

[mooseming]

No: HPFGUIDX 100005

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at y...>
wrote:

Snip
> 
> No, I don't think we need to go outside Hogwarts quite yet. Save that
> for Book 7.
> 
> Carol, 
>

IMO (should be H but I'm still working on that!), the final showdown
has to be at Hogwarts.

I find this very hard to justify because it simply feels right. In no
particular order here are my 'reasons':

It is the spiritual home for the main protagonist, antagonist and for
DD (the narrator).

It is the safe home for all members of the magical community: giants,
centaurs, elves, werewolves, spiders (yeuk), ghosts, half breeds,
squibs, Malfoy, Snape and Trelawny!

It is the historical home for the WW split and where that split is
still acted out in the form of houses.

It is the shared home of absolutely all the main characters including
the dead ones.

There are still areas to be explored and explained, in particular the
chamber, the forest, the ghosts (and now the graveyard possibly).

This is a coming of age story, traditionally this is marked by a
symbolic change of state e.g. getting married, becoming a king, dying
(don't panic), and in this case graduating (I think).

Most compelling for me however is that it is the place where the books
and the story truly come alive, Hogwarts is the single most
charismatic 'character' in the books, it lives, has secrets both good
and bad, has a past and internal conflict. To me Hogwarts 'is' JKR, it
shares her sense of humour and generous nature.

Regards
Jo

(coo that came from the heart!)