Taking it seriously

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 101938

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Lady Macbeth" 
<ladymacbeth at l...> wrote:
> Wanda  Said:
>  Lady Macbeth replied:
> See, I'm just the opposite.  There are far too many cases (at 
least in the
> United States, I don't know about Britain) of children being 
treated just as
> Harry is for me to take it as satire.

I know, it's very true that very bad things happen in real life.  
But I don't see that as related to what happens in a fictional 
story.  To take the opposite tack, lots of very GOOD things happen 
in real life.  Every month or so, I read a heartwarming story about 
sweethearts separated decades in the past, often by war or 
catastrophe, who manage to find each other and have a happy life.  
Of people whose families were torn apart, perhaps think each other 
dead, and manage against all odds to rediscover each other.  They're 
wonderful stories, and they're true.  But what would we think if at 
the end of Book 7, a door flies open and Lily and James come rushing 
in to embrace Harry, and we find that they weren't really dead at 
all, it was all a mistake, and now they've found their boy and 
they'll all live happily together.  It would be an appalling end to 
the series, and nobody would be mollified by being told that things 
like that DO happen in real life, after all.  Art has its own rules, 
and its own integrity.  Real life doesn't have to conform to rules 
of logic or sense because, well, it's REAL.

Wanda