Book 7

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 144688

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Nikki" 
<shakespeareslady2002 at y...> wrote:

Nikki:
> So what is to happen to our dear Harry?  What will happen to 
Hogwarts?  After re-reading  HBP  I dont think Harry will survive.  
I've also began to ponder what role will Longbottom play, after all 
his parents were driven mad by LV.  It's been made clear that Harry 
and LV cant not live at the same time! And after reading JKR's recent 
interview where she states that sometimes she thinks that the ending 
is too obvious and that many people guess it perfectly. I cant help 
but to believe that Harry will be defeated by LV and the DE will take 
over the Wizarding world.  What do you think?
> 

Geoff:
I hope that you are not being totally serious in your suggestion and 
are perhaps playing devil's advocate. I have to say that I would be 
very surprised if JKR was to end Book 7 in this way because it would 
send all the wrong messages to the many, many readers, especially 
young people who have been caught up in Harry's quest. Although there 
is some question as to whether she wrote the books for children or 
about children, the fact remains that many teens and young adults 
relate to and identify with the characters as they move into 
adolescence and adulthood. To see Harry killed and the Wizarding 
World plunged into darkness would be such an anti-climax to all that 
has gone on.

In real world situations. Evil leaders such as Hitler, Mussolini, Idi 
Amin and the various Russian and Chinese dictators inter al have 
ultimately fallen from power and often the structure of oppression 
and terror which they assembled collapsed with them because they were 
mortal. If not now immortal, Voldermort is close to it and it appears 
that Harry is the only one who can stop him from sugjugating his 
world. So, if he were to succeed in removing Harry, the Wizarding 
World could only anticipate long years of misery. How could a book 
which builds on cooperation, trust, comradeship and love end 
satisfactorily with all these virtues extinguished?

Would LOTR have become such as iconic book if Frodo had failed in the 
quest? If he had been captured by the Nazgul or if, after threatening 
to take the Ring for himself, he had fought off Gollum's crazed 
attack? If the eucatastrophe had become a catastrophe instead? Would 
the world continue to read a story ending in almost eternal despair?

I cannot see JKR going down that road. And, as I have said on many 
occasions, my own hope is to see Harry come through at the end, 
battered and buffeted perhaps, but in one piece.