Harry Killing in HBP (was re: Violence).

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 131931

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eggplant107" 
<eggplant107 at h...> wrote:

> 
> I think that is true, I also think that would be an extraordinarily
> boring way to end the series. I don't want Harry to kill Voldemort 
by
> letting him slip on a banana peal, or by killing him with love; No, 
I
> want Harry to disembowel Voldemort in a blood bath that would give
> Stephen King nightmares, and even more important I want the man who
> was once a sweet lovable little boy to discover to his horror that 
he
> rather enjoyed doing it. And most important of all I want all those
> pretentious self appointed guardians of the world's morals to be
> absolutely outraged at the way Rowling chose to end the series. The
> last thing in the world that I want is a general consensus that
> Rowling did ok ending things out the way she did. No way, I want
> people screaming she was corrupting the youth, I WANT CONTROVERSY!  
> 
> Eggplant

Well, there seems to be an underlying assumption here that a good 
ending would necessarily be a controversial one and vice versa.  I 
don't think that is necessarily the case at all.  Like it or not, 
cliches become cliches for a reason -- they work.  And there are also 
good reasons people don't end books in certain ways -- it's because 
those endings, original as they might be, don't work very well (at 
least for a given audience at a given time).

But, all that aside, is the type of ending you describe one that 
Rowling, from what we know of her, is likely to produce?  True, she 
has said that she must write the books to her own satisfaction, but 
would her satisfaction produce something along the lines described 
above? Well, from what she has said in public, and most at least of 
what she has written, it doesn't seem so.  In fact, Rowling in most 
of her opinions and approaches seems much closer to those guardians 
of the public morality than many people would like -- including the 
guardians of public morality (much to Rowling's amusement, it 
seems).  As she said of the Christian Right, "They don't seem to want 
me on their side."  Which implies that, in her own mind, she IS 
largely on their side.

JKR may well surprise everyone with the ending.  It may well be 
controversial.  But from what we have seen of her mind so far, I 
wouldn't bet a lot of money that the controversy will be along the 
lines described above.  I can see Harry having to kill, and more than 
once.  But I don't think he will ever like it, and I doubt that 
Rowling's ending will give King nightmares.

But, we will see.

Lupinlore