[HPforGrownups] The late Harry Potter

[Katherine Coble]

No: HPFGUIDX 130302


On Jun 8, 2005, at 6:04 AM, deborahhbbrd wrote:

> The prophecy certainly seems to suggest the deaths of both Harry and
>  Voldemort, and this would be rather a weak ending in my view, though
>  pretty well in line with Hamlet.
>
>  But actually, child readers can put up with death if it's well
>  motivated. What about Beth in Little Women

K:  Beth was clearly not the main character.   Likening Beth's death to 
Harry's is faulty.  It would be more like Neville's death, were that to 
happen.


> - or did she survive into
>  Good Wives?

K:  Yes.   She dies a far bit into _Good Wives_.  Most modern editions 
of LW include Good Wives as a 2nd part of the whole; thus the 
confusion.

\
>  (Nobody reads The Old Curiosity Shop any more, so let's
>  ignore Little Nell - but grown men and women wept in the streets when
>  the magazine in which she finally became extinct appeared, and they
>  all survived and kept on buying Dickens!)

K:   Little Nell was the unfortunate byproduct of Dickens' canonization 
of his dead sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth.   He was so torn up by her 
death that he 'worked through it' in the person of Little Nell. At any 
rate  In 1841 the death of children was far more common, especially 
children as ill used as Nell.

But you said it best yourself when you said "Nobody reads The Old 
Curiosity Shop anymore"

Dickens' parables don't all weather well...this one is unfortunately 
preceeded by the bad word of mouth.

>  And there's always the final
>  CS Lewis volume in the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe series - is it The
>  Last Battle?

K:  Yep.  My personal favourite of all of the CoN.


>  The three main human characters - Peter, Edmund and Lucy
>  - are in a train crash, and are delighted to discover that they've
>  died in it because now they need never leave their alternative world.


K:  We see many of the English participants "die" in England to be 
resurrected in Narnia.   Their "death" is merely the 'wardrobe device' 
used to bring them to Narnia for the culmination of events there.   It 
actually inserts them into the action, rather than removing them from 
it.   They exist fully as both observers and participants in the end 
stage events in Narnia.


>  Which is obviously heaven, since Narnia ends. And we know that the
>  books were written with a clearly evangelical purpose ... which we
>  don't know about the HP books. We may suspect that they follow the
>  usual pattern of good triumphing over evil, but to call this Christian
>  is too narrow.
>

K:  Good discussions of this exist over at Hans' group.  I'm enjoying 
them immensley.

>  The idea of Dumbledore rising from the dead like a phoenix is
>  charming, but alas! I can see too many holes in it.

K:  Resurrection is a key theme in the books.  Basically, taking 
comfort in life after death as a form of resurrection.   I think this 
is why we have the repeated theme of the Phoenix.  I'd expect that, 
like Dickens, this is how JKR works through the death of someone close 
to her--in this case her mother.

>  And as for Harry,
>  my best bet is still that he survives as a mortal being but without
>  his magical talent - becomes a Squib, I suppose.


K: Ack.  I'd rather see him dead. I know that sounds bitter, but Harry 
Potter's _home_ is in the WW.  I don't want to see him orphaned twice.  
I think that Harry will retain is Wizard abilities given to him by LV 
on the curse night.  He (Harry) is the crucible in which that part of 
LV is redeemed.   I'm still in disagreement with Tonks on the 
redemption of Tom Riddle as a whole, but I think that part of him--his 
magic, his abilities--can be redeemed through Harry.

>  My other great hope of the moment is that JKR is less, er, sentimental
>  than some of her fans! Children are the great realists, remember.
>

K:  Children handle death well when it is the death of a pet or the 
death of an older relation.  I don't expect that they will handle the 
death of their hero well.  Yes, everyone dies.  But there is no 
structural story reason thus far that I can see for Harry to die.  Some 
people seem to be fond of the idea because it would be a "cool twist" 
or something.  But other than that, no one can explain to me why, 
story-wise, he _needs_ to die, or be reduced.   Unless Voldemort 
survives.  And that would be pointless.

As a final note, I'd like to mention that one character who died was 
brought back to life by the author, when public outcry was so great.   
My beloved Sherlock, who persists on living to this day.  People's 
relationship to Harry seems much more akin to Sherlock than any of the 
above.

Katherine 

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