The late Harry Potter

[firebird]

No: HPFGUIDX 130316

>Bboyminn wrote:
>
>I have speculated that it's possible for Harry's story to have a
>bittersweet ending. That yes Harry lives, but not without deep abiding
>scars. Not without a terrible price paid to the hero's soul.



I foresee a different bittersweet ending -- with more emphasis on the 
sweet. I think Harry will want to die but will choose to live because 
he must, to defeat LV per the prophecy. Fortunately, that sacrifice 
will not only save the WW but will, mysteriously, ease his terrible 
loneliness and sense of loss. Lily's choice gave him his destiny as The 
Boy Who Lived. It's now up to him to choose that destiny for himself.

Harry has had a subliminal death wish ever since we met him. As an 
orphan, he feels a natural curiosity about and even a yearning for the 
realm beyond the veil. His instinct when he encountered the Mirror of 
Erised in PS/SS was to plunge into its surface and be reunited with his 
parents. (Actually, if you read that passage next to the description of 
Sirius' death, the imagery is almost identical.)

Moving through the books, Harry has resigned himself to death a number 
of times, although he's always wanted to die with dignity. From the 
moment he encountered the veil in OoP, he wanted to step through the 
archway. Dumbledore and Luna have reinforced the idea that death is not 
to be feared. By the end of OoP, Harry was wanting, pretty overtly, to 
die -- or at least not to endure the pain of living.

Among DD's "things that are worse than death" is, perhaps, the fear of 
death. Being consumed by that fear, LV is fated to die. Being free of 
that fear, Harry is free to choose. That makes him truly alive in a way 
LV is not. His victory -- and the salvation of the WW -- is to embrace 
life in all its pain.

firebird