[HPforGrownups] Re: The late Harry Potter

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 130419

wherr009 now

Just thought I would add to the list of main characters dying.  
Everyone has forgotten about Charlotte from "Charlotte's Web".  
Granted she is not the hero of book (she is more like DD) but, 
she is a character in the book that the reader comes to love 
and she still dies at the end of the book.

wherr009  

Sherry now:

I wasn't going to post on this thread anymore, but you got my attention with
this comment about Charlotte's web.  Here are a couple differences I see
between Harry and Charlotte.  Ok, I would consider Wilbur to be the main
character of Charlotte's Web.  It's all about him.  What would children have
thought if Wilbur had indeed been made into pork chops?  i kind of doubt
that the book would have been the wonderful classic it is!  

The other point is that it is natural that spiders--normal real world barn
spiders anyway--live short lives.  This was ok with the natural flow of
life, and Charlotte left some of her children to be company for Wilbur too.
However, in 1990's England, it is not normal for a 17-year-old boy to die.
Yes, they do, obviously, but it shouldn't be normal.  So, for me, anyway,
that would have a very different impact than Charlotte's death did when I
first read that book so many years ago.  Oh yes, I cried when Charlotte
died, but it was nothing compared to the dread when i thought Wilbur was
going to become the family's dinner!

Sherry