Ending the series (was Dept. of Mysteries, "Love" room.)

[madorganization]

No: HPFGUIDX 130446

> > JKR may be able to tell her story without having Harry die.  
That 
> > would work.  It would also work to have Harry die to show that 
> > sacrifice is sometimes necessary for victory.  I do think, 
however, 
> > that even if Harry lives, it won't be the happy ending most 
children 
> > are expecting.  If JKR is to make this story believable and 
real, 
> > then Harry will never be the same again.  We won't ever see that 
> > happy, healthy boy we met on the train to Hogwart's.  To bring 
in a 
> > similar story, he'd have to be like Frodo, broken by his 
> > experience.  
> 
> Gerry
> 
> The problem I have with these kind of theories is that people who
> support them don't look at the stories themselves. You cannot take 
the
> ending out of the stories and make a general point. 
> 
> The ending is good and fitting, because *it fits the story* not
> because this is what people supposedly need to hear. Harry is not
> Frodo. LoTR is not HP. Frodo starts out as a normal, happy hobbit,
> part of the shire who during the books gets more and more isolated
> because of his experiences. This trend starts at Weathertop where 
he
> is hit by the Nazgul sword and continues throughout the novels. 
That
> Frodo cannot settle in the Shire is completely logical. You can 
see it
> coming halfway through the story and even before. Sam, Pippin and
> Merry, who also have quite a bit of nasty experiences can fit in
> though. Not in the same way as before they went, they changed a 
great
> deal. But they are actually better for it. 
> 
> Harry starts out completely isolated, and as Laura pointed out, 
what
> he learns in the story is connecting, healing himself. Now if JKR
> would go for the Frodo ending, she would need to make Harry 
disconnect
> himself from his friends and the WW pretty quickly to make it
> believable. I don't think it likely though. In OoP he was at his 
most
> disconnected, had the terrible experience of Sirus dying, and in 
what
> way the book ends: In him connecting with Luna, both sharing the
> experience of having a loved on die. 
> 
> To paraphrase Laura: Lord of the Rings is already written, just as
> Narnia, Hamlet or the bible and I really do not think JKR needs to
> imitate others to make a believable ending to the story. 
> 
> Gerry


Alisha:
As I mentioned in response to Laura's post, I'm not at all arguing 
that JKR needs to end the book this way.  I'm just saying that it 
shouldn't be written off as unbelievable or inappropriate.  I don't 
think that Harry will end up /exactly/ like Frodo, I was merely 
using him as an example of the style of ending that we could have, 
where Harry has to lose /something/ (as Frodo had to lose the Shire 
to save it for others) in order to achieve final victory, something 
really important to him, possibly, though not necesarrily, his life.

-Alisha: who didn't realize she was opening such a big can of worms 
by suggesting we all keep our minds open to differing possibilities.