ESE! JKR ?

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 154634

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <rdoliver30 at ...> wrote:
>
> Well, JKR definitely has her neuroses.  The death neurosis is a big 
> one, and I agree it's annoying and badly overdone, as well as 
> contributing to a slavishness toward the hackneyed and 
> outworn "hero's journey" motif.  But, it's easy for a writer to 
> overdo things -- especially when they have their grand plan 
> permanently before their eyes and tend to forget that everyone else 
> does not.  
> 
> As I've said before, I think JKR, despite what she claims, very much 
> cares if she has only six readers left when all is done.  Her twists 
> and turns, particularly with DD, bespeak someone who is very much 
> concerned with getting a message across clearly.  We will see if she 
> succeeds, and what that message is.  Personally, I rather fear it 
> will be contemptible.  But, we will see.
> 

Ken:

At times I wonder if JKR is trying to avoid the criticism that has been 
leveled at Tolkien that he killed off too few of his main characters. 
If so, she is overcompensating. I don't see where any of the deaths
that have happened to date are needed to move the plot forward. 
We are not dealing with a war here in spite of how it is described,
we are dealing with a gangster and it is possible to bring a gangster
to heal without any deaths. More disturbing to me than the deaths
are JKR's comments about them in interviews. Of course I never 
see/hear the interviews themselves, I only read the transcripts. 
Maybe her real attitudes don't come across well in the transcripts.

The historical record is enough to establish LV's character. We 
would not need to see him killing anyone this time around unless
he had returned openly and were claiming to have reformed. It may
have been a more interesting turn of events if that had been the case.
That ship has already sailed for a different port though, unless this
is one of the twists in store for book 7. For me the most telling 
death in the book was the casual killing of the fox at Spinner's End.
Maybe it is just the canine lover in me but that one struck home
for me where the others just seem artificial. It almost seems like
JKR kills because she needs to, not because the plot needs to.

I would not use the word contemptible yet I share your fear to 
the extent that I am bracing myself for a book 7 that could be 
deeply disappointing. I hope not, I really hope not. Yet it seems
that she has left way, way too many loose ends to tie off in a 
convincing fashion in a single book of reasonable length. And 
I hate to tell her but killing Harry in an unsatisfying concluding 
book 7 will NOT prevent non-authorial extensions of the series
after (or before!) her death. It will merely guarantee that the 
extension will start with a rewrite of book 7....

Ken