Harry's happy death (Was Re: Harry, Sirius Black, and the power of posses

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 161728

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sherry Gomes" <sherriola at ...> wrote:

> Sarah:
> Is there really any doubt about Harry triumphing, though?  I don't know of
> anyone who believes that Voldemort will win.  Harry will either win while
> simultaneously dying, win and keel over soon after, or win and survive.
> 
> 
> Sherry:
> 
> I happen to interpret the prophecy literally, that it's Harry or Voldemort
> in the end.  If Harry succeeds, then Voldemort is dead and Harry is alive.
> I do not believe in any "other" who will ride in on a white horse, save
> Harry's butt, off Voldemort and survive to receive all the praise, while
> Harry lives happily ever after behind the veil with his family.  It would
> negate the entire series, the books all with the name "Harry Potter and the
> ..."  Either Harry triumphs in the end or not, but it will be Harry's
> triumph or failure.  Otherwise, perhaps these books should have had a
> different name.
> 
> Sherry, confident Harry will survive and joining Geoff in the IWHTL club!

Geoff:
I'm glad there's at least a second member of the club!

One of the reasons I read fiction like LOTR or the Narnia books or the HP 
books is that I want to get away from the real world. I very rarely read 
fiction set in the modern, everyday world because I can turn on the six 
o'clock news and get it for real – if that's what I really want.

I have a hankering for happy endings – or at least satisfactory ones. I am 
happy to accept that there will be cliff-hanging moments along the way 
and there will be the loss of some characters but I always want good to 
prevail. 

Some recent posts have referred to other well-known books. A recent 
post cited the end of C.S.Lewis' "The Last Battle", the last of the Narnia 
books where most of the characters end up with Aslan in one of the 
most interesting descriptions of heaven I have ever read. But, almost 
all the chief characters arrive there together, with the exception of 
Susan who "is no longer a friend of Narnia". Although throughout the 
books, the various characters have been threatened by enemies, the 
threat has never seems as ominous and present as that faced by Harry 
and the fact that the Pevensies have been propelled into heaven via an 
off-stage train crash seems distant and I didn't feel a sense of loss 
because the reader is "there" with Peter, Edmund and Lucy, with 
Diggory and Polly, with Eustace and Jill. Except for Susan, nobody we 
have adventured with is left behind.

Again, in LOTR, I have never seen Frodo as dying but going quietly off 
to seek fulfilment by accepting Arwen's gift of life over the sea – to be 
followed later by Sam. Although all the members of the Fellowship have 
been in great danger, only Boromir has died and he is not the most 
high-profile member of the group. Good has prevailed and Frodo, 
although physically and emotionally marked by his experiences, has 
fulfilled his quest with a bit of unintentional help from Gollum.

The world of Narnia is a parallel world with limited entrance. Middle-Earth 
is Earth but in a far distant time period where the culture and lifestyle is 
markedly different to ours. But Harry is different because we can identify 
with him so much more closely. He moves in and out of our world and 
streets. we have schools and playground bullies; trains and real world 
shops. His real world is one we know and live in ourselves even though 
it rubs shoulders with an imaginary and magical parallel world. So, for 
that reason, Harry is like one of the young people in my church or one 
of the guys I used to teach.

Here in the UK, we have had a recent spate of killings involving teenagers 
and the news reports bring home to us the sense of loss and tragedy that 
affects the parents, the friends, the schools and the communities involved. 
As a Christian, I accept that we live in a fallen world where what should 
happen doesn't always happen but I want to people today to see beyond 
the gloom and doom to things which will uplift them – rather as Sam sees 
the stars briefly through a gap in the clouds in Mordor and realises that 
evil is transient. To many young readers and to adults in their second 
childhood (or stuck in their first like me!) the thought of Harry emerging 
victoriously from a confrontation with Voldemort is an exciting ideal to 
hold in anticipation of the appearance of Book 7 and the end of the Age 
of Finger-Nail Biting.