I think Harry will die (was: I don't think that Harry will die)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 160206

Eggplant:
> Suppose Harry lives happily ever after, a week after you finish
> reading book 7 you'll hardly think about it at again; but if Harry
> dies in Ginny's arms covered in blood from grievous wounds
> received in his heroic battle with Voldemort I'll bet you'll still
> be thinking about it for a long time.

Pippin:
> But it seems to be the moral issues that JKR wants us to think
> about, not the horrors of death. She doesn't seem to want her
> readers to fear death that comes at the end of a life well-lived.
> What would stay with us, I think, is a Harry who had achieved 
> victory but who would be haunted all his life by the things he 
> could have done that might have saved those who were lost. 
 
> Tolkien had lost all but one of his close friends by 1918. He 
> didn't force Frodo to go through that. But JKR brags about the
> chip of ice in her heart. 

Jen: These ideas seem mututally exclusive. You are saying that JKR 
doesn't want readers to fear death at the end of a well-lived life, 
but that her 'chip of ice' might cause her to write an ending where 
Harry is haunted continually by his past?  That doesn't sound like a 
well-lived life. Maybe it's the terminology I don't understand. Or 
are you saying JKR wants to write Harry as an example of a life not 
well-lived and therefore he will fear death? 

A person haunted by the past sounds like a person stuck in the 
terrible purgatory between two worlds--unable to resolve the grief 
of what was lost and unable to build new memories to reside 
alongside the old.  My personal preference would be for JKR to put 
Harry out of his misery if that's his future. 

Jen R., certain she is missing something.