I don't think that Harry will die

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 160369

Re: I don't think that Harry will die

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Scarah <scarah at ...> wrote:

> Geoff:
> Perhaps
> my main argument is that, to kill Harry, all the wrong messages 
> would be sent to the millions of /young/ readers throughout
>the world.

> Sarah:
> My question is, is she writing to give people a role model, or writing
> to tell a story? I believe the latter. If Harry is meant as a role
> model, he's already got some problems.

Geoff:
I think you missed the point of what I said in message 160146 and
snipped too heavily.

The relevant part of what I wrote was:

<quote>
I think several valid points have been made by other contributors
to this thread. Perhaps my main argument is that, to kill Harry, all
the wrong messages would be sent to the millions of /young/ readers
throughout the world.

Harry comes from a disadvantaged background. He is not a
muscle-bulging, bronzed, advert for an anti-perspirant deodorant. He
is not a world-renowned sporting name who gets millions of pounds for
just showing his face on the advertisement hoardings. He is a fairly
ordinary guy. He wears glasses, he is described as small and skinny,
untidy and we know that he is not a great academic. He is also often
guilty of jumping into a situation without thinking it through first.

In other words, a boy much as many others of the hundreds of teenagers
I taught for over 30 years.

But because exciting things happen to him, he is a model for the great
majority of young people who do not fit the poster boy CV of my previous
paragraph. Youngsters see that someone ordinary, whom you might pass
in the street without noticing can achieve great things.
</quote>

That isn't setting him up as a role model as I read it in the sense that one
of the types I mentioned above is. It's being more a member of a peer
group that a slightly awkward, perhaps geeky, youngster who is not the
sort to have the girls swarming round him or be great at things like
physical activity might seek. I can see myself at that age in that sort of
scenario.

Looking at the Harry-Frodo contrast which someone raised, it has
been pointed out that Frodo was 50 when he set off for Rivendell. He
had learned a lot about life since his "irresponsible tweens" as JRRT 
terms them. I concur absolutely. I think if I was transported back with 
my present knowledge to my mid-teens, I would run screaming with 
embarrassment from the room!

Getting married, raising a family or whatever path we have followed in
our life may be a yawn to other people but they are a part ofeach of 
our own experiences. We may not write a book about them. JKR may 
decide in her epilogue that that is the way things have turned out and 
as she is not going to write any more, we can leave Harry toget on
with his life without all of us here peering over his shoulder.

It's a bit like when our own children leave home and set out on their
own. We don't follow every bit of their life; we don't show wads of
photographs to the family as we did when they were tiny. The world
has moved on; we can't hold on to Harry as if he were still in the
First Year.