Afterlife/JKR cried

[or.phan_ann]

No: HPFGUIDX 171519

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" 
<catlady at ...> wrote:
>
> Ann wrote in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/171077>:
> 
> << But JKR's treatment of religion does leave out some interesting
> things. This is a milieu in which souls and the afterlife are maybe
> not facts of life, but certainly empirically verifiable in a way   
> that nothing spiritual in the real world is. No-one in the         
> Wizarding World can ignore the existence of souls. What's that      
> going to do for religion? Suppose the facts of life in the         
> Wizarding World contradict religions? Isn't this something JKR     
> should have mentioned by now? What's their afterlife like? >>
> 
> As Eddie quoted in another context in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/171104>, 
> Sir Nick said in OoP, the wizarding folk don't know any better than
> Muggles what the afterlife is like <Nearly Headless Nick's speech   
> at the end of OotP snipped> For all the ghosts know, if they'd     
> gone on, on the other side of the 'door' is extinction and         
> oblivion. Or eternal torture in Hell. There's a reason why Nick    
> was scared to go on -- altho' I can't see Myrtle as motivated by   
> fear. More by vengefulness.

Ann:
OK, but they *know* there's an afterlife. Now consider all the 
different religions Muggles have developed without such knowledge 
(please don't take that the wrong way, anyone, we've had enough 
onlist arguments about religion lately). Why aren't there wizarding-
only religions? And what did knowledge of the soul do to wizarding 
philosophy? They do seem to be empiricists over rationalists...

On a more plotly point, what *is* the relationship between the soul 
and life? As it stands, the data are contradictory - we need an 
explanation of why soulless people live and what happens when a 
Horcru is destroyed. It had better be offered pretty early in DH, is 
all I can say, cause these are pretty basic details.

Regarding Myrtle, I'd say she has JKR's standard flaw of not being 
able to grow up, still stuck in her toilet. (Witness Sirius, Snape, 
even Voldemort, still afraid of death at *65*)...

And re JKR crying when she finished DH: I don't think it's worth 
speculating about. Most of us would cry after finishing a seventeen-
year odyssey like hers, in my opinion.

Ann