[HPforGrownups] Epilogue Bashing

[OctobersChild48 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 172936

There is so much bashing of the epilogue going on that I am posting this  
excerpt from Cheryl Klein's (editor at Scholastic) blog about Deathly  Hallows.
 
 
And this leads me to the epilogue. It is not receiving much love, I  see—some 
people hate it because it doesn’t answer all their questions, some  people 
hate it because it gives answers they don’t want, and some people  just find 
it 
cheesy. I think it paid off five essential themes of the series  (not just 
the 
book): 
1. Family. At the beginning of this series, who was  Harry? A boy 
without a family, orphaned, friendless, belonging to no  community, unhappy 
in the 
family he did live with, who gave him no love. At  the end, he not only has a 
wife and children who love him (and whom he  loves), he has a godson, many 
brothers-in-brothers-in-<WBR>law, all their wives and  children, and the 
accept
wizarding community. 
2.  Maturity. Harry’s son’s name signifies that Harry has come to 
recognize  Snape’s sacrifice and supreme courage (“Sometimes I think we sort 
too  
soon”), and to value those virtues over the pettiness with which Snape  
treated 
him at Hogwarts. Such a judgment is the mark of a intelligent,  thoughtful, 
and empathetic adult, so it shows us that Harry has grown up and  become 
wise. 
3. Fame. We see that Harry is happy being simply a father like  the 
other fathers, and when all the kids on the train are gawking at him, he  
(and 
Ron) accept it matter-of-factly, rather than displaying the awkwardness  that’
s 
stalked him since his first visit to the Hogwarts Express in Book 1.  
4. Choice. He tells Albus essentially what Dumbledore told him in Book 
2  -- “It is our choices, far more than our abilities, that show who we truly 
 
are” -- carrying that wisdom into the next generation. 
5. Power, or  Where Real Happiness Comes From. Repeating a bit things I’
ve said above . .  . The epilogue is resolutely domestic, with kids 
squabbling 
and dads talking  about parking—it’s a scene straight out of typical 
middle-class family life,  plus wands. As far as we know from it, Harry is 
not 
powerful, he is not  super-important, he does not wield any significant 
power. He is 
just a dad  who loves his family. This, I think, may be part of the reason 
why people  dislike the epilogue so much—the Chosen, special one, the Boy Who 
Lived, the  one we’ve identified with all this time, has become just a 
regular 
guy,  which means (by fictional standards especially) that frankly his life 
is 
a  little boring. But J. K. Rowling is showing us clearly that he’s finding 
his  happiness in everyday love and domestic life rather than big fantasy  
heroism
—he is a Jane Austen and not a World of Warcraft hero in the end. And  that 
is a kind of happy ending we can all aspire to: “All was  well.”

Sandy



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