Camping and Despair - loving the trio

[dan]

No: HPFGUIDX 173714

Rowling finally gave us the ecstatic, but made us travel through 
despair to get there. I had been hoping for a downward arc, I felt 
the series required it, and I had not yet come to love the trio 
truly. It was in their weakest moments, when nothing was left to 
them but what they could not give up, having given up everything 
else, that I finally came to not only identify with Ron, Hermione 
and Harry, but to love them. Yes, I admired Hermione for being 
prepared and being brilliant, but I loved her for being human, and 
for accepting that that was all that finally was left to her, and 
when Ron left, I loved her for continuing on when heartbroken. I 
loved Harry then for understanding this all, for his diplomacy, and 
for not going into reactionary mode. He has incorporated the 
leadership qualities he developed in OotP into his personal life. 
And I loved Ron for leaving, confirming his humanity and reminding 
us of just what he was giving up, and for returning, wholly, and for 
facing his fears and overcoming them and being stronger than ever, 
while yet more human.

I've heard many talk about the camping trip as boring, as pointless, 
but I don't understand this at all. The camping trip was the most 
fun, and the most despairing, the novels have ever gotten. We hear 
about the world going to hell, the impression is that the saved, or 
the outcast, are wandering in the wild, with little hope, and 
imprisonments, and it looks bleak.

Then, with the silver doe and the sword and the horcrux of 
hopelessness finally destroyed, the story begins its slow upward 
journey, now in the deepest authentic sense, toward light.

dan