Hagrid

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 165960

Shelley wrote:

> > Oh my gosh, you don't think that he could 
> > be one of the main characters who die, do you? 
> > Just to illustrate just how badly the war ends 
> > up going before the final showdown? 

Carol:

> JKR has said that main characters will die, meaning 
> good guys, so it's likely that Hagrid will be one of 
> them. I think, however, that she always meant him to 
> die and that he's not one of the two who were originally 
> slated to live but end up dying. That sounds to me like 
> the Weasley Twins.

houyhnhnm:

At the time of the Richard and Judy show interview, 
most people seemed to assume that Rowling had made 
changes in the story as readers knew it--changes to 
the fate of characters as they appeared in the first book.

That is not the way I interpreted her remarks.  I 
thought she was speaking of changes in the story 
and the fates of her characters that took place 
between her original last chapter draft "in 
something like 1990" and the publication of 
PS around seven years later.

For the identity of the character who gets a 
reprieve, I would look for one who was originally 
slated to play a larger role, but whose story ended 
up on the editing room floor.  I think it is 
probably Dean Thomas.  That means that Neville 
Longbottom, the character whose story superceded  
Dean's, is likely one the two who die "that I 
didn't intend to die".  For the second I would 
look for someone else who started off as a minor 
character but whose roled evolved into a more 
important one by time the first book made it into print.

I don't know who that would be, but I doubt that 
it is Hagrid.  If Hagrid is slated to die, then I 
think his fate was sealed from the beginning.  
Somehow, though, I don't think Hagrid is going to 
die. I don't really have a reason.  It's just a feeling.