Harry's happy sacrifice (was Re: The editor was sobbing)

[va32h]

No: HPFGUIDX 166907

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kristin1778" <kristin1778 at ...> 
wrote:
> 
> Lots of us think Harry will have to make a sacrifice. Some people
> think he'll lose his magic, others think he'll have to leave the
> wizarding world. I kind of suspect Rowling would see both of those
> things as more tragic for Harry than actually dying. In Harry's
> universe, at least, there is an afterlife, you do go on. If Harry
> dies, he'll be reunited with Dumbledore, Sirius, and his parents, 
and
> in the fullness of time Ron and Hermione will join him. He'd be at
> peace, and he'd finally have his family. In the epilogue she'd let 
us
> know that his friends miss him, but appreciate that they are alive
> because of his sacrifice and are helping each other to go on with
> their lives. Now, I will be sobbing my eyes out over such an ending,
> but I don't think Rowling would want us to see it as an unhappy 
ending to

va32h here:

I'm sorry, but I have always absolutely hated this notion that it 
will be wonderful and noble for Harry to die at age 17 and spend 
eternity with mum and dad. Is this any teenagers idea of heaven?

Perhaps 11 year old Harry, who longed for nothing but his family 
around him, would consider such an afterlife pure paradise, but 17 
year old Harry, with friends, and a love relationship and hopes, and 
a future - no, no, no, returning him to a state of infantile angel is 
not a happy ending, and I simply cannot conceive of JKR thinking so. 

She is a parent. Healthy parents want their children to grow up and 
lead happy lives, they do not want their children to remain in a 
childlike state forever. 

Harry does not even know his parents. He doesn't even really know 
Sirius. He loves them of course, but he belongs in the world of the 
living, of Ron and Hermione, of the future. Too many HP characters 
are mired in the past, Harry should not be one fo them. 

When Dumbledore spoke of death as a next great adventure, he was 
speaking in reference to Nicolas Flamel - someone who had lived a 
very long life indeed. That one sentence of Dumbledore's has been 
extrapolated to mean that Dumbledore thinks everyone should 
cheerfully embrace death. One can be unafraid of death, and still not 
want to die. 

That Harry is willing to die is enough. 

va32h