CHAPDISC: DH, EPILOGUE

[kneazlecat54]

No: HPFGUIDX 185519

<snip>
> Pippin:
> Traditionally, the heroine's journey ends when she achieves a 
family, while the hero's journey ends with the hero married and 
crowned. By showing Harry married and with children but in acts of 
ceding authority rather than taking it, JKR is either following only 
half the pattern, or feminizing the pattern, take your pick. 
> 
> Either way, it may account for the feeling of some fans that the
> epilogue was incomplete or unsatisfactory, while to JKR it was the
> beacon that kept her convinced she could reach the end of her tale.
<snip>
> 
Laura says:

Pippin, that's a very interesting point.  A lot of people I've talked 
to complained that the ending was sappy, and maybe that's why.  There 
was no drama at all.  Harry didn't become MoM-in fact, we don't know 
from the epilogue what he's doing with himself other than being a dad.  
He seems entirely ordinary in the epilogue.  Maybe that was part of 
the problem too.
> > 
<snip>
What, then, do you think has changed in the relations among houses and 
the reputations of the various houses in nineteen years?
> 
> Pippin:
><snip>
> 
> IMO, Harry understands that Gryffindor's reputation is inflated and
> Slytherin's is unfairly tarnished, paralleling Dumbledore and Snape.
<snip>

Laura says:

Why unfairly?  It seems to me that Slytherin more than earned its 
reputation.
<snip>
 6. What is JKR suggesting by naming Draco's son Scorpius?
> 
> Pippin:
> That Draco has not put all his antagonism aside, and has passed that
> attitude to his son, or tried to.

Laura says:

Yep.  This stuff about constellations is off-base, I think.  There are 
more benign ones to choose, if that's all it was.  Draco still has 
money and what he considers to be a valuable heritage, and I don't see 
him acting like those things mean nothing.
> 
<snip>
> > 10. What would Harry see if he looked once more into the Mirror of
> > Erised?
> 
> Pippin:
> I don't think he'd choose to look. As I said, I think he's learned 
to put temptation aside.
> 
Laura says:

The question was meant metaphorically, really, but that's an 
interesting answer.  Yes, Harry would have no need to find his parents 
in the mirror.  He's learned to find them in himself.

Thanks, Pippin, for some thought-provoking ideas!