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It’s not a matter of putting stock in how Irving ends his books, it’s understanding that of the writers that write his style, modern tragedy, he is the most financially successful, and quite critically successful too.

We’re not just discussing books that “work”, we’re discussing overall structures. Modern tragedies probably don’t “work” which has a lot to do with why they aren’t popular. But it is a legitimate form of drama that exists and has a defined structure.

Harry could have died in a way that wasn’t meaningless, but if he’d died in the story when he appeared to die it would have been it would have been the perfect example of a modern tragic story. A meaningless death that failed to accomplish the primary goal of his life. The other problem with Harry dieing, even if he does take out Voldy in the process, is his life sucked so bad, that would have been the part that made it so sad, his life had so few happy moments, he really deserved to survive the darkness and experience a good life.

Modern tragedies are really “existentialist” writings (or seek to be existentialist writings). The fact that modern audiences cannot differentiate between a tragedy and existensialism is sad, but speaks to the state of high school literature in the country... Classic existentialist writings do “work” if you subscribe to a certain part of that philosophy (which most people don’t), and even certain Existential authors (despite their views) are considered classic writings. I loved Hemingway, Dostoevsky, and the Latin American magical realists in high school (and I’d say that most subscribe to a existentialist view of the world)....

I do agree with you that Harry’s death wouldn’t be meaningless... However, it would be because it was existentialism. For most of the novel, Harry’s journey represented the classic “hero’s tale” (ala Joseph Campbell). It isn’t uncommon for the hero at the end of such a classic tale to suffer a real or metaphorical death. I wouldn’t consider The Lord of the Rings to be existential in any way, but at the end of it, Frodo suffered a metaphorical death because he had to carry the ring. The ending was definitely not a happy one... I think that Harry Potter could have naturally ended the same way with Harry’s death. Instead the commercialism surrounding the series cause Rowlings to end the book with a chapter that any hardcore teenage Harry Potter fan could have written...