Posted on 07/21/2007 5:18:11 PM PDT by JenB
So you finally know what happens to Harry. All our questions are answered. Or not. What are your reactions? Whose death hurt the most? Do you want more, and about whom?
SPOILERS are ok on this thread! You have been warned!
Wow. It's over.
If an Allied pilot had flown over Switzerland and bombed some of the banks there, do you think a courts martial would have accepted such a justification?
Most Swiss bankers were innocent. True, they were no doubt aware that some of the money they handled was dirty, but most car dealers today are no less aware that some of the cars they sell will be used by dangerously drunk drivers. Does that mean they are complicit in homicide?
Besides, there may have been other ways to deal with the horcrux. A horcrux which is sitting in a bank vault where nobody can get to it won't do very much if nobody can access it. If Beatrix Lestrange and Voldemort were killed while the cup was still at Gringotts, it should have been possible for the Ministry to destroy it afterward I would think.
To heck with the kids; I wanted to know! ;o) I could imagine lots of different endings for folks, but it was JKR's book. I wanted to see how SHE finished their stories.
How do you know that JKR wanted Harry to die, and STAY dead? Maybe she envisioned this ending all along.
Hmm...I get the feeling you're a frustrated fanfic writer.
Now I understand your previous posts.
Or like the children's song "Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies". It was sung as a reminder of carrying flowers around to mask the stench of the dead and dying during the plague. "Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down", recalls the burning of the bodies of the plague victims. Kids nowadays may not know that, but the kids who started singing it THEN knew it.
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...
I’ve never written a fanfiction scenario in my life... I was too busy studying high school and having fun in college to bother. (I however am not a big fan of teenagers, especially those going through puberty. I would have preferred if all teens, including myself at that age... I was a little brat, were frozen until they turned about nineteen/ twenty).
However, I guess that your right. Rowlings could have wanted this ending. But I don’t think that speaks highly of her as an author then. Instead of challenging her audience, she pandered to them on the lowest common denominator and gave them exactly the Disney teen ending they wanted.
The fact that you say you're going to keep mis-spelling it now, after you know the correct spelling, indicates to me you're just doing it to annoy people on the thread. That makes you no better than a thread troll. In fact, that hints that every post you've made on the thread has just been one big troll.
Congratulations. I should have caught on sooner, but you masked it well.
Hmm...I get the feeling you're a frustrated fanfic writer.
Ms. Rowling stated, years ago, that she'd already written the last chapter of book 7. I would guess that the last chapter of HP&tDH, as published, is pretty close to what Ms. Rowling wrote many years ago. As such, it ignores characters who were invented before it was written and does not very well fit the rest of HP&tDH. A skilled fanfic writer who had the benefit of reading book 7 before writing the ending could probably have produced something that would have fit better. Of course, if Ms. Rowling had the benefit of writing book 7 before writing her ending she might have been able to do better still.
BTW, I thought Ms. Rowling had said that Harry Potter was supposed to marry Lisa Simpson.
Well spotted.
Dang. Yer good.
I love teenagers. They're thoughtful, and natuaraly rebellious. They question authority, and well they should!!
If Harry didn't question authority, were would the wizarding world be now??
My 8 year old is halfway through Deathly Hallows.
She’s handling it fine, just like she handled Goblet of fire when she was in first grade.
Go ahead and call me names, but she’s been reading real books since she was four, and was reading Magic School bus books before she entered kindergarten. I think whether she can handle it is MY decision, not a stranger’s.
Someone on this site understands sarcasm??? That’s a shocker.
“Surely not all children are as special as you.”
When I was in school, I remember taking a field trip when I was in eighth grade with the school to see Schindler’s List. Considering that schools are willing to teach about some pretty tough subjects to middle schoolers (as is warranted) and to introduce these subjects in intermediate school, I don’t think that Harry’s death is that bad.
I do agree with you that the book should not be given to a second grader as second graders cannot yet differentiate between reality and fantasy. However, I’d expect a fifth grader to do so.. Heck compared to some scenes in the book, Harry’s “death” scene was tame.
“Look, you continue to miss my point. I don’t know if you’re just that obtuse or if you’re just stubborn. I really don’t care. I’m tired of arguing with you.”
No I just agree with the fact that everything must be sanitized because children who shouldn’t might get ahold of the book... It’s not Rowlings duty to police bad parents.
“I really think you’re not reading what I’m saying, or what anyone else is saying for that matter. If you were, you’d have realized way up thread that the author’s name is J.K. Rowling, not Rowlings as you have typed repeatedly. “
Perhaps, you might want to blame all the newspapers, etc. that have called her Rowlings... No??
Voldemort COULDN’T be killed until the cup was destroyed.
That’s the entire thrust of the book: Destroy the horcruxes so that Voldemort can be destroyed.
Well, it just may be a case of them happening so often, that the Ministry simply doesn't bother to investigate too deeply. Harry or any of the other kids could have died dozens of times just doing the "normal" everyday stuff that went on at Hogwart's.
Plus, it's natural for a bureaucracy to follow the path of least resistance. If the nearest surviving relative says Cousin Theodosius died horribly while testing a new potion he'd just mixed up, the Ministry bureaucrat is likely to just accept it rather than start checking for foul play. To do so makes his job much easier!
You really know how to suck all the fun out of a room.
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