I think I'm the one that is the biggest HP fan around here!
AntsyPants, I love your Snape doll, but I may have to dispute the claim about the biggest HP fan. My younger DD17 was a HUGE HP fan. She wrote routinely to newspaper on this subject matter. I dig up one article that she wrote just before the 7th book was published. It still looks very good although her prediction was wrong. (She was 13 at the time.)
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Happily ever after for Harry Potter?
As fans all around the world brace themselves for the seventh, and last book of J.K. Rowling�s insanely popular series Harry Potter, there is obviously one question that comes to mind: Will Harry die, or will he live happily ever after? Once unthinkable, the possibility of Harry�s mortality looms larger than ever.
A leading HP fan site, HPANA, polled over 15,000 fans last year about the fate of the boy wizard. Most hard-core fans believe that Harry will die in the end: 41% of fans believed that Harry would sacrifice himself to save loved ones while only 29% believed that he would live happily ever after.
Jo (J.K. Rowling) herself has been tight lips about the main character. "Am I going to finish Harry off? I cannot possibly tell you that, I'm sorry", said the famous British authoress.
But there are definitely clues of what is going to happen.
On one side, many hope that because Harry has already gone through so much, Jo couldn�t possibly be evil enough to kill him off. Or at least, not until he kills off Voldemort. After all, no matter what, the story is a battle of Good against Evil, and in that, good must always prevail. But, this does not mean that the hero cannot go down with the villain.
And while the rabid shippers may be hoping desperately for a happily-ever-after ending with Voldemort vanquished, Harry and (fill in the blank here) getting together, et cetera, but that isn�t necessarily how things will turn out. After all, the thing we love most about Jo is her plot twists.
�A price has to be paid. We are dealing with pure evil here.� Jo said in one of her much sought-after interviews, �They don't target extras, do they? They go for the main characters. . . well, I do.�
J.K. Rowling, of course, killed off both Sirius and Dumbledore because this genre of writing calls for the protagonist to have to rely on himself only. Before his death, Dumbledore was Harry�s main protector. For example, just when Voldemort was about to finish Harry off in Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore arrived and saved the day. Now that he and Sirius are both dead, Harry will have to face the evil alone. Whether or not he will have the protection of his parents, like in Goblet of Fire, we do not know, but at least all tangible, physical support has been torn from him. These are obviously made to prepare Harry for the last battle, the final showdown, where Harry�s fate will be decided.
Unlike the other six books, the seventh books will not have the same format of school, investigation and battle. If HBP (Half-Blood Prince) was accurate, then Harry will not be going back to Hogwarts at all. It will be all-out war against Voldemort. Jo already warned her fans that two main characters would die in Book seven. But the question is: will Harry be one of them?
Not only obsessed fans such as myself are hoping for Harry to live, author Stephen King and John Irving are crossing their fingers for him too. They both pleaded to JK Rowling to let Harry live in a charity reading event in New York this summer.
I take some comfort that either way teenagers will get the romantic ending that they are looking for. To be willing to die for someone is the highest form of love. From a writer�s perspective, that Harry sacrifices himself for loved ones in the final showdown with Voldemort is simply more compelling story. Rowling obviously writes for a higher-thinking audience than 6-year-olds reading fairy tales where there is always a happily ending. Therefore, we must accept the fact that there will be death, there will be angst, and perhaps even Harry the invincible will die as well.
Only time will tell.
