Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Farewell Harry Potter and Hermione

thanks for the nice comments about my Snape doll everyone!

You're Welcome! I showed it to dd and she was soo impressed and amazed. Hoping you might post another photo when it's all done?

We have our midnight tickets too! DD11 read 1-6 in a row when she was 7 and then had to wait two months for book 7 (a shorter wait then most HP fans at that time had had, but the first time she ever had to wait for a book). She lived and breathed HP from the moment she started reading them, and I was re-reading them a step ahead of her. I have wonderful memories of that time in our lives, culminating with the midnight book release with her dressed up as Ginny (we left with 2 copies, of course). It was so fun for her too, because she was carrying the book with her everywhere as she was reading it, and all her camp counselors were reading it too, so she shared a connection with them that she didn't share with most of the kids her age.

DS9 will get to be part of this final opening, and I'm glad he gets a piece of this phenomenon too. He is less fanatic (DD and her friend have been planning and putting together costumes to wear but DS plans to go in regular clothes), but still excited about it.

We already know we will be seeing the movie twice. We have tickets with DDs best friend, brother and mother but couldn't get another ticked when DH decided he wanted to go, so we will all go again with him. Since we are seeing 2D on opening night, maybe we'll go for 3D when we see it the second time.

I hope that kids and adults will continue to fall in love with this series as the years go on, but it will not be the same in the future without all that delicious anticipation....

Taminy, your comment reminds me that this was something that distinguished my gifted D (now 16) from her peers. For many years (since she was about 3, when she asked me to read HP1 aloud to her -- 11 times straight, we finally bought her the tapes), she knew more about HP than anyone else she knew, except her sister. She would meet another kid, and they would start talking about HP, and she would sort of blow them away with her depth of knowledge. Then she would lose interest in them, because they didn't share her depth. It was frustrating at times for everyone. Also, we bought the first HP trivia game, and it was great. But every HP game ever released after that was too "watered down" for her (and we invested in many).

But we had a grand time within our family discussing it, and dressing up for midnight book releases/movie reviews. Once I went as a house elf It also took care of Halloween costumes for many years (although the year we lost her stuffed Hedwig while trick or treating was tramatic -- I retraced our steps with a flashlight, finally found her on someone's front porch guarding a bowl of candy). D still has a shimmery silver "invisibility cloak" that a preschool peer's parent made her long ago for a birthday present. And then there was the summer she tried to make polyjuice potion -- kept mixing in various plants, moving it around in a stopped up glass bottle to keep it in the sun during the day. Then she opened the bottle and it spilled on her. I could smell her from across the house when she came in the front door.

Oh, Harry...

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.

chenchuan, I totally meant that as "here at my house" lol I would never make a broader claim than that!

I will read the rest of that post when i finish stitching up Snape's outfit but I wanted to clarify.

And, sure, I'll post an update when I finish him up!

Twelve hours, 30 minutes and counting.... Yes, we are obsessed!

Both of my DDs have seen all the movies to date, but haven't finished the books. I wish they had been a little older when HP first came out. I read the first three books to them when they were three and five. When she was seven, DD#1 read the books on her own, but stopped about midway through the fifth book. Also at age seven, DD#2 listened to the books on CD, but stopped at about the same place in the fifth book. I'm not sure if the series got too dark for them at that point, or if they got bogged down with the length of the fifth book.

DH and I are going to see the movie, and then we'll decide if the girls can see it in the theatre or if they need to wait for the DVD. I can't wait! We're not going to the midnight showing (too hard to get a sitter), but we're going first thing Friday morning.

MWM,

It is kind of dark but my DDs (9 and 7, DD7 finished before she was 7 and her birthday cake was of course HP theme) enjoyed them. They did not read it initially. I had all the books lying around in the house and after 2 weeks without having another new book, they tried a few chapters and got hooked. I let them watched DVDs only after reading the books (they like the books better) and they did not think the skulls talking on the bus or anything else is scary.

They are celebrating HP week by watching all DVDs again and rereading HP books for the 3rd time.

I just had to chime in - we were recently on vacation in England, and for part of the trip we stayed in a hotel with a view of Trafalgar Square, in London. We left the morning of the big red carpet event that led up to the world premier in Leicester Square. We just missed being able to see all the stars of HP from our window - we did get pics of the red carpet, though, which was laid out early in the day LOL