Tuesday, July 18, 2006
J.K. Rowling the next Dickens or Conan Doyle??
I don't know how true the above statement is but James Krasner(expert in British Victorian lit.) draws a few comparisons. He puts in his 2 cents about who is going to die in the last Harry Potter book. He also backs up a theory put forward by our own Suavo and the almighty Cheese.
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RON WEASLEY FOR MINISTER OF MAGIC!!!!! The cheese is starting the campaign TODAY!
I forget. How exactly does one become the minister of magic? Is it commitee or general election? Pact with the devil?
the cheese believes the Wizen Gamot (is that spelled right?) elects the minister, kinda like Parliment is actually the one to elect the Prime Minister
That sounds right, plus it would make sense since the wizarding world works very similarly to the muggle world.
What do you think of the comparison between Rowling and Dickens (the cheese not into reading British author's before about 1970 has never read Dickens)?
I can't answer too much as to the style comparison but some other stuff does ring true. Mostly, you'd think Rowling was getting paid by the word judging by the length and superfluous details in the books.
The comment that Harry won't die due to the fact that good always wins out in Dickens, I don't think is a valid one. I think a better comment is that good will win out because she is primarily writing for children/young adults not adults. That was one of the things we discussed in the writing for children class I took. Good and evil need to be clearly seperated and good should win over all. It's like Empire strikes back. After its release a poll was taken as to whether or not Darth Vader was actually Luke's father. The results showed that children by and large felt that Vader was lying to Luke. As much as I would love to see a big twist where Harry sacrifices himself for the greater good, I don't think it will ultimately happen or else we will have a generation of kids who have to faith in good conquering evil.
Sorry I seemed to have rambled on a bit. Hopefully there is some meaningful point in there.
But that's what it really comes down to, isn't it? We (the readers) are faced with a fundamental question at this point. Due we think that good will win (Harry lives), evil will win (Voldemort lives), or something more real takes place and they both die.
Your point about her audience is an important one, but most of her initial audience is older now, and the last two books really do feel like adult reading. The cheese won't be surprised if Harry dies. Also, each of the last three books have ended with a good character, each of more significance to Harry, dying; Cedric, Syrius, and Dumbledor. Harry's death would continue in that series, and really be the emotional high point (in terms of strength, not happiness) of the series. The cheese isn't sure that Rowling is writing a series mostly concerned with good triumphing over evil (also connected with this idea is whether or not one believes Snape is evil, or he and Dumbledor colluded to "fake" Dumbie's death).
Regardless of whether dumbledore is actually dead or not, I believe that snape will win the award for "rededeemed hero." He has to do something to justify Dumbledore's seemingly unreasonable faith in him.
You have a point about the escalating deaths but something else occured to me as I was just looking at that list. They are all people Harry looked up to and/or aspired to be like. The problem is that Harry is all out of hero's at this point. Your argument would also support someone like Ron getting killed.
I also am not sure that Rowling has the balls to kill Harry off. She seems the type to tease you with it but not actually do it. Mind you I'm not her stalker and know mostly nothing about her.
It's almost too bad we are looking at the end of the series. The characters are finally at a point in their lives where we could have darker stories that put the characters in complicated moral dilemmas. Plus it would be interesting to see the aftermath of this whole prophecy thing.
Yeah, the post-prophecy would be interesting. The cheese doesn't see Ron getting it though, cause then he will never hook it up with Hermoine...and the cheese believes not putting those two together would be a bigger disservice to the series than killing off Harry, since Harry's death has kinda been foreshadowed since the page one of the first book. But if she is really killing off two important characters than one of the main three has to go (Snape will be the other, the cheese is certain, whether he ends up being good or evil). As a sidenote, the cheese believes that Draco will be redeemed also, as he couldn't bring himself to kill Dubmie.
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