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Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (w/Spoilers)

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0bsessions:
I would generally agree with you if it were serialized fiction, as opposed to a finite story. Death for death's sake is fine as far as I'm concerned in something that's coming to a close. There's nothing left to be done with these characters and they're being taken off the table regardless. I like seeing the message of death sometimes being gratuitous and without any real meaning. The fact it's realistic is a good way of connecting with the reader, I find.

In a comic or TV show, I stand more on your side of the argument. If there's no specific end in sight, you're crippling the overall story and taking away vast possibilities for the sake of a shocking moment (I.E.: Most deaths in comic books work this way and with changing writers, this is why nobody really stays dead in comics, not even Spider-Man's elderly aunt). The thing for me is that in a finite storyline, the characters have already served their purposes and nobody really needs to die unless it's the crux of the story. Of Mice and Men's a story I can't agree with your use of at all as the ending is the entire destination. The book simply doesn't work without that scene. The main reason I don't find that comparrison to hold water is the difference in cast size. Harry Potter went on for seven books and ammassed a huge cast of characters. With that many people, there's really no way to make death a deus ex outside of the character's initial motivation and backstory. Every single death from there on out becomes gratuitous, in a way. In the end, Sirius' death served absolutely no purpose. Cedric's death was entirely unnecessary. The absolute only two deaths that served any real purpose when it gets down to it is Fred (Motivator for Molly, which even then could be written off as her daughter was being attacked) and Dumbledore (Whose death was really such a large part of book six).

90% of death in modern literature is gratuitous and can be written around. The excessive deaths in this book served the purpose of showing that anything can happen and nobody's sake. It ramps up the suspense and keeps you turning the pages.

Johnny C:
I'd agree with you if I didn't feel the stakes were high enough to begin with, and certainly high enough to justify keeping it under the final tally of twenty-three deaths, of which six were actually "bad guys."

I'm not arguing that all the deaths were gratuitous. In fact I'd say there were more than two neccessary deaths in the seventh novel alone, and here are the characters I think Rowling had, thematically and storywise, to kill:


* Burbage
* Moody
* Scrimegour
* Gregorovitch & his unnamed German lady
* Bagshot
* Pettigrew, despite how "wtf" that moment was
* Grindelwald
* Fred Weasley
* Snape
* Nagini (duh)
* Voldemort
Without those characters' deaths, the plot would have been a lot different. Burbage did the job for establishing that Hogwarts wasn't safe anymore. Moody's death not only established that nobody was safe but it also provided motivation for the characters to strike off on their own, as they didn't want to risk the lives of any more of their friends. Scrimegour was neccessary in order to establish Voldemort's ministry. Gregorovitch, as well as Grindelwald, made sense simply because Voldemort is straight-up murder incarnate. Bagshot didn't really need to be inhabited by Nagini but the results of that disaster put emphasis on how dangerous it was for Harry and Hermione to be going on their own and made Ron's return even more heartening. Pettigrew's death made sense from a continuity standpoint - if the hand was magic and from Voldemort it wouldn't take betrayal lightly. Even though, seriously, that was some weird voodoo shit. Fred Weasely is debatable - his death was motivation for Molly to go as hard as she did against Bellatrix, though from my understanding of the character (and I'm surely not alone on this) I'm pretty sure she would have done the same thing under any circumstances. Snape's death was easily the most important of the entire novel; not only was it a goldmine of character, but it gave Harry a new insight into the idea of the power of love, once again touching on the series' overarching theme and spurring Harry on to face Voldemort unafraid of death. If any character's death works in the Of Mice And Men analogy, it's either Snape or Voldemort - the entire series was heading towards something with those characters. Nagini, well, she was a Horcrux so she had to die for the book to end. And of course, Voldemort or Harry had to die. There were no two ways about that.

I'm going, of course, from the established idea that Voldemort is a cold-hearted murderer who does nothing but love killing, and therefore any of those deaths that were even tangentally related to him were justifiable.

But looking at that list, I'd say that the stakes were high enough. By Lupin and Tonks' deaths I was just thinking to myself, "well, shit" but the fact of the matter is that I already knew I was going to keep reading. I get the odd feeling that if you need the suspense ramped up by a death on every other page rather than the idea that a novel is hurtling towards an inevitable, final and epic conclusion then perhaps the novel is not your ideal medium.

pilsner:
Hey, what a great discussion.

I've been of the opinion from the beginning that JK wanted to make the war in her books seem like real war like Johnny said.  And in real war people die for stupid, stupid, arbitrary reasons.  If you're serving in Iraq, you're best friend can die tomorrow by stepping on a land mine.  No moral.  No thematic purpose.  Except for maybe the ubertheme: war is arbitrary and horrible because people you care for die for no reason at all.

Johnny, I take exception to your distinction between fiction and the newspaper because there have to be some elements of realism in a work -- even one this fantastic -- for us to care at all.  Otherwise it's just Looney Tunes -- Fred gets killed but comes back for the next episode. 

JK has gone on the record (see Lunchy's post) saying that Harry's owl's death represented the end of his childhood and the beginning of his adulthood.  But ultimately, that death and the death of all the other good guys that died in book seven were, I believe, meant to be arbitrary and superficially meaningless, because that is how JK perceives war, and that is how she wants us to perceive it.

In fact, there is something and fresh about a fantasy story that purposefully makes you regret the killing of a number of good people for no apparent reason, rather than loading every (rare death) of a friend of the protagonist with thematic and plot significance (see, e.g., every piece of crap David Edding's ever commited to paper).

Moreover, the whole arbitrary thing is catching on.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Remember in Serenity when Joss Whedon kills off the pilot dude suddenly, without any apparent plot or thematic reason, and somewhat arbitrarily (the cockpit glass could withstand space particles but not a balliste -- give me a break).  I had major flashbacks to that scene when I read that Tonks and Lupin were dead.

Even further, the good guys seem to suffer a lot more casualities than the bad guys.  Another theme: idealism has its costs.  If the Order had been as willing to use unforgiveable curses from the beginning (and yes I know Harry, McGonnagal and Mrs. Weasley all used them at one or more points -- but they definitely did not do it as often as say, Bellatrix) they probably could have lowered the causualty rates on their side.  But they didn't for moral reasons, and paid the price in blood.

So, in sum, even the meaningless deaths in Hallows arguably contribute to a larger theme that JK has repeatedly espoused: war is hell and good people die apparently meaningless deaths.  Now JK's stuff is pulp, it's not literature.  She's not making any point with all these deaths that Voltaire didn't make in Candide.  But she deserves kudos for introducing a relatively profound point in the context of a pulp work that happens to be the most popular series ever.

Caiphana:
I have one thing to say.

Harry Potter is supposed to be a children's book. Allegedly. From the beginning, I thought it was a hell of a lot more like a teen book (hell, it started with a double murder), but still. It's a kid's book. It's not life. It's fiction. In real life, Harry, Ron, or Hermione would have died, people essential to the plot of life.

Also, Harry is an incredibly static character, has anyone noticed that? In seven years, he didn't really change. Doesn't that seem odd to you? You can't make ONE portion of the book (ra, ra, yay, death!) like life and ignore the rest. What the hell is up with that? Raise your hand if you didn't change at all from the age of eleven to seventeen. Okay, then.

pilsner:
JK's repeatedly said that she was writing books 1-7 for the same kid as he or she grew from 6-10 to 16-20.  So no, Book 7 is not a children's book oriented to the same age group that book 1 was.  Philosopher's Stone was children's fiction, whereas Hallows was more young adult.  It's the difference between Susan Cooper and Ursula K. Le Guin.

As for Harry being incredibly static, I only partially agree.  If the one gets the impression that Harry doesn't change much within any given book that's a consequence of Rowling's poor authorship.  Certainly in Book 5 for instance, it was Rowling's intention to have Harry go from angry, lonely, and scapegoating his friends to achieve a more profound understanding of friendship by book's end.  But as for your claim that Harry doesn't change throughout the series -- I couldn't disagree more.  Do you see the boy in Book 2 casting Crucio?

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