# Damn you J.K. Rowling (potentially) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 27, 2006, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414 "2006-06-27T23:43:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/61 "2006-06-28T12:52:36Z")
[QUOTE=Rysto] It’s a spoiler to say that 2 characters are going to die in the finale? Given how the series has been progressing, isn’t that pretty much a given. Didn’t 4 characters die in Half-Blood Prince, 3 of whom had actually been in the books? Emmeline Vance, Amelia Bones, Hannah Abbott’s mother and Dumbledore. Plus Ollivandier and Florian Fortescue disappeared. Did I miss anybody, other than those who died in the flashbacks? [/QUOTE] How is it {I]not\* a spoiler? And actually, I don’t even care if she does tell. I managed to avoid every spoiler for the other books, is all. I’d read the “guessing what might be” threads" but never touched the threads about the actual books. I avoided articles about it. But the headline on Yahoo! news on the homepage was “Rowling says two characters to die in final book”. All I would have asked is they made it "Rowling talks about final Potter book: or something like that; then I could have successfully avoided it. So I’m more irritated at Yahoo! then at Rowling. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/62 "2006-06-28T12:54:05Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] I’d have loved to see La Guernica after the SDMB treatment. A few puppies and kitties on the borders just to temper the horse’s eye put out by glass… [/QUOTE] Pst, it’s EL Guernica. Paintings are male, even when like this one they’re actually a litography board. Please carry on… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/63 "2006-06-28T12:55:18Z")
[QUOTE=cerberus] So what we need, see, for all these **Happiness Addicts** , are _happy versions of every freaking thing made: books, movies, yada yada_. We need Romeo&Juliet, living happily, providing happy grandchildren to their happy in-laws and parents. We need Star non-Wars, where the Jedi never fell, and the Sith came 'round, all happy and shit. We need Beowulf, only with Happy! Grendel! and Happy! Gendel’s! Mother!, bringing Beowulf’s happy! friends! a picnic, and not eating them instead. We need Scylla and Charybdys serving as happy! lifeguards!, protecting the Greek sailors, who visited Troy and actually brought them happy! things!: none of that mean wife stealing and warring here. Just happy Greeks. We need Oedipus, happy! Not killing his father and boinking his Mother. None of that. I can see it now. We need a staff to rewrite every freaking thing ever made, only happy, see? [/QUOTE] It’s called Disney. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/64 "2006-06-28T13:01:26Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra] Why am I thinking of the Stephen King book Misery? [/QUOTE] Hermione turned to Harry, eyes shining, lips murmuring the magic words oh you numb shithead _this isn’t working at all!_ ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/65 "2006-06-28T13:34:48Z")
Prediction: Harry and Ron will sneak out one night. The new headmaster (Bill O’Reilly) will point grimly to the curfew notice taped to the wall, and shoot them both between the head. ---
**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/66 "2006-06-28T13:47:38Z")
I think its great that we live in a world where a young single mother can become a billionaire just by telling a story. Regardless of what happens in the actual books, her story had the happy ending, and you can tell that to your kids. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/67 "2006-06-28T13:55:28Z")
[QUOTE=OKFMDOA] But like jjimm, I am honestly uncertain of the meaning. Does “I am cynical anymore” imply that you didn’t used to be cynical but now you are? Or does it just mean “I am currently cynical?” [/QUOTE] I’d say that it doesn’t necessarily comment about your cynicism in the past, only that recent events have, over a period of time, confirmed that you are indeed a cynic. I guess it leans towards suggesting that in the past you were not as cynical as you are now, but it’s not 100%. Apology accepted, jjimm. I jumped down your throat. I’ve been sitting on a rant about dialectic snobbery for a long time, and that just set me off. Because apparently Harry Potter wouldn’t understand my dialect. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/68 "2006-06-28T14:30:43Z")
Harry Potter is killed by My Little Pony. funny stuff. You heard it here first, kiddies. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/69 "2006-06-28T16:08:19Z")
But honestly **Anaamika** , is it really a spoiler to reveal that, yep, 2 main characters are going to die? Have you read the other books? Characters die like flies. Characters suffer monstrous injustice all day every day. Harry’s parents died before he was born. Neville’s parents were tortured into catatonia. Hagrid was kicked out of Hogwarts as a kid. Voldemort running around. Quirrel ripping out a unicorn’s throat and drinking its blood. Sirius spends years in Azkaban. Lupin. Dumbledore. Snape. And on and on and on. The Harry Potter series is DARK. I didn’t need to see a teaser announcement to know that some characters are going to die. And neither did you. It’s a CERTAINTY that there’s going to be some tragedy in the last book. 100% guaranteed, given the tragedies of the earlier books. And this doesn’t mean the books are hopeless! Of course good will triumph, Voldemort will be banished. But evil EXISTS in the HP universe, evil is powerful, evil must be fought, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll win, and even if you win you’ll have to pay a price. And that’s why the HP books are so popular, that’s why they resonate with kids and adults. They’re not great literature, but they’re darn good. And removing the tragedy, removing the danger would remove everything that makes them worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/70 "2006-06-28T17:09:38Z")
I heard that Jack T. Chick is going to be (holy) ghost-writing the last Harry Potter book. Expect a very high body count. Also expect Voldemort, in his high, sinister reptilian voice, to say HAW HAW HAW!. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/71 "2006-06-28T17:24:34Z")
> [@](#): > > I think we can assume that it’s new - I don’t think that Americans would have remembered it while the Brits all forgot. Right. Because American English doesn’t preserve any archaic features lost in British English. Nope. No syllable-final Rs. No use of “mad” to mean “angry” or “fall” to mean “autumn”. Nothing like “gotten”. > [@cerberus](#): > > I can see it now. > We need a staff to rewrite every freaking thing ever made, only happy, see? It’s easier to write a tragic ending than a happy one. And frankly, a lot of people aren’t terribly sophisticated in regard to literature, and will mistakenly believe that a story must be good since it’s a tragedy. Look at the undeserved popularity of _Titanic_, as mentioned above. There’s plenty of great literature that’s tragic, but there’s also plenty of people - particularly children - who think that tragic endings are somehow automatically “deep”. I have no patience for that sort of thing. > [@Nava](#): > > It’s called Disney. Have no Disney movies ended in tragedy? I’m honestly curious; I don’t enjoy those things, so I don’t see them, but I’d be surprised if _none_ of them had tragic endings. Oh, God. Did they change the ending of _The Little Mermaid_ to make it happy? ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/72 "2006-06-28T17:30:18Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] Oh, God. Did they change the ending of _The Little Mermaid_ to make it happy? [/QUOTE] No. They changed the beginning, the middle, _and_ the end! ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/73 "2006-06-28T17:34:07Z")
Here you have it, the actual ending to the 7th HP book!!! > [@final paragraph of Harry Potter and the Happy Ending](#): > > Harry sat upright in his bed, his mind still reeling from the dreams he’d been having. Dreams of a world full of magic and enchantment, good and evil, friends and enemies. For a moment he felt sad that the world of magic had only been a dream. > > “Harry, time to get up for school!” his mother’s voice rang out from downstairs. He flashed back to the saddest part of his dream, his beloved parents dead at the hands of a betrayer. “Coming Mother.” he yelled down to Lily Potter as he sprang from his bed. Rubbing his hands through his hair he went into the bathroom and gazed at himself in the mirror… and as he remembered another point of his dreams, he almost seemed to see it there on his forehead..a lightning bolt shaped scar. There you go, happy ending for everyone. Share and enjoy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/74 "2006-06-28T17:35:03Z")
Dude, hate to break it to you, but they changed \*The Hunchback of Notre Dame \* to give it a happy ending. Which seems pretty much impossible, but somehow they managed. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/75 "2006-06-28T17:44:56Z")
> [@Harry Potter and the Author Who Couldn't Think Of a Way to End Her Story](#): > > “Expelliarmus!” shouted Harry, but it was too late, as a bolt of green light shot towards him. Voldemort’s words were barely finished when Harry saw a green flash across his vision. Time seemed to slow down as he felt himself wrenched away, as when touching a portkey, and the world seemed to fade away into nothing but a sea of pure green. > > He sat upright, hitting his head on the roof of the little room under the stairs and dislodging a spider in the process. It fell onto his shabby bedcovers. > > “Get up! I want to start cooking the bacon!” rang out his aunt’s uptight voice. “I want everything to be perfect for my Duddy’s eleventh birthday!” .. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/76 "2006-06-28T17:50:35Z")
Mine was happier. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/77 "2006-06-28T18:02:34Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] It’s easier to write a tragic ending than a happy one. And frankly, a lot of people aren’t terribly sophisticated in regard to literature, and will mistakenly believe that a story must be good since it’s a tragedy. Look at the undeserved popularity of _Titanic_, as mentioned above. There’s plenty of great literature that’s tragic, but there’s also plenty of people - particularly children - who think that tragic endings are somehow automatically “deep” [/QUOTE] To me, _Titanic_ follows a particularly long-engrained conceit of western myth (love stories in particular) where most the great romances end in tragedy and lovers are never destined for happiness except, perhaps, in death. The Arthurian Triangle of Lancelot, Gwuenivere and Arthur. (Not to mention sister/lover Morgan LeFey.) Romeo and Juliet. Tristan and Isolde. Carmen could not stop cheating. Orpheus looked back. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/78 "2006-06-28T18:04:25Z")
[QUOTE=cerberus] So what we need, see, for all these **Happiness Addicts** , are _happy versions of every freaking thing made: books, movies, yada yada_. We need Romeo&Juliet, living happily, providing happy grandchildren to their happy in-laws and parents. We need Star non-Wars, where the Jedi never fell, and the Sith came 'round, all happy and shit. We need Beowulf, only with Happy! Grendel! and Happy! Gendel’s! Mother!, bringing Beowulf’s happy! friends! a picnic, and not eating them instead. We need Scylla and Charybdys serving as happy! lifeguards!, protecting the Greek sailors, who visited Troy and actually brought them happy! things!: none of that mean wife stealing and warring here. Just happy Greeks. We need Oedipus, happy! Not killing his father and boinking his Mother. None of that. I can see it now. We need a staff to rewrite every freaking thing ever made, only happy, see? [/QUOTE] [Hans Moleman watching _Gone With the Wind_] Didn’t that movie have a war in it? [HMw_GWtW_] ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/79 "2006-06-28T22:08:11Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Harry’s parents died before he was born. [/QUOTE] Neat trick, that. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414/80 "2006-06-28T22:10:06Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] I wish I had a magic pony. [/QUOTE] Oh yeah? Well, I wish I had a magic _robot_ pony. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-you-j-k-rowling-potentially/362414.md?page=5)