*shudder* Yet another Harry Potter Thread (open spoilers possible)

Cafe Society
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I know, I know…not ANOTHER Harry Potter thread!!! The forum seems to be going nuts about Harry Potter…I’m surprised that some of the non-HP reading dopers haven’t rebelled yet and pitted the whole thing. :wink:

Anyway, my question is one that came up today in a conversation with a bunch of my friends over coffee (yeah, we are all HP fans here…I was stupid enough to pick up the book at midnight and spend the rest of the night and the next day reading through it :stuck_out_tongue: ). How can JKR possible wrap up this series in one final book?? I just don’t see how she can do it…not without either rushing through the end of the story by cutting out a lot of the character interaction that makes the story so fun, deciding not to tie up the myriad loose ends out there (I suppose she could just ignore them and just plow through to the climatic battle scene we all know is coming), or writing a monster 5000 page final volume. The consensus of my friends was that she should just bite the bullet and back off her claim that this will be the final book…basically just state that it will take as many books as it takes to do the series justice.

I figure she COULD wrap things up in 2 more books…maybe 3. But one? I’m not seeing it. Especially since it seems to me that book 6 didn’t really push the story forward that much, nor tie up a good percentage of the existing loose ends or mysteries…while adding several new ones to the mix.

So, for discussion: How COULD JKR wrap up this series in one final book and yet keep in the character interaction/development that made the earlier books so charming and fun? How could she tie up all the loose ends (or at least a significant percentage of them) in one book while also pushing the story towards its climax with the final confrontation between Harry and the big V? How big would you estimate the final book would have to be in order to accomplish all that…and what things do you suppose you might see (or want to see) in order to feel that the end of the series did justice to the overall story? Finally, how many also feel that trying to cram in all this stuff into one last book is not practical? And if so, how many books do you suppose it would take to wrap things up nicely?

As an aside anyone think there might be a sequel (assuming Harry survives)?

-XT

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I’m pretty stressed about the same thing. And I’m pretty sure she’s going to go back on her word about no prequel, sequel.

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I think the main issue is that a lot of fans see some things as “loose ends” that are really just background details that don’t need to be explained further (like Neville’s mother and the gum wrappers).

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It’s an interesting thought, but she’s been saying forever that the whole story fits into seven books.

Now, who’s to say that JKR’s “whole story” is what HP fans would consider the “whole story”? My guess is there’ll be a lot of things that aren’t wrapped up neatly. Life is like that.

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I swear I read somewhere that she recently said that she might be writing more than the original plan for 7 books. Not necessarily in the series, but in the universe.

Can anyone confirm that?