In my last thread I implied that not giving the audience what they truly desire to happen until the proposed end of the franchise keeps them interested. Let’s call that the ‘hook’ for the sake of this op.
What is the ‘hook’ for the Harry Potter franchise? What has to happen for us to lose interest? The death of Voldermort? (I suspect not) finally going to live with his godfather? Or even (this would not actually surprise me) the bringing back to life of harry’s parents? Ron and Hermione becoming an item? Ron and Harry becoming an item?
All of the above?
I’m pretty sure the death of Voldemort would do it for me. As much as I love the HP series, I’m not sure I’d want to read any more once Harry graduates and Voldy is dead. Unless the series was just exceptional and complex, it would feel as if it were just being milked for cash.
Harry waking up in a comfortable bed with his mother calling him for school and his dad sitting in the kitchen and he realises that the last seven years was a dream and that he never was Harry Potter and never went to Hogwarts and Voldemort was just a figment of his imagination.
Actually if that happened I dont think I’d ever read a JK Rowling book again.
I’m not sure she has anything but Harry Potter in her, to tell the truth. I mean, it’s not like she’d HAVE to write another book as long as she lives.
-Harry wakes up, and he’s in a strange bedroom. Hearing water running, he goes into the bathroom, and finds his father in the shower.
Or
-The entire series is actually a snowglobe being held by a mentall challenged child.
Or
- Harry wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette, and everything has been a LONG dream.
It’s pretty clear that the entire series is leading up to the Big Fight Scene between Harry and Voldemorte, which only one of them will survive. And while everyone assumes and hopes that Harry’ll win (and finally destroy Voldemorte completely, never to return), this is not by any means certain. Either way, after the fight scene, you’ve got a chapter or two for tying up loose ends, and the series is over.
I thought JK annouced that there will only be the 7 books, with a possible 8th book composed of random bits and pieces organized as a ‘background encyclopedia’ for charity. So end of book 7, end of series, no ‘Harry goes to accounting school’ or anything like that.
My bet: In book 7, both Harry and Voldy die. I love a To Live and Die in LA ending.
I’m waiting for Harry to either be happy, or to die a heroic death. Either way, for the non-stop roller coaster of pain to end.
(Rowling was once asked, if she could meet any of her characters in real life for an hour, who would be? She said “Harry.” She’d like to apologize for all she’s put him through)
Someone mentioned in another thread an ironic ending for Voldemort – that is, an ending that doesn’t involve death, like having his soul sucked out by a Dementor, perhaps after achieving some form of bodily immortality. That way, he’d have his wish – never dying.
I suspect Sirius will speak from beyond the grave, but I don’t see him actually coming back to life. As for Harry’s parents, I’m pretty sure Rowling said, in no uncertain terms, they aren’t coming back. Can’t remember where I read that, though, so maybe I’m mistaken.
Ron and Hermione becoming an item? Probably. She’s setting us up for it. But then she likes red herrings, so who knows?
It’s interesting how secondary romance is to Harry’s life. A lot of the characters fan-worship him, and a lot of people like him, but I think everyone considers him a little too creepy for actual romance. That everyone-he-loves-going-away-or-dying thing he has doesn’t do much for his romantic life, and no one except Cho Chang and Ginny (and quite possibly Colin Creevey) have seriously considered him as a romantic possibility. Parvati seemed to think of him as a trophy date.
Frankly, this doesn’t bode well. Heroes who don’t find even the possibility of true love by halfway through the series are running a high risk of becoming of being slated for a heroic death. Heroes who survive usually have a girlfriend or boyfriend, husband or wife to come back to in the final touching scene.
Harry and Ron? In spite of what the slashers think, I don’t buy it. If anyone’s leaping out of the closet like a bored boggart, it’s definitely Lupin. If any of the students at Hogwarts are on their way, I’d bet on Ernie Macmillan taking Colin Creevey to the seventh-year, end-of-the-year dance, just because, frankly, those two each rate a 9.9 on the gaydar Richter scale every time they show up in one of their brief scenes. But romance is pretty secondary in her novels, so we probably won’t ever know.
It’s always seemed to me that the first four books are written in the murder-mystery style: they set someone (Snape) up as the baddie and then reveal that the baddie is someone else. And it works well.
I didn’t enjoy Book 5 as much as the previous four, but then it’s a very different book, more a continuity piece, as well as being an argument against government intervention in schools.