And still more Deathly Hallows yammering, again, below the cut for any slow readers in our midst...
I read something earlier in the week to the effect of it being obvious that Harry was going to survive if you thought about it for more than two seconds. To which I'd add, "and less than two hours." Like I said before, that would violate pretty much every expectation for this kind of story. I wandered back over to Slate last night and one of the book clubbers there actually admitted that he'd changed his mind about Harry dying in book 7. And I think he summed it up pretty well -- how can Harry die for being good? And who would want to read that book, or read it to their kids?
Ms. Pants blogged about a JKR interview in which she tossed some meat to the hordes of screaming fans, specifically letting on as to what Harry, Ron and Hermoine are up to career-wise. I particularly like that Hermoine (despite protests otherwise) has ended up in Magical Law Enforcement and assume that decision might be related to her experiences inside the Ministry in book 7.
I wonder if the desire to know about the later careers of the characters was as strong in other countries as in the US. It's an old cliché (but one that non-Murcan friends have confirmed) that "what do you do?" is much more of a widespread conversational trope here than it is in other countries.
I was curious about what they ended up doing, but I was comfortable with JKR leaving it to our imaginations. I don't think that she's responsible for knotting up all the loose ends--I that's asking a bit much. Besides, what if she later changes her mind about the whole "no pre-quels or sequels" thing?
I listened to a podcast today (sorry, can't remember where) in which they opined that JKR left so many things open because she wanted to give the fan fic writers something to work with. But I think it's because it just would have been a drag to write such a summary, and it would have been bad literature.
I still want to know what happened to Florean Fortescue, though! I'm not sure why this is so important to me. Was Voldemort dissatisfied with a banana split at some point? Or did he require the services of a skilled sundae maker?
my impression was that the shopkeepers on diagon alley had packed up, closed up, and generally hightailed it outta dodge. sorta like occupied paris. hopefully, florean fortescue now has a successful gelato shop somewhere in tuscany.
Yeah, I was happy with the way it ended--their jobs weren't important, their families were.