What I don't want to see in the next HP book

[pegkerr]

I've seen several discussions on LJ about how Dumbledore isn't really dead, how he and Snape faked his death between them, how the phoenix arising from Dumbledore's pyre indicates that he'll come back somehow. And I gotta say this:

horsepucky.

I sure hope Rowling doesn't try anything like that.

What I have appreciated about her work is that she doesn't sugarcoat hard truths. Sometimes life is unfair. You have to choose between what is right and what is easy. It is your choices that make you. Parents die. Children need to be protected, but sometimes they are not.

I loved Dumbledore, but I do not want to see him back. I am much more interested in seeing how Harry stands on his own two feet without him. I would be surprised to see Rowling lose her nerve at this point.

Don't do it, Jo.

Comments

[aimeempayne.livejournal.com]

I believe, like Obi Wan, he will be available for advice. Probably via his portrait in the headmaster/mistress' office at Hogwart's.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

As one of the people who said, energetically, "Phoenix!", I'd like to explain.

I really don't want Dumbledore back. You're entirely correct, Rowling's been good with hard truths, and Harry's got to be the one doing the heavy lifting, next book.

I just can't see all these mentions of a Phoenix and no payoff. It would make lots of sense if the phoenixed Dumbledore was Mysterious and Not All There or... something. Or a portrait. Or whatever.

(Although admittedly, the Phoenix in Rowling's world seems to mean something different from the usual mythology.)

[genealogygirl.livejournal.com]

Peg, I couldn't agree more! I think it's critical to the storyline and to the underlying messages that Dumbledore remain "properly dead." She has said categorically that magic can't bring back the dead, and I was glad she didn't do this with Sirius (and can't imagine Dumbledore being anymore apt to become a ghost than Sirius was -- not the man for whom death is just the next great adventure). No, I think he's dead.

I do wonder if perhaps the member of the Order of the Phoenix that we've not met properly though might not be Fawkes himself.

Then again, my theories are more apt to be wrong than not!

This is Penny, btw (I chose a moniker for LJ-land that reveals none of my real name ----- a first for me!).

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

We've got the portraits in the headmaster's office set up already--my guess is that he will be there (we did see him sleeping in his portrait at the end of 6) and moving between it and perhaps portraits at the HQ of the Order of the Phoenix, or at the Ministry.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. I hope she doesn't buckle.

It occurred to me that the phoenix might be Dumbledore's Patronus departing, which might indicate a greater mystery, and suggesting that the Patronus is actually an ethereal manifestation of one's soul -- a mini-out-of-body experience.

This, for me, gets into Egyptian and other cultures' ideas of the soul as having multiple parts, which may be too complicated/convoluted a concept for JKR to try to present.

[kate_nepveu]

Agreed. It's thematically all wrong and out of character besides.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

It seems pivotal to me that Dumbledore's counterproposal to Draco was killing the entire Malfoy family. It is completely aggrivating that Draco didn't think to challenge this ludicrous suggestion and get some more information for us. But it is at least clear that death is not the end in at least some instances and certainly not Dumbledore's (_because_ Snape killed him instead of one of the other Death Eaters).

If I had to guess, I'd say that the secret actions of everyone we've seen die will be the solution to half of the mysteries in Book 7. I'm girding myself for the probability that Sirius will return. But more than Dumbledore, I'm afraid that James and Lily will come back.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I also agree that he needs to stay dead (as I also believed Sirius needed to stay dead). I don't think he'd be a portrait if he weren't really dead, and I do not subscribe to the Dumbledore-as-a-phoenix theory at all. The phoenix might come back, but I think Dumbledore's participation is/should be the portrait, and in a limited function, at that. Harry needs to do this on his own.

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

Ditto. After all that Jo has said on the subject of death being permanent (not mention Dumbledore's own statements on how death is not to be feared in many situations) I don't think she'll go there.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

This has been discussed on my Yahoo group, and, wishful thinking aside, just about everyone agrees that Jo has been hitting us over the head with he's gone, he's not coming back, it's not a red herring, sorry, but it's true. There are at least three big reasons why He's Gone: 1) his portrait is already hanging in the head's office (there seems to be some sort of charm that automatically takes care of that after a person's death); Snape is not dead himself, implying that he did in fact either successfully carry out his part of the Unbreakable Vow or that Dumbledore died for some other reason (the potion in the cave, the fall from the tower)--but no matter how you look at it Snape is released from the vow because Dumbledore is dead; and 3) Harry was released from the spell keeping him from moving upon Dumbledore's death (the spell was being maintained by Dumbledore and without him being alive to keep it up he was freed).

Why should she bang away at this with so many things pointing to the death if it's just a ruse? There's no reason to believe that it is. Fawkes was mourning Dumbledore, and I believe we'll see him again when someone (probably Harry) voices his utmost loyalty in Dumbledore and needs help, but that's it.

And yeah, there were some definitely LOTR overtones in the episode where they went to the cave, Dumbledore came over all Galdalf-ish while looking for the entrance, and then the dead bodies under the water... But that doesn't mean he's coming back, I'm afraid. (Not to mention Kreacher is feeling more and more Gollum-like to me--I really DON'T like him, and I'm not even channeling Samwise Gamgee.)

[dreamflower]

As one who *does* believe his return is foreshadowed, that does not necessarily mean I believe he will return as a deus ex machina to fight Harry's battles for him. Instead I believe that he will not return until the very end, perhaps after Harry has accomplished what needs to be done. Or Harry may have to go it alone--even without Ron and Hermione--at the end (as he did in Sorceror's Stone) and Dumbledore will be there to help Ron and Hermione with *their* end of the battle. And I believe his return will be temporary and brief, as he sets his benediction on whatever future Harry is destined to have after the fall of Voldemort.

There are all sorts of scenarios that allow for his presence without his interfering with Harry's own destiny as "Chosen One". I just don't think JKR will waste all the foreshadowing she has done on this. And I don't think it would be a cop-out, but something she has carefully planned from the get-go. This is not a writer who writes by the seat of her pants, or who deviates much from the courses she has originally chosen. And so far all the clues and hints she drops in earlier stories have eventually borne fruit.

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

If Snape had given Dumbledore a potion or something, I could see the groundwork for a return. But shooting him in the chest with Avada Kedavra and then throwing him off a tower... I think that's the author's subtle hint that the guy may be done for. ;)

[aerden.livejournal.com]

My bet is that Dumbledore will return only as his portrait, in which case he will be able to help in only a limited capacity, since I doubt that Harry will be allowed into the headmaster's office as often under the new headmaster (whoever it may be) as he was allowed into it when Dumbledore was there.

I too don't want Dumbledore or Sirius to return to life. That was the one thing I despised about Star Trek, that it copped out on this point by allowing Spock to return to life.

Interestingly, I see Dumbledore's death as more 'necessary' to the story than Sirius' was. Killing off Sirius seemed to be to be more of a coming of age experience, whereas Dumbledore's death serves the dramatic purpose of moving the hero from apprenticeship into full (we hope) maturity to enable him to fight his enemy.

I suspect that another death will happen in Book #7, aside from Voldemort's--and that is Snape's. I don't see how Snape can get through that book without having to sacrifice himself in some way. It is the only way short of showing up with Fawkes that he can ever rebuild his reputation with the Order, and if he truly is Dumbledore's man, then I think he and/or Dumbledore would want it to be made known, somehow. I'll look forward to seeing what happens.

Chantal