New Rowling interview

[pegkerr]

There's a new J.K. Rowling interview which offers quite a bit more information about the fates of various characters after the end of Deathly Hallows, beyond what is provided in the epilogue. Including, apparently, hints that a ship that she had previously rejected she is now rethinking as being possible.

Spoilers, obviously.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you. I hadn't seen this one!

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I finished last night, so I'm finally running around and reading the spoiler-laden discussions :-)

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

This makes me happy. I love the secondary characters as much as the Trio and I really do want to know what happens to them over their lives. I also want to know more about how the wizarding world recovers after Voldemort's fall.

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

Reading this makes the book seem a little less dire.

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

It really doesn't add much other then their professions. Which I'm not sure we need to know.

I do have to say I feel pretty vindicated about my predictions. I had thought Harry would have to die because of the connection to Voldie but David insisted he would survive and then it occurred to me that it was probably only important that he believed he had to sacrifice himself.
I was plesantly surprized that Dumbledore died by being foolish though we suspected that his death was planned and that Snape was in fact good the fact that he was dying anyway hadn't occured to me exactly.
I didn't like the way Snape died it does feel like he got cheated. And Once I decided he was in fact good I began to wonder how much of his meaness did he carry on with because he felt he had to to maintain his image and confidence of the Death Eaters. I thought it was pretty clear that their was more to the history of he and Lily once the scene of Potter teasing him happened and clear from his never mentioning her that he loved her.
I would have liked more of a feeling of closure with the Malfoy's and the Dursley's. In fact I think Dudley having a child who turned out to be magical would be quite fitting and of course hopefully he would have learned to be more accepting of it then his parents were.
Though Narcissa's willingness to fake Harry's death was a little redeeming for all the Malfoy's.

I thought parts of the end were beautifully written particularily from the time he realized he had to die to where he did.
She does a great job at building and maintaining suspense for a long time and there have been times in the series where I though her magical ideas were brilliantly fun and creative and yet other times especailly in the last book where the horcruxes are things that seem common and cliche and I can't help but wish she could have come up with something new.

I also kept wondering how pissed that goblin was going to be when the damn sword went missing from him in the end.

My favorite line was something about Snape and a bottle of shampoo. there was less humor in this one which is understanable though I still missed it.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I didn't like the way Snape died it does feel like he got cheated.

I don't know whether you saw the two essays I'd linked to earlier. The first one here agrees with you that Snape got a pretty raw deal. But the second one, here, points out something that that I hadn't quite seen clearly until I read it, that Snape's death led directly to Voldemort's downfall. Which, since it was his greatest goal for years, was probably what that dour Potions Master would have wished.

That being said, I thought Snape's death scene was one of the best in the book, if not the series. Ruthless and heartbreaking.

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

I certianly think the timing and reason Voldemort killed him are crucial but the way he died I thought was kind of dumb.

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

I thought Snape's death scene was one of the best in the book, if not the series. Ruthless and heartbreaking.

Same here. It was shocking, precisely because it was so ignoble and callous a way for Snape to die: nothing heroic or dramatic or obviously beneficial to The Cause.

Yet it was totally in keeping with Snape's role in the struggle to defeat Voldemort. I think he knew that he was living on borrowed time, and part of his crankiness undoubtedly came from that continual sense of living on the razor's edge. Voldemort was no more loyal to his "friends" than to his enemies, as we saw repeatedly throughout the series, and so while we might be shocked, we really couldn't be surprised.

And I don't think Snape was, either, just horrified at the sensation of a huge snake lunging for his throat, BUT ESPECIALLY at the horror that he was going to die without passing on Dumbledore's words to Harry.

I think the choice of Snape's death was brilliant precisely because it runs counter to the cause-effect "heroic/redemptive sacrifice" mold. Snape's whole adult life, post-Death Eater time in early adulthood, was one ongoing act of heroism, and his death was simply a logical outcome of that life of heroic risk. In that sense, alone, it was not in vain.

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

then it occurred to me that it was probably only important that he believed he had to sacrifice himself

I don't think it was so much that he had to believe he had to sacrifice himself, as that he was willing to risk death, if that risk was necessary in order to kill off the fragment of Voldemort's soul that had lodged within him. There is a crucial difference: the one makes sacrifice itself "redemptive" or "effective," whereas the other makes love the "redemptive" or "effective" force that makes the difference. Willingness to risk or sacrifice thus becomes a consequence of love, but it is love, not loss, that has the power.

[cheshyre]

I saw another interview (forget the link) which says the character she reprieved from her original draft of the finale was Arthur Weasley who was supposed to die in Book Five.

I'm glad she did.

Had Mr. Weasley died, the Weasley household would've been much grimmer, losing that necessary lighter aspect in the darker books. Also, had it been from the snake attack, it would've increased Harry's guilt...

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Precisely what wizards do in the world -- besides government, education and sport -- is never spelled out well. Is there a wizard college? Law school? Fast-food? Clergy?

I'm glad Harry's an Auror, though internally Rowling strongly suggests that one would have to have finished school and get further education to be one.

In some ways, I don't want to know. The seven books stand alone as a story. In other ways, I want the equivalent of LotR's appendices, with lots of detail.

I hope Rowling doesn't get caught in the hype. Everything she does from now on will be weighed against the Harry Potter books, and she needs to step away from the teaming hordes.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

I was a little appalled at her referring to McGonagall as "getting up there". Wasn't McGonagall only in her 70s? I thought she was a contemporary of Hagrid and Tom Riddle. And the 70s certainly aren't "getting up there" in wizarding terms. They're practically prime of life.

Sigh.

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

It pleases me to think that Professor McGonagall saw another generation of Potters and Weaseleys growing towards Hogwarts age and thinking "Screw this, I'm going to find a nice cottage in the middle of nowhere and write for the next fifty years."

I have been wondering what all of this and that is going to do to C.S. Lewis' "Susan problem", which strikes me as more defensible than what Tonks (and now McGonagall) were forced to endure at the hands of their author.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Harry and Ron in the Auror Dept. Check

Hermione in Legal. Check

I seem to have missed what it is that Ginny's doing professionally?

[bluewaterlilies.livejournal.com]

My husband asked the same thing. I told him she was a professional breeder. ;)

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

I had rather hoped that Harry and Ron ended up joining George in the magical pranks business. ;-) They needed a bit of lighter fare after seven years of battling Pure Eeevul.

I totally agree with Rowling's choice to keep the Epilogue short and sketchy. Much more effective than drowning us in detail, and she gave us the one crucial detail we needed to wrap the story of Harry's Coming-of-Age (which I will discuss when I finally pull my thoughts together and post them on my LJ). Three cheers for Hemingway's Iceberge Principle!

[ceelee.livejournal.com]

I think JKR knew by having Snape's death being controversial it would stir us all up! Think of the discussions it has generated!

I like the epilogue being a bit sketchy...too much info would have been overkill. I am so glad she included an epilogue because it would have left us all feeling lost and unhooked at the end. Also the reader can make up their own endings.