back with Harry (part 7 [beta])

We are less than a week before the release of The Deathly Hallows, so I may as well commit to and throw in my predictions.

1) Harry won't kill Voldemort.
By the rules of the universe as laid out in The Lord of the Rings, good never defeats evil, it's always evil that defeats itself: Aragorn doesn't break Sauron, Gollum (inadvertantly) does; Gandolf doesn't kill Saruman, it's Wormtongue who knifes him in the back. In The Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore exclaims in this direction: "Voldemort himself created his own worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!"

Of all Voldemort's minions, I think the one most likely to finish him is Peter Pettigrew. Pettigrew is pathetic and sniveling, cutting off his own hand to ressurect the Dark Lord, and being rewarded with insults and Crucio curses. Also, at the end of the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dumbole says that Harry may one day be glad that he spared Peter's life. And it is worth remembering that Pettigrew's nickname is Wormtail, which is just one body part from Wormtongue. All that said, it would also fit Tolkien's model if Snape, Draco, or Narcissa Malfoy killed Voldemort instead.

2) Ron and Hermoine will hit it.
I've always wanted a love triangle between Harry, Ron, and Hermoine, but it ain't happening. I'll live.

3) Hermoine will return to Hogwarts as a teacher.
Don't know if Rowling will do a "Here's how everyone turned out!" chapter, but it'll somehow be implied that Hermoine is on track to be a Headmaster one day.

4) R.A.B. is Regulus Black.

5) The final Horcrux will be Harry himself, or his scar.
Harry may have to die to destroy this, or at least he will offer his death. I don't have an official prediction on whether Harry will croak.

6) Snape will redeem himself.
After rereading the series, I think it's obvious that Snape is with the good guys. He killed Dumbledore because of the Unbreakable Vow and because Dumbledore asked him to. Dumbledore died to save Draco, and Snape followed his Headmaster's orders. As mentioned above, I wouldn't be surprised if it was Snape who killed Voldemort; I also wouldn't be surprised if Snape somehow died to save Harry.


Note that many of these ideas weren't originally mine. My former coworker M. came up with the Harry-as-Horcrux theory the day after The Half-Blood Prince came out, and the Pettigrew-kills-Voldemort theory came from a random guy I met in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

back with Harry (part 6)

For an aspiring writer, a great workshop lesson from The Half-Blood Prince is that, with many and diverse supporting characters, an author can portray most inner conflicts externally, and can thereby render them more vividly and viscerally.

Harry is, in my opinion, a sophisticated and multi-layered character. At the same time he rarely has to torture out ideas or feelings from solitude. His frustrations surface through Draco, his loyalty through Dumbledore, his warmth and humor through the Weasleys...Luna carries his goofy moods, Hermione his better judgment...And Rowling takes this a step further, splitting even these supporting characters into sub-characters, rendering material those slippery, elusive, and abstract feelings, which lesser authors can describe only with fug.

Example: When Harry proclaims himself "Dumbledore's man through and through," Dumbledore is moved almost to tears, and "Fawkes the phoenix let[s] out a low, soft, musical cry." Here one character (yes, I'm counting the phoenix as a character) stands for and evokes the feelings of another, dramatizing an otherwise action-less scene along the way.

A problem with the novel as an art form is that it is susceptible to mires of rumination, to explanations and re-explanations that obsess over a character's soul or brains, and forget all about her guts. Rowling never does this. One of the thousand reasons to love her: she doesn't belabor thoughts and emotions, because her characters walk and talk them for her.

celebrity crushes

Here are some famous women I spend far too much time thinking about, and how long I've spent thinking about them:

1. Jane Austen (ten years)
2. J.K. Rowling (three years)
3. Curtis Sittenfeld (one year)
4. Liz Phair (thirteen years)
5. Maria Sharapova (one year)

Here's an idea

Could a person survive on kugel alone? If anyone ever hears of an experiment looking for volunteers to test that question, find me. I'm not quite crazy enough to voluntarily eat myself sick with kugel for no good reason, but if I could voluntarily do it for the sake of science, it would be a pleasure. Kugel. It's what's for dinner.