"All was Well"

[erastes]

I consider that, in years to come, this particular phrase will be discussed and dissected by people more educated than I, and will (if Potterfiction stays as popular) be considered to be one of the greatest literary lies ever. For me it ranks along with "All animals are created equal" and will - just as that phrase was shown to be a nonsense -lose

Comments

[mary_j_59]

Yes, the only way that horrible sentence makes sense to me is as a statement of hubris, or of black irony. Honestly, what I got out of the series - and what I was hoping for at the end - is this: Magic is not natural to humans and they should not have it. Let the other magical brethren deal with their own world and their own lives in their own way! Human beings are not capable of handling that kind of power without becoming thoroughly corrupt, so they shouldn't have to deal with it. I was fully expecting Severus Snape to survive, but lose his magic due to his injuries (and this would *not* be a punishment, but a reward! Magic certainly did him no favors) and I thought the same might happen to Harry. Seriously, I would have been pleased if the series had ended with the end of magic for humans.

As it is, I'm convinced that nothing has changed. Another Dark Lord is surely on the rise, and Albus Severus will soon be plunged into another war, just like his father and both his namesakes. That's the only way this epilogue makes sense to me.

The sad thing is that, even if I am right, and Rowling writes of the rise of another Dark Lord, I can't see a second series ending any differently. Wizards and Witches seem to be incapable of learning from experience. And yes, the way history was treated in the series merely emphasizes that.

But I also think that Rowling meant this seriously; she really does think all is well, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Because Harry is more important than anyone else, and all is well as far as he's concerned. Nobody and nothing else seems to matter to her.

[erastes]

I hope to god that she doesn't delve in this world again, but I fear that there's very very little chance of that.

You put it very well - humans are incapable of managing the power they have been gifted with (Goblins and Elves seem to have it better, even if somehow along the line, Elves got enslaved)

And yes - wouldn't it be good if it had been black irony? Although I wouldn't put it past her for her to actually interpret her own writing as such.

[gehayi]

She really DOES mean all is well. Take a look:

JKR: For a long time the last line was something like: "Only those who he loved could see the lightning scar." And that was a reference to the fact that as they were on the platform, people were milling around. And that Harry was kind of flanked by, you know, his loved ones. So they were the only ones who were really near enough to see it, even though peo-- other people were looking. And it also had a kind of ambiguity. So it was-- is the scar still really there? But I changed it because I wanted a more-- when I came to write it, I wanted a very concrete statement that Harry won. And that the scar, although it's still there, it's just-- it's now just a scar. And I wanted to say it's over. It's done. And maybe a tiny bit of that was to say to people, "No, Voldemort's not rising again. We're not going to have Part Two. Harry's job is done." So that's why I changed it.

MV: To "All was well."

JKR: "All was well.", yeah.

MV: And you knew when you came up with that line, that was it.

JKR: It just felt ... I felt a kind of [sighs]. And that-- that felt right. Yeah.... And I really wanted Harry to have some peace.

[solar_type_star]

I think it really becomes clear with those statements that "all was well" is a something written exclusively for Harry, or from Harry's POV (like the whole series -she hasn't been able to let go of that even at the very end of the series). I guess the Epilogue had such a loose 3rd person subjective POV that it was natural to assume that it was a general statement. But JKR was still inside Harry's head, thinking about Harry and what relates to him.

In that context, "all was well" is not half as ridiculous, and even understandable. But when you have created a whole wizarding world for your readers, and you've tried to keep them interested in it throughout the years so they would keep on reading what happens to it next, it's a bit short-sighted to think that the ending of the series could be exclusively about the hero's peace of mind. Especially since that peace of mind isn't directly related to the order and justice that he might or might not have brought about with his actions, as one can see even while giving Harry the benefit of the doubt.

It seems to me that if JKR had written Harry into the real world and had given him an equivalent coming-of-age/heroic storyline, we would have been satisfied with "all was well". In that case, we would have been aware that the real world goes on, and that we couldn't expect a single teenage boy to bring peace, economic balance and social reform, so "all was well" wouldn't ring like a such general, untruthful statement about the whole world, but something that applied to Harry only. And that would have been ok.

(Mmmm, getting a bit woolly there...)

[tinydundie42]

Harry Dresden could beat Harry Potter any day. And he's actually *likable*.

[dementedsiren]

I think you really have a point with she really does think all is well, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Because Harry is more important than anyone else, and all is well as far as he's concerned.

She's treating the series like a fairy tale, there at the end - the prince(ss) gets the happy family, and everyone lives happily ever after. What she doesn't seem to realize is that through the books she managed to create a terribly complex world where other things actually matter. IMO, it's something she's struggled with (and at times succeeded at) doing all along - balancing the coming of age narrative with a high-fantasy epic. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get both done well, but more often than not we either got "Harry's Story" (to the exclusion of things making sense) or "Wizarding Epic" (which totally screwed characterizations for the sake of world building). It's unfortunate, particularly when it leaves us with something like "All was well" to deal with at the end.