Nine Predictions for the 7th Book
Good evening, folks!
I've been seeing people fearlessly post their predictions, theories and thoughts about book 7 around lately and I've decided, on a dull Sunday night, to risk being proved totally wrong, wrong, wrong too.
God knows, I don't remember ever being as astonished by a plot twist as I was when I realized Scabbers had been Peter ( Read more... )
The James-Snape connection is interesting. Very interesting. It's a good story the way you've framed it, except that it leaves Lily out--or at least relegates her to a relatively minor position in the backstory. (I'm going to be very, very unhappy if the main role of the only major female character of this generation is to help Harry forgive Snape. Oh, and, right, give her life for her son.) I'm convinced that there's something we don't know yet about Lily that will make her sense of right and wrong--set up for us so clearly in Snape's memory--significant for the plot. (Unlike you, however, I have no talent for plot, and can't even make up something interesting here, much less hazard a guess about what'll actually happen.)
About Harry's need to show mercy and redeem himself by sparing Snape's life? On board with you on this one. Completely. The only issue is how it's going to happen.
I like Sirius taking on one last role as Padfoot. I hadn't ever thought about this seriously before, but it makes a lot of sense, explaining the inconsistencies in his death (no avada kedavra, no body, etc.) without actually bring him back to life. (And as much as I'd like to see that, it doesn't seem likely.) I wasn't too concerned with his absence in book six, since JKR seems to be able to handle only one backstory at a time, and book six, like the other even-numbered books, was about the Voldemort backstory. Hmm. Trapping Voldemort behind the veil is a pretty lovely and symbolic way of disposing of him.
As for Harry and Ginny, I think you're right--given what we know about this world, I don't see any resolution to Harry's own coming-of-age story except a pairing with someone who'll allow him to do what his parents didn't have the chance to do--raise a family happily. This is where the conservatism of the books really comes out for me. *sigh* My only hope is that there aren't too many white weddings.
Any predictions on Remus and Tonks? I'd expected a Weasley wedding or two--a way of establishing the next generation--but that came as a real surprise for me in books six. I'm not sure what plot points it's advancing, frankly.
M.
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Well, since we agree on several points, I'll address the issue of Snape, James, Lily, etc, first. Yes, you're right, my Snape/James escalating vendetta theory does rather relegate Lily to the background of the MWPP saga. And, you know, I'm afraid I can't quite put it past JKR to do a little relegating of female characters. She does, at least to me, seem to relate to her male characters a little more easily, and sometimes provides them w/ a bit more ... soul ... than the women. There are moments in every work of fiction that sort of transcend skill and overall writing quality, emotional moments of truth, where a reader gets a sudden sense of seeing into the author's heart for a moment, and recognizing what one sees there because it is also in one's own heart. For example, when Harry first stands before the Mirror of Erised - that is one of those moments in HP, IMO. Anyway, such moments in HP more often involve the men than the women. And then, just as you've mentioned, there certainly are marked conservative elements in JKR's wizarding universe. In her constant examination of various permutations of family, one notices that most of her "families" are pretty traditional and heteronormative (although, to be fair, some of the ad hoc families, like the trio and the Marauders, are a bit less cookie-cutter and present more radical forms).
Still, perhaps Lily is not quite as relegated as it appears. If we consider Harry and LV to be parallel, then maybe we could consider their respective mothers, Lily and Merope, to be parallel as well. And if that's the case, then Merope set the entire saga in motion via her choices - we could say that Merope's "original sin" was the alpha of the saga. And Lily, via her choice to sacrifice herself for her son, is the omega - she set the entire resolution of the saga in motion. In a way, even though it's mostly the men who are running around acting and reacting and so on, it is really the choices and actions of these two women that shaped the HP universe as we know it. Two mothers, that is, and it seems to me that "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" would not be an unlikely observation for JKR to make. Anyway, if Harry really does sacrifice himself to save the world (and I am 90% certain he will) he would actually be emulating his mother, not his father, by so doing.
On Lupin/Tonks, I am just not sure what to think. Tonks' development in HBP was and remains pretty baffling to me. I do get the same "something fishy here" feeling about her that I did about the Veil, really, though I haven't been able to hit on any organized explanation. It's hard for me to accept that she had become SO devoted to Lupin that she lost her powers, something that apparently only happens in response to a great shock or to a great love frustrated, in just a few months. I could accept depression and all the rest as believable effects of being strung out over a particularly frustrating man like Lupin, but the loss of ability to morph still sticks for me. On the whole, I guess I think there is more to that plotline than meets the eye, but I don't know what it is. On the other hand, I'm never certain if there are elements there I personally just can't see, because of my highly developed R/S bias.
Weddings? Yep, Bill and Fleur (though if I was the writer, I'd kill the newly proved-to-be-a-decent-human-being-despite-her-beauty Fleur off to wring some really BIG tears out of the readers), and Ginny as well, of course. Ron and Hermione seem like a done deal too, and yet ... I dunno, I also just have one of those feelings about that potential wedding and think maybe we can look for an upset there.
And, of course, I'm also a HUGE Crookshanks/Mrs. Norris shipper, (though Crookshanks' heart of hearts is clearly given to Sirius) and I am hoping for kittens!
Always a pleasure to answer your questions, Maggie, and thx again for dropping by my foray into the Noble Art of Divination!
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