live/die
I am not going to make a list of who will live and who will die in the final book. I think Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny will all live. Voldemort and Snape will die. Beyond that? I don't bother guessing. Everyone else's fate simply depends too much on really specific turns of the plot that I don't feel like messing around with. And even though some characters certainly will die, I think the vast majority of characters will come through this just fine. There's simply not time to spend killing too many of them off, and we'd stop caring after a while if the story contains list after list of casualties.
All that being said, here are my live/die winners and runners-up in the Fairly Minor But Recurring Characters category. These aren't so much theories as characters who I'm hoping will live or die for purely emotional or strange reasons.
Please Live!
Winner: Hedwig
I never see Hedwig on people's lists of characters who might die, but I always worry about her. She's been there since the first book, which puts her in a position to be bumped off by the mirroring of the series in the last book. She'd be a death that would affect Harry emotionally without killing off a human character. JKR wouldn't rule out Harry's getting a new pet at some point, and we don't know if she meant Buckbeak. And there's always that darn Fawkes out there, threatening to be a usurper. (I love Fawkes, but c'mon. I gotta root for Hedwig here since she's, y'know, capable of dying and all.)
Mostly it's just really sad when a pet gets killed. That may sound petty when there are so many humans out there who could die, but I'm not even going to get into the human vs. animal ethics debate seeing as how all of the characters are fictional.
So here's hoping Hedwig gets left safely behind with Dobby or Ginny or Hagrid or someone, and maybe gets a contract endorsing owl treats.
Runner-up: Kingsley Shacklebolt
It's not that I've spent much time thinking about Kingsley, though I enjoyed the little of him we saw in OotP. But when the Muggle Prime Minister referred to his new secretary as "highly efficient," I swear a little cartoon heart shot up over the top of my head. I can't explain it. It's just the way I am. Here's hoping that his newfound proximity to Muggle authority doesn't make him something akin to a redshirt. Stay efficiently alive, Mr. Shacklebolt.
Please Die!
Winner: Rufus Scrimgeour
This one's kind of a cheat. It's nothing personal, Rufus.
Well... it's a little personal, since he hasn't shown himself to be of any use as Minister of Magic yet. And he wasn't nice to Harry. Or Dumbledore. Or Stan. Or Percy. Or anyone I can remember him coming into contact with, with the possible exception of Cormac McLaggen. And Cormac's a jerk, so who cares?
Okay, maybe this is a little more personal than I realized.
But before it got personal, it was mostly about saving Hagrid. Because "Rubeus" means red and "Rufus" means red. Alchemy goes black, white, red and we've already had the black (Sirius) and white (Albus) deaths. Someone with a red name is on the chopping block, and I'd rather it be Rufus.
Runner-up: Florean Fortescue
I like Florean, but the Death Eaters already have him. So what're the odds Voldemort's going to let him live anyway? He might as well die IF that means he gets to be an adorable ice-cream-peddling ghost, as discussed in the comments to The Ice Cream Man Cometh. (And yes, I did read too many Casper comics as a child. How did you know?) A ghost would be more useful to Harry, anyway. You can't have a conversation with a dead person whose soul didn't leave an imprint.
Er... Actually, maybe you can. But that's a theory for another time.
All that being said, here are my live/die winners and runners-up in the Fairly Minor But Recurring Characters category. These aren't so much theories as characters who I'm hoping will live or die for purely emotional or strange reasons.
Please Live!
Winner: Hedwig
I never see Hedwig on people's lists of characters who might die, but I always worry about her. She's been there since the first book, which puts her in a position to be bumped off by the mirroring of the series in the last book. She'd be a death that would affect Harry emotionally without killing off a human character. JKR wouldn't rule out Harry's getting a new pet at some point, and we don't know if she meant Buckbeak. And there's always that darn Fawkes out there, threatening to be a usurper. (I love Fawkes, but c'mon. I gotta root for Hedwig here since she's, y'know, capable of dying and all.)
Mostly it's just really sad when a pet gets killed. That may sound petty when there are so many humans out there who could die, but I'm not even going to get into the human vs. animal ethics debate seeing as how all of the characters are fictional.
So here's hoping Hedwig gets left safely behind with Dobby or Ginny or Hagrid or someone, and maybe gets a contract endorsing owl treats.
Runner-up: Kingsley Shacklebolt
It's not that I've spent much time thinking about Kingsley, though I enjoyed the little of him we saw in OotP. But when the Muggle Prime Minister referred to his new secretary as "highly efficient," I swear a little cartoon heart shot up over the top of my head. I can't explain it. It's just the way I am. Here's hoping that his newfound proximity to Muggle authority doesn't make him something akin to a redshirt. Stay efficiently alive, Mr. Shacklebolt.
Please Die!
Winner: Rufus Scrimgeour
This one's kind of a cheat. It's nothing personal, Rufus.
Well... it's a little personal, since he hasn't shown himself to be of any use as Minister of Magic yet. And he wasn't nice to Harry. Or Dumbledore. Or Stan. Or Percy. Or anyone I can remember him coming into contact with, with the possible exception of Cormac McLaggen. And Cormac's a jerk, so who cares?
Okay, maybe this is a little more personal than I realized.
But before it got personal, it was mostly about saving Hagrid. Because "Rubeus" means red and "Rufus" means red. Alchemy goes black, white, red and we've already had the black (Sirius) and white (Albus) deaths. Someone with a red name is on the chopping block, and I'd rather it be Rufus.
Runner-up: Florean Fortescue
I like Florean, but the Death Eaters already have him. So what're the odds Voldemort's going to let him live anyway? He might as well die IF that means he gets to be an adorable ice-cream-peddling ghost, as discussed in the comments to The Ice Cream Man Cometh. (And yes, I did read too many Casper comics as a child. How did you know?) A ghost would be more useful to Harry, anyway. You can't have a conversation with a dead person whose soul didn't leave an imprint.
Er... Actually, maybe you can. But that's a theory for another time.