Hagrid's a Goner in Book 7
| This has just been hitting me. Having set things up in book 4 with Cedric's "return to the earth," as I have been talking about, this opens the path for books 5-7 to be the black, white and red stages of Alchemy ... and it all happens with death. In book 5 Black dies, in book 6 Albus dies (I'm sticking to my guns on that one until proven wrong) , and in book 7 Hagrid will die (sorry mate, he's a goner). But this will be no ordinary death; that would not be fitting for a half-giant. I predict that the leather gloves for handling blast ended Skrewts will come off, the wand will come out of the umbrella and, like Merlin in Lewis' That Hideous Strength, the Red One (Rubeus) will go down in a gigantic heart,soul and blood display of courage that was foreshadowed in the fight at the hut witnessed from atop the Astronomy tower in book 5. This death will pack a wallop for the dark side. I realize that, unlike Hagrid, in this particular instance I am merely a dwarf (maybe a garden gnome LOL) standing on the shoulders of Giants. Granger was the one who predicted the death of Albus as the white stage etc and I am only building on that (and my apologies if he has already addressed the red stage as Hagrid's death and I missed it ... a lot of reading to do in a busy schedule such as I have at the moment), but hopefully I will have contributed at least something unique in the prediction of how our large hearted friend (who will be missed terribly) will go down in a blaze of glory. |
Comments on "Hagrid's a Goner in Book 7"
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jkr2 said ... (February 07, 2006 3:40 PM)
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Anonymous said ... (February 07, 2006 5:03 PM)
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Pauli said ... (February 08, 2006 11:48 AM)
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Merlin said ... (February 08, 2006 12:25 PM)
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Merlin said ... (February 08, 2006 12:28 PM)
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Merlin said ... (February 09, 2006 1:54 AM)
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post a comment*fingers crossed* "please no, please no, please no..."
i read that and totally see how it is a possibility. i am heartened and hopeful, though due to the reference (i am sure i read this from the little granger i have read) that unlike the first and second stages of the alchemic processes, it is not necessary for the red stage to end in death. rather, it is an ongoing stage.
but as horrid as this is, i would rather he dies in a blaze of loving, roaring sacrifice than harry.......
jo
I believe Rubeus "the red" is a goner in Book 7, too. Can you image what JKR will have accomplished if she sticks to the alchemy imagery and kills Hagrid? She will have single-handedly returned literary criticism, including discussions about mythology, Christian symbolism, Medieval references, etc. - the forefront, out of the stuffy, mothy old literary closet.
What a legacy she'll leave her children.
I was thinking about how although we compare JKR to the Inklings all the time, she's really kind of a loner. Not that Tolkien collaborated on Lord of the Rings, but he credits Lewis for urging him to finish the books. A lot of the ideas each of those guys had was kind of formed in the artistic crucible of their small group - Joseph Pearce and others have pointed out some of the resulting inadvertant plagiarism, e.g., Lewis's mention of Numinor (sic) in "That Hideous Strength". I don't know what the implications of that are - I know she does read some of the web pages from time to time.
Not sure what music everyone is into, but I'm pretty sure that at one point somewhere along the years Pauli told me he is NOT a huge fan of The Alarm ... but I like some of their stuff, particularly in regards to thinking about Merlin and Hagrid, I love that scene of Hagrid's defense against the assault at his hut and the music I hear in my head is that of The Alarm's "going out in a blaze of glory, going out with my head held high." (I tend to think in terms of music somtimes, and on stuff like this it is usually that guitar driven northern English/Irish 80s sound ... was listening last night to U2's "October" and "The Crossing" by Big Country)
I picture Hagrid, with the gloves off and the wand out, going down fighting for the team, maybe he and Grawp making a last valiant stand together against other giants in Voldy's service or something like that
But I think when Harry thinks of the fighting glory of "the flaming one" I think he has a different person and image ... I loved the image of how he perceives Ginny in battle when he comes down the stairs from the roof of the AStronomy tower ... with the red hair blazing and flying.
Delores Umbridge is such a stupid git ... just thinking bout that on the scene that meets Harry at the bottom of the stairs in the end of HBP and the question in book 5 "now, who do you think will be attacking you at school?"
She is a loner in a key sense. The Inklings were all decidedly steeped in pre-Shakespearian way such that they are not given as much to "drama" as such, but stick rather solely to the symbols that symbolize the drama of human psychology. Rowling, as evident her dialogue, is a post-Shakespearian writer who melds these post-modern elements with the pre-modern alchemical structure and symbolism.
Chesteron and Lewis had a very dry wit in their dialogue but Rowling is adding to that a certain psychologically gritty realism.
That is one of the things that is so exciting about Rowling, she is a new breed of writer. LaShawn is right about what she is contributing to literature through her prominence and the popularity of the series.
I believe that some day, maybe not till the "hindsight" of a hundred or two years down the road but someday, she will be recognized as being to the 21st century what Tolkien was to the 20th: the most important writer of the century.
In the wake of 400 years of Enlightenment Philosophy and modernism trends, Tolkien made the morality tale popular again (don't let me knock "Billy WiggleDagger" - aka William Shakespeare - too hard here, he is as much a medeivalist as a modernist, really a crossing ground in literary history, and drama is not all bad, as evidenced in Rowling, although I do see a point, that is good to heed as a caution, in Tolien's criticism of it).
In the 21st century Rowling is forging a new path of melding the pre-modern with the post-modern, and in my view sort of maybe avoiding some of Shakepeare's flaws in his undertaking of that venture. (some of the SP uses of myth Tolkien had the most beef with were, oddly enough, in the play Rowling has noted as her fave of all his plays: MacBeth - The "charmed captain of evil" subplot and the march of the woods on Dunestan)