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In a fascinating podcast that will actually air today, JK Rowling talks about the survival of Harry Potter. Here’s what she had to say:
JKR: In many ways it would have been a neater ending to kill him. For sure, I knew that all along. felt that the books’ overriding message was that love is the most powerful force in this world. My model with Harry really was war veterans, who have seen horrors and are asked to go home and rebuild, and go back to ordinary life and care for a family, be a father – particularly be a father – [it is] a difficult job, in troubled times. I felt it would be a betrayal of my character if I did anything other than show him doing that. And I think it’s an absolutely heroic thing to do, to go home after that, not to become a mercenary, not to live forever frozen in a time of excitement and danger, but to be mentally strong enough, to an extent physically strong enough, to return from war and to raise a new generation with values that you hope will not lead to another war. That’s massive.
Of course you can say, yes, to an extent, as ever in life, that’s the eternal paradox. What’s is most worthwhile may well be seen as slightly dull, but God knows without those people who were prepared to come home and raise the family and rebuild, help rebuild… rebuilding is much more difficult than destroying. So, I felt it was almost a cop-out, morally, to kill him. I wanted to show a man who, yeah, he went back and got his hands dirty and tried to rebuild. I liked that. And again, it made a lot of people were livid, but God knows by that time I was used to that by then!
– source
Interesting that she uses the phrase “cop-out”; of course, I know many readers thought that Harry would definitely die at the end, just because he had already gone so much and it seemed like the logical conclusion for him to die in a blaze of glory, paving the way for peace for those who came behind him. What do you think?
Personally, I’m glad he lived. After everything he’d gone through, after loosing his parents, Dumbledore, godfather, even Lupin, the last of his parent’s childhood friends – after all the torment that Voldemort had put him through, it would have been so stark to have had him die. To have him survive, to grow up and live a normal life with a family … that’s survival at its greatest.
I had mixed feelings when I saw he survived. I knew since HBP that Harry would be a horcrux so I knew he had to die and when he died and came back I was confused. It just seemed that the blood link was a weak way to make him come back. I know that the blood link is the strongest thing out there and it would have worked but we all forgot about it after GOF ended, Harry or Dumbledore never questioned the fact that Voldemort had taken his blood and what that could mean. I still have mixed feelings because well if Harry cant die while someone has his blood then shouldnt Voldemort not be able to die because Harry has his blood? I know Lilly meant for only Harry to be protected but I still wondered… I am glad he lived in the end and got to have his happy ending.