If I had to pick a name for it, I suppose it’d be the “Harry Potter Death Pool.” By now, unless you’ve been living under a rock or something, you’ve probably heard that someone close to Harry dies in the latest book. Given the way that my Fiancee and I are pacing ourselves by reading the book together, we’ve been able to discuss the plot without having to worry about spoiling things for each other. And, of course, one of the topics of discussion has been, “Who dies, how, and why?”
It’s gotten to the point where it’s a topic of speculation at the workplace too. There’s almost a betting pool going on at my Fiancee’s place. They’ve narrowed it down to four possible victims and there are various thematic and dramatic reasons for each one. I’m not going to get too much into the details of the choices here, mostly because I don’t want to spoil things for other folks who might want to read the book…
Actually, while I’m thinking about it, I’m gonna disable comments on this entry until after we finish the book ourselves. I don’t think anyone would deliberately post stuff like that here, but we’ve already had a close call while over at Rob’s place on Sunday… His girlfriend was reading the book and very nearly let some possibly important plot stuff slip. Fortunately, I was able to shove my fingers into my ears and start shouting “Neener-neener-neener-I-can’t-hear-you!” just in the nick of time. Not the most dignified solution, but darn effective.
Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit, but still… I don’t like having things spoiled for me. Personally, I think there should be an exception to the normal assault and battery laws to discourage those people who sit in the row behind you in a movie theater and who say, “Oh this is the part where…” whenever a new scene starts. An elbow to the forehead may be the only way to teach some people that just because you’ve seen the movie a dozen times before doesn’t mean that you need to narrate it…
But I digress.
I’m gonna try to do this with no plot spoilers, so bear with me. The pool has come down to the following four prime contenders: Dumbledore, Ron, Hagrid or Sirius. I’m leaning toward Dumbledore as the prime target, just because it’s getting toward the end of “Act II” of the arc of books, and killing him off would be a great plot complication for the characters to dig their way out from under for the rest of the series. My Fiancee thinks Ron would be a better choice because it’d add so much angst for Harry to deal with… I guess I’m more plot driven and she’s more character driven.
We’ll be reading more tonight, of course. We’ll see what develops…