Who will go????????????

Question

What are your views on what's sweeping the net about the final Harry Potter book. JKR is killing off 2 main characters and our boy Harry may be one of them.I'm already having chest pains!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who do you think will go??? I think it will be Hagrid and Professor Snape.(Poor Robbie and Allan) Luv to hear your views!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

Your having chest pains? Cool!

Answer 2

Im thinking it will be either Ron or Hermione and then one of the teachers , most likely Snape. ALthough it does sound like she already decided that Harry will die for sure, Im still not convinced...

Answer 3

I bet Harry will go because that's how some authors end their books is by killing off the main character. I don't have a clue as to who the other person is......

Answer 4

I think Voldy and Ron or Neville

My DH thinks Voldy and Snape "saving the kid's butt again"

I have a lot of book 7 theories on my HP website
http://rpccstudent.tripod.com/

Answer 5

Welll, i have a feeling it is going to be mrs weasley, now i havent put much thoguth into it but notic ehere every one who has loved harry(like relaly loved acept them as family almost) has died
dad
mom
dumbledore
siruis
all one by one,
and mrs weasley always is loving harry feeding him,getting him places almost liek a mom. I THINK dumbledore IS NOT DEAD BUT i do belive he will die in the begining or middle of the 7th book,im 50/50.
as for ron and hermoine i belive they will live.As for harry ,i have a feeling AND voldemort will both die, I THINk, because when u think about it, ROWLING is ending the series when the studdents are still teeanagers,children forsay, WHY would rowling stop, but then i KNOW rowling in an interview she said that their will be an epilogue ( a chapter saying what the students do with their lives) so i guess harry could live, but i have a feeling that he will die with voldemort, or wormtail will save hime because if u remmeeber in the 3rd book the prisoner of askaban that he saved wormtails live(harry did on accident of course by letting him go cuz he was a mouse ) and dumbldore said that worms tail must do something in return, because saving a life etc.(* i dont really remmeber)but if i had 2 say 2 people

harry, AND voldemort
u might think whats the point of reading them then?, but wouldnt that be a great ending and great ending .2 of the most powerfulest wizards both dying one for good and one for evil i think it would be a sad, but cool ending.
But ron ,might die-Ron, hermoine loves harry, but ron is harrys true best friend and loves him more.
Fawkes as a possible reference to the Holy Spirit (as he is a creature of fire, plus in the scene of Jesus' baptism, the Holy Spirit descends on him in the shape of a bird - sure it's a dove, but still a bird) Jesus said to his disciples that the Holy Spirit would come to them when facing prosecution and help them say the right things. Well, Fawkes has a knack of coming to Harry's aid in desperate situation (facing the Basilisk in CoS, "Priori Incantatem" in GoF (only song here though)) and helping him sort things out. I don't have any problems throwing him into the whole Trinity parallel. :-) (thanks Gwen)
Continuing with the whole "twelve disciples" thing: Trelawney "prophesised" in OotP that Harry would get twelve children. Could be a coincidence. Or not...

Okay, enough on that. Now, let's go on with today's article: Why Ron is probably gonna get the axe before it's all over.
Let's start with killing off one myth: the Ollivander's anagram. Sure, it spells out "Ronald lives" if rearranged. It also spells out "Ronald's evil" though, so I don't think that's any guarantee our little redhead is going to make it through…

There are two main reasons (and a bunch of smaller ones) to why I think that Ron will die. Of course, I don't want him to - it would be completely horrible - but I didn't want Sirius to die either and he did, so I figure, better be prepared for the worst, eh?

Reason 1: The Stupid Joke

Those of you who frequent the HP Sleuth page are familiar with the theory that when Ron makes a joke, it usually turns out to come true. I know that Galadriel Waters writes about this in her books too, but since I haven't read them, I can't make any parallels. I could repeat all the HP Sleuth arguments regarding Ron, jokes and fortune telling, but since it's already online, I'll just refer you to the HP Sleuth page instead.

To the point. In OotP, Ron makes a very stupid joke indeed: "And from now on, I don't care if my tea-leaves spell die, Ron, die - I'm just chucking them in the bin where they belong" (p. 633). What bothers me here is not only that it's one of Ron's jokes, but that the "die, Ron, die" is emphasised by being put in italics. JKR could have not done this. She could have used quotation marks instead, or nothing at all for that matter. Also, the word "die" is duplicated and put around the word "Ron", surrounding it. It doesn't look too good…

Reason 2: McGonagall's Chess game

This is a theory that I received quite some time ago from Dora and Gally. Clumsy in general as I am, I lost their e-mail address, so I couldn't write them back about it. I'll just hope that they don't mind me using it. :-) Everything in italics is part of the message they sent me. (The passage is PS p. 204-206 UK paperback edition by the way.)

"Rowling always had a good sense of humour ;-). She described the Second Wizard War in the McGonagall's chess game. The chessmen (chessmen, figures...how strangely she describes them, like real people, not like pieces of stone) are black (Aurors) and white (Death Eaters). The white figures are scary, cus they are "faceless" (white terrible masks of Death Eaters)
"Harry, Ron and Hermione shivered slightly -- the towering white chessmen had no faces."

Then let's take a look at this:

"Well, Harry, you take the place of that bishop, and Hermione, you are next to him instead of that castle."
"What about you?"
"I'm going to be a knight," said Ron."

That's a very strange choice, isn't it? Ron is very good at chess, he must knew, that it's better to be a king, because kings can stay until the end of the game without being taken, and they are the ones, who command. It would be much more logical and safe to be a king. But Rowling likes symbolism, and everything in this chess game is symbolical. Ron IS a knight, because this redhead boy is pure in heart and brave as a real knight. He never was a king, or a commander."

Insert Maline: I agree with this. Ron is really the ideal Gryffindor, and in turn the ideal knight (see NT 20 for arguments on this). Even his hair is the Gryffindor colour (or almost) :-)

"Hermione is a castle, because castle walks straight, and Hermione is quite a "straight" person. Harry is a bishop because bishop is the figure that is very close to the King (Dumbledore). Harry is also not "straight" like Hermione, he prefers "to walk diagonally," because he's self-effacing and a little secretive (like confessors (bishop))."

Insert Maline: I'd rather compare the "walking diagonally" to Harry's disrespect for rules and willingness to cross some lines for a good cause, but sure…

"Then the game (WAR) begins...

"Their first real shock came when their other knight was taken. The white queen smashed him to the floor and dragged him off the board, where he lay quite still, facedown."

Bellatrix Lestrange murdered Sirius Black."

Insert Maline: this is an excellent point. Especially when you take a look at how much alike Ron and Sirius are. Both brave, both a bit reckless, Ron is Harry's best friend, Sirius is James' best friend, both tend to act without really thinking things over (contrast: Hermione and Lupin) and so on. From what we know of Sirius, he's definitely a knight, too (e.g. Hagrid: "he died in battle, an' tha's the way he'd've wanted ter go" OotP, p. 753), he fits the parallel perfectly. So does Bellatrix Lestrange as "the White Queen". In her trial (GoF), she is said to be sitting in her chair as if it were a throne, and there's definitely something regal in the way she is portrayed. Furthermore, she's the only prominent female Death Eater, and one who's totally loyal to Voldemort at that. If Voldemort is the white king (just think of his complexion), then surely Bellatrix is his queen. (Her husband is barely mentioned.)

"Every time one of their men was lost, the white pieces showed no mercy. Soon there was a huddle of limp black players slumped along the wall. Ron himself darted around the board, taking almost as many white pieces as they had lost black ones."

"The war plot of the sixth book. Aurors and Death Eaters are dying, many of them. Mrs Weasley wasn't being silly. Book 6 spoiler."

"Yes..." said Ron softly, "It's the only way... I've got to be taken."
"No!" Harry and Hermione shouted.
"That's chess!" snapped Ron. "You've got to make some sacrifices! I take one step forward and she'll take me -- that leaves you free to checkmate the king, Harry!"
"But --"
"Do you want to stop Snape or not?"
"Ron --"
"Look, if you don't hurry up, he'll already have the Stone!"
There was no alternative."

Ron sacrifices himself to let Harry kill Voldemort. There is NO alternative, he has to die anyway. The book 7 spoiler.

"He stepped forward, and the white queen pounced. She struck Ron hard across the head with her stone arm, and he crashed to the floor - Hermione screamed but stayed on her square - the white queen dragged Ron to one side. He looked as if he'd been knocked out."

Bellatrix Lestrange murders Ron Weasley.

"The white king took off his crown and threw it at Harry's feet. They had won. The chessmen parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear."

Harry kills Voldemort and survives. The Second Wizard War ends.

Additional information:

During the chessgame, the author writes:

"Twice, Ron only just noticed in time that Harry and Hermione were in danger."

What's going to happen in Books 6 and 7 with the trio? Where are they going to go, how are they going to be in danger? Something wicked this way comes."

I just love when people send me things like this. Personally, I find it mind-blowing. Thank you so much girls!
I want to add a few things to this theory:

1) "Their first real shock came when their other knight was taken /.../ 'Had to let that happen,' said Ron, looking shaken. 'Leaves you free to take that bishop, Hermione, go on'"

This could refer to something I think is important to the plot as a whole: some things need to happen. Sirius had to die for some reason, or several reasons, and one might be included in this line: the capture of Lucius Malfoy (and the other DEs). As was pointed out above, Harry is a fitting bishop because he's close to the king and he doesn't hesitate to disregard rules (i.e. not "walk straight") when it serves his interests. Malfoy is quite similar if you think about it, he also disregards rules and laws for "the greater good;" it's just that "the greater good" is two very different things for the two men, and Malfoy is very close to Voldemort (who'd be the white king). Now, of course things didn't happen exactly as in the chess game, some things have to be taken symbolically. Meaning that it wasn't Ron who decided Sirius should die (Rowling did), Hermione didn't capture Lucius and it wasn't because Sirius died that Lucius was arrested (it was because Dumbledore showed up with the rest of the Order). The fight in the DoM allowed for both things to happen, like the chess game allowed for the corresponding "game deaths" to occur. If you look at the structure of this passage (the game of chess), you'll notice that the timeline is very straight. The game progresses all the time and has a definite start and finish point. The HP series works in a similar way. There are flashbacks and some foreshadowing to be sure, but the plot is basically one of progression. It's like building a tower of Lego: you start from the bottom and work your way up, and you need all the pieces to get to the top.

What do I want to say her? That everything in JKR's books happens for a reason and the fun part is to try and figure out what that reason may be. I think that Lucius needed to be exposed as a DE to get things moving. Acting in the shadows is a slow process and the story needs action to get to the end. Solution: Lucius goes to prison and leaves room for Draco and Narcissa to take a step forward. This also gives him (Lucius) freedom to act in the open as he has very little to lose now that his cover as a good respectable man has been blown. Could turn interesting.

Reason 3 - The thing Harry would miss the most

When writing "Beyond the Veil" (NT 9), I started thinking about how Sirius's death could be of use to the plot as a whole and came up with the following thoughts:

1) Voldemort fears death more than anything ("There's nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!" OotP) and thinks that this is the worst thing in the world.

2) Voldemort doesn't know love (that we know of, but I think it's a fundamental trait to his character, so I'll just suppose he doesn't).

3) Harry loves a lot of people and Sirius's death, in combination with Voldemort possessing him, seems to have made him realise that there are worse things than death. In fact, it's at the moment when he, to get away from the pain and out of love for Sirius, embraces death that Voldemort can no longer keep his power over him.

This leads me to believe the following: Harry needs to stop fearing death in order to destroy Voldemort. He needs to know two things: that there are things in the world worth dying for and that he no longer has anything (or very little) to lose in this world. He's already lost his parents and the closest thing to a father he's ever known. What could he possibly lose to make his ties to the world thin enough not to fear death? Ron, of course. The thing he would most miss according to whoever did the choosing of the hostages for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament.

If Ron were to die, Harry would have a lot less reason to "stick around" himself, especially if we take into account that a lot of other people that he cares about will die too (all the lost pieces on the chessboard, plus Trelawney's prophecy that the Dark Lord would rise to be more terrible than ever before). He'll soon have most of the people he loves on the other side of that veil in the DoM, and seeing how drawn he was to it even before Sirius died, he'll probably want to go through it himself in a book or two. (Also, remember whose name he first spoke when hearing the voices behind it - Ron's.) In the chess game, it's the taking of the last knight (Ron) which enables Harry to kill the king (Voldemort), and I have a feeling that these two events might be linked a lot more closely than the taking of the first knight (Sirius) and the taking of the bishop (Lucius). I think that Ron needs to die for Harry to defeat Voldemort.

What I'd really like to do in order to give this whole theory some substance is to look though the books and check if there are similarities in the way JKR writes Ron and the way she writes Sirius. I've been intending to do an article on "why we should have known that Sirius would get the axe" for a long time and found some very interesting things in the structure of OotP especially. I also want to read through all JKR transcripts and find anything relating to deaths and/or Ron. Sadly, I don't have the time, so I'll have to postpone a complementary article until the end of July. If there's anyone out there who finds the subject interesting and actually does have some free time though, you're extremely welcome to look into it and send me e-mails. :-) Look especially into scenes where Harry thinks about Ron and scenes when they're separated in some way, but clues could be anywhere.... Anything supporting OR denying the theory that Ron will indeed snuff it is most welcome.
another way of explainign it- Galadriel Waters has a rule that Ron is always wrong except when he is telling a joke. And in OotP 31, he expresses his dislike with Divination by saying that he would not believe tea leaves even if they spelled out "Die, Ron, die" (p. 718 US ed.). Notice that JKR italicizes the phrase (so that we would catch it?) and surrounds "Ron" with two "die's." I don't know how she could have highlighted it any more.

Ron is not always right in his jokes (Arthur is not going to become Minister of Magic, according to JKR), but it is still interesting that JKR brought up the topic of Ron's death. He might be right this time.

It is also interesting that JKR repeats the joke in her "Fantastic Beasts" book: on the back of the first page, Harry and Ron are playing a game of Hangman when one of them writes: "You die Weasley." (Okay, JKR would probably not put a clue to the septology in FBWFT, but it is still curious that the joke is there.)

(2) Another clue that lots of people have picked up on is the chess game at the end of PS/SS (ch. 16). Ron had already demonstrated his skill at Wizards' Chess, and in the game at the end of the book, he commands the pieces and sacrifices himself so that Harry can get to the stone and defeat Voldemort. Ron says "It's the only way . . . I've got to be taken." I think in Book 7 this will be repeated for real: Ron will be a leader in the DA, and he will have to intentionally sacrifice himself so that Harry can get to Voldemort and defeat him. (Ron wouldn't be a commander in the Order at his age, but he can be a leader in the DA. I'm not sure if the fact the Luna keeps singing "Weasley is our King" is significant here, but if loony Luna is a genuine seer, it might be significant.) There is no alternative for Ron - "it's the only way." And this time he will be killed for real. In Book 1, he obviously could not die, but there is no such restriction at the end of the story. (Granted, the chess game might only indicate Ron will get hurt seriously sacrificing himself - but in the configuration of other clues I think it suggests he will die, especially if death is to be a major theme in the series.)

Chess skills are not always transferable to the real world, since the game is so abstract and analytical, but JKR did say in Book 1, when Ron was teaching Harry how to play, that Wizards' Chess was like regular chess "except that the figures were alive, which made it a lot like directing troops in battle" (PS/SS 12, p. 199). That it was like "directing troops in battle" shows what JKR thinks of the skill. He got his troops to trust him and to follow him without question (p. 199). Ron's skill in Wizards' Chess is repeated in all the books; so JKR keeps reminding us of it. Indeed, it is the only skill Ron apparently has until Quidditch half way through OotP. (But Ron definitely still needs to develop this leadership skill, his fighting skills, and in general must mature; in OotP, he is shirking his Prefect duties and both Harry and Hermione seem much more mature.)

In chess, Knights are usually sacrificed. They seldom last to the end of the game. Why didn't JKR make Ron the King or Queen where he would be relatively safe rather than a minor piece standing between his friends? (Of course, this all depends on how much JKR knows about the game of chess.) After all, he was commanding the pieces. That he took a lower-valued and more vulnerable piece between his friends must be symbolic. It is a foreshadowing of what is to come.

Also notice that PS/SS says that twice Ron only noticed just in time that Harry and Hermione were in danger - does that mean that Ron will save them in the nick of time twice over the next two books?

How much the PS/SS chess game can be worked out as a fuller analogy of what is to come is not clear; some fans see it as an elaborate, detailed code for the whole story. The faceless white pieces may represent the masked DE's (like the masked DE's in the graveyard in GoF), with the Queen (Bellatrix) being the one who kills Ron. (The DE's are white because white always makes the first move in chess.) That other pieces are lost ("You've got to make sacrifices!") suggests that other people of importance to Harry will also die. But it is Ron's willing sacrifice to help Harry that is important point of the game analogy.

(Of course, we can still ask whether the chess game is really a clue at all. Is that the kind of thing JKR would do to foreshadow what is to come? Is there anything else in the series that is such an elaborate clue?)

(3) In PoA 17 (p.334), when the dog apparently is about to attack Harry, Ron pushes Harry aside and the dog's jaws grabs Ron's arm. (Really it is Sirius going for Peter.) Later, in the Shrieking Shack, Ron says that Sirius will have to kill all three of the trio if he is going to kill Harry (p. 339). This shows Ron's willingness to sacrifice himself, and it reiterates the "sacrifice to the death" theme.

(4) In the Christmas scene in PoA 11 (228), Trelawney brings up the old superstition that when 13 people sit down to dine, the first one to get up dies. Together Harry and Ron are the first to get up (p. 230) - and that must have been deliberate on JKR's part so that we do not know who got up first.

If it had been simply one of Trelawney's loony predictions, it could be dismissed, but she does not go into one of her trances - JKR simply had her repeating an old superstition and then had Harry and Ron be the first to get up.

Twice in the books we see 13 dining at one table. In the Yule Ball dinner in GoF (419), there are 13 at the head table, but Dumbledore is the first to get up. In OotP (90), Sirius is the first to get up from a table of 13 at Black Manor but he sits down again and Ginny is the first one to actually get up and leave. But JKR does not highlight the old superstition in these two instances as she does in the PoA case - you actually have to count up the people at the tables. So I'm not sure if she meant them to be cases of 13 at a table and so they may not be counterexamples.

(5) The HP Lexicon, under "Wands," notes that Ron, like Cedric, has a wand with a unicorn hair. (The wand in question is actually Ron's second -- the one he gets in PoA.) In PS/SS, Hagrid says a unicorn is hurt to which the centaur Ronan replies that "Always the innocent are the first victims." The Lexicon then asks if Ron is next. Ron and Cedric's are only the only wands mentioned with unicorn hairs and we know what happened to Cedric.

A willow tree in Britain is a sign of death (e.g. being planted in graveyards). (We don't know if JKR is aware of this symbolism.) In CoS, Harry yells "Mind the Willow!" when Ron is driving the car and crashing into the trees, and in PoA Ron is dragged under the Whomping Willow by Sirius (who also died). That Ron's wand is made of willow can't be good. The HP Lexicon only mentions Lily as having a willow wand.

Of course, we don't know how many people have willow wands or how many of those wands have unicorn hair cores; I can't see this as a forecast of a massacre, but it is curious that JKR only mentions a unicorn core and willow wands in connection with Ron and two people who were killed by LV.

(6) Other things indirectly support this idea. At the end of Books 1, 3, and 5, Ron gets hurt badly. If this pattern continues, he is safe in Book 6 (and away from the action at the end), but in danger at the end of Book 7. Since there is no Book 8, he may not survive this time. (But does JKR really deal with such patterns? What happens to Ron at the end of HBP should be a clue.)

Even forgetting about the pattern idea, just notice that Ron helped along the way but he is never in the action at the very end of any of the books. (Hermione is in the action at the end of Book 3 and lasts longer than Ron in Books 1 and 5.) That could be a foreshadowing of his absence at the end of the series.

(7) JKR also seems to be preparing Molly Weasley for the death of at least one of her children by the Boggart scene in chapter 9 of OotP.

(8) In OotP, Harry hears some whispering behind the Veil and thinks it is Ron (774). In GoF, we know from the second task that Ron would be the person Harry would "most sorely miss" (463). Also in OotP, when Ron and Hermione are off at the Prefects' meeting, Harry has "an odd sense of loss" (184) because he had never ridden the Hogwarts Express without Ron. All this could be a foreshadowing of Ron's death. At least it creates that old, creepy sense of foreboding.

(9) JKR's response to the question about a job for Ron in her March 2004 interview is interesting. She has earlier responded to questions about Harry's future life with amusement by saying "That assumes he is going to be alive." This time she didn't do that for Harry and seemed to be suggesting that Harry will survive. But now she used that cutesy answer for Ron. Is this new answer just a trick to keep us guessing about Ron, or is it a real hesitancy not to give away an important part of the plot? It might be the latter because why else introduce this type of answer now after using it for Harry for so long?

On the other side, there is a JKR quote from an early Time Magazine interview: "It's great to hear feedback from the kids. Mostly they are really worried about Ron. As if I'm going to kill Harry's best friend. What I find interesting is only once has anyone said to me, 'Don't kill Hermione,' and that was after a reading when I said no one's ever worried about her." But why didn't she state it so unambiguously in her March 2004 interview? Why did she move from an unambiguous statement to one that is ambiguous? And even in the Time interview she may be just trying to get us to stop thinking about Ron dying, not denying it will occur.

I hope all this is just one elaborate red herring. But there are an awful lot of clues and an awful lot of effort on JKR's part. Nobody wants Ron to die. He is not just another stereotypical goofy sidekick who always gets killed off in the movies. (I'm talking about the Ron in the books, not the one in the movies.) His death would be even more of tragic if he gets the things he wanted from the Mirror of Erised scene in PS/SS (ch. 12): Quidditch captain and Head Boy, and then dies. He is now a Prefect and a Quidditch champion and is already outshining his brothers in one respect: he got an award for special service to Hogwarts in CoS. But maybe only something as traumatic as Ron's death could be the final impetus Harry needs to get the strength finally to be able to cast the Avada Kedavra spell or whatever he does to "vanquish" LV.
Again Ron is much more of a friend to harry then hermoine.
I think hagrid Might die, he always Wants to make sure harry is alright, so thats makes sense.