8/1/06 - Authors to Rowling: Don't kill Harry Potter

Bastard Man · **8/1/06 - Authors to Rowling: Don't kill Harry Potter -** 02-08-2006, 12:38 AM

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Two of America's top authors, John Irving and Stephen King, made a plea to J.K. Rowling on Tuesday not to kill the fictional boy wizard Harry Potter in the final book of the series, but Rowling made no promises.

"My fingers are crossed for Harry," Irving said at a joint news conference before a charity reading by the three writers at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

The author of "The World According to Garp" and a string of other bestsellers said he and King felt like "warm-up bands" for Rowling, who is working on the seventh and last book in the Harry Potter series, and who has said two characters will die.

King, who shot to fame in 1974 with "Carrie," said he had confidence that Rowling would be "fair" to her hero.

"I don't want him to go over the Reichenbach Falls," King said in a reference to Arthur Conan Doyle's effort to kill off fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Pressure from fans eventually led Conan Doyle to resurrect Holmes, who was found in a later story to have survived.

Rowling, a Briton whose books have sold 300 million copies worldwide according to her publishers, said she was well into the process of writing the final book.

"I feel quite liberated," she said.

"I can resolve the story now and it's fun in a way it wasn't before because finally I've reached my resolution, and I think some people will loathe it and some people will love it, but that's how it should be."

"We're working towards the end I always planned but a couple of characters I expected to survive have died and one character got a reprieve," she said, declining to elaborate.

Asked about the wisdom of killing off fictional characters, Rowling said she didn't enjoy killing the major character who died in book six -- for the sake of those who haven't read it yet she avoided naming the victim -- but she said the conventions of the genre demanded the hero go on alone.

"I understand why an author would kill a character from the point of view of not allowing others to continue writing after the original author is dead," she added, leaving the door open to the worst fears of some fans -- that Harry could die.

King recalled that when he had a character kick a dog to death in his novel "The Dead Zone," he received more letters of complaint than ever, to his surprise.

"You want to be nice and say 'I'm sorry you didn't like that,' but I'm thinking to myself number one, he was a dog not a person, and number two, the dog wasn't even real," he said.

"I made that dog up, it was a fake dog, it was a fictional dog, but people get very, very involved," King said.

Rowling noted that Irving had killed off many more characters than she had. (Irving said he makes up a "casualty list" before he starts his novels, and therefore death scenes seem like they've "already happened.")

"When fans accuse me of sadism, which doesn't happen that often, I feel I'm toughening them up to go on and read John and Stephen's books," she said. "I think they've got to be toughened up somehow. It's a cruel literary world out there."

Off with his head!!!!!!!!!!!!

*n0xescapex*

thats wackthats wack

chrome

haha do they know he's not real? haha lol

Bastard Man

I say "Off with his head!!!!!!!!!" fuck harry potter, id do em in myself if he were real, thinks he's all cool cause he knows magic and shit...........

**Boricua**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CESARE BORGIA

I say "Off with his head!!!!!!!!!" fuck harry potter, id do em in myself if he were real, thinks he's all cool cause he knows magic and shit...........

lol... she has the right to do what she pleases with the character tho, sometimes the hero does die, plus what she said its true bout somebody continuing the story or something if she dies

chrome

they all need to stfu
those people r probably gonna protest against harry being "killed" , but not against other real killers.

**Boricua**

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrome

they all need to stfu
those people r probably gonna protest against harry being "killed" , but not against other real killers.

its just people who are fans of the book series saying they would like to see the main character survive

chrome

they still need to stfu ;):D

**Boricua**

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrome

they still need to stfu ;):D

lol

**innaspace**

its her book, if the fucker dies he dies, if she wants him to smoke crack, he smokes crack, if she wants him to smack a bitch then by all means let teh mothafucka smack a btich!

they dont have the power to make her do what she doesnt wanna do

**A. Woods**

I hope she doesn't keep him alive just to please fans if it means sacrificing the integrity of a story...

but to be honest I don't really care much about harry potter

Bastard Man

Quote:

Originally Posted by innaspace

its her book, if the fucker dies he dies, if she wants him to smoke crack, he smokes crack, if she wants him to smack a bitch then by all means let teh mothafucka smack a btich!

they dont have the power to make her do what she doesnt wanna do

That's what im talking about lol, i would do just that because of people complaining, id also end the book with him becoming a male prostitute to pay off magic school.

chrome

^^^^ lololol