We're closing in on the end of The Order of the Phoenix. And this morning - before school - I read to Julia the last two pages of the chapter where Sirius dies. It's an interesting death in that it's not bloody or violent, there's no body to recover, no corpse to weep over. He disappears behind the veil and he is gone.
And I'm wondering why Rowling chose that route. Did she think Cedric's death was enough, having that body to weep over? Was having Sirius merely fall behind the curtain a hint he could return, (even if having read book 7 we know he doesn't). Did she contemplate that? Magical deaths appear to be much cleaner than gunshots and plane crashes and knife fights - is this a somewhat sanitized version for kids as we move into the harsher books 6 and 7?
As for Julia - she knew it was coming because her friend W has filled her in on some plot points but she's trying to figure it out...coming to me tonight to find out when Dumbledore dies (yeah, he spilled that too). And she's lying in bed right now, sounding out words in one of her more age-appropriate books. Soon she'll be reading HP to herself and I'll be obsolete. And sad.
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Monday, May 5, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Getting to the Hard Part
(DANGER WILL ROBINSON: there are spoilers in the following post if you haven't read book 4 - Goblet of Fire yet.)
So we're nearing the end of book 4. As a matter of fact we had a babysitter last night and she was forbidden to read past the end of the Third Task chapter because I knew what was coming and I wanted to be around for it. I finished the Third Task chapter with Julia this morning, my brother, who is town, read her some of the next chapter today. The tough chapter. The hard chapter. The one that I haven't been wanting to think about reading to Julia.
Julia: Is Cedric dead?
And that's not even the hard question. The hard question is
Julia: Why?
How do you explain to a 5 1/2 year old about why people kill? Because even if they're magical mystical fictional people, magical mystical fictional people die almost the same way as un-magical un-mystical non-fictional people. Julia gets "dead" on a certain level. My mom passed away long before she was born and it's something we talk about a lot. But how do you explain to her about why someone would want to make someone else dead? Because that's something I don't think I will ever understand - what it takes to take someone's life.
Right now we're in the good guy/bad guy explanation. But she's going to get it soon - that this was a situation of someone who didn't value another life at all. She's going to get that Voldemort is evil. And she's going to get that if there's that kind of random horrible evil in the magical mystical fiction world, it probably exists in our not quite as interesting world. She's 5 1/2 and as much as I've tried to shield her from the horribly disappointing revelation that there are some people in the world who operate as if they are without souls it's seeping into her consciousness with glimpses at the front page of the newspaper or a channel not changed quickly enough or just what she overhears at school.
So Why? I don't have an answer for Why, baby. As a matter of fact I have the same question.
So we're nearing the end of book 4. As a matter of fact we had a babysitter last night and she was forbidden to read past the end of the Third Task chapter because I knew what was coming and I wanted to be around for it. I finished the Third Task chapter with Julia this morning, my brother, who is town, read her some of the next chapter today. The tough chapter. The hard chapter. The one that I haven't been wanting to think about reading to Julia.
Julia: Is Cedric dead?
And that's not even the hard question. The hard question is
Julia: Why?
How do you explain to a 5 1/2 year old about why people kill? Because even if they're magical mystical fictional people, magical mystical fictional people die almost the same way as un-magical un-mystical non-fictional people. Julia gets "dead" on a certain level. My mom passed away long before she was born and it's something we talk about a lot. But how do you explain to her about why someone would want to make someone else dead? Because that's something I don't think I will ever understand - what it takes to take someone's life.
Right now we're in the good guy/bad guy explanation. But she's going to get it soon - that this was a situation of someone who didn't value another life at all. She's going to get that Voldemort is evil. And she's going to get that if there's that kind of random horrible evil in the magical mystical fiction world, it probably exists in our not quite as interesting world. She's 5 1/2 and as much as I've tried to shield her from the horribly disappointing revelation that there are some people in the world who operate as if they are without souls it's seeping into her consciousness with glimpses at the front page of the newspaper or a channel not changed quickly enough or just what she overhears at school.
So Why? I don't have an answer for Why, baby. As a matter of fact I have the same question.
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