What does the end mean for Harry’s strange Boston disciples?
By SHARON STEEL | July 24, 2007
The end is never easy, is it? When it comes to the July 20 midnight release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — the last book in a series of seven that has taken author J.K. Rowling a decade to parcel out to her utterly whipped readership — the end is absolute agony.Because, for some, the final period isn’t simply a punctuation mark, it’s the head of the final nail on the coffin — or the crucifix. Because Harry Potter isn’t simply Harry Potter. He’s also Odysseus, Don Quijote, Huck Finn, Peter Pan, Elvis, Luke Skywalker, Michael Jordan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Jesus Christ rolled into one. With a scarf and a British accent.
And Harry’s classic boy-versus-baddies monomyth, cliché as it may be, so resonates with some — from the white-hot fan-core to the farthest fringes of the Pottermonium — that, when the last page is turned and the book is placed, reverentially, in its hermetically sealed humidor, it will mean so much more than just the end of the series: it will be the end of a way of life. Seriously.
There are no mere readers of these books anymore: only heretics and disciples. And, for whatever reason, many of those most prominent wizard followers live in and around Boston. Now that he’s gone, what are they going to do next?
Harry’s blue helmets
The unfortunate victims of the Darfur conflict have been ignored by President Bush, the United Nations, and, aside from a few well-meaning celebrities and local activists, the rest of the world, too.
But now Harry Potter is on the case.
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