Harry Potter's Demise Reconsidered?

On this Christmas day when you would all be giving your children the final installment of the Harry Potter series, if only you could, CultureGrrl will do her bit for world peace with a personal appeal to author J.K. Rowling:

DON'T KILL HARRY!!!

Rowling has previously stated that she "can completely understand" authors who kill off characters so that no one else could write a sequel. This caused much handwringing among anxious Harry-philes, including my 22-year-old daughter Joyce, who ominously warned that an entire generation would be scarred for life by the untimely demise of their hero. Imagine if some Potter-deranged psycho took revenge on humanity by starting the next World War. No author should have that on her conscience!

Borders bookstore recently sent me an e-mail with the title of Book 7---"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"---and an opportunity to reserve a copy. That made me believe that the book was soon to ship.

Not so, apparently. Rowling revealed in the Dec. 19 diary entry on her website that she's still writing:

I am now writing scenes that have been planned, in some cases, for a dozen years or even more....I am alternately elated and overwrought. I both want, and don't want, to finish this book (but don't worry, I will)

She also revealed that for the first time, just days before, she had dreamed she was in Harry's world. She describes this "epic dream" in detail, in her online diary.

On her website, Rowling also refutes a whole list of rumors. But she does not address the most important one: that Harry will die.

We can only hope that she's seen the recent movie, "Stranger Than Fiction," in which a popular writer changes her planned ending because she ultimately can't bear to kill off her likable main character. A university literature professor, her biggest fan, finds this new resolution less artistically rewarding, but the author is nevertheless satisfied with her decision.

Sometimes human decency just has to trump literary exigency. The fate of the world may depend upon it!