Harry Potter

I'm all geeked out this week in eager anticipation for the 7th Harry Potter book. Amazon sent me the nice little "if you pay extra, we'll make sure you get it on Saturday" e-mail so I upgraded the shipping (I'm a sucker for marketing).

What's great about the whole thing is that I was hanging out on the neighbor's porch and a few of the regulars were there and we got into a huge discussion on it. It amazes me the far reach this book has on people and my block is a small microcosm of it. From the 10 year kid to the 40-something year old college professor - there is equal excitement.

Also interesting is that this book has such a polar influence on people. For some, it gets them back into reading and it throws them into a huge fantasy world through the paradigm of fantastic storytelling. For others, it's hype that they hope will end with this final book and they can't understand why people get excited about a children's book. Still for others, it represents Satan's work on earth and should be banned and burned a la 1940 Germany.

For me, it's exciting. But what's more exciting is engaging with others from all sorts of demographics on it. The author, the history profressor, the head of a psychology deparment at a college, the co-worker, etc. In addition, the books have grown up with its characters tackling more and more adult themes like defying authority, death, love, etc.

Speculation is rampant and the pre-sales of this book have already outpaced some movie sales figures. Today, there were a whole bunch of spoiler websites that were posting their theories and claiming to have actual copies, etc. I'm amazed quite frankly how they keep everything under wraps with today's technology. There was a recent article in time talking about the security surrounding the printing and all they have to go through. Essentially, there are only four people who have read it so far: the author, the head publisher, the Potter-ologist (checks for continuity between the books), and the illustrator.

Two basic predictions from me:

1) Snape is good. In my opinion (humble as it may be), he has to be good. My thought is that he made the unbreakable vow with Narcissa because he had no other choice - if he didn't, it would cause suspicion amongst other Death Eaters and ultimately, Voldemort. He explained the situation to Dumbledore who knew that the only way out was to have Snape kill him. There have been a few references that Dumbledore has made stating that Voldemeort doesn't understand death and has implied that there is still some power that he may be able to yield. More importantly though, if Snape is bad, his character loses a lot of depth - it's the simple solution which I can't believe that the author would take after masterfully weaving a complicated character. As stated in an article I read, the fact that we are now in the 7th book and we are still debating if Snape is good or evil and more importantly, that he COULD go either way, is a testament to the author's storytelling ability.

2) Harry lives. We know the Voldemort dies because let's face it - how can the series have a complete and clean end if he survives? The prophecy states that "either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives". This implies that one lives and the other dies (although it doesn't rule out a double homicide).