Today's Evil Beet Gossip

JK Rowling Almost Killed Ron And Hagrid And Breaks My Heart All Over Again

A photo of JK Rowling

Just when I thought that I was finally getting over the anguish and despair that I felt this summer over Harry Potter’s last hurrah, it starts up all over again. Because she hasn’t done enough already, JK Rowling had a big long chat with Daniel Radcliffe for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Blu-ray in which she taunts us with horrible, awful things she almost did and one heartbreaking account of something beautiful that she cruelly decided could never be.

On killing Ron Weasley: “Funnily enough, I planned from the start that none of them would die. Then midway through, which I think is a reflection of the fact that I wasn’t in a very happy place, I started thinking I might polish one of them off. Out of sheer spite. ‘There, now you definitely can’t have him any more.’ But I think in my absolute heart of heart of hearts, although I did seriously consider killing Ron, [I wouldn’t have done it].”

On killing Hagrid: Rowling reveals that from the start, she always knew that the final chapters of the last novel would include these beats: That Harry would walk willingly to his death; that he would be joined by the spirits of his parents and other loved ones during that death march; and that Hagrid would carry Harry’s (apparently) lifeless body out of The Forbidden Forest. Rowling tells Radcliffe that the image of Hagrid cradling “dead” Harry — a bookend to the beginning of the series, when Hagrid brought infant Harry to the Dursleys – stuck with her the entire time she wrote the books and she never let it go. If she had, Rowling says Hagrid would have been a “natural” target for elimination. “That image kept him safe,” she says.

On maybe not killing Remus: Rowling shares with Radcliffe that when she created Lupin’s character, she planned for him to survive the finale. While the author has said as much in other interviews, here, she elaborates, explaining that she changed her mind when she realized that her last Harry Potter story was really about war, and that “one of the most horrifying things about war is how it leaves children fatherless and motherless.” The most powerful way she could dramatize that idea, she says, was to kill a set of parents that were dear to readers. “I had no intention of killing [Lupin],” says Rowling. “But then it dawned on me he had to die.”

Well, that was exhausting. Can you imagine if Ron had died? There was a point when I thought that Hagrid would surely die, but Ron? No. No, I couldn’t do it. Could you? And Remus … after four years, I still get choked up when I think about Remus. Is that normal? Are any of you guys still torn up over anything Harry Potter related? This is the time to let everything go.

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  • I bought a pack of Harry Potter playing cards from the 99 cent store and one card had a picture of Tonks and Lupin. I cried for five minutes.

  • I’m pretty torn up about the fact that I haven’t seen the final movie, but now I know what happens. So. Thanks for fucking that up.

  • I am still sad about the deaths! I think Jo should’ve killed off Bill and Fleur and maybe leave *their* orphan child behind.

  • more that dobby’s or reumus’s death i was upset about freds death. i was in a state of shock for the next 5 days after reading that partand still feel a lump in my throat whenever i read one of fred’s dialogue. i didnt cry though. i never get emotional.

  • Dobby. why did Dobby have to die? i got Dumbledore. I even got Lupin, and Tonks. She systematically killed off Harry’s protectors. But why oh why Dobby? Painful is what that book was. I sobbed through the last 5 chapters.

  • Nothing got to me like “The Prince’s Tale” chapter. I was on the bus reading the last few chapters of the last book and I started to get choked up during The Prince’s Tale but when Snape got upset when Dumbledore thought he cared about Harry and conjured his Patronus, the doe, and Dumbledore said “After all this time?” and Snape said “Always” I completely lost it in front of everybody they probably thought I was crazy, an adult crying over a Harry Potter book on the bus lol. I still get misty thinking about it.