Harry Hoopla Continues

In a blog item that January Magazine contributing editor Ali Karim is gonna love, Reuters UK asks, “Is it time for Harry Potter to be killed off?”

Responses came fast and furious, some of them filled with enough venom to phase a deatheater.

“I despise everything about Harry Potter,” wrote one reader.

“I never liked him from day one but accept that for many young people he has become something of an Icon. But for me he is just a Great Steamimg Pudding!!!” wrote another.

One reader went into some detail on what he considered to be the spiritual implications of Rowling’s yarns. For the most part, however, readers sent the sort of universal love one might expect for the hero of what has become the bestselling series of books ever.

“if harry potter dies i will cry long and hard,” wrote a reader who added in a plea for Rowling not to kill him. (Bad news here, though: if he’s dead, he’s dead. The book ships in less than a month. Rowling’s work here is done, either way.)

Another wrote that “J.K. brings a lovely fresh breath of creativity, adventure, healthy perspective, and lively intelligence -- generating fantasy to a world full of children who are sadly lacking much of what they should be enjoying in this soul-destroying overpopulated world we live in.”

For better of for worse, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ships July 21st. The Hartford Courant today reported that “nearly 1.6 million people worldwide have pre-ordered” the 7th and final volume in series, compared with “the 1.5 million manic muggles who signed up in advance for a copy of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

With a few weeks left before the big day, expect the debates and noise to continue. Even from Karim, who has created some disturbances down these paths before.