Fan vs Academic

I'm a fan of Harry Potter. I like reading the books. I like watching the movies. I like to make assumptions on my own. I do not like to engage in debates about what is going to happen-- I enjoy hearing theory, but I like to see how the stories unfold and see if my ideas were at all correctly induced.

As an academic who looks at media-- I feel like I should at least lurk on all of these debates. I should see how people are behaving. I should distance myself from what I think and listen to what everyone else thinks. It's much harder to do this summer than I thought it would be.

I am curious to see where Rowling is going to take us next week. I think she has a lot of possibilities, and I think it will be interesting to see which things she takes into consideration. If she's being loyal to her child audience, Harry will not die-- she will want good to triumph without punishment. If she is loyal to her gothic tendencies, then Harry will be the final horcrux, which would be the ultimate in doubling of the abject, and he's toast. There's a reason that people are making predictions and wondering what will happen. There's also a reason there's proof for all of this-- Rowling is more clever than people often give her credit for-- she has left herself multiple pathways for getting out of this maze-- which one will she take?