On Sunday, Feb. 7, the Sally Forth comic strip was centered around Hillary’s continuing feelings of loss over the end of Harry Potter. To see it, go here and click on View Recent Entries.
How bereft we can feel when a beloved and powerful story ends, and how difficult we sometimes find it to move on. Whether it’s Harry Potter, LOST, Buffy, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, Narnia, Prydain, or another, we find that particular story world “sticky,” as in it’s hard to disengage, and we sadly know our first experience of it is something we can never recapture. We may feel, like Hillary, that no other story can ever mean that much to us, or that it perfectly synched with a part of our life.
What story has affected you like this, and how? (And isn’t this a great shared text Potter strip?)
Charlie on 
Tom on 
Moe W on 
Steve Morrison on 
Moe W on 
Arabella on 
Red Rocker on 
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Lord of the Rings, definitely. And I did feel that sense of loss with the movies, more so than with the books because I grew up with them, and had at least a general idea of how they ended before I actually got there myself. It was more the communal experience of the movies, the immediacy of it, that I was going to miss, and I felt sure no series of movies would ever measure up to the anticipation I’d felt for these.
With Harry Potter, I received the first book as a gift from my aunt, and I had no idea how the series was about to grab me and take hold of me. I’ve never looked forward to a book as much as Deathly Hallows, or dreaded it as much. And that’s my same feeling with the final season of LOST. At least when Harry Potter ended, I knew I had that to look forward to. Now, I suspect the pain will be even more acute. In a lot of circles, if I try to explain that, I’ll get a caustic laugh and a “Get a life, it’s just a TV show.” But great stories like this really are more than that. They’re a shared experience, and they seep into the soul and change our perspective on the world. And that thrill of never knowing what will happen next in that world… that’s definitely something to miss.
No problem disengaging from HP. Not quite sure why. I believe it might be because the ending was pretty much perfect: the story came full circle, Voldemort killed Harry, Harry died and came back because of his mother’s sacrifice. Harry’s outstanding issues with Dumbledore were resolved. All questions were answered – to my satisfaction anyways. Sure, Snape got the short end of the stick, and I did mourn his lonely, senseless, unmourned death. And the Epilogue sucked, but that’s only a few pages and what’s the waste of a promising female character worth in the overall order of the universe?
No problem disengaging from Twilight or Narnia either – but never got engaged with those two, so it’s not really relevant.
No problem disengaging from LOTR which I do love. Probably because although I loved the overall story, the characters didn’t grab me very strongly, with a few exceptions. The only ones I really cathected to were Sam, Gollum and Denethor’s two sons.
Have never seen Lost or Buffy: it’s hard to miss what you’ve never known.
I think I’m more likely to miss the next installment of a story: I’m counting the months until the next Sookie Stackhouse release and was very impatient for DH to come out after reading HBP. I do wish Agatha Christie had written more Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries. And I shall deeply mourn the passing of PD James and John LeCarre (if they predecease me) because they won’t be writing any more stories. And of course, I’d love to read more Harry Potter stories. And I do mind it when a TV series is cancelled when it’s still producing good stories, e.g. Brimstone or Millenium. But overall, no, I don’t think I really experience that strong feeling of loss when the story is over.
You know, I can’t really say I’ve ever lamented over turning that final page (or watching the credits roll) at the close of a great story. If it ends well, I can close the book and feel satisfied. Harry Potter, LOTR, Narnia, even M*A*S*H, all ended so well I could leave that world knowing it was finished.
The story engages so long as its on going. Getting dropped in the middle, as Red Rocker illustrated, is what leaves me wanting more. That, or a story that just doesn’t end well, like the near-dreadful Star Wars prequels.
That is a great comic. I was so sad when HP ended, but sad in the same way you feel after a tremendous meal. It was so delicious, so fun, so enjoyable, but you are full. If you have more, you’ll explode and that’s even worse. HP is a terrific story, but like Red Rocker stated, it does come full circle. And JK leaves just enough to the readers’ imagination. I don’t want her to spell everything out for me- I want to ponder and dream and decide in my own little way how things were before or after the actual story.
I do always mourn the end of Anne. Because the books keep going through her life, and you grow up with her through all of these life-things, I just want her to keep going. Of course, that means the series would end when Gilbert buries her, and that would be terrible, so the logical side of me knows that carrying on would be folly. But still, I end it and want to know more. about the family, about how she is when her kids get married, how she is as a grandparent- all those other stages in life.
Hmm. I’ve never felt that, probably because I’m firmly in the school of thought that says, “If a book is worth reading once, it’s worth reading more than once.” Good books are like friends; just because you’ve met a person once doesn’t spoil all your future meetings!
My very favorite books (Lewis, Tolkien, JKR, MacDonald, Chesterton…) are ones I expect to be reading every so often for all of my life. A truly good book only improves on re-reading; there are lots of rich literary and theological allusions in Narnia, for instance, that I simply didn’t get as an eight-year-old!
The element of “surprise” in a story involves a lot more than simply finding out for the first time what’s going to happen; as Lewis pointed out, children want to hear the story of Red Riding Hood over and over even though they already know that her grandmother is really the wolf in disguise. It’s not unexpected, but it’s still a surprise.
I was so sad when I reached the end of LOTR (I was a teenager at the time)… It touched me so deeply that I yearned to find something like that in the “real” world… and that was the beginning of the turnaround in my heart that ended with my becoming a Christian.
Not quite the same with HP, because we knew the end was coming, speculated over what it might contain, etc. for so long…. But it was a bittersweet moment as well….
In general, I tend to agree with Eric, I can always reread my favorite books and stories. Harry Potter is a bit of a special case because I never felt so strongly for any characters in literature, but I can always revisit them, even those who didn’t live to the end of the story. What I will miss is the anticipation of a new Harry Potter book, this was really something “special” I had never experienced before.
The wait between books 4 and 5 was much worse for me than finishing the last book. I remember that after reading the first four books in 2000 I couldn’t get into another book for quite some time, nearly for a year. I resigned to read some fan fiction and non-fiction books instead, the latter usually works for me when I cannot get into fiction. I also tell myself that I won’t find something else as engaging if I don’t read, so I always try, even if I don’t feel like it.
ROFL. Awesome comic–and it’s the February 7 one, in case anyone else has trouble finding it.
I was late to Potter fandom, discovering it only just before the release of DH. And if I’d gotten in earlier, I think I would have felt bad about the ending of the big excitement buildups. As it is, I’m just happy I got in on the last one.
As for the stories themselves–I actually like a story to stop in a certain place, because as PotterMom05 pointed out, if you keep going long enough, there’s only one way it can end.
Take the Ender Wiggin series by Orson Scott Card for example. Speaker for the Dead is one of my favorite books ever–and it ends in such a beautiful place. Then in Henderson’s bookstore the other day I flipped through Xenocide and Children of the Mind and I really wish I hadn’t. It’s taking me days to reconcile myself to the things that I saw happen just by reading a few random paragraphs.
There comes a place with a good mythic story where you “know enough.” Too much information steals the glory of the eternal symbolism as you watch the happiness end. I actually felt a little bit that way about Tolkien’s work. TMI, dear man. TMI.
Kind of agreed on the TMI with Tolkien; I’m not sure I really want to know the death dates of all the Fellowship members and all that. I’d rather imagine how their lives play out, with most of them having been left in a pretty good place. Then again, I imagine he couldn’t resist following those characters to what he felt was their natural conclusion. I’m guessing we’ll see a lot of that with Rowling’s encyclopedia; some of her outcomes for various characters might frustrate me, and even detract from the magic a little. Of course, I still won’t be able to resist reading…
I too am glad Rowling ended the series where she did, and glad LOST is ending how it is, and that the creators were able to spend half the series with a definite end point to work toward. I’m excited to be getting a true conclusion. The ache I feel at the end of this season will be different than past seasons; it won’t be having to wait so long for answers, but knowing that the adventure is over. As nice as it is to reach the destination, it’s really about the journey. But after a little mourning period, I’m sure I’ll be able to dive back into that world again like I have with LotR, Harry Potter and others.
On Doc Jensen’s LOST blog today in Entertainment Weekly, he was giving his take on one aspect of the season six storyline and said it’s “a metaphor for our relationship to fiction. It’s about how fantasy redeems reality.” An interesting sentiment, and it made me think right away about this post…
Janet, that’s awesome! (Speaking as a Christian who loves fantasy literature…) “The power of story” indeed. Was it at all like C. S. Lewis’s description of discovering George MacDonald’s Phantastes? I’d love to hear more of how that transpired in your life, though I realize I’m risking digressing the thread… maybe you can persuade Mr. Pond to let you do a guest post?
I hadn’t thought about it that way – TMI I mean. But it makes sense.
I think that the DH Epilogue was TMI It would be have been better (imho), to leave it with the line “I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime”.
Tolkien’s Appendices not so much because he’d always given us a sense that the (second) defeat of Sauron was but one chapter in the longer history of Arda. Plus, something about Tolkien suggests that he’s a historian as much as a storyteller (or a poet).
Speaking of Anne, I always thought anything after Anne’s House of Dreams was TMI. The focus thereafter was on the kids, and Anne did not herself develop as a character after having her second child at the end of that book.
Other stories that should have stopped while the going was good: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Mummy, the Jean Grey – Dark Pheonix storyline after her death on the moon, Shrek after the second installment (can’t imagine life without Banderas / Puss’n Boots).
When I was in second grade there was a book in my classroom that I loved. It was about a princess, but I remember nothing of it. When I read Voyage of the Dawn Treader where Lucy reads a wonderful story she can sadly never read again, I thought of that princess story.
I have been “captured” by several series–Narnia, LotR, Prydain, Harry Potter and LOST. Right now I feel exactly like Erin:
“I’ve never looked forward to a book as much as Deathly Hallows, or dreaded it as much. And that’s my same feeling with the final season of LOST. At least when Harry Potter ended, I knew I had that [LOST] to look forward to. Now, I suspect the pain will be even more acute…. great stories like this really are …a shared experience, and they seep into the soul and change our perspective on the world. And that thrill of never knowing what will happen next in that world… that’s definitely something to miss.”
Once LOST is over in May, I’ll be without an ongoing, very involving story that includes fun theorizing, for the first time since 1999, when I read the first three Potter books. That’s 11 years! It’s hard to imagine a life without that. I enjoy questions and mystery, even though answers may satisfy, and like having my head blown off with reveals and twists. Alas, this kind of engagement will end. I hope I will someday enjoy another gripping story experience on so many levels.
When I was in my late 20s and going through a very challenging time, I read the Prydain Chronicles for the first time. It was amazing how this story synched with my life as I struggled to do what was right over what I wanted or thought was best. It helped both form and reflect my many dufficult decisions, with their threads of possiblity.
Truly good storytelling implants us in another world, but as Travis writes, it takes us to a greater reality. It’s as if we get into clearer air and can see further.
I’m with Eric and others – the stories are still there, waiting to be re-read and discovered anew. There are new readers to “hook, ” and it is such a joy to see them read the Potter books for the first time.
I do remember loving Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins so much that I didn’t want it to end. I remember very little about the story, except the feeling I had about reading it.
Eric — It was far enough in the past that I don’t remember the details, I’m afraid.
All I remember is, I had been very scornful of my friends who were Christians before and very argumentative toward them (I was raised in an atheist household).
And then I read LOTR. I bought the first book at our school book fair, not realizing that the three books were all one story. I reached the end of the first book and was in shock — Frodo was going off to Mordor! Alone! I do still remember the shock…
And I couldn’t afford to buy the next book till I got my allowance the following week, so I spent a whole week wandering around sort of unconnected to the “real” world. When I got the next two books, I pretty much lived in them for a couple of weeks. I reread the entire series the second I finished, then reread it again. And the world it presented to me, a world of, as C.S. Lewis put it in his blurb for the book, “beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron,” had broken my heart. I wanted that world to be true so badly.
And very soon after that I found, as I talked to my Christian friends, that glimmers of their world were echoing with what I had seen in LOTR. I stopped scoffing. I started listening. I read LOTR again, and each time I read it, even though there is no overt deity in the story, the idea of God seemed closer, and Christianity seemed more believable….
And not long after that, I crossed the line and became a Christian….
I guess I am an obsessive reader. I frequently not only mourn the end of a book (more so a series of books) but actually feel a bit disoriented when I finally come up for air. The more complete the universe created the more I feel a sensation of leaving a beloved place. HP, LOTR, Inkdeath, Enchantment (by Orson Scott Card), North or be Eaten, the Earthsea Cycle, Artemis Fowl, the Bartimaeus Trilogy. Wow – those are just the recent ones.
Strangely, a friend of mine said that he gets the sensation of loss even when finishing a non-fiction book!
Janet, your story is truly fantastic. It’s amazing to see a lot of things I’ve believed about the intrinsic message of fantasy literature (at least of the Lewis / Tolkien / MacDonald variety) from the other side, as it were. This also gives me a lot of hope for our current generation of young people who seem closed to the Gospel but devour good fantasy literature (like Harry Potter) with an implicitly Christian outlook. There’s a whole lot that could be discussed on these lines, but I just want to savor that and contemplate it for a while.
“A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere — ‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,’ as Herbert says, ‘fine nets and stratagems.’ God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.” — C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
I should stop poking fun at Tolkien. He’s smarter than I am, and I really do love his books. Red Rocker, true; he’s a historian and linguist as much as a storyteller. The linguistics fascinate me. The history … meh. It was never my favorite subject. But even I can’t help being impressed and seeing the value of the detailed history he created. If I couldn’t, I might actually be as silly as I make myself sound sometimes.
I might agree with you on TMI in the Anne books if Rilla weren’t my favorite of them all. Likewise, the HP epilogue, which in my mind is one of the best parts of the whole series and the only good way it could have ended. Ah, well. Maybe that’s why there’s more than one story in this world. We all need–and want–something a little different.
Erin, I’m definitely with you on Rowling’s encyclopedia.
As much as I like a story to end at the right place, I feel the same loss you’ve all expressed about the end of a good tale. HP, Little White Horse, Narnia, the Space trilogy, Speaker for the Dead, the Anne books, Ben-Hur, Jane Eyre, Austen’s books, LOTR, Twilight, The Little Princess … I can’t just pick up another book after laying one of those down. I’m never quite ready to let it go when it ends–and ending well is part of what gives me that feeling.
EStrunk, I liked what you had to say about feeling disoriented after coming out of a story. It’s a strange mix of loss with a sense of completion, perfection. It’s wonderful and awful all at once.
Arabella, I hope you find the princess tale someday. I love it when Lucy asks if she’ll ever hear the story again and Aslan says “Indeed, yes, I will tell it to you for years and years.” If that isn’t a good metaphor, I don’t know what is.
I came to HP after book four, and I remember after dvouring those the terrible wait for the next instalment. There was also a bitter-sweet feeling beginning DH: I desperately wanted to find out how it ends, but I knew this was the last book.
I wonder if JKR felt the same and the epilogue came out of her desire to know what happened. I agree that the epilogue is a bit weak, but it may reflect the power of story, even for the writer.
Ah well, Tolkien did once write
Now I don’t have any problem with “TMI”, myself; I’ve collected the entire History of Middle-earth series, and a lot of Tolkien’s other books, mainly for the extra information. But there’s nothing wrong with the other approach to reading LotR, as he himself noted.
Steve, exactly! It’s not TMI because Middle-earth is of course real. Normal storytelling rules do not apply.
Library Lily, I think we should start a post in the Forum on favorite Montgomery books and why.
I’m all for it, Red Rocker. Might take me a day or two to get over there, but it sounds like fun.
Steve, great quote from Tolkien. Those who “find ‘unexplained vistas’ part of the literary effect” … he said what I was trying to say, quite perfectly.
janet — amazing story, there. I can relate–something about LOTR plumbs me and alters me, and I cannot read it and walk away unchanged. So encouraging to hear of your own journey of faith–a journey home, if you will. Thanks!
arabella — this might be a very long long shot, but have you tried The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald? I can see it having the effect you’re speaking of. And even if it’s not the princess story, I think you’ll like it if you don’t already.
Janet, your faith journey story is beautiful, far better than any princess story I’ve long forgotten!
Mr. Pond, thank you for the recommendation. I did read MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie in my twenties, but they weren’t as sticky for me. I love his story The Light Princess and have read others of his fairy tales.
Unlike many of you, I didn’t discover fantasy in my teens.I don’t think I would have enjoyed it and there wasn’t much then, anyway. It blossomed in the 70s and I was introduced to it in my mid-twenties. I read Narnia and wanted more. From there I blazed through Middle Earth, Prydain, MacDonald, and L’Engle. I quickly learned to separate the good from the bad.
While I’m not really a fantasy reader (I prefer sf), there are a few sticky fantasy series whose books I put reluctantly back on the shelf to be lured by them all over again a few years later.