LogoK

I'm posting this before the book comes out simply to record this moment in time and my opinions about the series.   I actually  typed predictions about the series but then I realised I don't really have any.   I am actually looking forward to book 7 without having thought much about what might be in it.   There are a few things I would like to see, for example;

• a continuation of the anti-racist and anti-fascist metaphor that was one of the interesting things in book 5.  House-elves, goblins centaurs etc. As well as some discussion of why the Ministry falls into fascist tendencies so easily and some sort of political development to help prevent this happening in future. 
  
• some sort of settling of the Draco storyline.  Draco annoyed me from book 3- 6  because it seemed obvious to me that he was being set up as a mirror for Harry in thematic terms but he wasn't being developed.  Then book 6 happened and finally all that set up got some payoff.  However, I would like his storyline finished off.  Specifically I would like to see some fallout from the whole climactic scene of book six in relation to how it affects Draco.
  
• I hope that Hermione and Ginny are well served in the final book and that Hermione in particular gets to have some sort of fulfilling future.   Ginny , while I do like her, is a bit of a love interest and may die in order to create motivation for her boyfriend and brother.  I don't want this to happen but I can see that it would be perfectly reasonable in literary terms.  
• I can't think of any others at the moment. 
  

ANd finally a pet theory of mine.  I think that JKR was profoundly influenced by her reading of the Mitfords particularly Jessica  ( JKR named her daughter after Jessica).  I think that the Black family is heavily influenced by the Mitfords.  There isn't a one to one correspondence but there are similarities.

• I think that Sirius is most like Jessica partly because he has the best politics and partly because he RAN AWAY.  
  
• I think that Narcissa is probably Diana, she may be Debo but most likely Diana.  I think this at least partially because Lucius Malfoy reads very strongly as Oswald Mosely (fascist aristocrat with a much more powerful, less aristocratic and clearly evil ally/superior).
  
• I think Regulus is is either Unity or more likely Tom Mitford (this depends on how he develops in book 7) He is Unity if his belief in Voldmeort is ideological but regretted at the end.  He is Tom if he was just stupidly caught up in a fad. 
  
• I think that Bellatrix is more strongly Unity because of her profound ideological commitment to Voldemort. 
  
• This means that Andromeda is Pam or Debo - either makes sense Debo in the sense of settled and married and largely ignoring politics or Pam in a similar sense but with the added married a Muggle as a metaphor for retiring to rural life. 

Another Mitford influence is visible in the issue of SPEW.   SPEW resembles Jessica's early attempts at politics as a child when she joined an organisation called the Sunbeams and engaged in correspondence with a poor girl from London called Rose.  Jessica determined to rescue Rose from poverty by getting her a job as a tweeny maid at Jessica's home.  This of course did not work and Rose went back to London in tears of homesickness.  Jessica obviously learnt the lesson of not being able to fix people's lives in this way.