Don’t you think it’s a bit funny that Fred and George Weasley are never seen apart? Harry has NEVER encountered one of our favourite twins without the other being there. Effectively, they are one character. Even their mother does not distinguish between the two of them – the Boggart in OotP changes from dead Mr. Weasley to dead twins to dead Percy to dead Harry – not dead Mr. Weasley, dead Fred, dead George, dead Percy, and dead Harry.

I thought this was odd because most sets of identical twins in fiction have different personalities, such as those in Jacqueline Wilson’s Double Act and Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High. My own experiences of real life identical twins are that they often do have similar personalities but they also have their own friends and their own interests. Fred and George seem to be extensions of each others’ personalities.

The reason I’m putting this theory forward is that I realise it might be typical of JK Rowling to kill one of the Weasley twins – but not the other. Even this possibility is frightening, I know, but it is the sort of thing she does. Say Fred died, the effect on George would be devastating. Would he still be able to run Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes on his own? Would he set out for revenge?

No one, as far as I can see, has considered this possibility. Even in Bill Hammon’s You Bet Their Lives: Putting the Odds on Future Deaths (on MuggleNet, Editorials Archive Dec 2004) in which he says the twins may die – apparently it’s “common practice” for the comic relief to die in tragic stories – he has treated them together. No one ever separates them, not Professor Umbridge, not their mother, possibly not even JK Rowling herself. This is what I hope. I certainly don’t want either of them to die - they are two of my favourite characters. I am hoping that if JKR hasn’t realised she has portrayed them effectively as one character, she won’t separate them in such a devastating way. I think that it would almost be better for both twins to die than just one of them.

For sheer emotional effect, there would not be many deaths that would affect us and Harry, more than either Fred or George dying. It would upset a very consistent part of Harry’s world – like I said, we have never seen them apart. In the words of a wise old man “never have I so hoped I am mistaken”.

4/6/05

Posted by: Rachael