His voice brought gravitas to every word he spoke, be it from the mouth of Hans Gruber or Severus Snape

He beloved for playing Hogwarts prof. Severus Snape and "Die Hard" villain Hans Gruber, among other roles

The velevty-voiced "Harry Potter" actor joins helium-sucking alumnus Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren

Who will survive "The Deathly Hallows"? Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link, Steve Almond -- and Stephen Amidon's children -- join Salon staff and place their bets.

For the Quidditch players, wizard rockers and would-be witches who gathered at a New Orleans Harry Potter convention, this is the dawning of their summer of love -- and loss.

A generation's love affair with J. K. Rowling's magnificent creation comes to a gleeful, delirious end

In a gloomy, impressive penultimate chapter, Voldemort's power grows while our heroes wander the wilderness

Is Hogwarts burning? Harry faces evil Lord You-Know-Who in a WWII-flavored final chapter that bares all secrets

Does J.K. Rowling's final installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," provide the magical ending to the beloved series her readers so desperately long for?

What happens when authors like J.K. Rowling can't stop telling their own stories?

Has "Harry Potter" – depicting a shallow, antiquated and dangerous idea of queer people – finally lost its magic?

The theme at the core of Rowling’s wizarding world speaks directly to a universal human reality

The songs are great and the real club was reassembled (in Georgia). Maybe the badness of "CBGB" is its genius

Salon speaks to a cognitive psychologist about how celebrity deaths are similar to and different from personal loss

How a queer, Asian lawyer gives the role that launched a thousand Firths a run for its money