The North Tower - Editoral

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Editoral from mugglenet.com

An editoral by MailineFreden
Seeking to put the light of analysis to any mystery;
to dig deep and find the treasures, hidden carefully
beneath many layers of literary soil.

About Maline: I'm 20-year-old in my third year at University, majoring in French literarture and linguistics and doing a minor in English. I live in an over-priced studio in Aix-en-Provence, France. I grew up in a tiny town called Vaggeryd in Sweden (Advice to all US citizens: look it up on a map. It is NOT the same as Switzerland! (Aorry again, but I get that a lot.)) Besides HP, my hobbies are dancing (Latin-American, jazz, show, tap and lindy-hop), singing, reading, writing, eating, sleeping, painting, sewing and golf. I have a half-dead plant and a Canadian boyfriend.
Crazy facts:
1) I'm obsessed with Harry Potter, which my friends tease me for (I tease them back for being obsessed with other trivial things, such as football). I've read all the books in Swedish, French and English. Many times. (The original is of course the best; the French version sucks.)
2) I think grammar's actually FUN...
3) I want to learn to speak 7 languages fluently (already got French, English, Swedish; want Italian, German, Spanish and Russian. Oh, and reading skills in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, of course.)

Hello everyone! My name's Maline and I'll be writing the new column "The North Tower" here at MuggleNet.com. I'm very happy for this little job as it gives me an opportunity to impose my ideas on a lot of people (journalism's ultimate goal) ;-) I'm about to start my third year of university, with a major in French literature and linguistics and a minor in English. I love to read and have, naturally, a nearly unhealthy obsession with the HP series...

The North Tower is a place of mysticism. It's where Astronomy and Divination take place. It's high up, near the stars, connected to the mysteries of the skies. My idea with this column is thus to look at and analyse some of the more enigmatic sides of the HP saga: metaphors, mythology, writing technique and so on. Through observation, logic and emotion I will analyse theories that are flying around on the 'Net and present my own in an attempt to unfog the future. I hope you'll all enjoy it. My first column will deal with The Great Revelation in OotP, namely Professor Trelawney's first prediction and what it might entail.

"The One with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies.... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
As I'm a literature and linguistics major, I'm naturally going to approach this text from a linguistic (how the language is constructed) point of view.

The first important thing is the capitalisation of "the One" right at the start. This is a precise statement that the person to whom it refers isn't just "one out of the bunch" but "the One", the chosen one, the only one. (Just as you capitalise e.g. "God," "Truth," "Justice," etc.) This immediately rules out the possibility that if the One fails to vanquish the Dark Lord, someone else might do it for him.

If Harry doesn't vanquish Voldemort, no one will (ever) be able to.

The next interesting thing is the choice of words in "power to vanquish the Dark Lord". Note that it doesn't say "The One who will kill the Dark Lord". First "power" indicates a possibility to vanquish Voldemort, not a factual statement that this will happen. Then "vanquish" doesn't necessarily mean "kill." It's usually used in emotional contexts ("vanquish an emotion") in poetry or 19th century romantic novels (a bit "Heathcliff-on-the-moor-ish") and its synonyms are rather "conquer" and "eliminate" than "kill." This supports the theory that Harry won't kill Voldemort in a duel or the like. We've already seen that their wands can't fight against each other. I lean more towards that Harry will set off some kind of reaction in Voldemort and that he will be consumed from within. Why?

Well, we've got all these references to love: how Harry's full of it, how Voldemort has nothing of it, despises it, can't stand it and--at several accounts--underestimates its power. We also learn in OotP of the "great and terrible power" that lies in the Department of Mysteries (I'd put my money on love). I will analyse the importance of love in more depth in another article; for now I'd just like to put forward the argument that Harry might not kill Voldemort--he might neutralise him, or Voldemort might kill himself as a result of this.

If we look a bit deeper, we see that the word "power" can be nuanced: the wording is "The One with the power to vanquish...." Grammatically, this is ambiguous and can be read either "the one with the possibility to vanquish" or "the one with the power which will vanquish". The first interpretation means that Harry might vanquish Voldy. The second means that Harry possesses a power, and that this power will vanquish Voldy. There's an important difference in this: number one makes Harry the direct hero; number two makes Harry the tool for the mystic powers, the vessel of good.

Voldemort might not die, but he will most certainly be conquered by the forces of good (love), not necessarily by a direct act from Harry.

Oh! I got another idea! Another interesting choice of words: "Dark Lord". Sure, JKR might have chosen it for the poetic feeling of it. Then again, she might not have. Let's look at it this way: the "Dark Lord" is a persona that Tom Riddle created for himself. It is the symbol of the evil in him, as well as his evil deeds. It represents his dark side, the hate and fear he feels and inspires. The prophecy states that there is one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, not necessarily the man underneath it. JKR keeps giving us clues to why Tom Riddle turned (observe the word "turned," he wasn't evil from the start) evil, to give us a more nuanced picture of him. Maybe Voldemort will be vanquished but Tom Riddle will prevail...

"born to those who have trice defied him, born as the seventh month dies".

We here learn that James and Lily have managed to escape Voldemort THREE times, (three as in being a magic number) and we'll probably get to know what happened those three times in Book 6 or 7. The following part is a linguistic masterpiece: "born as the seventh month dies." Seven as in the magical number (note how many number sevens there are in the entire series) and the beautiful balancing of "born" and "dies." The death of the month gives birth to the hero; darkness gives birth to light. (I just have to insert that I think this prophecy is a work of art in the way it's constructed. It's plain beautiful. JKR really knows her stylistic devices; I'm in awe :-))

Anyway, if you want to play with the sentence a bit, it's quite easy to make the parallel "born as the seventh month dies" – "born as the seventh year dies," where (in the second one) "born" would indicate the birth of a new era and "as the seventh year dies" the end of the Trio's time at Hogwarts. The end of the seventh book will open up on something new, be a new beginning; but then again, that seems quite obvious. Since Voldemort will (very probably) be vanquished, something new must come.

"and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not"

This touches the relationship between Harry and Voldemort. It's way too complex to analyse here, but I promise to do it in a later article. The second part refers back to "power"--it emphasises once more the importance of love (also to be discussed separately).

"and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives"

This is the most dramatic part of the prophecy. The fascinating thing is that it seems so clear and straightforward: one of them must kill the other. This contradicts the nuanced analysis of the first sentence presented above. I'll try to break the problem down a little:
"and either must die at the hand of the other" means that either V kills H or H kills V.
"for neither can live while the other survives" means that V and H can't live at the same time. They will destroy each other, which can be seen very clearly in OotP from Harry's point of view: he's getting darker, he and Voldemort are starting to melt together (dreams, feelings, etc.), and this is unbearable for both of them. Harry can't bear the darkness of Voldemort and Voldemort can't bear the love that is inside Harry (as seen when he possesses Harry).

So, does this mean that my two-page analysis is just plain crap and that JKR just wrote it like that because it sounded pretty? Could be. I don't think so though: JKR chooses her words with great care, especially in a passage as vital as this one. Let me tell you what I do think.

I think that JKR wanted us to focus on "and either must die at the hand of the other" and forget about what surrounds it. She wants us to anticipate a classic, heroic end where Harry impales Voldemort on the sword of Gryffindor or something like that. At the same time she sneaks in all the clues about the importance of love, indicating that it will have an important role but not saying straight out that love will be the means of defeating Voldemort. And we fall for it. We focus on the word "die" and gladly ignore the rest of the prophecy. So does Dumbledore. So does Harry. I think we are all deceived...

I think the importance lies in the words "the One" and "Dark Lord". It doesn't say "Harry Potter" and "Tom Riddle." Remember that there were two boys born in terms of the prophecy: Harry and Neville. Harry wasn't born the One; he was chosen, made the One by Voldemort. Likewise, Tom Riddle wasn't born the Dark Lord; it was something he became. So when the prophecy states that "either must die at the hand of the other," it grammatically refers to the One and the Dark Lord, not Harry and Tom. This opens up another fascinating question: are we the roles we play or do we have something deep inside us that is just us, some sort of essence, an unchangeable core? This is unfortunately also a very long discussion, so I won't take it here. :-)

The conclusion of all this philosophy is that the prophecy doesn't actually state that Harry or Tom has to die, only that one of the personas "the One" and "Dark Lord" has to (or both; nothing stopping that). I know that a lot of people put Voldemort equal to Sauron of Lord of the Rings, think that he is the ultimate evil and has to die. Wrong. Sauron is the personification of evil and cannot be redeemed; Voldemort is a person corrupted by Evil's power (if you want to make the parallel to Lord of the Rings, he's more like Gollum) and there is therefore a possibility of redemption.

Who knows, Tom Riddle might survive the fall of the Dark Lord. I personally think he just might.

Finally, I just want to say that this prophecy is an extremely complex one that looks very simple. It will surely play a great part in the coming books as the (possibly wrong) interpretation that Harry has of it will influence his actions. I've given you my interpretation; you are free to find your own. Just remember: with JKR, what you see is never what you get...

Take care.
Maline

9/02/2003

-- Neville or Harry: Who's the Real One? --

Hi, everybody, and welcome back. I got a lot of owls this week about my first article here at the North Tower and I want to say thank you to all the people who said nice things about it. I'm glad you liked it. I also want to say that, in the future, I won't be able to answer all owls, so if you really want an answer, please write that in your letter.
Okay, enough about that, let's get down to business.

I got quite a lot of owls about Neville and Harry in relation to the prophecy. What if Neville's "the One" after all and not Harry? So, I chose that mystery for today's topic.

According to the prophecy (which we analysed last week), "the One" is born at the end of July to parents who have thrice defied Voldemort. Both Neville and Harry fit this description. They are both potentials.

The second part states that "the Dark Lord will mark him his equal, and he will have powers the Dark Lord knows not." Ah yes, the marking and the powers. I've heard the argument that Neville is marked by Voldemort because of the suffering his parents' insanity has caused him and that he, too, is full of love (love being the assumed power). Okay, let's take a closer look at this.

The wording is important. It says "mark him as his equal" not just "mark him." Neville might have emotional scars caused by Voldy, but in what way is Neville his equal exactly? Harry has fought against Voldemort four times. Alone, or with very little help. Neville has fought against him how many times? That's right, none. Voldemort personally attacked Harry as a baby and gave him his scar along with many of his own powers (this is important; in the prophecy "Dark Lord" is the subject: he acts). Neville's parents were tortured by V's followers, and Neville didn't get any of the Dark Lord's powers from that experience (he probably wasn't even around). Harry has a strong connection with Voldemort: they can enter each other's minds, Harry can feel what Voldy feels and know when he's close by, they come from very similar backgrounds, their wands are brothers, they both speak Parseltongue (the only two living wizards who do), and (as Tom Riddle says in CoS) they even look somewhat alike. What connection do Neville and Voldy have? They haven't even met! Every fight between Harry and Voldemort ends with neither really wins. Harry doesn't kill Voldy and vice versa. They each have one smaller victory over the other: Harry "kills" the diary in CoS, and Voldemort manages to restore his body in GoF. So far, they are pretty equal.

The most important argument, though, refers back to "the One." There is only one who is chosen to vanquish Voldemort. This means that if Neville is the One, Harry can't be. It means that Harry doesn't have the defeating powers and that he's not equal to Voldemort. In his fights against the Dark Lord, Harry's used love (PS, OotP), loyalty (CoS), strength of mind (GoF) and courage as his main powers. He fits the prophecy perfectly. Neville doesn't. It doesn't matter that Neville in OotP is starting to become a good wizard. Ron's also a good wizard; it doesn't make him the one either.

Let's not forget also the importance of choice. It's emphasized over and over again in the books. Voldemort chose Harry to be the One. He made that choice when he came to Godric's Hollow that night and tried to kill him. The prophecy was fulfilled because of that choice. This reminds me greatly of the Greek myths where a prophecy is often fulfilled because someone makes the choice to try to stop it from coming true (e.g. King Oedipus and Perseus). When has Voldemort ever picked Neville out of the crowd? As I said before, they've never even met! (We're not counting when he lived in the back of Quirell's head here.) For Neville to be the One, it's necessary for Harry to not have been marked Voldemort's equal and to not have the great powers. We know this is not true. We've seen that. It's obvious.

"What if Voldemort chose the wrong boy and Neville's the real One?" Let's go back to the text again. According to the prophecy, in order to be the One four conditions must be fulfilled:

1) The One has to be born at the end of July.
2) The One has to be born to parents who have thrice defied Voldemort.
3) The Dark Lord must mark the One as his equal.
4) The One must have powers the Dark Lord knows not.

This means that Voldemort cannot choose the wrong boy. The identity of the One is not independent of his choice; it is determined by it, since one of the conditions is that the One is chosen by Voldemort. Harry fulfills all conditions; Neville doesn't.
Finally, Dumbledore spells it out for us, saying about the same as I just did, only a lot briefer :-). "There is no doubt that it is you, [Harry]." I don't think that JKR is trying to trick us here (like she does with the prophecy). This goes perfectly together with one of the main ideas in the books: "you are not what you are born, but what you choose to become." Voldemort chose Harry that night a long time ago. He's the One. That means Neville cannot be.

(This doesn't mean that Neville won't have an important part to play in the end. I think he has. But he's not the One who will vanquish the Dark Lord.)

Take care, see you next week.
Maline

09/09/03

Hi, everybody. Before we get down to business, I'd like to say a few things about feedback. I love that you send me e-mails, asking questions and giving me your views on things. However, there are some general things that I would like to point out:

1) When you ask me a specific question, I've tried to answer them so far. The problem is that 80% of the time, I get them back with a message saying "user quota full." When this happens, I usually delete them, as I don't have the time (or space in my inbox) to try again later until it goes through. Also, many questions are extremely intelligent and interesting, and I'm planning on analyzing them in future articles. So, if you don't get an answer, try to be patient; there's a good chance I'll write about your idea or question later on. Remember, we probably have at least two years to kill before number 6 comes out. Plenty of time.

2) Please do not send me stuff like "I don't care about your arguments, I know that Neville's the One!" or "But what if Voldemort really did choose the wrong boy?" or "Maybe Harry and Neville are both the One!" or "But Neville was also born at the end of July!" etc., etc. I've already analyzed this and given you my view on the matter. I don't want to repeat my arguments X times over to different people. Don't misunderstand me; you are of course completely entitled to your own opinion. That's what literature's all about, having your own view on things. I'm not God or JKR, which means that I don't know for certain the secrets of HP. I'm a person who analyzes literature. What I give you is my interpretation, not necessarily the Ultimate Truth (although I hope it is :-))

3) Also, I would like to advise you to think and read before creating your own theories. We are dealing with literature here; meaning and text are connected. To say, "I think that Lily is still alive and that she's actually Crookshanks" when the text clearly states that she's dead over and over again and the only common trait for the two of them is red hair/fur, is not a very convincing argument. And that's what you should always think about : how convincing your arguments are and what support there is for them in the text. Remember, even gut-feelings start (subconsciously, but still) with the text.

4) One last argument in the Harry/Neville debate. I got this from Jeanine:

"Don't forget that if a person picks up a prophecy that is not about him or her, he or she will go crazy. Harry picked up that prophecy and did not go crazy. Therefore, the prophecy is about him, not Neville."
Clever girl, I had not thought of that.
So please, no questions that I've already answered and no theories whose only support is, "I know 'cause I'm smart and you're stupid!" Other than that, feel free - I love hearing from you.

Okay, having said that, I'll get going with today's mystery. I've decided to round off my articles on the prophecy with a study on prophecies in general, as many of you have asked questions about them. Let's start with the basics and work ourselves up.

1) What is a prophecy?

A prophecy, according to Longman's dictionary is "a statement that something will happen in the future, especially one made by someone with religious or magical powers." This definition goes well with the HP books as well as general mythology. What's important here is to first make a distinction between a prophecy and general indications (GIs) of the future. A prophecy is a precise statement, talks about a specific event at a specific time (not "ten o'clock on Sunday the 24th of June"-specific, but specific in the sense that the event occurs in a limited space of time, specific in opposition to continuous.). General indications give an idea of what sort of things might happen and if they are to happen sooner or later. They give the general mood of the world so to speak.

In the HP series, both kinds of future-telling are practiced by different beings. Prophecies are made by wizards and GIs are the art of the Centaurs. It seems to be pretty divided up between the two species. Firenze said on p. 532 (I use the UK edition by the way) of OotP that humans are hardly ever good at seeing "this" ("this" being the future through GIs the way the Centaurs do). In the same way, there are no prophecies by Centaurs in the series (yet, who knows what'll happen later on?). Let's take the different branches separately, shall we?

The Wisdom of the Centaurs


"Lie back on the floor... and observe the heavens. Here is written, for those who can see, the fortune of our races.... I know that you have learned the names of the planets... and that you have mapped the stars' progress through the heavens. Centaurs have unravelled the mysteries of these movements over centuries. Our findings teach us that the future may be glimpsed in the sky above us.... Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents.... These are of no more significance than the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements.... I, however, am here to explain the wisdom of centaurs, which is impersonal and impartial. We watch the skies for the great tides of evil or change that are sometimes marked there. It may take ten years to be sure of what we are seeing."
--Firenze in OotP, p. 531
Ok, here comes the fun part: to dissect the text and find the important words. First, look at sentence five: the future may be glimpsed in the sky; i.e., it's hard to see and not necessarily there at all. Secondly, the second-to-last sentence: the great tides of evil or change (emphasis added) that are sometimes marked there. Not only can evil be marked in the skies, but any kind of mood switch for the universe. The word "tide" indicates that there's a balance in the universe of different forces (e.g., good and evil) and that they go back and forth like the sea. Sometimes evil tips the scale, but good will tip it back later on. If you follow that logic, it implies that neither good nor evil can ever completely conquer the other. The universe is built on their co-existence.

Let's think of it like this: imagine that you hang a pendent from your finger. You can make it swing back and forth but never only one way. If the pendent symbolizes the universe and the balance between good and evil, it means that for one to conquer and annihilate the other (e.g., evil wins and extinguishes good), the pendent must be swung to stand still straight up from your finger (i.e., hanging towards the ceiling). And even if you would manage this (although impossible with gravity), the position of maximal evil would also be the position of maximal good. Confused? I'll illustrate it with a diagram.

http://www.mugglenet.com/editorials/thenorthtower/circle.gif

At position 1, good and evil are at an equilibrium, we have equal amounts of both. As we follow the yellow arrows, we get more good and less evil. At position 2 we are at big advantage for good. But, (and here's where it gets tricky) when we approach position 4, maximal good, we find that this same point is also maximal evil and that the quarter between positions 2 and 4 actually takes us closer to the evil side than further away from it. The best position for good would thus be position 2, where the ratio between the two is the most favorable but where both forces still exist.

Conclusion of all this metaphysical mess: in a world like the one JKR describes through Firenze, neither good nor evil can ultimately conquer the other, they will always exist side by side.
Interesting, isn't it? Point number two (if we go back to the quote) concerns what you can actually see in the skies.
"Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents.... These are of no more significance than the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements."
This implies that you can't see individual moments in the way you can with a prophecy (we'll get to those too, I promise). Individual human beings and their actions are of little importance in general. The signs are all very vague, which makes it easy to misinterpret them because of what you wish them to be. For example, in PS/SS Bane remarked that "Mars shines strongly tonight" (or something like that, my copy is in Sweden right now and I'm in France, so I can't really check), something Firenze said in OotP that Mars had been doing for about ten years, indicating that battle would soon break out again. When Firenze saved Harry from Voldemort/Quirell in the Forbidden Forest in PS/SS, Bane accused him of interfering with the heavens. I think that Bane here puts two and two together a bit too fast. He saw the sign of imminent battle in the sky, saw Voldemort in the forest drinking the unicorn's blood and saw the grave danger that Harry was in. In Bane's mind, this equals the death of Harry, the return of Voldy and the start of the second war then and there. It fits so nicely. If Firenze hadn't interfered, it would probably have happened, so no wonder Bane was annoyed - Firenze wrecked his theory, his "correct" interpretation of the heavenly signs!
The thing is that the heavens only spoke of a coming war (and "soon" is a very vague concept as anybody waiting for that someone to "call you soon" knows), not of a specific event (i.e., Voldy killing Harry that day in the Forbidden Forest). So, Firenze didn't interfere with the heavens at all. He just prevented that particular way of the war breaking out. Voldemort still rose, the war is about to start, everything is going according to plan. This was inevitable. Harry delayed Voldemort's return in PS/SS but he still rose in GoF. We all knew he'd come back eventually, even after only the first book. Dumbledore knew, Hagrid knew, the Death Eaters in Azkaban knew, and Harry knew. All knew that evil had not been defeated that night at Godric's Hollow. It was merely waiting, biding its time, lying patiently inactive until that which had to happen happened, and the pendent swung back to the dark side, obeying the forces of the universe.

Conclusion

As Firenze says, the wisdom of Centaurs is impersonal and impartial. You can see the future in the heavens but not interfere with it. You cannot change what is written in the skies, only the ways in which it comes about. It only shows the grand scheme of things, not individual events or specific people's actions. It is the main outline of JKR's entire series, unbothered by smaller events and key moments. It is the country background of a detailed painting, the mystic currents under the sea.

I'll continue with the prophecies next week. It'll give you all time to read and really think about this before we move on.

Take care, have a nice week.
Maline

09/15/03

Hello everybody! I hope you've had a nice week. I'll start by a new feature to this column that I secretly started last week, namely a small "Literary analysis and argumentation 101" interactive course. Last week, I presented you with the following theory (thanks, Jeanine):

Don't forget that if a person picks up a prophecy that is not about him or her, he or she will go crazy. Harry picked up that prophecy and did not go crazy. Therefore, the prophecy is about him, not Neville.(A)

Since I didn't want my article that week to be a continuation of the Harry-Neville debate, I chose not to break it down for analysis. I also wanted to see if readers would spot what argument(s) could be used against this. You did. The owls I got were quite identical and pointed out that

The prophecy only had Harry's name on it because the keeper of the halls of prophecies put it there after the attack on him as a child. It was renamed, thus the fact that Harry's name's on it might just be a human mistake.(B)

You're absolutely right. That was just the argument I was looking for. For next week, I'd like you to think about the two of them and try to find the argument that supports Jeanine's theory (A) and answers to the argument above that's contradicting it (B). If you can also find other arguments that contradict (A) that'd be great.

You see, when it comes to literature, it's all about having your own point of view and being able to support it. When you have a theory, you should always think what could be argued against it and try and find other arguments that "take out" the ones going against your main idea. Complicated? It's like this:

If my idea is (X), I should try to find arguments that show that (X) is wrong (Let's call these arguments (Y)). Then I should try to find arguments that show that (Y) is wrong (making X right), we can call these ones (Z). I can go on like this for a long time, arguing against myself, and when I get to the point where there are no more arguments, I weigh either side against the other and decide which one "wins" the debate. That gives me my conclusion where I can take a stand for the winning side.

Sometimes you'll find yourself in the middle of writing, realizing that the other side's argumentation is actually stronger than your own. Then you have two choices: 1) finding more arguments that support your view or 2) changing your opinion. I usually try number one first but end up changing my opinion in the end. To realize that you were wrong doesn't mean that you "lose;" it means that you gain new knowledge and a wider perspective. Comparable to looking for a Snickers in your bag and finding a Milky Way. :-) What I want to say with this is:

Don't be afraid to think about arguments that go against your own beliefs. Analyze them, as well as your own ones. Find new arguments and counter-arguments. Challenge your mind and widen your perspective. If you end up with your original idea, your belief in it will be stronger and better founded. If you end up changing your views, you'll know that your new beliefs are better founded than your old ones and have truly earned your support.

Ok, so this first little "competition" will end on Sunday, September 28. Let's move on.


Prophecies

Last week we discussed the wisdom of Centaurs. We saw how it indicated the grand scheme of things, the "mood" of the universe and how it's not affected by little "details" in the human world. Today, we'll do its counterpart: prophecies.

Prophecies are made by wizards (as far as we know, at least) and deal with precise events in a specific timeframe. In the HP series, we have two full ones and two fragmented ones so far.

1) PoA, p. 238: "It will happen tonight. /.../ The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight...before midnight...the servant...will set out...to rejoin...his master."
2) OotP, p. 741: "The One with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies....and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
3) OotP, p. 692: "...at the solstice will come a new"
4) OotP, p. 692: "...and none will come after"

Let's leave the fragmented prophecies out of this for the moment and concentrate on the complete ones. Note how a prophecy is constructed in comparison to what Firenze talked about when he described the wisdom of Centaurs: a prophecy has a set timeframe for when the thing is supposed to happen (tonight, before midnight, born as the seventh month dies, etc.). It talks about specific people (the Dark Lord, the servant and the One) and of specific events (the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, either must die at the hand of the other, the one...will be born, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master, the Dark Lord will rise again, etc.). Prophecies are about people and their actions.

We also know that a copy of all prophecies is kept in the MoM and that only the ones about whom it was made can retrieve them from the Hall of Prophecies without going mad. What we don't know, though, is how the prophecies end up in the MoM. We really have no way of knowing this (as I've found anyway) so this theory of mine's really just a wild guess. I think that when someone makes a true prophecy, some kind of magical energy creates a small, glass orb in the MoM, which can then be listened to and labeled by the keeper of the prophecies. This would mean that there's a copy of Professor Trelawney's second prophecy (1) in there, too. What I'm wondering is how the keeper of the prophecies is able to handle them (labeling and re-labeling them) without going mad. Does he have some sort of special protection? And, if so, why didn't Voldmort just use him to retrieve the prophecy in OotP? It seems like a far simpler solution than to lure Harry there. If you can find any support for any theory regarding this, I'd be most grateful.

The real question is, of course, can you change something foretold in a prophecy? The first one (1) has already come true in part: Wormtail escapes and returns to his master in PoA and helps him rise again in GoF. When using the Time-Turner, Harry asks Hermione if they can't just grab Scabbers/Wormtail when he's inside Hagrid's house and spare them all the trouble which came after (Dementor attack, etc.). Hermione says that they can't because they can't allow themselves to be seen. That's one reason. Here's another one:

When Harry and Hermione go back in time, they don't do it to change what's happened but to ensure that what did happen actually did. Let's talk about it in terms of "real time" and "double time" (as in doing the time over again), where "real time" is everything that happened before the Time-Turner and "double time" all that happened during the use of it. In real time, Ron, Harry and Hermione heard the thump of the axe and Hagrid sobbing. They then assumed that Buckbeak had been killed. He hadn't. He hadn't because double time Harry and Hermione had already saved him. Same thing at the lake; Harry could conjure the Patronus because he'd already seen himself do it in real time, believing it was his father.

The real reason why they can't let themselves be seen is because they haven't been. Real time and double time exist simultaneously and if real time Harry hasn't seen double time Harry, then double time Harry can't show himself to real time Harry. Complicated, isn't it? All this time travel business really messes up your head. :-) Let's take a concrete example:

Say that double time Harry and Hermione would have decided to rush into Hagrid's hut and snatch Wormtail before he could get away. This would mean that in the chapter before, in real time, Ron, Harry, Hermione and Hagrid would see Harry and Hermione run into Hagrid's hut when they were in there. Say that double time Harry and Hermione would have managed to snatch Scabbers and get out of there without being killed. Then, everything that happened in the Shrieking Shack would not have happened and double time Harry and Hermione wouldn't have known that Scabbers was Peter Pettigrew. If they didn't know that, why would they have run in to snatch him? And so on. The main point is that double time Harry and Hermione were obliged to follow what had already happened and couldn't change this in any way. I believe that prophecies work much in the same way.

If we look at prophecies from a historical perspective (e.g., Greek mythology) we see that they always come true. Most of the time, they come true simply because someone tries to stop it from coming true. Two examples are Oedipus and Perseus.

Oedipus' dad was told by an Oracle that his son would kill his father and marry his mother. The king (Oedipus' dad was the king of Thebes) didn't like this prophecy at all and ordered his son to be killed. The servant he appointed to do this felt pity for the little boy, though, and hung him from his ankles upside down in a tree instead. Little Oedipus was then found by a shepherd who took him down and gave him to the royal couple of his city to raise. Oedipus grew up, and then happened to hear the prophecy about himself. Because he believed that his foster parents were his real parents, he quickly ran away from home to stop it from coming true. On the road, he ran into an old man and they began arguing. Oedipus killed him and continued on his way. He came to Thebes, which was under the control of a terrible Sphinx. Oedipus answered its riddle correctly and thereby got rid of it. To thank him, the people of Thebes made him king, because the old king had recently died. He also got to wed the queen, who was newly widowed. The old man he'd killed in the road was his father and the queen he'd now married his mother. So the prophecy came true.

Perseus' granddad was told by an Oracle that his daughter's son would kill him. He locked his daughter up so that no one could impregnate her; but, the god Zeus let his semen slip in through the light of the small window, and the girl became pregnant (notice how the story of how Virgin Mary got pregnant is identical to this; at least how it's portrayed in most paintings). Granddad immediately put child and daughter in a box and threw it in the ocean. The ocean carried the box to an island, and, there, mother and son lived for a long time. When Perseus (the son) was grown up, he did a bunch of heroic things and then met his granddad again. They got on fine, but then Perseus accidentally killed him when he threw a discus in a competition. So, the prophecy came true. (We'll discuss Perseus more later on when we get to Snape.)

The prophecies in HP work much in the same way. One crucial thing is that people's logic is not infallible. Harry doesn't remember the prophecy in PoA until it's too late and Pettigrew's gone. He also forgets telling Ron, Hermione, Lupin and Sirius about it, stopping one of them from thinking a bit further ahead and, for example, stunning Pettigrew before going up to the castle again. Harry forgets his Invisibility Cloak in front of the Womping Willow, enabling Snape to get to it. Another crucial thing is the intervention of nature (or in Greek mythology, gods). The moon turns Lupin into a werewolf (in combination with him having forgotten to take his potion) and Pettigrew can escape. All these little things made for the escape of Wormtail and the fulfilment of the prophecy.

Lack of information is also central. Harry doesn't know that Scabbers is the servant of Lord Voldemort until it's too late. Likewise, Voldemort doesn't know the part of "and the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal" of the OotP prophecy until he already has. (If you think about it, he still doesn't know why things went the way they went that night at Godric's Hollow.) The PoA prophecy was fulfilled because of lack of information, forgetfulness and things outside Harry's control (like the moon). The OotP prophecy (up until "but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not") was fulfilled because of lack of information and determination to stop it from coming true. Both scenarios follow the Greek tradition really well so far, so we can assume that they'll continue to do so and come true in the end.

Next week, I'll discuss the prophecies and the wisdom of Centaurs in relation to one another and in relation to the importance of choice that JKR has emphasized several times in her books. Feel free to send me your thoughts on the matter.

See you soon,
Maline

09/21/03

Editor's note: The delay in posting this because of a little gal named Isabel: Hurricane Isabel, that is. Maline's editor lost power for almost a week and wasn't able to check email or post new North Towers. Everything's fine now, so there'll be no more delays with your favorite HP analysis!

Hello, everybody. Today's topic is thought to be the second last of my little series on HP prophecies. (We'll see how well that goes… ;-)) But, before we get to that, I'll run through the little argumentation task I set for you last week.

Okay, I'll call the two opposing sides "A" and "B" to make it easier to follow. Let's go.

(A) Don't forget that if a person picks up a prophecy that is not about him or her, he or she will go crazy. Harry picked up that prophecy and did not go crazy. Therefore, the prophecy is about him, not Neville.
(B) The prophecy only had Harry's name on it because the keeper of the halls of prophecies put it there after the attack on him as a child. It was renamed, thus the fact that Harry's name's on it might just be a human mistake.
(A) The wording is: "Only the people to whom it refers can lift them [the prophecies] from their shelves without suffering madness." "To whom it refers" can be interpreted "about whom it was made," making the labeling unimportant.
(B) The prophecies are only inanimate objects, and it's the MoM that puts the protective spell on them, making the one they think it's about the only person to retrieve it.
(A) We know nothing about how the protection works or how the records of prophecies get to the MoM. We only know that they are well protected, which could mean anything.

I'll stop there. As you see, in this argument, both sides are quite strong and we lack information to really settle the thing. Both sides can use these arguments in combination with other ones about whether Harry or Neville is the One, but they're not fully convincing just on their own. This kind of "weaker" arguments is often called "complementary arguments," meaning that, in a debate, you should use them to add weight to your theory, not as your main point. Okay, let's go on with today's topic.

Destiny vs. Choice

We stand now before a major problem, a great mystery. On one hand, we have the prophecies, which seem to be showing us the future, no matter what the characters do to stop it. On the other hand, we have the major theme in JKR's books of the importance of choice. How do these two things work together?

Choice is very important in the HP books. As Dumbledore put it in CoS, it is our choices that show who we really are more than the abilities we're born with. To think that the future is already decided and impossible to change is a very fatalistic perspective, in which the importance of choice would be very marginal. When it comes to foreseeing the future, what are the rules? Can the characters in HP really shape their own destiny?

The first situation I thought of where a prophecy and choice come in contact is in PoA when Harry saved Pettigrew's life in the Shrieking Shack. Harry made the choice to save him, thereby fulfilling the prophecy about Wormtail's escape and Voldemort's rebirth. Could he have chosen otherwise? Theoretically, yes - but really, when you look at what kind of person Harry is, the answer must be no. Harry is, as Dumbledore remarked in CoS a "true Gryffindor," meaning noble, courageous and good-hearted. He is also filled with empathy, the capacity of feeling for other people. He's not the kind of person who would consent to the murder of an unarmed man, unable to defend himself, no matter how horribly evil this person might be. That's more of a Slytherin thing to do. So, Harry did in effect make the choice that made the prophecy come true, but he couldn't really have chosen otherwise.

It seems that prophecies (at least if they're following the Greek tradition, which I think the HP ones do), always come true, and they often do so because of people's choices. I think this works mainly because they're fairly imprecise. In the PoA one, it only said that the servant will escape and return to his master, something that could come about in many different ways. Now, if it had said "and the servant will escape because Harry will be unable to kill him and Lupin will turn into a werewolf as they go back to the castle to turn him in," it would have been a different story. In that case, Harry would certainly have thought twice about sparing Pettigrew's life and would probably have told Lupin not to come with them back to the castle just then. He would have had a much greater chance of remembering the prophecy in that way. That was not the case, though, and the prophecy came true. [Editor's note: Harry would also have known that Lupin was a werewolf before the big scene in the Shrieking Shack, so a lot would have changed.]

The other situation that springs to mind is when Voldemort showed up in Godric's Hollow and killed Harry's parents. He went there because he'd heard the first part of the OotP prophecy and wanted to prevent it. By making this choice, he accidentally fulfilled the second part (the marking), which he knew nothing about. I believe that, if Voldemort hadn't made this choice, Harry would be nothing more than a normal wizard boy. I also believe that, if Voldemort had chosen to go to the Longbottoms' place instead, Neville would be the one having a scar on his forehead and the series would be called "Neville Longbottom and...."

The point is that true prophecies as well as the wisdom of Centaurs (or so it seems) are not like any other kind of divination. We've heard it many times: divination is a very imprecise branch of magic and that people's actions have so many unpredictable consequences that it's very hard to foretell the future. But, Dumbledore also said, "True Seers are very rare" (PoA), and Firenze said, "Professor Trelawney might have Seen, I do not know" (OotP), indicating that a true prophecy is something very different from ordinary ways of foretelling the future. Note the capitalization of "Seen," signifying the importance of the word and setting it apart from "seen," making "See the future" very differently charged from "see the future."

It seems like the wisdom of Centaurs and prophecies are connected. They're both ruled by something greater than the human world, by the Universe or some force behind it (yes, a parallel to God can easily be drawn here, but JKR doesn't really do that so neither will I; I'm just pointing at a possible interpretation). This force is the ultimate mystery, in the HP universe as well as in our own, and has been subject to people's thoughts and wonderings for millennia: is there something greater out there which knows (and decides) the fate of the world? Do we create our own destiny? And so on. As much as I'd love to go all philosophical on you, I'll stay away from those ones right now or we'll never see the end of this. :-)

My point is that prophecies work in a different time frame than "real time," very much like the time-turner. The prophecy is not formed before the actions take place; it is formed simultaneously before, during and after. Confused? Imagine that time is a road and that you're driving on it. You know where you are because you're seeing it (that's the present). You know where you have been because you've seen it (that's the past). You might be able to guess what lies ahead through signs that you've seen along the way (that's the future), but you'll never know. There might be a big rock blocking the way just behind a curve that you didn't foresee would be there. Divination would be what the driver's doing, trying to guess what lies ahead based on what is likely to happen (e.g., in their first class, Trelawney foresees that Neville will break a cup. She's probably heard tales about how clumsy he is and realizes that this is a probable event).

Now, imagine that someone else is driving the car and you're on a mountain seeing the entire road from above. You know 1) what lies ahead of the car and 2) how the driver will act along the way (because you're all-knowing too, isn't that cool?). So, you're not seeing only where the car is at a specific moment, you're seeing where the car is at every different point along the way. You see at the same time past, present and future, which is quite impossible for us humans to really imagine as we have a three-dimensional way of thinking. Now, say that you want to interfere with what the car is doing. Right now, it's going to get safely to the next town (and, at the same time, it's already there). You, on the other hand, want it to crash into a big rock lying on the road. So, you put up a warning sign saying, "Beware of big rock". You do not, however, say when this rock will appear and make sure that the driver is distracted from remembering the sign by putting up a big poster advertising an all-nude strip joint just before he arrives at it. This makes the driver jam into the rock, just as you foretold.

Same thing with Voldemort and Professor Trelawney's first prophecy. What's the one thing that would make Voldemort go over to the Potters' (or Longbottoms') and try to kill their son and thereby lose all his powers? Well, you create a prophecy stating a threat and don't let him hear all of it. It's like the Greek story about Oedipus. How do you make a guy kill his dad and marry his mom? You tell this to his dad, who'll send the boy away in self-protection, with the result that he'll not know who his real parents are and therefore have no problem with killing and marrying them (which he'd never done if they'd raised him themselves).

So, am I saying that the HP universe is interfering with the HP human world? Yes, I am. I base this partly on my theory concerning the balance of good and evil in the universe (NT3): how the pendulum always swings back after you push it to one side, trying to reach equilibrium. So, if there's a great push towards evil, there'll be a great force wanting to push it back in the direction of good and vice versa (e.g., if the evil driver of the car (that he's probably stolen from an old lady) has been able to get away from justice and is killing little birds with the exhaust from his car every mile along the way, the good side of the universe will make sure that there's a donut shop a bit further along with a cop inside).

Much more important, though: (this is my more cynical literary analyst view, the one above is my philosophical one) on the Harry Potter road, JKR is the person up on the cliff, and we're sitting in the back seat of the car. She's the boss in the HP universe and knows exactly what's going to happen and to whom. She wants Voldy to go attack Harry (or there wouldn't have been a story to write), so she lets him hear the beginning of the prophecy and make his choice between Harry and Neville (knowing that he will choose Harry because of his own background). She then wants Harry (and the readers) to know that Voldy's going to come back for real and that there'll be a huge fight ("and the Dark Lord will rise again, greater and more terrible than ever before," PoA). So, she lets Professor Trelawney get her second true prophecy, which Harry won't be allowed to remember when he is in a position to stop it from coming true. Also, by doing this, she creates the "mystical bond" between Harry and Pettigrew, which will certainly be very important to her storyline in the last books. I further believe that she lets Harry get to know Dumbledore's interpretation (note: interpretation, not necessarily correct) of the prophecy, knowing that if Harry believes that he or Voldy will have to kill the other in the end, it will influence his actions and lead things along the "right" path ("right" being where JKR wants them to go). She's the writer. She's the goddess of the HP universe. She alone holds the ultimate truth. She alone can see past, present and future at the same time. What we're doing, and what most characters in HP are doing, is divination - a very imprecise branch of magic. She alone can truly See.

In addition, this doesn't really conflict with the importance of choice for the following reason: it says that our choices show who we really are (or at least, how the HP characters are), not that they allow us to escape our destiny. According to my memory (which can be wrong; if so, please correct me on this), JKR hasn't addressed the problem of fate yet. It seems like the true prophecies and the wisdom of centaurs hold, and that that isn't a problem. The personalities of the characters are shown by their actions for the most part (which, by the way, is one of the classic methods of characterization), and this gives readers clues about what will come about and why. Little by little, we too will come to know the characters; and then, we might approach the place where JKR has been standing all along, up on the mountain, looking down at the HP road, seeing all points at once and understanding how it all works. I don't think we'll ever get the complete picture, though. After all, the only person who truly understands a work of literature is the person who wrote it.

I'll now go get my own Inner Eye started for next week's series finale: the End of Days, What the Prophecies Tell Us.

See you guys!
Maline

10/01/03

thought I'd round off my series on prophecies with this article and that next week's will be a question - answer session about what I've written so far. So, if there's anything in the previous five columns that you have questions on, want to comment, contradict or that you do not understand, send those questions and comments to me, and I'll answer them next week. Okay, let's get going. [Editor's note: Let's try to get those to her by 11:30 PM EDT on Friday, October 10th. That'll give Maline time to think about and answer the questions.]

I'll go through each of the prophecies today and see what I can make of them. Let's start with the two fragmented ones that were smashed in the DoM:

OotP, p. 692: "...at the solstice will come a new..."
OotP, p. 692: "...and none will come after..."

This could mean absolutely anything. I cannot find any textual support that suggests what it could be about. I've heard one interesting theory though (thanks, Randi):

The Summer Solstice is on June 21st (the release date of OotP, so could the Winter Solstice, December 22nd be the release date of the 7th book? A new book will come out on the 21st of June - more will come after that, but on the Winter Solstice, none will come after it...

This theory is as good as any but has only circumstantial support. It's nothing more than an intriguing guess, but I like it.

Next, the complete prophecies, the parts that have yet to be fulfilled.

Trelawny in PoA: The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before.
Firenze in OotP: In the past decade, the indications have been that wizardkind is living through nothing more than a brief calm between two wars.

There'll be a war between the Death Eaters and the other side (probably the Order of the Phoenix and the MoM now that the latter has finally realized that Voldemort's back). This will be a terrible war, worse than the last one (greater and more terrible than ever before). This means VERY bad. Remember in OotP when Moody showed Harry the photograph of the original Order? Many of them had died in the first war. We have many descriptions of how things used to be: nobody knew who to trust (Hagrid, PS/SS), people disappeared all the time, people were tortured, controlled by the Imperious Curse, Muggles were dying, the MoM was in disarray (GoF), the members of the Order were outnumbered twenty to one and kept being killed off (OotP), etc. Voldemort killed, tortured, maimed, controlled, manipulated, divided and scared people out of their wits. (The fact that people, fourteen years after his fall, are still too scared to pronounce his name should indicate how absolutely horrible things were.) How could it possibly get any worse than this?

I have a theory (It could be bunnies! Sorry, Buffy the Vampire Slayer joke...):

The only thing Voldemort didn't dare do in the first war was to attack Hogwarts.

We're reminded of this several times, just like we are reminded of the fact that Dumbledore's the only wizard Voldemort's ever feared. So what's going to happen in WWII (Wizard War II)?

Well, we can be pretty sure that there's going to be a lot of Imperious Curses used (making people we thought we could trust change sides abruptly and making the skill of withstanding the curse very important). Same for the Cruciatus Curse and Avada Kadavra. A lot of people are going to die; let's just face it. And it's not going to be just random, unimportant characters (like Lavender Brown; for example); it's going to be those that are really precious to Harry as well as to the readers. I'd be very surprised if the entire Weasly family came through alive, for example. Other high risk people are those who were up on the "potential Book 5 killings" list before OotP came out, like McGonagall, Hagrid, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Lupin, Moody and Dumbledore. After Book 5, we can now add Luna, Tonks, Firenze and Kingsley to the list.

Then, there's the possible (I'd even say probable) attack on Hogwarts, the one thing that would top the level of terrible-ness that Voldemort showed in WWI. Now, if Voldemort didn't do it last time out of fear of Dumbledore, why would he this time? I can only see one reason: if Dumbledore wasn't there anymore...

I've read many theories on why Dumbledore would not make it to the end of Book 7: Harry has to shoulder the ultimate responsibility, Harry must be left alone to find his true strength, Dumbledore's really old, it's tradition for the mentor to die (Star Wars, LotR, different myths), etc., etc. I've always been able to find arguments to contradict these theories before (Harry's not ready yet, age is no problem for wizards, HP is not the same thing as Star Wars/LotR/different myths, etc.). Now I'm not so sure.

My main argument for Dumbledore's survival remains, though, JKR needs Dumbledore for an important structural purpose. He's the storyteller, the wise one who knows (almost) all the secrets. He's JKR's tool for telling us readers how everything works together, to make us understand how brilliantly complex her story really is. During the first five books, Dumbledore's been an important Revealer of Important Plot Stuff and I have a hard time seeing who JKR could find to fill that function if she kills him.

On the other hand, I think an attack on Hogwarts is very probable and that the outcome will depend on one main thing: the ability to work together. Remember the Sorting Hat's song in OotP, and combine it with Dumbledore's speech at the end of GoF (about how only by showing friendship and trust can they fight Voldemort's skill of dividing people). We also have the formation of the DA. Its purpose is defence against Voldemort, and I believe it will have to prove itself. Another reason to why Hogwarts would be attacked is that it would be such a neat place for a battle; also, I think that JKR will have a hard time resisting it. Just imagine, all those moving staircases, all the secret rooms, all the cool stuff. I think the Marauders' Map will have a big role in this battle.

As for Dumbledore, he might "do a Gandalf" and disappear for a while (grave injury, secret mission, whatever) and come back after the fight. I really can't sufficiently support either theory. (If you think you can, please go ahead.)

I'll stop here for. To be continued next week. :-)

Maline

10/5/03

Today I'll finish what I started last week: an analysis of what will happen based on the prophecies in Harry Potter. Let's pick up where we left off and go back to the prophecies.


but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not

This clause can be analyzed in two ways.

1) He [the One] will have power and the Dark Lord won't know that he [the One] has that power.
2) He [the One] will have power that the Dark Lord is not familiar with.

If you interpret it according to (1), this supports the argumentation of Neville being the One: since Voldemort's never met him, he doesn't know anything about his powers (as many people have pointed out to me in their owls).

If, on the other hand, you interpret it according to (2), it means that it is about the power in itself that the Dark Lord knows nothing (or very little). He might very well know that the One possesses this power but not how it works or how powerful it is.

I interpret it according to (2) for the following reasons:

1) If you divide the clause into parts according to function you'll get:
he | will have | power the Dark Lord knows not - subject | predicate | object

In this situation, the words "the Dark Lord knows not" become a description of "power" in the same way as "a red" in the sentence "the girl has a rose, a red," describes the rose, not the girl. Also, "knows" is here used as a transitive verb (meaning that it refers directly to another word without a preposition in between) giving the possible question "What doesn't the DL know? - the power" (like the sentence "What doesn't Maline know? - her Latin homework"). "Knows" is attached to "power" and not to "he." In order to attach it to "he," you'd need another relative clause, e.g. "he will have power the Dark Lord knows not that he has."

2) The power in question is described as follows by Dumbledore (OotP p.743)

"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries... that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests."

A power which Harry has and Voldy doesn't... a force that Voldemort detests. Note the structural parallel to the passages about the effects of Lily's sacrifice (PS/SS, CoS, GoF, OotP) where we're told that the protection it gave to Harry was due to an ancient branch of magic which Voldemort's aware of but has always despised and therefore underestimated. He hasn't learned it because he thinks it's rubbish. He doesn't know it.

I think that we're talking about the same power here, the Power, which I think is also the same as the power in "The One with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches." Voldemort knows that Harry has this power, but he doesn't know exactly what it is, does or how powerful it can be.

3) Why would JKR write seven books called Harry Potter and... if the true hero was Neville Longbottom? Please everyone, this does not make sense. This is like, at the end of Cinderella, it would turn out that the glass shoe fits one of the stepsisters perfectly and she goes away to the castle, marries the prince and lives happily ever after.

Anyway, we will surely get to know more about this power, how it works, why Harry has it and why Voldemort doesn't. This should include a more detailed study of Voldemort's character. More information on his transformation into the Dark Lord and childhood, perhaps?

and either must die at the hand of the other

Oh yes! Everybody's favourite part for guessing the ending of HP7. I've already explained (in NT1 - Chosen) what I think about this: that one (or both) of the personas "the One" and "the Dark Lord" will have to die, but not necessarily the people behind them (i.e., Harry and Tom).

This still gives quite a bit of room for guesswork though. Here are some options:

1) Tom dies because he now (possibly because of Harry's blood and Wormtail's flesh) has "enough human in him to die," but not yet enough to live. Remember that he in PS/SS drank the blood of a unicorn and is therefore doomed to a damned half-life.

2) Voldemort might be cleansed and "forgiven" by the great power (love... hey, think how surprised we'd all be if it turns out to be something else!), and everybody will have a happy ending and la la la, but I think that's a bit too fairy tale for JKR.

3) Both Tom and Harry might die. We've seen how long grudges tend to last in HP, so what if Harry and Voldemort fight, Harry wins, Voldemort goes good and remorseful, Harry kills him anyway because Voldemort killed his parents? Or they become friends and get killed by other people? I must say that I don't believe that Harry would kill Tom Riddle, we've seen how he sympathizes with him in CoS and he's already shown Wormtail extraordinary mercy, but it is a possibility.

The way I see it, it could go either way. I think the Dark Lord will be defeated by the mystical power wielded by Harry and become Tom Riddle again. Then, Harry has a choice to make: show mercy or kill him anyway. As I said, it would be more in character for Harry to show mercy, but let's not forget two things:

1) Harry hates Voldemort because of all the pain he's caused him. Voldy has killed (so far) his mother, father and Sirius, the people he loved most in the entire world. He's made his life miserable with all the headaches and having to live at the Dursleys, not to mention the unwanted fame. Harry would want to kill him.

2) He thinks he has to. Remember that both Dumbledore and Harry interpreted the prophecy in a different way than we did here: they believe that Harry must kill Voldy in the physical sense. I think this is very important. JKR has shown before that her characters don't always know the truth about things (e.g., what really happened with Wormtail, Sirius and the Fidelius Charm) and they can misinterpret things also. They're only human after all.

This opens up for the very sad and ironic ending that Voldy goes good, Harry forgives him but kills him anyway because he thinks that he has to (like Buffy with Angel in season 2, only she actually had to). This would be very Greek-tragedy-ish and go well with JKR's style.

On the other hand (again), I got hooked on two things Dumbledore said while fighting Voldemort in the MoM: "Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit," and "Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness" (both in OotP, p 718).

JKR has said that she often speaks through Dumbledore and I think this is one of the moments when character and writer melt together. If you put the two sentences together you get the following clue: JKR will not merely kill off Voldemort because 1) it wouldn't satisfy her (she too will want "revenge" for the murders of some of her favorite characters, think back on her statements about her grief when killing off Sirius, for example), and 2) she obviously has something important to show us. What it is that is worse than death? Well, the mystical power locked inside the DoM, for example. Voldemort doesn't know it, but he'll have to learn, I think we can count on that. My personal guess is that Lord Voldemort will be "cleansed" and go back to being Tom Riddle, but that he'll have to make amends for all the evil he's done for the rest of his life. But, that is just me.

Next week, I'll answer any questions you might have on any one of my first seven articles, so go catch an owl and send them to me, okay?

See you all, and have a nice week!
Maline

10/12/03

Hi everybody! I'll round off my series on prophecies today with a question/answer session on the matter. These past seven weeks, I've received a whole bunch of questions about my articles, and I thought I'd try to answer most of them here today. Okay, let's go!
About the Power...

1) Do you believe that the "power to vanquish the Dark Lord" and the "power the Dark Lord knows not" are referring to the same power?

Yes, I do, mainly because it's going to take a lot of space in the books to fully explain and see the effects of this mystical power and JKR only has two books left. (Plus, I think that the power is Love, and that fits nicely with both descriptions.)

2) Do you believe that Harry possesses larger quantities of "the power the Dark Lord knows not" than anyone else?

Yes, I do, or at least I think that he has the potential to. I'll discuss this in depth when I do my article on the connections between Harry, Voldemort and Snape; but in general, I think that Harry holds a great force of goodness and love that is quite unexplained. He's been through a lot of bad stuff, and it would have been more realistic if he'd become all bitter and evil, but he hasn't. Why is that? I think it's the fact that he's been chosen to be the vessel for the Good Power, whatever it is.

3) If Voldy were to be forgiven, like you said, I think that would be too Fairy Tale-ish.

It would if it happened in the way of "Oh look, Voldy's my best friend and all wizards will unite and live happily ever after, no hard feelings." That was not what I meant with "cleansed and forgiven." What I meant was that Voldemort might be cleansed and "forgiven" by the great power (maybe Love) but that he will have to spend the rest of his life dealing with the pain and the guilt of all his terrible deeds and making amends to the wizarding community (where a great number will still hate him and not trust him) by doing good. (Yes, kind of like Angel. I'm obsessed with "Buffy," what can I say... ;-))

4) If the great force is love, how is it terrible? Dumbledore said "at once more wonderful and more terrible than death."

I think anyone who's ever been in love can give you an answer to that. Love isn't all roses, kisses and walking on pink clouds (unfortunately). I usually describe love as handing someone your heart on a plate with a huge, sharp knife lying beside it. To love someone is to risk being extremely hurt. It's like jumping from a plane, not knowing if you're wearing a parachute or a normal backpack. To be loved makes you feel like the luckiest and happiest person on the planet. To lose love will make you feel the exact opposite. Parents say that the most powerful feeling is the love for their child. Then imagine the feeling of watching that child die... It would probably be more terrible than death itself.

5) What if the power mentioned in the prophecy is not love at all, but the power that Hermione thinks is Harry's "saving people thing"? Voldemort definitely does not care about saving people or going to their rescue, but Harry always has.

This would mean that the Power would be heroism or something like that. That would work nicely together with the theory that Harry might be Gryffindor's heir. On the other hand, I think it's a bit too narrow. We are talking about the most powerful, wonderful and terrible of all powers here after all. Also, Harry's "saving people thing" is motivated by what? That's right: love (or empathy if you wish). I think heroism is a part of the power (one of its facets, so to speak), but I doubt that it's the whole answer.

About the touching of prophecies...

1) Neville was holding the prophecy at one point, during the battle thing, and it was Neville who dropped it and broke it. If only the one that the prophecy is about can touch it, how come Neville wasn't driven mad?
I'll let Bob answer that one...

The Reason Some People Can Touch Prophecies And Others Cannot: Ahh, it's very simple. Anyone can touch a prophecy, but only the person it's about can retrieve it--that is, take it off the shelf. Once it's off the shelf, anyone can touch it. Notice how Lucius Malfoy waited until Harry got it off the shelf, then was eager to take it from Harry, not afraid at all. It is obvious some kind of go-crazy hex is put on the shelf, not the prophecy recording. This also explains how the human recorders can make the record without going nuts. Also why nobody went nuts from hearing the shattered prophecies -- which were smashed by knocking over the shelves. JKR is very clever indeed!

I agree. It's the retrieval of the prophecy that makes you mad. I don't know about the "go-crazy hex" on the shelves, though. We don't really know anything about exactly what is protecting the prophecies, so that's a theory amongst others.

2) Why couldn't Voldemort just take the prophecy himself if it included him, being the Dark Lord?

He could have, but he didn't want to risk drawing attention to the fact that he was back, as the Ministry was so "sweetly ignoring his return" (OotP). Personally, I think this was pretty stupid of him. I mean, they don't seem to be that big on security at the Ministry, seeing how six Hogwarts students, twelve Death Eaters and a bunch of members of the Order could get in there and have a big fight before anybody even noticed. Sure, one member of the Order was standing guard every night, but if you're Voldemort, that shouldn't really be a problem, should it?

About Neville, Harry and the terms of the prophecy...

1) Voldy didn't know about the "mark him as his equal" part of the prophesy and was probably thinking that he would go to BOTH houses and kill BOTH children before either got old enough to become The One. What if Harry was ALWAYS going to be The One and it happened that because Voldy visited his house first and became "diminished," never getting the chance to go to Neville's house!! (I used the word "diminished" to refer to the condition Voldy was left in after the death curse reversed back on him and left the mark on Harry.)
By this other theory, Harry was marked BECAUSE he was The One, and NOT because Voldy CHOSE him to be The One. So, if Voldy had visited Neville's house first, he would have successfully killed Neville and then moved on to mark Harry and become "diminished" at that point. The reason I happen to like my theory is because the other way, it looks like Harry got to be The One by default, making him just a victim of circumstances. I'd like to think that JKR would not make that kind of statement about "our hero." Rather that he was always meant to be The One and always had exceptional powers that just became enhanced when Voldemort marked him.

I agree with the first part, that Voldemort probably intended to kill both boys. It makes perfect sense. I don't agree with the second part for two reasons: 1) Choice is very important in JKR's books and if Voldemort choosing Harry didn't make a difference, it would go against the general idea of the books; 2) "and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal" is one of the conditions of being the One; it's one of the identifying features. I thus believe that if Voldemort had chosen to start with Neville, he would have been the One and the series would have been called "Neville Longbottom and...." And yes, this technically makes Harry "a hero by default" and a "victim of circumstance," but that doesn't change the fact that he is a hero. Why would it be more heroic to be born a hero than to be chosen to be one?

2) If/When (and I'm sure he will) Harry realizes that Voldemort could have just as easily chosen Neville instead of himself, it could create a lot of tension between Harry and Neville. Harry might begin to resent Neville because of it. On the other hand, maybe he'll gain a new-found respect for him. Or he might just channel all his anger towards Voldemort in the next stand-off.

Good point. I think that will certainly have an impact on the Harry/Neville relationship.

3) (On the subject of Neville being the One and being marked by the Dark Lord) Maybe Neville did see his parents get tortured, but his grandmother or someone put a Memory Charm on him so that he wouldn't remember it and that's why he's so forgetful. It says in GoF that Bertha Jorkins became that way after Crouch put his Memory Charm on her.

This is also a possible theory (and a highly popular one judging from how often I see it on the Internet), but it still doesn't make Neville the One (for more arguments on this, see NT2).

4a) Since only Voldemort can kill Harry, Harry is (supposedly) pretty safe. A Death Eater could (again, supposedly) Avada Kedavra Harry and Harry would not (supposedly) die. (This is not to say he would be completely unaffected.) Now this is an interesting thought. But here is a question: If the prophecy had not been told, would Harry have this power? It is (moderately) safe to assume that the prophecy itself does not affect events; it only foretells them. (This presents its own problems, which I will discuss later.) So, basically, someone could prophesy that "such-and-such-a-person will die by natural causes." Hmm... Does that mean that they would repel murder attempts and that Harry really isn't that special? This tends to lead us to a different conclusion: The reason that previously-stated-person (Johnny, from now on) dies of natural causes is not because he repels attacks, but because there will be no attempts on his/her life. Keep this in mind as I go into my next point. Johnny finds out that he will (supposedly) die of natural causes. So he gets a bit more daring than is wise and is killed in an exploit. THIS WOULD DISPROVE THE PROPHECY. Let's look at it this way: ACTION: Johnny reads prophecy. EFFECT: Johnny decides to try rock climbing, something he's always been afraid of. EFFECT: Johnny dies. EFFECT: Johnny disproves the prophecy. In short: The fact that the prophecy exists breaks the prophecy. Whoa.

Whoa indeed. ;-) Okay, first question: "If the prophecy had not been told, would Harry have this power?" No, but only because if the prophecy had not been told, Voldemort would not have heard it and would not have gone to the Potters and made Harry the One by trying to kill him. If it hadn't been told and Voldemort would (for some mysterious reason) have done what he did anyway, then yes, Harry would still have that power. The prophecy in itself doesn't change anything.

Second question: "Does that mean that Harry isn't that special?" You can't just "make a prophecy." It's an objective thing. A person can't choose what kind of prophecy he/she wants to make; it's not a human thing. Harry isn't special because of the prophecy but because of Voldemort's choice (and the facts when and to whom he was born). (Although, as seen above, this is linked to the prophecy...)

Third question: the Johnny scenario. If it's a real prophecy, then this couldn't happen. If Johnny is to die of natural causes, he probably won't get to hear the prophecy at all. Remember that the prophecy sees everything that will happen after it's told and that those things will determine it. So if Johnny, in the end, dies rock climbing, the prophecy will have known that before being told and be adapted to that fact. You could also consider that to die rock climbing is actually a natural way to go and that Johnny just misinterpreted the prophecy and thereby fulfilled it. :-)

4b) When Vernon was pretty much strangling Harry, (p. 5, OotP, American hardcover) "some invisible force" surged through his nephew. Could this possibly be Harry repelling an attack? I believe it was the ONLY time in the whole series that Harry's life was DIRECTLY in danger by someone other that Voldemort. Some may disagree with the preceding statement, but bear with me. Book 1: Harry was endangered by Quirrell, but VOLDEMORT WAS STICKING OUT THE BACK OF HIS HEAD. Book 2: Harry was NOT endangered by Riddle, he was most definitely endangered by the 'Dark Lord.' Book 3: Harry's life was not DIRECTLY endangered. Nobody actually tried to kill him. Pettigrew would have liked to, but he didn't TRY. Some would argue that having Lupin loose on the grounds would be endangerment, and it is, but it didn't get to the point of DIRECT endangerment. Direct endangerment would have been if Lupin was pinning Harry to the ground and actually TRYING to rip his head off. Book 4: The Death Eaters never actually attacked Harry with a killing curse, only Voldemort did, and Harry could fend that off without the 'power.' Book 5: Harry fended off all attacks by other means; he did not have to use the 'power.' If you can think of any other time when Harry's life was DIRECTLY endangered, except by Voldemort, and which he could not repel himself, I would like to hear it.

First question: Could this have been Harry repelling an attack? Yes, I definitely think so.

Second question: I believe that was the only time that Harry's life was endangered by someone other than Voldemort. Okay, let's see...

Book 1: Well, I'd count the troll, Fluffy and the Devil's Snare
Book 2: Aragog and the Basilisk
Book 3: a hundred Dementors about to perform the Kiss
Book 4: the dragon and the fake Moody
Book 5: the Dementors in Little Winging.

The attack by Uncle Vernon is still very special though, by the fact that it's the only time in the whole series that Harry's attacked without having either help coming or being able to sort out the situation himself (using spells he knows, etc.). I think this is highly significant. My theory is that the prophecy holds, Harry can't be killed by someone other than Voldemort, but that he (nor anybody else) has ever realized this. He doesn't know, and so he doesn't go out into the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls just for the fun of it. He doesn't try jumping from the North Tower either. Him not being aware of his imperviousness is the key to it. I hadn't seized that fact either, even after making a thorough analysis of the prophecy. I did, like most people (including Harry and Dumbledore), focus on the fact that only the One could kill the Dark Lord, not realizing that "and either must die at the hand of the other" also meant that only the Dark Lord could kill the One.
About the recording of prophecies...

1) Is it possible that the only way prophecies are recorded there is by being reported by those who hear it? Perhaps it's like using a Pensieve: when the prophecy is heard, the memory/thought is taken out of that person's head and copied, and then stored? This would explain why the PoA prophecy was not reported/stored, because Harry did not know how to do that or even that it could happen. If no one else knew about the prophecy due to its lack of being reported, that's one less reason to believe Voldemort would return. Had they known, perhaps the MoM would have been less reluctant to listen to Dumbledore.
We don't know how the prophecies end up in the MoM so the "they have to be reported" theory is as good as any. On the other hand, we don't know that the PoA prophecy is NOT stored in the MoM. It is very possible that it is, just that Harry didn't notice it when he was in there. (There were a great number of shelves after all, so if the prophecies were organized depending on date, for example, it would have been in a completely different place.) Also, only the ones the prophecy's about can retrieve it and listen to it (except for the keeper), so how could the Ministry know about the PoA prophecy? Only the keeper would (and he's probably not allowed to say anything).

2) What if the "great eye" or "inner eye" that Professor Trelawney talks about isn't actually something you can possess, but something that possesses you for the period of the prophecy and all the person can see is an eye and you'll have no memory of making the prophecy, just a feeling like you've just woken up after dosing off? The Ministry could have formed some sort of link with this entity so that a "hard-copy" is made when the eye kicks into gear.
Yes, that is very possible. My personal opinion is that it works along those lines. Just a feeling.

About the Time-Turner theory...

1) In PoA, page 292 (English version), Hermione tells Harry, "Professor McGonagall told me what awful things have happened when wizards have meddled with time. Loads of them ended up killing their past or future selves by mistake." This messes up the double time theory. In that case, you would be killed before you could go back in time to do so. My theory is that there are parallel universes. Every time someone goes back in time and changes something, the timeline splits. In the "first" reality, everything stays the same, but the person disappears after going back in time. The "second" reality will change and the person will continue to live in that reality.

I also wondered about this when I was writing about the Time-Turner. It's true that with the double-time theory, killing your past or future self would be difficult. (Killing your past self would be impossible, as pointed out above, and if you in "real time" killed a double of yourself, you'd probably be smart enough to realize that it was you going back in time and then decide NOT to go back in time in order not to be killed in "double time." But since you'd already gone back in time in "double time," which exists simultaneously with "real time," you couldn't NOT go back in time, etc... Indeed, very confusing.) On the other hand, the theory about the split timeline also poses a problem: This would create a new reality every time a person uses a Time-Turner, but those different realities would still be one single reality. I'll try to explain myself better. When Hermione was using the Time-Turner to get to all her classes she technically existed as several people at the same time and in the same reality. She was in Muggle Studies with her classmates at the same time as she was in Divination with Harry and Ron. During that class (those classes), the two Hermiones could technically meet, say, in the bathroom. From the moment when the Time-Turner was used, though, there's only one Hermione and the double disappears. This still doesn't solve the killing problem though. To Hermione, there's no "double time," she'll go to one class and then another. So, if she'd go to Muggle Studies, go back in time and do Divination and during Divination get up, go to the Muggle Studies classroom and kill herself, the Hermione in Muggle Studies wouldn't be able to finish that class, go back in time and go to Divination. It's the exact same problem with both theories. You can technically kill your future self, but not your past self. It's logically impossible. Personally, I think JKR made a mistake when putting in the "loads of them ended up killing their past or future selves by mistake" line. Either that or I'm just too thick to see the real explanation. :-)

Other...

1) When Harry and Draco fight in the halls, their spells collide and hit Crabbe/Goyle and Hermione in the face. How is that different than Voldemort and Harry's fight? (The wands don't work against each other in either case.)
It's different in that, since Voldemort and Harry's wands are brothers, they refuse to fight against each other and perform "Priori Incantatem" when forced to. In the fight with Malfoy, the spells just get in the way of one another, kind of like if you and a friend threw balls at each other and they collided in mid air. It has nothing to do with the wands; we see how spells can bounce off things all the time (in the graveyard in GoF for example).

2) When are you going to update Level Nine/Book 6 section, etc?
I have absolutely no idea. I'm only a columnist and have absolutely no power over these things. To tell you the truth, I don't even know who it is that does the updates. (I'm guessing Nancy, as she's the one who turns my Word articles into Internet format. She's on the staff page if you want to contact her.) [Editor's note: Nope, I'm not in charge of that, either, so I'm not in a position to answer. I can try to find out, though...]

I'm sure that I've forgotten a whole bunch of interesting questions, and I apologize. Sometimes I get a really interesting question that I plan to answer but then end up deleting from my inbox by mistake. (The subject line always reads "Mugglenet feedback" so it's an easy mistake to make, seeing as I have to delete mails when I've read them or they'd overflow my account.) Some questions I have deliberately waited to answer as I'll be doing future articles on them (among those are the mystical power (Love?); Snape; Snape's worst memory; the veil; what happened to Sirius; the mystery of portraits, photos and such; ghosts; Voldemort; the Voldy-Harry-Snape triangle; the Lupin=James theory; and the Malfoys) If you have questions about any of those subjects, feel free to send me owls. (I love owls.)

See you guys in a week!

Take care
Maline

10/19/03

(Next week's title: "Beyond the Veil"...)

One of the great mysteries in OotP is what exactly happened to Sirius in the Death Chamber in the DoM. I've had many owls about this and also read a whole bunch of different theories on the subject. Today, I'll try to sort things out a bit.

Let's start with the text (as always). The Death Chamber (Dumbledore gives us its name on p. 721) is described as follows:

OotP, p. 682:
"This room was larger than the rest, dimly lit and rectangular, and the centre of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit some twenty feet deep. They were standing on the topmost tier of what seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in steep steps like an amphitheatre, or the courtroom in which Harry had been tried by the Wizengamot. Instead of a chained chair, however, there was a raised stone dais in the centre of the pit, on which stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked and crumbling that Harry was amazed the thing was still standing. Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the archway was hung with a tattered black curtain or veil which, despite the complete stillness of the cold surrounding air, was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.
"Who's there?" said Harry, jumping down on to a bench below. There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway.
"Careful!" whispered Hermione.
Harry scrambled down the benches one by one until he reached the stone bottom of the sunken pit. His footsteps echoed loudly as he walked slowly towards the dais. The pointed archway looked much taller from where he now stood than it had when he'd been looking down on it from above. Still, the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it.
"Sirius?" Harry spoke again, but more quietly now that he was nearer.
He had the strangest feeling that there was somebody standing right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. Gripping his wand very tightly, he edged around the dais, but there was nobody there; all that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil. "Let's go," called Hermione from halfway up the stone steps. "This isn't right, Harry, come on, let's go."
She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam, yet Harry thought the archway had a kind of beauty about it, old though it was. The gently rippling veil intrigued him; he felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it.
"Harry, let's go, OK?" said Hermione more forcefully.
"OK," he said, but did not move. He had just heard something. There were faint whispering, murmuring noises coming from the other side of the veil.
"What are you saying?" he said, very loudly, so that his words echoed all around the stone benches.
"Nobody's talking, Harry!" said Hermione, now moving over to him.
"Someone's whispering behind there," he said, moving out of her reach and continuing to frown at the veil. "Is that you, Ron?"
"I'm here, mate," said Ron, appearing around the side of the archway.
"Can't anyone else hear it?" Harry demanded, for the whispering and murmuring was becoming louder; without really meaning to put it there, he found his foot was on the dais.
"I can hear them too," breathed Luna, joining them around the side of the archway and gazing at the swaying veil. "There are people in there!"
"What do you mean, "in there"?" demanded Hermione, jumping down from the bottom step and sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted, "there isn't any "in there", it's just an archway, there's no room for anybody to be in there. Harry, stop it, come away--"
She grabbed his arm and pulled, but he resisted.
"Harry, we're supposed to be here for Sirius!" she said in a high-pitched, strained voice.
"Sirius," Harry repeated, still gazing, mesmerized, at the continuously swaying veil. "Yeah..."
Something finally slid back into place in his brain; Sirius, captured, bound and tortured, and he was staring at this archway...
He took several paces back from the dais and wrenched his eyes from the veil.
"Let's go," he said.
"That's what I've been trying to -- well, come on, then!" said Hermione, and she led the way back around the dais. On the other side, Ginny and Neville were staring, apparently entranced, at the veil too. Without speaking, Hermione took hold of Ginny's arm, Ron grabbed Neville's, and they marched them firmly back to the lowest stone bench and clambered all the way back up to the door.
"What d'you reckon that arch was?" Harry asked Hermione as they regained the dark circular room.
"I don't know, but whatever it was, it was dangerous," she said firmly, again inscribing a fiery cross on the door."

As we see in OotP, there's one room in the DoM for every mystery. There's the room of Time, the room of Prophecy, the brain-room (Intelligence?), the planet-room (the Universe?), the ever-locked one (Love?) and the one we have here: the Death Room.

The room is compared to an amphitheatre and the courtroom of the Wizengamot. This indicates that this is not only a place for study, but a place for "show" as well. I've heard the theory that the Death Room might be used to carry out the death penalty in the wizarding world. Definitely a possibility. Although, the wizard version of the death penalty seems to be the Dementor's Kiss, which is described as "worse than death." Why would you then have a regular death penalty, I wonder? Note the heavy references to ancient Greece and its theatres. This could be alluding to the Greek tragedies, the fatality of life, etc. I haven't found any Greek legends about either an archway or a veil. If you have, please send them to me; I'd be greatly interested.

I don't think it's that great a mystery what the veil and the archway represent. They represent death. When you pass through the veil you die. I base this on the following arguments: 1) it's called the "Death Chamber;" they probably would call it something else if Death wasn't the subject of study in there; 2) Sirius dies when he falls through it (I'll get back to that); and 3) Harry feels very attracted to this archway.

This attraction that the veil represents is what I find most intriguing. Harry finds it beautiful, feels "a strong inclination" to walk through it and is "mesmerized" by it. Ginny and Neville are "entranced" and Harry and Luna can hear voices behind it. Hermione is scared of it but can't hear the voices and neither can Ron. This repartition is very interesting. Note that we have almost the same one with the Thestrals: Harry, Neville and Luna can see them, Ginny, Ron and Hermione can't (p. 672). Harry, Neville and Luna have a connection to Death, having witnessed it themselves. Ginny does too, for though she hasn't technically seen Death, she has been very close to dying herself (CoS). Ron and Hermione on the other hand, don't have that connection. Hermione feels fear of the unknown in the Death Chamber, nothing else.

Harry is the one who seems most affected by the veil, which is totally logical. Harry's parents are dead, he watched Cedric die, and he's been very close to snuffing it himself on several occasions. He's been very close to Death, but he doesn't know it. He's mystified by it and drawn to it, as we can see for example in PoA where he has big problems producing a Patronus because he yearns to hear his parents' last moments. He knows quite a few ghosts, and he's seen the shadows of his parents come out of Voldemort's wand. Death is a very "living" thing to Harry Potter; it's something that exists very close to his own existence. I think the voices represent exactly this: the closeness between the living world and that of the dead. Luna's very open on this matter, which could be why she too can hear the voices. (We don't know if Neville or Ginny can hear them; it would have been interesting to find out.) Also, let's not forget what Dumbledore said in PoA, that the ones we love never truly leave us, even in death. This is very true for Harry. His mother lives on in him in the protection she gave him, his father in the form his Patronus takes. Sirius will, too, in some way.

So, what actually happened to Sirius? I've read articles arguing that he actually didn't die, that someone else took Polyjuice Potion and pretended to be him, etc. I must say that I disagree. This is what the text says:

OotP p. 710-711:
"It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch. Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted, once handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in high wind, then fell back into place."

This is how I interpret it: Sirius was hit by Bellatrix's spell (probably a stunner or an impedimenta jinx as it was red) and fell. The spell didn't kill him; the veil did. He fell through the archway, marking the border between the living world and that of the dead, and consequently went over to the other side. He died.

Okay, let's answer to some arguments saying that Sirius didn't die.

1) What if someone went back to when Sirius was still at 12 Grimmauld Place and took a Polyjuice Potion to transform into him, then that person went to the Department of Mysteries, knowing their fate was on the other side of The Veil, but Sirius would have never even been in the Department of Mysteries. It is highly possible, except, who would do that?

Exactly, who would do that? In order to use a time-turner in this way, the person going back in time would have to be one who was present in the fight (or he/she wouldn't know about it). But if that person was present in the fight, he/she can't at the same time have been there as Sirius Black. Thus, for this to work, this person would have had to go back in time, taken on Sirius' appearance, got somebody else (who wasn't in the fight but who was in the Order) to take on his/her own appearance, etc. But then this person would die in the fight and be unable to go back in time, and so on. Who, indeed, would do this? Also, let's not forget that it takes ONE MONTH to prepare the Polyjuice Potion (CoS). It's not something you just whisk together in five minutes. I'd say that this theory is very far from "highly possible"...


2) Harry needs to think that Sirius is dead in order to protect him from Voldemort as Voldemort knows how much Harry loves Sirius and could try to get to Harry through him.

This is about as probable as the theory saying that Lupin is, in fact, James Potter on Polyjuice Potion. (I'll do that one next week.) Not at all probable, that is. One reason is that it would be extremely cruel to Harry to pretend that Sirius is dead if he wasn't; another that Lupin reacts too fast when he tries to keep Harry from following Sirius. If the veil was simply a doorway and didn't kill you, why would Lupin fight so hard to keep Harry from going in there and retrieve Sirius? Why wouldn't he go himself, seeing as Sirius is his best friend? It just doesn't make sense. In "The Lost Prophecy," Dumbledore explains to Harry that he didn't tell him about the prophecy because he wanted to make life easier for him, that he didn't want him to suffer. If Sirius wasn't dead, would Dumbledore really lie outright to Harry, causing him enormous, unnecessary pain? No, he wouldn't. It would be extremely out of character.

3) If Sirius is dead (which he isn't), then what the heck was PoA for? If not to give Harry dreams that would be crushed? I thought Rowling cared about Harry. If she did, she wouldn't want to cause him more emotional pain than the awful trauma he has already faced.

I must admit that I had taken Sirius off the "Book 5 death list" for this precise reason. Surely JKR wasn't going to kill off Sirius when Harry had already lost both his parents. I, too, was very, very sad when I realized that he was dead. I can see now why she did it, though: Harry needs to experience Love in all its forms to be able to vanquish Voldemort in the end. He needs to know the force which is "more wonderful and more terrible" than everything else (and I believe that this force is Love) in all aspects. He misses his parents but hasn't really felt the sorrow of their deaths. He saw Cedric die, but that wasn't a person he truly loved. He has now experienced the strongest and most terrible of all feelings: to watch a loved one die. The death of Sirius is in a way the logical progression of the previous deaths in Harry's life. His parents' death was a "half" experience (love), Cedric's death too (loss). Sirius' death puts the two parts together (love + loss), making Harry really understand the mixed wonderfulness and terribleness of Love. (Plus, it saved him from Voldemort possessing him.)

4) I heard in an interview before OotP was released that Rowling said she would be killing off a character whom she enjoyed writing about. If she enjoyed Sirius so much, then why would she make his fans hurt like this? The answer is: she doesn't enjoy writing about him as much as the Death Eaters. Weren't some Death Eaters killed?

In OotP, exactly two people die: Sirius and Bode. JKR said indeed in an interview that one of Harry's "fans," an important character would die, and that this would be a "terrible death" to write. None of the Death Eaters dies in the battle in the DoM, no students or teachers die during the year. Bode can't be the one JKR was talking about because 1) he was introduced in OotP and 2) he wasn't an important character. Did anyone cry when Bode was killed by the plant? I don't think so. A "terrible death" means what it says: that it hurts. I don't think JKR enjoyed killing off Sirius (remember how she said she cried for a long time after doing it) but that it was necessary to the plot (as I've analyzed above). She didn't do it to be mean. The Harry Potter books, though perceived as such by a lot of people, aren't fairy tales for little children. They're dark and getting darker. They are, despite all the magic going on, more realist that fantastic, I think.

I think we probably haven't seen the last of Sirius, though. He'll come back in some form. Not as a ghost, I don't think, but he'll be present. As Luna said, "Oh come on, you heard them, just behind the veil, didn't you? ... They were just lurking out of sight, that's all" (OotP, p. 761).

See you next week. I'll be doing the Lupin = James theory then.
Maline

10/26/2003

Lupin = James Potter = True?

I thought I'd deal with one of the big theories flooding the HP fan world today: Is Remus Lupin really James Potter in disguise?
A lot of people seem to be convinced that this is the case. I'll present their arguments one by one and answer them accordingly.

Firstly, how this would even be possible:

1) They could have used the Polyjuice Potion.

Okay, let's sort some things out about the Polyjuice Potion. First of all, it is very difficult to make and Lupin tells us himself in PoA that he never was much of a potions brewer (he needs Snape to make his Wolfsbane Potion, remember?). Secondly, you need a hair of whoever you're turning into for every transformation, and you need to take it every hour for the effect to last (remember the fake Moody). James is supposed to have been dead for fourteen years in OotP. That is about 122, 640 hours. How would James have got his hands on that much of Lupin's hair, I wonder? Maybe James in disguise went back to the Potters' place an hour after Lupin in disguise was killed with Lily and took all his hair after he'd transformed back to himself and then left his dead wife and still-alive kid (I don't know how long it took for Hagrid to get there) among the ruins to go live Lupin's life. Yeah, very probable... (said with a very sarcastic tone of voice).

Also, when Lupin turns into a werewolf in PoA and runs into the forest, he stays there a whole night, not being able to take any kind of potion (because he's going berserk and can't think rationally anymore). If he'd been James Potter, he would have transformed back to James within an hour and probably been killed, being in the midst of the Forbidden Forest without a wand. In addition, we don't know if the Polyjuice Potion allows for the one taking it to take over the imitated person's powers (i.e., werewolf transformation). It seems like it only makes you look (and sound) like somebody else. Take the fake Moody, for example, who had to steal the magical eye from the real one. This indicates that the PP cannot, in fact, mimic specific magical properties of the person you're impersonating.

2) They could have used a Switching Spell or a Switching Potion.

Firstly, what the heck is a "Switching Potion"? I can't remember reading anything about that. As for the Switching Spell, it is indeed used to change the appearance of things (e.g., Neville transfers his own ears onto a cactus), but I doubt very much (like with the PP) that it would allow you to mimic the magical properties of any wizard or witch. It seems to me that a Switching Spell would be even more superficial than the PP, changing only the appearance. (What about the voice, for example?)

Next step: what are the arguments supporting this idea?

1) In PoA, Lupin always acts so fatherly towards Harry, and he reacts strongly when Harry tells him about hearing James and Lily's voices.

This seems to be the main argument. Now, let's see, why would Lupin react strongly to Harry hearing the last moments of his (Lupin's) best friend's life? And why would Lupin be nice to Harry if he wasn't his son? Because he's a nice guy and Harry's his best friend's son, of course! Stop focusing on this particular argument for a moment and see the whole thing in perspective. Lupin isn't the only one acting "fatherly" towards Harry. Sirius, Molly and Dumbledore do it to a far greater extent. He's an orphan, for goodness' sake! Of course people will feel sorry for him and want to protect and help him. Lupin never fights to be Harry's favorite person or the person who gets to take care of him more (like Molly and Sirius do). He never openly declares that he loves him (the way Dumbledore does). Lupin teaches him to do the Patronus Charm and worries about him. What is so fatherly about that that people start to think that he must be James Potter in disguise?

2) In PoA, Lupin sometimes seems to read Harry's mind and to know what he is thinking. So this could mean that he knows Harry very well, kind of like a father would.

I suppose that this refers to p. 140:

"Why, why do [the Dementors] affect me like that? Am I just -?"
"It has nothing to do with weakness," said Professor Lupin sharply, as though he had read Harry's mind."

Lupin's conclusion to Harry's worries isn't anything special in this case. I mean, how many adjectives could you put in that place, "Am I just…"? We also have examples of Lupin misunderstanding Harry, in the scene with the Boggart in the closet, for example, so I don't really think that they have that great a bond. Compare with Dumbledore, who is often described as being able to see right through Harry. Lupin doesn't. Also, the reason why a father knows his son well enough to "read his mind" is that he's been with him all his life. It's not automatic; you have to spend time with your child to get to know him. Since James hasn't spent any time with Harry since he was one, how would he know his son?

3) In chapter 17 of the PoA Lupin says "I certainly don't want Harry dead..." and then an odd shiver passed over his face. Why would he shiver? We know that he was good friends with the Potters and would want no harm to come to Harry, but why would Harry's wellbeing affect him so personally?

Hmm, a person who shivers at the thought of somebody he likes dying. Yes, that MUST mean that they're father and son! Think about this: wouldn't you shiver from the thought of your best friend dying, or somebody else that you really like? Again, compare this reaction to that of another character: Molly's Boggart turns into a dead Harry and she cries like mad (OotP). That's a way stronger reaction than a mere shiver, and Molly's not Harry's mother.

4) In chapter 5 of PoA: Lupin knows Harry's name and he doesn't seem to react to Harry like most other people have, meaning that he doesn't stare at his scar or mention the resemblance to his dad, or his mothers eyes.

Harry has just fainted because of the Dementors and is feeling generally lousy. Of course Lupin recognizes him -- everybody does; but there's something called "tact," which means you don't want to remind people of sad things (such as dead parents) when they're already feeling bad. And Lupin is a very tactful man (take his treatment of Neville, for example).

5) Lupin's Boggart turns into a silvery orb, which could be a moon, but it could also be a crystal ball, and he might fear it because it might show that he really is James instead of Lupin.

Considering the fact that Lupin is a werewolf and that he turns into a monster at the full moon, it is a lot more possible and probable that the silvery orb represents the full moon. Sure, Lupin "positively flees" when Trelawney offers him a crystal gaze, but this could be explained by either of the following:

1) Lupin thinks (like the other teachers) that Trelawney's an old fraud and doesn't want to listen to her foretelling his death or other miseries.

2) Lupin has other secrets he needs to hide, e.g., the fact that he knows that Sirius is an animagus and that he might be using the tunnel under the Whomping Willow to get into Hogwarts.

11 reasons to why Lupin cannot be James Potter:

1) JKR told us in an interview that we would never see a live James or Lily Potter, and Lupin is a living person, after all.

2) In PoA, Sirius says that the reason to why they didn't tell Lupin about the change of Secret Keeper was that they suspected him to be the traitor. Why, then, would James trust Lupin more than Sirius? (Remember that it's said in PoA that James trusted Sirius more than anyone else.)

3) Lupin and James are very different characters. Lupin is described as more careful and rule-abiding while James is described as someone who likes to take risks. The Remus Lupin we meet in the books suits the first character description far better than the second. (For example, if Lupin was Potter, wouldn't he have let Harry keep the Marauder's Map after having taken it back from Snape in PoA? Not at the end of the book, but directly after confiscating it?)

4) Lupin's Boggart turns into a silvery orb (the full moon). James Potter's would probably not, seeing as he's not a werewolf.

5) Why would James keep his identity a secret? Voldemort lost his powers; he had nothing to be afraid of. Wouldn't he reveal who he really was at least to Sirius? In OotP we learn that he's very confident, likes to be the center of attention and is a bit of a show-off. Denying his identity for 14 years doesn't really seem to suit him.

6) To change form with Lupin in order to save your own neck at the same time as putting one of your best friends in grave danger seems a very cowardly thing to do. Not in character for James and not in character for a Gryffindor.

7) Lupin doesn't act half as fatherly towards Harry as for example Molly (motherly in her case, I guess), Sirius or Dumbledore.

8) Harry saw the shadow of his father come out of Voldemort's wand. The shadows that came out were of the people he'd killed, and I don't think the Priori Incantatem can be fooled to show someone who was killed pretending to be another person as that person.

9) Lupin is fairly nice to Snape and James and Snape absolutely hated each other. There's far too little chemistry between Lupin and Snape for Lupin to actually be James. Think of the tension between Snape and Sirius and compare it to the one between Lupin and Snape. The latter are almost best buddies by comparison. Between Snape and James, the tension would probably be even worse than that between Snape and Sirius. It doesn't fit.

10) If James were alive, would he really let his only son be dumped at the Dursleys' doorstep and grow up in that kind of abusive environment? He probably likes the Dursleys about as much as they like him.

11) JKR has told us that we'll NEVER see a live James Potter in the series.
(This trick, to emphasize something by letting the same argument (or sentence, or structure) both start and end a certain part of a text is called "circle composition" by the way. Good vocabulary word for literature classes...)

Voilà, I rest my case. If you still think that Lupin = James and you have arguments to answer to all of mine above, please send me an owl, I'd love to hear that.

Take care, see you!
Maline

11/03/2003