Sharp-Shooter Snape
| I was out on the porch with Dom last night as he was grilling some hamburgers (he must have REALLY wanted burgers, it was in the 20s and he is thin and from El Paso TX) and in talking about what I've been blogging about on here regarding predictions for book 7, I remembered something I meant to stick in but forgot. Sharp-Shooters Have you ever noticed how much like bullets the jets of light from wands in spells are? What I mean is that there is a distinct physicality to them. You have to have good aim. Hermione stops Ron from trying to help Harry when his broom is jinxed in book 2, because of the distance he might accidentally hit Harry (well, that is her excuse, she's really worried about Ron's broken wand and his usually sloppy performance - but the point is that it's an excuse that works because it is valid). Likewise, in the fight at Hagrid's Hut with Umbridge in book 5, viewed from the top of the tower, they see the spells flying like bullets. In the fight in book 6 you have the mountainous death-eater's spells bouncing off walls like a bullet ricochet. In fact the speed and random method reminds me of a turret gun in one of the first person shooter games I used to play online (Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic - which is one of the straight ahead "shoot 'em up" team based games, unlike some others that glorify actual criminal activity like "Grand Theft Auto"). Another neat scene is when Harry runs from the graveyard in book 4 and tosses an "Impedimenta" back over his shoulder without even looking but he can tell it got one of them because he hears a thud or something like that. The Snape-Shot We have already learned that Snape is a pretty impressive wizard: an accomplished legilemens and occlumens, a potions master, and a master of non-verbal spells. I think we will also find out that he is about the best shot ever to cross the thresh-hold of Hogwarts. This is how I think, in my prediction of the grand finale, he will be able to hit Harry's scar with Sectum Sempra without hurting Harry himself. Dom's Thought Dom made a suggestion which I don't think will be the case because I don't think it is her particular style, but if it does wind up being true (which of course presupposes my prediction coming true, which it may not) I trust Rowling's ability to make it her own and make it interesting. He suggested that because of the nature of Sectum Sempra Harry's scar would always bleed just a little, like the Stigmata. Like I said, I don't think she will have that, but it would be cool if she did because she would have picked it up from one of hers and our favorite authors, C. S. Lewis. In That Hideous Strength, book 3 of Lewis' "Space Trilogy, when Jane Studdock meets the Ransom character who was the protagonist of the first two books (in That Hideous Strength he is now called "the director"), he occasionally winces as if in great pain but then a second later is back to normal as if there is no pain at all. The wound that this is from happened in the second book, Perelandra, when Ransom fought the possessed Dr Weston, the "un-man" (like the werewolf or "man wolf") in the stony heart of the mountain. It is a wound on the heal, which is taken from the "Proto Euangelion" (or "first gospel" or "first good news") of Genesis 3:15 in the cursing of the serpent, "he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel," and the wound is painful all the way through the rest of this life. My Boyish Glee I'll be pretty pumped if my predictions wind up being true, and not just because of "I told you so!" OK, All right, I have to admit there will be some of that. But more importantly it's just so cool the way she introduces stuff in minor ways and then brings them back around in major ones (for instance, Barty Jr's use of poly-juice potion in book 4 is huge. Think about it, not even as great a wizard as DD had any idea until he makes the goof-up of removing Harry from DD's sight at a crucial moment) PS: Speaking of Dom, I probably never mentioned on this site (at least I can see no reason why I would have) the time Dom walked into my room after watching "Fight Club" for the first time and asked "how did you do that?" - In various conversations I had managed to give him THE WHOLE plot of Fight Club - EXCEPT the "change-over." I mention this because Dom has not read the HP books, only seen the movies, but as much as I talk to him he might as well have read the books LOL. It works out well for him though, his boss in his assistantship at grad school right now is a huge HP fan, so he's able to discuss it with her. |
Comments on "Sharp-Shooter Snape"
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Anonymous said ... (December 19, 2005 6:12 PM)
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Merlin said ... (December 19, 2005 6:50 PM)
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Pauli said ... (December 20, 2005 9:25 AM)
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Merlin said ... (December 20, 2005 10:34 AM)
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Merlin said ... (December 20, 2005 10:36 AM)
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Pauli said ... (January 05, 2006 6:28 PM)
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post a commentInteresting thought on the Sectum Sempra and the scar. Are you thinking that it will release the remaining "killing curse" and finish Voldemort?
In thinking on the "end" or the final battle, I think that Rowling has given plenty of clues that the crucial difference that will give Harry victory is his ability to love. I think this will tie into the room at the Department of Mysteries that Harry was unable to open with his knife.
In the first book, Voldemort tells Harry "There is no good or evil, only power." This is the downfall of Voldemort. His inability to love, his near sighted pursuit of power (mainly the power over death) will be his undoing. We see a glimpse of this in book 5 when Voldemort posseses Harry at the ministry.
Your site is good. I am enjoying the reads and look forward to reading more in the future. I have read some glimmers of the "Dumbledore is still alive" theories in some of the postings and heartily concur. I have a decent idea of how....
hmmmm, interesting, I would be interested to hear how you think DD will still be alive ... but I can understand if you keep taht one till the book is out.
And great comment about the door in the Ministry and the ability to love, I had not thought of that in connection here ... that maybe Harry will, say, lay down his life for Snape in a way that is materially part of undoing Voldy.
Interesting ...
One thing I haven't heard people comment on very much is that when Dumbledore finds out that Voldemort used Harry's blood to resurrect that he had a triumphant look in his eye, as if that was basically the end of Voldemort. It's as if Voldemort thinks of the blood as a "potion" in a purely materialistic manner. Dumbledore seems to think of blood as containing a "deeper magic", to steal a phrase from C. S. Lewis. What think ye?
I think it's really good, I hadn't thought of the fact that Voldy has Harry's blood in his veins now, Nor had I remembered DD's look when Harry told him that. I wonder if somehow Harry will find some way to absorb Voldy into himself ... I know that seems far out but there are 2 or 3 things to consider:
1. Love is "acceptance" of the person but not their faults - maybe absorbing as "acceptance."
2.This is alchemy and ealchemy is, I think, kind of the Christian response to Gnosticism (keep in mind that the theology of the medeival period was constantly battling Gnosticism in some form or another, eg Docetism and Manicheanism, ). Gnosticism said that matter is inherantly evil, so in Alchemy, in the golden soul, PURIFIED matter (Black = Voldy) is re-united in a right union with pure spirit in the proper hierarchy ... through this emphasis on blood Harry might absorb Voldy.
3. In regards to point 2 I and the fact that Harry could rightly say, "um, excuse me, you have some of me in you, some of my person in the form of my blood ... I would appreciate it if you would return it!"
- I would use the example of the re-unification of the whole nation of Israel - whole meaning not just the Southern Kingdom of Judah. But how do you reunite the southern with the northern when the northern was not only taken into exile, like the southern, but ASSIMILATED through breeding? This is where the Samaritan people came from. The answer: if the northern 10 tribes were assimilated in blood with gentiles, and the book says they MUST be re-joined with the whole nation of Israel, there is only one answer - the gentiles have to come in to (hence the emphasis in the Gospels on the Samaritans ... and the Catholic Christian Church - this material taken from Dr Scott Hahn class material).
If Harry's blood is mixed with Voldy's body and must be restored to make Harry a whole person again (I bet Harry would be pretty pissed to find that he is sort of "brothers" with Snape as a "Severed One" ... See, we were right ... the Priori Incatatem Chapter is HUGE) - there's only one way - Harry has to absorb Voldy into himself (I know I'm getting out there, but I think it's possible)
NOW - this is a really crazy Idea but I'll throw it out there ... What if, contrary to "Rowling's Ruses" Snape IS a vampire ... and this somehow plays a role!
Oh yeah, in point 1 of my previous comment - on Medieval Theology battling Gnosticism - Medieval literature is deeply rooted in Medieval Theology, and Rowling is deeply rooted in Medeival Literature
Responding to the remark about fundamentalism: one of my theories about the intellectual root of what John Granger calls the "Harry Hatred" is the pitting of symbolism against divine revelation. Generally this idea is held by people with deep prejudices against Catholic practices and kind of goes hand-in-hand with a number of other beliefs which seem to imply that the text of the Bible is the only thing of which a "pure Christian" should partake.
I think a book could be written about this kind of non-sacramental, unhistorical type of Christianity, but not here. Also this isn't necessarily a Catholic/Protestant divide - a lot of Protestants like Travis P. and LaShawn Barber like Harry and then there's the guy that wrote "Father Elijah" and that lady in Europe that started the whole Ratzinger flap in the Catholic Harry-hater camp.
I originally encountered this idea in the transcript of a talk given by the famous-in-some-circles Presbyterian minister Abraham Kuyper entitled The Antithesis Between Symbolism and Revelation. (It's a bit tedious, but very interesting in what it reveals.) The interesting thing to me is that I wouldn't call Kuyper a fundamentalist Bible-banger - his other writings with which I'm familiar are more measured and mainstream in their content. BUT I believe that he can be the proponent of a certain way of thinking among others by providing an intellectual anchor of sorts in what I believe is a false dichotomy, and I'll explain why it's false.
But my point is that the central fact of Christianity is the incarnation, the "Word made flesh", God dwelling among us. Even the printed pages of the scripture are "symbolic" compared to that reality, e.g., the word "Adam" is a symbol, the letter "A" in "Adam" is a symbol, the word "Jesus" is a symbol, albeit a symbol for the only begotten incarnate word! My point is that language itself is symbolic, spoken or written. Literary symbolism in Lewis, Tolkien, Shakespeare, Rowling, etc. - all the stuff we pick apart and discuss here - communicates with a set of symbols which is different than the Biblical languages, so why can't similar truths be expressed by using those symbols?
This is not to imply that the Bible is no more inspired than these writings, it certainly is, of course. But having said this, the anti-symbol crowd should note that the Bible too is shot through with symbolism, e.g., "Judah is a lion's whelp", "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd", etc. And then you get to the book named "Revelation" (St. John's Apocalypse) and practically the whole thing is written in a type of symbolic literature! (No hippogryffs, though, sorry....)