Felix Felicity
| I just wanted to go back to Felicity's piece on the stoppered death theory that Pauli linked to here to highlight some things about it that I have been thinking about recently that I really like about what she brings out in the "Stoppered Death" theory. Save Draco Malfoy (That is a little play on Lumos because one of the Harry and the Potters kind of "pumped up anthem" songs was called "Save Ginny Weasley".) If Dumbledore and Snape could get to the point at which the Stoppered Death potion simply stopped working and Dumbledore finally died from the delayed curse on the ring, then Draco would be off the hook and the Unbreakable Vow would be neutralized. However, if Draco succeeded in pulling something off before the Stoppered Death potion stopped working, then Snape agreed to step in and appear to kill Dumbledore himself (by unstoppering his death) and hence attempt to save Draco. What I like so much about this is the ironic play it puts on the UBV Snape made with Narcissa. As a lit/Bib. studies person and a theology/Bib. studies personI am all about irony ( and as a fan of Ragetti and Pintel in PotC, when Ragetti says "that's what you call irony.") For instance, there is, as I have mentioned, a ton of irony in Saint John's Gospel. From the standpoint of "theological anthropology," irony is one of the distincly human things: irony, humor and religion are distinct to humanity (which is radically defined and fulfilled in the Incarnation). Irony is also one of the things that makes literature work - plot reversals and "the deeper meaning" and all that sort of stuff have irony as their basic building block. Thus, the basic elements of Narcissa's UBV work in a way she cannot suspect ... one actually works against the other. The basic one that Snape fulfills is "will you protect my son?" ... he fulfills this by working against the "will you help him to fulfill his task?" He does protect Draco, not only from being killed by Voldy for failing the task, but also by actively keeping him from fulfilling the task -- he helps protect him from becoming a murderer. The Slytherin Question I also believe Dumbledore took a swig of Felix Felicis before sending for Harry because he knew the cave would be surrounded with lethal protections and he wanted to give himself some assistance since he would have Harry with him. This is the part I really love in Felicity's piece. FF is a potion ... a potion. That is specifically Slytherin material. Both potions masters we have met in the books are Slytherin and I have talked before about potions in contrast to disciplines like charms and trasnfiguration (as regards precision vs fluidity) and arithmancy (as regards numbers as precise calculations vs. the magic of numerological symbolism). So, here, Felcitity has lit on what would be a strong instance of Dumbledore needing that Slytherin side of magic to pull the deal off. Making something like the luck potion is done through the Slytherinishly calculative art of potions. Also note that this would involve Slughorn being in on the deal, probably, since he is the "luck potion supplier" we meet in the book (it could have been Snape, but Sluggo probably had a larger batch on hand [although definitely probably under lock and key] and is much the more likely candidate). If we follow Granger's work on the "leading trio" thing ... Dumbledore is a Gryffindor type but he has two Slytherins filling out his trio in HBP. So Dumbledore put off the trip to the cave as long as possible and used the time to track down other Horcrux clues, then when he realized from signs and symptoms that the “stopper” was loosening (just as Harry could feel the Felix wearing off a few chapters earlier), he sent for Harry. Note how it is sensitivity to the workings of potions that enables DD to plan and work his timing on the deal. Also, Felicity has chosen an example here that is really key in and of itself: It was not only Slytherin Slughorn who gave Harry the potion that got the memory for Dumbledore from Slughorn himself, but it was Slytherin Snape who (as the HBP) enabled Harry to get the potion from Slughorn. This is really cool work on Felicity's part (and I also really like her comment in the combox of this post about working on the felix cupla (originally "happy fault") which she is connecting with the possibility of seeing Dumbledore's plummet as a "fortuante fall," which is a really excellent connection I had not thought of ... really excellent (partly because the original fall in Genesis led to physical death as an inevitability in life ... which, coping with said death, is one of the major themes of the series) OOPS! I have edited this ending of this post (including the preceding paragraph) because I kind of goofed up on the words "felix" and "feline" ( the latter of which comes from Latin roots felid, and back to feles, as I found in checking on dictionary.com) I originally wrote: "I just wonder who the cat is? Felix means cat in Latin (I think)" ... which Meep graciously corrected me on (and I do mean gracioulsy ... like I said in the first comment to the post on Kim DeCina and Joselle Vanderhooft's Lumos talk on mental illness in HP, I am very grateful that nobody busts my chops too hard when I goof something up on here). But it also resulted in a neat trivia find. I knew there was a "Felix the cat" (and had mistakenly thought that they must have taken the feline cartoon's name from a "cat word"). So I googled it and came up with this history of Felix the cat. The most interesting part of the history is this sentence: "To do this, engineers required an 'actor' to constantly be under the burning studio lights as they tweaked and sharpened the image." I italicized the part I did because that is exactly the same language Rowling has Hermione employ in discussing the use of the FF potion: "tweaking the circumstances." I'm not trying to "prove" anything, I just thought it was a really neat coinicidence ... and possibly more. I'm not saying I think Rowling necessarily had this particular cat in mind when she kind of personifies FF as a character named Felix leading Harry - but it is possible that she drew the langauge from reading such a history of felix the cat. It's definitely, at least to me, is a very fun and interesting piece of trivia :) Either way, I do think that the sound similarity thing (Felix and Feline) functions as a sort of "butressing image." In the whole episode of getting the memory at the hut. I think "Felix" has a kind of feline nimbleness and agility feel to it. So I guess I would leave my original final question sentence the same: ... so what was crookshanks up to at this time? or what was McGonnegal up to? (I'm not putting too much money on it being Mrs. Norris ... but you never know :) ) |
Comments on "Felix Felicity"
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Anonymous said ... (August 11, 2006 9:30 PM)
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Merlin said ... (August 12, 2006 1:13 PM)
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Pauli said ... (August 13, 2006 10:00 PM)
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Merlin said ... (August 14, 2006 3:03 AM)
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Anonymous said ... (September 05, 2006 4:51 PM)
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post a commentFelix means lucky in Latin. Thus, the word felicitous.
That's why my screen name is Felicity!
Merlin, I love the Slytherin potions connections and ideas--I had never thought of those before.
In about an hour, I'll be putting up a revision and expansion of that essay (it's almost doubled in length). Meep and Rogueravenclaw left comments that opened my eyes to the "unconscious" objectives at work that night (just as Harry knocked into Ginny under the influence of Felix that set off a chain reaction culminating in Ginny's breakup with Dean, leaving her free to hook-up with Harry, which is something he dearly wanted to happen).
Anyway, I'm working the Felix Culpa (fortunate fall) angle since the influence of Felix that night ended in Dumbledore's actual fall from the Tower (his death) and more generally triggered a series of events that seem to threaten disaster but which will ultimately lead to a happier outcome for all precisely because it enabled Snape to burnish his creds with Voldemort and the other DE's.
I also have an expanded section on the Stoppered Death potion that I'm particularly proud of.
Thanks so much for all your encouragement!
Meep and Felicity,
I edited the end of this post to correct or clarify the "cat " mix-up but there's also an interesting trivia find along the way.
And I also really like the Felix Culpa aspect ... and I will definitely be checking out the revised version done with Meep's and Rogueravenclaw's input.
... this is winding up to be a really exciting conversation - I'm really enjoying it lots of great stuff :)
It's up, but I'm still a bit repetitive here and there, and I know there are typos I've missed.
Hey, it's a work in progress.
http://felicitys-mind.livejournal.com/2616.html
Felicity, wow ... great work!
I especially love the hypothesis on the ingredients for a death-stopper potion and the contrast with the two "ingredients" of What Voldy used to "stopper" his own face from existence, even with his Horcruxes out there.
another sort of "source" thught of for the word "stopper" is the labratory, which is admittedly kind of a simplistic one, since the connection between potoins and chemistry (which you might call the calculating form of alchemy, although the analogy gets used too of people/personalities clicking or having a certain "chemistry") ... but that is the one that just immediately was in my head while reading the stoppered death stuff at first ... but I real like the "life-line" stuff you researched.
I still have reservations on a direct comparison between actively using an AK and Nicholas Flamel's destruction of the stone as a removal of "extra-ordinary/disproportionate" means of sustaining life (I say this just on the level of maintaining the objective qualities of acts, since it is basically what you are argueing, or at least highly conguous with it, in the section of your essay on why the DD theory is better than a mere "military tactics" idea)
but I have come around to agreeing that the fact that Snape is basically the inevitable, and especially the consideration the fact that the "stopper" very well may be raidly "wearing out" and will not hold for long and that DD and SS are then actively optimizing the timing of death, greatly impacts the nature and the effect on Snape himself of actively using an AK. It then becomes a matter of sometimes having to get one's hands dirty if such a thing as death, when it is inevitable and setting on rapidly, is going to be optimized for this much greater good, a situation of Snape "having to be a mensch about it" ... which would understandable greatly fuel the fire for Harry to then call him a coward for it.
Furthermore, the more I think about it the more I like the idea that it wasn't just "the most believable from the standpoint of exterior perception" to have Snape use an AK and that "the circumstances made it ok" but that there is a positive role of the AK leave some sort of mark on the caster (which, the whole thing of marks, is of course a common trate in a lot of ancient/classic lit ... from Cain to the Golems of medeival Jewish name magic - and the death eater mark) ... a positive role in regards to somebody like ... we do not know if Snape ever killed during his death eater days and would have the "mark" of a killer. But, especially given the whole "evidence" routine in Spinner's End with Bella, one might wonder if, once DD dies not only Snape's "job" with Voldy but also his "evidence" had run out too if DD had simply died of the ring curse (especially being as that he didn't kidnap Harry and bring him to Voldy on that night)... and then Voldy might also know that DD had destroyed the ring, which, as per DD's discussion with Harry about Horcruxes (which Rowling siad in interview that DD is "not far off the mark" in that convo), Voldy might not have known otherwise, and which is not knowing gives Harry the element of surprise in book 7. But with Snape coming back with a vivid memory of avtively casting the AK that ended DD's life (which maybe the form of the "mark" I am speaking of, rather than some more analogously "physical stain" ... which is to say that what you said about "killing in self-defense" not tearing the soul the way murder does, I would still say that by its very nature being actively involved in the death of a human souls would at least "put strain" on the soul
Anybody could have verified that Snape's wand actively did the killing, through priori incantatem, but this way Snape could also open his mind to Voldy in legilimency and have him read a valid memory of somebody who has actively used the AK on a person, and that the person was DD, and that the caster did it with so much hate and revulsion in his heart ... although Voldy, never having understood love to begin with, as DD notes, would not be able to understand how so much revulsion could spring from love and would assume that it is only detestation of DD's person ... of course on this theory a question might be tha if this AK did not rip Snape's soul ... would Voldy be able to discern that fact?)
I also like the fact that you include (which I think you ahd from the start, if I remember correctly) considerations on the oddity of the "five minutes" ... DD had told Harry to have his invisibility cloak on him at all times, so he should have checked that he had it then and if, Harry didn't have it on him, been a little put out about it. But Harry actually did have it on him (he never grabs it when he grabs the FF and the map, I checked) but he doesn't say anything, just takes off on his "order" to get the Cloak. But DD didn't even ask if he had it on him ... and maybe Felix was telling him not to ask but to tell him to go get it because it would fulfill some extra "unconscious" objective (which is pretty much what you were saying in there ... I was just noting that the whole issue of it specifically being the cloak that Harry was sent back for was an oddity that she probably meant as a pointer for the great stuff you and Meep and Rogueravenclaw are uncovering).
Now, here is a possibility ... where is the Penseive now? If Snape could freely open his mind for Voldy to read the memory of killing DD, maybe Snape's precaution would be to, as he did before Occlumency lessons in OotP, empty certain thoughts into the Penseive and then have it under lock and key and maybe part of the reconciation path in book 7 will be for Harry, after killing Voldy (as per the idea I heard from one of the presenters at Lumos the Snape resolution will come after killing Voldy) Harry will find the penseive and dive once more into the basin and there read the memory of the use of Fawkes' tears in the death stopper on the night of the ring and the UBV between DD and SS with Slughorn as the third party (maybe Sluggo was so sweaty that night because he was nervous about not being able to pull off a good acting job in such a serious matter as DD dying and his having been in on it, or maybe he is nervous because he thinks "I didn't think it would really go to this ... I thought they would come up with something to completely undo the effect of the ring)
I also loved the "somebody needed luck and used FF the night of the cave, like Hermione suggested for going for an HC raid" ... I forget if you had that originally but it's a great observation.
And thanks for the plug too! :)
I was going to copt this into the comments thread on your place but then saw ... that's a LONG com-thread (at least from our perspective of the size we are at here :) )- really cool to see so much discussion going on on this, it's a great fleshing out of this theory that I think brings out some great stuff in how JKR has constructed the WW and the meanings behind it.
(and the stuff really does excite me, maybe a little too much LOL ... a good friend of mine at one point had not read LOTR, and it was between movies 1 and 2 that he read the books, and he said in an email "I wasn't expecting as much as you get excited about when you talk about it, but I really loved them and now I am giddy as a kendal about the movies coming out now too" and I said "I don't really get 'giddy' ... do I?" LOL)
sorry ... should have proofread better ... meant to say Voldy's own "faDe from existence" ... since "death" wasn't really possible with the HC's out there
Thanks for reading and commenting, Merlin.
It’s very geeky at this point and somewhat weird, but it’s more palatable to me than other proposals. Red Hen thinks Dumbledore fixed the Vanishing Cabinet himself so that Draco would be able to bring DE’s into the school that night. She can be amazingly insightful about characters and background, but I almost always disagree with her theories. Professor Mum has a new one proposing Snape took Dumbledore’s place at the cave because Dumbledore was too close to being a ghost to give the blood tribute. Mine may be preposterous, but I can support it with text and characterization, so I’m sticking with it.
I worked on it some more and smoothed out various parts. I had to cut all my links at the end because LJ was rejecting it as too long, so I’ll rest it for a couple of days and see where I can be briefer.
Stopper as in cork was what I started working with, but I just love the Thread of Life imagery, and it does connect to Snape as a spinner, and Rowling studied classics, which is why there are so many references to Greek and Roman myth in the books. Once I remembered the little hummingbird that was re-hatched and re-shelled in a continuous loop, I worked out the current theory. I can’t say that will be the answer, or if we’ll even get a detailed answer, but I do think phoenix tears are key.
The Brazilian Portuguese translator supposedly spoke to Rowling personally, and he translated as “bottle fame, brew glory, and zombify.” I’m sure something got lost in the translation, but the idea of Dumbledore as “already dead” in some way works with the repeated references to Inferi, so I’m not doubting that basic idea at all.
No, the Flamels are not an apples to apples comparison, but that was there because people on Leaky were arguing that since Dumbledore considers death the next great adventure that he wouldn’t avail himself of any white magic that would magically extend his life beyond the moment when he would have died. I don’t agree with that at all, hence the Flamel connection.
The problem I have with the straight military tactics explanation is that after all the hints to looks at the first potions class and the Inferi references, etc., it wouldn’t make sense that there isn’t anything more to it. It would also demonstrate an uncharacteristic paucity of imagination for Rowling. She’s going for a mega-twist in book 7, so while I won’t cry in my soup if that’s all there is, it’s way down the list of possibilities for me.
The idea of a mark on the soul is interesting. I hadn’t thought of that, but if it’s true, then I have to say I would expect Dumbledore to pitch himself off the Tower to his end rather than ask Snape to rip his soul or maim it in any way. I’m Dumbledore’s through and through.
Well, Voldemort had four DE’s witnessing the AK, so I assume they know what one looks like. So I doubt Voldemort would even check the wand. And as far as I know, only one spell causes a jet of green light. Voldemort doesn’t know when his own Horcruxes are being destroyed, so could he read the state of someone else’s soul? My gut says no.
Yes, I did have the five minutes part in there, but I hadn’t considered the full implications of it relative to those unconscious objectives (saving Draco and protecting Snape).
I don’t think the whole memory comes out of the mind—just the most detailed and three dimensional, so Voldemort would know that it had happened but would be suspicious that the whole thing had been taken out methinks.
What’s this about the Snape-Harry reconciliation coming after Voldemort’s destruction? I’ve been thinking Snape is going to sacrifice himself to give Harry a clear shot at Voldemort. Getting into another area, but the prophesy says Harry will have power to vanquish the DL, which is an interesting word choice. Some people think Harry won’t be able to just AK the guy but will have to destroy him some other way. My gut says every time a Horcrux is destroyed, it goes behind the Veil and becomes anchored there, so once maybe five Horcruxes are destroyed, I’m not sure Voldemort would be anchored to earth anymore, but Vapormort will be pulled behind the Veil. I was sure Rowling once said in an interview that Harry didn’t strictly need to destroy every Horcrux to defeat Voldemort, but I’ve never been able to find that quote anywhere.
I think I’m in the minority, but I don’t think Slughorn was involved in HBP other than to give up a little FF. I get the feeling Pauli likes him, and I must admit he’s a fun character to read (the black cravat and send-off for Aragog), but Slughorn is a morally weak character and Dumbledore knew it. Slughorn wants to do what’s right, but if pinned to a wall, he’ll do what’s easy. With his protector dead and the castle walls breached, he’s vulnerable.
Felicity,
Pauli and my sister are in this town this weekend and since our forwarding stack is not working as fluidly right now I suspect he may not be getting messages as quickly, or may just not have checked them or had a chance to read you updated essay yet ... but whatever the caue he had not read it and I was telling him about the SD ingredients part this evening over dinner and he really liked it :)
The Red Hen and the Red Beard
You may be right and I may be "deconstructing" the Potterverse too much, which is Pauli's term for what he doesn't get into as much about some of Red Hen's work. The thing that I liked about her when I first read her is that I have always had a feeling this magic has a "physics" behind it that carries through the psychic dimensions of magic (the disposition of the spell caster etc) to the level of the physics of the magic. I personally see RH's approach, my own (Biblical/Theological interpretaion) and Granger's as the three aspects of the human person in an Incarnational approach to literature - RH on the physical, myself on the "spirit" and Granger on the "golden soul" that is really the wedding of body and spirit (Broken record time: I have said this before many times, but I think it is so true ... I think there is a connection between 2 of the most emblatic errors in the history of Christian thought. Appolonarius position that there was no human soul in Christ and that the Logos simply supplanted the soul, was condemned in 381 at the First Council of Constantinople, but I think it re-appeared in Descarte's "ghost in the machin" dualism, where humanity is composed of only "res extensia" and "res cogitens" with no wedding of body and spirit in a soul, which is do not think is a separate "substance" on equal level with body and spirit, as the tripartite anthropology seems to think, but that the soul is the real "thing" of precisely the wedding of body and spirit ... ok, I'm done on that one ... stepping down off my tangential soap-box).
But I really love what you do, and in the end it may be a more healthy, wholistic approach to the text than the way I analyze the literary approach ... you are great at following those textual clues that are really the flesh and blood of the text itself ... maybe more like the living flesh and blood, the heartbeat, the rhythms of the living flesh and blood.
I must agree that I have come to disagree with RH on some things. Particuularly in some of her stuff she has pondered whether maybe the last part of Voldy's soul went into Harry's scar on that night in Godric's Hollow, and that vapor mort is the memory withouth the soul (in the classical Augustinian "psychological model of the Trinity" memoria is basically the aspect of the soul that is awareness of the self as a self [in aspect dinstinct from the expression of the understading of the self in Logos/Word/Intellect and the principle of Love in the Will] ... and so isolating memoria from the rest of the soul would yield Freud's "Ego" in the nacrissistic sense). While I like the connection with the narcissistic ego, I just don't see a "tripartite" model the person (body, spirit, soul ... as distinct "parts" on the level of "substance")that would be necessary for RH's theory to be correct ... in HBP Dumbledore seems to speak of soul and memory almost interchangeably and he does seem to speak, most often, as a reliable mouthpiece for Rowling on the "physics" of the Potterverse.
The one place I think RH has lit on something right is the importance of the dementors. As per the discussion with Kim DeCina and Joselle Vanderhooft (but primarily Kim, since she stuck to her guns especially on this point)in that combox on the post on their talk, I think that it is possible that Voldy, in text, is a genuine socio-path who is now incapable of making valid choices and that the "moral content" is in those who interact with him (Harry, Snape, Dumbledore, the Ministry and the minister, the death eaters etc.). This is what I would refer to the "physical side" of the Potterverse, in especailly the area of environmental contributions to psychological malady. And I think the issue the difference between Dumbledore's approach to dementors and the ministry's is a key one.
But I suspect that it very possibly will remain, as it has been, a more latent element in the story - I don't suspect we will have her coming out and stating it in incontrovertable language in the text of book 7. In short, it can still function as it needs to at that latent level and bringing it out more into the open might actually cause it to funtion less effectively. Likewise, I have talked in the past about the importance (to the meaning of the works as a whole) of Aurthur Weasely's push for the Protection of Muggles Act, as a central image of "methexis" or "participation" between the magic and muggle worlds, symbolic, respectively, of the higher realm of "spiritual meaning/power" and the "mundane details of life" (In short, the Incarnation as God come down into flesh and blood). But I don't necessarily suspect that we will see that act passed in text in the final book (unless it is in that final chapter she already has written, on what everyone goes on to do ... if it is not there I suspect that we will NOT see it in text). I think it has already done its function as an image, just as Dumbledore's liking of muggle candy (a wizard finding pure and simple delight in a muggle "fancy") has done its job as an image already in regards to the whole "participation" thing.
The AK
Having stated that I may be WAY over-analyzing ( :) ), I'll just add (in a hopefully more concise and poignant way than I have heretofore) the one instance that I think may give some textual evidence for the AK affecting the person/soul. The fact that the shades of the victims come back out of the wand and act independantly seems to me a "physics" indicator that this might happen because in any spell the wand is channeling the magical power of the caster, and therefore the magic is sort of amplifying their own magical power by way of the symbol, the wand (Ie, I'm saying that the wand may itself be symbolice of "symbolic" power itself, in a way that works much better than M. Night Shymalan's most recent movie, which got panned pretty hard in the press and I have to admit it has some serious weaknesses in places but I have a soft spot in my heart for MNS and hope he kind of takes a break from the sort of "MNS stigma" that has arisen and directs HP movie 6, for the sake of both his own career and the revitalization of the movie franchise ... but it is difficult to have a symbol of symbolism itself, as Story is in Lady ... but I think Rowling pulls it off in the HP world by not "wearing it on the sleeve"). My own thinking is that the spell casting is affected by the psychic disposition of the caster because some of their personal psychic life force is going into the spell, and that this is why murder rends the soul, because it is so against nature, so violent, that the pull of the psychic power rends the soul, although not necessarily sending the torn portion into the recipient but still rends the soul. The fact that "shades" of the victims enter the wand and can be recalled by priori incantatem in a way in which they actually linger beyond the breaking of the wand connection and act independently seems to me to support this being at least a plausible reading.
Legilimency
I don't think either that Voldy would PI Snapes wand, but he has shown a clear pentient for legilimency, almost an obsession in his childhood, in being able to tell when people are lying. And this was before receiving his wand. Wandless magic seems to me to be always at least risky in the sense developing power-lust or opening yourself up to bad elements (by not being tied to the wand-symbol ... although, as the unforgivables show, you can pervert the use of the symbol too), but possible.
I particularly liked Kern's "Snapes Eyes" talk. In-text we have only observed legilimency with a wand in a way we can say "here legilimency was definitely going on" (in the lessons in OotP) ... but we have seen Harry many times have the feeling that he is being "read" by both DD and Snape, and from Kerns' talk it seems likely that Snape has been reading Harry from the beginning. I don't think Voldy trusts anybody and I think he can tell (as Snape can with Draco) when occlumency is being practiced and is more suspicious than ever simply from the fact that somebody is obviously "hiding something." I would kind of find it out of character were he not to legilimens Snape, just out of psychotic paranoia. We know from OotP that he can legilimens Harry from a great distance without eye contact and it almost seems to happen simply "by accident." (and then he realizes an advantage in it once he discovers that it is happening, that the connection is there, and uses it, and then discovers that it also puts him at risk and stops legilimency and begins occlumency against Harry)
The Penseive
The Penseive has played a major reveletory role in books 4, 5 and 6, basically every book since its introduction. I would be surprised if it did not perform a similar revelatory function in book 7. Like you said, I won't be crying if it doesn't and I trust Rowling to
On the issue though of whether it totally removes the memory in question ... Snape does seem to be using it for this in OotP. I agree, I don't think it totally erases the memory from the mind (I mean, we see Slughorn give the false memory, but then we see him give the true memory and DD did not have to "fill back in" into the new contents those accurate parts that were already in the first, botched, memory ... sort of like, for certain parts of the Sluggish memory we have two "copies") ... but I think there is something there in what is still in the mind being at a deeper level where it might not be as easily stumbled on by Harry when "mind sharing" ... or by Voldy
Kind of like what magicicans do with slight of hand magic, eh? (going back to the prevalence of muggle magic images in HBP from Gumshoe/Prof Mom ... I am identifying correctly there right? I have heard Pauli speak mainly of "Gumshoe" but seen prof Mom on here and your LJ site) Snape's obvious revulsion in an "untampered" memory of casting the AK might divert Voldy's attention from signs that there are still memories of other things on some deeper level. Maybe also Snape had to do some "letting it all hang out" in the flight scene in order to cover over traces of making a decision not to kidnap Harry (the orders were not to hurt or kill Harry, but not necessarily not to bring him to Voldy ... unless there is now in Voldy's mind some plan of having his final duel with the boy be at Hogwarts, kind of along the lines of the importance of the school as "turf" that I was saying about your theory on the badge/cup HC and the tiera) ... Maybe Snape, being a member of the order and knowing Buckbe ... I mean "Witherwings" (I love that line ... it's just so "Hagrid") would be nearby, had to sort of "amp up" his attack on Harry (while still being genuinely enraged at him) ... sort of let himself "give in" to the rage so Voldy would see it in the memory AND provoke Buckbeak to attack so he had an excuse for not kidnapping Harry ... sort of like "ok, maybe I shouldn't have lost control so the HG got involved, but once that happened what was I supposed to do? I was almost getting ripped to shreds by those talons! I was high-tailing it for my life! I couldn't think about orchestrating a kidnapping at that point in the game." (BTW, forgot to mention, I love your language of "running out the clock" because it's an obvious sports reference and Quidditch, while it has no clock, is a sport that plays a hugely symbolic role in the series)
Anyway ... just thoughts ... I am really liking this conversation - very enriching :)
i'm tiptoeing into this conversation... (i'm not worthy and all that).. to say two teeny things.
one, i love the idea of the pensieve being used in a way that inadvertantly brings about good. and the thought that it could be snapes memory again is quite exciting.
harry seems to do the inpetuous thing and then the next time people assume he's wrong again, but he's right.... (feeling so out of my depth here)
with RH, i find her stuff intellectually stimulating and all, but there is a hard edge, a kind of disgruntled assumption somewhere at the base that, frankly, i don't see in JKR. so when it comes to her theories, i feel this leads her astray. because i think she comes from a place that is fundamentally different to jo (as in 'JO').
cheers,
jo (other antipodean one)
Hi, Merlin.
Hello to Pauli, and I hope you all have a wonderful time together.
I read somewhere that Rowling compares magic to technology, but I never read the exact quote, so I’m not sure what Rowling exactly meant by that, but she definitely spent five years working out the parameters of the Potterverse with particular attention to what magic could and could not do in this world. I don’t think she worked it all out down to the level that Red Hen is attempting, and that seems to be a source of frustration for Joyce. Rowling is rubbish with math and time (she admits it), so there are problems here and there in the books from that, but all in all, the Potterverse holds together nicely for most people reading the books (better than 99% of them IMO).
There is definitely a psychic dimension to magic that is related to the physics. From what we know of casting an Unforgivable, these curses need a powerful bit of magic that is harnessed with powerful intent or the curse won’t work. We’ve heard over and over that certain types of magic (animagi transformations, transcontinental Apparation, etc.) are exceedingly difficult and dangerous and only the most powerful and talented magical people can do them. Certain witches and wizards are singled out as being powerfully magical, so while all magical people have some magical abilities, magical ability is a graded from low to high and exists alongside gradations of intellect and morality in this world. I hope that’s close to what you’re talking about.
I was taught old-fashioned lit crit—read the text closely and draw conclusions. No -isms to speak of although the historical and social context of the author and the setting are important. And of course, with the best writers lit crit is a joy because the words and images have been chosen with such care that there’s a lot going on under the surface as well as on the surface.
I happen to agree that Rowling sees the human person in three distinct components that work together in the whole, living person: soul, mind/brain/powers, and body. Rowling also uses the words brain and mind interchangeably and associates powers with this component, so when she refers to someone’s brain, she is referring to their mind and powers. A person kissed by a Dementor loses his or her soul, but doesn’t die so long as the brain/mind and body are healthy (PA); the soul is an essence that enables self-awareness, and it’s for that reason that the Dementor-kissed person has no memories and is vegetative. The disembodied brains in the DoM are alive and can transmit their thoughts and implant them into a person as they did with Ron in OP, leaving thought-scars on his arms that were treated with Oblivious Unction; recall that Lockhart tried to erase the memories of Harry and Ron using the Memory Charm “Obliviate!” and only a moment before had said they would lose their minds and memories. A ghost is mind plus soul without the body (think of Binns when he got up and left his body behind). Vapormort was composed of his mind and the remainder of his soul that hadn’t been torn off and placed into his Horcruxes (that’s why he described himself as less than the meanest ghost). In HBP, Dumbledore reminded Harry that Voldemort has a maimed and diminished soul but his brain and powers are intact, so Dumbledore clearly connects powers with mind/brain. Moreover, Vapormort, even without a physical brain because he had no body, still had his conscious mind, which is why I say Rowling uses brain and mind interchangeably. More on Vapormort coming.
Diarymort was a tricky bit of work because he was a soul plus a memory, plus I contend, “brainpower” that is not a truly conscious mind (the Goblet of Fire has the ability to know, evaluate, compare and judge the candidates and then choose the most worthy among them from names written on parchment, so an object can be invested with the ability to process information, but this is not the same as a human conscious mind; it’s more like a magical supercomputer IMO). The description of Harry falling into the diary was nearly identical to the first time Harry fell into the pensieve in GF, so Riddle had turned the book into a pensieve in addition to using it as a repository for his soul. When Diarymort become corporeal enough to pick up and pocket Harry’s wand, he was still described as having a misty light around him and being strangely blurred around the edges although becoming more solid by the minute (in that I was reminded of the isolated memory-figure of Caractatus Burke who was described as appearing more solid than a ghost; we also saw the isolated memory-figures of Bertha Jorkins and Sybill Trelawney).
So Riddle had pulled a memory of himself out of his mind with his wand and placed it in the book-pensieve. Diarymort described himself as putting some of his soul into Ginny and needing Ginny’s soul that she was pouring into the diary. So Riddle put a piece of his soul in the diary plus a memory of himself and the ability to store and process new information. But tellingly, Diarymort’s memory-soul entity had no consciousness of what had happened to Tom Riddle after the moment the memory had been placed in the diary—he had to learn about his future from Ginny, nor did this entity cause the slightest reaction to Harry’s scar, even when the thing was furious at Harry and trying to kill him in the Chamber. Dumbledore was right that the diary was the work of a genius.
Vapormort is completely different Diarymort in the respect that Vapormort always had a conscious mind. At Godric’s Hollow, Voldemort lost his physical body, and the spectral part of him we call Vapormort fled to Albania. But Vapormort (the full mind plus partial soul) had an unbroken consciousness of what had happened to him at Godric’s Hollow and every moment up to the present. This is the key difference between Diarymort and Vapormort, and is why we know Vapormort was a conscious mind plus enough soul to enable self-awareness. And as argued, the soul is necessary for self-awareness: Dumbledore said in HBP that without the seventh part of his soul that resides within his rebirthed body, Voldemort would have no sense of self, so that’s where Joyce goes wrong in thinking that Vapormort had no soul. Moreover, Voldemort cannot tell when one of his Horcruxes is destroyed because there is no conscious connection to them, no mind connection, between Alphamort (the part of Voldemort, physical or not, that contains his conscious mind) and his separated soul fragments.
The above breakdown is mainly why I’ve always rejected the Harrycrux and scarcrux theories (scarcrux is especially preposterous since the killing curse gave Harry a gash on his forehead that healed into a scar, so how did the soul fragment get trapped in it, and if it’s trapped in the scartissue, how is Harry able to speak Parseltongue?). The only part of Voldemort that can make Harry’s scar hurt is the part of him that contains Voldemort’s conscious mind/brain. It doesn’t matter whether this part of Voldemort is taking the form of Quirrellmort, Babymort, or rebirthed Voldemort, although the more full-bodied it is, the stronger the connection with Harry’s scar becomes. It’s telling that Harry’s scar didn’t twitch once during CS when he was in the presence of Diarymort, nor even when he fell into the diary, hence into Riddle’s memory. And Rowling wrote on her website that the scar is a magical window into Voldemort’s MIND.
Ergo, when Albus Dumbledore told Harry that Voldemort had unwittingly transferred some of his powers to Harry on the night the killing curse backfired, he was correct. No V-soul fragment in Harry at all, but rather part of Voldemort’s mind/powers.
The one objection I have to Voldemort as sociopath is that he did offer Lily the chance to live, and my gut tells me he did it because Lily triggered his sympathy for his own mother. I posted this on HogPro, that the offer to Lily is Voldemort’s “stupidly good” moment that corresponds to Satan’s “stupidly good” moment halfway through book nine of Paradise Lost. I don’t believe Voldemort made the offer as a favor to anyone else, and the fact that he was referring to Lily as a “foolish girl” as he told her to step aside is the key for me. There are also numerous passages that clearly indicate Voldemort sees Merope in a sympathetic light. He is a psychopath, but not a sociopath. Voldemort has to have some tiny ability to feel compassion for another person in order to be held responsible for all he’s done, and Rowling (it seems to me) has been setting him up as a tragic hero using a hybrid of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Milton’s Satan as working models. You can tick off the ways in which Voldemort meets the definitions of a tragic hero: he is noble by birth or wisdom (he’s the heir of Slytherin and the most brilliant student in Hogwarts history), is not entirely responsible for his condition (he was a funny baby who hardly ever cried), he is doomed to make a serious error in judgment (he acted on an incomplete prophesy just like Macbeth), has a tragic flaw (he has hubris, exaggerated pride or self-confidence, and in the classic Greek definition, a reckless disregard for the rights of another person), falls from a great height (as Ollivander said, he did great things, terrible but great), etc., so he has to be responsible for his fate and he has to come to the realization that he has made an irreversibly fatal error (as he will in book 7). The scene with Lily at Godric’s Hollow is the clue that he IS responsible for his fate, and is a true tragic hero. I might add that I believe the fact that his wand contains a feather from Fawkes is a hint speaking to the greatness of his potential that his lust for power and control corrupted.
Interesting thoughts about methexis and the participation between Muggle and magical worlds although what do you think of Hagrid’s statement to Harry that magical people want to stay hidden because otherwise Muggles would always be after them to provide magical solutions to their problems? Snape also lashed out at Ron and Harry’s use of the flying Ford Anglia because it had exposed the magical world. And I don’t see any hint in the Prime Minister chapter of HBP that Muggle power-brokers desire any connection to the magical world even though it would be greatly to the advantage of the PM to have a connection to the magical world (he sees it as an unwanted headache). I love Arthur’s desire to protect Muggles from the likes of Lucius Malfoy and Dumbledore’s respect for Muggles (he reads Muggle newspapers) and love of their sweets. There is also the history of magical persecution by Muggles that History of Magic covers and that was, in fact, the reason for founding Hogwarts in the first place. And when Arthur talked about Muggle-baiting like the shrinking key jinx, he said something about the lengths Muggles will go to in denying the existence of magic. Yet there are points in the books where the Muggle and magical worlds clearly intersect (Platform 9 ¾, the MoM, St. Mungo’s, the Leaky Cauldron, etc. are all hidden within the Muggle environment). When the wall between the worlds comes down, confusion and fear are the typical reaction, whether it’s the owls and shooting stars on the night of Voldemort’s downfall or the collapse of the bridge mist from breeding dementors at the beginning of HBP. My gut is that there won’t be any integration of the two worlds, but that along the lines of bringing justice to the WW (rights given to “good” elves and goblins; restrictions imposed on “bad” giants, werewolves, and dementors with the odd exception like Grawp, Kreacher, Lupin), the Muggle world will be kept separate from the WW. Certainly the goal will be to forbid violence against Muggles, and perhaps the protection act will pass, but I don’t see hope or desire for any active participation between the two worlds.
I see your point about the AK rending the soul because of psychic harm to the spell caster and the intent of the spell caster to perform evil, but I’m not quite sure I follow your argument that the spell-caster’s psyche is what causes a shadow of a spell to be archived in the wand or if that is even your argument. Prior Incantato causes the target wand to emit an echo or shadow of the last spell it cast. Amos Diggory used it on Harry’s wand after the Dark Mark was cast at the quidditch match, and the spell caused the wand to regurgitate a miniature replica of the Dark Mark in a substance that looked to Harry like solid smoke; Diggory used a Deletrius spell to vanish it.
When Harry and Voldemort dueled, this effect happened spontaneously because their wands shared cores, and since Harry forced the light bead into Voldemort’s wand, Voldemort’s spells were regurgitated in reverse order. I always had the idea that the echoes/shadows of Cedric, Bryce, Jorkins, Lily, and James, etc., that came out of the wand were very similar to the imprints of the departed in the Headmasters portraits only had the substance of the same solid gray smoke as the Dark Mark pulled out of Harry’s wand and Wormtail’s silver hand that also came out of Voldemort’s wand during Priori Incantatem. Rowling has said the headmasters and headmistressed “leave behind a faint imprint of themselves. They leave their aura, almost, in the office and they can give some counsel to the present occupant, but it is not like being a ghost.” The “physics” of the portraits and wand echoes seems to be very similar to me and also reminds me of what Dumbledore said about magic always leaving traces. As for the echoes of the people in the graveyard, as I mentioned, I see them as being somewhat similar to the former heads in that they leave an imprint of themselves behind because they both seem to have the ability to move and think independently. They did hang around for a few minutes after the wand connection was broken, but I have a feeling that if Voldemort had said the Deletrius spell, they would have vanished instantly just as the Dark Mark had for Diggory.
Even if Dumbledore’s life had been held all year in a state of arrested de-animation, Dumbledore’s spirit was still in his body on the Tower (my take is that the AK instantly released Dumbledore’s spirit), so even if Voldemort used priori incantata on Snape’s wand, Dumbledore’s echo would appear. If Snape didn’t really cast an AK as some are arguing (I don’t see how since the green jet was produced and hit Dumbledore in the chest), then I don’t know what would appear relative to the Tower scene. Voldemort is paranoid about Snape since he installed Wormtail at Spinner’s End to spy on Snape. Rowling has said that powerful wizards can foil the effects of veritaserum, so that’s not an option for Voldemort against Snape. Voldemort could demand that Snape produce a memory of what happened on the Tower, but as we’ve seen, memories don’t reveal private thoughts, they only show what people are saying and doing, so Snape’s memory of his AK on the Tower in the presence of five witnesses would convince Voldemort that Snape had cast the killing curse. wouldn’t have been able to switch the locket Horcrux without dropping dead in the act. I’m frankly surprised that Voldemort put Wormtail at Spinner’s End because it’s tantamount to admitting he thinks Snape’s Occlumency ability is stronger than his own Legilimency ability (and I think Snape hinted as much in his conversation with the Black sisters). The only option I see for Voldemort is to order Snape to make an UBV that he will never betray Voldemort in any way. But it occurred to me a long time ago that Voldemort doesn’t demand that of his DE’s on principle because if he did, Rowling wouldn’t have any way to set-up Snape spying for the Order and or Regulus stealing the Horcrux; both would be dead.
Good point about Slughorn’s Horcrux memory and how the real one wasn’t missing the parts he left in the tampered one. And there is definitely reason to believe that removing a memory from the mind protects the memory from Legilimency attempts.
As Snape told Harry, time and space matter in magic and true Legilimency requires eye contact. I think an exceptionally skilled Legilimens can detect when they’re being lied to but a deliberate Legilimency effort is needed to cause images to be surfaced in the target (Quirrelmort could tell Harry was lying in front of the Mirror of Erised but didn’t know what Harry had seen). I think that’s why Harry got the feeling several times that Dumbledore and Snape could read minds, but it was only when Snape deliberately performed Legilimency on Harry that images and thoughts Harry wanted to hide were brought to the surface of his mind (during their lessons and when Snape was asking where Harry learned the Sectumsempra spell, which brought up an image of the Prince’s textbook). On those occasions, Snape was making eye contact with him and forcing the images to appear and Harry knew what was happening and that Snape could see those images. Dumbledore never performed Legilimency on Harry. Snape knew Draco had learned Occlumency because Draco said something like “don’t look at me like that; I know what you’re trying to do, and I can block you now.” That’s how Snape knew Bellatrix had taught Draco Occlumency, and Draco didn’t deny it.
I don’t think Voldemort was performing true Legilimency on Harry during OP although he was definitely using their mental connection to plant images in Harry’s mind. He couldn’t see what was in Harry’s mind because he was sure Harry knew about the prophesy all along and Harry didn’t. Had Voldemort been able to see and hear what Harry was seeing and saying, he would have known from Harry’s conversations with Ron and Hermione that Harry was clueless about the prophesy and didn’t understand the DoM dreams. It was only on the night of the snake attack that Voldemort realized the mental connection because Harry was in HIS mind in a sense; that led to Harry’s sudden desire to attack Dumbledore on two occasions, but Harry knew that the desire was coming from outside himself, so Harry knew when Voldemort was actually in his mind (and that didn’t happen except for those two times). I doubt Voldemort wanted Harry to see the Rookwood confrontation because of the information about Lucius Imperiusing Bode and because there wasn’t enough information in it to tell Harry what Voldemort wanted him to act on (that only Harry and Voldemort could remove the prophesy). That image happened months after Voldemort had become aware of their connection, so Voldemort couldn’t entirely control it and Harry wasn’t consciously performing Legilimency on Voldemort. Harry was only conscious of the Rookwood, DoM, and Sirius images when he was sleeping and his mind was completely relaxed, not ever when he was awake. But I agree that Voldemort did need to perform Occlumency to shut down the mental connection he had with Harry.
Gumshoe found the Horace Goldin history, but Professor Mum has used it in her own theories. So I think of it as Gumshoe’s. I love the history. Slughorn is very theatrical and a master illusionist.
I was really convinced a month ago that the final battle would happen at Hogwarts, but I’m having doubts now. Some battle is going to happen at Hogwarts for sure, but the Department of Mysteries is very intriguing because of the Veil and the room that couldn’t be unlocked (The Love Room). Dumbledore described love as “a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature.......It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all.” Also, you cannot Apparate or Disapparate in the Department of Mysteries (you can in the main Atrium nine floors up).
Interesting thoughts about Snape trying to bring on an attack by Buckbeak to let him off the hook for not kidnapping Harry. That hadn’t occurred to me, but it would be a cover story for not grabbing Harry on the way out.
Speaking about clocks, the room with the hummingbird under the bell jar is in the Time room that also contained the now-destroyed Time Turners, so I’m putting that into my revised essay. I think it makes the imagery more relevant to the possible magical action of the Stoppered Death potion.
JKR2:
I agree that RH’s stuff has a hard edge. For the life of me I don’t understand why she is so determined to characterize Dumbledore as a dishonest and corrupt old schemer. I don’t bother reading her anymore because all her book 7 theories are based on some despicable action of Dumbledore’s that he’s trying to cover up or blame someone else for. I think she willfully misreads passages, and you can’t reason with her. She was dug into the Dumbledore-Alive camp, and even since Rowling RCMH Q&A’s, she’s still insisting that Dumbledore was up to something and that he had planned for the Death Eaters to get into the castle while he was away at the cave. She thinks he personally fixed the VC and then had someone stationed on the Astronomy Tower under an Invisibility Cloak to manipulate events when he returned. I can’t fathom her mind for the life of me.
Felicity wrote: "I agree that RH's stuff has a hard edge. ....I can't fathom her mind for the life of me."
Uhhhh........yeah. She's a good writer, no doubt, and scores high in the "makes you think" category, but if her stuff is true, it ruins the story -- at least for me. Sorry.
Just a few thoughts:
On Methexis/Participation: the question has never really been whether it was desired ... we have pretty much known there is at least an element that not only does not desire it but actively works against it since the Garden of Eden, and true understanding of the Incarnation has classically and perennially been beset by the two extremes of materialism (be it Epicurius or "sceintism") and gnosticism (be it the Marcionites [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09645c.htm] or rationalism).
The question is whether it should be desired and whether that is sort of Rowling's authorial "disposition" towards the situation in the text and whether she holds it up as something to be striven for (in things such as, for instance, that the "saviors," so to speak, are a "blood-traitor," a muggle-born and a wizard who grew up in the most muggle house there ever was for 10 years).
Things can be taken from two sides, especially when bigoted behavior has been involved, and thus something like the secrecy act may be necessary at a certain point (as was the disciplina arcana, or the practice of secrecy, in the early Church) but not necessarily the ideal that people should be strinving for.
On the issue of the difference between vapor-mort and diary-mort ... I have difficulty buying that line of reasoning. Ironically, I have difficulty with it because of Mr Ockham and his razor(which is ironic because I think Ockham was the chief pathway of some very detrimental ways of thinking, ... but on some things I am willing to buy that there is a usefullness to the "Slytherin Way" ... of course, in the end the truth is the truth because it is the truth, not because it is the simplest explanation ... but this is just how things seem to me). The simplest explanation for the fact that vapormort has the unbroken memory is, to quote Sonny in "A Bronx Tale," - availability. diary-mort was a portion of soul not only torn from the original whole but then removed from the body and wed un-naturally to another physical object "horrific crossing," a Hor-Crux. I would suspect the ring-crux (and the others) had no memory at all simply because the ring itself does not have any ostensible receptory organs, so to speak, that would be as adaptable to "communication" as an image as is writing in a book and having the book write back. When Harry encounters diary-mort, it knows that vapor-mort was undone by trying to kill Harry, basically because Ginny told it, just as vapor-mort knows it because he sat it with his own eyes at that time ... since then we do not really have much clue as to the physics of how he received data, except that he seems to have had enough psychic power to contort the back of Q's head into a face and presumably he could access things from the snakes he inhabited etc.
In the end I think it is hard to draw hard-line evidence one way or the other out of the text in ininstances like this for either "bipartite" or "tripartite" anthropology. To the best of my understanding (which is limited at this point and I would have to do more research to state things more confidently) official "tripartite" theory (in which "part" would be roughly interchangeable with "component" in "the human person in three distinct components") is a more recent development. From what I understand of it the medeivals spoke of the "intellectual soul," but within the "3 ypes of soul" system discussion(they thought the human person passed through all 3 stages, vegitative soul, sensate soul and intellectual soul, but there was disagreement concerning whether the baby person passed out of one into the other OR maintained the previous while gaining the next etc ... I think Aquinas and Bonaventure differed on that particular one but I can't remember which held which, or whether it was just them who differed or the whole Dominican and Franciscan traditions of thought etc).
In Augustine's psychological model of the trinity it seems to me that the "self-reflexive/awareness" capability, or memoria, is a spiritual power or capacity.
Beyond that it is, like Rowling's work, trickier. From what I remember Origen's thought on human souls was ruled heretical but basically because he ascribed to a pre-existence of such souls, not because he saw them as a "part" or "component," using those terms univocallly of both "spirit" and "soul" (and, I'm not sure, but from what I remember it would be a bit circumspect to refer to Origen, in his person, as a "heretic" because, if memory serves me rightly, which it may not, the declaration on his thought was afterwards and he never really rebelled against ecclesial authority)
The biggie is that Appolinarius' thought was condemned at Constantinople in 381, and basically he said Christ had no human soul and that the Logos simply took the place of the human soul. Now, I thoroughly intend this fall in "History of Christianity 1" to focus on just this matter, but as of yet I can only say I suspect that this was due to a sort of "proto-Cartesian" "ghost in the machine" idea, and not to what is closer to present official "bipartite" anthropological thought.
Now, what I'm saying is that as far as I understand it, this (what I would argue for as closer to "2 parts" than "3 parts") is the thinking behind the major culture from which Rowling is drawing her imagery and major concrete themes ... whether she, or rather what she has written thus far in the HP series, is congruent with or divergent from that Tradition, would be a matter for more specific study in the text (although, off the top of my head the one instance that sticks in my head as possibly indicating at least a familiarity with the "3 types of soul" system is the mandrakes in COS and their resemblence to babies, ie both human in form and "early" in stage ... which I took as just kind of cool in the area of balance, that, just due to the form, there should be some respect for all forms of life ... but that there is a distinct heirarchy ... a human soul is a whole different world than any other kind of soul and there is, in HP, a world of difference between havresting mandrakes and killing humans ... although, and I can't remember where I heard this, but I do think I heard that some anti-HP people were arguing that the mandrakes' fate supported veiwing abortion as acceptible)
Anyway, I'll shtu up now :)
But ... there is an understandable reason why she wants to see DD as corrupt, although, while he has admitted himself to making errors in judgment (like putting Harry and Snape together in occlumency lessons and expecting it to go off without any hitches) I don't agree with seeing him as corrupt like Fudge or Umbridge ... I think there is a HUGE qualitative difference.
But that's all the hint I'll give here for what I think the mistake is RH is making in reading DD this way ...the rest will be in the soon-to-come post on Granger's Lumos talk on Rowling as a "PoMo-ing the PoMos."
Well, Merlin.
We certainly approach the text from different points of view. The problem I have with your problem with a 3-part human versus a 2-part one is that people in the Potterverse can still live without their souls. Maybe I'm being too simplistic, but if you only have a soul and a body, then if you lose your soul, what remains should be a corpse, not a living, breathing person (however vegetative). Also, Dumbledore distinquished between Voldemort's maimed and diminished soul but his intact brain and powers (this despite the fact that he had no physical brain for 13 years).
I catch your point about diarymort not being conscious of what had happened because it was trapped in a book, but I do believe what was becoming corporeal was a memory powered by a soul fragment, simply because the diary functioned as a pensieve.
VERY much looking forward to your post on the Vander Ark, RH, Granger discussion. I've been watching for it. When do you think you'll be posting it?
I should be getting the post on Granger's PoMo talk done tomorrow, after taking care of some much needed operations today for moving
Will you be posting on the panel discussion between Steve Vander Ark, John Granger, and Red Hen? Janet Batchler was penciled in to make a foursome but she couldn't make it. The discussion was about approaches to theorizing or making book 7 predictions or something like that. Janet is a professional screenwriter, and she's posted fantastic stuff on HogPro about plot set-ups and pay-offs through the six books, so she was a loss, I know that.
I don't want to sound unenthusiastic about John's PoMo talk but he pretty much posted the whole thing on HogPro, so my interest in your post will be your reaction to it. You might even scoot over to HogPro and read what he posted a few weeks before Lumos.
Not that it matters now, but just to set the record straight and because I'm fascinated by this at the moment and because there are links to good HP discussion below . . . .
When I wrote the comment above, I remembered reading about Stoppered Death for the first time on Janet’s Quoth the Maven blog. But in digging through posts on HogPro in the last couple of days, I noticed I joined HogPro on March 8 (tipped by a link on Mark Shea’s blog). I was drawn to the “Harry Potter PayOffs: Things We Can Expect to See in Book 7” thread. As you may know, there isn’t a lot of posting on the HogPro forums (one or two a comments day is typical), so it didn’t take me long to find Janet’s March 6 post as follows:
“The Stoppered Death theory, which I've blogged about at length (in a feeble attempt to bring Cathy's brilliant theory into mainstream Harry Potter fandom), and which John has discussed at length in essays posted on this site, basically points to Snape's comments in that first Potions class in year one that he could "stopper death." It then posits that when Dumbledore captured the Ring Horcrux, he was killed -- but Snape was able to "stopper" his death, keeping its effects to that burned and unhealable hand. Dumbledore has thus been Dead-Wizard-Walking for all of Half-Blood Prince, and knows his final death is coming soon (which explains why he is so forthcoming to Harry about things he would never discuss with him in previous books).
It also means that Snape did not kill Dumbledore with the Avada Kedavra on top of the Astronomy Tower, because "they cannot kill you if you are already dead." Dumbledore was already dead. All Snape did was pull the "stopper," the cork, if you will, that kept that death quiescent in his burned hand.
The Stoppered Death theory, to my mind, makes Snape's actions make sense -- and is fully set-up throughout the books (see the 8/19/05 post on my blog for set-up details). It answers the question "Was Dumbledore wrong to trust Snape?" with a resounding no.”
Out of curiosity, I went back to Mark Shea’s blog a couple of days ago to see what had led me to the HogPro forums in the first place, and to my amazement, I realized I had first read the phrase “Stoppered Death” on Mark Shea’s blog. It started with this post of Mark Shea’s:
Monday, February 20, 2006
Back Finally
Airline rebooked my flight and neglected to tell me. Spent night in Lethbridge Alberta and all day on plane. I will now squeeze kids, visit, read Harry Potter to them, and go to bed. Will blog tomorrow.
That little post set off a long and interesting comment thread about Harry Potter in which the Stoppered Death theory was discussed along with references to John Granger’s website and Janet Batchler’s Quoth the Maven blog. The interesting comment thread is here: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/chezami/114048140197268680/#429785e
That comment thread included a link to Janet’s QTM (excerpted from comment):
Besides Granger's site, I'd suggest folks check out this blog written by a Christian screenwriter living in So Cal who works with Barbara Nicolosi at Act One. She's got some very thoughtful & insightful posts on HP.
http://quoththemaven.blogspot.com/
I had not heard of John Granger before last February because I hadn’t read any Potter books except Rowling’s and wasn’t reading or participating in any HP forums, but I was very familiar with Barbara Nicolosi’s Church of the Masses blog because Amy Welborn links to her from time to time, and I’ve been a daily reader of Amy’s blog since late 2000. I know I clicked on the Quoth the Maven link to see who was working with Barbara Nicolosi and had great posts about Harry Potter.
Mark Shea apparently got an email from John Granger, who had either been reading Mark’s blog or who had been tipped off by someone that there was a discussion going on about “Granger’s theories” in a comments box on that Feb 20 post. Mark Shea posted John’s email as a topic thread on February 22:
John Granger, Author of Looking for God in Harry Potter Weighs in...
...on the Harry Potter discussion that has been going on [in the comment thread linked above].
[John Granger] writes:
Sean is right in his presentation of my opinion that Dumbledore does not ask for his death or for mercy on the Tower ("Severus, please..."). He only asks that their connection be broken and his death become final. Read that "Sever Us, please." When Snape asks his DADA class what the difference is between a ghost and an Inferi, the correct answer is "Albus Dumbledore," whose de-animation has been suspended for a period (not more than a year) by the Stoppered Death potion mentioned in the first Potions class in the series (a class referred to 7 times in HP6). As Joyce Odell has written, cogently I think, Dumbledore is Snape's "handler" and has done everything to protect him - to include lying out right about how much Snape heard of the Prophecy. He trusts him as much as he does for a variety of reasons, but most obviously in his last year because he knows he is only among the living because of Snape's "connection."
Sean may be wrong, though, in presenting Ms. Rowling as an Inkling, which until very recently was a position I championed. I'm writing an article now on the Harry Potter books as Post Modern Myth (attached) the conclusion of which will be that Rowling is a "Post Modern Christian" which is only like Lewis, Tolkien, and Sayers in being "anti-modern" and steeped in Christian literary traditions. Which, of course, is to say "quite a bit like them."
Rowling has been treated as a writer that fell ex machina upon us and Potter mania as something inexplicable. Silly, really. Rowling is a woman of her times and writes books that obviously resonate extraordinarily with the Zeit Geist, for better or worse. They have their extraordinary popularity, however, because they also point to the transcendent realities which we are designed to love and embrace. Like all really great writers, then, (a) she is of her times and (b) her books give us an experience of timeless truth. What you learned in Lit Crit 101 is true, even of Harry Potter.
She is despised, I think, because she makes no apologies for postmodernism and attacks only "fascists and ideologues" to include those who are excessively dogmatic in their postmodernism. As most of her critics (in my experience) are Christians who have retreated into a mechanical faith and ideological position in the culture war because of their objections to the radical relativism of PoMo academics (can you say "Michael O'Brien"?), we have a wonderful snapshot in this "tempest in a teapot" of the lunacy of our times.
You are all welcome to join in the conversation on my private HP boards www.HogwartsProfessor.com/forums .
Comments to this Feb 22 post are here if you're interested: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/chezami/114063662200587233/
Note: The Maureen who posted the Inking comment is not me.
I joined HogPro and was drawn to the “Harry Potter PayOffs: Things We Can Expect to See in Book 7” thread, and was surprised to see Janet of Quoth the Maven posting her stuff over there, and as noted, she had just described the Stoppered Death theory in a HogPro thread that I found immediately. So my brain synapses fused Stoppered Death with Janet Batchler with Quoth the Maven, which is what I remembered six months later.
If we're being technical, I first read the term "stoppered death potion" used by Sean P. Dailey (editor of Gilbert Magazine) in a comments thread on Mark Shea’s weblog. I first read about the Stoppered Death theory in a comments discussion on Mark Shea’s blog. However, I do still think I read the first Stoppered Death *essay* on Janet's Quoth the Maven blog.