More Pics and Spidey Snape Spell Thoughts
Ok ... so, this is the building I live in now ... called Arthur 2, which was just built ... decent place This is looking south down Arthur Ave towards the stretch of the Avenue that has a lot of shops and restaurants. Same intersection as in one of those other pics but in daylight. You can see the Italian flags for "Little Italy in the Bronx".  And this is looking north from our stoop, up at the intersection of Arthur and Fordham Rd. It doesn't look like it in the picture, but Fordham Road is a pretty busy road. In this you can just see the red car and the tan SUV going through the intersection, but it is pretty busy ... usually have to wait a bit at the lights to get across and continue on a block to campus - which I will try to take some pictures of soon ... really beautiful campus . Been taking some pics of murals and architecture at the Churches but not getting to get results yet with indoor photos  On Spells Anyway, I had commented on Felicity's comments on the force of spells in connection with the Spidey Snape Essay post and then lost the whole thing, so I'll try to briefly recap some of my thoughts. I like the detail from the text as far as the physical contributions to the force of spell casting. My own reading of it is more along the lines of how psychological/emotional factors impact it. Such as we see that trauma from being in love and having the other resisting effects Tonk's powers and Harry's shield charm knocking Snape back into a desk. Harry was pretty agitated with Snape and it seems in the text like it was pretty much the speed and ferocity with which Snape turns on him that fires it off. He says later "he was trying to jinx me, in case you hadn't noticed!" but that was pretty much the thing of the demonstation which Snape had described from the beginning so it should not have been out of the ordinary for Snape to try to jinx him NVB, but it seems like Harry was having this whole "boiling just under the surface" and the suddenness of Snape's turn broke the thin layer of control and set him off. In other words, a heated situation. By contrast I have always thought the "slumping" from Voldy's own AK to be connected to the "coldness" always noted in his voice. Now, this also works with the combined impediment jinx at the MOM from the DE's, that their combined emotional upcharge -- and it is understandable that the jinx might not cause falling over in the less charged situation of practicing in the DA room -- when I took karate for 9 months or so in like 9th grade I remember the head of that set of schools saying he thought a good street fighter could beat about at least 75 percent of the black belts out there simply because it is a whole different arena psychologically between sparring in the dojo, even the hardcore sparring only the blackbelts are allowed to do, and being on the street facing somebody with a knife who is really willing to wound you with it -- but there is also maybe something to the impediment spell specifically that makes it such that they didn't need cushions for practicing it while they did need them for stunning spells. But my main point in the response I made and then lost is that I think both the psychological disposition explanation and the skill/talent/development explanation can be true. They are different enough in nature that you would not really have "multivalence" - instead you would have a sort of "ambivalence" where the tension between the two possibilities is itself symbolic of the reality being described. In other words, the human person is such that skills such as these take some natural talent/power (some of which, in this case, may come from factors extrinsic to the person, such as ancestry), but psychological factors can impact ability and performance as well ... one can be "off one's game" due to such factors, which seems to be what Ron is saying of Tonks, who seems otherwise to be quite a gifted witch, given that she made it to being an auror. It's all that mystery of the human person thing.... :) |
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Merlin said ... (September 05, 2006 5:27 PM)
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post a commentDumbledore said something (referring to Merope) that Bob Ogden's memory didn't show Merope's powers to advantage because of the browbeating she was taking. And then she did seem to lose her powers or at least not want to use them when Tom Riddle left her just before Tom Marvolo was born. So you're right that powers have an emotional component.
Yeah,
One of the thing's I have liked is her psychological development of Rowling's. And I think that what you have mentioned about skill and natural ability are absolutely right too. And the factors are different enough (skill/development) that you get this tension going on that represents really well the tension within the person from psychological factors. Especially since magical ability seems to flow so much from the inner person, with the wand being sort of a channel or bridge to the larger realities that magic symbolizes. I think she has a whole lot going on about psychological health
... and Merope is a really good example. I forget if it was you, Felicity, but I think it was in one of the essays you sent link to that had suspicions of Voldy seeing another Merope in Lily on the night he killed her. In fact I think it was you (but correct me if I am wrong) saying he made a positive morally culpable choice there, or close to it (in giving her a chance to live ... but also negative in not holding off killing Harry for her). I myself would disagree that he is making any kind of a choice, I think it is more of a morbid fascination curiosity thing, but the thing that I think is there very strongly is that in some way or another he sees a connection between Merope and Lily ... Merope is a really central character I think.
Yes, that was me when I was pointing out all the ways in which Voldemort was set up as a Tragic Hero. In order for that to be true, he would have to be responsible for his actions by knowing right from wrong and having the free will to choose between the two. If he's evil 24/7 through no fault of his own, then he can't be held responsible.
Reread the HBP scene when Riddle is with Hepzibah Smith and is holding the Slytherin locket. When Smith said the woman Burke bought it from was ragged and had probably stolen it, Riddle's eyes turned red and his hand turned white because he clenched the chain so tightly as she said those things about his mother.
And I believe Uncle Morfin got punished with a life sentence in Azbaban for calling Merope a little slut who had dishonored the family. IOW, Riddle could have killed Morfin or managed to kill the Muggle Riddles without framing Morfin. He could have killed them all, transfigured their bodies into stones and thrown them all in a field on his way home from school.
There are other passages in which it appears to me that Riddle/Voldemort felt sympathy for Merope. As when he said she died giving birth to him or something like that.
He definitely associated Lily and Merope at Godric's Hollow in some way methinks. And I have noted while arguing this point that it is utterly psychotic to give Lily a chance at life if she will onyl stand aside so he can kill her baby. "Stand aside, silly girl."
But I have to bring up the Paradise Lost connection again. Halfway through book 9, Satan has a "stupidly good" moment when he sees Eve for the first time. In Paradise lost, it's a brilliant little section (only maybe 50-60 lines out of 12,000), but in the context of "justifying the ways of God to Man," it's a perfect counterpart to the way God is allowing the humans to be tempted by Satan. What Milton is saying is that God was not only allowing the humans to be tested and tempted into disobedience, but that God was allowing Satan to be tested and tempted back into obedience. Hence, God's allowing Satan into the Garden was justified two ways. It's the most brilliant bit in the whole poem and allows Satan to be a Tragic Hero by showing that he also has free will to choose good or evil. There are other Paradise Lost connections (Voldemort is slowly turning into a snake and all the devils literally turn into snakes at the end of PL), so I would bet money that that Rowling had the
"stupidly good" moment in mind when Voldemort gave Lily the chance to live. A stupidly good moment, but one in which the Big Bad was genuinely responding to a temptation to do something right.
So that's why I'm sticking with my argument even though I realize Rowling may be taking liberies again with a literary convention with all the Tragic Hero connections. And you won't budge me on this, Merlin.
well, I would not be trying to budge anybody - I have always thought arguments to be a bit of bunk and am more interested in finding the positive aspects of both sides ... of course a good many Christians would accuse me, for this very tendency, of at best trying to "have my cake and eat it too" and probably, more likely than not, of synchretism and relativism.
Having said that, I do think you are right that it is psychotic to offer Lily a chance to step aside for him to kill Harry ... which is exactly my point. It seems to me to be beyond a rational choice, but rather a morbid curiosity about feminine/motherly love (as DD says, Voldy never understood love, so it is natural that he would have a practically insane buzz about it ... "what is it!?!?! ... what will it do? how will it stand up against the fear of death ... my own mother must not have loved me if she did not bother to live to help me, will this woman die trying to save her son even though she knows I will only step over her body to kill him anyway?" it is very latent in the graveyard scene in GOF but I think you can hear a note of disdain driven by a very buried fear in Voldy's comments on the love magic protection [a prentensious, offhand "I should have remembered ... it just sort of slipped my mind, that's all ... that kind of magic is rarely ever powerful enough to be worth remembering anyway" ... and defintiely a taunt of sadistic glee at thinking he has outsmarted it through the physical means of using Harry's blood for the dark resurecction)... how far can fear be pushed?
My personal opinion is that the sons are like the fathers ... and the characterization of the sons can be pathways to understanding the characterizations of the fathers. I say that mainly in response to the thought of Voldy having sympathy for Merope. And the son I am speaking of is Barty Crouch Jr as a figurative son to Voldy. As I have said before I think we see in Barty Crouch Jr the tragedy of those who follow Voldy, and I think BC Jr is pretty far gone ... he is not at the level of Lucius Malfoy anymore, able to put up his own natural face as a "good show" - he has to use poly-juice potion to appear to be somebody else. Of course this has a literal/mechanical source in the story, being a spy, but I think it has a figurative meaning too ... BC Jr worse than died in the rejection by his father and the effects of the dementors in Azkaban ... in some ways the dementors kiss at the end of GOF is only the fulfillment/revelation of the effect of having them as prison guards ... if there had been any chance of rehabilitation at the time he was arrested, his father and the ministry saw to it that that was comepletely killed by sending him to Azkaban. All of those thoughts come on the heels of discussions of his performance as a teacher and the question of whether he was a good teacher (with one friend who particularly thought he was not, mainly due to thinking there was was nothing good left in him ... which I would say is a different issue form whther or not we see traces of somebody who could have been a good teacher), as I have said, that what we see in him is the "ghost" of a good teacher," a ghost that reveals part of the tragedy. And I think his "father" is Voldy (the "father of lies" ... as I'll talk below about Voldy as the converse of Milton's Satan: a human characterized "angelo-morphically," to coin a phrase maybe). As with the ghost of a good teacher in BC Jr, the son, we see in Voldy, the father, the ghost of sympathy.
As you noted, his reaction to Hepsibah's Smith's comments on Merope resemble sympathy for the latter. But I think by this point Voldy had internalized the identity ... in other words it is like salt in a wound, "yes ... I am the son of a witch who would not take even the measures muggles will take to keep herself alive" ... it seems to me like only the ghost of sympathy - having become the fuel for anger and hate.
I think that Morfin, likewise, crossed the line not of transgressing a still existing genuine and concrete sympathy, but of highlighting the "faults" in Voldy's own source of life/lexistence ... to Morfin, through Voldy's eyes, I think he, Voldy, would be not so much the heir of Slytherin as the bastard product of a with who forgot who she was and became infatuated with a muggle and then debased herself even more by being unwilling to keep living and doing magic (in other words, this was once an insecurity for Voldy which he has now sublimated and psychotically projects onto Morfin, seeing Morfin as accusing himself as such but calling Merope a slut). It is true that we do not (that I can remember) hear Voldy speak ill of Merope ... but the fact that some wounds are too inflamed to touch is not the same thing as concrete sympathy.
In short I think both Hepsibah and Morfin committed the same mistake "remind me of the "truth" about my origins and suffer a sticky fate" ... "died giving birth to me" is a bit of revisionist history ... we get hints that he knew (or at least thought he did) that she, as a witch, would have been able to keep herself alive through magic, but when speaking of it he chooses to give a more "normal line": "died giving birth to me" rather than "chose to let herself die"... We mainly see that when he gives his rhetoric, but that is part of it - at a natural level, but those insecurites can grow to psychotic proportion.
It's a thin line between the human in anguish and the full socio-path (and at the same time an immeasurable chasm, as is the case with many of the core differences in life), which I think is maybe part of her point. I think the connections with Paradise Lost seem pretty well founded, but I also think that from a "realist" perspective, Rowling may be a bit more orthodox than Milton ... of course when I say "realist," part of that is that it is not necessarily the job of good literature to be "realist." On the technical level of reality, Satan only ever made one choice and it was antecedent to the incedent in the Garden of Eden. Once an angel makes the demonic choice, that is it - that's what's in their nature as beind created (Ie not God and so there choice is a contingent choice that "takes place" and is not an "eternally occurring" choice such as God's eternal love is) but also not "time bound" in the same way as humans because they do not exist in a body or in a bodily dimension - although they can impact the physical world. Now, like I said, the job of good literature is not to be "theologically correct in all details concerning angels and the heads of pins," but rather to examine the human condition, and thus certain human characteristics might be ascribed to an angelic entity such as Satan as a way of examining the very area where "Satan's logic" appealed to human beings (much as human characteristics are used to speak of God anthroporphically in the Old Testament). In short, I think it possible that at least some of the meaning of the PL connections is that Rowling is sort of doing the reverse (not meaning "opposite" but rather the flip side of the same coin, the couple allowed Satanic logic to overcome them - take that far enough and you get a human approaching "angelic evil") ... creating a character that is human but characterized by almost "angelic evil."
In the end my opinion of the HP series is not that Rowling is "making a more accurate Satan character" in Voldemort, but making a more accurate socio-path (which is basically the answer to the riddle of "what is a human who is practically at the level of angelic evil ... ie definitely evil but no longer at the point of making the type of 'moral' choices that 'normally functioning' human being [ie affected by at most neurosis, but not psychosis]). I really think that one of the main things Rowling is examining is "how a culture at least concretely helps to make monsters."
Like I said before, I don't think we are meant to extend culpability to Dumbledore in that respect to the same degree as to Umbridge and Fudge et al - and, in that, meaning a qualitative difference between them, rather than a merely quantitative one - precisely because we see that Dumbledore really does love deeply (whereas the others, if they do love, do it more against their own choice of inclinations, simply because they cannot help but do it to some degree simply by being a human who has not gone to the level of somebody like Voldy). But I do think we are meant to ask the question of "mistakes" ... as Dumbledore himself does of himself.
Anyway, that is my take on it.
Side Note
Just as a last side note, in regards to Voldy as socio-path and the category of personality disorders vs lower or less serious categories of psychological disorder(going back to Kim Decina's and Joselle Vanderhooft's material [http://www.mugglematters.com/2006/08/of-dementors-dark-lords-and-depression.html]) and some comments regarding recent issues/developments within Catholic teaching on annulments (which I think I mentioned in the post on Decina's and Vanderhooft's Lumos talk - which is why I mention it here) ... the document which retired Canon lawyer Msgr George Graham refers to in his entry on annulments in the forthcoming encyclopedia of Catholic social thought and doctrine (by the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, Eds: S. Krason, R. Myers, J. Varacalli and M. Coulter), is Dignitatis Connubii, which was an instruction issued by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, in which the council states regarding the findings of psychology and psychiatry that the Popes "always encouraged and exhorted scholars of matrimonial canonical law and ecclesiastical judges not to hesitate to transfer for the advantage of their own science certain conclusions founded in a sound philosophy and Christian anthropology, which those sciences had offered in the course of time." Just as far as clarificatio of what to the best of my knowledge, has been coming from the Vatican itself regarding things such as recent research into personality disorders per se(which is one of the focuses of Graham's essay on annulments).
sorry ... should be "anthropomorphically"
I see your point, but I still think there's something going on in giving Lily the choice to live that certainly can't be explained by some things I've heard (that Wormtail wanted her as an Imperiused bride or Voldemort wanted her skill at charms and potions) that your explanation, rational as it is, does not explain to my satisfaction. I don't think it's just a matter of Riddle/Voldemort's reaction to being reminded of his Muggle parentage.
With Smith, he was only a couple of years out of school, and in the CoS and HBP memories, we saw that he could speak of his Muggle father and his not having the "background" to be Minister of Magic (to Dippet, to Slughorn) without the type of reaction he had to Smith when she called Merope a ragged woman who had probably stolen the necklace.
Merope was either too broken to want to live or she had lost her powers, but I think Riddle realized at some point that she had hung on long enough to give him life even if she didn't want it or couldn't hold on for herself. And it's in that context that I interpret "she died giving birth to me."
I've always thought Harry would destroy Nagini before destroying Voldemort, but now on the PL connections, I'm wondering if Voldemort will actually become a snake at the very end. Say he's reduced to Vaportmort again so he possesses Nagini. That would be an interesting twist.
aye, now that is interesting ... the mention of Riddle's speaking of his origins with others such Dippet, Dumbledore and Slughorn ... so once again I sit on my fence in my custom-made "synchretist saddle" and ponder.
I'll have to think about it some more. It's kind of cloudy to me. some of it is wrapped up in situation conditions and personages - Dumbledore, Slughorn and Dippet are all institutional characters from whom Tom is trying to get something while still in school or trying to get into/get an angle on Hogwarts, and ones of decently high profile, and thus much harder to get away with killing. Another part of it may be the thing of the progression of such a personality disorder, if one is to argue for Tom Riddle as personality disorder, which, from what I understand, is one of the things that gets discussed in examining personality disorders for anullment cases, the question of a person being able to "function" publicly while possibly not being able to function on a more fundamental level. In other words, a person not being "faking it" or being dishonest or anything like that (or drunk etc), but rather seeming to be "normally functional" and actually maybe genuinely being intent upon entering into this thing that they have a mental construct of called "sacramental marriage" while actually not being psychologically functionally capable of actually "giving" their persona or psyche, ie themself, into it (if this is the case though, it seems to me like entering into another marriage would be highly suspect, at least without serious evaluation that same said disorder is not impacting the second marriage decision - but the common perception at the present seems to be that entering into another marriage, with the approval of the Church etc, is often the primary motivation for seeking an anullment. Myself I would think it enough/ a better motivation simply to want to get down to the truth of the matter. I also think that, aside from the question of the anullment itself, there may be a lack of consideration taht just because the marriage was null, this does not prohibit the same two parties from entering a valid marriage and that whether or not thet do so may have psychological effects on any children from the marriage ... but that is all just by-the-by).
In Riddle's case we would be talking about "keeping up appearances" especially in his early years when he still had the fair face and "charm" that Vanderhooft and Decina note of the personality disorder they posit of Riddle (I believe anti-social personality disorder, which Travis was wanting to work on in regards to Voldy).
The one thing I feel more sure of now is that Rowling definitely wants the question to be asked, that it is a hidden question of the text, especially with HBP ... especially with Dumbledore's noting of the highly developed duplicity, control obsession and sadism at such a young age.
I really like the prediction idea of sometype of further digression into serpentine form. Not only would it fit the PL parellel very well, but it would also fit evil being characterized as perverse inversion in the Old Testament. In Genesis 1 humanity was to be in a class above the beasts of the field (of which the serpent was the most cunning, Ie, as a beast, the closest to human capacities ... there is a word play between the word for cunning of the seprent and "naked" of the couple at the close of chapter 2), rather than taking their cue from the beasts, and eventually you have the "end-result" in Nebuchadnezzar returning to a beast form, losing his reason altogether for a while. But it also fits all the stuff we have been talking about with animagi form and personality. One of the primary parts of the serpent symbol is the forked tounge of deception ... a characteristic which also lends to ideas of schitzophrenia (which would fit especially Voldy's tendencies to paranoia). If he does posess Naginni we would have a neat tie out chiastically with book 1 where he speaks of inhabiting beasts while in vapormort form, and if I remember correctly especially snakes. And it would make Dumbledore's interest in Naginni dead on, not necessarily as being right about her being already a horcrux, but about her becoming, in effect, the final horcrux if vapormort inhabits her (I am still holding out that the scar might be an HC, but it would have to be done before whatever body houses Voldy's base-soul ... I could see something like Harry getting all the ones he knows of, putting a cap in Voldy and then Voldy posessing Naginni and speaking to Harry through her, which he would understand, being parseltounge, and Harry being confused and somehow realizing he needs to release the portion in the scar ... being on his knees with his head through the veil, forshadowed by the aforementioned bilocation sensation in Umbridge's fireplace in book 5, with Sirius mentoring him in releasing it, bring Sirius' body back for burial, foreshadowed by bringing Cedric's body back from the graveyard, and then doing the final killing of vapormort/naginni ... something like that)
Yes, but he did still have a fair face and charm when he visited Smith; Harry said Riddle had never looked more handsome. He had obviously been to Smith's before (she said he'd never been late yet). She was waiting with girlish enthusiasm for him, she had a plate of cakes he liked at the ready, and he brought her a bunch of roses. I'm not ready to see his reaction (expecially the whitened knuckles) to the insult to Merope as a sign that he couldn't play the charm game anymore.
You have a point that he was progessing in evil since he had made Horcruxes by the time of that visit (the diary definitely and the ring most likely), but still, even in the graveyard after his rebirthing, his ire was directed at his father, not his mother.
I'm liking the Nagini possession the more I think of it. I've got a Nagini as Horcrux essay nearly complete (I ran a test trial on Travis's blog in the comments). I'm convinced that the remaining Horcruxes are the 12GP locket, the Cup (transfigured and hidden in the trophy room), the goblin-made tiara, and Nagini. No Harrycrux or Scarcrux.
Nagini is actually the female name for a Naga, a snake that's a semi-diety in Indian and Asian legend and is the natural enemy of the Garuda, an Asian phoenix. So I love that part, but more to the point, I see several reasons why Voldemort would have decided to make Nagini a Horcrux at the beginning of GF (argued in my essay that isn't posted yet).
That, and Rowling said Dumbledore's Horcrux guesses are not very far wide of the mark. His guesses were the locket, the cup, Nagini, and something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's. A Scarcrux would be very far wide of that list.
I don't buy that Dumbledore the Wise could have failed to consider the possibility that Harry could be a Horcrux (and Dumbledore knows how Horcruxes are made, we don't). And I reject arguments that Dumbledore did believe Harry was a Horcrux but didn't have the heart to tell him so planted the Nagini clue hoping Harry would catch the hint and realize that since a Horcrux could be planted in a living thing that Harry would realize at some point he was one. That would amount to lying to Harry and be so misleading that Harry's entire quest could fail.
True, Dumbledore withheld information about the prophesy from Harry for five years, but Dumbledore saw his huge error because it led to the death of Sirius Black and Harry wouldn't have fallen for Voldemort's trap had he been told about the prophesy in the first place. And that was just holding back information, not deliberately misleading Harry on a false Horcrux chase.
And finally, Harrycrux or Scarcrux theories would ultimately mean that Dumbledore, who knew as much about Horcrux creation as Voldemort and more about destroying them, would ultimately been shown to be pretty idiotic not to have considered that Harry might be carrying a piece of Voldemort's soul around.
And what particularly kills the Scarcrux theory for me is that Voldemort didn't give Harry a scar that was like a brand at the time of the backfired curse; the curse cut Harry's head open (Hagrid said it was a great gash or something, Draco said Harry was famous for getting a cut on his head, Dumbledore said he wouldn't heal Harry's cut even if he could because scars could come in handy). So for the Scarcrux theory to work, a piece of Voldemort's soul would have needed to head for baby Harry's head wound and then stay there in place until scar tissue formed around it and enclosed it--all of this happening without the soul fragment entering Harry himself and yet giving Harry powers like Parseltongue, which indicates that whatever was transferred into Harry at Godric's Hollow did go into the baby's head/brain/whatever. So Scarcrux theories are not plausible from my point of view.
Harrycrux theories are more plausible than Scarcrux theories, but there are too many good arguments against Harrycrux (which is the reason the Scarcrux theory was floated as I understand it).
It's up.
Nagini as Horcrux
http://felicitys-mind.livejournal.com/3963.html
Is the Hagrid comment in SS/PS? I need to go back and see it, because I don't remember it. I'm not necessarily convinced that there ever was a "wound" per se, but if I saw the place Hagrid or somebody else talked about a wound in concrete language that would certainly settle it for me. The natural assumption, based on muggle physics is that of the separating of flesh material and then scar tissue forming, but I would not think it necessarily has to be that way with magic. I'm not sure where the original drop off of Harry at the Dursley's stands in relation to the night in Godric's Hollow, timewise, but when Hagrid shows up with the Dursley's we do not really hear anything about any of it ... neither usual muggle means nor magical ... we don't hear of any bloodiness (as we hear of bloddy details with Krum after the Quidditch World Cup) or bandages (which would not be expected, since they are muggle medicine) but we also do not hear of any visits to St Mungo's or any healing spells. It's just simply not addressed that I remember.
Which is why I want to see the specific language in Hagrid talking about it. If it is just "gave you that gash" ... that is less specific langauge and possibly simply more colloquial ... in general we do not speak of somebody as having given somebody else a scar (although we do actually, if memory serves me correctly, get a fair amount of such language in HP), we are more likely to speak of somebody wounding somebody else. If Hagrid used terms of actual description, even mere adjectives such as "bloody" or even "gaping" - words that would really only fit an actual wound, rather than a word that could be used colloquially to refer to the scar itself - that would convince me more.
My point is that without going back and looking at the comment from Hagrid it does not really seemed to be adressed either way, in a way that would concretely necessitate there haveing been an open flesh wound.
As far as Dumbledore's guesses being not far wide of the mark, he does not officially guess that Harry is not the carrier of a Horcrux. but, if the scar or Harry were an unintentional HC it would be unique in that it was not intended ... in short it would have been an evolution of dark magic along the lines of loss of control (ironically the very thing sought) in which by choosing so many times to mame and rend the soul and sacreligiously send parts out into other objects, the person comes to a point of not being able to control doing that, even when they don't use the spell.
Voldemort attempted to have a 7 part soul, which is numerology that goes back to pre-Christian time. But the number seven, the Sabbath, is still within creation ... tha day that goes beyond creation, the eternal or eschatological day, is the 8th day of circumcision, the Christian Sabbath one day after the Jewish Sabbath, the eighth day (in Eastern theology refered to as the "Ogdoad" ... although there is every chance I have not spelled that correctly).
I would be very hesitant myself to speculate that Rowling might have Harry being an uninentional ... along the lines of Voldy, in the very issue of making HC's, unintentionally opening himself to the transcendant in the form of an eighth HC that will be his eventual undoing ... It's possible from the theology side of the medeival era, but I am not familiar enough with the literature to know if it is probable from the literary side of the medeival era (ie I would be more willing to speculate that if I knew of a strand in medeival lit that focussed on the 7 vs 8 numerology, beyond Augustine's purely theological writing on it).
If that were the case, though, it would be a very interesting symbol since, if Naginni was made into a HC after the night in Godric's Hollow, Harry would be not only the 8th unintentional HC but also, chronologically, the 7th ... Ie fulfillment of both 7th and 8th day.
One of the things that makes me lean towards the scarcrux is the unexplained shape ... why lightning? It's conspicuously never addressed (at least it seems conspicuous to me), while at the same time, in HBP, how do we have a tower with the dark mark over it described? - "the lightning struck tower."
I suspect that there will be a great deal more revealed about what happened that original night in book 7, across the board. For instance, how did Voldemort ever get back the wand he would have had to drop and no longer be able to hold as vapormort ... possible that Wormtail went and retrieved it and left his own wand behind when he blew the street up, I guess, in which case he was in posession of it for 12 years and that would explain ... but it's still sketchy. I personally suspect that there are a lot more details coming in book 7 about that night, including about the nature of the scar itself.
The curse cut Harry's head open as is clear from several passages, and the cut healed into a scar by a natural process (not by a Healer at St. Mungo’s).
Baby Harry was described as having “a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightening” when Hagrid dropped him off at Privet Drive; McGonagall asked Dumbledore if he could do something about it, and Dumbledore said he wouldn't even if he could because “scars can come in handy” (PS1).
Hagrid said he took baby Harry out of the ruins of Godric’s Hollow with “a great slash across his forehead” (PA10).
Draco said “I don’t want a foul scar right across my head, thanks. I don’t think getting your head cut open makes you that special, myself.” (CS6).
Rowling said Wormtail picked up Voldemort’s wand and kept it in hiding for 13 years. She’s also apparently said just recently that she doesn’t think she’ll be able to tie up every single loose thread in book 7, so she’ll hit the main ones and then answer other questions in interviews, I expect.
From my Nagini essay that you didn’t read:
“Dumbledore’s assumption that Voldemort used Nagini to kill Frank Bryce and only later thought to turn her into a Horcrux tells us several important things about Horcrux-making: 1) the murder is what counts, not the method used to kill (killing curse, lethal poison, etc.), 2) it doesn’t matter whether the murderer killed directly or used a proxy he was controlling (basilisk, Nagini), and 3) the murder comes before the Horcrux is made rather than being an internal part of the Horcrux-making process. Since Voldemort was planning to use Harry’s death to make his final Horcrux, canon indicates Voldemort needed to kill Harry before performing the Horcrux ritual, and since the killing curse backfired and destroyed Voldemort’s body, he could not have even attempted it.”
(snip)
“Moreover, the killing curse didn’t work against Baby Harry as Voldemort expected because of the “ancient magic” protecting Harry due to Lily’s sacrificial death, and that’s another reason for me to reject Harrycrux or Scarcrux theories. It was ancient protective magic. So thematically, it just doesn’t work that Lily’s sacrifice and the protection her death imparted to Harry somehow enabled part of Voldemort’s evil soul to enter her child. The mind/powers transfer does work with that ancient protective magic because Harry now has tools no other wizard possesses (the magical window in to Voldemort’s mind), tools that will enable him to vanquish the most evil wizard ever. These tools and powers are neutral, not evil, as we've seen: Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue enabled him to free the boa at the zoo, save Justin from an attack during the dueling match, and open the Chamber of Secrets to save Ginny and defeat Diarymort. As Dumbledore said, Parseltongue is a gift found among the great and the good, not just dark wizards.
It's true that Harry has entertained thoughts of torturing Severus Snape, but I think one of the reasons Rowling showed us a picture of James and Sirius when they were acting as malicious bullies is so we would not confuse Harry's personal shortcomings with the powers transferred into him at Godric's Hollow. I for one can imagine James daydreaming about torturing Snape. Sirius set Snape up to be killed or become a werewolf. And we know James and Sirius weren't Voldemort's Horcruxes.”
Bolger, Kaitlin and J.T. Sprague. "J.K. Rowling answers a few kid questions," Houston Chronicle (conference call), March 20, 2001.
Q: What is the meaning behind Harry's lightning bolt scar?
A: There are some things I can tell you about it and some things I can't. I wanted him to be physically marked by what he has been through. It was an outward expression of what he has been through inside.
I gave him a scar and in a prominent place so other people would recognize him. It is almost like being the chosen one, or the cursed one, in a sense. Someone tried to kill him; that's how he got it.
I chose the lightning bolt because it was the most plausible shape for a distinctive scar. As you know, the scar has certain powers, and it gives Harry warnings. I can't say more than that, but there is more to say.
********
Just adding that this interview was two years before Order of the Phoenix was released, so she was protecting the Occlumency and Legilimency plot line.
There may be more coming about the scar, and she did say once that the last word of book 7 was scar, but I can't say I'm expecting big revelations about the scar beyond what we've read in the books or that she's given in interviews.
If Harry is described in SS/PS as having a cut and that word is used (cut) and in POA Hargid describes bring Harry out in that seems fairly conclusive to me that there was an actual cut ... whereas Dumbledore's comment seems to relate only to post-cut scar and Draco isn't an eye witness of the time so his comments can't really be taken as weighty because colloquially and "usually" scars imply that there was a cut. I just wanted to be clear on what I was meaning by by colloquially certain sets of incedents usually just being assumed to be always together (e.g. scar implies former cut) but can't really be taken as proof of anything in the same weighted way it can be if the narratorial voice specifically uses the word cut or if Hagrid uses "cut" or "gash" in directly describing
The thing that first started me wondering on Harry as being or carrying a HC was the first time he hears Riddle's name in ... it might not have been the first time he heard it (because I'm unsure of the order of when the three heard the name first, whether in connection with the diary or with the badge) but I am pretty sure I remember it being before having found out who Riddle was and he is decribed as not knowing who this person was but getting a sensation that he was hearing the name of an old friend (and I think the specific details given were something like "but how could that be? The Dursleys had never let him have any friends growing up) ... which struck me as a very odd detail, unless he maybe had a part of the soul of Tom Riddle in him that triggered the sensation of recognition and familiarity.
But some of your argument against a piece of Voldy's soul contacting any part of Harry seems to be the idea that Voldy's soul had become intinsically evil by that point, in other words practically a material evil, but a human soul is always positively good intrinsically ... it does not enter any truly final state of good or evil, even from the subjective side, pre-mortem, and even in the case of the theoretical soul in Hell it seems that a soul is intrinsically good simply by being created in the image of God (on the objective side of thinsg, the fire of Hell is generally spoken of as being nothing other than the fire of God's love, which is hell to the soul precisely because of subjective disposition ... the soul remains intrinsically good, as evidenced by the fact that the precise burning of hell comes from contact with the love of God, with Which God Himself is identical ... so if the soul turned intrinsically evil He would not be touching it).
NOW, would Lily's love have covered Harry from all type of touch by Voldemort or only intentionally evil ... ie intent to harm him, such as the fact that when Quirrel lays hands on him in SS/PS ... of course, at least in the movie (and I have to go check the books later, they are over at my apartment and I am in the library due to the fact that we have not been able to have cable modem installed yet in the apartments in our building and so I'm restricted to using it here on campus or down at the laundromat for $1/10 minutes if the machines are free), Quirrel is burned when Harry pro-actively - Ie that part of it is not technically an intentioned act on Quirrel's/Quirrelmort's part, for good or evil - , and I am pretty sure the language that Dumbledore uses is that of Quirrelmort not being able to touch Harry's skin, which seems to cover more than just pro-actively touching him with intent to harm, which would seem then to make it harder for a portion of Voldy's soul to be in contact with Harry's body. Even here, I would say that it sounds to me like the act of trying to kill Harry would have put more of a mark on the soul ... just to distinguish from speaking too closely of Voldy's soul as intrinsically evil.
In the end, the language used in the direct descriptions still seems the strongest argument against the scar being a Horcrux, since it would seem that before scar tissue did form, since all of his skin/flesh would be equal before then, ie what would limit a soul portion to simply the area surrounding the wound and then make it locate itself in the scar tissue particularly.
Merlin--
I understand what you're saying, but the intrinsic goodness of the soul aside, would it be a good thing for a piece of Voldemort's soul to enter Harry Potter? I don't think so, and the fact that the soul has been rent in the first place by the supreme act of evil makes the prospect more horrible.
Lily's sacrificial death imparted an ancient protective magic on her baby that caused Voldemort's killing curse to backfire. It would be a thematic contradiction for that protective magic to allow a piece of Voldemort's soul to get through the barrier and lodge in Harry. That goes for Harrycrux and Scarcrux theories IMO, and there is no need for any part of Voldemort's soul to have entered him. As Dumbledore said, some of Voldemort's powers were transferred into Harry that night. That's the explanation that works with the themes of the book and doesn't require anything to be twisted around to make it fit.
As for Harry's seeming to recall the name T.M. Riddle, it was in CS when he was looking at the diary. But I think the explanation for that is that Riddle had placed a charm on the book so that whatever student it got planted on would feel a connection to it, not want to let it go (Harry carried it around with him for quite a while before writing in it), and would eventually start writing in it, which would trigger the magic that would allow the memory/soul to become corporeal again.
I say that because when Harry was experiencing the memory of the framing of Hagrid, he didn't recognize Tom Riddle at all--nothing. The soul/memory placed in the diary had experienced that event already, so Harry should have feeling of recognition that he had been through it before, but he didn't. At one point, when he was with Riddle waiting in the dungeon for Hagrid as it turned out, Harry wanted to go back to his room rather than stand there any longer bored out of his wits. Had he experienced that through a soul fragment in him, then he would have know that something quite dramatic was about to take place.
So I think the vague name recognition was part of the magic placed on the diary so that a student would be "hooked" so to speak. We never had an opportunity to find out if Ginny had felt the same sense of recognition, but I suspect she did. We do know that she was writing in the diary "No one's ever understood me like you, Tom . . .It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket."
So the vague sense that T.M. Riddle was an old friend, seen as a hook, helps to explain how Ginny was drawn into the diary magic so deeply.
As I may have written , I've never heard a Harrycrux or Scarcrux argument that didn't have a better (for me) explanation or that couldn't be explained by Dumbledore's comment about the tranfer of powers or Rowling's comment about the scar being a magical window into Voldemort's mind.
IMO most of the Harrycrux and Scarcrux theories hang on the type of arguments that fueled the Dumbledore is Alive theories. And I say that while fully recognizing Rowling's love of the game. She does include little anomalies here and there that are usually clues to something important. But she's also said these are character-driven books, so Faked Death Dumbledore theories were going to be wrong no matter how many clues could be interpreted to support it.
Forgot to add this. I think she makes it pretty clear ("Dumbledore's guesses are never very far wide of the mark") that there are four Horcruxes, so I wouldn't expect there to be accidental extra Horcrux.
In an interview with The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet in July 2005, Rowling said,
“Dumbledore's guesses are never very far wide of the mark. I don't want to give too much away here, but Dumbledore says, ‘There are four out there, you've got to get rid of four, and then you go for Voldemort.’ So that's where he is, and that's what he's got to do. . . . . It's a huge order. But Dumbledore has given him some pretty valuable clues and Harry, also, in the course of previous six books has amassed more knowledge than he realizes. That's all I am going to say."
From my Nagini essay:
Nagini as Horcrux is consistent with Rowling’s comment that Dumbledore’s guesses are never very far wide of the mark. Travis Prinzi of (http://swordofgryffindor.com/) pointed out that “not very far wide of the mark” is not the same as “always on the mark,” and that’s a good point. But I think the wiggle room is in the mystery Horcrux: “and you think there might be a Horcrux that once was something of Ravenclaw’s or Gryffindor’s?”
My theory is that the mystery Horcrux (the goblin-made tiara) is not a true founder relic like Slytherin’s locket, but is a founder’s family heirloom like the Peverell ring, which would make “a Horcrux that once was something of Ravenclaw’s or Gryffindor’s” slightly off the mark. (http://felicitys-mind.livejournal.com/2342.html)
Moreover, since Dumbledore’s description of the mystery Horcrux was vague to begin with and since the trio have the example of the Peverell ring to guide them, the description of the mystery Horcrux isn’t perfectly accurate, but it isn't dangerously misleading. IMO, Harrycrux or Scarcrux would be way off the mark.
I skimmed the Naginni as HC theory and I definitely think there is ample evidence for the Snake being a Horcrux ... I especially liked the stuff about the Naga snake, shich does seem to be a pretty tight fit with mother imagery in GOF.
On the tripartite and bipartite thing though .. .the language seemed a bit off. As I understand it "tripartite" theory is technically body (basar/soma/corpus) + soul (nephesh/psyche/anima) + spirit (ruach/pneuma/spiritus) and Bipartite is just body + spirit. "Mind" does not seem, from what I have seen (which, admittedly, may be a very small proportion of the debate), enter into the discussion as much. In the Fathers and Doctors "mens/mentis" seems to be either aligned more with a category of soul - the "rational soul" (versus, or at least distinct from, vegetative and sensate levels of soul) or with Intellectus as one of the 3 aspects of spirit (memoria, intellectus and voluntas [will]).
Like, I said, I think the language of "parts" falls short of the reality either way (analogous to, for instance, to the fact that the Church, in two major Ecumenical Counsels, Trent and Vatican II, refused to use the term "partem et partem" ["into part and into part" - which was, if I remember correctly a mistranslation of St Basil's Greek] to describe the matter of Scripture and Tradition in the Church, of which Scripture, and especially Paul, uses anthropomorchical language [Body of Chrirst, head and hands etc] - depsite the fact that at both council's strong contingents were pushing for the use of the langauge ... in short, I think the "part" language is very connected to Appolinarian heresy and Cartesian Dualism, particularly the concept of physical reality as being defined by extension, res extensia ... Trent and Vatican two kind of standing on either side, chronologically, of the father of modern thought - the former in reaction to the major thought movement directly preceeding and really giving birth to the Enlightenment, Ie the Reformation, and the latter concerning the Church in a modern/postmodern world shaped by 400 years of rationalist thouight)
But as far as the Potterverse and HP canon goes, I simply think that to construe a strong position of either of those particular camps in the works is simply eisogesis.
Rowling is not a theologian, Merlin, and I doubt she's chewing her fingernails over the distinctions made at Trent and Vatican II. After all, I don't believe theologians have discussed the possibility of tearing off a piece of your soul and trapping it in a object outside the body. So I don't think theologians are going to provide guidance here.