Linguistic Invasion 101 in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

So, this is a follow-up to my earlier statements on the Avada Kedavra Curse as "psychic invasion" drawn from tonight's midnight ramblings in OotP. In particular I have been reading the "Occulmency" chapter of Order of the Phoenix. Here is the background. There is, it seems to me, a good bit of confusion on exactly what Jacques Derrida was doing with "deconstructionist" literary theory (of which he is genarally accepted as the "father") up to his death in 2004. It is often mistakenly thought that Derrida was on a mission to deconstruct language and meaning, that he was an anarchist of sorts trying to bring about the anarchy. In reality his project was to show that language deconstructs itself in our world. His key concept was called "differance" - the fact that there is always a disjunction between the "object" and the language used to describe it, and that more often than not differance is used as a weapon for leverage and power (this is a concept also heavily developed by Roland Barthes in his shift from his "structuralist" phase to his "post-structuralist" phase, which is also an area developed, as noted often by Dr John Granger, by Jacques Lyotard). In and of himself I do not believe Derrida either advocates or disparages with regards to these human "projects." As far as "God Talk" (a central hot-topic of discussion in philosophy ever since Heidegger's exposition of what he called "onto-theology") I don't think Derrida or Heidegger ever went to saying theological discourse is impossible, simply saying that it must be recognized as something beyond "standard philosophy" (which deals primarily in human "phenomena," and thus the predominat strand of continental philosophy in the post-modern era is "phenomenology," of which Heidegger is a major figure and Edmund Husserl the "father" - and all of this is the basic philosophical background to somebody in the French post-modern and existentialist school like Derrida, who Rowling would have very likely had occasion to study in the course of her degree in classics and French at Exeter ... all of these thinkers would agree that often "God Talk" is taken in the vein of standard philosophy and thus utilized as leverage in and for political/cultural power ... although those such as Trasnscendental Thomists make a very good case the St thomas Aquinas himself never took philosophical discourse on God, or "natural theology," to this extreme which it has been taken to by the "scholastics"/"neo-scholastics"). Derrida and Heidegger simply "don't go there" when it comes to "God Talk" (even though Derrida was known to give talks with titles like "how not to talk about God" - but such a talk was given at a theological convention of Eastern Orthodox scholars focussing on what is known as "apophatic theology," the notion that there is more that we can't say about God than that we can say about God, what is often refered to as "negative theology" ... the East has always been bigger on apophatic theology and the West on the converse, cataphatic theology, what we can say about God). But Derrida's main point seems to be to me that, through the use of the "differance" that already naturally exists in human language already, language is most often used as a weapon. The question is not, it seems to me( contra a very common misconception about "deconstruction"), whether or not we should deconstruct ... Derrida's point is that the deconstruction happens anyway. This to me is really nothing more than saying, as the Church has said for 2000 years, that we humans inhabit a fallen world and come into that world with certain predelictions for agression against each other ... ie sin and original sin. The question is where to go from there. Most of Derrida's energy was spent in simply supporting the contention that deconstruction is indeed the norm, or rather the usual, in our world (since it seems to be a rather unpopular idea in most of the "standard" camps on both sides of all fences - cultural, political, religious etc. In the 80s and 90s Derrida was in tense argument with a prominent defender of trying to salvage Enlightenment rationalism, the German philosopher and sociologist named Jurgen Habermas, on particularly this point in regards to politics and political rationality ... the two of them actually started to dialogue more constructively in the wake of the radical events of September 11th, 2001 in New York City, up until Derrida's death in 2004 - Harbermas is still alive). It is somebody like the Czech thinker Miroslav Volf who then takes the step beyond "mere deconstructionism." And this is where the difference between Snape and Harry on occlumency comes in - how to deal with it. For I think Rowling really does go beyond Derrida's basics of deconstruction to the thought of somebody like Volf (I'm not saying I necessarily think she has read Volf, but that they come out at roughly the same place). For Volf the answer is radically more akin to Christian Tradition. The object is not to "mute" the attacks ... the object is for the attacks to be transformed. The attacks will always happen in this life, the object is for both attacker and victim (and we are both always both, often even in regards to ourselves ... cf my other comments in the stuff on the Expelliarmus spell in the post on Cho Chang, that really what Harry will be doing in undoing Voldy is allowing his original "auto-cide" to run its full course) to be transformed (I liked the 3rd Terminator movie for this reason ... the point never was to prevent "Judgment Day" but rather to survive it). The fact that legilmency is a weapon/attack motif is undeniable. On OotP 536 Snape berates Harry that in not cutting off access to these sensitive memories he is handing the dark lord valuable weapons (I'm not saying Snape is 100% wrong on the danger of wearing one's heart on one's sleeve, or that cunning is not a valuable tool, but Snape seems almost to take cunning as an ends rather than a short term means). On OotP 540 Hermione, whose account of things is often very insightful, spakes of legilimency as the mind being "attacked." The question is the path of "solving" this problem. For Dumbledore I think Occlumency seems a short term solution. For Snape I think it is more the ideal long-term solution. I think the path shown in the end of the book is more what Rowling is saying is best ... you cannot ultimately stop the invasive attack, but love can transform the situation - the attacker faces the ultimatum of either being transformed by love or leaving, under their own impulse, a situation which is unbearable for them. This ties out, I think, with the very beginning of our hero's story: the way the AK was beat in the only instance it was ever beat was not by any type of standard "defense" against invasion, but by a transformtion through self-scarificial love. This is a place where I think the "Harry way" (although maybe not the way he would "think" of ... but rather the way he inherited from his mother and father and will have taken 7 books to finally get the hang of, as DD notes in book 6 his slowness at getting the import of it) comes out on top over standard occlumency. In the end of book 5 Snape is proven right that Harry is completely vulnerable to Voldy's powers of invasion, but the situation is still resolved. Harry's stance of "come on in, buddy" is not intentional, and obviously not painless, and so he would probably not choose it, but it is the reality of the thing that Voldy is given an open door but NOT the license of determining Harry's disposition, making it one of fear rather than love. Harry's disposition remains one of love of Sirius and whether Voldy can hack staying there (and thus being transformed) is up to him ... and he leaves. In Volf's language (at least the little I have heard of him and looked into him), the invasion remains invasion, but the answer is love transforming both victim and invader. Obviously Voldy chooses not to be transformed, but by the end of the series he will have no choice ... either be transformed into a living and loving person (which it seems is beyond his capability at this point, considering how radically he has mutilated his human soul in making horcruxes and the like), or be transformed into a decidedly dead person. Harry's own transofrmation, at least as many have speculated, including myself, will involve the willingness to forgive Snape. But forgiveness never really has been, I would contend, the old addage of "forgive and forget," at least not in the ultimate sense we often take "forgetting" (actually the Greek word for "truth" used in New Testament passages such as "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" literally means "not fogetting" - it is "altehia" - the "alpha privative" attached to the front of the name of the river of forgetfull bliss in Greek mythology, the river Lethe ... contra the quote used in the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" - "blessed are the forgetful" - as is the point of that movie, that it is precisely the path of "fogetting" that is most damaging ... remember that in Patristic Trinitarian thought such as Augustine's psychological model of the Trinity, the human faculty that corresponds to the Father is "memoria" ... and we are all pulling very hard for our boy Neville to get his memory back in book 7). It is never returned to some idyllic state where the sin never happened - the sin is transformed - just like in CS Lewis' "The Great Divorce" the red lizard on the shade's shoulder, when the shade allows the glorious soul to kill it, does not disappear, but is rather then transformed into a brilliant white stallion on which the transformed shade rides off "further up and further in" to heaven. And both victim and agrressor can be transformed (I myself have often thought of this in terms of the symbolism of the Roman centurian in the Catholic Mass. If the priest, in saying the words of institution at the Mass, is the material agent bringing forth the Eucharistic, the most apt symbolic connection for the priest in the Gospel story of the crucixion is actually the centurion who pierces the side of Christ and thus the blood and water issue forth ... it is an agressive and violently invasive act intentioned directly for death, but transformed into bringing THE Life ... through the "invasive" words of institution spoken by the priest in the Mass). In the final analysis, the ultimate answer to the invasion of Voldemort and his AK is not some "advanced defensive magic" (as Ron and Hermione think Dumbledore will teach Harry in the private lessons in book 6) but rather that ancient alchemical discpline Dumbledore taught before becoming headmaster ... Transfiguration (and one could easily posit Dumbledore's emphasis on the love power in those lessons in HBP as a distinct adaptation in teaching methodolgy, directly in reaction to the failure of occlumency lessons in book 5 ... in short, I think it was not just that he realized that it was a mistake to have Snape teach Harry occulmency, but a realization that it would be an even bigger mistake to take occlumency itself as any type of definitve and final solution to the problem). And an interesting piece of "evidence" I just realized in flipping through GrandPre's chapter heading artwork for book 5 ... which method of handling "attacks" does Voldy prefer? Well, what does he conjure in the battle in the atrium of the ministry? ... a blocking device, a shield. Extras 1. Movie 5 showing the kiss This is just a shorty I came across tonight on the whole thing that I mentioned recently on showing the kiss with Cho versus not showing it (I think it originated in a set of comments back and forth between Nancy Brown and myself on here), that that kiss is NOT some ordinary "highschool hormone titilation, nothing more" ... On OotP 534, in Snape's first legilimency invasion of Harry's mind, it is only when Snape gets close to the memory of the kiss that Harry kicks in his defenses hardcore ... in fact, in light of the discussion of whether or not to show the kiss on screen in a movie, Harry's mental response to Snape might be the appropriate response to the movie makers and audience - "No ... you're not watching that, you're not watching, it's private ..." Obviously Rowling did not enforce any such stipulation on the movie makers, but the juggernaut that is Warner Brothers, whose chops she has had to bust before when they were trying to sue highschool fans for copyright infringement on fan site names containing "copyright protected" words, is a pretty big and powerful machine and she may not have much sway on that issue ... but I think one can at least say that is the statement of the story itself to those who would try to bend it to the whims of "money making titilation" - in this case, "money talks back." Such juggernaut's do not like to be told they are wrong, but, to quote Sammy Hagar's song "3 lock box" - "suckers walk and money talks." The usual guy who just filled in for me while I took meal break saw I was reading book 5 and said he read that the movie only grossed 70 million opening weekend - the lowest opening-weekend grossing to date of all the Harry Potter movies (and you would think with the book 7 release hype it would be the hottest) ... I'll have to check his facts, but if that is accurate ... money talks and suckers can walk. 2. References to Barty Crouch Jr and Imperius curse from GOF I noticed several prominent allusions, one clear and another I think to be there in the image, to Barty Jr's lessons on the Imperius curse in book 4, which I think is a tip off for the misguidedness of the occlumency lessons (the issue of teaching methodology is all over the place in these books). The first is that on 534 snape mentions Harry already showing aptitude at resisting the Imperius curse (that is the clear one). The second one, the image one, is that it is the same thing that signals Harry breaking the connection as it was when Barty Jr/Fake Moody was doing the Imperius on him in book 4 ... a pain in his knee resulting from falling and banging his knee on a desk (GOF) or desk leg (OotP). I have mentioned elsewhere along the line of the past couple of years that I think, in effect (although I did not put it this way then, but I am now), that Harry's knobby knees are almost as important to pay attention to as those green eyes of his. The knees actually come into play more, as I have mentioned elsewhere, here in book 5 ... when Harry has is head in Umbridge's fireplace there is distinct note made of the odd feeling of his head warm and fuzzily muffled in the fire and his knees painfully aching on the cold stone floor (personally I predict, at least until Friday night at midnight lol, that this will be how the scarcrux is removed without killing him, that only his head will go through the veil, with his knees planted firmly on the other side of the veil on the stone floor ... I predict that, as here in book 5, Voldy will lure Harry into the death veil room, thinking as he always has with his AK, that, while he can avoid death himself, it is also a weapon completely at his disposal - but his timing will be off and Harry will get rid of the scarcrux before he gets there - I still like Red Hen's old idea of Rowling using the literary device of a "spirit journey": Harry with his head through the veil and maybe Sirius or even also Quirrell on the other side acting as guide/s for the spirit journey - then, as per the DH cover art, a big showdown with Voldy and the death eaters around arena-style and then transportation to "another plane" for the finale, as per the end of GOF ... I could even see Voldy luring Harry to the death room but not knowing Harry has all the Horcruxes with him and then Harry realizing the best way to get rid of all the Horcruxes is just to chuck them through the veil [having brought them in that nice little leather pouch we see around his neck in the cover artwork] and then doing the on the knees spirit journey to get rid of the scarcrux before Voldy comes in, and maybe the veil arch being destroyed in the pyrotechniques of the Horcrux chucking session and scarcrux removal) To quote Bono on the importance of knees, "I don't know if I can make it, I'm not easy on my knees, Here's my heart, let you break it, I need some release ... we need love and peace" (from "Love and Peace Or Else" on the album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb")