Parting Shot

Well, We are inside the 24 hour mark here on the East Coast of the USA and this will be my last post before the release of book 7 on Friday night at midnight (and I probably will not post again until I have read book 7 once through and processed the main plot ... and even then probably just a brief little bit to say things like "WHOOOOAAAAAHHHHH!!!! .... guess I was WAAAAAYYYYY off on that one lol!" - and who knows, maybe I might even have occasion to say, "hey! ... wait! ... cool! ... I actually got one right!"). I will finish my re-read of book 5 tonight after I get back from writing this on my meal break. I have noticed a few extra things but right now they are all minor details that all connect to thematic and structural concerns the basics/general issues of which I feel I have sufficiently beaten to death in recent months (things like a book 5 instance of Harry being faster on the draw than Malfoy, a book 1-5 connection via the re-introduction, in the Prophet's news release of Voldy's return at the end of book 5, of the title "the boy who lived" etc etc) ... either that or they are text details I am cataloging for a piece I am trying to write for paper publishing after book 7 is out etc. So, I am officially doing a practice a guy I used to know did with tests ... he refused to study anymore within the hour before the test. He would drink a beer or listen to music or something to relax, to loosen up, to keep the mind from getting so bound up going over things that it was unable to operate smoothly in the test. So Today I am just kicking back and relaxing. Actually I had this started a day ago and am just now getting back to finish it owing to other stuff going on. But there is one thing I am going to add here which I actually already have penned but have not used - not so much a concrete prediction as concretely siding against somebody else's prediction on an area I feel central. Over on John Grangers HogPro site somebody commented strong agreement with some other online commentator's that the one person lined up for a dementor's kiss in book 7 is Voldy. I thoroughly disagree ... I think there is no place for the dementor's kiss in any resolution that is truly a healthy closure to the story. We had 1 DK and that was in book4, on Barty JR and I think it fulfilled its natural roll in the whole of the story ... to show what a sham and a travesty the "Ministry Method" is and the kind of tragedy to which it is most prone to contribute. So, here is what I managed to get out in draft form for a comment in response before I got distracted with other things, and also thought maybe I was doing it at least a little combatively and so I dropped it. I do think the issue is important, and I also think that what I managed to get out here is decently constructive ... I think I just stopped because I was having difficulty at that particular point closing it out and tightening it up without moving into more "debate mode" - which I just really didn't feel good about. So I will just leave it as is here in rough draft form (although I will edit just to prune off danglers and all) and people can make of it what they like. I may find out after tonight that I am wrong. I may read Deathly Hallows and find that Rowling has Voldy receive a Dementors Kiss, but I'll cross that bridge if it comes to me. Other than that, in the time before the release, I would simply encourage everyone to pick their favorite of the books and peruse it - not for the material plot points and last minute predictions, but for the parts they just sheerly enjoy. For me, my recommendation would probably be book 5 just because that is what I have read most recently - "I laughed, I cried ... I experienced childbirth." When Fred and George unleashed Mayhem and made the great escape I pumped the air with my fist and laughed like a little kid and Madeye's comment that the things that Uncle Vernon is not aware of could probably fill several books makes me guffaw; and I cried when Dumbledore added one last explanation he felt he owed Harry, on why he did not make him a prefect, because he felt Harry had enough weighing him down as it was, and Harry looks up to see a single tear roll down into the headmaster's silver beard, and Harry's and Luna's final conversation on the departed who wait behind the veil and how Harry finds the he does not mind Luna talking about Sirius, especially after her comments on her mother's unique personality contributing to her demise, reminds me that this is the first that I have gone through book 5 since my father died ... (OK, I am male ... so obviously I did not experience childbirth, but that is the old thing we used to say) ROUGH DRAFT OF RESPONSE TO PREDICTION OF A DEMENTOR'S KISS FOR VOLDY IN BOOK 7 I have to disagree strongly with the comments on Voldy and the dementor's kiss (DK). The primary reason for doing so is an argument from "need for closure." I am tempted to argue that the mention of how the DK would be the punishment fitting the crime would carry a tone of irony to it, that in a way Voldy would get what he wanted, on the technical level. It would be a shoddy argument at best, since this is not close enough to what Voldy meant by "immortality" even to warrant claiming it as full "irony" (closer is something like the way the Aladdin movie with Robin Williams as the voice of the Genie ends, with the villain with the Genie's powers he craves but also the Genies bonds, but most importantly part of the impact is his being aware of the irony). But rather than that my argument will be straight ahead from closure and definition. Voldy needs to be dead by the end of book 7 (some of my comments in a moment, on the nature of "justice" will relate - but let me be clear here in forecasting that what I say there is distinctly NOT a "retribution" model of Justice). In part this is due to the nature of the DK in relation to the nature of the Horcrux, and the mutual nature of both as regards the location of the "final resting place" of the soul in relation to this world (or however you want to think of it - this plane of this world - however you want to distinguish this side of the veil in the DOM from the other side of it, when the soul leaves "this world). In this regard I would make the argument that the DK resembles the Horcrux closely enough to say that in the logic of the images, as I read them and as I am arguing that Rowling writes them, the DK in no way could ever be considered a "good ending" (even on Barty Jr, I think it is technically entirely tragic and a concrete mark on exactly how bad and dangerous of a characters people like Fudge and Crouch Sr and their mentality are). Although one might argue that the connection between the two images, DK and HC, is what makes the DK the fitting conclusion for somebody practicing the HC, it is my hope that what I write below will more fully explicate why it is that I concretely disagree with this interpretation of both the matter in general and of the position that it is the interpretation put forward in the Harry Potter series. For here I will say that I do not believe the logic of the image is determined by "retribution for a subjective action" (what some would refer to as "poetic justice") but rather by the objective qualities of the image as natural or unnatural. If the HC is by nature objectively unnatural, and thus having it in the world is an objective evil, having more evils of the same kind objectively existing in the world will not help the matter one bit on the side of objective reality. I could not really in good conscious make any claim about the irreversability of the DK (unless somebody showed me something conclusive from text I have missed). And so it would not be justified for me to posit any concrete possibility of reversability (for one it would violate a predictional/interpretational practical theory I think to be pretty good one of not arguing from magic things you invent on your own and that have not been established in text, by relying on some concept of some magical means of reversing the DK). I think that it is reasonable from what is in text to allow the impression of irreversability (and I suspect that if Rowling had to define on that element of the potterverse she would define it as irreversable, at least as far as any possibility of getting a person's soul "reatteached" to their body ... but I also suspect that she has intentionally not addressed the matter and would prefer to leave it open in the text, open to the impression of irreversability but with the mechanics of the image still open-ended ... this is of course all witht the caviat that we do not have book 7 yet, and it is entirely possible that she will have some further clarification in that text on those matters, one way or the other), but I do not see that as being the same as a positive presence of conclusive irrversability in the actual image itself as presented in text. Like I said, it is entirely possible somebody could show me differently. But actuallly even the positive concrete presence of irrversability would not change what is at the core of what I am trying to say as far as "closure" (the irreversability issue would be pertinent if it were not irreversable and Voldy could come back as Lord regurgi-mort etc) and what I am saying here will relate to what I say on Dante below. The bottom line is that the the kiss is not the same as death. In fact, if it is irreversable that would be the area in which the greatest objective evil is present in the DK, that it does not allow the natural event of death, the passing of the soul through the veil, to occur. I believe that the thrust of the series to date has been that the world needs to be rid of Voldy ... completely rid of him (as is the case, actually, with all human beings in the Pottervers, but not this same type of need). Nick's talk at the end of Book 5 indicates that that is the natural path for all ... even a ghost is not totally "natural" and not to be sought moving on after a brave death, but the ghosts are more on an acceptable level and within the parameters of the system, whereas Voldy's way of doing things, of not only remaining present enough to speak and hold conversation but also to act and interact more concretely and powerfully, is the properly evil way, on the objective side, of sticking around forever. Nick is, as he says, neither here nor there (" I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn't to have ... Well, that is neither here nor there ... In fact, I am neither here nor there" [OotP 861]). Voldy IS, in fact, HERE .... and there is a definitive need for closure in him clearly being sent THERE. From the tone of the works as I have read them thus far I find it difficult to believe that Voldy's soul remaining in this world forms any type of closure along the tones indicated by the works thus far ... as for the continued existence of the soul in the dementor being a symbol of hell (the proper eschatological category of hell, not meaning something more loose like "hellish" etc), I do not believe that that is within the parameters of these works and the specifics of my argument for that will be in the section below addressing the argument proposed from the comparison with Dante. The Bible As to an argument based in "fittingness" or "poetic justice," I would argue that the particular concept being implied here is not consonant with the Bible or with any other "element" in the Christian tradition on which Rowling might be drawing in building these works (including alchemy as a mystical/symbolist practice or literary field, at least in what I have read on it in John Granger's works). The Christian Tradition begins with the Bible and the Bible begins with the Old Testament. I am honestly not trying to be condescendingly pedantic in stating such an obvious fact ... I do so because I wanted to get out the general basic flow that my next comment is a concrete level of and make sure that it was clear that it is that general baisc thing that I am hooking the next details up with. When we speak of terms such as "justice" and "righteousness" these terms in Christian tradition begin with the dik- root in Greek in the New Testament. But even from a faith in Scripture as divine revelation, words like the dik- root did not simply pop out of nowhere, and much less did their usage in the New Testament. Our understanding of the meaning of this term are to be conditioned by the Hebrew word/s of the root TsDQ in the Old Testament (The specific path by which this happens is that in the authoritative Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures known as the Septuagint, generally accepted to have been done in the range of 300 BC/BCE, the Greek dik- root is that which is most often used to translate the TsDQ root in the Hebrew texts). The TsDQ root carries much less of an individual tone and, corrspondingly, much less of a subjective tone. It's tone is much more objective in the sense of "justice" being a thing being "right in the world" or as it should be, a right orderedness in the affair. We moderns tend to split the terms "justice" and "righteousness" out and have the former be the objective and the subjective. In truth what we really tend to do is, after unnaturally separating the two terms thus, we then tend to re-conflate them along the lines of modern individualism and improper subjectivism ... we tend to think of "justice" as merely the objective state of everybody getting the punishment their subjective sins "deserve" or the reward their subjective good actions "merit." This is next is a topic where I tread tenderly. I believe that a corrolary that exists to what I have described is that in the area of life and death, "retributive justice" becomes a concept that if one person causes another this pain, the the "just recompense" is that they themselves becaused this pain. Again, I realize many will disagree with me here, but as a student/scholar of Biblical Exegesis and a student of Christian theology I have completely left behind the belief that what is commonly thought of of as "retributive justice" has any real place in matters of this level and finality. In the death penalty for murder as the prime example, on the objective side, the ending of the life of the guilty person does not restore the life of the victim, and thus the element of "retribution" must be grounded in the subjective side of the matter, and I do not believe that subjectivity at that level is the proper domain of, nor even really within the power of (if the matter ever be exposed fully and accurately) human persons (some will argue that it is proper retribution because God has declared it so in the Bible ... which, as one who actually does read the Bible in the original languages, I have to say is a bit of an arrogant statement ... assuming to be able to declare authoritatively on what exactly God is saying and decreeing in the Bible with a level of concrete detail and certitude that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, even on its most flamboyant days, does not claim ... an example of the type of questions to be answered are : in Genesis 9:6 why does the verb "will be poured out" not have any morphological form of the jussive ... IE what would be the justification for taking that imperfect tense to be jussive in meaning [as can happen] rather than simply imperfect as a descriptive, rather than a prescriptive meaning?) As an observer in life, in what I have read on the matter etc, it does not seem to me the proposed closure for relations of the victims is really provided, but this is by nature a properly subjective question and I also wish to maintain respect for personal experience and must admit that I personally have not undergone that particular trial of losing a loved one to violent crime. As for the Bible, I believe that the evidence that is generally suggested for such things, in particular the death penalty, rely on inaccurate readings of the Biblical texts and insufficient understandings of the categories of Biblical Revelation in general ... that is only my opinion but it is my opinion as a student/scholar working in this particular discipline. I really do think that there is a distinct tenor in the approach to the dementor issue by Rowling that the dementor situation is never a natural one the way death is, and never forms a part of any type of justice, poetic or otherwise, which is why I think she has a sage character like Dumbledore so opposed. I personally think she is making a statement against the death penalty (which, as does the dementor's kiss, radically cuts off the possibility of repentance)... if deadly force is necessary in the moment for protection, this is another matter (but even here, we heard Sirius in book 4 commend the real Madeye Moody for avoiding killing when it was possible, bringing them in alive if he could). As to the Dante argument [editorial note: when I wrote this it was in response to somebody saying they thought a DK for Voldy would be quite appropriate in the same way as the punishments in the circles of Dante's hell in the Inferno], Dante's work is one in which the elements present are representative of the afterlife in a way that is not present in Rowling's works. It is not the case that the Potter series does not touch on the afterlife at all ... as is evident in the end of book 5. But, and here is the rub, while the series does touch on the afterlife, the Dementors are distinctly not part of that element ... they are and always have been (at least as far as can be seen or demonstrated from text evidence) on this side of the veil. It might be different if there was no element in the series of "beyond this world" - of "the other side of the veil" - then maybe one could argue that the DK represents hell - but that is not the case in the works as they stand at present (at least until midnight of July 21, 2007). Concerning Dante, the proper realm of the work is the afterlife - not indefinite suspended animation in this world, as a dementor's kiss would seem to yield. In short, I am not sure hell is represented at all in the Potter series. We know that good souls like Sirius "go on" to an assumedly better place etc (at least that is the implication of Nick's talk), but we have nothing really about what happens to souls that die in a state of malice and evil. To me this fitting and is akin to the approach of the Catholic Church on the eternal destiny of particular human beings who have died. The Church will proclaim, after a rigorous investigation called the canonization process, that certain individuals have gone to heaven ... IE are saints, but will not proclaim in the same definitive way that any individual has gone to hell. This is not to say, as some do, that everyone is going to heaven - hell remains a very real possibility for human persons. The Church simply will not declare that any particular person who has died has gone there (the closest it gets is the obvious implication of canonization as a saint, that that person has not gone there). If one looks at he Christian Tradition, I would strongly argue that one does not find the core of the predominant teaching on the afterlife as the language of "crime and punishment" but as the language of "revelation" (as in the book of the New Testament that is generally thought to deal most directly with "last things" being named "Revelations"). The Afterlife is a unique finalization of this life, a revelation, as it were. Hell is radical, including eternal, disunity with God and neighbor, and is the natural end product of a life lived choosing such diunity and dischord in this present world. "Let the punishment fit the crime" does not, at least as it seems to me, fit the Christian Tradition if it is taken as a thing of "vindication" (it seems to me like such turns God not into a lover but into the proverbial "vindictive b***h" ... Christian Theology tends to come down on even Hell as the love of God ... hell is basically how God's eternal love feels to a soul that rejects it) . It can only fit if it is sort of "code" for a description that hell will probably take the shape of the sins of which it is composed, the whole will look like the parts of which it is composed. Of course, due consideration must be given to the fact that "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" and the need to avoid such things as some erroneous directions in which certain concepts like that of the "fundamental option" in Catholic thought have been taken (IE the "Fundamental Option" doctrine is, I believe, sound in and of itself, but I am just noting that this is the misinterpretation of it that one has to guard against - saying that the whole is only the sum of its parts). I guess that I would sum up this comment by saying that I would find a dementors kiss of Voldy to be a failure not only on the level of some of the image sources Rowling is drawing upon (like psychological remedies like talk therapy), but also on the literary level and the level of the Biblical/Christian Tradition (and not to mention that it seems to me to be somehwat inconsistent with what we know of dementors in text - they seem to be much more drawn to vibrant/passionate healthy souls like Harry and Sirius, or at least pudgy souls like Dudley, who, for as inordinately as his soul may be operating in regards to the body and bodily sustenance and all that, is at least more innocently still with a "strong pulse" so to speak ... but then this would be a place that many might disagree with me on, on the evidence of Barty Crouch Jr, whom the dementor swooped down on almost instictively in Dumbledore's office in GOF, but I read even Barty Jr's mania as more vivid and hot than something like Voldy's "high cold voice" version of "sanity" or "tact") but just my 0.02 worth .... after book 7 I could well have to be reconsidering my thoughts on this ... nothing to do but wait and then read :) Merlin the day-walking vamp "Gotta kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight" (-Bruce Cockburn, from "Lovers in Dangerous Times")