The Weight of Glory

In my "manifesto" on chiasm I proposed a 2-4-6 chiasm based on the famous first potions class statement of "bottling fame, brewing glory and stoppering death." At the end of this post I will include that original material in this one, basically that book 2 has "bottling fame" (Lockheart), and book 6 has "stoppering death" (as was basically proven right in DH, and again, my peevesish hat is off in deepest respect for those who nailed that one), but the center of that chiasm, the intepretive crux, is "brewing glory" in book 4 (the issue of Cedirc heroically turning down "the kind of glory Hufflepuff had not seen in centuries"). As I said, I'll copy and paste that whole section of that post in the end of this one, but for this part I wish to discuss/establish 2 things. The first is that Glory is not the same thing as Fame. Actually Lockheart demonstrates that best of all in book 2. What he has is fame, but for things he didn't actually do. Glory is a weighter concept. It is not just reknown, it is actual power. Seeking power in and of itself is not intrinsically a bad thing, depending on the power. Power is simply the ability to do certain things ... and if they are good things that you are in your right place to be doing, then you having that power is intrinsically a good thing (although it can, of course, become circumstantially bad). But to seek Glory/power for it's own sake can be even more dangerous than Lockheart's seeking fame in book 2 ... that is to say it is a larger game going on when we are speaking of not just fame, but of glory/power (in only one entity is power and fame, or rather name, the same thing - where the name is so powerful that those of the religion in which it was originally revealed do not even speak or write it anymore except in official editions of the Torah, not even in siddur editions [prayer book] of the Torah, YHWH ... and the "name above all other names in Christianity," Jesus Christ ... although many have tried for the power of the Name, like the "men of the name" born of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" in Genesis 6, or those who built the tower of Balel in Genesis 11, seeking "to make a name for themselves"). So point # 2 is: exactly how crucial does glory wind up being? Does book 7 reveal that glory was as crucial for the series as book 4 as in intepretive cruxt would seem to indicate that it should be? Dumbledore: "I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory." (DH 715). First, this is DD's explanation of his "great flaw" in larger wizard history, the way that he contributed to Grindewald becoming who he became (not "making" him become that, but how he was blinded to the path G was going down and thus did nothing to influence away from it, but if anything encouraged it at that time). These are some potentially very loaded issues with regard to Voldy, for DD really was capable of not only fame, but real glory, real heavy power. Following DD's work with G on the hallows G actually gets the wand. Then DD, because he is truly capable of that power and glory, gets the wand ... and if not for the little bit of "luck" with Draco being the one to win the wand from DD's hand and Harry unseating Draco as the master of the wand, it seems to me an open question whether or not DD would have been unable to accomplish the power of the wand dying with him. Is Voldy correct in thinking that, even after death, if his taking of the wand from the dead masters hand was against the wishes of the master in life, then the wand would recognize him as master? (this is his rebuttal to Harry's point that Snape was the master of the wand because of the agreeance he and DD had on the death). It seems unclear to me ... I am not sure Voldy is not correct on that one. In which case, DD's original seeking of glory led down a path that put the most pwerful wand in the world in the hand of WORST person in the world to let have it (if not for that little bit of "luck" with Draco). A dangerous game to play. Anyway, here is the section on the 2-4-6 fame-glory-death chiasm: The First Potions Class chiasm: Bottling Fame, Brewing Glory and Stoppering DeathThis is officially a 2-4-6 chiasm but I am putting it here in this final section because it comes from the first potions class with Snape (the famous quote from book 1, which many have noted is quoted 7 times in HBP ... another tidbit of support: in one of these chapters in GOF it notes that Harry got a bad mark in potions for forgetting a key ingredient ... a bezoar), which would place it at the beginning of the series, thus making it a neat bookend with the next and final chiasm I will note, which contains a hazarded prediction and, thus, concerns the closing of the series. So, what are our elements? Well, this one is officially going to support the "stoppered death" theory of HBP, on which so many people have commented that it is difficult for me to pull right out off the top of me head (or even from the sea of posts online, or maybe even figure out at all) whose it was originally (although, here I think Felicity gives the answer, a commentor named Cathy who was a co-moderator with John Granger on a class on Barnes and Noble University online in 2005, I think that is reading Felicity's post rightly ... but it is a bit late right now and I am feeling a bit like the "part of the ship" Jack Sparrow in the brig of the Flying Dutchman in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 ... "Wait! nobody move! ... I dropped me brain!" - not trusting my noggin right now ... good thing I have saved editing this essay for tomorrow lol). But here is the basic run-down. In book 2 Lockheart "bottles fame" in that he takes it by, shall we say, "bottling it away" from those who earned it - getting them to tell their stories to him and then obliviating their memories so they don't know it is complete bunk when they read his books about how he did the things, rather than them. Obviously the book 6 element is not yet confirmed but strongly suspected by all (including me ... I am happily bumping along on the bandwagon here in the Bronx), that one way or another Dumbledore was stoppering his own death all the way through HBP, either by the help of Snape or by elixir of life etc. So, that leaves book 4 with the middle term: brewing glory. Glory is a very central concern in GOF, especially after Harry has been chosen as a champion, and especially to the Hufflepuffs. The "Weighing of the Wands" chapter could almost be a precursor to the "long dark tea time of the soul" of book 5 (a title I have stolen unapologetically from Douglas Adams, that, in my usage here, employs the angst of the fiasco with Cho in Madame Puddyfoot's tea shop in book 5 as a symbol of the book being "the long dark night of the soul" of teenage, romantic coming-of-age emotions) ... "The next few days were some of Harry's worst at Hogwarts" (GOF 295), and the glory "brewed" by the tournament is a big part of that, especially with the house of Helga. "It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that Harry had stolen their champions glory; a feeling exacerbated by the fact that Hufflepuff house very rarely got any glory ... " (GOF 293 ... Glory mentioned twice in one sentence, and the end of the sentence connects this passage and chapter to the chiasm of seekers I noted above: "and that Cedric was one of the few who had ever given them any [glory], having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch." [meaning the match the previous year, the same one Katie Bell mentioned in the common room just the night before this scene]).