[HPforGrownups] Why on earth....

[Sister Mary Lunatic]

No: HPFGUIDX 720

It's a time-honored tradition in novels of this sort, to have a series of
trials that the hero must go through in order to sharpen his powers.  The
hero (usually a kid) has to solve the mysteries, locate the talismans, fight
off the minor villains, and hone his magical powers before he faces the
Really Big Bad Guy/Creature.  The apprenticeship, then the mastery, then
peering into the lonely future that awaits all superheroes.....



-----Original Message-----
From: Brooks R [mailto:brooksar at indy.net]
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 9:38 AM
To: HPforGrownups at egroups.com
Subject: [HPforGrownups] Why on earth....

....are some of the various protections along the route to the
Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone, puzzles at all?

The Sphynx riddle in the maze in GoF fits in.  The competition SHOULD
be a puzzle.  But in SS/PS, they are trying to protect something of
great value and dangerous power.  So why use solvable puzzles?

Is this some inconvenient wizardly honor code?  To a SMALL extent it
can be explained as a precaution, so someone else can retrieve the
Stone in case something happens to Dumbledore.  That way some other
smart good guy can get through them if needed.  It gave lots of
nice quest/adventure/tension for the climax of the plot for Our
Heroes.

But why have puzzles that *bad guys can solve too*?

Think about it!

Fluffy is a reasonable guard - he can be diverted, the only puzzle if
finding out how.

The snareweed also falls into the category of a perfectly reasonable
trap.

The Troll too is a dumb guard, and the heroes, conveniently, do not
have to face him anyway.

The Flying Keys are more of a stretch, but somewhat reasonable.
Someone could be expected to try all of a large selection of keys
until they find the right one, if they are just sitting there.
Eventually even a clumsy wizard might be able to catch the right key.

OTOH, what if you made several keys  of different heads still fit,
but
some of them lock the door more tightly, so that even if you find the
right key you may not know it because you need now to use it more than
once?

But the chess game?  Why bother?  Why not just transfigure a set of
statues or something into guards, with some kind of password
programmed into them?

Similarly, why bother with the logic puzzle of the potions?
Just put a bunch of bottles in there and let someone take their
chances!  The person who sets it up knows the correct ones; other
than that what does it matter?

On the other hand, Dumbledore is right about the Mirror of Erised.
It does work nicely as a protection.  Although it is really not clear
what kind of spell is used to get the stone hidden in it that way.
Alternately, this may be a not-specific alternate power of the mirror
itself - perhaps there is a spell to conceal something by placing it
into a mirror's image, which after all might be a parallel universe.

So of all the protections, two of them seem quite inadequate against
a smart bad guy, and the Flying Key could almost certainly be caught
eventually.  It seems like the puzzles are counterproductive as
protections.

Brooks


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