Chapter 34 Summary

[Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 14197

Hi --

Lots of great meaty stuff to reply to in the last 24 hrs --

Great Ch 34 summary Voicelady (and intriguing questions)!  :--)

> 3.      We know that the Avada Kedavra curse is associated with green light.  But what was the symbolism, if any, of the red light streaming from Harrys wand?

I've been wondering if there's any symbolism to the things that come out of the Champions' wands when Mr. Ollivander "tests" them before the First Task.  Orchids from Fleur's wand, silver smoke rings from Cedric's wand (which has a core of unicorn tail ... like Ron's wand, yes?), small twittering birds from Krum's wand and wine from Harry's wand.

It doesn't say ... but I imagined the wine coming from Harry's wand to be a rich Cabernet.  <g>  Red in other words.  Someone else noted that when Harry first picks up his wand in SS, it emits red sparks.

I think there must be some meaning with red & green in this series, but darn if I can come up with anything that makes much sense.  Harry has green eyes; Voldemort has red eyes (how weird is *that*!).  Green light seems to be associated with evil curses; red light/red things seem to emit frequently from Harry's wand.  The Dark Mark is a green skull.  Hmmm .....

> 4.      Do you wish that, even though the original wand order was a mistake, Jo had worked with it and come up with a reason for James emerging first?

Yes!!  I guess that goes without saying since I've now given interviews on the subject.  <g>  I still prefer Trina's theory that Harry desperately needed to see his father first that night & so he magically caused the images to reverse themselves within the wand.  That's my favorite.  It ties in well with my belief that Harry is associating more & more with his father, especially in times of danger.  He now knows his father's best friends & has developed a close relationship with both Lupin & Black.  His patronus takes the form of his father's animagus being.  Dumbledore tells him that his
father continues to live within him and "shows himself most plainly when you [Harry] have need of him."  This says to me that Harry will thereafter most likely think of his father in times of danger (so I don't buy the argument of the publishers that Harry thinks of his mother at times of danger because of her sacrifice for him).  Plus, the text (corrected & uncorrected) quite clearly indicates that he was thinking of his father that night and that he was *not* thinking of his mother.  So ... the rewrite lacks emotional resonance for me and doesn't make any sense (given that they didn't change
his earlier thoughts in that chapter).

Although I see the merit in the position advanced that only JKR can know whether the "uncorrected" version would cause problems for later plot points & details, I prefer the uncorrected version .... and I do wish that she'd either (a) found a way to creatively explain it in a later book, or (b) less palatable to me, fessed up that it was an error and that her publishers were correcting later printings.  I don't like the way the error was corrected in secret, and it seems that it hasn't been handled properly in any case since some of our members have encountered later printings (printings
appearing *after* the correction was made) that are without the correction as well.  Same thing has happened with the ancestor/descendant thing.  They can't seem to make a correction that *stays* a correction (the original error keeps popping back up again).

> 5.      Do you think well see Cedrics ghost at Hogwarts now?

I tend to agree with those who've said he most likely doesn't fulfill JKR's stated requirements for being a ghost.  Although I'm intrigued that maybe he wasn't all that happy at death (Doreen I think argued this?).  His life was certainly not complete.  But, neither were the lives of the Potters, and they are supposedly not ghosts either (right??).

Penny