Dementors' Kiss - Unfinished Stories - Harry losing his powers/immortality? - Crouches

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 38524

DEMENTORS' KISS

Bernadette wrote:

>I'm also uncomfortable with the idea
>that they've chosen a method of social/judicial
punishment where
>they don't actually know the full effects of the
process, having
>the possibly mistaken assumption that the soul is
destroyed, when
>it may not be.  

Have we done any differently in having a death penalty
in a world where we don't know what happens upon
death?  It may just be that the WW concludes that a
Kissed person has lost his/her soul because of the
observed effects-it doesn't mean their theologians
have a more definitive idea of what a soul is and what
becomes of it upon death/being Kissed than Muggles do.
 

UNFINISHED STORIES

The Goat brought out the big guns and quoted:

>You, sir, are so young - so before every beginning -
>and I would ask you, as best I can, dear
>sir, to have patience toward all that is unsolved
>in your heart and to try to love the questions
>themselves like closed living-rooms
>and like books written in a
>very foreign language.

>So why not take the next logical step of leaving the
door closed
>permanently - and go on enjoying the mystery of it
all?

You go right ahead.  Rilke or no Rilke, I'm reading
everything JKR writes the second I can get my grimy
little hands on it. <g>

>We think of a story as a
>circle that needs to be completed, as suspended chord
that needs
>to be resolved. But perhaps for the circle never
really closes.

Tongue in cheek or not, you raise an interesting
question.  For my part, it isn't the continuation of
plot-"what's going to happen next?"-that drives my
obsession.  I just want to read more about these
characters.  Therefore I'm going to be very sad when
JKR stops writing about this universe, even if the
"story" (the plot) is completed, because I will have
no fresh words to read about who these people are. 
It's also why I reread the books so much; I don't
think Reread #10 is going to uncover any new angles on
the plot or even on the characterizations that Reread
#9 didn't, though sometimes it does; I just want to
hear these people's voices some more, even though I've
memorized what they're going to say.  That's why I
read fanfiction so obsessively for a few months,
though finding these characters within the writing of
anyone but JKR is a rare and fleeting event-which is
why I *stopped* reading fanfiction so obsessively.

Character, of course, keeps unfolding even when there
are no new words, because there is always
reinterpretation and the changes one's own life
experiences work upon stories one has already reread
countless times, but there's still a loss when the
final words have been written and all one can do is
relive scenes already experienced.  (You're talking to
someone who was depressed when she read the last Lord
Peter book and knew it was only a matter of re-reading
forevermore.)

HARRY LOSING HIS POWERS/IMMORTALITY?

Uh, this started out labeled TBAY but I'm de-TBAY-ing
it.  

Cindy wrote:

> After all, Dumbledore can hardly walk up to 
>Harry and tell him that the good news is that Harry
is immortal, but 
>the bad news is that he has to sacrifice this to save
the wizarding 
>world.  That would be a bit of a bummer, to say the
least.

<snip>

>There is going to have to be a 
>*seriously* Big catalyst for Harry to make this huge
sacrifice; no 
>way is he just going to slowly mull it and quietly
screw up his 
>nerve to to lay down his life.  

It's a huge sacrifice, to be sure, but Harry has
already laid down his life quite deliberately (most
pointedly in PS/SS, but repeatedly since).  He has
done so without any thought that he might be immortal;
he really thinks on more than one occasion that he's
about to die.  So he would only be losing something
that he never, until Dumbledore's revelation, thought
he had to begin with.  OK, I admit, it's still a
bummer.

>Cindy (who thinks Caroline is well on the way to
figuring out the 
>Big and Bangy Climactic Book 7 scene in which Harry
chooses to make 
>the ultimate sacrifice like a certain famous Biblical
figure)

Hmmm . . . not to diminish said Biblical figure in any
way, but he didn't sacrifice immortality.  He "just"
agreed to die, in a particularly unpleasant way. 
Harry has done the same.

CROUCHES

Dicentra wrote:

>This business with the Crouches is fascinating: can
you really call
>what Mrs. Crouch did self-sacrifice (she was on the
verge of death
>anyway)?  

Sure.  Imagine dying alone, apart from your family,
surrounded by Dementors . . .

>What possessed Crouch Sr., who obviously knew his son
was a
>DE (hence the Imperius) to go through with the
switch?  

I think the reason his son gives is believable:  he
loved his wife and it was her dying wish.  And he's
arrogant-he believes he can keep his son under house
arrest for the rest of his life.  I wonder what he
thinks is going to happen when he, Sr., dies?  

>Did Mrs.
>Crouch think her son was guilty and didn't care or
did she honestly
>believe she was undoing an injustice?  

I lean toward the former.  Of course we know next to
nothing about Mrs. Crouch so this is pure speculation,
but that's never stopped us before.  Put it this way: 
I don't think she needed the motivation of justice;
she wanted to save her son because he was her son,
period.

Amy Z

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