[HPforGrownups] Re: TBAY: Stoned Harry

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38593

southernscotland at yahoo.com writes:

> I almost hate to bring this up, but there's another bit of canon. I 
> just looked it up.
> 
> "They were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the 
> black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree 
> to their right." (GOF)
> 
> Aside from the obvious symbolism of the small church, here's another.
> It is mentioned at least three times specifically, and I'll bet at 
> least some of you caught it: 
> 
> The yew tree. It is said to be an ancient symbol of immortality.
> 

Eloise:
With apologies in advance to Dicentra  ;-) ,  I'm going to be boring again. 

They were in the graveyard because that's where Tom Riddle's father was 
buried. There's only one place the inhabitant of a large country house would 
be buried at that time (barring a private cemetery/ chapel in the grounds, 
and I don't think the Riddle House is on that scale): in the local 
churchyard. English churchyards (well, old ones) always have yew trees, 
partly because of the symbolism you point out, partly because they're 
poisonous and discourage local livestock from invading to browse on them. I 
think it's pushing it a little to say they're symbolic, more scene dressing.
 
Cindy:
>Immortal Stoned!Harry, according to Dicentra, can walk on water.  
>And, pray tell, what was the very first thing Harry saw in the 
>teacup in his very first Divination Class?  *A Cross*!  It was a 
>crooked (some might even say Old Rugged) Cross!
>
><waits patiently for the disturbed murmer of the assembled masses to 
>die down>
>
>And, my friends, what did Ron see when he looked into Harry's cup?  
>Ah, you don't remember, do you?  Let me refresh your 
>recollection:  "[T]hat looks like an animal . . . yeah, if that was 
>its head . . . it looks like a hippo . . . no, a sheep."
>
>A sheep?  A young sheep?  A *lamb*, I daresay?  
>
><waits patiently for the roar of the crowd to die down, along with a 
>few muffled Amens>
>
>Yes, it all adds up.  Stoned!Harry is destined to die a death as a 
>sacrifical lamb to spare others from an awful fate.  A death 
>by . . .  uh . . .  by decapitation.
>
>Um, maybe JKR will think better of that particular means of Harry's 
>demise.  There's still time for something a little less gruesome, I 
>think.

Eloise:
By your reasong above, that would be...erm....crucifixion. Just how gruesome 
can the end of this series be? OTOH, if we're going to keep on making 
Christian parallels, Christ did predict the manner of his own death, 
according to John's gospel (12; 32), so perhaps Dicentra's right and 
decapitation it is. Is the Gryffindor ghost being (nearly) decapitated (and 
on the same date as James and Lily's deaths) significant? (There's 
potentially a lot of mileage in these ghosts. What *is* Nick's backstory? 
Myrtle's has been of great significance.)

On the matter of gruesomeness, though, I won't be surprised if things do get 
quite bad. I guess that Book 7 will be written with older readers in mind, 
given what JKR has said. That would equate with Philip Pullman's readership 
and there's some pretty gruesome things and some pretty dark story lines in 
his writing. I've winced quite a few times. So have my kids.

Cindy:
>Caroline wrote (about Ron and Harry rising from the table together):
>
>>And remember in PoA, when Harry and Ron got up together 
>>from the table of 13? Yep, I can see Ron bringing about Harry's 
>>death & dying right after
>
>Well, we want to stay right on canon here, so Ron and Harry have to 
>die *together*, not, er, sequentially.  So how on earth can Ron and 
>Harry die together, have Harry be beheaded, and have Voldemort wind 
>up in the soup with them?

Eloise:
Well, I guess we could have some kind of cataclysmic ending, where Harry dies 
not by a direct action of Ron's, but in a way somehow facilitated by Ron and 
which mercifully takes him out at the same time (we wouldn't want Ron to 
survive, knowing he was the agent of Harry's death, would we?). 

OTOH, carrying on with the parallels, if Ron somehow betrays Harry, then 
perhaps he could equate to Judas, who kills himself on the day of the 
crucifixion, although I'd be much happier (so to speak) to see Ron going down 
*with* Harry. The other is too much. Unless, of course, it is Evil!Ron. Ooh, 
er...perhaps that's what I'm arguing for.

It was Ron's fake wand that decapitated Harry's. Perhaps it will be his real 
wand that kills Harry. Perhaps Voldemort will use Ron's wand (as his own, of 
course, won't work against Harry's) and in the act of killing Harry kill 
himself (or render himself able to be killed) by dint of whatever connection 
there is between them.

OTOH, there's this immortality thing to contend with. I must confess, I'm 
getting a bit confused here. (As Dicentra pointed out the other day, I'm 
prone to confusion in the middle of conversations ;-)  )

Now obviously, there's a lot of Christian symbolism being brought up in this 
thread. There's also a lot of alchemical symbolism been brought up. 
Immortality in the Christian sense is not the same as immortality in the 
Elixir of Life sense. 

Ooh........ I think I'm groping towards something here. Is this another of 
these clash of world view things? The desire for eternal (physical) life vs. 
the desire for eternal (spiritual) life. Something in the ' He that loveth 
his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep 
it unto life eternal.' (John, 12; 25) vein? Is it Voldemort's insatiable 
desire for physical life which will be his undoing, whilst Harry's embracing 
of the 'next great adventure' which will be his salvation? 

(It was only when scrabbling through the Bible (twice) to find these quotes 
that I realised they were both from the same passage, which also has some 
typically Johannine Light/ Dark symbolism. Don't know if it's significant.)

And surely Harry can't just die, however heroically. Even dying to rid the WW 
of Voldemort is anti-climactic in a sense, isn't it? I mean, it's heroic, and 
supremely good and all that, but in a way it's negative, it's a ridding of 
the world of an evil without replacing it by a positive good. Just as the 
Christian myth isn't complete without the Resurrection, surely the Harry 
Potter myth isn't complete without Harry's death (if that is what it indeed 
entails) bringing about some re-ordering of the WW, releasing it from the 
prejudice and injustice on which we have commented time and time again.

             ><((">  ><((">  ><(("> ><((">  <"))><  <"))><  <"))><  <"))><  

Eloise, apologising for the serious vein of a post masquerading under the 
TBAY prefix, but adding some fish just for fun. They're confused fish, note, 
as they're not sure which way they're supposed to be swimming. 

PS. Just to make it clear, my usage of the word 'myth' in relation to 
Christianity isn't in any way derogatory. I'm sure I don't have to say that 
in this forum, but I just want to be certain.


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