Harry Potter and, er, the Philosopher's Stone

[dfrankiswork at netscape.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 38654

Caroline wrote:

> I am one of the few (heck, maybe I'm the *only* one) who believes that 
> Harry's Big Bangy secret is that he is a living embodiment of the 
> philosopher's stone. (This is all based on an alchemical 
> interpretation of the symbols that surround Harry; stag, phoenix, 
> lion, serpent, color green, red, etc.  I could go into great detail 
> but I'll restrain myself :--) Not that he's necessarily immortal, but 
> that he holds within his being the potential for eternal life if 
> properly activated.
> 
> Anyway, if I'm right, I think that Harry will be making the choice to 
> renounce at least this part of his powers.  I think this whole plot 
> idea would really tie the series together; Harry would have grown to 
> understand life & death to the point that he would choose to make the 
> same decision (we assume) Flamel made in SS.
> 
> I think I remember JKR saying somewhere (sorry can't remember 
> citation) that you could sum up the theme of the series as facing up 
> to death.
> 
> And my theory would *really* make Harry the anti-Voldemort; he would 
> choose to freely give up that which V. has spent his life seeking in 
> terribly evil ways.
> 
The above is what started the Stoned!Harry thread (ironically, a response to a now-forgotten topic).  I wanted to snip it to minimise the amount of quoted material, but it's too good: there just isn't anything to snip.

What I want to do now is pick up on some aspects that have been somewhat obscured in the subsequent discussion.

The first is that Caroline chose her words very carefully:

"... he is a living embodiment of the philosopher's stone... Not that he's necessarily immortal, but that he holds within his being the potential for eternal life if properly activated."

I much prefer this to the simplistic 'Harry is immortal' theory.  After all, the stone itself is not immortal - it merely is the means to immmortality for wizards (and Muggles)  That does mean that I don't take a lot of the canon evidence (Dumbledore unconcerned about Harry in danger, various beheadings and the like) the way other list members do.  I also think that the parallel between Christ and Harry is an entirely separate topic: there is no need to focus on immortality, whether actual or latent, to draw that parallel.  (And it's very difficult to draw right: if you take one book chock full of symbols, such as Harry Potter, and line the symbols up against those found in another such book, like the Bible, you are bound to get some correspondences.  IMO, a bit more structure than that is required.)  So I think you TBAY-ers out there may have some sort of catamaran.

Anyway, back to the topic.  At one level, this is neat, because it gives Voldemort a reason to be interested in Harry which does not depend on some hackneyed 'first prophecy':  he is after the immortality which can be unlocked from Harry (this is what Laura said).  It is then an open question whether V was trying to AK Harry as a preliminary towards using his body, or whether he tried some other 'stone-power-extracting' spell, which (because of Lily's love) went wrong, leaving V damaged and Harry with Parseltongue and a V-sensitive scar.  The second option has the very intriguing feature of giving a genuine role to Lily's love in saving Harry and damaging Voldemort, while avoiding the issue of all those other presumed mothers who died for their children.

The theory is also neat because it virtually demands that Harry give up his stone-powers whatever they may be in detail (and note, it may not *require* him to die - it is those who would use him who stand not to live on), unless we are seriously to envisage an ending in which the entire WW will now have ready access to immortality.  Oh, sorry, the reason I think that is neat is because it makes Harry, the immortality-renouncer, a foil to Voldemort the immortality-seeker, as Caroline said.  On the understanding that Harry is renouncing immortality in the spirit of Dumbledore, who destroys the stone, rather than Flamel, who renounces his personal immortality.

I'm not quite sure that this is quite right as it stands, though.  The Philosopher's Stone, as I understand it, was itself an allegorical object.  The alchemists wanted to make it, not to get money and unending physical life, but because understanding its manufacture would help understand how to transmute the base metal of human nature into the gold of a perfect (or divine?) nature, of eternal spiritual value.  It is JKR's genius to introduce the physical stone, and transmute its meaning into temptation for physical gold and life, while possibly allowing the original meaning to stand also.

Taking Caroline's symbology (explained in a later post) at face value, the meaning of the stone may be that you need both Gryffindor and Slytherin, both Harry and Voldemort to make something which will allow the WW to face death as the 'next great adventure' with prosperity of spirit.  Harry's role is indeed to renounce the temptations of wealth and longevity (which Dumbledore has already specifically identified as the two things that people would choose - "but people have a knack of choosing what is bad for them": now *there's* a Christian theme for discussion!).  I'm not sure Harry needs any special potential for immortality (or wealth) to fulfil this symbolic role - he just needs to be tempted.

On this understanding, there is no particular call for Harry to die at the end - he just has to accept that a normal lifespan for everybody is the best way.  No short cuts: the physical stone is meant to be a symbol; as an actual mechanism it is in essence a delusive short cut.

Perhaps the message is that to be fully human you have to first desire immortality (Voldemort) and then renounce it (Harry).  You have to recognise that there is more to life than life, and then give it up to get it.

So, the bottom line is, not that Harry is an embodiment of the physical stone, but that (possibly in conjunction with Voldemort) he is a better symbol of the same thing that the stone is a symbol for.  Clear?

David


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