Revival Potion/Dark Mark (Was: Re: Are The Schoolbooks Canon?)

[aldrea279]

No: HPFGUIDX 38977

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "grey_wolf_c" <greywolf1 at j...> wrote:
The Revival potion is another matter. Personally, I find it the most
unsatisfying 
element in all four books precisely because there is no 
foreshadowing, no
mention 
of dark revival rituals (except for a few cryptic comments from 
Wormtail at the 
beginning of the book.) However, one mess up, however big, in four 
books still 
does not disprove the fact that JKR has a strong *tendancy* to lay her
foundations 
well ahead of time.


Um...I don't quite see the big deal with this.  Does JKR have to 
foreshadow every major spell/potion?  I don't really even see how she 
could have foreshadowed this Ritual, as Harry had never had a chance 
to encounter such a thing before.  That's the basic way the 
potions/spells are foreshadowed, is it not?  Harry and friends will 
somehow have such-and-such spell/potion mentioned/explained to them, 
and then it might end up playing another role in the series.  But it 
seems to me the spells/potions that they have met so far are rather 
common.  Animagi, for example, don't seem to be that big of a thing 
for the WW.  We already know of six Animagi, and that's just out of 
the wizards Harry has come into contact with(so far).  The Polyjuice 
Potion, also, doesn't seem to be all that huge.  IIRC, Dumbledore 
didn't seem that shocked when he learned about Crouch/Moody using the 
Polyjuice Potion.  But this Ritual IS a big thing(you now, seeing how 
it requires Wormtail's arm <g>), and who's to say it wasn't created 
by Voldemort himself(seeing as he is such a big fan of immortality)- 
that would make it very hard to foreshadow, as no one else would 
really know about such a potion even existing(if I am completely 
forgetting something mentioned about said Revival potion--i.e. it was 
created by somene, or Dumbledore had heard of it before, please 
forgive-- I don't have a copy of GoF handy).



--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "marinafrants" <rusalka at i...> wrote:
"cindysphynx" <cindysphynx at c...> wrote:
> > I'm still rather puzzled.  In GoF, the Dark Mark gets fired into 
the 
> > sky.  We have no idea at the time what it is supposed to mean; it 
> > comes out of nowhere, IIRC.  It is a very important plot point.  
JKR 
> > explains it to the reader *after* the whole scene in the forest.  
So 
> > that is another example where JKR just puts a magical concept out 
> > there and explains it for us later.  
> 
> I don't think it's quite the same thing.  First of all, the "magical
> concept" of the Dark Mark is pretty generic -- it's possible to use
> magic to conjure pictures in the sky.  I don't think this is so
> radical, or so specific to the HP universe, that it requires special
> foreshadowing.  Nor is it important to the plot -- it's not like the
> ability to conjure pictures in the sky becomes important later.  The
> importance of the Mark lies in its symbolic meaning and the
> characters' reactions to it.  

Yes, but there had to be some sort of magic behind the making of the 
Dark Mark- you don't see Harry or Hermione or Ron or any other 
Hogwarts students just pointing their wands at the sky and conjuring 
up pictures, now do you?  I believe that there is some (perhaps 
powerful) magic behind making the Dark Mark appear, which is probably 
why everyone thought it was so absurd when...was it Crouch or 
Bagman?  I think Crouch... accused the Trio of making the Mark appear.

Also, I like the way things sometimes pop up and then get explained 
afterwards-- makes it more suspenseful than already knowing what 
something is, I think.  While reading about some new magic taking 
place and knowing nothing about it, you are left to wonder(like the 
Dark Mark incident for example); but like the Crouch/Moody mystery, 
you learn it was the Polyjuice Potion and all you could really do was 
slap your forehead and go "Ooooh, Polyjuice, nothing new".

~Aldrea