[HPforGrownups] Re: CoS theories

[Indigo]

No: HPFGUIDX 46805

On 11/19/2002 at 6:16 PM monika_zaboklicka wrote:

>Pippin wrote:
>> Now the basilisk does not simply roam the school--it's starving, 
>> and left to its own devices it would surely have devoured its 
>> victims. 

My feeling is that it's a snake. It's been eating mice and rats and possibly students' familiars or heaven forbid, the occasional drunken house elf  all this time. I wouldn't say it's been starving, necessarily. 

The petrification is *intentional*.  Riddle's
>> initial goal is to scare the Muggleborn out of the school, not to 
>> get the place shut down. 

I'd see the petrification as intentional the *first* time Riddle did the chamber, but the second?  Somehow I don't think Voldemort [and I am certain the real, disembodied Voldemort was acting through the memory of his sixteen year old self through the diary] would've been content with just scaring the muggleborn.   Not when he has killed and tortured muggles for fun during his heyday.   I doubt he cared overmuch about attention being drawn to himself either. 

He's got the typical megalomaniacal tendency to believe he's the most intelligent creature in the world and nobody else is smart enough to figure him out.

Besides, if  Dumbledore got killed, then Lucius could have his way about putting someone he wanted into Hogwarts.
>
>I like it! The theory certainly explains one thing that was puzzling 
>me ever since I read CoS - why the attacks were so ineffective? 
>Still, after reading such a perfect explanation, my twisted brain 
>refuses to accept it wholly. Poor me!

>All the later attacks might, as Pippin says, be meant to petrify, not 
>to kill. Pippin's reasoning is perfect, but I have my doubts about 
>Myrtle's death.

>The surest way to ensure Myrtle was not fatally hurt by Basilisk was 
>to wait with opening the Chamber until she left the bathroom. Sure, 
>most propably Riddle wasn't a frequent visitor to a girls' bathroom, 

Wouldn't Riddle -have- to be a frequent visitor to this girls' bathroom since that's where the chamber was, or was the Chamber only opened once to let the Basilisk out, and then it hung out in the pipes until the final showdown with Harry and Tom? 

>he might not know that Myrtle used to spend her days there, but 
>checking all cabins seems to be such a basic precaution. Besides, 
>Myrtle was the only victim Riddle could not let live. She heard him 
>speak Parseltongue, once revived after petrification, she'd surely 
>tell all to anybody who'd listen.

Excellent point, that is.  And even if he hadn't checked the cabins, Myrtle is not exactly a -quiet- cryer, either.

>Side note: why nobody asked her ghost? Why Harry and Hermione were 
>the first ones to connect "speaking funny language", Myrtle's death, 
>petrification of several people and messages on the wall? Bad, 
>Dumbledore! Damn bad!

Hmmm.  Okay, yeah, even I can't come up with a defense for our dear Dumbledore to that one.  Unless he was pulling another of his "I knew, and the information would've been given to Harry when it was time" deal. He's been known to do that.  

The other thing is, that possibly Myrtle was too upset to do more than moan, whine, and bawl at having been asked about her death until  Harry [who she has a crush on] is asking. A lot of ghosts in old story and myth are like that.  Angry that they're dead, or just refusing to accept/admit it, before they finally give in and settle down into their haunts.