Catching up: MAGIC DISHWASHER, metathinking, Voldemort's body (Quite Long)

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 45279

Hi, all. I've been away for two days (in HP-realated business), and 
when I've finally made my way back to the back-log of posts, I 
half-expected something like this, but not in such quantity. Thus, I'm 
going to make a general essay, instead of quoting everyone one-by-one. 


Metathinking
------------

I want to make this perfectly clear, because I have the feeling that 
people have been misunderstanding me: I don't like metathinking myself, 
especially against MAGIC DISHWASHER, which is based in internal 
evidence (and thus it is not Fair Play), but there is *nothing* wrong 
with metathinking per-se (and I hope I've never implied anything else).

Meta-thinking is basing one's arguments in the fact that HP is a book, 
and there are certain things we can expect to happen: Harry will be a 
hero, Voldemort will fall, etc. Metathinking is *very* imprecise, since 
it depends heavily on subjectivity, but it is necessary when trying to 
out-guess JKR (good luck with *that*). I've used it myself in 
occasions, but I know my limits, and I know I won't be able to guess 
what JKR has up her sleeve, except by wild chance.

However, MAGIC DISHWASHER does NOT try to out-guess anyone, nor predict 
future acts of Voldemort or Dumbledore, except what can be extrapolated 
from the theory so far (and even then, I could argue that such 
predictions do not belong to MAGIC DISHWASHER). All MAGIC DISHWASHER 
tries to do is explain what has happened so far, from the most rational 
point of view possible... but more of that in the MAGIC DISHWASHER 
section.


MAGIC DISHWASHER
----------------

(Mysterious Agendas Generate Interesting Conclusion: Dumbledore Is 
Secretely Hatching Ways to Assure Superiority for Harry in the Emerging 
Resolution)

The last attacks on MAGIC DISHWASHER seem to have based on the fact 
that some of the listees believe that Dumbledore in it is no better 
than Voldemort ("ruthless puppet-mastering", in words of Marina). This 
couldn't be further from the truth. Dumbledore has *never* treated any 
of his allies as pupets in MAGIC DISHWASHER, and I challange all those 
who have been so free with the insults to find a single example. 
According to MAGIC DISHWASHER, Dumbledore trusts his people will do the 
right thing, and agrees with them the plans to follow. Snape actions 
are out of free will, not because Dumbledore forces him (except in 
accepting Sirius). He even asks Molly before involving her and her 
family -to which she answers with a prompt "yes". This strikes me as 
typical Dumbledore behaviour: he might expect help from his friends, 
and count that they will help him, but he will never drive any of them 
into denger if they are not ready for it.

And then there is Harry, which I instinctively feel is at the heart of 
that accusation. Harry hasn't been told, so far, of what Dumbledore's 
plans are, although he over-hears those that are less secret at the end 
of book 4 when Dumbledore puts them into motion (so he does, in fact, 
know that Dumbledore is playing his cards). Of course he doesn't know 
what the exact details are: that is information he doesn't need, right 
now (and what you don't know you can't reveal). Harry's purpose is 
still receiving an education. The defenses around him are running down, 
but he is not ready for battle yet (as the GG demonstrated).

But I haven't answered the attacks: is Harry *driven* ("ruthlessly" or 
otherwise) by Dumbledore? NO! Of course not. Harry has the feeling, at 
the end of PS, that Dumbledore was "preparing him", that he had "right" 
to face Voldemort, and that Dumbledore gives him the oportunity of 
trying. Dumbledore could've destroyed the stone (not that it wasn't 
safe inside the mirror) if Harry had chikened out and decided not to do 
his "homework" and discover what and were the small pakage from vault 
713 was. Dumbledore teaches Harry (that's his main job, after all) 
enough to survive, but leaves the decision of acting or not to Harry. 
Dumbledore trusts that Harry has a moral sense and the braveness to act 
upon it, but never tries to force the actions upon him. In fact, if 
Dumbledore has a weak point, is in his pasiveness: since he won't force 
anyone to act, he might suddenly find missing pieces, if some of his 
trusted companions of the old gang decide that they aren't risking 
their necks (although I don't think that will happen). Notice, also, 
that McGonagall and Snape try to stop them from attempting this, and 
even Dumbledore asks Harry not to look for the mirror (which he in fact 
does, although he doesn't realise that until the very end).

More examples: let's go to book two. This time, Harry decides -in his 
own, again- to try and find out who's attaking the people in the 
school. I don't remember anyone related to Dumbledore suggesting it 
and, as always, the two main liutenants of Dumbledore try to stop them 
(McGonagall and Snape). Harry didn't have to take it upon himself to 
find the chaber of secrets, nor did he have to stop the basilisk. He 
was, however, the only one who could, since so far no-one can speak 
parseltongue but him - and Dumbledore might have suspected this, but in 
no way does he even try to push Harry to act.

Let's change to book 3, now. Dumbledore does, in fact, suggest the way 
to rescue both Buckbeak and Sirius, but by then, Harry would've 
attempted it himself if he had known about the Time-Turner, I'm sure. 
In that scene, Dumbledore let's them know that he approves of what they 
are doing, but ha doesn't impose the decision upon them. They could 
have let Sirius get kissed (and Buckbeak decapitated). On that same 
book, Snape is sent to protect Harry in the SS in case things get out 
of hand, but still Harry is trusted to act according to a moral sense, 
instead of being forced into acting.

And finally, we have book four, where Dumbledore is surprised to see 
Harry taken out of his grasp, several times. First, he gets introduced 
into the TWT, even though he sets up powerful protections against 
under-aged (AFAWK, no-one managed to by-pass the age line). Then, in 
the last task, a clever double-teleport in the Cup takes him directly 
to Voldemort, at a time that Dumbledore hadn't anticipated.

So, there, you go. If any of the listees which have attacked MAGIC 
DISHWASHER wants to explain their point of view, they are welcome. Now, 
for a bit of clarification, since people seem to be confusing a few 
things.

First, MAGIC DISHWASHER and Spy Games are the same thing (including "I 
want you to die, Mr. potter", Eileen aka lucky_kari). They are all the 
same theory, calling it by name or by accronym. During my recent 
meeting with the person behind the creation of the theory, I've 
discovered that there may be a third part on the works (we'll have to 
wait and see), but they are basically all the same thing: assuming that 
there is logic behind the actions of Dumbledore and Voldemort, we patch 
toghether what that logic may be. Pip uncovered quite a lot of canon to 
base her thories upon, and you can read all about them in the apropiate 
posts (39662 and 40044). 

There are many "patches" (i.e. explanations) to those two posts, when 
people starting looking for holes in them, but there is no possible 
defense against "I don't think such-and-such is like that because this 
is a book, and I don't expect that that would happen in a book", since 
this theory is NOT based in the fact that it is a book. Those sort of 
attacks (which I, or maybe someone else- I don't remember anymore- 
called metathinking), while appropiate in other cases (for example, Big 
Bang theories), are not fair play against MAGIC DISHWASHER (I think 
that they're wrong anyway: just as you couldn't out-guess Shakespeare's 
Romeo and Juliet, I don't think we can out-guess JKR's HP), since, as 
I've already said like 100 times, MAGIC DISHWASHER tries to explain 
what is going on from the point of view of the reality of Potterverse 
(the point of View of Dumbledore and Voldemort, if you will). In a 
nutshell, who knows what and why, and what they are going to do about 
it.


Voldemort's Body
----------------

Lately, there seems to have been an upsurge of posts around Voldemort's 
recorporation (and the gleam, of course). My own views are this:

Voldemort is, in his Vapour form, inmortal. Almost powerless, yes, but 
inmortal. And his mind still works perfectly well, which makes him 
almost as dangerous as when he had a body, but with inmortality to 
boot. If he had been a little patient, he could've waited for a couple 
of hundred years before making his come-back, and no-one would've 
remembered him (except Flammel, maybe), and could've taken over the 
world in a surprise attack.

However, Voldemort is consumed by his desire of power, and patience, 
I'd imagine, tends to wear a bit thin after 10 years of possesing 
bunnies. So, he spends his time remembering ways of achieving an 
inmortality that would also allow him to use a wand. The easiest thing, 
of course, is the PS, but we know there is at least one more way: the 
potion (and I'd imagine that there must be a few more, at the very 
least). When the PS idea goes down the drain, he goes for the next 
easiest: re-corporating. By his own words, he's becoming mortal once 
again. But that's no big problem, since he can simply repeat whatever 
spells made him inmortal in the first place: he doesn't seem to have 
problems to find ingredients for potions, especially now that he has 
re-contacted his DEs.

But that's where MAGIC DISHWASHER and Dumbledore's plans come in: after 
the near-fiasco with the PS, Dumbledore's plans gear into motion, by 
gently guiding him towards the flawed potion (my guess is that the flaw 
is in the ingredients, especially Harry's blood and Peter's flesh). 
Normally, the potion would have gien him a new body where he could 
re-construct his inmortality safety measures, but this new body is 
going to prove *too* mortal. Metathinking tells us that Harry will be 
involved somehow. So does MAGIC DISHWASHER, because Dumbledore has 
spent a lot of time training Harry.

hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, who fears this post is too long to make sense (and in fact, 
many things have been snipped of, just for sake of *some* clarity)