Harry and free agency (was : Harry and Christ)

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 78202

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Donna" <deemarie1a at y...> 
wrote:

> 
> We must remember there is still a choice inherent in the prophesy 
> also.  Harry can either choose to fight or let Voldemort kill him.
> 
>
Prophecies are tricky things.  It may LOOK as though Harry is fated 
to fight Voldemort to the death, but when we read a prophecy it's 
like reading a life backwards.  Harry has appeared to me to be 
acting freely throughout all the books so far, but a strict 
adherence to the fatalistic approach to the prophecy would say that 
throughout the past 5 years he's had no choice at all in what he 
did.  It's just all part of the big "plan".  That isn't the 
impression I've gotten from the books.  I really do get the 
impression that he could have done anything differently at any time, 
and he has often weighed different courses of action - nothing feels 
forced.  I don't see why the end of the series should be any 
different.  I see a prophecy as not so much a prediction about 
what "will" happen, but as an observation about what *is happening*, 
once the future gets here.  It's as if a prophet from the past were 
to walk into the room right now, watch me typing for a few minutes, 
then go away, back to their own time, and write a prophecy about 
women sitting at glowing screens, talking to invisible thousands.  
*I* wouldn't be any less free than I am in any other part of my 
life, prophecy notwithstanding.  I hope the ending of the HP stories 
will be well done; the big climax of LOTR is my idea of a great 
ending, a "prophecy" that comes true, but in a very natural way.  We 
may get to the end of the 7th book and say, "So Trelawney's 
prediction came true in the end, even though that seemed to be the 
most UNlikely outcome."  

Wanda