A far-fetched analysis of the Prophecy

[M.Clifford]

No: HPFGUIDX 69683

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Lissa B <lissbell at c...> wrote:
Lissa my old friend, I wondered when we would be seeing you again!

Before you say anything, I guess you thought you caught me redhanded 
at the lifeboats. I was just checking the knots, really. *blush*

Let me tell you, however, I didn't imagine _anyone_ could find 
bouyancy of such calibre for the time-paradox ship in OoP. For that I 
must applaud you.
Ok, I will try to stop snivelling now.
Sincerely, I want to congratulate this particular paragraph:
> 
> There are two remarkable things about this sentence.  First, the two
> participial phrases that introduce it are in past tense.  In 
contrast to the final sentence in which Trelawney says "The one with 
the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month 
dies....", this sentence appears to describe a birth that has already 
occurred.  I realize this is a subtle clue, but I think it's 
significant.  When Trelawney repeats a key idea in her prophecy in 
PoA, she certainly doesn't make any tense changes; the tenses used in 
that prediction all seem appropriate.
> 
> Second, there's a sticky antecedent problem in this sentence.  Since
> readers know the prophecy is about Harry and since the other 
possible interpretation of the pronouns in the introductory 
participial phrases leads to an absurd paradox, most readers will 
naturally conclude that the two phrases refer to Harry.  I don't 
think they do.  When a participial phrase begins a sentence it is 
correctly followed directly by a comma and the subject to which the 
phrase refers.  (Recall that Rowling uses an ellipsis in place of a 
comma and pause in Trelawney's PoA prophecy.)  Putting the intended 
subject of the phrase beyond the first noun after the participial 
phrase itself is actually a grammatical error.  Rowling muddies the 
issue by inserting an "and" after the two phrases, but the first 
potential subject for the phrases is still the
> one that, logically, should apply.  The boy born to parents who 
thrice defied him and born as the seventh month dies should, 
therefore, be the Dark Lord.  I frankly confess that there are 
pronoun/antecedent ambiguities throughout this sentence that make it 
impossible to state such a thing with any certainty, but even so... 
I'm sure enough that I'd bet a good bar of dark chocolate on it.
> 

Extraordinary. 
This, I missed, and, am glad you did not. ;)

Now I'd like to add a little to the conjecture about the second part 
of the prophecy. Either/Either and Other.

You said:
> The rest of the sentence is more straightfoward.  Since it 
contradicts the present physical reality, the idea that neither the 
Dark Lord nor the being who may vanquish him can live while the other 
survives baffles me, but the meaning will no doubt become clear later 
in the series.
> 

Lissa, I never jumped ship on you.
This *is* a paradox.
It is a straightforward misdirection not unlike JK's "deliberate" 
error.
At first glance it is easy to dismiss the nagging feeling 
 "that did not say one or the other survives" 
Then when you read and reread you can start to see it as 
"these two can't live OR die"
Then you start to ask yourself again and again
"what does it say"

It says #1 does not live if #2 survives / #2 does not live if #1 
survives.

BUT they are surviving now? So far, they have *lived*, at the same 
time, for two years. ??
The prophecy still MUST mean something, surely.
So you palm it off onto surviving the battle.

Neither can live while the other survives the battle. 

Again, even inserting the battle one of them should be already deaD.
If one survives the battle then the other cannot live....at all?
Vice versa even?

Ok, looking at it from the timeturned Tom perspective, If Harry 
survives the battle the Dark Lord will not live? Why? because he'll 
settle down on a farm and raise the kid in a happy loving 
environment, perhaps even teach him to be *nicer*?
If Lord Voldemort survives the battle then Harry cannot live because 
time will be thrown into chaos, existence will have no meaning 
because Voldemort has somehow tricked his way into existing. He has 
no beginning or end. He is as a *god* but not so righteous. 
And to add he won't be timeturning back to the time of ancestors to 
sire the Slytherin wizard blood. Or even acknowledge its existence. 
Because, he did that as a child that will never be born.

 
My guess.....
Perhaps their actual existence hinges on the outcome of the battle, 
If they both don't die they will never be to begin with?
Paradox?

This is reading it strictly with two people only. If we incorporate a 
third....well thats a bit different.

By the way Liss. LOVED everything else about your analysis.
Lets have fun with this.
Salute to the captain Lissbell.
Valky