The eternal dance (was major theory)

[Dan Feeney]

No: HPFGUIDX 70441

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "James Redmont" 
<karenagriffin at m...> wrote:
>This could 
> mean that his line has defeated the spirit of Slytherin, manifested 
> in a dark lord, three times.  Then it would mean that Godric 
Gryffindor defied him, 
> Dumbledore defied him (Grindelwald) and Harry's mom defied him. 
This 
> is a bit murky, but it occurred to me so I'll throw it out there.

Ah, this is more like it. Exactly what I had hoped for - some 
theories regarding Grindelwald's importance. This does indeed put it 
in perspective.

But all this emphasis on blood... I don't get it... Isn't there 
another way to be an heir, than through breeding? Or, rather, isn't 
there something beyond it, as is being suggested in the "deeper 
meaning/Christian" thread? Transcending bloodlines, prophecies etc.? 
Voldemort's insistence that the blood of the enemy in his ritual be 
Harry's is almost pathetic, in a way (with a side glance to the VICE 
SQUAD) in that it completely misses the point of his "special 
protection." Peter, at least, seemed to realize that Voldemort grew 
petty over it, to a degree. (pun intended)

I didn't trace my own version of this theory in a way that leads back 
directly to Salazar. Rather, I compare the individual Dark Wizards to 
products, like the Balrog or Sauron himself, of a deeper, older, 
Morgothish source. Now, the desire for immortality doesn't motive all 
humankind insidiously in Rowling, as it appears to do in Tolkien, but 
perhaps somthing else motivates the masses, as it were, in a way that 
makes them susceptable to compromise, or inversion. If we take RW 
examples, or analogies, which are more germane in terms of Rowling's 
philosophy, where comparisons to Tolkien may seem more germane to 
plot, anti-semitism extends back a long way before the last century, 
and was also quite inextricably tied up with the church's invention 
of satanism (read witchcraft) as a strawman, boogeyman, scapegoat, 
bad example, etc. etc. for so-called nature-based spiritualism. 
Rowling consistently defends the unusual, or radical (witches, Tonks, 
Moody, Arthur eg) as a check on the mainstream, or the muggle, and, 
indeed, the institutional, the MoM.

I am reminded of American Laurie Anderson's song "O Superman" - "when 
love is gone / there's always justice / and when justice is gone / 
there's always force / and when force is gone / there's always MoM"

Now, the world is becoming more litigious, or certain parts of it,  
but Shaun and Darrin's unhealthy arguments against Snape, for 
example, in the context of a book where a good portion of what goes 
on would be construed as criminal in the RW, attempt I think to place 
the ethical imperatives evident in the books into an artificially 
bland, mainstream, institutionalized, television context. I mean, 
kids running around with wands would be like RW kids taking guns and 
knives to school, by order, if such a simplistic, "letter of the law" 
approach were taken. To quote Snape, "I see no difference."

Thus, the ethical imperatives, in the book cannot, I believe, be 
transplanted casually into RW context, any more than those in Tolkien 
or the Bible can. Analogies will fail without taking into 
consideration the translation. Rowling's muggle world is no more our 
RW than her Witch Wizard World is. I argued before that ignorance and 
knowledge were problematic in Rowling, or rather, that something 
beyond them was key, something beyond standard measures of worth or 
utility, something that also flirted with the older, more substantial 
idea of fate, a kind of secular Calvinism. THIS is the point where 
there is agreement between the books' world and the RW. If Snape saw 
an over-eager beaver, and felt what surely to himself would be a 
totally unjustified fear of this person, his action might be to say 
that famous line. I submit that Snape's comment was entirely like a 
RW line, and that that itself is what disturbs some about it. But for 
myself, just as I believe something beyond bloodlines is evolving in 
the plot, so I believe something very close to both Snape's line, in 
all it's breadth, and to various nearly transcendent or transcendent 
moments in the books is evolving in the philosophy. OOP, then, 
doesn't disappoint me at all, obviously, with its angst, but rather 
makes me reassess Rowling as now having become a far more important 
writer than I had previously thought her to be - and I am a VERY 
harsh critic of literature.

I do not nearly hope that resolution will come in the books quite as 
much as I hope that the glimpses between the books and the RW, as the 
glimpses between the Witch Wizard World and the Muggle World in the 
books, echo for us in a way that lets us look at them, as we may 
indeed already do, to some extent, with appreciation for both their 
subtlety and their bite.

dan