[HPforGrownups] Re: A far-fetched analysis of the Prophecy

[lissbell at colfax.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 70446

Valky,

I'm so unworthy of your compliments, I am blushing still!  But thank you 
most kindly, you wonderful soul.

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


Lissa replied:
I've read this middle phrase so many times it's begun to loop in my head 
like an ad jingle.  I do believe that the segment "and either must die 
at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives" 
is the most rhythmic piece of prose I've read in any of JKR's work.  It 
sounds like verse.  And since that's all I can concretely say about the 
line, I'm now going to sit back and let you enlighten me for I am truly 
and hopelessly befuddled by it.



Valky wrote:
> This *is* a paradox.
> It is a straightforward misdirection not unlike JK's "deliberate" 
> error.


Lissa replied:
I agree with you 100% that there is misdirection going on here.  Rowling 
has to be playing games with us because the straightforward 
interpretation is obviously not true.


Valky wrote:
> 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.


Lissa replied:
That's the lazy way I've been dealing with it, yes.  My brain just 
wasn't up to the task, so I settled for what I knew was probably wrong.

Valky wrote:
> 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*?


Ahhh, yes.  Whatever else happens, I expect Harry to conquer and 
eliminate the part of Tom that is the Dark Lord--even if Tom can't 
somehow go back and have a do-over childhood.  It would be enough, I 
think, for Harry to love him enough to redeem Tom in his present state.

I agree with you completely on this one.  This part sits easy in my mind.

Valky wrote:
> 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.


Lissa replied:
This would definitely fit and fulfill the terms of the Prophecy.  If 
Voldemort--as the Dark Lord--survives and his very existence defies 
possibility, time and life *would* succumb to chaos.  I see what you're 
getting at--yes.

Valky wrote:
> 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.


Lissa replied:
I see, I see!  If Tom doesn't go back to initiate the Slytherin 
bloodline: woops, there goes the Slytherin family tree and the stability 
of the fabric of time with its careful threads of cause and effect.  If 
Voldemort is Salazar's ancestor, Voldemort and Harry cannot be at all if 
Tom doesn't go back.

Ohhhhh, circular family trees in fiction--how they hurt me. :)


Valky wrote: 
> 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?


Lissa replied:
Definite paradox.  Ouch ouch ouch, thinking this hard just *hurts*.  I'm 
not kidding. :)

After reading your ideas on this, I have to say that a time-travel 
paradox would explain the shameless impossibility of that "and either" 
line most elegantly.  I'm inclined to agree with you.  I'm not sure I 
embrace all the specifics, but the general idea that it is a 
time-related paradox, yes.  (And I'm keeping my mind open about some of 
the details.)  It has all the markings of it.  You're absolutely correct.

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


Lissa replied:
I don't think it would be grammatically legitimate to read a third 
person into that Prophecy.  I realize there are antecedent puzzles 
throughout the thing, but to use a pronoun with *no* stated reference 
would be outlandishly poor form.  If Rowling had wanted to include a 
third person, she could have pulled it off legitimately with her clever 
word tricks.  For instance, if she'd wanted subtly to reference Harry 
and Neville, she could have just said "A child" rather than "The one" in 
sentences 1 and 3.  (Or she could have subtly altered the phrase "The 
one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord" between the first and last 
sentence.)  And if she'd wanted to split the idea of Dark Lord and Tom 
Riddle into two, she could have referred to him with two different 
titles.  (That's not to say that I think she's referring to the whole 
entity that is Tom Marvolo Riddle.  I'm convinced she's just referring 
to the Dark Lord elements of his personality.)

Then again, the above protest may just be my feeble attempt at trying to 
avoid having to think even longer and harder about a Prophecy that kicks 
at my peace of mind, sticks its tongue out at me and generally drives me 
completely batty.


Valky wrote:
> By the way Liss. LOVED everything else about your analysis.
> Lets have fun with this. 


Lissa replied:
Yes, let's! :)

And I loved yours, too.  You refused to let me just lazily tuck this

irksome part of the Prophecy into my mental slushpile and avoid it

evermore.  It *is* an important clue and I think you're absolutely

right that it hinges on paradoxes generated by time travel.


Hmmm.  It's a strange and wonderful day when the Potterverse makes
quantum physics seem quaint.

Your humble fan,
Lissa B