Dead Men Tell No Lies ---> Dead Men Do Not Speak At All?

[Dan Feeney]

No: HPFGUIDX 72724

portrait_of_mrs_black:

> Bboy_mn, that would be great, I mean your story - but I don't think 
> it's going to be that way. 
>  Harry feeling more and more different than others around him, 
> he knows that he has to do something terrible, something only he 
can 
> do and that's what'll make him estranged (even from his best 
> friends). The frustration and anger will be gone (or almost gone:) -
 
> only the feeling of emptiness deeper and deeper (because most 
people 
> will still think that Sirius was guilty, because - even if they now 
> believe Voldemort's back - they won't have to believe everything 
> Harry sais and will ebentually come to fear "the weird gloomy 
> Potter")...  well, it sound pretty bad:( But that's what I think.
> 
> But that is just a thought. What d'you think?

Not bad. bboy and mrs black both - that's the sense of it, the 
liberation, at a cost, the finality. In most literature, of course, 
thinking of Jose Saramago, for instance, I'd choose mrs black's 
telling, although, when it's done right, as in LoTR, bboy's telling 
can heartily move me.

Does the progression in Rowling give us an indication which way it's 
going?

In defense of bboy, Rowling does not give up the introduction of new 
magical elements, of novelty, for instance, and these elements are 
often, but not always, essential to plot development, in some way or 
another. The "novelty" of the arch, however, isn't accompanied by the 
same sense of playfulness that the introduction of portkeys were, in 
GoF, for example, to say the least. The introduction of the arch was 
accompanied by, uh, unease, (raised the hairs on the back of my neck 
even more than Sirius first appearance between the garage and the 
fence.) And even the skivving lunchboxes were unsettling, in a 
certain way. Too much bleeding going on there, and a bit of 
recklessness. In defense of mrs black, Rowling does seem to have 
moved the story "closer" to HP, or rather, given HP a level of self-
consciousness far more salient than in the earlier books, where HP's 
self-consciousness ~could~ quite easily go completely unnoticed. HP's 
isolation, in part as a result of the rather strange behaviour of the 
adults around him, and as a result of the witch wizard culture in 
general, in which knowledge plays an exaggerated yet problematic 
role, will grow, and he will not wear it, as he appears to be doing 
in OOP, but will inhabit it. (I avoid the "closet" for now, in 
deference to a new member.) Yes, it makes perfect sense that once HP 
inhabits this isolation, he will, in a sense, "live" as he has not 
done yet. And I have figured, for myself, one way in which to parse 
the sense or feeling of the conflict.

"in essense divided"

So, some take this to mean something about Tom and the Lord Voldemort 
he became, and AD calling LV Tom indicates this to them. Possibly, I 
say. But I think it's more like HP and LV are, in fact, the same 
person, or entity. The curse (the death of HP's parents, in a way) 
created this split. In literary terms LV is a conflicting (opposed)
response to... uh... the world, I'll say, as are the so-called 
muggle and witch wizard worlds. (And don't we feel utter chaos 
threatens when those worlds meet?) Did HP "place" LV into Quirrell 
subconsciously, the first real Hogwarts teacher he met, in the midst 
of all the accolades at the Leaky Cauldron? (Is HP "the curse" of 
DADA?) I mean, HP is the cause, directly or indirectly, of every DADA 
teacher's demise or removal from the position, even Lupin's. 
Sometimes, he even seems to have manufactured them. One of the things 
that got me on this line of thinking was the way in which Dolores 
Umbridge seemed to represent exactly what HP was doing to himself 
anyway, BEFORE she appeared on the scene. (That is, she was active 
before we knew her, but HP was already on his angsty path, and then, 
my goodness, there she is! DADA teacher! Wow. And in retrospect 
identifiably the cause of his troubles since the dementor attack.) If 
Dolores Umbridge didn't exist as DADA, HP would have had to invent 
her.

Okay, so, maybe HP isn't exactly a freudian I, or MoM the freudian 
they, or LV the freudian it, and so on, but to test the books as 
though this COULD be the case will be illuminating, in terms 
especially of this growing demand I sense that the series really 
reach "transcendence", or resolution, or closure, or liberation, or 
whatever it's called. OOP seems to have heighted everyone's 
expectations.

When has Rowling talked directly about HP's motivations? It seems the 
personality of Hogwarts rather demonstrates those motivations. 
Sometimes, anyway. Like Hogwarts is the echo of HP's unspoken self. 
(Something like that.)

This line of theorizing about Rowling will take some time, and some 
study. I think I will try, for a little bit. 

dan