[HPforGrownups] Re: "Life-Debt" Gripe

[Jesta Hijinx]

No: HPFGUIDX 59578


I wrote:

a while:
> >
> > I see relatively frequent, almost casual references to "life
>debts" between
> > characters.  (It's okay - just to save some typing, I know what
>the concept
> > means - I tend to leave out lengthy expository trains of thought
>like that
> > in e-mail when I assume everyone has the same knowledge base I do -
>  so
> > please, nobody post a long discussion of the meaning of "life
>debt" and the
> > cultures in which it crops up.  ;-))
> >
> > Yet nowhere does the phrase actually appear in canon that I know
>of.  Anyone
> > got a cite they care to share?
> >
> > I ask because while a nice idea, I think that it's a tacit
>assumption that
> > might not really hold in the WW on the part of fandom that any of
>these
> > characters owe or feel they owe a life debt to another.  Just
>because it's
> > common among world cultures and in literature (the most recent
>media
> > reference *I* can recall is Qui-Gon Jinn speaking to Boss Nass
>about Jar-Jar
> > Binks in "Phantom Menace") doesn't mean that's how JKR is writing
>in the
> > Potterverse.
> >
> > Any thoughts?
> >
> > Felinia Beauclerc
> >
>now me:
>I've always gone by the quote from DD to Harry at the end of PoA.
>"You have sent Voldermort a deputy who is in your debt...When one
>wizard saves another wizard's life, it creates a certain bond
>between them..and I'm much mistaken if Voldermort wants his servant
>in the debt of Harry Potter." Ch 22. PoA
>
Okay, and this is a scene I tend to skim quickly, so it's not surprising I 
missed it - thanks, that's the strongest piece of evidence I've seen so far. 
  Not to split hairs, but it still doesn't use the phrase "life debt" 
exactly - it mentions being in debt, it mentions a bond, but does not use 
the phrase "life debt", which is sort of what I'm after - that exact phrase.

>I don't remember the entire cemetary scene and I doubt that wormtail
>would help Harry so obviously with all the DE around. I'm sure that
>this debt will come into play in OoP.
>
>~shinesse~
>
Or a later book.  :-)

Felinia

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