Fw: Voldemort and Harry bound to each other AND OOP -- Spoilers.

[Catherine Boyle]

No: HPFGUIDX 62233

Hi,

I originally sent this during the "Read Only" period, having not made the time-change from BST to EST in my head -- bad, Dobby!

Having now read OOP, I'm inclined to stick to my guns. The wording of the prophecy is tricky, but I think it can be argued that an outcome similar to that in the "Amulet" story (see below) can come from it. I think Darrin is on the right track with the Tom Riddle redeemed approach.

Some other thoughts strike me:

Dumbledore's admission that he has made a mistake, due to his love of Harry,

and,

Harry's use of the Cruciatus curse,

remind me of The Riddlemaster of Hed series, in which the God-like character makes the mistake of revealing his true identity to the hero because of his love for him,
and in which the hero has to overcome the desire to kill brought about by all he has suffered. I think we're going to see Harry struggle with that in later books. Incidently, a line from the Riddlemaster series is "They were promised a man of peace", i.e. the hero has to overcome his anger to fulfill his destiny (foreseen in a prophecy, by the way.) This parallel also makes me think Harry is going to find someway to fulfill the prophecy *and* save the day, without killing LV. 

And if I have to pick a ship, I'm choosing Harry and Luna -- everyone else is too normal for him.

Silmarien


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Catherine Boyle 
To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 8:37 PM
Subject: Voldemort and Harry bound to each other


Hi,

This is my first post, and I'm about 200 posts behind in reading, so forgive me if someone has already said this.

I'm wondering if the combination of 

1) Voldemort imparting powers to Harry as a baby, and

2) Harry's blood being used in Voldemort's resurrection,

has somehow bound their life-forces together, so that if one dies, the other dies. Conversely, it may be that neither can *kill* the other, at least by magic, since the one attempting to do so would find himself struggling against himself. If the latter, it might explain DD's look of triumph, since Harry may have lost one form of immunity, but gained another. 

There is some literary precedent for such an outcome. An evil sorcerer (the name escapes me now) in Lloyd Alexander's Taran Wanderer pours his life's essence into his finger and cuts it off. The hero, Taran, has found the bone. When the sorcerer attempts to turn Taran into a worm, he finds the spell doesn't work, and comments that he feels as if he is struggling against himself. Similarly, in the Lord of the Rings, Sauron cannot be destroyed as long as the Ring exists.

Obviously, this would imply that Harry *cannot* kill Voldemort either. Why, then, would DD look so happy about the recent turn of events? To begin with, I suspect Voldemort has been immune to death from Harry since age 1, but the graveyard episode made Harry immune. But what if Harry was never supposed to kill Voldemort to begin with? Much has been made of the similarity of Harry to Voldemort. What if Harry's entire role is to be an anti-Voldemort, what Voldemort could have been if he had made different choices? Perhaps if the circumstances are right, they can somehow fuse their identities and balance one-another. I am thinking of the ending of a book by E. Nesbitt, the title of which escapes me right now -- something about an amulet. At the end, by passing through the gateway formed by the amulet, two characters, one good and one bad, become joined in one body. But the evil in the soul of the bad character is left behind, crawling on the floor like some sort of insect, that is then stamped out. There has been some discussion on the list about Harry dying in the last book, but surviving death. I'm visualizing a rebirth that is the antithesis of the graveyard scene, a rebirth that heals the WW.

I'm a little short on citations here, but I want to get this off before the Dateline interview with JKR, and the midnight trip to the bookstore with my daughter.

Silmarien


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