OOP: Phoenix thoughts

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 62337

It was wonderful.  It's a big, busy book, and maybe it could have 
done with a little pruning, but I don't think I'll feel like that
once the newness has worn off and the long wait for book 6 has 
settled in.  

The  unrelenting emphasis on Harry's anger was draining, 
but that's what being an angry teen is like.  In fact all the big 
emotions seem that way when you're a teenager: they go on and 
on, and you think they're  going to last forever. It was brave of 
Rowling to give us anger, instead of taking the easy way out and 
using love instead.

It's a very angry book, but I wouldn't call it bleak, as some people 
have. Luna Lovegood and Tonks make me smile every time I 
think about them. They're not terribly original? People, that's the 
point! They're real live honest-to-canon incarnations of  fan fic 
characters: Mary  Sue in her space-case and gutsy-klutzy 
avatars, and I love 'em. IMO, they're JKR's tip of the hat to the 
fans, and I, for one, am highly amused.

Snapology: 
The Snape's a vampire clue:  Snape doesn't eat at Grimmauld 
Place. Counterclue: he sits at the High Table at Hogwarts. 
Rebuttal: we don't know what he actually eats there. JKR has 
mentioned that the House Elves can accommodate special 
diets. 
Bat clue: Snape is described as "flitting."

Theory that Snape has mind powers: confirmed, and about time, 
too. Line from PoA with new significance: "Don't ask me to 
fathom the way a werewolf's mind works."

Pallid legs in the Pensieve scene -- was this memory why Snape 
got so worked up when Harry saw him with his robes hiked up in 
Book One? How did the Pensieve episode end? Did something 
more happen? What was in those other two memories that Harry 
didn't see?


The thestrals and my theory of why Harry didn't see them at the 
end of GoF:

In GoF, we are told that Harry is looking back at the end of term 
from a month later. I believe that  since he covered his eyes in 
the graveyard, it wasn't till he had relived the experience in his 
dreams on Privet Drive that he actually saw death. In any case, it 
always takes a while for the knowledge of a death to sink in. JKR 
didn't want to show us Harry in denial till the end of OOP, so in 
GoF she skipped over Harry's initial reactions, and showed him 
looking back.

  Also, Harry doesn't remember seeing James and Lily die. The 
Dementor memories are sound, not vision, and his own memory 
of the flash of green light is described as "blinding."

Why did Sirius have to die? Because everyone dies. Clever, 
handsome, promising young people whose families need them 
are dying even while you read this. That's what Rowling wanted 
us to know. People die before their time every day, especially  
people who don't listen to warnings about risky behavior 
cough*teenagers*cough. 

Did Harry need to know it? That's what Dumbledore's big speech 
is about. Dumbledore didn't hide the prophecy only because he 
thought Harry couldn't bear the burden of facing Voldemort 
(although that, naturally, is what Harry is going to think.) IMO, he 
hid it because he knew  Harry  believed that as long as he had 
Dumbledore to protect him, Voldemort couldn't really hurt him. 
That's not true, and furthermore it never was, but Dumbledore 
couldn't bear to let Harry think that he wasn't perfectly safe 
somewhere. 


It's important for adults to provide  children with  a sense of 
security, but Harry was no longer a child, even at the end of 
PS/SS. The barriers to the Stone would bar  anyone who had not 
achieved emotional maturity. Harry showed he was ready to 
receive the knowledge by passing them--and Dumbledore held it 
back because he wanted to pretend  Harry was a child for a little 
longer, out of guilt for the happy childhood Harry didn't have.

Dumbledore kept trying to save Harry from death, but he couldn't 
protect  Harry from the pain of losing Sirius. That's what's worse 
than death itself, as Dumbledore was trying to tell Voldemort 
near the end.


Pippin