[HPforGrownups] Whose prophecy? (was Re: Why Harry?)

David Burgess burgess at cynjut.net
Mon Mar 31 18:51:31 UTC 2003


No: HPFGUIDX 54603

>
> K -
>
> But Harry's protection came from Lily giving her life to protect him -
> if there had been no possibility of Lily being spared then I don't see
> how that would work. There is no suggestion that *James'* sacrifice gave
> Harry any measure of protection even though he clearly made a decision
> to stay and fight rather than try and run.
>
> James stood his ground to try and give Lily and Harry a chance to escape
> even knowing (as he must have done) that he couldn't defeat Voldemort.
> Lily offered her life to save Harry. *Lily* is the one credited with
> giving Harry the protection so there must be some difference between
> their sacrifices. Obviously (to me any way) it is that James was going
> to die anyway, he was one of Voldeomrt's targets, Lily wasn't.

My reading of GoF leads me to believe that Lily's protection was based on
more than just her sacrifice to save Harry.  Their interactions in the
graveyard give us several hints, including Voldemort's description of the
"ancient magic" that had imparted onto Harry a protective "shield" that
killed Quirrell in PS/SS and which Voldemort was pretty self-impressed
after he came out of the cauldron.

There is, as I recall, a mention of Voldemort's own "ancient magic" spells
that kept him from being destroyed by his own Kervada spell when it
backfired.  He had dabbled in so much Ancient Magic that is appearance and
demeanor had changed to the point that his friends and classmates from
Hogwarts couldn't even recognize him 40-50 years later.

>
> Note Voldemort's response to Lily's offer. She begs him to take her
> instead - he doesn't say "what do you mean instead you stupid
> woman, I'm here for all of you!". Equally he doesn't just AK her
> and carry on to Harry. He gives her the chance to stand aside - I admit
> Voldemort probably isn't the most trustworthy of individuals but why
> make the offer if he didn't (at least at the moment he made it) intend
> to honour it. It really would have been just as simple to kill her and
> step over the body. Whether we could ever seriously expect a parent to
> accept such an offer is totally irrelevent to whether the offer is made
> seriously. Voldemort is afaik a) not a parent and b) evil also quite
> possible c) totally and utterly insane - he may well have considered it
> a perfectly reasonable offer and one that he would in her place accept.

I'm not convinced that all of the assumptions that Lily was offered
anything are correct.  If killing Harry was Voldemort's only real agenda
item, he might have made the same offer to James.  The canon isn't
completely clear on this issue.  It's possible that his sole intent was to
kill Harry, and if the parents got in the way, tough.  Even being a
powerful wizard, I would think that AK would take something out of the
wizard that cast it.  Three of these in the space of a couple of minutes
(Lily didn't get very far) might put a strain on the old AK muscles, if
you know what I mean.  It's like shooting a big rifle - you can do it once
easily, but every time after that takes a little more effort.

JKR has made it clear in interviews that Voldemort ("Death Stealer", in
French, in case anyone doesn't know) represents pure evil, in its most
basic and frightening form.  Her intent has always been to make Voldemort
as sociopathic as possible, in part to scare teenagers, but also in part
to make him a complicated and interesting character.  The fact that we're
all sitting around debating his motives and drives as if was a real person
is (IMHO) testimony to her success.

It doesn't take much, in the way of research, to find plenty of examples
of what we could call "acts of pure evil" where a child or a mother is
killed, yet the rest of the family was spared.  Look to West Africa or
Southeast Asia and you'll see examples in every village.  These could be
the kernel of what this entire exchange was based on.

My own take on this is that killing Harry was not so much a method of
averting a prophecy as it was a way to accomplish something.  I'm not sure
what yet, but I suspect that we'll find out sometime in the next three
books.  The problem I have with the prophecy theories is that they are
based on some faceless mystic that may or may not have made some dire
prediction.  I just don't see this happening in the Potterverse of JKR. 
One of the things that she finds satisfying, and that I find satisfying
about her writing, is that she seems to know what's going on, and let's us
know in suntle ways that, even though she hasn't really told us anything,
she knows and we'll find out what we need.  This phantom soothsayer
doesn't seem to have exited to this point.

-- 
Dave Burgess








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