"Either must die at the hand of the other " (was "messy post")

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 86004

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Matt" <hpfanmatt at g...> wrote:
> --- Carol wrote, in response to Iris: 
> > The Prophecy does *not* say that neither Harry nor 
> > Voldemort can defeat the other without dying ....
> > What the Prophecy actually says is "either must 
> > die at the hand of the other for neither can live 
> > while the other survives" (OoP Am. ed. 841).
> > 
> > In other words, one will have to die at the hand 
> > of the other, not both will kill the other.  
> 
> Just writing to point out something that I'm sure
> has been said on list at some point, although I
> don't recall seeing it.  
> 
> While the prophecy does not unambiguously say that 
> Harry must die in killing Voldemort, it is at least
> open to that reading.  The use of "either" in the 
> prophecy is ambiguous.  While the word is more 
> commonly (and colloquially) used in a disjunctive 
> sense -- referring to one or the other of a pair -- 
> it is also used (in poetry, for instance) in a 
> conjunctive sense, referring to both members of the 
> pair.  A common example of the second usage is the 
> phrase "on either side," which typically means "on 
> both sides."  
> 
> It appears that Harry and Dumbledore are interpreting the prophecy in
> the disjunctive sense, as Carol does, to mean that either Harry or
> Voldemort will die in their final confrontation.  This explains
> Dumbledore's concern (assuming you credit it) with protecting Harry
> while he is most vulnerable, so that he will be as well-prepared as
> possible at the moment of truth.  
> 
> An alternate reading is that rather than describing two possibilities,
> the prophecy describes one certainty: *each* will die at the hand of
> the other.  That reading also suggests the possibility of a more
> metaphorical reading of "die" -- Marj Garber fans, get your minds out
> of the gutter -- in which there could perhaps be some compromise of
> the absolutes that Harry and Voldemort represent.
> 
> -- Matt

What about "neither can live while the other survives," in which
"neither" is clearly opposed to a singular "other"? That clearly
suggests that only one will "live." (I proposed a reading of that line
in another post in which I attempted to distinguish between "living"
(which neither is apparently doing now) and "surviving" (which both
are apparently doing). In any case, the suggestion seems to be that
only one will live, just as the "either/other" line suggests that only
one will die.

Carol