Chances of Being Alive at the End of Book Seven

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 82608

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "fourjays22" <jayandjay22 at h...> 
wrote:

<snip>

Julie: 
> I always felt that what Dumbledore was referring to here as worse 
> than death was living under tyranny (ie the tyranny of Voldemort).  
> Voldemort's weakness is that he doesn't realize that people are 
> willing to die for their cause (ie, the cause of good, of keeping 
the 
> world (WW/MW) free from the likes of Voldemort, etc.). People are 
> willing to -- over and over again -- risk their lives, against 
> incredible odds, to fight the good fight.  Because Voldemort 
doesn't 
> truly understand that his enemies fear living under his control 
more 
> than they fear death, he doesn't realize the lengths people are 
> willing to go to in order to fight him and prevent his return to 
> power.  
> 
> I don't have Book 5 with me, but I believe one of the portraits in 
> Dumbledore's office (the relative of Sirius) says at one point that 
> Slytherin's are brave, but if given the choice they will always 
save 
> their own skins first (I apologize if this is the wrong 
attribution).  
> When I read that, I immediately thought of Dumbledore's statement 
to 
> Voldemort -- those who are fighting the good fight WON'T save their 
> own skins first, precisely because there ARE fates worse than 
death.  
> Voldemort doesn't understand this.  

<snip>

Geoff:
Back in my message 77772, we were looking at a similar argument and 
part of what I wrote was:
"It reminds me of a section in the Lord of the Rings - it's in the 
third volume somewhere.

In it, Gandalf points out that Sauron (Another Dark Lord of course!)
is looking for signs of dissent among the leaders of the Free Peoples 
to show that they are falling out over the Ring and he expects a new 
Lord to arise to challenge him. Gandalf remarks that the evil nature 
of Sauron cannot comprehend the possibility that his opponents may 
want to destroy the Ring rather than allow it to fall to evil use 
again."

That is, as has been commented above, Voldemort's weakness. He is 
looking for signs of weakness and dissent. Unfortunately, he is 
seeing them because Fudge is ignoring the reports of 
Voldemort's "rebirth" in the hope that they will go away. By trying 
to cling on to his authority and power and by rubbishing what 
Dumbledore and Harry and all the Hogwarts group stand for, he is 
sending all the wrong signals. Perhaps, by the end of OOTP, Voldemort 
is just beginning to see that there /is/ a determined opposition who 
do know that they have to put themselves on the line to stop him. 
Harry has known this for a long time and I think that members of the 
DA are beginning to see this more deeply and realistically; it's no 
longer playing with spells in the Room of Requirement to hassle 
Umbridge - it's for real.

In the real world, this has always happened. If you look at 
Resistance groups in Europe during WWII or at specifically targetted 
groups today, such as Christians in Indonesia, you can see the same 
phenomenon. As Julie said, people fighting the good fight to avoid a 
fate worse than death.

Geoff