The Death Chamber

[Richard]

No: HPFGUIDX 81759

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" 
<gbannister10 at a...> wrote:
<snipping assorted comments unrelated to the point at hand>
> > Richard, who is curious what would have happened had Dobby not 
> > intervened in CoS.
> 
> Geoff:
> Auch sprach Geoff, in Anwort nach Richard.... (Geoff spoke also, in 
> reply to Richard)
> 
> Here we have got movie "contamination", though I don't like the use 
> of the word - I like the films as well as the book (cries 
> of "heretic" from off-stage)
> 
> There is no reference to a spell in the book -
> 
> "Lucius Malfoy stood frozen, staring at the elf. Then he lunged at 
> Harry.
> 'You've lost me my servant, boy!'
> But Dobby shouted, 'You shall not harm Harry Potter!'"
> 
> Dobby intervened because Harry intervened because Dobby was there. 
> Nice circular argument. :-)


me (Richard) here:

You miss the point.  I referred to the movie when speaking of the AK 
by Lucius, but in my wondering, I am only concerned with the fact 
that Lucius attempted to attack Harry ... which he did in both the 
movie and the book.  The difference between the two scenes lies in 
the method attempted, not in the presence of absence of an attack.

Having reminded you of this, I still wonder what would (or could) 
have happened had Dobby NOT intervened.  In the book's version of the 
attack, would Lucius suffer a similar fate to that of Quirrel, 
finding that Harry's touch burned beyond endurance?  Would some 
other "fated" event intervene, such as Lucius tripping and beaning 
himself in the fall, or a teacher appearing and handling matters?  In 
the movie version of the attack, would the AK have worked?  Would 
Lucius have suffered a similar ricochet as that which stripped 
Voldemort of human form?  Or worse (at least for Lucius and Draco), 
would such a ricochet kill Lucius?  And if not, what would "fate" 
have transpire so that the prophecy in OotP could be properly 
fulfilled, with only one of the Voldemort/Harry pair left living 
after the other dies at his foes hands?  It is a perplexion.

And now that we get to it, "either/or" does explicitly mean "A or B, 
but not both A and B."  Any other interpretation or usage is purely 
linguistic sloppiness.  This is one of the reasons I really wish 
formal logic, and even formal symbolic logic, were taught in 
elementary school, or in middle school at the latest.


Richard, whose degree in philosophy with emphasis on logic makes him 
a little rigid on certain points.