I'm still confused about the prophecy

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 95481

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, tyler maroney <tmar78 at y...> wrote:
> 
> bboy_mn:
> 
> Remember, Voldemort still has not heard the prophecy, and he still 
> doesn't know whether it has helpful information or not. ...
> 
> Tyler:
> 
> This is what troubles me...why did the Order go through so much 
> trouble to guard the prophecy if they already knew there wasn't any 
> useful info in it? I have trouble understanding how it could have 
> been used against Harry.
> 


bboy_mn:

You are still looking at the prophecy from the view point of a read;
we, the readers, have access to information that some of the
characters do not.

It is precisely because Voldemort doesn't know what is in the Prophecy
that the Order must protect it. The more surely it is guarded, the
more sure Voldemort is likely to be that it contains something he
shouldn't know. 

The Prophecy is about Voldemort and Harry's connection, and it
explains that powerful, and to Voldemort, potentially deadly connect.
It is at the very heart of Voldemort's first defeat. Certainly, he
would want to know the full content, so that he doesn't make the same
mistake this time.

Since he has no idea what it says, for all he knows it could go on for
pages and pages explaining in detail how his fate with Harry will be
played out. Knowing how it will play out could very logically give him
a clue to not only how to avoid being defeated, but to actually learn
how he might defeat Harry.

So, from Voldemort's perspective, it is POSSIBLE for the Prophecy to
contain volumes of valuable knowledge. Knowing that it MIGHT be
valuable, means that Voldemort will not act until he has all the
information at his disposal.

We as readers, on the otherhand, have a different insight. You have to
put yourself in Voldemort's unknowing shoes to understand why it is so
important. 

>From the prespective of a reader or a member of the Oder, we can see
that while informative, the Prophecy is not especially valuable. And
from the perspective of the Order, as long as they can keep Voldemort
focused on the Prophecy, they can keep him off the streets, and buy
themselves time to build a resistance against him. 

So, to understand it, you have to look at it from Voldemort's position
of limited knowledge, and from his sense that the Prophecy contain
important valuable and useable information about his fated connection
with Harry.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn