What drives You Know Who? [Non-sequitur]

[earendil_fr]

No: HPFGUIDX 111379

Coderaspberry wrote:
> Anyway, 
> my thought was that it might be more of a stealing FROM death type 
> of thing - not a literal translation - and that could very much 
> apply.  Voldemort, by seeking immortality, is basically "stealing 
> from death" - that is to say, cheating it.  To have him flee from 
> death makes him less, I don't know, impressive or something.
> 
> coderaspberry, who is waiting for someone who actually KNOWS French 
> to come along and make his silly musings look pedestrian

Earendil.

Native French speaker here.
As I said in my post number 110053:
'Vol' means 'flight' as in flying, but not as in fleeing.
But another meaning is, indeed, 'theft'.

So if we stick strictly to the French possible translation, 'fleeing' 
is definitely ruled out. I suppose 'stealing *of* death' 
and 'stealing *from* death' could be translated the same, though 
honestly, the first meaning that comes to mind when 
reading 'Voldemort' is 'stealing *of* death', since interpreting it 
as 'stealing *from* death' would sound really, really weird ('to 
cheat death' could be translated as 'voler la mort', 'voler' being 
the verb associated to 'vol', but then 'vol' is a noun and couldn't 
be used in such a grammatical configuration, and even if it could, 
there would be no 'de' between it and 'mort')(I'm not sure I really 
made sense, here, did I?)

Hope it helps,

Earendil.