Voldemort's "death"

[ginnysthe1]

No: HPFGUIDX 119507


> Carol responds:
> Yes. It seems to be a general consensus that the power behind the
> locked door and the force that saved Harry from being possessed by
> Voldemort are the same thing (although I remember a recent argument
> about a distinction between the two that I confess to not reading
> carefully enough to paraphrase). At any rate, sacrificial love seems
> like the likeliest candidate of the forces or powers that have been
> proposed so far though I don't see Harry as being any more loving 
than a lot of other people. Altruism might come closer, but that 
certainly isn't what motivated Harry when he wanted to die and be 
with Sirius rather than be possessed by Voldemort. Willingness to 
die, maybe? I don't mind that hypothesis as long as it doesn't result 
in his *actual* death. But nothing has been resolved by JKR, much 
less agreed upon by the members of this list.

Kim now:
I had the idea in an earlier post that the power in that locked room 
was something akin to "truth," which I think could mean all the 
mysterious powers in the universe all rolled into one.  Love and 
hate, good and evil, life and death, the balance of all opposite 
extremes (as the Buddhists might say), or perhaps the force that 
understands all things because all things are contained within it.  
Of course to others that could also be a description of God (but I 
don't want to start getting into too much of a religious discussion 
here).

So when Voldemort possessed Harry in the MoM battle, he 
was "vanquished" because he couldn't face the "truth" about himself: 
that he was incapable of love (in that instance it was embodied in 
the love that Harry was feeling for Sirius).  Voldemort is so 
incapable of love, that it seems to pain him physically to be in its 
presence.  Gee, if we didn't all hate LV so much, we might actually 
feel some pity for him... ;-)

Carol wrote:
>Whether Fudge is ESE! or merely stupid, he has deprived the WW of a
> witness to the return of Voldemort. But more to the point, Barty Jr.
> is now a soulless body. What that means, whether he's like a zombie 
or eats and drinks and sleeps but has no memories or human feelings, I
> can't say. I'm guessing that he's in St. Mungo's, but it doesn't
> really matter where his body is. His soul is inside a Dementor, gone
> forever, dissolved into nothingness. At least that's how I 
understand it. And that, to me, seems like an appropriate fate for 
Voldemort, but only if it can be arranged without Harry having to be 
a Dementor's victim himself.

Kim now:  Do you remember if JKR's intention with the Dementors was 
to invent a creature who is the embodiment of depression or despair?  
(Am I too lazy to go online and look for that information myself?  
Answer: Yes!  Actually I'm just too busy with other things right 
now).  Because in that sense, their "kiss" would leave a person 
pretty much without a soul (at least in the figurative sense).  Some 
would say that a body can't live long, if at all, without a soul 
inside it, but this is JKR's world, after all, so somehow Barty Jr. 
was able to survive his brush with a Dementor.  Yes, it would be nice 
to actually know what state the Dementor's kiss had left him in.  I 
wonder if he'll show up again in the next books (along with Gilderoy 
Lockhart...  maybe they could hang out together at St. Mungo's; 
Gilderoy could talk endlessly about himself and Barty would sit there 
not really listening and staring off into space...)  When you think 
about it, the Dementors are just about as dangerous to people's 
welfare as LV is...  Who or what are those creepy critters?

Kim (who is not trying to be annoying by continuing to ask questions 
that she doesn't know the answers to)