Trelawny really bugs me...

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 120810


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" <tonks_op at y...> wrote:
vmonte wrote:
> > I know Trelawny has been discussed many times (by me and others)
but I've been rereading the books and this character really annoys 
me.  With so much talk about people being in charge of their own 
destinies and making the "right" choices, why does Dumbledore put so
much faith into this woman's prophecies? 
> 
> 
> Tonks wrote:
> DD only puts faith is one of her prophecies. And he can tell the 
> differece between a true prophecy and a false one. He does not have 
> a high regard for divination at all.


Carol responds:
True, he doesn't have a high regard for Divination as a school
subject, an art or craft that can be taught to students or be in any
way useful to them, but he probably has no choice but to keep it in
the curriculum (despite his briefly considering dropping the subject)
because his students will need it for their OWLs.

More important, his feelings about divination in general (crystal
balls and tea leaves) are probably separate from his respect for real
Seers like Cassandra Trelawney (or whatever her last name was). The
Prophecies are not housed in the Department of Mysteries for nothing.
Evidently they have ways of coming true, or all the Seers would have
been exposed as hoaxes long before.

I think that a real Prophecy, made in a state of trance by a Seer who
is only a conduit for some other voice, is somehow true without being
a blueprint for the future or an exact record of a preordained future.
Certainly it does not in itself shape the future. It is of necessity
ambiguous before the future itself is still unshaped, still in the
process of "becoming." IOW, the actions that will bring the Prophecy
to fulfillment not only have not yet happened, they have not in any
way been predetermined. But just as in the Greek myths, those who try
to thwart the Prophecies succeed only in bringing them about in some
unanticipated way. I think, though, that ignoring a Prophecy or not
knowing about it will make no difference. It will come about in some
way through the actions of the persons involved whether they know
about it or not.

What I want to know but don't expect to find out is whose voice is
speaking through the Seers. (Obviously not Apollo's; this is the
Potterverse, not ancient Greece.) Clearly it's not Voldemort's or he
wouldn't be so worried about the exact wording of the Prophecy. I
doubt that it's a Death Eater's, either. Lucius Malfoy, the cleverest
of the DE's (setting aside the ex-DE, Snape) wouldn't hoave the power
to possess a Seer and put her in a trance, nor would he have had
access to Trelawney at Hogwarts to cause her to make the second
Prophecy (which did, in its way, turn out to be true). Theoretically,
Snape could have Imperio'd her at Hogwarts, forcing her to make that
Prophecy, but his actions and attitudes in POA make that highly
improbable, and it makes nonsense of his whole story--and Harry's--to
suppose that he would have done the same thing at the Hog's Head.
(Besides, I trust Severus Snape, but that's beside the point.)

I think, in any case, that Trelawney's Prophecies are real, and that
the purpose of the one in POA was to prepare us for the more important
original Prophecy in OoP. And I think that Dumbledore, despite his
humorous but affectionate tolerance for Trelawney, knows that her
first Prophecy is genuine and that she would be in great danger if
Voldemort were to get his hands on her. Granted, he used Voldemort's
desire for the Prophecy to delay him from starting VW2, but IMO he
also knows that the Prophecy itself is genuine--the prediction that
the conflict between LV and Harry will decide the fate of the WW is
not lies or fluff but the truth in some as yet indeterminate form--and
it grieves him that Harry must now know that truth.

To Trelwaney: Others have predicted that she'll make a third Prophecy,
probably in HBP, simply because that sort of thing always comes in
threes and because it's the sort of motif or plot device that seems
likely to turn up again, like polyjuice potions or metamorphmagic or
(heaven forfend) time-turning. I for one fully expect to see another
real Prophecy from Trelawney--and just possibly, some of her minor
predictions (made as her own "normal" self using tea leaves or crystal
balls) may come true as well. After all, she saw a black dog in the
crystal ball. She merely misinterpreted it as the Grim.

Carol