The scar connection: is JKR cheating?

[Fred Waldrop]

No: HPFGUIDX 91622

"nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...> wrote:
The interesting "second Voldemort war" thread from a few days ago 
made me do some research into the mind connection between Harry and 
LV, and I discovered a strange inconsistency in its description. 

In OotP both Snape and DD tell us that the scar marks a connection 
between the minds of Harry and LV. A logical implication of this 
connection is that, when Harry receives perceptions from LV's mind, 
he should see them from LV's point of view. And indeed, this is how 
Harry's "visions" are described. Whenever the point of view is 
given, it is always through LV's eyes. The one exception is the 
snake's attack on Arthur Weasley, which Harry sees through the 
snake's eyes, but this is logically explained by Snape in that LV 
was inhabiting the snake at that time.

If, however, you go back to GoF with this new knowledge about the 
mind connection, you'll find that Harry's visions from LV's mind are 
*not* through LV's eyes. There are two such visions in GoF:

The dream in the beginning of GoF: this is the first time Harry 
receives more than just pain through the scar connection. It seems 
that Harry's point of view is located behind LV's chair. Harry can't 
remember what LV looked like: "All Harry knew was that at the moment 
when Voldemort's chair had swung around, and he, Harry, had seen 
what was sitting in it, he had felt a spasm of horror, which had 
awoken him
or had that been the pain in his scar?" But Harry
doesn't see the scene from Frank Brice's point of view 
either: "there had definitely been an old man; Harry had watched him 
fall to the ground" and in the previous chapter we are specifically 
told Frank was dead before he hit the ground. Harry doesn't see it 
from Nagini's point of view either: "There had been a snake on a 
hearth rug". 
 
The dream during the divination lesson: Harry dreams that he is 
riding to LV's hideout on the back of an eagle owl. This awl, in 
fact, seems to be the real owl that imposter!Moody sent LV to notify 
him about killing Crouch Sr., since LV mentions this in his words to 
Wormtail. Again, Harry sees things from a point of view located 
behind LV's chair, so he does not see LV, only the tip of his wand, 
and Wormtail and Nagini in front of the chair.
 
This inconsistency between GoF and OotP bothers me because it seems 
like JKR was cheating us in GoF, so we would not realise too early 
about the scar connection. She made it look like the visions were 
due to some vogue prophetic abilities of Harry. After all, we all 
know that "he saw it in a dream" is a standard plot device authors 
use to give the hero some knowledge he couldn't have in any 
realistic way, so we haven't had any reason to think about 
mechanistic explanations, such as a mind connection. Until now I was 
under the impression that JKR might hide things from us, or through 
red herrings to confuse us, but she is always consistent. Except for 
flints, of course, but until now we only had flints in issues that 
are not central to the plot, such as the number of students.

So I'll be very grateful if somebody can find a logical explanation 
to this inconsistency in Harry's point of view.

Neri

=====================================================================
Fred here;

In GoF, I took it as because LV still did not have a compleat body 
until Wormtail preformed the spell, he, LV was not whole, or 
compleatly in the crude body he was inhabiting.
Let me try to explain. When Wormtail went back to LV, he was able to 
make/get a crude form of a body/shell for LV to inhabit. But even 
though he, LV, was inside this body, I don't think it held his 
entire essence, so to speak. So, this is why Harry see's things from 
a third party prespective. Or at least not from inside LV. 
LV had been, for lack of a better word, concentrated, but he was 
still not whole.
In other words, Harry could feel emotions better and he started 
receiving "visions" from LV because LV HAD been concentrated.

I hope this helps;
Fred