prophecies and choice..was Re: Neville and the Prophecy - VERY LONG

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 108316

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Shannon <srae1971 at b...> wrote:
> 
> 
> By the same token, I have a very hard time swallowing all this prophecy 
> stuff.  Just as you say that if no one had heard the prophecy and it had 
> not been acted on by Voldemort nothing would have happened, I have to 
> wonder what will happen if Harry chooses _not_ to accept the terms of the 
> prophecy.  Normally this wouldn't seem like an option (because to 
> paraphrase Cpt Jack Sparrow, prophecy!), but one of the major themes of 
> this series so far has been the notion that everyone has power over their 
> own fate.  Choice is stressed, over and over and over, as being the most 
> important thing.  So it seems fishy to me that suddenly this prophecy pops 
> up that locks Harry into one path..."kill Voldemort or be killed by him," 
> which is what the prophecy is saying, on the surface.  Especially given 
> that the prophecy tells us something that we as readers (at least I assume 
> I can speak for all or most readers) have assumed from the start: that it 
> will come down to Harry and Voldemort at the end.  When I read that chapter 
> in OoP, I remember thinking, "Am I supposed to be surprised by 
> this?"  Harry certainly is, but I as a reader wasn't, after five books in 
> which Voldemort is built up as Harry's arch enemy.
> 

I might take the opportunity to have a bit of a rant in this one. I'll probably
start on the subject, but I can't guarantee that I'll stay there.

One thing JKR is good at is getting fans to chase their  own tails.
Like everyone else I've joined in the game of trying to decipher that damn
Prophecy with as little success as anyone. And the fact that none of us has
come up  with a reasonable, generally accepted interpretation should tell 
us something - JKR is pretty determined that we won't use it as a lever to 
reveal a plot  twist she's probably got tucked away somewhere.

That is, if it's not a blind to start  with. 

There are interpretations that conclude that *all* the conditions of the 
Prophecy have been met already. In which case it's been thrown into the
brew just to  keep us busy and probably to distract us from considering 
one or two other things that could be much more productive of our time.

And I agree - Harry trips over Voldy or his avatar in every book but one - 
which makes me very suspicious of some of the events in PoA, but more 
on that later - yet somehow he doesn't seem to have grasped the fact that
Voldy has decided that Harry's the prime candidate for winning the Black 
Spot raffle and together with his dastardly crew he spends an inordinate 
amount of time drawing up ridiculously  complicated plots, (worthy of 
Baldrick at his best) -  and they never work. Harry *always* gets away. 
Sometimes I can't help but think of Sylvester and Tweety Pie.

You've got to admit, it is getting a bit much. Consider:
PS/SS. Harry and chums decide that it is their duty to prevent Snape
from having it away with the Stone. Naturally they've got  it all wrong.
Good job too - if it had been ESE!Snape down there, Harry would be dead.
His protection wouldn't work against ole Sevvy. Not that he understands
about his protection yet, in his wide-eyed innocence he just assumes that
3 eleven years old untrained students can somehow circumvent the cunning
protections supposedly emplaced by the best in the business and then 
overcome a mature wizard full of evil intent.

Instead he finds out there was a basic error in his calculations. Oops! He's 
not about to reduce Snape to a snivelling wretch by reminding him of 
honesty, truth and the efficacy of a pure heart, he's up against the No. 1
baddy, foaming at the mouth and drooling down Quirrell's collar. He should
by rights end up as a small grease spot on the floor - except. Except Quirrell
forgets that he's a wizard.

He doesn't do  what your average wizard would do - Imperio! or  Stupify!
or Accio! Stone - he tries to grab Harry instead. Collapse of stout party.
Hmph. Most unsatisfactory. Standards of villainy must be dropping.
Note that  during his excursion through the trapdoor Harry does not
cast a single spell.

CoS. Tom has him on toast. but he gets away - again. Saved by the 
intervention of aerial re-inforcements and the fortuitously shaky state
of the Basilisks dental impedimenta. Tom meanwhile is strolling around, 
mouthing the usual Evil Overlord of the Universe claptrap and despite 
having Harry's wand in his hot little hands he never dreams of using it. 
Pillock.
He's about as much use as an inflatable dartboard.
Once again the entire episode passes without Harry casting a single spell
(Parselmouth being not spells but a language - and he never learned it 
anyway - it  was a sort of belated birthday gift).

PoA. The odd one out. Why no Voldy? Why no plan to lure Harry to his 
doom? Well, there might be  one in there somewhere, especially if you
happen to be leery of Fudge and wonder exactly what instructions had
been given to the Dementors. They seem awfully interested in Harry
and Sirius doesn't seem to be their favourite flavour. I wonder why?

Then if you're really devious there's that second Prophecy.
Peter isn't the only one it could apply to; it could fit Sirius too. Just where
did he go after he flew off on Buckbeak? A holiday on the Adriatic, perhaps?
Anyway -  Harry faces the presumptive betrayer of his parents. Within
ten minutes he's been totally convinced by a load of self-serving tosh
that doesn't contain a scintilla of convincing evidence and gets all gushy
about setting up house with someone who had tried to strangle him not
half an hour before. Erm.... excuse me; what's going on here? This kid
should never be let out on his own. 
But at last he manages to do a bit of wand-work - an Expelliarmus! 
against Snape (foolish boy!) and a sort of retrospective Patronus.

GoF. Well, this one's got everything - from dirty work at the cross-roads
to a wooden leg. To be fair most of what happens isn't down to Harry -
it's DD this time. Much burbling about 'Magical contracts' without ever
explaining exactly what they are, what the penalties are for breaking 
one and why an under-age adolescent who never entered into one anyway 
should be bound by the rules - it's all a bit iffy. If DD's IQ is greater than
his shoe size, then he must know that there's something afoot. And it ain't
his sock. And what does  he do? Nothing. Zilch. Bugger all. Is this likely?
No, I don't think so either.

So Harry goes on his own sweet way, eventually coming face-to-face with
the biggest, grossest, most bumbling incompetent in the books. Voldy -
our friendly neighbourhood mass-murderer.  Typically, he's too busy
preening to get down to business as any self-respecting supreme ruler
should, and when he does get round to squelching this little scrote things
don't go according to plan. Oh dear. Will he never learn? Not when the 
author's against him, he won't. 

A careful reading gives one the impression that there were a lot of DEs 
in that graveyard - a lot; many more than were named. Yet with one
bound our hero is free... One unaimed Impedimenta! spell thrown over
his shoulder and all are confounded (despite the fact that the DEs formed
a circle and would not be approaching from the same angle or distance).
Come now! Pull the other one for a vertitable symphony of campanology.
One unaimed spell defeats a phalanx of ravening DEs? In that case this war
can be won in double-quick time - blindfold Harry  and send him out to
blast random spells all over the place. Can't lose.

OoP.  Here we go again. A clutch of killer desperados ambush 6 school 
kids and come off worst. Only one fatality (adult) and it's not certain that
that was the result of enemy action. Just how far can belief be suspended?
It's not just suspended -  it's fitted with anti-gravity.

Way back at the head of this piece Shannon was musing about the use
of the Prophecy as a credible plot device and wondering how the hell Harry
hadn't noticed in 5 books that Voldy seemed a bit miffed with him; the 
surprised reaction when Harry's told "it's him or you." Well, that's not the
only aspect of the story that leaves me god-smacked. Fortunately I don't
read the books for their verisimilitude; it's the character studies and 
puzzles that grab my attention. Good job too, otherwise I might be
getting a bit restive. A supposed super-wizard who uses hardly any spells
against the enemy and a bunch of fearsome killers that  fall over their own
feet.

Huh! It's fortunate that I'm not the type to complain.

Kneasy