Stopper in Death - Brew/Bottle/Stopper

[mz_annethrope]

No: HPFGUIDX 112176


> mz_annethrope:
> > I don't think JKR is a Christian so I doubt this would be her 
> > exact take in HP, but who knows.... 

> SSSusan:
> Would you please clarify--*you* don't believe she meets the 
> criteria of being a Christian? or you don't believe she has 
> *stated* that she is a Christian?  
> 
> I won't even touch the former, but I can address the latter.
> 
> <snipped JKR's comments re being a Christian>


mz_annethrope:

Thanks. This is the first info I've seen about any of her spiritual 
inclinations. It doesn't really show she has Christian beliefs, etc, 
but does show that she's interested. I go to a church that includes 
Christians, seekers, a few Buddhists, a couple of Jews, agnostics, 
and quite a number of people who were hurt by the church, p.o.'d at 
God, yet still are curious. (Yes, I live in California.) What I was 
suggesting was that I might be off my head for making the connection 
to Christianity when there might be none intended.

What I was trying to say is that immortality really does cost one 
one's life, at least in Christian thought. I referred to Eastern 
Christianity because Orthodox traditions have never held that death 
was God's punishment for human sin. Eastern Church Fathers 
considered death a blessing, though a painful one. Western 
Christians have tended to view death as a punishment, but not always.

I'm thinking of the Struldbrugg's in "Gulliver's Travels" who have 
endless life, but neither endless youth nor endless good looks. I 
don't know if Voldemort is aging, but his beauty is none the better 
for his death defying measures. And his life seems even less savory 
than the lives of Struldbrugg's because he dedicates it to evil. 
Voldemort holds on to "life" because his fear of death is boundless 
(death is a punishment to him) but at terrible cost considering that 
his choices have cursed his life.

Now this is leading me to wonder if Hermione is correct when she 
identifies the bell jar (that contains the egg that turns into a 
bird that turns into an egg) as "time." Is it really time or is 
trapped time? Stoppered time? If it really is time, then HP time 
seems like circular Platonist time and a challenge to any notion 
that Voldemort's death would be a blessing or even make a 
difference. He'd just come back as is or in a different form. If 
it's stoppered time, then what's the significance of the phoenix?

mz_annethrope (who probably should have changed the heading, but 
doesn't want to open a can of worms when she doesn't have enough 
time to read the posts)