Did JKR cheat with the prophecy?

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 124851


It seems to me that a strong case can be made that JKR has cheated
rather badly by introducing the prophecy as worded in OOTP.  I don't
mean that she has done something immoral or even something
uninteresting from a literary point of view.  However, she has tried
to emphasize, time and again, the power of personal choice.  Then she
introduces a prophecy that, by its very nature, so strongly restricts
the scope of personal choice as to make it meaningless, or nearly so,
in some contexts.

Let us look at how this plays out with Dumbledore, a character we have
been discussing a great deal lately.  I don't mean to imply that the
prophecy ONLY affects DD, but lets use him as an example. 
Particularly, lets see how the prophecy plays out in the questions of
1) Harry and the Dursleys, 2) DD's love for Harry vs. his love for the
Wizarding World.

1)  Those who defend DD's actions with regard to Harry and the
Dursleys (I'm not going to replay all that, read the last month's
worth of posts if you need a refresher) tend to do so on the basis of
the prophecy.  I.E.  given the prophecy as it is worded, DD had no
choice.  

In effect, what JKR has done is to create a story based on choice then
attempt to protect DD from the implications of his choices by
introducing a prophecy that, in effect, gives him a free pass by
TAKING AWAY his power of choice.  That way she can have DD make a
decision that causes huge amounts of misery for Harry and still have
him be "the epitome of goodness" because he had no choice in the
matter.  So we have a story that emphasizes choice yet at the very
beginning choice is taken away.

Now, I happen to believe JKR fails miserably in this stratagem,
largely because I don't find such a radical restriction of DD's
choices believable given the fact that he is "the most powerful wizard
in the world," yada, yada, yada.  And I think a lot of other people
find it a failing stratagem as well, given the "DD should have
interfered" school, the "Dursleys were a wrong choice" school, the "DD
is toughening Harry up" school, etc.

Of course you could argue that one is often faced with restricted
choices in life.  But rarely choices THAT restricted, and NEVER
restricted by prophecy.  Thus the prophecy becomes a rather clumsy,
and badly failing, slight of hand to get DD off the hook.

2)  The DD's love for Harry situation.  The most wrenching conflict DD
could face, and the one most fraught with moral problems for readers,
would be one that required him to choose between Harry or the
Wizarding World.  Imagine the firestorm of argument that would bring
on, igniting the whole "greater good" and "ends vs. means" arguments
that would have people frothing at the mouth with rage on one side or
the other.  But note how neatly the prophecy closes off that
possibility.  As I've said in another post, on a surface reading of
"either must kill the other for neither can live while the other
survives," we have three scenarios:

A) Harry kills Voldy and survives, saving the WW
B) Harry kills Voldy and Voldy kills Harry, the WW survives
C) Voldy kills Harry and survives, the WW is destroyed

Note, there IS no scenario by which the WW can be destroyed and Harry
survives.  Given this, the prophecy neatly closes off the most
problematic choice DD could make.  It's simply not a possible choice.
 Once again, the prophecy is a device to safeguard him from possible
moral ambiguity.  In contrast to the above situation, I think this
largely succeeds.  I still feel it is a form of cheating, however. 
Rather than have Albus face this wrenching decision, and suffer the
consequences, if only in readers' minds, JKR neatly rescues him by
once again taking away his power of choice.

Lupinlore