chapter summary / greatest fear / morality / Hermione / Percy / TMR

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 121557


Meri summarized Chapter 35 in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121041 :

<< in the process two prophecies are broken (one referring to
something that will happen at the Solstice and one referring to the
last of something). >>

I liked the suggestion that 'at the Solstice' (I don't remember if the
text specified Summer Solstice) referred to when Book 6 will be
released and 'none will come after' meant there won't ever be a Book
7, let alone more spin-off books.

<< one pair is still battling: Sirius and his cousin Bellatrix. He
taunts her and she hits him square in the chest with a curse. [later]
What kind of spell do you think she used to take out Sirius? It wasn't
Avada Kedavra, so maybe it was something that the Death Eaters only
know? >>

I thought it was still a matter of hot debate who had fired the curse
that killed Sirius. I would prefer it to have been Bellatrix, but
there are partisans of Lupin killed him because of being ESE or or
because he recognized that Sirius had become a danger to Harry or
because Dumbledore had secretly commanded him to do so. It has been
proposed that being shot by his best friend was the cause of Sirius's
look of astonishment. I hope not: what a horrible last thought on
earth! I hope that even if Sirius was killed by a friend, Sirius
didn't know it.

In addition, what is the evidence that curse that knocked Sirius
through the Veil wasn't Avada Kevadra? Its color wasn't stated. I
believe we have learned that spells (such as Expelliarmus and Stupefy)
usually don't throw the target person about physically, but do when
fired with too much energy. Why not the same for AK? 

<< Did you think, before reading the book, that is, that Sirius would
be the one to die?  >>

No, never. I worried very much in the wait for OoP about who would be
killed; I worried about Ron and Hermione and Remus and McGonagall and
Molly and a whole bunch of people (and finally was persuaded it would
be Hagrid, by the soppy ending of the CoS movie) but I never thought
*Sirius* would die before a ripe old age! That's very skillful and
realistic of JKR to keep it secret from us like that; a friend of mine
unexpectedly dropped dead at age 38 about 15 years ago, and everyone's
first response was: "Impossible! Roz is the most full of life of
anyone I know!" 

Andorn asked in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121124 :

<< What is your "Harry Potter" greatest fear? >>

Thanks to your question, we see that many things are both some
people's biggest fear and some people's biggest hope. Some examples:
Harry dying heroically, Harry losing his magic, Harry living happily
ever after, Snape heroically dying to save Harry, Snape (re)turning to
the Dark Side, OBHWF...

SSSusan wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121159 :

<< But surely Harry could find an EXCITING non-magic-requiring job,
eh?? Um, like, racing cars? Or, well, okay, I'm drawing a blank. But
surely one of the more creative types among us can bail me out with a
suitable occupation/hobby for our non-magic-but-loves-action Harry??
:-) >>

I dunno about in the UK, but in USA, he could spend summers as a
wildland firefighter and winters on a backcountry search and rescue
team. Or it might pay better to see if the talents that made him good
at Quidditch are also helpful to being a professional skateboard
competitor. Altho' I personally don't imagine Harry as being *that*
fond of action.

Salit wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121168 :

<< or a year or two, at best, he'll be admired and talked about, then
everyone will move on but he will get stuck with - what? He has no
education to fit him in the non-magical world. >> 

Education is very much overrated (in terms of employment). I just
suggested, off the top of my head, three careers that he could learn
fairly quickly as a new adult Muggle, if he has the physical
abilities. I doubt JKR thinks that education is the sine qua non of
careers -- her education got her a job as a schoolteacher, but her
other-than-education made her the third richest woman in Britain. (Is
she up to second since the Queen Mum died?)

Hans wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/121222 :

<< how you would FEEL about >> << I think Harry will end up having
Hagrid's job. I know this gets very close to what some of you fear,
namely that Harry will lose his magic powers. >>

I'm not attached to liberation from the material world like you are,
so I would rather see Harry serving future seekers in the more
socially prestigious role of Headmaster. (Also, Harry would have to
have a great increase of physical strength to do some parts of
Hagrid's job.) However, if he did lose his magic, he would probably be
happier in Hagrid's job than living in the Muggle world.

<< Snape will sacrifice himself for Harry like the black king in "The
Alchemical Wedding". >>

I would like for Harry to get himself into a doomed situation by
recklessly rushing off with good intentions but no planning, and Snape
comes to rescue him at the cost of Snape's own life and Snape tells
Harry some wittily snarky things about it, stuff like the most
important thing to Snape is vanquishing Voldemort and only Harry can
do it, so it is in his interest to help Harry despite how much he
hates him, and he considers death quite preferable to continuing to
have to associate with Harry. Thus Snape will simultaneously be
released from his miserable life, prove himself a hero in a way that
will be famous, and triumph over Harry by making sure that Harry feels
guilty about it for the rest of his life -- is that called Trifecta?

Some poster once speculated that LV made it clear to his Death Eaters
that the Dark Mark meant they would die if ever he died (that that is
what he meant when he condemned them at the Graveyard for not
searching for him, when they KNEW he was still alive -- if he weren't
still alive, they would be dead). If so, Snape might have to tell
Harry so to make Harry accept being rescued at the cost of Snape's
life - to prove to Harry that Snape will die anyway (and to prove to
the reader that Snape was making a large and courageous sacrifice by
striving for Voldemort's destruction). 

<< Lupin will sacrifice himself for Harry like the grey king in "The
Alchemical Wedding". >>

I've always wanted Remus to have some happiness in his life before he
died, but now that Sirius is dead, that may not be possible -- death
might come as a relief. I very much hope that Pippin is wrong about
ESE!Lupin.

<< Voldemort and Wormtail will die together. I'm sure their death
won't be violent. Something like vaporising. >>

Why would Peter vaporise? Isn't he just a human wizard doing evil, not
made inhuman by immortality spells?

<< I have a gut feeling (no evidence whatsoever) that Harry will help
Nearly Headless Nick over the threshold. Possibly other ghosts as
well, including Moaning Myrtle(?) >>

One of my many big hopes is that Moaning Myrtle will pass to her 'next
great adventure'. Moaning Myrtle in particular, because she sure
doesn't seem very happy staying here. I like to refer to it by old
phrase 'laying the ghost' because sexual innuendo is so involved in
Myrtle's condition.

Luckdragon wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121251 :

<< I don't know if he will get them over the threshold, that would
really ruin the Hogwarts ghostly patronage >>

I don't think it would ruin Hogwarts' supply of ghosts, as new ghosts
come along all the time. There must have been someone else who was the
Gryffindor House ghost before Sir Nick died in 1492 (or 1592) and
replaced him/her.

Tonks_op wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121234 :

<< Maybe DD IS the narrator and only survivor. If so he is leaving
a set of books for Muggles to read that will show them how to avoid
what happened in the WW. >>

I've long had a certain sick fondness for the prediction that the
entire wizarding world and everyone in it but Hermione will be
destroyed, and Hermione will return to the Muggle world and write
about it disguised as a series of fiction books.

Vivamus signed off his excellent post
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121052 with:

<< Vivamus, who agrees with Hub McCann that honor, virtue, and courage
mean everything; that money and power mean nothing; that good always
triumphs over evil, and that true love never dies. >>

Whether good always triumphs over evil has a lot to do with the
definition of 'triumph' (or of 'good' or of 'always'). Did he mean in
the Afterlife (Heaven and Hell)?

Has true love died (or been re-defined as not 'true') when the lover
and the beloved and their descendents for ten generations and their
language and their culture and all their artifacts have died and
turned to dust and been forgotten by the living long ago? How about
when the old couple who were married for seventy years and stood by
each othr through thick and thin no longer remember each other (or
their children and grandchildren) because of Alzheimer's disease?

SSSusan asked in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121061 :

<< And what do we think JKR is presenting us in canon? Is she judging
her characters on one or more than one of these angles? *Is* she
primarily about motives? About end results? Or...? >>

Well, if she judged primarily by end results, Harry is currently Evil
because he directly caused the death of Sirius. 

Nora wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/121431 :

<< have you noticed how the opportunistic and self-interested seem to
be at the very, very bottom of the moral slagheap in JKR's world? >>

Voldemort is that bottom, and you have argued that Voldemort is
sincere.

Kethryn wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121432 :

<< Actually, if you want to talk about where Hermione starts to tread
in very dangerous waters, the coins that she made for the DA, in my
mind, are the closest I have seen her come yet. And, yet, I can't
quite figure out why that bothers me the most out of all that she has
done. >>

Drugging Crabbe and Goyle with Sleeping Potion was treading in
ethically dangerous waters. Whether leading her friends to make
Polyjuice Potion with stolen ingredients was worse depends on why the
recipe was restricted -- because of other things in the same book, or
because it had dangerous risks of if done wrong (like turning oneself
inside out, with internal organs on the outside), or because it
involved Dark Magic ... 

Geoff wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121048 :

<< Percy has got every right to hold his own opinions, but,,,, that
does /not/ give him the right to rubbish his father's opinions, to
cause great distress to Molly, to attempt to turn Ron against Harry,
to be a sycophant when Crouch tries to humiliate both Dumbledore and
Harry at the Ministry hearing........ >> 

I can agree only with your last bullet item. If Percy had sincerely
believed in some opinion (e.g. that claiming that LV has returned is a
lie for the benefit of a conspiracy to overthrow the elected
government and replace it with an unelected worse one) and his father
expressed the opposite opinion (e.g. that the elected government
should be voted out of office immediately for not admitting that LV
has returned), the *most* Percy could do for the sake of politeness is
to remain silent. He could not pretend to hold such erroneous beliefs.
If they're really serious about the safety of the wizarding world
being at stake, they *must* each attempt to persuade the other to join
the persuader's opinion. If this disagreement leads to them disliking
each other (I try not to discuss politics, because such discussion
often leads to me finding out that people whom I had previously liked
actually are remarkably evil ie disagree with me), they should not
pretend to like each other just to spare Molly's feelings. I'm pretty
sure that Molly sided with Arthur and had her own argument with Percy.

I believe that Percy was motivated primarily by careerism, but I
suppose he must have believed that LV had not returned or was not
dangerous, because what good is a good job at the Ministry if LV
conquers and kills all Ministry employees (except his moles)? 

Del wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGr
ownups/message/121068 :

<< Whenever I think of this, I get stuck into a logic trap. If LV
never loved, that means he was always evil, which in turn means he was
born evil. But JKR said that nobody is born evil. So I'm confused. Can
you help me out? >>

I suspect that JKR saying that if he had ever loved, he couldn't have
done what he did, is not some romantic tosh about if he had ever
loved, he couldn't have been a mass murderer. After all, aren't there
plenty of genocidaires and professional torturers who love their
parents, spouses, and children, and are humane and helpful to even
non-relatives who are on the same side? I think she meant that he
couldn't have done one of the spells that made him the immortal
snake-man no longer human. That one of the requirements of one of the
spells is 'a man who has never loved'.  

In my opinion, TMR was born damaged (rather than evil); I think he was
born a sociopath. I don't know if there is some kind of upbringing
that would steer a sociopath to being Good, but it seems that the
upbringing he had was ideal for strengthening all his Evil
inclinations. (Everyone has *some* Evil inclinations.)

But JKR may be thinking that he was born a blank slate, but placed
immediately in a place where no one loved him even tho' he was just a
little baby, where caring for him was just a job some people did for
wages. So he didn't learn to love, and he didn't have such a strong
internal drive of Love that he discovered it for himself. (*Some*
children in his circumstances would have formed friendships with other
children, in which the friends helped each other out, as if they had
been raised as siblings before being put in the evil orphanage.)

But he had other chances. Considering that he was so good at making
people like him, there were probably people (adults or children) who
offered him love/friendship in the orphanage. We know there were such
people at Hogwarts, because Diary!Tom mentioned having 'closest
friends'. But he just used those people. One possibility is that he
was a sociopath, innately unable to feel or comprehend love (but, with
a better upbringing, he could have been ambitious to be Minister of
Magic or to be rich or to be a famous Quidditch star rather than to
have a name that would be *feared* by all wizards everywhere). That's
what I think, but it makes TMR/LV a kind of muddled example of Evil.

Another possibility is that he had made a intellectual decision, based
on real but limited experience, that love is all a fake and all people
are just using each other, that even his friends were just using him.
Then we get into all that stuff about the vanity (pride) of trusting
one's own intellect, fear of taking a risk, refusing to have faith....

Meri wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/121405 :

<< I always assumed that the reason [Tom Riddle] was sent to a Muggle
orphanage was (snip) because I am assuming that his mother had no
family. >> 

I often wonder if the reason his mother had no family was that they
had disowned her. For marrying a Muggle, if he really had married her.
Or for getting pregnant by a man who refused to marry her, if all that
story about Tom Sr cast off his wife just because he found out that
she was a witch was just a cover-up. I find the latter plausible. In
which case, TMR blaming his father for anti-magic prejudice might well
be erroneous -- perhaps he never did find out that his plaything was
not an ordinary Muggle. So if TMR had been told the truth, he could
have become a crusader against premarital sex instead of against
Muggles.

Of course, if I can disbelieve one part of the story Diary!Tom told, I
can disbelieve another. I like to think that his mother returned to
her parents, admitting they'd been right all along, and they kept
their grandson when their daughter died, but baby TMR's uncontrolled
magic was powerful and nasty enough that his infant temper tantrums
killed his elderly grandparents after they'd had time to tell him of
his mother, his father, and his ancestor (Salazar).

I gather Angie's original question was why no one found him a
wizarding foster home after he turned up at Hogwarts. Maybe no one
thought of it -- at that time, did it ever happen in the RL culture
that people would adopt an unrelated child whose age was already in
double digits?

Maybe someone did think of it --- maybe his Slytherin Head of House
told Dippet: "We can't allow a wizarding boy to be raised by stupid
Muggles" or he made such a good impression on the parents of one of
his 'friends' ("I've always been able to charm the people I needed")
that they asked Dippet to arrange for them to adopt him. But maybe the
Ministry of Magic forbade it, saying that doing something so unusual
would attract attention that might be a threat to wizarding secrecy.