The Iron Fist of Will - body/body or body/spirit

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 142492

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
>
> Ceridwen wrote:
> > While non-corporeal possession leaves too many unanswered 
questions
> (such as the problem of what Voldemort did with his body while he 
was
> in Harry, which is a decent-sized problem), I still have to 
disagree.
> ><snip>
> > Culturally, we know that possession is by spirit/soul entities.  
The
> Exorcist, stories in the Bible, and other things.  I am not aware 
of a
> physical posession that doesn't involve some parody of a pregnancy
> (Alien).  We've seen three examples I can think of where someone is
> possessed: TR's possession of Ginny in CoS; Voldemort's (and
> subsequently Harry's) possession of Nagini in OotP (don't you feel 
> sorry for the snake, having two people piggy-backing in her 
brain?); 
> Harry at the MoM at the end of OotP.  And in none of those cases 
does
> JKR think to inform us that, cultural expectations aside, the
> possession is physical.
> > 
> > I doubt if she even thought about what LV's body was doing while 
he 
> > was possessing Harry.  She naturally had Dumbledore focus on 
Harry, 
> > since his judgement where Harry is concerned, is skewed by 
> > affection.  Which Dumbledore explains later, though he doesn't 
> > mention the possession scene as one of his failings that I 
recall.  I 
> > think she's relying on our cultural perceptions to explain 
> > possession, since it's her culture as well.  Any plot hole 
arising 
> > from it, like the whole What Was LV Doing While He Possessed 
Harry 
> > thing, is just that, a plot hole JKR didn't fill up.
> > 
> > That's why I can't buy possession by the body of the possessor.  
> > There's nothing to back it up in our culture, and there's no 
> > explanation for something she's invented outside of our cultural 
> > experiences. <snip>
> 
> Carol responds:
> Possession, I think you'll agree, is usually depicted (whether in 
the
> Bible, in legend, or in film) as a spirit entering the body of a
> living person. 

Ceridwen:
Sounds about right.

> You seem to be thinking of a spirit as being a bodiless
> thing like a soul, but here's one of several definitions from
> Merriam-Webster: "a malevolent being that enters and possesses a 
human
> being." Note "being."

Ceridwen:
Presence of two beings duly noted.

Since it's the battle of the dictionaries, I suppose we could say 
we're about to tackle the definition of 'is'.  Since 'being' is a 
state, and the first thing dictionary.com does when fed the 
word 'being' is to define it as "First and third person singular past 
indicative was..."  Two paragraphs, ten definitions, and two longish 
notes.  For such a little word!  Maybe we should leave the definition 
of 'is' to a more boring place.

But, moving on past the verb forms of being, we finally reach the 
thing.  The American Heritage dictionary in part defines 'being' 
as 'The state or quality of having existence'.  No body necessarily.  
Just existence.

WorldNet 2.0 gets more esoteric: "The state or fact of existing..." 
including laws and points of view, and "a living thing that has (or 
can develop) the ability to act or function independently."

> 
> The Spirits that visit Scrooge on Christmas Eve (not counting 
Marley,
> who is explicitly a ghost) have bodies and Scrooge can touch them.


Ceridwen:
But, they can't be seen.  They seem to inhabit a place like the one 
Harry occupies in the Pensieve - they can see and hear, but not 
ordinarily interact with the people they're observing.  They can't 
change the action, they can't deliver messages.  These beings in A 
Christmas Carol (one of my favorite books, btw) are spirits, as, 
apparently, is Scrooge while he is with them.  They can fly, they can 
stay warm in thin clothes even in the snow.  They can change 
locations at will.  Scrooge has some sort of special dispensation 
which is supposed to change his life that night, so he is privileged 
to see, hear and touch the spirits, as well as operate as if he was 
one of them.

> And
> consider the original concept of a daemon, a supernatural being
> intermediate between gods and men, which evolved into our concept 
of a
> demon (think demonic possession--doesn't the demon itself enter the
> possessed person without leaving its body behind)?


Ceridwen:
The demon has no body.  It's a spirit being, like God and the 
angels.  God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of 
Eden, but he was spirit, not flesh.  A distinction is drawn in the 
Bible.  And, God couldn't become Man, a physical birth had to be 
accomplished in order for the Divine to physically interact with 
Mankind.  Ordinarily, we can't see, touch, or hear God, angels or 
demons.

Carol:
> I think the reason that Harry felt physical pain in the DoM is that
> Voldemort was possessing him physically as well as mentally. (But I
> don't think that Harry was possessing Nagini. He was only channeling
> Voldemort/Nagini's thoughts and feelings, not in any way controlling
> them.)

Ceridwen:
Yeah, I was trying for some levity.  I didn't want Steve to think I 
was 'yelling' at him.  Still, Harry's along for the ride, or getting 
a camera's eye view of what LV's seeing.

Carol:
> Harry, of course, is not a demon/daemon, but if my theory is 
correct,
> he will have acquired Voldemort's power of possession, the ability 
to
> enter and control another person, through the transfer of powers at
> Godric's Hollow. (As I've explained elsewhere, this is different 
from
> sharing a soul with LV and does not require Harry to be a Horcrux.)

Ceridwen:
I love the possession theory.  IMO, it fits in all sorts of ways.  
The discussion now is about fine-tuning it, apparently.  So, on the 
agreement side, we can speculate that it's a power transfered to 
Harry by LV at GH; it leaves Harry free to use his own will; it 
covers why Harry didn't die an unnaturally early death like the hosts 
Vapor!Mort occupies; it can play a part in the final battle without 
forcing Harry to duel LV or to use an Unforgiveable.  Any more? 
> 
> As for JKR not hinting earlier that possession can be physical, what
> about the man with two faces? Quirrell had to wear a turban to hide
> the face of Voldemort sticking out the back of his head.

Ceridwen:
LV had no body then.  LV was nothing but the remnants of his soul 
(&spirit?) left to him after GH.  The first body we see is the ugly 
fetus in GoF.  His essence (one of the definitions of 'being') was 
occupying Quirrel's body like a cheap motel.  And, he trashed the 
place before he left.

If LV was occupying Quirrel as body and soul, not just as essence, 
then what happened to the LV body after Quirrel's demise?  Why 
couldn't he be captured?  He would have been at least as vulnerable 
as Fetus!Mort, probably even worse off.  If he had a body, he could 
have been destroyed then, before he grew stronger.  But if he was 
merely vapor once Quirrel was dead, if his soul part was released 
from Quirrel's body, then it would have been both invisible, and 
incapable of being captured.

In the MoM, it seems Voldemort was rescuing Bellatrix and 
Disapparating either during or immediately after the possession 
scene.  While reading it, I thought LV couldn't Disapparate inside 
the MoM, though he did disappear from the veil of water.  Immediately 
after that, Harry is possessed (he sees a creature with red eyes - he 
doesn't identify it as LV - wrapped around him and using his mouth, 
though I did, and still do, take that more as a hallucination), is 
used to taunt DD into killing Harry and the 'creature', then the 
place is swarming with Ministry officials and Williamson tells Fudge 
that LV was there, rescued a woman, and Disapparated.  So, it's 
possible for LV to be out of the MoM and still possessing Harry via 
his non-corporeal essence.

(OT, just re-read the scene in the graveyard, where LV is 
congratulating himself.  One or more of his experiments?  Could equal 
one or more of his horcruxes.  He wouldn't know they worked, unless 
they were tested, and they were.  Though, how many of them actually 
worked?  More than one, or he would have been gone in CoS when Harry 
destroyed the diary.  Could this mean that one or more of the 
remaining horcruxes are duds?  And, what is this smelling thing LV 
does when the DEs show up?  He smells guilt?  Could Harry also have 
inherited that sort of power?  Or is it the result of the new body?)

Ceridwen, who does like the idea of possession as one of the traits 
LV passed along to Harry at GH, and sees the devil, or at least feels 
his presence, in the details.