Dumbledore's fall from the tower (Was: Why are wizards so incompetent?)

[kiricat4001]

No: HPFGUIDX 140651

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:


> Carol responds:
> You're absolutely right. Whether DD was already dead from an AK 
when
> he fell, died on the way down of his own volition combined with 
poison
> and loss of powers (as his peaceful expression may suggest), or 
died
> from the impact with the ground, surely there ought to be more 
damage
> than a trickle of blood and his limbs splayed at odd angles. His 
body
> should have been broken, or, even, as you say, "splattered" on the
> ground. (I can't help thinking of the people who jumped from the 
Twin
> Towers on 9/11 though of course their fall was longer than his.)
> 
> Instead we have "Dumbledore's eyes were closed. But for the strange
> angle of his arms and legs, he might have been sleeping." His
> spectacles have slipped off his nose, but they're not broken. Harry
> straightens them, wipes away "a trickle of blood," and "gaze[s] 
down
> at the wise old face" (HBP Am. ed. 608-09), still completely
> recognizable. 
> 
> What's going on here? 

Marianne:

IMHO people may be making too much of how battered, bloodied and 
mangled DD's body should have appeared due to a combination of a 
long fall and whatever curse Snape may have hit him with. I firmly 
believe JKR didn't want to confront Harry and us with a mangled 
corpse or one with a rictus of fear or pain.  She wanted to send DD 
off into the great beyond looking as peaceful as possible under the 
circumstances.  This fits with the words she has already spoken 
through DD's mouth - "death is the next great adventure."  It is not 
something to be feared or dreaded.  It's where we go when we shuffle 
off this mortal coil. I think the simple picture of his glasses 
being just a bit askew for Harry to fix was the final gesture of the 
hero arranging the body of his ultimate mentor for the mentor's next 
great journey.  

OTOH, since JKR is not great at math, perhaps she's not a whiz at 
physics, either.  

And, maybe all the Snape fans out there can use this as further 
evidence of Snape's ultimate tender feelings about DD.  He really 
didn't mean that AK he uttered - he used the "Push Off a Great 
Height Curse" combined with a  "Soft Landing on Hard Ground Charm" 
just so DD didn't end up looking like the unassembled pieces of a 
jigsaw puzzle.

Marianne